Where indeed? Freya’s habitual place at any meal was on the table (if Charlotte wasn’t around) or under the table (if she was), waiting for an opportune moment—but Charlotte hadn’t seen the cat since yesterday morning.
Sasha had been drawing, but she looked suddenly shifty.
Charlotte sighed. “Dearest, have you done something with the cat?”
“No.”
Charlotte’s head throbbed. “Sasha—”
Sasha jutted her chin. “I didn’t want Uncle Arthur to be lonely, but you wouldn’t let me go!”
“So you sent the cat?” Jonas said in exasperation.
Rubbing her forehead, Charlotte reached for the piece of ham. When she straightened, her heart palpitated. She dropped into her chair, breathing hard, and Jonas hovered over her. She couldn’t bear it anymore.
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
A flush crept across Jonas’s cheeks. Nodding, they returned to making sandwiches. Charlotte opened her mouth to apologize, but that snap had been all she could manage. She sat shamefaced at the table, waiting for her heart to calm down. By the time it had, Jonas had finished making lunch, served the family silently, and disappeared into their room.
Sasha negotiated cleaning up in return for a whole handful of biscuits. Charlotte agreed to it without argument, pushed out of her seat, and went after Jonas.
She hesitated outside the children’s bedroom, her hand poised to knock. Inside, she heard sniffling.
She didn’t know what to say. She lowered her hand.
Feeling guilty, she returned to her chores.
Early that afternoon, the clouds outside thickened and darkened. Charlotte’s joints ached as they did with oncoming rain. She worked through the pain, since no one suggested she shouldn’t, until it grew so bad that she was near tears. Grabbing painkillers, she settled in her armchair by the fire.
The relief was instant. Not total—not even significant. But dear God, just to sit and close her eyes and do nothing...
The fire crackled. Outside, distant thunder rolled. The windows in the kitchen rattled, but in the sitting room Charlotte drifted, warm and comfortable, not asleep but not quite awake, either. Her fingers twitched on the arm of her chair; she missed the rowan cross. She hadn’t kept it on her the way she did John’s wedding ring, but it had been a comfort to know it was in her bedside table whenever she wanted it. To know she had a piece of her father that washers, to sit and fiddle with it—to remember what little she could of George Throckmorton—without anyone knowing.
The house was silent except for the rattling windows in the other room. How nice, she thought, that Arthur had kept the children quiet so she could rest.
Then she remembered Arthur was somewhere in Shiftleaf with Agnes Livingston’s horse and cart.
Her eyes snapped open. Without Arthur to keep them so, why on earth were her children (all right, why was Sasha) so quiet?
“Children?” she called, unwilling to relinquish the support of the armchair.
They didn’t answer. Guilt prickled at her once more. She called again, louder, then rose stiffly. Her joints still ached, but the painkillers had put the ache back into its rightful place as tolerable.
The door to her brother’s workshop was cracked. Beyond, the children were having a whispered argument, the subject of which Charlotte already did not want to know.
“Children?” She nudged the door wider. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a dead girl outside!” Sasha sang out.
Mud spattered up her legs to the hem of her skirt, and her stockings were falling down. Jonas was in similar disarray.
“I told her not to touch!”
Charlotte’s stomach clenched. “Show me.”
Sasha dragged her outside, pulling her along so fast she stumbled. Lightning flashed on the horizon. Jonas shivered.They reached for their mother’s hand, their earlier contention forgotten. Guilt needled Charlotte like thorns.
“Not so fast,” Jonas told Sasha.
