Page 64 of Mail-Order Viscountess

She took a step back. “You want us to leave? Now?”

“Not necessarily now.” He dragged a hand through his filthy hair. “I could go ahead—get things established, find us a place, come back for you both in the summer. Or...” He paused. “Or you could come with me when I leave. We could all go together. Start fresh somewhere new.”

The color had drained from her face entirely. “Thomas, Clara is sick.”

He was making a muddle of this. “I know. I’m not saying we’d leave tomorrow.” Though part of him wanted exactly that—to saddle his horse and ride until Montana was nothing but a memory behind him. “But soon. As soon as she’s well enough to travel.”

Kate shook her head. “I don’t—I need time to think about this.”

Time. The word landed wrong, scratching against his already raw nerves. How much more time did she need? They’d talked about California before. She’d known this was something he wanted.

Though maybe she hadn’t realized how much he needed it.

He studied her face, doing his best to read what she wasn’t saying. Her knuckles had gone white where she gripped the tray. Her jaw was set in that stubborn line.

“How much time?” He tried to keep the frustration from his voice. Hopefully he mostly succeeded.

“I don’t know.” Her voice had gone brittle. “But Clara is sick. I can’t—” She shook her head, and he caught the shimmer of something in her eyes that might have been tears. “I need time to think about it. I can’t make a decision like this right now, Thomas. Not with Clara lying in there, unable to keep down anything more than tea.”

He was a heel. The grandest of heels.

He shook his head to clear out the cobwebs from his half-witted mind. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” He glanced toward the closed door. “What can I do to help?”

“You can rest.” Her voice softened, though tension still held her shoulders rigid. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

“I’m fine.”

Her eyes narrowed—that look that said she saw right through him. “When was the last time you slept? Really slept, not just collapsed for a few hours between shifts?”

He couldn’t remember. The days had blurred together into an endless cycle of digging and hauling and trying to prove something that apparently couldn’t be proven.

“Thomas.” She shifted the tray to one hip. “Go wash. Eat something. Sleep in an actual bed instead of frozen ground. Once Clara’s better, we can talk about...everything else...when you’re not dead on your feet.”

The practicality in her tone should have irritated him. Should have felt like another person dismissing what he needed.

But something in the way she said it—the concern beneath the brusque words—made the fight drain out of him.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he was too exhausted to have this conversation properly. Too raw to explain without letting bitterness poison every word.

“All right.” He took a step back. “But come find me if I can do anything to help.”

She nodded. “I will.” Though whether that was a promise or just a way to end the conversation, he couldn’t tell.

He turned toward his room—their room—but paused at the door. When he looked back, Kate still stood in the hallway, watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

Worry, maybe. Or a deeper emotion that his exhausted mind couldn’t process.

He wanted to go back to her. Wanted to pull her close and bury his face in her hair and let the solid warmth of her presence chase away the cold that had settled into his bones over the past five days.

But Clara needed her. And he had to wash off a week’s worth of grime before he could think about anything else.

So he just offered her a tired nod and slipped into their room.

CHAPTER 21

Clara’s forehead burned like Kate was holding her hand to a cookstove.

Kate’s middle clenched tighter as she dipped the cloth back into the basin of cool water on the bedside table, wrung some of the liquid out, then laid it back over Clara’s brow.