Page 69 of Bane Bloom

I laughed dryly, though my heart was bruised. “Shocking, I know. But yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

I stared. “You’re suggesting that I’m lying to you?”

“I’m suggesting that you’re lying to yourself.”

The topic was painful enough without his judgment, and my temper flared. “Tell me then, Thomas, as you always do, what buried motivations are holding me back.”

His chest slowly expanded with a breath. I squeezed my eyes shut, already regretting my outburst.

I heard the back door open and close, and my heart sank like a stone into the pit of my stomach.

“The Most Troublesome One”

Thomas

“As you always do.”

My mother was raised to speak her mind, and she’d raised me the same. I’d never learned not to say exactly what I was thinking. It was one of the many reasons I did my damnedest to keep my mouth shut. And so, afraid I’d make things worse, I walked out instead of saying the next words I should have.

I’m sorry, lass.

And I was sorry I’d hurt her, though I’d meant what I said. It was impossible for me to believe no one had wanted her. She was like a magpie—lively, eye catching, and curious, collecting things with her sketches.

Why couldn’t you have just said that?

Because it’s not my business to say such a thing to her, and it never will be.

So I directed my frustration at her instead of the things I was really frustrated about. My mother. Myself. The house. The world we lived in. It hadn’t helped that she’d suggested I consider the fairy queen’s offer. The very last thing I wanted to hear, especially from her.

And yet she’d only meant to help me. She understood, at least in part, that I wasn’t like other people, and to her eyes, it was probably a marriage that made sense. What a Londoner might call “a marriage of convenience.” Even I had to admit it was a marriage that would answer many of my worldly troubles.

All but the most troublesome one.

The very idea of me accusing Catherine of lying to herself was laughable. If Pine Cottage was sold, exile to Elfame would be my only real choice. And I’d known it for some time.

Maybe hearing it from her lips was the nudge I’d needed to at last accept my fate. I had never been for this world.

I’ll at least see her safely out of this first.

Let her finish what she’d begun and go back home where she belonged. I hoped the apothecaries would give her what she wanted, and she could put Pine Cottage and its fevered dreams behind her.

Artemisia

When his fish stew had simmered long enough for the vegetables to be tender, I used the dish towel to remove it from the stove. Even in my shaken state, my mouth watered from the aroma. I sliced what was left of Annie’s bread and toasted it over the stove grate, thinking about what he’d said.

I was ashamed of myself for lashing out at him when I knew very well that this was simply Thomas. He didn’t mean to be cruel. He simply didn’t hold back.

And though it was true that no one had asked for my hand, I wasn’t sure it was the whole truth. There had in fact been signs of interest from acquaintances in the past. Interest that I ignored until it had cooled from lack of stoking. I’d believed I was protecting myself from the young men who admired and befriended my father, all of them artists, none of them marriage minded—or at least not about marrying a penniless young woman who fancied herself an artist in her own right.

But this had been an assumption on my part, and one that I’d never given anyone a chance to refute. Now I wondered whether I hadn’t been protecting myself from something else entirely. Such as the possibility of falling for someone who might remind me of how painful it was to be abandoned.

Bravo—you didn’t even need Thomas to explain that one.

I waited for him until the clock struck six, and then I filled a bowl for myself and went out to the dining room to enjoy my solitary dinner. The soup was hearty and satisfying, though at the moment it tasted like ash.

Afterward, I washed my dishes and then collected my plant cuttings and carried them up to the main bedroom. I spent the better part of an hour pressing samples, jumpy the whole time, thinking Thomas might appear at any moment.