Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [106]
Letty grasped his arm. “I need to do my shopping before all the best cream is gone.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Dominick followed Letty in the opposite direction without protest. It was the best course for now. Tabitha needed to come to him.
But she’d walked away from him, with too good a reason to give him the right to go after her. And she hadn’t come the night before, though he’d seen her in town.
His eyes stung in the brightness of the morning sun. Even without her help, he needed to complete his mission and be gone. The longer he was around Tabitha, the more both of them would suffer.
Unless she abandoned him as easily as others had abandoned her.
How he would manage on his own, he didn’t know. He must find another ally, but not through courtship. That had proved dangerous.
Basket of cream and butter over his arm, he strolled with Letty back toward Mayor Kendall’s house. A few people apologized for their suspicions. Dominick shrugged it off as understandable.
“I’m English and a stranger to you all. But I don’t approve of what my country is doing any more than you all do. We’ve been at war most of my life, and I’ve seen friends die. Why would I want to see more go?” He couldn’t resist one more glance to where he’d seen Tabitha earlier. “And Parks should have been able to see his baby.”
His words must have rung with the sincerity he intended, for the mood around him changed, grew sympathetic rather than antagonistic.
But Tabitha was gone.
Beside him, Letty was muttering and grumbling. “Who would start saying such things about you? Have you made enemies here, lad?”
“Just one that I know of.” Dominick took one last look around the square for Trower or Tabitha. Neither was in sight. “Raleigh Trower thinks I’ve stolen his lady.”
“You have.” Letty opened Kendall’s gate. “Not that it’ll do her any good.”
“She’s free to choose whom she likes.” Dominick stalked past her. “If she prefers me, it’s because Trower left her at the church.”
“And you know how to use those bold eyes of yours.” Letty snatched the basket from him. “Now, get out of my kitchen. Even if you don’t have anything to do with Mayor Kendall gone, I still have to cook for all of us.”
“I suppose I could polish silver.” Dominick removed his coat and shuddered at the thought of all that emery grit sticking to him, but an idea struck him. “Aren’t there candlesticks in the parlor and Kendall’s study needing to be polished?”
“Just the parlor. The ones in the study are glass and I wash those myself.”
“All right. I’ll attend to the ones in the parlor.”
And seek an opportunity to slip into the study.
Except the opportunity didn’t come. Either Deborah or Dinah seemed to flit past him the entire time he scrubbed and rubbed the brass candelabra in the parlor. The brass gleamed like pure gold when he was done with it. He hadn’t gotten any closer to getting into Kendall’s study, short of snatching the feather duster from Dinah and offering to apply it himself. Since she would find this peculiar, he refrained and returned to the kitchen.
The aroma of a buttery pastry and fresh coffee met his nose. His mouth watered. “Letty, my dearest lady—”
She swatted him with a flowery apron. “Don’t try your sweet talk on me. I’m old enough to be your mother. If you want coffee and a tart, just say so.”
“So.” He grinned.
She plopped a miniature dried apple pie into his hand. Suddenly hungry, he took a healthy bite—
And choked as Tabitha strolled through the back gate.
“Greedy.” Letty smacked him on the back.
He gasped from the pain of his knife sheath biting into one of his scars, and inhaled another crumb.
“It appears,” Tabitha said, giving him a smart blow on his lower back, “that I arrived just in time.”
“I’m all right,” Dominick said.
And he was. Her nearness, her scent of violets and roses rising over the pastry, the warmth of her hand on his back, with only the thin linen of his