“What?”
There it was, the secret hope soaring up from the bottom of my gut to wallop me. Lee would be one of the good ones. He would be different. This time, a someone—a boy—would like me and want to be around me, and there would be no trick to it. I would finally be in on a joke. A good, wholesome human would desire my company, and it would mean that the black mark upon me had all been a lie. The whole rest of the world would be wrong, and Lee would be right.
But no, he could not remove the mark. He was ruined inside, too.
Birds of a feather . . .
“Louisa, please, I swear—you mustn’t think harshly of me. It was an accident. I swear on my life, it . . .” He sighed, scrubbing his face with his hands. “He had this ghastly reaction to nuts. Any kind of nut in his food would make him ill almost to the point of death. I know I told the crofters no nuts, but I delivered this bread from them as a gift, and he ate it, and . . .”
He couldn’t go on.
“Lee.” Well, perhaps my secret hope could return to its undisclosed location in my heart and linger a while longer. “That is the very definition of an accident. It isn’t your fault.”
“But it is, don’t you see? I should have checked the bread. It was so foolish of me, just reckless. Clumsy. The kindest and best man I’ve ever known slain by walnuts.”
“He might have checked, too,” I pointed out, sitting next to him on a stack of immense map books. “Being a fully grown man and all.”
“As you say, but I feel responsible all the same,” Lee murmured. His face had gone red and splotchy, but he no longer looked in danger of weeping. He looked at me, a small smile spreading across his lips. “You asked if I had killed. Other than a few does and fish and rabbits, that’s the worst I’ve managed. I confessed, you know, to a priest. God never gave me much comfort in times of misery, but I thought maybe it would make me feel less guilty. Only it made the guilt more real somehow.”
“You didn’t kill him, Lee. If you could speak to him right now, you know he would say the same.”
“Because he’s generous and forgiving,” he replied, glancing away. “Like you.”
I shook my head, rejecting outright the praise. “You don’t know me, Lee. I’m not good like you are. I haven’t lived the kind of life that allows for being good.”
“Which is why it’s all the more impressive.” We were both silent for a moment, the dust drifting around us and settling gradually at our feet. “Do you really think I need a weapon? Should we try to protect Mrs. Eames, or, God, at least try to warn her?”
I was not generous or forgiving, as he theorized, and now he would learn it in earnest. “As cold as this sounds, I think perhaps we should stay out of it. If what Mr. Morningside said is true, she hardly deserves our help.”
“But what if he’s wrong? We can’t very well stand aside while an innocent woman is hurt.” He paused and bit his bottom lip. “My uncle has become close with her. They spend most of their time sipping that disgusting water at the spa. Perhaps he might find some proof for us that she is indeed a murderess.”
“That’s much too dangerous,” I cautioned. “We have nothing to do with her, Lee. We shouldn’t get mixed up in her affairs.”
Fetching the rag, I swished it in the murky water and began washing the window behind Lee. It was easier to lie to him without having to see his face. “And if your uncle is with her all the time, then maybe she’s already safer in a way. You said yourself that he is armed. It could be enough to protect her.”
“But should I not warn him? He could become a target, too.”
My hand stilled, the tepid, disgusting water in the rag gathering in my palm and then trickling down my sleeve. Warning the widow, we agreed, was out of the question, but what about warning his uncle? These were lives we were discussing, actual lives, and the weight of it felt too far outside my realm of experience. I had no affection for George Bremerton, but that did not mean I wanted him dead. Lee was watching me expectantly, I could feel it, and so I made my decision. If Lee could be here innocently, with no evil past to doom him, then so too could his uncle be a good man worth saving.
“Warn him,” I said softly. “But be general about it. I feel mad just telling you these things. It sounds like so much nonsense spilling out of my mouth.”
“Well, I believe you.” And there it was again, his belief. It felt just as good as the first time, so much so that it made me smile. “I’ll simply tell him the proprietor seems a bit strange and mentioned having it out for the widow. My uncle’s natural chivalrous tendencies will do the rest, I think.”
Nodding, I dropped the rag back in the bucket and watched Lee fidget his way back toward the door. There was more he wanted to say, obviously, and I sat silently through his hesitation, trying to look the picture of patience and understanding. It was a miracle he had believed a single word I’d said, and even more impressive that he confessed to accidentally poisoning his guardian. The least I could do now was listen.
He stopped at the end of the bookcase blocking us from the door. His bright turquoise eyes were sad but clear, and it took him a moment to screw up his courage and stand tall. “Only . . . Thank you. You did not need to tell me these things. I might have gone on in blissful ignorance here. Well, not that knowing all of this is blissful, but I think the alternative is rather worse, isn’t it? You trusted me and you didn’t have to, and after I behaved so rudely . . . This all seems very big and frightening, but I’m glad we can at least rely upon one another.”
Lee managed a small, brave smile and bowed from the waist politely. “Did . . . Did any of that make sense?”
“All of it,” I said. “Thank you, too, for believing me.”
He chuckled and scruffed the back of his curly head and then backed away. “I should go, then, before we stand around thanking each other all day long. Good-bye for the moment, Louisa. I shall seek you out again soon, and that’s a promise.”
“Good-bye.”
After Lee ducked out of view and his footsteps retreated to the door, I fell back against the window and sighed. I hated to be alone. I hadn’t realized how comforting it was to have the company of someone “normal” like me.