In the Shadows

small sounds of life, but Cora wanted to talk with Thomas. She

was still humiliated from her hysterics that night on Barley Hill.

So what if she’d seen a figure looking down at her from the second

story? Arthur had explained that he’d gone upstairs to look for

Mary and glanced down to check on her.

And she’d fainted. And Thomas had carried her home. She

blushed deeply just thinking about it and, struck with the irra-

tional fear that Thomas was thinking about the exact thing,

rushed to fill the silence. “Do you have the list for the chemist?

He tends to forget things unless he has it in writing.”

“Yes.” He pulled a slip out of his pocket. His handwriting was

neat, slanted letters. There was an ink stain on his middle finger

that she realized was always there.

“Do you write? Music, I mean. You play so well.”

The corners of his lips turned down, but his eyes crinkled up

and she was sure he was trying not to betray his delight. “I try,

here and there. It’s rubbish.”

“I’d like to hear it sometime.”

“Really?” He turned toward her, hazel eyes filled with such

honest hope she realized how deliberately careful nearly all of

his expressions were. Not guarded and secretive, like Arthur,

but . . . shielded. As though he was afraid of ever feeling what he

actually felt, of putting on anything other than a brave, practi-

cal face.

He was terrified all the time.

Her heart fluttered with the recognition of someone else who

understood what it was to forever try to be strong and constantly

come up short.

“Really,” she said, her voice as gentle as her smile. She hesi-

tated, then, before she could think better of it, put her hand in the