The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,47

head and wiped at the corners of her eyes. “I’ve lived forty-five years in the same small town. Of course I’ve been loved—or had a good few fucks, which is what I think you mean—it’s just that none of them were from my husband, that’s all.”

“Well,” said Agatha, feeling grumpy and puritanical. “Well, good. That’s good.” So Flood didn’t feel terribly restricted by her marriage vows. Agatha had known plenty of couples who took them as a suggestion rather than a law, and it had never bothered her before.

It bothered her now—but not for any of the tedious reasons someone might declaim from a pulpit. No, Agatha was troubled because Flood made it all sound like a lark, when Agatha had been tying herself in sullen knots about it.

She didn’t even know if Flood preferred women or men or both. And she couldn’t ask without risking the loss of a friendship that had become impossibly dear to her. Vital, even.

And she remembered what Flood had said in the Four Swallows: I would have to think about the consequences. Agatha couldn’t risk doing anything that might jeopardize Flood’s standing in Melliton.

Flood’s smile turned fond. “You are sweet to worry about me.”

Agatha grumbled and tugged at the cuffs of her coat. “Glad I amuse you.”

Flood’s eyes cut toward her, as they began walking again in unspoken accord. “You must have loved your Thomas very much, I take it.” She kicked a clod of earth off into the underbrush. “People who married for love always want everyone else to do the same.”

How did one sum up twenty years of marriage in one answer? Agatha had been trying since the day of the funeral, and had never yet succeeded.

She was suddenly desperate for Flood to understand.

“We were devoted to each other—but we didn’t start that way,” she began slowly. “Our fathers knew one another. They’d worked together on a few books, even. His father pointed me out to him as someone who might be worth marrying, and so Thomas came courting. It wasn’t quite an arrangement, but pretty nearly. I’d certainly never noticed Thomas before—had an eye at the time for the flashier types, your silver-tongued rascals and scoundrels and such. Thomas was quieter. Self-effacing. But I wasn’t pretty enough to have many suitors, so I had to look carefully at any who turned up.” She curled her hands in the pockets of her coat, unable to keep from smiling at the memory. “Other boys brought ribbons and thimbles and such, cheap trinkets they could carry easily and could give out to any girl who happened to be handy. Thomas brought tea—good tea, the kind you wouldn’t ever feel like you could buy for yourself even if it wasn’t just about the cost. It was . . . It was something you could save up, and keep to yourself—or could share with the household, if you chose.”

Flood’s smile blossomed. “And I bet you thought of him gratefully every time you made a pot.”

Agatha laughed. “I certainly did. Much more strategic a courting gift, in the end.”

“Strategic—but kind, too.” Flood smiled, her eyes far away down the path ahead of them. “I wish I could have known him.”

Agatha’s face felt like cracked glass, a pane about to shatter. “He’d have loved you.” She swallowed hard. “You could have talked about poetry together, and saved me from it.”

Flood’s laugh rang out like birdsong as they emerged from the wood. The great stone front of Abington Hall glared at them, distrusting all merriment.

From this approach, the shortest way to the bee garden in the back took them through the hedge-maze. Agatha followed Flood through the turns—and nearly bumped into the beekeeper when she pulled up short in the heart of the maze.

“How dare she . . .” Flood hissed.

There was more venom in her voice than Agatha had ever heard before. Alarmed, she stepped around to Flood’s side to see . . . nothing.

But a very new nothing. A great and palpable emptiness where once the paired statues of the nymph and the dryad had stood. Flood growled at the space, buzzing with fury.

Agatha’s jaw tightened with dismay. “Lady Summerville?”

Flood nodded sharply, hands clenching into fists.

Agatha looked around again at the nakedness of leaves and lawn and the pebbled path. “Where do you think she moved them?”

“I’m not convinced she only moved them,” Flood said. “I fear she destroyed them.”

Agatha went icy with realization. This wasn’t simply about the loss of a beautiful object. This was an