She made sure Bun had a clean shirt. Ben watched her move around the kitchen with his particular quality of attention. "Is the lady going to take us away?" He said. Clare stopped.
She turned and looked at him. He was sitting at the kitchen table with George the rabbit in his lap and he was looking at her with the directness that small children deploy when they have decided the situation requires a direct answer and they will not be managed with soft language. No, Clare said. How do you know? Because you belong here, Clare said.
And I'm not going to let anyone tell the wrong story about that. Ben looked at her for a long moment. Okay, he said and went back to the rabbit. Clare went back to the stew. Her hands were not entirely steady.
Harriet Mercer was not what Clare had expected. She had built a picture from the letter formal strategic, the kind of woman who signed things and sent them. What came through the door with Thomas that afternoon was a woman in her mid-40s, Elellanar's cousin with Elellanar's coloring, and without Elellanar's ease in it, and eyes that went immediately to the children crowding the hallway, and filled with something that was unmistakably grief. She had not come as a legal opponent. She had come because she missed Elellanor Walker, and the children were the closest thing to Eleanor that remained in the world.
And she had let her grief be shaped by someone else's purposes, and she did not yet know that. Harriet, Thomas said in a voice that cost him something. "You know Emily and Jacob." Emily extended her hand with her 14-year-old gravity. Jacob nodded from behind his sister, more reserved.
Lily pushed past both of them. "I'm Lily. You have a photograph of Mama when she was little." "Mama told me." She said, "You have one from when they were both about my age."
Harriet blinked. Her composure wavered. "I do," she said. "I brought it for you." Lily's eyes went wide.
She grabbed Harriet's hand without further ceremony and began leading her toward the parlor, and Harriet followed with the stunned expression of someone whose careful preparation has been entirely bypassed by a 9-year-old. Noah appeared from around the corner and looked at Harriet. "Did you eat on the stage?" He asked. I Yes, thank you.
I There's Stew, Noah said with the pragmatism of a seven-year-old who considers Stew the answer to most things. Miss Clare made it. Harriet looked up at that name. She looked at Clare for the first time. Clare held her ground and her expression and said evenly and warmly, "Welcome, Mrs. Mercer.
I'm Clare Bennett. I manage the household. Please come in." Harriet looked at her for a second too long. Then she came in.