Page 72 of Wickedly Ever After
“Yes.”
Tinbit snipped a few green leaves and tucked them in a small handbasket. “He’s fine, you know. I fed him and put him to bed. I can take care of him.”
“I know you can.”
Tinbit fixed her with a curiously intense gaze. “You think that if I could take him away from you, I would. Well, you’re right.” He snipped a few more leaves. “I would. In a heartbeat. But I won’t. I wouldn’t hurt Hari for all the world. Go in the house, turn left past the kitchen, and he’s in the third room on the right. It was my bedroom when I was a boy.”
“I wouldn’t want to disturb your family.”
“No one else lives here now. It’s just me.” He returned to barbering his rosemary.
Ida crossed the paving stones, weaving her way through more rosemary, lavender, scented geraniums, and roses. These weren’t the black, thorny things she’d seen in Hector’s courtyard, but little tiny musk roses—pink, white, yellow, and even a soft, summer orange variety. They’d escaped their trellises, almost covering the low, one-story house sprawled in the evening mist beyond the garden. She ducked to enter the arched doorway.
Tinbit’s gnome home was as cozy a place as Ida had seen, although the décor was quite different from what she was used to at Hari’s mother’s house. Hari’s mother loved the clean, airy, modern style of minimalism. If there was a coaster or a doily, it was meant to be used. But Tinbit seemed to positively delight in useless bric-a-brac.
It was gloriously cluttered with everything from decorativeflowerpots to bird skulls. Hari would have the time of his life in this place where there would never be any end of things to clean up, organize, and put away. Tinbit evidently shared Hari’s fascination with clothes, which surprised her because he seemed to prefer dressing plainly, wearing only a cream-colored shirt and dark gray overalls with red-and-gold embroidery. But from the number of items lying around in various states of alteration and mending, it appeared Tinbit once had a thing for red velvet with black filigree, and he was also fond of satin waistcoats in vivid patterns. But they were all incredibly old. Many of them appeared to have been eaten by moths. If he didn’t wear them, who had?
She passed through the sitting room, ducking to avoid the hanging light fixture, and entered the small kitchen. She’d expected this to be largely unused since there was a kitchen in the castle, but on the stove, a bright copper kettle glowed with a warm look, and steam rose delicately from the spout. He must have just made a cup of tea for Hari before going out to gather herbs. A basket of eggs sat on the counter along with a block of fragrant cheese and two gray shallots. Omelets for breakfast. Hari loved omelets.
There was no one in Hari’s life, other than Ida, who doted on him like this. His mother loved him of course, but she’d always been the housekeeper, far too busy to indulge her offspring in anything. Hari had grown up learning how to carry a tray to Ida’s room, lisping politely, “Your Goodneth?” until he’d earned a place in her heart that she’d reserved for him for his lifetime. But he’d never been…worshipped.
Tinbit would worship him.
“Oh, Hari,” Ida muttered, easing through the narrow archwayinto the hall. She knocked timidly on the little oak door at the end of the corridor.
“Come in,” Hari said.
He was sitting up in bed. The brightest, most amazingly alive look was on his face, but it vanished as soon as he saw her. “Oh. I thought you were with Hector.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing—just I thought you might be planning. Big day tomorrow and all.”
“Oh. Later. He’s getting my library for me.” She moved to the side of his bed and chose a chair that had been pulled up to a comfortable distance for talking. Or rubbing someone’s feet. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Tinbit is taking good care of me.”
“I see that.” She glanced at the bedside table, where an empty tea cup kept company with a soup bowl, an empty plate, a saucer, and a cluster of multicolored roses in a vase. “But you have to leave early tomorrow,” she said, touching the tea cup. “You probably shouldn’t be drinking tea this late.”
Hari gazed past her at the open doorway. “I’m not going.”
“Hari, you specifically asked me if you could go home!”
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m well enough to go with you to the mountains. I want to stay with you.”
“Why?”
He bit his lip. “Because if I try to go home tomorrow, alone, I’m going to get off at the first stop and run right back here. To him.” He slumped in the bed. “I can’t help it, Ida. I’m trying, but—”
“Tinbit is coming with us,” Ida said softly. “Hector told me.”
“Oh,” he said quietly.
She nodded. “That’s why you can’t come, Hari. It will only make things harder for you. For both of you.”
Hari bit his lip. “I know. But I’ll have you and he’ll have Hector and work always helps. If I’m focused on caring for you, making sure you have everything you need, I won’t be thinking about how he’s everything I need—Oh, Gods.” He covered his face with his hands. “Why does he have to be everything I’ve always wanted?”
Ida held Hari close while he sobbed. “If I’d known how much this would hurt, I’d have burned his letters and let you hate me.”
