Page 50 of Once a Villain
On the boat, a man had been mopping the deck. He dropped his mop now, and dove to catch Frankie midair, before she could splash into the gap.
“I’m so sorry!” Jamie gasped. “She’s never done that before! She—” He stopped, staring at the man.
It took Joan a long second to realize why he was staring. The man was his husband: Tom Hathaway.
Sixteen
Tom wore a knitted beanie, and he was unshaven, the scruff on his cheeks the color of sand.
He stroked Frankie’s head absently. She licked at his chin, not seeming to register anything different about him. Joan supposed that, from her perspective, Tom had only been gone a day.
Nearby, an unmusical whistle sounded—the secret language of the Hathaways. The whistle was quickly taken up, and within a minute the news of strangers arriving had traveled around the small dock. Muscled Hathaways climbed onto the decks of their boats, staring at Joan and the others, expressions unwelcoming.
Tom didn’t seem so hostile. His gaze had fixed on Jamie. “Is this your dog?” he asked in his familiar low growl.
A flit of pain passed across Jamie’s face, and Joan swallowed. She knew how it felt to have someone you loved look at you without recognition. And it was one thing for Jamie to have known, intellectually, that Tom wouldn’t remember him, but to hear the evidence was something else.
“Her name’s Frankie,” Jamie managed, and Tom paused, as if the name was familiar to him. Had he named Frankie after someone?
On the roof of the narrowboat, a shadow moved. A pinkyawning mouth appeared, and then two golden eyes. A black cat had been sleeping, curled around the chimney; it woke now, blinking and stretching, and then scrambled up in a posture of outrage as it spotted Frankie in Tom’s arms. A clawed paw swiped from the roof, just missing Frankie’s nose.
“Oops!” Tom said. He scooped up the cat, tucking her under his other arm. “Not very nice, Sylvie!” And now it was Frankie’s turn to be outraged. Sheruffed at the cat, shook her head, andruffed again. “Sorry,” Tom said to Jamie. “She’s used to having me all to herself.”
“So you live alone?” Jamie breathed. Tom blinked at him. “I mean...” Jamie’s face reddened.
“Just me and my familiar,” Tom said. That was what the Hathaways called their pets. His eyes lingered on Jamie again, shifting down and then up. Then he reddened a little too as he realized how blatantly he’d been looking.
Marguerite cleared her throat. Tom jerked around, as if he’d forgotten there was anyone else on the dock but Jamie.
“We need a ride back to Nightingale territory,” Marguerite said. She fished in her purse and retrieved a few notes of cash that made AaronandTom raise their eyebrows.
Tom played it cool, though. “Going to need a bit more than that to transport six people, my love.”
Marguerite shrugged and retrieved more notes. “Enough for the dog too.”
Tom made a sweeping gesture, inviting them onto the boat. “Dogs always ride free.”
Joan ducked her head as she descended the short flight of stairs into the narrowboat’s living compartment. It was tiny compared with the boat Tom had shared with Jamie in the previous timeline, and without Jamie’s hand it was a simple, tidy space. Joan missed Jamie’s artwork, which had once made a ribbon beneath the ceiling—an uninterrupted illustration of a boat’s journey along the Thames.
The only sign of life—other than Tom—was a small cat bed on a side table. Sylvie leaped neatly into it now, turning to stare imperiously down at Frankie, who barked up at her.
“She’s a guest,” Tom scolded Sylvie gently. He ran a thumb behind her soft ears. “We’re polite to guests.”
The cat gave him a disbelieving look in response.
A cat... Joan stared at her. For some reason, that was almost the strangest change between this world and the last. Joan had never expected Tom to have a different familiar in this timeline.
Tom pulled down benches for them to sit on. Aaron, Joan, and Nick ended up on one side; Marguerite, Jamie, and Ruth on the other. Tom himself strode through to the back of the boat, opening a door to get to the tiller outside. “Hang on a tick,” he called. “I need to get us through the lock; it’s a tricky one.”
It took about fifteen minutes to get the boat out onto the river. Then, to Joan’s surprise, Tom whistled a few notes and returned, leaning on the cabin door.
“It’s driving itself?” Joan asked Tom.
“The magic of autopilot,” Tom said dryly. And that was another piece of technology Eleanor had dragged into thistimeline—for narrowboats, at least. “Right then,” Tom added gruffly. “How exactly did I just earn all that money?”
“We have a code that we need you to crack.” Marguerite nodded at Joan. “Will you play the recording?”
“Shouldn’t we just give him the numbers?” Joan said. The message hadn’t actually mentioned Eleanor by name, but it was still sensitive information.
