That made him blush. (He still kept playing, though. Pachelbel could go on forever.)

“I- bought eggs!” And then, gaining steam downhill, he clarified with sudden certainty: “I came here for eggs! Just because there are so many of you one can hardly stock a banquet without stumbling over one of you, does not mean anything about me!”

There was no banquet. Rose would know as much.

He was losing. She knew it, and despite the sudden confidence in his voice, she knew he knew it. This was more entertaining than pushing Tobias' buttons.

"Whitby ran out of eggs?"

When had this become a court case? He dropped his hands from the keys, looked to her, and said the most lawyerly thing a man having a fight with a teenager could say:

“Go and see for yourself.”

She looked back at him and smiled.

The blush deepened.

“Where is your husband?”

"Away, don't you worry. Tea?"

Fuck. He had waited for this moment. Waited!

His lips pursed, but his pride did not allow him to decline.

“How kind.”

Alice rose. "The maid's in the village. If you'll excuse me." She disappeared into the kitchen. There she took a moment to take a deep breath and calm herself while she boiled water. She was more tense than she had shown. But she was also very pleased.

She returned with a tray with two cups of tea, milk and sugar. She set one cup down on the piano top.

She had spat in it.

If Zechariah knew anything, it was not to trust a Ward’s cooking beyond survival. Rose had pretended to tolerate him (and spread true lies about him how far?!), and even that food had been a miracle to survive.

With the building trust between them, Zechariah picked the cup up and sniffed it. Smelled like hot. He set it back down, then drizzled in an excessive amount of milk and sugar, spilling some over.

“Thank you, miss.”

Then, he flipped through the music book on the piano.

“Who taught you to play?”

He had three guesses, and all of them involved no one.

Alice picked up her own cup, put in some milk and an excessive amount of sugar and lifted it in her hands. She did not care that Mr. Meijer was spilling on his saucer and possibly the piano.

"I don't play."