“Keep to the gravel, miss,” the butler said. “The footing is better.”
“I will. Thank you.” She marched down the drive, the wind whipping her cloak all about her. Bertie shivered beneath it. No doubt he’d prefer a sunny climate. Somewhere warm and dry, where it never rained, and where morning frost never gathered on the grass.
She held him tighter. It would be warmer in the stables. And hadn’t Mr. Cross said she could avail herself of the stable yard? She hoped he’d meant it, but after how their evening had ended last night, there was room for doubt.
He’d gone silent in the midst of their conversation, staring off into the distance, with a faraway look in his eyes. As if his thoughts were occupied with something far more important than civil chitchat with a dinner companion.
She’d told herself not to be offended. What had she been talking about anyway? Asking advice from him on where her aged pug could relieve himself? No wonder Mr. Cross had stopped listening to her. It was actually rather mortifying, now she thought of it.
But such things didn’t matter much. Not in the grand scheme of things. Mr. Cross was a stranger. And Clara would be leaving soon.
It was but seven days until Christmas, and thirteen more until they departed Devon. Not even three weeks altogether. Time passed swiftly when one was employed. It would be over before she knew it. And then she would return to Surrey with Mrs. Bainbridge.
Though, even that wasn’t entirely to be relied upon. Not when Mrs. Bainbridge hadn’t yet decided whether or not to remove to France. Until she did, Clara’s own future hung in the balance.
If she was left unemployed, her small savings would sustain her for a month or two at most. And then what would she do? She couldn’t go home, to the small village in Hertfordshire where she’d been born and raised. There was no home there to go back to. No family and no friends. Only a cottage that had long ago been let.
And she couldn’t very well travel to Cambridge. No matter her exasperation with her brother, it wouldn’t be permissible to inflict herself upon him at his university.
She would have to go to her mother in Edinburgh. And even then, Clara would have no place to lay her head. The school in which her mother taught provided room and board for its teachers, but not for their families.
A gust of wind and rain tore at her cloak. She quickened her pace. Seconds later she arrived, breathless, in the stable yard.
Bertie practically leapt from her arms, snuffling through the mud to relieve himself against a fence post. When he’d finished, he accompanied her into the stable.
An enormous chestnut stallion was tied in the aisle. His coat gleamed like a newly polished penny.
Bertie trotted ahead, and—much to Clara’s horror—continued trotting, right beneath the stallion’s legs.
“Bertie, no!” She rushed forward.
Before she could reach him, the groom who was standing on the opposite side of the stallion caught hold of Bertie and lifted him up and out of danger.
She exhaled a shuddering breath. “Gracious. That was a very near thing.”
Mr. Cross’s blond head appeared over the stallion’s back. He rose to his full height, holding Bertie in his arms.
“Oh,” she whispered. “I didn’t know it was you.”
His handsome face was impassive, revealing neither irritation nor happiness to see her. He brought Bertie to her from around the back of the horse. “They won’t kick him. They’re used to dogs.”
“Not little ones, surely.”
“He’s safe here.”
She glanced around the stable. A groom had another horse out at the end of the aisle, working on its winter coat with a brush and a currycomb. Nearby, a stable boy diligently swept up the hair. “Are you sure? He’s so small. I’d hate to set him down if he—”
“He’s fine.”
She bit her lip. “Very well. If you’re certain.”
Mr. Cross put Bertie back onto the ground. Bertie gave a shake of his coat before wandering as far as the next loose box, snuffling the ground as he went.
“Your cloak is wet,” Mr. Cross said.
Clara pushed back her hood, running a gloved hand over the damp tendrils of hair that clung to her face. “Yes, I suppose it is. I shall have to hang it in front of the fire when I return to the house.”
He held out his hand. “May I?”
“What?”
“Hang it to dry?”
“Where? There’s not a fire here, is there?”
“I’ll put it over the door of…of—” He motioned to an empty loose box with a jerk of his chin. “There.”
She slipped off her cloak and handed it to him. The fabric was damp with rain, the hemline muddied. “Thank you.”
He draped it over the door of the loose box. When he turned back to her, his expression was shuttered.
She ran her hands up and down her arms. Her long-sleeved day dress provided little warmth. “I don’t suppose there’s a place to sit down? Somewhere I can keep an eye on Bertie without getting in your way?”
A flush of red crept up over his shirt collar. “The mounting block.”
Clara hadn’t any idea what she’d said to make him blush. Was it merely that she was going to stay awhile? She had little choice in the matter. Not so long as Bertie wished to explore. “A dog requires fresh air and exercise. Even an antiquated pug.”
“I know that.”
“If you object to us being here—”
“I don’t object.” A long pause. “I…I invited you.”
“You did. I thought you’d forgotten.”
“I don’t forget things.” His blush deepened. “Just because I…”
His sentence remained unfinished, but he looked at her in such a way. It was a look that spoke volumes. She felt it, resonating inside of her, as surely as if he’d confessed his frustration to her, and she’d replied with the perfect expression of commiseration. I know what it is to yearn for understanding. You don’t have to explain it to me.
But she was no more capable of giving voice to such sentiments than he was. Nor why should she? They were fanciful at best. And she was too prone to fancy. It was something she must always guard against, lest she put her reputation in jeopardy again.
“Right,” she said, looking all about her. “The mounting block.” It was sitting near the wall, a tall, solid block of wood in which a pair of steps had been carved. She went to it and sat down, arranging her skirts. “Please don’t stop what you’re doing on my account.”