Neville made a final notation in the leather-bound ledger. Everything appeared in order. All the figures had been entered and balanced, each carefully copied from the reports of Justin’s quarterly earnings from his railway ventures, cotton mills, and other investments. Neville had been over them twice just to be sure.
He set down his quill, leaned back in his chair, and stretched.
The heavy wine-colored curtains on the bank of library windows had been drawn open, revealing a wide expanse of stormy gray skies over an equally stormy sea. Rain was coming again. It was always coming in Devon. But for now, at least, it had stopped.
Neville longed to be outside. To return to the stables, or to the beach with the dogs. Anything but the stifling interior of the house.
“Let me see.” Mr. Boothroyd came to stand over the library desk. He flipped through the ledger, scanning its pages. “Good, good. Yes, that’s right. And you’ve deducted the payments on the new equipment at the mill?”
Neville sat forward again at the desk. He turned the page of the ledger, drawing his ink-stained finger to a column on the left. “Here.”
“Excellent.” Mr. Boothroyd nodded his approval. “Now, if only you could cease daydreaming and finish the work with greater speed.” He closed the ledger and tucked it under his arm. “Never mind. You’ll soon master it, I trust. It only wants practice.”
Neville wasn’t so sure. No amount of practice was going to turn him into an ideal steward. It hadn’t thus far, and he’d been practicing for nearly a year.
The truth was, he wasn’t as quick as Mr. Boothroyd, nor as organized. And though he was capable enough at writing letters and balancing figures, he had a tendency to drift off in his head.
Daydreaming, Mr. Boothroyd called it. But it wasn’t dreaming. It was thought—boring, everyday thought. Only a kind that made him lose time. Minutes spent staring off into space, while someone waited for him to respond to a question or hold up his end of a conversation.
It was the same thing that had happened two nights ago, at dinner with Miss Hartwright.
The same thing that had been happening to him ever since he’d fallen from the cliffs.
The only time it didn’t happen was when he was with the horses. Working with them was too physical. Too immediate. It kept him alert.
Mr. Boothroyd departed the library, shutting the door behind him.
Neville would have followed, but there was something more that required his attention. Something far more important, to his mind, than balancing figures in a ledger.
He withdrew a folded slip of paper from the inner pocket of his coat. The barman at the King’s Arms had given it to him yesterday.
Erasmus Atkyns
Hadley House
Tavistock
Mr. Atkyns was a vicar, or so the barman had said.
Neville was skeptical. He nevertheless drew out a fresh sheet of paper and sharpened his quill.
He was halfway through drafting a carefully worded letter to Mr. Atkyns when the library door opened with a click, and a soft tread sounded on the carpet.
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn’t know anyone was working here.”
Neville’s heart lurched. He stood at once, so quickly he very nearly toppled the inkpot. “Miss Hartwright.”
“Mr. Cross. Good morning.” She hesitated inside the doorway. “I’m not interrupting you, am I?”
“No.”
“I’ve only come to fetch a book.” She crossed the library to one of the bookcases that lined the walls, her wide skirts swaying gently with each step. She was wearing the same plain gray dress she’d worn on the day she’d first arrived in Devon. “It won’t take a moment.”
Neville didn’t care if it took one hundred moments. He hadn’t been alone with her since that morning in the stables two days ago. Not truly alone. The weather had been fierce yesterday, and she’d kept to the house. He’d seen her several times but had only spoken to her once, on the way in to dinner. A word of stilted greeting uttered before she withdrew to her seat between Justin and Alex.
Neville had been seated between Laura and Helena. A place of safety. One where he needn’t worry about what he said or how he sounded. But he’d been aware of Miss Hartwright for all that. Conscious of her smiles, and the luminosity of her brown eyes in the candlelight.
“What book?” he asked.
“Something suitable for reading aloud to Mrs. Bainbridge.” She stopped in front of a row of thick tomes bound in red leather, the spines stamped in gold.
“The classics?” Neville came to stand at her side.
“They won’t do.” She frowned. “Mrs. Bainbridge doesn’t care for anything too intellectual.” Her gaze scanned the shelves. “Hasn’t Mr. Thornhill any novels? Something by Sir Walter Scott, perhaps?”
“Here.” He reached above her head to one of the topmost shelves, plucking out a thin volume. “Waverley.”
She brightened as she took it. “Oh, yes. This will do nicely.” Her eyes met his. A faint flush of color tinted her cheeks. “Thank you.”
He gazed down at her. And he knew, quite suddenly, that she was as aware of him as he was of her. That she felt that same sense of warmth. Of connection.
He’d been around pretty girls before. The barmaids at the King’s Arms were always flirting with him. Even some of the housemaids at the Abbey. He sensed that he was a figure of fun to them. A good-looking fellow in form and figure, but not a man. They liked to tease him. To provoke his blushes and stammers, as if he were an untried stripling lad.
But Miss Hartwright was different.
She was nice. More than nice. She was sweet, and rather singular. And she had ambitions for her future. Only small ones, albeit, but ambitions nonetheless.
“Hasn’t everyone?” she’d asked him.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Ambitions required aptitude. The ability to learn and grow. And there was no fixing his speech. No remedy to the fact that it made him seem slow and stupid.
How was he ever to live or work anywhere outside of Greyfriar’s Abbey? He would be lucky if he could one day take Mr. Boothroyd’s place as Justin’s steward. Anything more than that was a ridiculous dream.
He was content as he was. Or he had been. Until everything started changing.
“How is Bertie?” he asked.
“In fine form. He’s presently asleep in my room. He’s made himself quite at home there.” She smiled. “How is the pony?”
“Very well.” He paused, searching for something more he could say. Something that would keep her here a while longer. “Betty let me comb the brambles from her mane.”