Miss Hartwright had one gloved hand braced against a tree trunk. “No difficulty.” She sounded a little breathless. “Just trying not to fall.”
Neville went to her without hesitation. “Take my arm.”
She looked up at him. “I don’t want to be a nuisance.”
“You aren’t. I should have…before. I didn’t think.”
“It makes no matter. I was faring quite well on my own at the beginning.” After a taut moment, she tucked her hand through his arm. “Thank you.”
He inclined his head. There was no other way to acknowledge her gratitude. She was clinging to him so tightly, her small shape pressed against his side. He felt an overwhelming surge of protectiveness for her. It stole his words away.
“The pine trees are ahead,” Alex said.
Tom squinted up at them through his spectacles. “Taller than I remember.”
They were a healthy bunch of trees, with full, needle-laden branches. Last Christmas, Neville and Justin had broken off as many boughs from them as they could carry, and Lady Helena and Jenny had used them to decorate the house. It had been Neville’s first Christmas in memory with all of the trimmings—the pine boughs, holly, and tinsel, and the packages wrapped in colored paper under the tree.
In the orphanage, such things had been practically nonexistent.
Christmas morning had meant being awakened at dawn in a frozen dormitory, his breath visible in the air above him. It had meant cracking the ice in the basin to wash his face, and dressing swiftly in threadbare clothes. A sermon had followed in the chapel, where the boys had sat in feeble rows, limbs numb from the cold and stomachs aching with emptiness.
“Let the word of God be thy sustenance,” the vicar would intone.
Would that it had been.
Instead, Christmas day had been as miserable as any other. The proprietor of the orphanage hadn’t even seen fit to grant them an extra crust of bread for their tea.
Neville couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been hungry. The only extra helpings he ever got were those sacrificed by Justin and Alex. Tom would have given up his food as well, but he’d been the smallest of them. Justin had never permitted him go without.
“Robert!” Tom called to one of the footmen. “Where’s that cart of yours?”
“Here, sir.” Robert and one of the other footmen brought two carts forward, stopping them near the base of the trees.
“How many boughs do we require?” Alex asked.
Neville struggled to find his voice. “Last year—” He stopped and started again. “A lot.”
Mary and the other housemaids broke into titters.
Tom looked at Neville. “Will two carts’ full be sufficient?”
“To begin with.”
“Well, then,” Laura said. “We’d best get started.”
Miss Hartwright’s hand slid from the crook of Neville’s arm. He felt the loss of it more keenly than he’d have expected. But there was no chance to refine upon it. There was too much to be done—and not a great deal of time to do it, if the rain clouds above were any indication.
With the help of several of the footmen, Neville, Tom, and Alex set about their work, breaking pine boughs and heaping them into the carts. Laura and Miss Hartwright helped, snapping off the smaller branches and gathering holly from the shrubs nearby.
When the carts were piled high with boughs, Neville stepped back from the tree he’d been working at and peered up at the darkening sky.
Alex did the same. “A storm is coming.”
“How long do we have?” Tom asked. “Minutes? Longer?”
Laura dusted the pine needles from her gloves. “Is there time enough to gather some mistletoe? Helena has her heart set on it for the decorations.”
“There’s time,” Neville said. And there was—barely.
They made their way through the woods, walking at a far brisker pace than when they’d first set out. Miss Hartwright once again took his arm, clutching tight as they navigated the mud.
The oak trees were on the opposite side of the woods. Last Christmas, he’d found mistletoe growing on them. Lady Helena had hung it all around the Abbey.
At the time, Neville hadn’t given the tradition a second thought. Why should he have? There had been no one, then, to make the mistletoe worthwhile. Not for him.
That wasn’t to say he hadn’t been kissed.
Lady Helena had kissed him on the cheek beneath the mistletoe more than once last Christmas. So had Cook, and Jenny. They’d been sisterly kisses, with nothing of romance about them. This Christmas, however…
He glanced at Miss Hartwright. The hem of her skirts and cloak were muddy, and her cheeks were flushed from the cold. She looked back at him, smiling. A smile that lit up her face. That he could feel, igniting an answering light inside of him.
“‘God rest ye merry gentlemen,’” one of the footmen began singing.
The other servants joined in with laughs and foolery. “‘Let nothing you dismay!’”
By the third verse, Tom, Alex, and Laura were singing, too. And so was Miss Hartwright, in a clear melodic voice. “‘From God, who is our Father, a shining angel came.’”
His heart clenched. Having her on his arm, bright and beautiful, and singing so sweetly. There was a rightness to it that was almost painful. He wanted to keep it close. To save the moment forever, like a winter flower pressed between the pages of a book.
But such feelings couldn’t last. Miss Hartwright would be gone in a fortnight. And he would be…here.
Always here.
It was no revelation. It was a fact. One he’d accepted long ago. The recollection of it, nevertheless, served to dim the light glowing inside of him.
He felt, all at once, the full weight of his condition. Of being lonely, if not alone. Stuck in the same place while the rest of the world surged ahead at a startling rate of speed.
Miss Hartwright squeezed his arm. “Only five days until Christmas. The holiday will soon be over.”
He stared down at her, his chest tight with conflicted emotion. “Yes. But n-not yet.”
On returning to the Abbey, Clara hoped to find that the post had come, and with it, a letter from her mother. But though Clara’s own letter was sure to have arrived in Edinburgh by now, no reply awaited her.
It wasn’t entirely surprising.
As efficient as Mama was in other respects, she was woefully inadequate when it came to attending to her personal correspondence. Amid the chaos of lessons, and other professional responsibilities, her family was inevitably prioritized dead last.