Neville’s stomach tightened with apprehension. Mrs. Atkyns had invited him to attend the sale. Had said she wished to speak with him further on the matter of the Dartmoor ponies. But it would mean leaving Greyfriar’s Abbey. Traveling to Tavistock, and staying a day or two, at least. “I d-don’t—”
“It sounds as though she’s eager to speak with you in person.”
“Yes, but…” Neville felt the bitter urge to laugh. Speak with him? Wouldn’t that be a charming conversation. Him stopping, starting, and stammering, and her trying to make heads or tails of what the devil he was saying. “I don’t want…” He took a breath. “It isn’t…”
Tom’s eyes were keen, as always. Seeing everything. “You needn’t decide this very moment. The sale isn’t until after Christmas. There’s plenty of time yet to determine the best course.”
Neville took back the letter. He folded it carefully.
“If you require any help,” Tom said, “any advice, I’m here. You need only ask me.”
“I know that.” Neville was grateful to him. Tom never pressed. Never attempted to exert his will. “Thank you.”
Tom smiled. “Won’t you join us? God only knows how much longer the ladies will be with Ahmad.”
“I can’t. I…” Neville cast a look at the door. He wanted to get out, not only of this room, but of his own head. To walk, or to work with the horses. Something physical. “I need…I need some air.”
Tom inclined his head in understanding. “Of course. I’ll make your excuses.”
Neville ducked out without another word, Paul and Jonesy at his heels. The voices of his friends quieted to a dull murmur as he shut the door behind him. It was wet out and growing colder by the minute. But he preferred it to the stifling feeling of being trapped indoors.
He’d never liked being inside, not even as a boy. During lessons in the orphanage schoolroom, he’d often lost himself gazing out the window, falling into a pleasurable daydream—until the teacher had roused him with a vicious box to the ears.
“Will you never pay attention, Cross? Do you aspire to a permanent state of stupidity?”
The nuns at St. Crispin’s in Abbot’s Holcombe had been slightly kinder. After his accident, Mr. Boothroyd had arranged for them to take Neville in. They’d never expected much of him. Once he’d recovered from the fall—as much as he could recover—he’d been given simple work. Washing up in the convent’s kitchens, or mucking out soiled straw in the convent’s stables.
“Silent obedience, Cross,” the Reverend Mother had often said. “That’s what the Lord demands of us.”
It had been permission to refrain from speech. To cease the mortifying struggle of trying to form words. A blessing, really.
Not that he’d thought so at first.
In the days following his accident, he’d felt only frustration. The desire to speak—to be heard—and the anger incumbent in realizing that he couldn’t express his thoughts or feelings with any degree of eloquence. In the beginning, even short sentences had proven difficult. His fists had clenched, and perspiration had risen on his brow. The struggle had, at times, driven him to tears of rage and bitterness.
It would have been easier to have given up. To have refrained from speech altogether. But he was no mute. He’d frequently had things he wished to say. Questions to give voice to, and opinions he longed to express.
What he’d wanted—needed—was someone to be patient with him. To understand.
When Justin had returned from India and bought the Abbey, Neville had been glad to come and live with him. Now, it had seemed, his life could at last begin.
But life at Greyfriar’s Abbey hadn’t been so very different from his life at St. Crispin’s.
There was Justin and Mr. Boothroyd, and occasionally Tom. They were a family of sorts. The closest thing to one that Neville had ever known. But when it came to his own identity, separate and apart from them, nothing much had changed at all. Indeed, it felt that nothing ever would.
He ran a hand over his hair as he passed through the main hall. He’d gone no more than a few steps when he stopped short, his attention arrested by movement on the stairs.
Miss Hartwright was descending, garbed in her cloak and bonnet, with Bertie in her arms. When she saw him, her mouth curved into a smile. “Mr. Cross. Good afternoon.” She stepped down into the hall. “Are you going to the stables?”
“I’m… I was…” His hand curled into a fist at his side. “I was going for a walk.”
Her gaze dropped briefly to his clenched hand. Her brows knit as her eyes met his, her smile fading. “Is something the matter?”
“No.” He looked away with a grimace. “Yes.”
“What is it?”
He didn’t answer. Everything was getting too jumbled. And he was too aware of her, curse it. He couldn’t think straight, let alone speak.
“I must take Bertie out,” she said. “But if you’d like to talk, I’m happy to listen.” She searched his face. “Would you like to talk?”
To talk.
A surge of resentment rose within him. But something else rose in him, too. It was a swell of longing. An ache so bittersweet it tightened his throat and pricked at the back of his eyes.
He swallowed hard, abandoning his pride. “Yes, I…I would.”
“Very well.” She waited while he fetched his hat and coat, and then again for him to hold the door open for her. As she passed through it, he caught the orange blossom fragrance of her hair.
His fingers tightened on the doorknob, drawing it shut behind them. They exchanged not a word as they started down the winding cliff road, Paul and Jonesy trotting ahead.
It wasn’t raining at the moment, but the wind was icy sharp. It ruffled Miss Hartwright’s skirts, and the long ribbon ties of her bonnet. She wrapped her cloak tighter around Bertie.
Neville was silent, his head bent against the cold, and his hands thrust into the pockets of his black woolen coat. In the distance, storm clouds gathered over the sea. “Mr. Atkyns is dead,” he said at last.
“The gentleman you wrote to?” Her brow creased. “Oh, dear. How unfortunate. Was it very recent?”
“Last m-month. Part of his estate is being sold. The livestock and…and…” He took a breath. “There’s a public sale in January. His widow wishes to m-meet with me to…to talk about the wild ponies.”
She seemed to comprehend the difficulty. “And you don’t feel you can go? That you can speak to her?”