Teddy gave his brother-in-law a sheepish smile. “I still think it’s too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” Alex said. “Unless you’d rather have remained back at the Abbey? Or perhaps you’d have preferred to attend church with your aunt and her companion?”
“No, no,” Teddy objected, laughing. “This is much preferable.” He gripped the seat of the cart. “Though I do wonder how Clara is managing.”
Neville shot Teddy a narrow glance. He’d gotten to know him a little better since his arrival, enough that they’d advanced to using each other’s Christian names. He seemed a confident lad, often talking or laughing with his sister.
Or with Miss Hartwright.
Clara.
Had she given Teddy permission to call her that? The very idea of it made Neville’s chest constrict with jealousy.
It was a new sensation, and one he didn’t much care for.
“Miss Hartwright will be fine,” Tom said. “She strikes me as an adaptable lady.”
Neville scowled at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Only that I suspect she’s capable of conforming herself to a variety of settings. Of doing what’s required of her. I mean it as a compliment.”
“It doesn’t sound like one.”
Alex and Tom exchanged a glance.
Neville affected not to notice. As the cart approached the back of the Abbey, it slowed to a lurching halt.
Alex was instantly at Teddy’s side, one hand on the padded seat of the cart. “Steady.”
“I’m all right,” Teddy said. “I’m not made of glass, you know.”
“Humor me. If anything happens to you, I have to answer to your sister.” Alex helped Teddy down from his seat as one of the footmen brought around his wheeled chair.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Quill, emerged from the back door of the Abbey. “Oh, this is a fine one.” She walked around the cart, giving the tree a thorough once over. “It must be rinsed off.” She directed two of the footmen, and one of the maids to the task. “I’ll have no mud in this house.”
Neville cast a look at his clothes. He had cut the tree himself, and his coat and trousers were all the worse for it. “I have to go wash.”
“As do we all.” Tom removed his spectacles and cleaned them with his handkerchief. During the felling of the tree, he’d somehow got sap on his lenses. “I’ll see you at tea?”
Neville nodded before turning toward the cliff road. He had rooms in the house but rarely used them except for sleeping and changing into dinner dress. The rest of the time he preferred his room over the stables. He had an iron bedstead there, a writing desk, and a humble wardrobe in which he kept most of his clothing. As an added enticement, there was a washstand that had been plumbed for hot and cold running water.
It was an improvement Justin had insisted on for the horses in the stable below. Routing some of it to the rooms above had been no trouble at all.
“Just don’t use it as an excuse to never come up to the house,” Justin had said at the time. “You’re not a groom, however much you may like playing at one.”
Neville didn’t care what his title was, as long as he could do what he wanted. At the convent he’d been under the head groom, and had often wished he could take the top position for himself. But the Reverend Mother would never have permitted it. It would have violated her stricture that Neville be seen and not heard.
He climbed the stairs to his room and shut the door behind him. It took no time at all to wash and change into a clean pair of trousers, a white linen shirt, and dark cloth waistcoat. He looked at himself in the mirror above the washstand as he tied his cravat.
Miss Hartwright had compared him to Sir Galahad. Neville supposed it was a compliment. A roundabout way of calling him handsome. And perhaps she thought he was.
The idea filled him with an uneasy warmth.
As a boy, he’d frequently been praised for his good looks. Though, after the accident, such sentiments had often been tinged with regret. Such a shame, people would say. Such a waste.
He’d be lying to himself if he said it hadn’t hurt.
What man wished to be thought of in such terms? It wasn’t how he thought of himself. His world might have been limited, but his life after leaving the orphanage hadn’t been so terrible.
Not as bleak as the years he’d spent within that grim institution.
Delivered to the place as an infant, he’d lived eleven years inside its walls. Eleven long years being subjected to ice-cold dormitories, spoiled food, and beatings for infractions both real and imagined.
But such hardships hadn’t mattered overmuch. Not when he’d had Justin, Alex, and Tom to rely on. They’d been his friends. His family.
After Neville’s accident, they’d all gone their separate ways. Justin had been apprenticed to a blacksmith, and then later joined the army. Tom had moved to London to begin his legal training. And Alex had vanished, seemingly into thin air.
Only Neville had remained. He’d been removed to the convent forthwith. Provided for, but otherwise forgotten.
Alone for the first time in his life, he’d spent many a night in tearful anguish over the loss of his friends, and many more over the loss of his speech. It had taken the better part of a year for him to settle into his new routine. To acclimate himself to silence and solitude.
It hadn’t been easy. But in the end, when grief had at last given way to acceptance, he’d found a measure of contentment at St. Crispin’s. More than contentment. He’d been happy working in the convent stables, and happier still when he’d come home to Greyfriar’s Abbey.
He knew he could find that level of happiness again, given the chance.
This feeling of restlessness—of melancholy—that had plagued him of late was sure to pass. Miss Hartwright would be leaving soon. And he would be getting back to his work. To his life, here at the Abbey.
He shrugged on his coat, swept up his beaver hat in his hand, and departed for the house. It was a cold and dreary morning, though not a rainy one. He was grateful for the warmth of the Abbey. It enveloped him as soon as he crossed the threshold into the main hall.
He stopped in the middle of the carpeted floor to remove his hat and coat. The butler wasn’t about. No doubt he’d joined Mrs. Quill outside to oversee the preparations for bringing in the Christmas tree. It was an undertaking that affected his domain as much as hers.
“Mr. Cross!”
Neville’s head jerked up at the sound of the familiar laughing voice. It was Mary, the housemaid. The one who got such pleasure in teasing him. He was hard-pressed to conceal a grimace.