Paul brought the stick back to Mr. Cross and he threw it again with uncommon strength. It spun over itself, round and round, as it sailed through the air. The dogs followed with a storm of barking.
He looked at her. “But…you do have an opinion?”
“Not an opinion. I only wonder—”
“About what?”
“About you.” Warmth seeped into her cheeks. “Just…you.”
“What about me?” Mr. Cross asked.
“I don’t know. All sorts of things, I suppose.” A cold gust of wind over the sea whipped at the ribbons of Clara’s silk bonnet. She brushed them back from her face. “When I first arrived here, I couldn’t tell if you were a groom, or a guest, or even a gentleman.”
He didn’t reply. But his head was bent, listening to her as they walked.
“And now I wonder why, when you’re so happily disposed toward animals and outdoor work, you’d wish to take up a position that ties you to a desk and ledger.”
He absorbed her words in stony silence. A long moment passed, and then: “I wonder about you,” he countered.
Her eyes met his.
“I wonder why you were…upset…yesterday. And why you sent that t-telegram.”
“It was to my mother. In Edinburgh.”
“I know that much.”
“Yes, well…” Clara generally preferred to keep her own counsel on family matters. But it wasn’t as if it was a secret. “My mother rarely answers the letters I write to her, not as a matter of course, and never in a timely fashion. If I want to learn anything about my brother, it seemed more expedient to wire her.” She kicked at a small rise of wet sand. “There’s a chance she’s aware of things that haven’t yet been made known to me.”
“Such as?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. It may very well be nothing, but…I can’t seem to rid myself of the feeling that something is wrong.”
Mr. Cross fell quiet again as they walked.
It prompted her to confide even more. “He sends me his notes from his lectures and readings, and from the sessions with his tutors.”
“Why?”
“So that I might learn what he’s learning. His notes permit me to attend Cambridge, too, after a fashion. It’s unconventional, to be sure, but there’s nothing so shocking about it.”
She knew her words to be false as soon as she uttered them.
It was shocking. And grossly unladylike. She was stealing knowledge meant only for her brother. Presuming to raise herself to the level of a gentleman, even if only to a lesser degree. A lady wouldn’t aspire to such. And if she did, she’d have the good sense to restrict her studies to their proper milieu. A ladies’ society, or better yet, the tutelage of an indulgent husband.
She waited for Mr. Cross to condemn her. To meet her confession with a cool remark, or a look of masculine condescension.
He did neither.
“I don’t think it’s shocking,” he said. “It’s…it’s good to learn things.”
Some of the tension left her shoulders. His words were an unexpected balm to her frayed nerves. “That’s certainly how I’ve always viewed it. When he was at home, Simon often shared his lessons with me. Until—” She stopped herself, realizing too late what she’d almost said
Mr. Cross looked at her. “Until what?”
A familiar chill threatened at the edges of her wellbeing. It was a bad memory, nothing more. Sometimes she could almost convince herself that it hadn’t happened at all. Or else that it had happened to another person.
“My brother used to be tutored at home by our local squire’s son. He was a Cambridge man himself and was helping to prepare Simon for university. But then…four years ago, Mama decided it was best if Simon went away to school. She sent him to a proper boy’s school in the north. A year later, he left for Cambridge.”
It was the truth, though not the whole of it. She’d omitted her own part in the matter. The conduct that had lost Simon his tutor, and Clara her place as teacher at the village school. It was her own cross to bear. Her secret shame. And besides, it was long ago. Years and years now. It had no relevance to her conversation with Mr. Cross.
“And you continued your studies by post?”
She nodded. “I’ve been accustomed to receiving Simon’s packets of notes twice a month. But lately, some have begun to seem similar. And on Monday, when I arrived, I received an actual word-for-word copy of an earlier lesson. I can’t even be sure it was my brother who wrote it.”
“If he didn’t, then…?”
“I haven’t any notion. It’s all exceedingly strange. I begin to think I’m mistaken or have imagined it all in some fit of fancy.”
“What will you do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I pray my mother will advise me when she replies to my wire.”
If she replied.
And there was the rub of it. Mama had always put her own work ahead of the demands of her family. Clara admired her for it. Had even sought to emulate her. But in times of crisis, it was rather hard.
“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. There usually is where one’s brother is concerned. It’s ridiculous to fret. But I haven’t seen Simon since he left for university. He spends all of his holidays with his friends. Goodness knows what he might be up to.” She could imagine all sorts of terrible things having gone wrong, from masculine pranks and mischief to broken limbs—or worse. “And here I am, fretting nonetheless. I’ve been anxious over it since yesterday.”
Mr. Cross looked out across the sea, his expression inscrutable. “I thought…” He struggled for his words. “I thought it was…because of…of Mary.”
Mary?
“Is that her name?” Clara couldn’t keep the note of dryness from her voice. “She’s very pretty.”
“The mistletoe…” He scrubbed his jaw with one hand. “She k-kissed me.”
“So I saw.” Sea foam rolled up onto the sand, frothing near her half boots. She stepped away from it without thought, focusing on the dogs playing up ahead. Bertie was right in the thick of things, snapping at the stick Paul still carried in his mouth. “Did you truly think that was why I was upset? Because I encountered you kissing a pretty maidservant?”
“It wasn’t…” His brows lowered. “Mary is… She…”