Justin’s face was ashen. “I cared.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I know that. At the time I thought it was best. To break my apprenticeship, and to join Her Majesty’s Army. To find some way to make money for us all. But I was just a lad myself. A boy, like you and Tom and Alex.” He briefly looked away. “I didn’t leave until I knew you were safe.”
Neville didn’t respond.
“You were safe, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” He was that. Safe inside the walls of the convent. Just as he was safe here at the Abbey.
“The money I sent back—”
“It helped me. I was…grateful.”
“Grateful.” Justin repeated the word with disgust. “We both know it wasn’t enough for any sort of life for you.”
Neville’s fingers slowly loosened on the brush. Some of the emotion dissipated. He regarded Justin from over Adventurer’s withers. “I had a life.”
“In a convent? Little better than a servant in their stable?”
“It was better than the orphanage. I…I didn’t mind it. Not once I…adjusted. I liked b-being with the horses. Outdoors. I n-never wanted anything else.”
“You didn’t know anything else.”
Neville didn’t argue the point. It was the truth. He had no experience of the world.
But he wasn’t a recluse.
He regularly went into the village, stopping in at the King’s Arms, the telegraph office, or the new bookshop. When strictly necessary, he could even deal with strangers.
He’d dealt with that horse trader who had been abusing Betty.
The memory of it brought a certain satisfaction to him.
“I’m genuinely sorry,” Justin said. “For everything.”
“I’m not angry.”
“I know that.” Justin ran his hand over Adventurer’s back. “You’re only like this horse of yours.”
Neville gave him a questioning look.
Justin smiled slightly. Wearily. “You want more.”
It was a blunt statement. A true one as well. The truth was often simple. Neville let it sink into his soul He did want more. He wanted a life of his own choosing.
He wanted her.
“Perhaps,” Justin said, “you might like to spend a few weeks in London with Tom and Jenny?”
Neville dropped the brush and currycomb into a wooden grooming box nearby. “Why London?”
“If you’re getting the urge to see the world, it seems the likeliest place to start.” Justin paused. “I take it you aren’t interested?”
Neville shook his head. He didn’t have the urge to see the world. He wasn’t an explorer, and he didn’t crave the excitement of London, or the teeming industry of Manchester or Liverpool. If he ever left the Abbey, it wouldn’t be for a place. It would be because he was required elsewhere. By a needful creature.
Or by a woman.
His woman.
But Clara didn’t need him. That much he’d already established. He was of no use to her in Cambridge. No use to her anywhere.
A part of him rose up in protest at the thought.
He was of no use?
It was a dashed lie. A lie he would no longer permit himself to believe. No matter his own insecurities over the years, he’d always had value. He was useful to those around him, to people and animals alike.
And he could be useful to her, too.
But not here. Not by being safe.
In order to help Clara—to win Clara—he would have to face his fears. To summon his courage, and strike out on his own. Like one of those Arthurian knights she spoke of, embarking on a quest.
“Not in London,” he said abruptly.
Justin’s mouth tilted up at one corner. “You have somewhere else in mind?”
Neville met Justin’s eyes over the back of his horse. “As a m-matter of fact…I do.”
Cambridge, England
December 1860
Andrew Bryce-Chetwynde.
The name reverberated in Clara’s head. With it came every memory—every emotion—of that summer four years ago. It was all she could do to focus on Mr. Trent’s face, and to attend to the remainder of his unfortunate tale.
She doubted he realized just how unfortunate it was.
Indeed, Simon hadn’t appeared to have confessed anything to Mr. Trent aside from the barest minimum.
“I understand he and his tutor parted years ago on not very good terms,” Mr. Trent said. “Apparently, Simon was holding a grudge against the fellow. I couldn’t comprehend why. Your brother was extraordinarily tight-lipped about the matter.”
“Is…is Mr. Bryce-Chetwynde still here? In Cambridge?”
“No, ma’am. He’d only come up for the week to meet with one of his old masters. After Simon thrashed him, he returned to Hertfordshire.”
Clara’s shoulders sagged.
Thank God for it.
She had no wish to ever see the man again. Four years later, the image of him was still burned on her brain. Slim and dreamy, with an artfully knotted necktie, curling dark hair, and the eyes of a romantic poet.
“You grace us with your presence, Miss Hartwright,” he’d said the first afternoon she’d joined him at the table for her brother’s lessons.
And he’d smiled at her. A secret smile that had seemed reserved for her alone.
Within a month, he was sharing his poetry with her. Not only the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Tennyson, but poems he’d written himself.
“You inspire me, Miss Hartwright,” he said one afternoon as he walked her home from the village schoolhouse. “Something about your face, and the lilt in your voice. The way you sound both prim and provocative at once.”
She reddened to the roots of her hair. “I surely don’t.”
“You do, ma’am. I shall write a sonnet about it. You see if I don’t.”
It was thusly all summer. He overwhelmed her young heart with poetry and flirtation. Everything airy, and pretty, and…vague.
And then one day he kissed her.
She blurted out the good news to her mother that very same evening as the two of them sat in the small parlor of their cottage. “He wants to marry me.”
Mama looked up from her mending. “Who does?”