through the house, and out the front door.
Tenny was visible as a lean slice of shadow halfway down the long, curving driveway that led down the hill to the barn. His strides easy, but ground-covering, his hands in his pockets. There was enough filmy twilight left that the white threads of his bottom rocker – PROSPECT – seemed to glow. He paused when he reached the circular parking pad in front of the barn, staring through the open double doors and down the aisle, face bathed in the soft glow of the overhead security light.
He stepped inside, and Fox headed that way.
If pressed, he would have admitted that he understood why Walsh loved this place. The cool, spring dark was alive with the chirp of crickets, and the first peep of tree frogs; it sounded like there were leagues of them, their trilling calls echoing across the fields, bouncing off the tree trunks at the forest edge. A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves overhead, and fireflies flickered to life out in the gloaming. He couldn’t hear any traffic, or sirens. No human shouts, no slamming doors, no horns honking; no domestics in progress. It had been like this in Texas, to an extent, drier, the coyotes always yipping. Tennessee had coyotes, too, but they were much larger, and much more likely to be part of a massive pack.
A part of him would always miss the bustle and crush of London, though. Even if he could breathe better here, there was a certain reassuring quality to the chaos. Humans he could handle; nature, not so much.
The barn – along with the rest of the property – was an overly fanciful dream of an estate, the sort of place neither Walsh nor Emmie could have owned individually, without the club’s help. Cupolas set at intervals down the center aisle contained chandeliers on dimmer switches, set to low, now, offering enough ambient light to illuminate the stall fronts, and the drowsy horse heads hanging over the doors.
Tenny stood halfway down the aisle, little more than a silhouette, hand held up for inspection while a horse with a frankly huge head – why did anyone need a horse that big, honestly? – sniffed at the backs of his fingers.
Fox debated, and decided he would announce himself; doubtless Tenny had already heard some near-silent tell: the scrape of a shoe, a kicked pebble. But Emmie’s words from minutes ago sat large in his mind. The quip he intended was bitten back; he took a breath, and called, “I have to get away from them all sometimes, too.”
Tenny’s only reaction was a sudden closing of his hand. The horse nudged him, and he opened it again, and let the animal lip at his palm.
Fox strolled the rest of the way to him and offered one of the beers.
Tenny looked over, slowly, whites of his eyes gleaming, gaze narrow, before accepting it and twisting the top off. The horse stretched out his neck, big nostrils flaring at he sniffed at it.
Kindness. He might have to fake that, at first, until he got the hang of it. “I didn’t know you were into the whole horse thing.” He aimed for curious.
Tenny shrugged, and went back to stroking the horse’s nose. It was a chestnut with a big white marking on its forehead. Its gleaming stall plaque proclaimed him Toby. “I have equestrian training. I worked an op in Saudi Arabia once; the crown princes all ride.”
A simple explanation, delivered without fanfare, but a sharp reminder: this boy had done unspeakable things, and been subject to them in turn, because he was ordered to. Not because he’d chosen to. Fox had honed his body and his mind, perfected languages and accents and personas – and all of it had been because he felt driven to do so. Because he’d seen the usefulness in it. Because he was, at heart, cold; he’d inherited all the worst of Devin Green.
But some of his brothers were kind. Appreciated normal, safe, wholesome things. He hadn’t figured Tenny was one of them…but maybe he was wrong. “Walsh used to be a jockey, you know.”
“I know,” he said. He trailed his fingertips up the strong bones of the horse’s face, careful in a way Fox had never seen him be before – but no one could have become so well-trained and technically perfect without a great amount of care.
“I’ve never been so inclined.” Fox leaned a shoulder against the stall front, out of reach of