rather than scarlet or mulberry or strawberry. He wanted to find Vera and…
And what?
“Charlie’s coat has the same color brown as the peat water does when it’s in shade,” Alexander said as they approached the geldings’ paddock. “The sun gives him golden highlights too.”
“Because we groomed him so thoroughly the other day, and he hasn’t yet found any mud to roll in.”
Charles went on cropping the lush summer grass, indifferent to his observers. Oak was struck by the recollection that Charles did not like Town. If he wasn’t galloped—hard—every morning, he developed vices and became unruly. He was a country horse, but because he was the only horse Oak owned, into Town he would go.
“If Charles rolls in the mud,” Alexander asked, climbing the fence rails, “do you beat him?”
What in seven schoolroom purgatories could prompt such a question? “Of course not. Horses roll to itch their backs, to put dirt between them and the flies, and because it’s fun. Try it sometime. Get down and roll in the grass or roll down a hill, then get up and shake all over.”
Alexander, perched on the top rail, was nearly eye to eye with Oak. “You are jesting. Mr. Forester says you frequently jest.”
Oak wanted to grab this solemn little boy and show him how to roll down a hillside. Wanted to find him a few good climbing trees where he could have solitude when his little world needed pondering…
Wanted to tickle him and hug him and toss him into the air… As Oak had been tickled, and hugged, and tossed.
“I am not jesting when I say that I believe you should have a dog. Mr. Forester’s opinion on that subject doesn’t signify, so you need not air it with him. Come along.” He lifted Alexander off the fence rail and set him on his feet.
“I am not to tell Mr. Forester that you might talk Mama into getting me a dog?”
“You are not.”
“Am I late, sir?”
“No. Why?”
“Because you are walking almost as fast as Mr. Forester walks.”
Oak tossed Alexander into the air, then carried the boy piggyback to the garden.
“If you were a dog,” Alexander said as Oak passed through the gate, “you would be telling me you were unhappy without speaking human words. Why are you unhappy, Mr. Dorning?”
Oak could lecture the boy on the intrusiveness of asking about other people’s private feelings, he could make a joke, he could…
“I will soon have to leave Merlin Hall, Alexander. My work here is nearly done. I will miss you, and I will miss your family.”
Alexander squeezed him silently about the neck the whole way up to the terrace. When the boy’s grip eased up, Oak set him on his feet.
“You are in no danger of being late,” Oak said. “None at all.”
Such a thunderous, conflicted expression met Oak’s announcement. Alexander’s blue eyes were full of recrimination and consternation, and Oak knew in that moment what it was to betray a child’s trust.
“Mr. Forester said you’d never stay at a pokey little farm like Merlin Hall. Merlin Hall isn’t a pokey little farm. It’s a lovely place to live. Even I know that. You should stay here.”
Before Oak could offer consoling lies—I’ll write to you, I’ll visit, you must come see me in London—Alexander pelted into the house at a dead run. Oak hoped the boy slowed down before he reached the schoolroom, lest Forester lecture him about gentlemen never proceeding at more than a dignified stroll.
Rather than return to the studio, Oak perched again on the balustrade overlooking the back garden. The walk with Alexander had helped clarify at least one source of Oak’s low mood.
He’d asked Vera outright to come to London with him, and her reasons for refusing were many and sound. He’d been a fool—a selfish fool—to ask her. He was an equally selfish fool to expect her to ask him to tarry here at Merlin Hall. The Little Season wouldn’t start for weeks, and many families ruralized through the whole winter before returning to Town.
As the cold stone seat on the balustrade grew uncomfortable, Oak realized that he’d been watching Vera in hopes she’d issue an invitation for him to stay on at Merlin Hall, and no such invitation would be forthcoming.
By this time next week, he could be in London. Why wasn’t that cause for rejoicing?
When Oak retrieved his mail from Bracken, he found a letter from Richard Longacre. Longacre had recommended Oak as a portraitist to no less than three young mothers in search