The Winter Companion (Parish Orphans of Devon #4) - Mimi Matthews Page 0,25
Bertie down again in order to take it and slip it round her shoulders. “Bertie, stay!”
“I have him.” Mr. Cross picked him up a split second before he ambled off down the aisle. Bertie snorted in protest.
Clara fastened her cloak. “I’ll take him now.” She lifted Bertie from Mr. Cross’s arms. “What a nuisance we are to you.”
He didn’t deny it, but when she once again turned to leave, he walked with her to the door. “The rain has stopped.”
“So it has. But not for long, I expect. The skies are very dark.” She pulled up her hood, wary of the coming storm. “I must hurry.”
She didn’t wait for him to speak. To bid her goodbye, or warn her—as the butler had—to be careful not to lose her footing. He didn’t owe her an excess of courtesy. He’d already shown enough this morning, both to her and to Bertie.
The gravel was slippery beneath her boots as she started up the winding cliff road, Bertie held safely beneath her cloak. She looked back only once. A foolish impulse.
Or perhaps not so foolish.
Her heartbeat quickened.
Mr. Cross was still standing in the doorway, his broad shoulder propped against the frame. He was watching her.
Neville made a final notation in the leather-bound ledger. Everything appeared in order. All the figures had been entered and balanced, each carefully copied from the reports of Justin’s quarterly earnings from his railway ventures, cotton mills, and other investments. Neville had been over them twice just to be sure.
He set down his quill, leaned back in his chair, and stretched.
The heavy wine-colored curtains on the bank of library windows had been drawn open, revealing a wide expanse of stormy gray skies over an equally stormy sea. Rain was coming again. It was always coming in Devon. But for now, at least, it had stopped.
Neville longed to be outside. To return to the stables, or to the beach with the dogs. Anything but the stifling interior of the house.
“Let me see.” Mr. Boothroyd came to stand over the library desk. He flipped through the ledger, scanning its pages. “Good, good. Yes, that’s right. And you’ve deducted the payments on the new equipment at the mill?”
Neville sat forward again at the desk. He turned the page of the ledger, drawing his ink-stained finger to a column on the left. “Here.”
“Excellent.” Mr. Boothroyd nodded his approval. “Now, if only you could cease daydreaming and finish the work with greater speed.” He closed the ledger and tucked it under his arm. “Never mind. You’ll soon master it, I trust. It only wants practice.”
Neville wasn’t so sure. No amount of practice was going to turn him into an ideal steward. It hadn’t thus far, and he’d been practicing for nearly a year.
The truth was, he wasn’t as quick as Mr. Boothroyd, nor as organized. And though he was capable enough at writing letters and balancing figures, he had a tendency to drift off in his head.
Daydreaming, Mr. Boothroyd called it. But it wasn’t dreaming. It was thought—boring, everyday thought. Only a kind that made him lose time. Minutes spent staring off into space, while someone waited for him to respond to a question or hold up his end of a conversation.
It was the same thing that had happened two nights ago, at dinner with Miss Hartwright.
The same thing that had been happening to him ever since he’d fallen from the cliffs.
The only time it didn’t happen was when he was with the horses. Working with them was too physical. Too immediate. It kept him alert.
Mr. Boothroyd departed the library, shutting the door behind him.
Neville would have followed, but there was something more that required his attention. Something far more important, to his mind, than balancing figures in a ledger.
He withdrew a folded slip of paper from the inner pocket of his coat. The barman at the King’s Arms had given it to him yesterday.
Erasmus Atkyns
Hadley House
Tavistock
Mr. Atkyns was a vicar, or so the barman had said.