The Winter Companion (Parish Orphans of Devon #4) - Mimi Matthews Page 0,44

on some private romantic scene.

A growing affinity for each other? It was something more than that, surely.

She was happy for Mrs. Bainbridge, of course, but—at the same time—Clara fretted over what such a relationship might portend for her own future. If Mrs. Bainbridge was to wed, would she have need of a lady’s companion any longer? Clara didn’t expect so.

And then what? Another round of employment agencies and interviews?

Clara didn’t think she had the stomach for it.

She continued to gaze out the window as Mrs. Bainbridge and Mr. Boothroyd talked. The carriage clattered up the narrow, winding cliff road to the Abbey, rolling right along the dangerous edge. Bits of earth and stone crumbled beneath its wheels, falling down into the frothing surf below.

“We didn’t care about the danger,” Mr. Cross had said. “We weren’t afraid.”

She could almost see them, four boys climbing down the cliff’s face, three with dark hair and one with fair. Neville Cross. He couldn’t have been more than eleven at the time. Just an orphan lad with his friends. She imagined him falling and hitting his head, dropping into the sea to disappear beneath the waves. And when he’d come out again—when he’d been rescued and nursed back to health—he’d been irrevocably altered.

But Mr. Cross wasn’t weak. That much she understood absolutely. How could his friends not see it? How could they have underestimated him so?

Back at the Abbey, Mrs. Bainbridge retired to her room for a short rest. “You may have a little time to yourself, my dear,” she said. “A walk, perhaps. Or a visit with that pony you’ve grown so fond of.”

Clara helped Mrs. Bainbridge onto her bed. “I believe I’ll take Bertie to the rose garden.”

“As you please.” Mrs. Bainbridge lay down atop the quilted counterpane, still clad in her black crepe dress. “But see that you’re back and changed by half past one. Mr. Boothroyd says the gentlemen have gone to cut the Christmas tree. And Lady Helena intends us to spend the afternoon gilding walnuts and who knows what else.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After leaving Mrs. Bainbridge’s room, Clara retreated to her own. She fetched Bertie from his place in front of the fire. A quick visit to the rose garden so he could relieve himself, and then she was back in her room, fishing the key to her carpetbag out from within the bodice of her gown.

Bertie ambled to the warm hearth and curled up again, promptly falling back asleep. He’d be awake and asking to go out again soon. But not yet. She had ample time for a little quiet study.

Too many days had passed without reviewing her old lessons. She had begun to feel guilty. Since becoming a lady’s companion, her studies had been the single focus of her free time. It should take more than a week of Christmas revelry and the friendship of a gentleman to break that focus.

She unlocked her carpetbag and withdrew a handful of the large, overstuffed envelopes inside. Sitting down at the dressing table, she opened the oldest of them and spread the folded papers out before her.

Simon’s handwriting was distinctive. He had a peculiar habit of adding a curling loop to the bottom of some letters and the top of others. It was so much a part of his script that she hardly noticed it anymore.

She reread his notes on Carl Linnaeus’s system of taxonomic nomenclature, and on Aristotle’s History of Animals. She refreshed her memory on species, genus, class, and order. On the classification of plants, minerals, and insects.

In his earliest letters, Simon had often drawn pictures of insects or flowers, labeling things he’d observed under the microscope, such as pockets in the knees of bees, and the hooks on the feet of flies. He’d also posed questions to her, or directed her to books she might read to supplement her learning.

When in London with Mrs. Peak, Clara had had a subscription to the circulating library, and had borrowed what volumes she could. Unfortunately, most of the books her brother was reading at university weren’t available to her. Or—if they were—it was only to purchase, and then in a daunting ten