The Winter Companion (Parish Orphans of Devon #4) - Mimi Matthews Page 0,85
“I’ve b-been galloping him. He wants…” Neville’s hand tightened on the currycomb as he worked it over Adventurer’s side. “He wants more.”
“More than a gallop?”
“Just…more. A change of scene.”
“Understandable, with a name like Adventurer.”
Neville hadn’t bestowed the name upon him. It had been his racing moniker. A name that suited him well—and that didn’t suit Neville at all. “And ironic, c-considering he’s mine.”
Justin’s expression sobered. “You’ve had adventures enough for a lifetime.”
“My accident wasn’t an adventure.”
“I didn’t mean the accident. I meant that—while I comprehend why you might occasionally pine for greener pastures—the Abbey is the safest place for you. Here, you’re surrounded by people who care about you. Who have your best interests at heart.”
“What do you…” Neville struggled to verbalize his thoughts. It was always more difficult when he was upset about something. “What d-do you think would happen if…if I left?”
“I don’t know,” Justin said. “And that’s the hell of it. I wouldn’t be there to know. You’d be out of the reach of my protection.”
“You d-don’t have to protect me.”
“I don’t have to do anything. I want to do it. When we were boys…” Justin grimaced. “It rankles that Alex was the one to save you. That I couldn’t do it myself.”
“What difference does it make?”
“It makes all the difference in the world. I was the reason you were up on the cliffs that day. It was because of me and my infernal obsession with the Abbey. What had any of you to do with it?”
Neville remembered well enough why they’d used to climb down the cliffs at Abbot’s Holcombe. All those trips in the little rowboat down the coast to Greyfriar’s Abbey. All that mischief-making and digging for buried treasure.
Sir Oswald Bannister had been a source of sick fascination to them. An archvillain, as sinister as a rogue in a Penny Dreadful. Justin had been both angry and intrigued to learn such a man was his father. Alex had only suspected the truth of his own parentage, but that had been enough to spark his obsession. As for Tom, he’d always been more interested in the treasure than in Sir Oswald himself. While Neville…
Neville had simply been loyal.
“You were my friend,” he said. “Our friend.”
Justin snorted. “Some friend. Putting you all in danger.”
“I…I n-never blamed you for the accident. I was never…n-never angry with you. Not for that.”
Silence stretched between them.
“But you were angry with me.” Justin’s eyes searched his. “Why?”
Neville was amazed he had to ask. The answer seemed evident. “You left m-me behind.”
“Neville…”
“I c-could have…”
But the words wouldn’t materialize. What he wanted to say—to express—after all these years. That he could have weathered any storm if his friends had been there. That without them, he might as well have perished in that fall.
His fingers clenched on the brush. He wasn’t upset with Justin. He wasn’t. It was the past. Decades ago. He told himself it didn’t matter.
And then the words came. Dozens of them, rushing out, all at once, in a broken, disjointed tumble of pent-up emotion.
“The orphanage…the accident… B-but you…you left m-me there. Do you know what…what it was like? To b-be entirely alone? I had n-no one of my own. No one to…to c-care if I lived or d-died.”
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.