Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Afew days later, Malcolm wandered around his gardens. He had intended on doing some minor repairs on the cottage, but he had found himself in Nicholas’ company once more.
The boy had been there for nearly an hour, and Malcolm had not once thought to send him home.
“Look! He is following my command!” The shout was triumphant.
Malcolm turned to look at Nicholas, an interested brow raised. He was directing Hector through a weaving path between two sticks he had driven into the earth.
Hector completed the final pass, his body a blur of chestnut-and-white, then circled back to sit at Nicholas’s feet. The dog’s tail beat a frantic, thumping rhythm against the grass.
“He did it,” Nicholas exclaimed. “Did you see the whole thing? He didn’t miss a single turn.”
Malcolm walked over, his boots heavy on the turf. He looked at the sticks, then at the dog. Hector watched him with a bright, forward attention, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with a mix of exhaustion and hope.
“The far turn,” Malcolm nodded at one of the sticks. “He drifted because the gap was too wide.”
Nicholas didn’t argue. He didn’t pout. He simply crouched immediately, measuring the distance by sight, and shoved the far stick two inches to the left. “This?”
“Move it a little more.”
He moved it again, his small brow furrowed in concentration. When he glanced up at Malcolm for approval, Malcolm nodded. “Much better.”
Nicholas stood, called Hector back to the starting point with a sharp whistle, and ran him through again. This time, Hector held the turns, his body curving elegantly to the line. Nicholas spun around, his face flushed.
Nicholas had visited twice since Malcolm had set the twenty-minute limit and watched it become twenty-three.
He had not reinstated the limit. He had not examined why. He simply made sure he was in the garden when the boy appeared at the hedge, and each time, a minimal gesture of permission was enough. Nicholas came in, asked his forensic questions, worked the dog, and went home without argument.
It was the fact that there was no argument that kept disarming him. It was the behavior of a child who had been taught that time was a finite, precious resource, and that he was lucky to have any of it at all.
They moved along the garden path a little while later, Hector ranging ahead through the long grass.
The morning had settled into a dry, bright warmth that made the grounds look well-kept from a distance and beautifully wild up close. The path curved past the kitchen garden and the old orchard wall, eventually opening toward the back of the stable yard.
Nicholas stopped walking.
Malcolm stopped beside him. The stable yard held twelve horses, fewer than his father had kept, but more than he needed. He kept them because the routine of the morning ride was the only thing that had kept the ghosts at bay when he first returned from the sea.
Nicholas was staring at the nearest stall, where a dark grey stallion was watching them over the half-door with calm, liquid eyes.
“Wow, he is extraordinary,” Nicholas breathed.
“His name is Calder,” Malcolm told him. “He is one of my favorites, too.”
Nicholas took a cautious step forward. The stallion stretched his nose out, ears pricked. Nicholas stopped. “Is he safe?”
“He will not bite, do not worry. He is only assessing your character.”
Nicholas took another step and held out the back of his hand. Calder dropped his heavy head and breathed a warm, huffing cloud against the boy’s fingers.
“We only have four horses,” Nicholas said, not looking away from the stallion. “Mama has two, and there are two for the carriage. I don’t ride as much as I would like. My instructor, Mr. Perth, comes on Tuesdays, but Mama says his recommendation was not good. I think she’s right.”
Malcolm said nothing. He looked at the boy’s posture, the slight forward lean and the dropped right shoulder he had noticed during the Hillsborough hunt and filed away.
Malcolm looked at Calder. Then he looked at a smaller bay in the adjacent stall, a steady, patient animal he used for guests. He looked at the clear, vast sky.
“Get your coat,” Malcolm said.
Nicholas stared at him, his mouth falling open. “Are we going riding?”
Keeping his expression neutral, Malcolm nodded.
Nicholas’ face lit up as he dashed off, returning in the time it took Malcolm to have the horses saddled.
The young boy looked at the animals with an expression of such intense, suppressed excitement that he looked like he might vibrate out of his skin.
They rode out through the south gate and onto the long, flat stretch of the rear grounds, straying further from the castle.
Malcolm set an easy pace and watched Nicholas in his peripheral vision. The boy sat forward, weight in the wrong place, his small hands white-knuckled on the reins.
“Sit back,” Malcolm instructed, his voice gentler than he was used to. Something about guiding this boy, who did not know any better, who was doing nothing wrong, made Malcolm soften. “Use your seat bones, not your thighs. Remember, you are riding a horse, not clinging to a mast in a gale.”
Nicholas’ face flushed, as though embarrassed to have to be taught, but shifted like Malcolm had told him to. “Like this?”
“Yes, yes, very good. Now drop your shoulders.”
He watched the change move through the boy’s posture. A slight relaxation that rippled from the shoulders to the elbows and finally to the wrists. The reins loosened half an inch. The horse responded instantly, his gait smoothing out.
“Very good,” Malcolm said. With a teasing smile, he added, “See? You can listen when you want to.”
Nicholas laughed sheepishly. “It really does feel better. I feel as though I am not fighting him now.”
“You were fighting yourself, likely putting pressure on yourself to be perfect. But here is the thing, Nicholas. You do not have to be. You just have to be willing to learn. And, now, see? You are sitting with him.”
They rode in silence for several minutes. Hector moved through the long grass in easy sweeps with his nose down.
“Mr. Perth always said to hold on tighter,” Nicholas said, looking out over the fields.
“Mr. Perth was wrong. Strength is useless without balance.”
“I thought so.” Nicholas looked at the tree line, then back at Malcolm. “Can I ask you something?”
“You’re going to regardless.”
“Why did you join the Navy? You are a duke, and you have all of this.” He waved a hand at the horizon. “You surely did not have to go.”
Malcolm kept his eyes ahead, his jaw tightening for a heartbeat.
“I went because the sea was louder than the thoughts in my head,” he said it matter-of-factly, which was the only way it could be said. It was far too old a statement to make to a child, but Malcolm could not put it any other way.
Nicholas was quiet for a long time. Then his face brightened with a wide smile. “I can make some noise in your house if you want.”
Malcolm felt half a smile forming on his face as he chuckled, shaking his head at the child’s innocence, as if the thoughts in one’s head could be so easily drowned out.
Nicholas sighed, and Malcolm gave him a questioning look, but he was gazing out at the lands.
“Is something on your mind?” Malcolm asked.
Nicholas nodded slowly, taking a moment before he answered.
“It is just… riding with you really makes me wish I had someone to do things with and play with more often. Mama does everything with me, she really does. She paints with me and reads to me, and she even comes out to watch me ride even though I can tell she finds the wind very cold.” He paused.
“But I can tell when she does not like something.”
Malcolm waited, the rhythm of the hooves the only sound between them.
“She tries to hide it, but I can always see. When we paint, her hands are loose. When we read, she’s happy. But when I want to go fishing or talk about hunting… she does it because I want to, not because she wants to.”
The grounds ran out ahead of them, flat and quiet.
“She never told me to stop asking,” Nicholas continued softly.
“She would have always come, but I didn’t want her to not enjoy herself.
” He lifted his eyes to Malcolm. “She does everything. She runs the house and makes sure I do my studies, and she never complains. I did not want to add more things to her list of chores.”
Malcolm said nothing.
He looked at the tree line, but he saw Lady Romwich, standing in the rain or kneeling by a muddy bank with a composed face and freezing hands, performing the role of both parents without once letting her son see the cost.
He thought of her in his garden, demanding he stay away, her voice a shield.
He had thought her guarded. He had thought her cold.
What she was, was exhausted. She was carrying the weight of two lives on her shoulders and making sure the boy thought it was light as a feather.
“She sounds like someone who cares very much about getting things right,” Malcolm said finally.
Nicholas looked at him, his expression fierce. “She is,” he said. “She is the best person I know.”
They turned the horses back toward the Brigrock Hall. Hector looped around them, falling in beside Calder.
“Does she still not know that you have been coming here?” Malcolm asked as they approached the yard.
“No.” Nicholas kept his face forward. “I think she suspects. She looks at my boots too much. But she has not asked directly.”
“Would you admit it if she asked?”
“Yes.” There was no pause. “I do not lie to her. I just wait for the question, but she does not ask. I do feel bad, sometimes, though, because I promised not to disobey her again. I just… I cannot help it. This is fun, and now it is safer!”
The stable yard came back into view. Malcolm checked his watch as he pulled Calder to a walk.
It had already been an hour. He dismounted and handed the reins to a groom. Nicholas was down on the other side, talking to the stable hands with an easy, unpretentious familiarity. Malcolm walked around the horse.
“It is safer,” he agreed. “Because I now know that you are here and I can keep an eye on you, but you ought to return home before your mother comes looking for you again.”
Nicholas turned. “I will, Your Grace.” He paused with a hand on Hector’s coat. “Thank you… for allowing me back here, and for… for letting me have not just Hector as a friend.”
Then the boy straightened. Without warning, he walked up to Malcolm and threw both arms around his waist.
Malcolm went completely, utterly still.
His hands started to move in some instinctive gesture of defense or comfort, but they didn’t complete the motion. They stayed at his sides.
Nicholas’s arms were thin but surprisingly strong, and the top of his head was level with Malcolm’s sternum. The boy smelled of horses and fresh air and soap.
He let go as quickly as he had arrived. He touched Hector’s head one last time, turned, and ran toward the hedge.
Malcolm stood in the empty stable yard. His hands were still at his sides. The groom had led the horses away, and the yard was silent. Hector sat at his master’s feet, looking up with a patient, knowing expression.
Malcolm looked at the gap in the hedge where the boy had vanished. He stood there for a very long time before he finally moved.