Now, Aubrey gazed upon something he would be otherwise quite unable to see. While he might see his own face in the mirror each morning—whether he wanted to or not—he could never know how he appeared without locking gazes with his own reflection. In the mirror, and thus, in his mind’s eye, there remained always a confrontational element, of those large dark eyes fixing upon him, no matter how he turned his head. His own defiance stared him down whenever he shaved his cheeks or combed his hair.
Icarus Fallen, however, showed him with his eyes shut.
For the first time in his life, Aubrey saw himself without defiance, without confrontation, without aggression. With his eyes shut, he saw soft lashes, a smooth brow, and a mouth whose curves no longer twisted in disgust at the burn scars sweeping alongside.
Aubrey saw the face Lindsey must have seen on the pillow next to him.
“Here,” came Lindsey’s gentle voice in his ear at that very moment.
Lindsey’s grip shifted on his arm, giving the merest suggestion that he ought to turn. Aubrey glanced up at him first, then followed his gaze over his own shoulder, where Lindsey’s other arm had pulled close the dining-room chair.
It occurred to Aubrey he must have stood staring at the painting for a very long and silent moment, for Lindsey to take such pains. Heat rushed to his cheeks. He looked up to Lindsey again and swallowed down his instinctive apology to say, instead, what he really meant. “Thank you.”
Lindsey smiled and helped Aubrey down into the seat, afterwards laying his soft hand upon Aubrey’s shoulder. Aubrey reached up to clasp that hand, and together they returned their gazes to the painting.
“How do you find it, then?” Halloway asked—for he of course remained, gazing upon his own handiwork with the same intensity as the others.
“It’s…” Aubrey struggled to find a form of expression that wouldn’t sound like mere flattery of himself as the painting’s subject. “I’ve never seen its like.”
The moment he said it, it occurred to him such commentary could be taken as a veiled insult.
But as he glanced at Halloway to see his reaction, he found his moustache curled in a grin.
“I wonder, then,” Halloway said, stepping away from the painting and reaching for something else amongst his sketchbooks and brushes, “what you might think of this?”
So saying, he slipped a scrap of parchment into Aubrey’s hand.
Aubrey glanced down and discovered, once again, his own face. This, then, was the miniature he’d commissioned, rendered in watercolours. Unlike Icarus Fallen, it depicted him with his eyes open. And yet the miniature’s gaze, too, lacked the confrontational air Aubrey had come to expect from himself. He knew not how Halloway had done it, but he had somehow softened the eyes, and brought the barest hint of a smile to the lips. Aubrey felt his own face mirror the miniature’s and recognised it as the expression he most often turned upon Lindsey.
Lindsey, meanwhile, had peered over Aubrey’s shoulder. “By Jove!”
His exclamation came in a gasp, astonished into breathless quietude, yet it echoed through Aubrey’s heart as if shouted.
Aubrey couldn’t help grinning as he handed the miniature off to Lindsey, who took it with all the reverence of a pilgrim presented with a relic. Delight sparkled in his sapphire-blue eyes, and the smile Aubrey loved so dear spread over his lips.
“It’s only half-done,” Halloway explained over them. He’d shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet like a schoolboy with a splendid secret. “Still need a matching one of you, Althorp. When you’ve a moment to sit for it.”
“Of course!” said Lindsey, never taking his eyes off the miniature.
~
Chapter Nine
Dr Pilkington returned at the end of the week to check on Aubrey’s progress. After a brief examination, he declared his patient well on the road to recovery—with a few caveats. While a short stroll through the garden at a leisurely pace would do Aubrey more good than harm, Dr Pilkington could under no circumstances permit any great exercise. A return to horseback-riding was right out.
Shortly after the doctor’s departure, Charles informed Lindsey that the coachman, begging his pardon, would appreciate his opinion upon the acquisition of the blue roan yearling they’d spoken of earlier, at his leisure.
“Have him meet me in the library,” said Lindsey.
“Or,” Aubrey interjected, “we might go to see him in the stables.”
Lindsey gave him a look which suggested he thought Aubrey must not have heard Dr Pilkington’s prescription, then glanced at Charles. “I’ll have a reply for him in a moment.”
No sooner had the door clicked shut upon Charles’s retreat than Lindsey turned to Aubrey again.
“I’ve been stuck indoors for weeks,” said Aubrey in response to Lindsey’s unspoken disbelief. “Light exercise would do me better than no exercise at all.”
“Why don’t we go for a walk in the gardens instead?” said Lindsey. “Perfectly unobjectionable, the gardens. And in bloom, no less.”
“While I appreciate the compromise,” Aubrey said, unable to suppress a fond smile even as he argued his point, “I don’t think it will do me any harm to merely stand near a horse. I promise I won’t attempt to mount any stallions. Present company excluded, of course.”
Lindsey blinked at him, then snorted, turning away with a hand over his mouth to stifle the rest of his laughter.
Humour won out, and within the hour, Aubrey, supported on Lindsey’s arm, took his first step outside in almost a month. Though every breath gave him a stinging reminder of his cracked ribs, he relished the taste of fresh air.
Upon their arrival at the stables, Aubrey relinquished his hold on Lindsey so the latter might more effectively converse with the coachman. Their talk of conformation and breeding didn’t quite hold Aubrey’s attention—for which he would later blame the morphine tablets—and he found himself wandering off down the interior of the stables, enjoying the warm atmosphere and the peculiar yet comforting scent of horses. At the opposite end from Lindsey and the coachmen, he encountered a familiar long face.
“Parsival,” said Aubrey, halting his wanderings to address the gelding.
Parsival flicked one ear in his direction.
Aubrey considered the horse. He looked well, he thought. Certainly less damaged by their mutual misadventure than Aubrey himself.
“Sir?”
Aubrey, startled out of his musings, turned to find Fletcher had approached him in the meanwhile. Lindsey and the coachman were nowhere in sight, having evidently gone out of the stable altogether in the course of their conversation. Fletcher seemed as surprised to see Aubrey as Aubrey felt to see him.
“Good morning,” Aubrey managed after a too-long pause.
Fletcher touched the brim of his cap in reply. “Is there anything I might help you with?”
The morphine tablets suppressed Aubrey’s instinctive desire to admit to no need of assistance and scuttle away before he could make a greater fool of himself. Instead, he considered Fletcher’s question at face value.
“Perhaps it’s overly fanciful on my part,” Aubrey said. “But I should like, if possible, to let him know that there are no hard feelings between us. I know it’s not his fault I fell off. And it’s not his fault the storm frightened him so.” He looked self-consciously at Parsival, finding the gelding’s soft brown gaze much easier to meet than the groom’s bewildered stare. “I’d like to get to know him better, before I get back in the saddle. If that sounds like a reasonable goal. I wouldn’t know. I’ve not much horse sense, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
The last self-deprecating addition might have been better left in his head, but it was out now, and Aubrey dared a glance back at Fletcher’s face to see how the groom took it.
While Aubrey wasn’t watching, Fletcher’s confusion had evidently turned to consideration. He looked Aubrey over for a moment longer before saying, “You might know him better afo
re your ribs heal up, but it’ll take him much longer than that to know you. Nothin’ personal,” he added in response to some uncontrolled change in Aubrey’s face. “They don’t track time quite the same way we do. Don’t trust near as easily.”
“How long do you estimate it would take?” Aubrey asked.
“A year,” Fletcher declared, though not without some semblance of regret in his eyes, as if he were sorry to be the one to crush any hopes. “Year an’ a half, maybe.”
Aubrey looked to Parsival again. He knew the gelding understood nothing of their conversation—only that two of the loud bipedal things, one familiar and one strange, had decided to make noise together in front of his stall. Still, Aubrey couldn’t help projecting some small amount of anthropomorphism into the way Parsival bobbed his head and snorted.
Aubrey turned back to Fletcher and said, “No time like the present to get started.”
“Then,” said Fletcher, “you might want to start with this.”
So saying, he produced a carrot from his trouser pocket and broke off a bite-sized chunk, which he held out to Aubrey. Aubrey took it, all the while very aware of Parsival’s increased interest in him. The gelding’s ears, which had ‘til now swivelled idly atop his head, fixed themselves in Aubrey’s direction, and his long neck stretched out of his stall to bring his nose to Aubrey’s chest.
“Hold it out in your palm and keep your hand flat,” Fletcher advised. “His teeth don’t know the difference between a carrot and your fingers.”
With renewed trepidation, Aubrey did as Fletcher instructed. No sooner had he made the carrot available to Parsival than the great flapping lips descended upon his hand to gobble up the treat. Parsival turned away as he munched, or so Aubrey thought, until he realised the turning of the enormous head had served to bring him fully into the focus of one deep brown eye.
“Put a hand on his neck,” Fletcher suggested. “Gentle, now.”
Aubrey carefully laid his horse-spit-slicked palm against Parsival’s thickly muscled neck. He found it warm to the touch, soothingly so, and the short hair more like velvet than the bristle-board he’d expected. He gave Parsival a few soft, slow strokes, then dared to take his eyes off the gelding and turned back to Fletcher.
Fletcher’s moustache twitched. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it, sir?”
“No,” Aubrey admitted, withholding a smile much like the one he suspected Fletcher had just suppressed. He continued petting Parsival all the while, the motion taking the edge off of his anxieties and allowing his mind to run down more productive paths. “What now? Aside from riding—I’m afraid doctor’s orders have forbidden me from vaulting into the saddle again quite so soon.”
Fletcher raised his brows. “There’s not much else to a horse, sir. They like to eat, and they like bein’ turned out to pasture. Only thing left for us to do is groom ‘em, and broadly speakin’, that’s not considered fit work for a gen’leman such as yourself.”
Aubrey’s hand stopped mid-stroke upon Parsival’s neck. He hadn’t realised the staff thought of him as a gentleman. He certainly didn’t think of himself as such, despite his constant efforts at maintaining his decorum. Decency, he thought he’d managed, but no workhouse brat ever grew up to be a gentleman, outside of a Dickens novel.
“If you think me unfit for such work,” Aubrey began, choosing his words with care, “then I’ll defer to your expertise. But I’m eager to learn, if you’ll permit it.”
He knew as well as any working man how obnoxious it could be when laypersons—particularly those in a position of power over one’s self—took too keen an interest in one’s trade. And while, on paper, Aubrey was as much Lindsey’s employee as Fletcher was, it was plain Fletcher didn’t see him that way. Fletcher might feel obligated to humour Aubrey no matter how outlandish his requests or how his presence interfered with the running of the stables. Aubrey didn’t want to make a nuisance of himself. And yet, he did sincerely wish to learn more of horse sense.
Fletcher gave him a considering look. “I don’t suppose I see any objection. So long as it wouldn’t injure your health.”
Aubrey understood his concern. It wouldn’t do to get the master’s particular friend killed. “I promise I won’t do anything beyond my strength.”
He held out his hand to seal the bargain. After a moment, Fletcher clasped it warmly. Then he grabbed a fistful of fresh hay, twisted it into a sort of hand-broom, and began showing Aubrey how to whisk the dust from Parsival’s coat. At last, Aubrey learnt the meaning of the word “withers” when Fletcher pointed to the beast’s shoulders and informed him it was the safest place to stand near a horse, and the point from which he ought to begin brushing.
“Going with the grain of the hair, mind,” Fletcher added as he handed the makeshift brush off to Aubrey.
Aubrey did as instructed. Parsival seemed to notice the change in hands, bending his massive neck to bring his head around to look at Aubrey. Aubrey stopped, and Parsival turned back, only to turn around again the moment Aubrey resumed. As Parsival’s mouth inched closer to his shoulder, Aubrey looked to Fletcher for an answer.
“They groom each other in the pasture,” Fletcher explained, leaning against a post as he watched the proceedings. “He’s trying to return the favour. Though if you don’t want him chewing your sleeve, just pat his neck and he’ll settle down.”
Aubrey reached out his hand accordingly, laying trembling fingers along the thick corded muscles, and Parsival let him alone. Aubrey continued brushing in silence. The repetitive nature of the work proved soothing in a manner he hadn’t anticipated. He even forgot the watchful gaze of Fletcher, recalling his presence only when the groom spoke.
“May I be frank with you, sir?”
“By all means,” Aubrey replied, and in doing so, thought he might be the first man in English history to speak the phrase in earnest.
Fletcher picked up a stalk of hay and twisted it between his thumb and forefinger. “I can’t speak for everyone on the staff, but I think I speak for a good many of us when I say your arrival came as something of a relief.”
Of all the things Aubrey might have anticipated hearing, this had certainly never occurred to him. He could do little more than blink in bewilderment.
“Before you arrived,” Fletcher continued, “we were all rather in the expectation of one of us having to fill the post, as it were. Some fellows, I’m ashamed to say, took bets on who amongst us would have to do it. Some looked forward to it more’n others.”
Aubrey stared in horror as he heard all his worst assumptions confirmed. In taking his place at Lindsey’s side, he taken the place of some other man who aspired to advance his position—and, indeed, had been hired on for that purpose.
Fletcher shrugged. “Can’t say I’d’ve minded it, but I always considered myself a groom first, and whatever else may come after that, second. Still—we were all on tenterhooks waitin’ to see who the master might have. Made things more’n a little tense, as you might imagine. And then you come up like a dark horse. Everythin’ relaxed after that. No more waitin’ and wonderin’ about what further duties might befall us. We could all get back to the business we were hired for—myself eagerly so. I like workin’ with horses. You might’ve noticed,” he added dryly.
Aubrey chuckled at that. Privately, he supposed it must prove much easier to concentrate on such work when one no longer had to keep an eye over one’s shoulder in case today might be the day upon which one’s master took particular notice of one’s backside.
“What I’m tryin’ to say, sir,” Fletcher continued, “is we’re glad to have you. You’ve made Sir Lindsey quite happy, and we’d like the household to continue on in such harmony as you’ve brought to it.”
Words couldn’t express the relief Aubrey felt to know the few voices he’d overheard didn’t speak for all who worked upon the Wiltshire estate. He tried to convey a fraction of his immense gratitude in his reply. “Thank you, Fletcher.”
Fletcher’s mousta
che twitched in a smile.
He might have said more, but at that moment, the coachman returned to the stable with Lindsey.
Lindsey, mid-sentence—indeed, mid-word—broke off his conversation to stare at Aubrey.
Aubrey, still brushing Parsival, stared back. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Lindsey replied, appearing no less puzzled, though he nonetheless went back to speaking with the coachman, and only when he’d concluded their discussion of horseflesh did he turn his attention to Aubrey again.
Fletcher, meanwhile, had stepped forward to take the makeshift brush from Aubrey and untwist it back into mere hay, which then joined its brethren upon the floor of the stable, as though it’d never been anything more. Then, with another touch of his cap brim, Fletcher dismissed himself to continue his duties.
Aubrey resumed patting Parsival’s neck as Lindsey approached. In response to the unspoken question writ large over Lindsey’s features, he replied, “I promised I wouldn’t ride a horse. I never said anything about grooming one.”
Lindsey shook his head, chuckling. He offered Aubrey his arm once more and led him back up to the house.
~
Halloway took his leave on an unassuming morning in the middle of the week, just after breakfast. Aubrey and Lindsey bid him farewell in the library and watched through the window as the family carriage rattled off down the drive to deliver Halloway to the train station, and from thence to London, where he would reunite with Graves and give over his masterpiece to the gallery.
Some hours passed in quiet recreation, with Lindsey perusing the Strand, Aubrey the Engineer. The crunch of wheels on gravel announced the return of the family carriage. Aubrey glanced up in idle curiosity, intending to resume his reading in short order, but found his attention arrested by the sight in the courtyard.
“Emmeline?” he blurted in disbelief.
“What?” said Lindsey, looking up from his own literature.
Throw His Heart Over Page 13
