“Not d-difficult. Just…”

“Traveling into Abbot’s Holcombe wasn’t difficult? You couldn’t even manage to do so for my wedding last year. It can’t have been easy for you.”

It hadn’t been.

Located thirteen miles up the coast from the Abbey, Abbot’s Holcombe was now a fashionable resort town. But two decades ago, it had been a bleak and stormy place, more notable for its parish orphanage than for its pleasing prospects of the sea.

Neville had hoped to never see the place again.

He’d refused to attend Justin’s wedding, it was true. A cowardly decision Neville had come to regret.

When Alex had arrived last week on the train, Neville had determined not to make the same mistake again. He couldn’t refuse to meet his childhood friend at the station. The very friend who’d saved Neville’s life on the day of his accident. Abbot’s Holcombe was just a place, after all. It wasn’t a person. And it certainly wasn’t responsible for the ills that had befallen him.

Nevertheless…

As he’d climbed down from the carriage and onto the railway platform, his palms had grown damp, and his pulse had accelerated with alarming swiftness.

“Tom and Jenny will be returning for dinner this evening,” Justin said. “I won’t insist you join us. I’ll only remind you that this is your home, and that you’re among friends. Don’t isolate yourself down here. It serves no purpose.”

“I’m not. I—”

“I know you prefer it, even at the best of times, but this is Christmas. And we’re all together at last. The eloquence of your speech will be the last thing on people’s minds.”

Neville shook his head. “You don’t understand. You can’t.”

“Oh, can’t I? Do you think I don’t know what it’s like to be looked at askance?”

“Yes, but…” Neville scarcely noticed Justin’s burns anymore. And when he did, they didn’t alarm him. They were merely a reminder of his friend’s bravery and strength of character. “You’re a hero.”

Justin snorted. “Hardly.”

“Lady Helena says—”

“Of course Helena says so. She’s my wife.” A smile edged Justin’s mouth. Any mention of Lady Helena always served to boost his spirits. “How is your speech any more repellent than my burns? And what about Laura’s brother? He’s in a wheeled chair, for God’s sake. A dashed nuisance, I expect, for a young lad like him. And yet he’s here—among strangers, no less.”

Neville’s gaze dropped to the straw-covered floor of the stables. He knew what Justin was trying to do. He was attempting to make him feel better. But one’s infirmities weren’t any easier to tolerate simply because some other poor chap had it worse.

Besides, faulty speech was different from burn scars or a wheeled chair. Language went to the heart of a person’s humanity. It was the dividing line between men and beasts. And for a man of his size to stammer, and stutter. To forget his words entirely, or to blurt them out like a disordered child… It was worse than embarrassing. It was shameful.