Is that what Miss Hartwright thought when he spoke? That he was some manner of simpleton?

He brought his gaze back to her.

But Miss Hartwright was no longer looking at him. Her head was turned to Mr. Hayes. The two of them were engaged in an animated conversation. One that sounded as though it had been going on for some little while. “Pencil sketches and watercolors are the extent of my artistic skills, sir,” she was saying to him. “And those very poorly. I wouldn’t dream of using oils.”

“Have you ever tried them?” Mr. Hayes asked. “They aren’t as intimidating as they may seem.”

A pit of anxiety formed in Neville’s stomach. He’d looked away from Miss Hartwright for only a moment, hadn’t he? At least, it had seemed like a moment.

How much time had really passed?

For how many minutes had he drifted off in his head? How long had he appeared blank-faced and unresponsive?

Long enough for Miss Hartwright to have abandoned their conversation and turned back to Mr. Hayes.

Neville stared down at his plate. Frustration roiled within him. He had to force himself to pick up his fork and knife. To cut into his roasted fowl, and to swallow it down.

The chatter of the other guests sounded all around him. Lady Helena speaking with Alex Archer. Laura Archer speaking with Tom Finchley.

“Are you all right?” Jenny Finchley’s low voice sounded from the seat on his left.

He glanced at her. She’d lived with them at the Abbey for a short time before leaving to travel the world, and to—later—marry Tom. Neville had come to know her. To like her. “I’m fine. Just…eating.”

Her brows knit with concern. “You’ve gone very quiet.”

He shrugged. “Nothing to say.”

Clara wrapped her woolen shawl tighter about her shoulders as she stood at the library window. Raindrops streamed down the glass in a haphazard pattern. She could scarcely make out the churning sea in the distance. It was too dark and too wet, the sky and the water appearing to blend together in a continuous storm of gray.

“Do sit down, Miss Hartwright,” Mrs. Bainbridge said. “You’re making me nervous with all that pacing.”

Clara glanced back at her employer. Mrs. Bainbridge was seated by the fire, working diligently at a scrap of embroidery.

Mr. Boothroyd was in the library as well, hunched over a desk in the corner, scribbling away in a ledger with quill and ink.

Clara wished she was as busily employed. “Forgive me.” She returned to her chair opposite Mrs. Bainbridge and sat down. “I’m a little restless this morning.”

She’d woken at sunrise to the sound of rain pounding on the roof, and after carrying Bertie to the rose garden to attend to his personal needs, had been unable to go back to sleep. There was too much on her mind. Too many plans to form and decisions to make.