Hadrian Read Free

more capable of lingering in a man’s memory.
    “Harold is your only brother too,” Avis observed as she deftly disassembled her flute and packed it in a velvet-lined case. “You have a life with the church, and Harold has no business calling you from the Lord’s work to hold the reins at Landover while Harold larks about for a few months.”
    Of course she would think Hadrian was here only for the nonce. God willing, every gossip in the shire would see Hal’s trip in exactly the same light, until the permanence of Hal’s remove became quietly apparent.
    “The Lord’s work in Rosecroft village was not urgent,” Hadrian answered truthfully. “Not to me and not to my parishioners.”
    “You had unhappy memories there.” Avis draped a cloth over her flute and closed the case. “One can understand this.”
    She referred to Rue’s death, and her solicitude left him feeling like a fraud. He fell back on small talk—a vicar’s handiest weapon.
    “I have happy memories too,” he said. “But tell me how you go on, Lady Avis. Harold was a fine correspondent regarding crops yields and pounds of fleece, but not much for passing along the neighborhood news.”
    She slipped her arm through his, as if they hadn’t walked home from church together for the last time more than twelve years ago.
    “Harold was so happy when you took a post here in the North. It’s all we heard about for months. He’s very proud of you.”
    Which made one of them. “He’s the best of brothers. Overlooking my flaws goes with the description.”
    Hadrian admonished himself to work on his sincerity. Hal
was
the best of brothers, regardless of his travel plans or preferred company, and Hadrian was nobody to judge him.
    Hadrian was out of the judgment business, and glad of it.
    “Will you join me for breakfast?” Avis asked as they made their way through the pines. “I rarely have company at Blessings, much less company I’m so glad to see.”
    “I would be pleased to join you.” The church imbued a man with surpassing manners, though sooner or later, the past must intrude on Hadrian’s dealings with Lady Avis. That moment would make all of his awkward discussions with Harold pale in comparison. “Riding in this air gives a man an appetite.”
    “You always could put away a decent meal, and your gelding looks like a horse who enjoys a good gallop.”
    “Caesar is a St. Just horse,” Hadrian said, taking the reins in his free hand. “He’s fit as the devil without being hot-tempered.” Rather like Harold.
    “And handsome,” Avis added as they turned onto the track down the hill. “St. Just is the new Earl of Rosecroft?”
    “He is,” Hadrian replied, pushing a pine branch aside for her. “Former cavalry, as well as a friend.”
    “I’m glad you had some friends in Yorkshire. I imagine leading a flock can be a lonely business.”
    All manner of well-polished scriptural allusions begged to come bleating into the conversation. Hadrian pushed those aside too.
    “Some flocks engender loneliness, for the congregation as well as its leader,” Hadrian allowed, though it had taken him two years to put that label on the emotion his pastoral duties had inspired. “I hope that’s not the case here?”
    He was done with church business, utterly, absolutely, and that meant he didn’t have to listen to griping about the vicar’s sermons or the curate’s inability to patch together a church without funds. Nonetheless, he hoped Avis found consolation in the company to be had at services.
    “I do not attend,” she said, dropping his arm.
    Silence descended as they made their way down the hill, with Hadrian resenting the need to say something. He wasn’t her spiritual authority, not her vicar, not even officially a fellow parishioner that she should burden him with this.
    “I’m sorry,” Avis said when they reached the bottom of the hill. “It will be like this for us, won’t it? I’ll understand if you want to decline