Hadrian Read Free Page B

Portmaine was pretty, vital, and confident. In some ways, Hadrian resented her, for she’d replaced a quiet, withdrawn young woman who’d needed him when he’d never been needed before. But that young woman hadn’t entirely faded, either, for it had been she, the victim of an unspeakable crime, who’d made that comment about it being “like this” for them before she’d invited him to depart.
    Hadrian was no longer eighteen and clueless about how to go on—a vicar also dealt with tragedy and ill fortune in quantity. Nor was he willing to give up a decent breakfast, when it would appease the convention that said he should call upon his closest neighbor now that he was home.
    “Did you get my letter?” Avis asked.
    Hadrian had to cast back to recover the sense of her words. “I did. Your condolences were much appreciated.”
    “You miss her?”
    “I do,” he said, because that was expected, then, “It’s been two years, and one adjusts.” Because that was honest.
    “One does. I will miss Harold sorely; he’s been a dear friend.”
    “Also a wonderful caretaker of our lands. He’s leaving Landover in my hands when I’ve never had responsibility for more than a vegetable garden.” The tending of which had been enjoyable only when compared to chairing pastoral committee meetings.
    Another spike of gratuitous irritation shot through Hadrian’s morning, along with a wave of weary bewilderment.
    When would he
settle
? When would he let his old life go and come to terms with whatever this new life would be? When would he stop whining like a boy deprived of his sweet?
    Lady Avis bent to snap off a daffodil gone brown and wrinkled. “Your brother loves Landover, so we must conclude he doesn’t simply want to travel, he needs to.”
    Oh, delightful. Harold had not merely a friend in Lady Avis, but an advocate for his damned schemes. Hadrian trudged back into the conversation, trying not to let the effort of making idle talk show in his tone.
    “What do you hear from your brothers?”
    “Benjamin is in London, keeping a discreet eye on Alex, who has threatened to leave her post in Sussex. Wilhelm is off in Sweden, I think, or Norway by now, and will no doubt wander the north until the end of summer.”
    “What does he find to do up there?” What would Harold find to do in Denmark—other than make sheep’s eyes at Finch?
    “Who knows? It’s time and past Vim took a wife and settled down, but we’ve Viking blood in our veins, and Vim must wander and call it trading in various goods.”
    Hadrian was perversely cheered to realize Avis had also been orphaned by excesses of familial
wanderlust
. “Lady Alexandra is in the south as well?”
    Avis paused on the bottom step of a side entrance to the manor house, near a pot of roses still mostly leaves and thorns.
    “Alexandra hides, Hadrian. She is an heiress and pretty, and yet she has wasted years governessing at some medieval hall on the southern coast. Her charge’s mother has remarried, though, and this means Alex will soon be off again, like a tinker without a home or coin of her own.”
    The past abruptly swooped close to the conversation again, a raptor hungry to pounce on any stray comment, any veiled allusion.
    “Lady Alexandra might enjoy being a governess.” Though Hadrian couldn’t reconcile that calling with the outspoken, bookish young lady he’d known.
    Avis led the way into the house, which was cool and dark compared to the sunny outdoors. “Spare me your manners, Hadrian. Alex needs children of her own, a place to set down roots and to build a life.”
Hadrian followed her inside in silence, for Avis was likely the one hiding, the one lacking roots, the one…. Maybe she would not want children, would not be able to endure conceiving them.
    “How does Hazelton stay out of trouble when he’s not keeping an eye on Lady Alex?” The question seemed safe enough, though Hadrian’s store of safe topics was running perilously