Page 37 of The Winter Companion

“I can brush her while she eats,” Neville said. “And check her…her bandage. If you’ll pass me that box?”

Miss Hartwright retrieved the wooden box of brushes. A roll of cotton gauze, and a small bottle of liniment were tucked inside of it. She smiled as she handed it to him. “You’ve charmed her, utterly.”

He took the box, his bare fingers brushing hers. The brief contact sent a jolt of heat through his belly. “It’s nothing.”

“Indeed it is. You have a way with animals, Mr. Cross. I admire it very much.”

He didn’t know quite what to say to that. He’d always been good with animals. But since his accident, being with them had become even more meaningful to him.

Since his accident.

He still thought of it as if it had happened recently. But it was decades now. In truth, he scarcely recalled what his life had been like before.

“It’s easier with them,” he replied at last. “They don’t expect me to…to talk.”

“But you do speak to them.”

He shrugged. “Nonsense words.”

“I like a bit of nonsense. So does she. Don’t you, Betty?” Miss Hartwright crooned. “What a handsome girl you are.”

Neville’s mouth twitched. Gauze and liniment in hand, he crouched down beside Betty’s front leg. She gave one half-hearted stamp of her hoof. After that, she was too consumed with eating her mash to pay him much mind.

“You said there weren’t many of them left. Do you know how many?”

“On Dartmoor?” He slowly removed the old gauze from Betty’s leg. “Hundreds, probably.”

“So few? I wonder if they’re in danger of going extinct? Like the creatures Mr. Darwin writes about in his book.”

He shot her a questioning look.

“Charles Darwin. The naturalist. He calls it natural selection. It’s nature’s way of winnowing out the weak creatures and fostering the bloodlines of the strong.”

Neville massaged liniment into Betty’s leg. “The ponies are strong enough. It’s the people who won’t…who won’t leave them alone.”

“Do you believe they’ll die out?”

“Not if something’s done to help them.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as…” Neville faltered. He had ideas, of course. A surfeit of them. But there was nothing he could do directly. Not while remaining at Greyfriar’s Abbey.

What the ponies required was an advocate. Someone who could help to protect them, and replenish their numbers. It’s what he hoped Mr. Atkyns had been doing in Tavistock. The bar man at the King’s Arms had said as much.

Old Atkyns is keen on preserving the breed. You should speak with him.

But Mr. Atkyns hadn’t responded to Neville’s letter. Not yet.

“I don’t know.” He rolled a fresh bandage over Betty’s leg. “But the ponies need…someone.”

Miss Hartwright folded her arms on the top of the door, resting her chin on her hands. “Has it occurred to you that that someone might be you?”

It had occurred to Neville. And it occurred to him again the following afternoon when he received Mr. Atkyns’s letter. Only it wasn’t from Mr. Atkyns.

It was from his widow.

“He’s dead,” Neville said blankly, the letter held open in his hand.