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Alicia felt Laurence stiffen beside her. “Is that…so?” he asked, unsure.
She clarified, with a humourless laugh. “I know that must make me sound outright monstrous. I am…just so very sure she will find some way to blame me for the carriage accident. As if I caused it purely to inconvenience her or to waste our family’s money.”
“But surely that’s ridiculous!”
Alicia nodded sadly. “Surely. Yet that is her way. It always has been, for as long as I can remember.”
She frowned, unsure why she had decided to allow herself to divulge such a private matter to this stranger. Yet the floodgates were open, and she heard herself continue to loose the miseries that she had always kept locked within herself.
“She and I have never gotten along. I know it’s silly to say, really, we were just children. But my first memories of Grace are of being shouted at or poked with a hatpin, and I have precious few pleasant memories of her at all.”
She felt tears dripping down her cheeks now, a steady trickle that matched the flow of words she loosed in the vast barn. Still Laurence listened silently as her hands moved, steady and unceasing, against Victoria’s sleek brown coat.
“I really expected that when Mother died things might be different. As though somehow, after this terrible tragedy, everything about Grace might suddenly be different.” She shrugged and blew out an exasperated sigh. “I suppose I thought she might stop thinking we have to compete with one another for Mother’s affection. But it grew worse then, if anything. And worse still, after Father died this year.”
That was where Alicia put an end to her lamentations. Not because there was no more to say—while Grace’s various cruelties and ill treatment had never been truly horrific, they had certainly been varied over the years—but because she suddenly felt very tired, and lacked the wherewithal to continue.
“That’s…truly a terrible thing, Miss Ramsbury,” said Laurence softly. “I’m very sorry to hear it. If I had known, I certainly would not have—”
“It’s all right,” Alicia answered.
That terrible blanket of silence fell over the two of them once again. Alicia shuddered gently, though the barn was a warm and stuffy place, and found herself wishing she could be held and comforted by someone—but that was impossible.
“Here, let me show you—” Laurence said, stepping so close Alicia could practically feel him breathing next to her.
She jerked her head up to look the man in the eye, then felt all her hairs stand on end as he took her pale, thin hand in his own. “What are—” she began to ask, but her protests caught helplessly in her throat.
He guided her hand up to a spot behind Victoria’s ear as though to demonstrate a particular favourite scratching place, but Alicia found herself suddenly unable to follow what it was he had intended. Her heart began beating hard enough to block out the constant animal noise, and she became more aware of every fine detail on the man’s large, rough hand than she had of any object she had touched in her life.
His hand is so big,she thought, looking at his fingers curled around hers.And though it is covered in callouses, the way it guides my own hand is so gentle, almost tender.
Alicia suddenly realized that Laurence had stopped in his demonstration, and no longer seemed to be explaining the finer points of horse spoiling. She looked up into his eyes to see that he was already looking at her, a blush coming to his already ruddy cheeks.
Whether or not he felt the same quiver at the touch of their skin that Alicia felt ignite within her—that she could not say. All she knew is that they both looked away at that moment, then hurriedly made some excuse to continue their walk elsewhere.
