Page 28 of A Gathering Storm
“I’ll ride with you, if you’ll wait till—” Isabella began, but he didn’t even wait to hear her out. Just strode away.
“Can’t today,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m already late.”
That wasn’t true and the scowl on Isabella’s face told him she suspected as much, but he didn’t care. He was a steward here, not a nursemaid. Isabella would have to find her own entertainment.
Besides, she was the last person he wanted with him today. He planned to drop by each of Godfrey’s tenants, in an informal way. It was a few weeks till the next quarter’s rent was due, and since Godfrey was a stickler about prompt payment, Nick liked to ferret out any possible difficulties in advance. It was an approach that had proven invaluable last year when Abel Pendleton had been short for Michaelmas rent and Nick had had a chance before rent day fell to soften Godfrey up to letting the man have another month to pay the full amount. The tenants were reluctant to admit to any difficulties as it was—the last thing Nick needed was Godfrey’s granddaughter hovering at his shoulder and making them clam up altogether.
Thankfully though, it seemed that none of the tenants had any such difficulties this quarter. Nick had a good long talk with each of them to satisfy himself on that score and carried out a myriad of other tasks besides—examining a suspect ewe for foot rot, inspecting the crumbling end of a boundary wall, making a list of repairs needed to the barn on Pendleton’s holding and giving the man a much needed talking-to about proper upkeep.
By early afternoon he was done, though not quite ready to return to Roscarrock House and Godfrey’s irascible company over the ledgers. Instead, he took Valentine down to Constantine Bay and rode him up and down the wide stretch of beach, right on the edge of the waves so that his fetlocks splashed through the salty water.
The wind ripped through Nick’s thick hair as he rode, and though it was an overcast day for the most part, from time to time the sun would split through the clouds, bathing the beach with sudden, unexpected sunshine. It was glorious. Glorious to ride the big, powerful gelding and feel all the world about him. Everything brimming with life and energy.
Eventually, Valentine tired and Nick dismounted. He led the gelding into town by his bridle, as much to stretch his own legs as to spare the horse’s. Thirsty now, he tied the horse up at the hitching post outside the Hope & Anchor and went inside.
The first person he saw was Jed Hammett, leaning back against the bar, a tankard held loosely in one meaty fist. When he caught sight of Nick, his eyes gleamed with his usual expression—mingled pleasure and malice. No doubt the man was already anticipating taunting him.
“Jed.” Nick nodded at him briefly, then turned his attention to Jim who was stepping up to the bar to serve him.
“How do, Jim?”
“Aw’right, Nick.” The hulking innkeeper was already reaching up for one of the tankards that hung from the hooks on the beam above the bar. “Ale, is it?”
“Ayes.”
As he usually did when he was speaking to one of the villagers, or Godfrey’s tenants, Nick fell back into the rhythms of his childhood speech. They were a laconic people round here for the most part. No words wasted. Ma, who had travelled all over England, said people in Porthkennack rolled their words up together to get them out with as little effort as possible.
“Not like the folks up north. They talk slow, like they’re chewin’ on the words like tough mutton. Takes ’em all day jest to ask ’ow you are!”
Nick was a magpie when it came to speech. As a lad, he’d had one voice for the villagers, another for Ma, and a third for Godfrey—a careful, proper English one, that one, quite close to Godfrey’s own, though with enough of the Cornishman in it to avoid being accused of mimicking, or getting above himself.
That proper voice was the one he’d used with Ward last Sunday. He’d fallen into using it without thinking, probably because, even though Ward’s own voice was harsh and rasping, it was still precise and upper class, reminding Nick inevitably of the Roscarrocks, with those clipped consonants and distinct vowels. Nick’s proper voice was all at the front of his mouth, at the tip of his tongue, the words falling from his lips like silver pins. His Cornish burr felt entirely different. It bubbled up from under his tongue, like water from a spring.
His Roma voice, the one he’d used only with Ma, felt like a secret part of him. One he didn’t even hear himself anymore.
“’Ere you go, Nick,” Jim said, setting a pewter tankard down on the bar in front of Nick before moving away to serve another customer.
Beside him, Jed turned to face him, leaning one elbow on the bar.
“What you been up to lately then, Nick ’Earn?”
“Nothing much,” Nick answered shortly. He lifted his ale and drank deeply.
Jed chuckled. “Giss on!” he said, and when Nick glanced at him in query, winked at him. “I did hear tell you was up at that lunatic scientist’s house last week. Did he ’lectrify you?”
Nick sighed. He might’ve known word would have got out about that.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Jed, but no. No ’lectrifying at all,” he answered, and lifted his tankard to his lips again.
“I was right surprised to hear you’d been there,” Jed persisted. “You told ’im right ’ere to his face you wouldn’t go.” He raised one thick eyebrow. “Why d’you change your mind?”
“None of your business,” Nick replied flatly.
Jed chuckled again. “You’re not bein’ very friendly today, Nick. What’s got you so teasy?”
“Nothin’,” Nick bit out. “What d’you want, Jed? I’m in no mood for your nonsense today.”
It was foolish to let his temper show. Jed had an instinct for sore spots and was the type to keep pressing them out of sheer badness. But the thought of the man finding out the real reason Nick had agreed to help Ward with his experiments made Nick feel ill.