Page 1 of Snowdrops and Winterberry
Chapter One
March 1786
Falstone Castle had been extremelyquiet for the past few months. The late Duke of Kielder had died four months earlier. His son, Adam, a mere seven years old at the time, had been sent to live near Harrow School. The widowed duchess, as always, was away, traveling and spending time elsewhere. Robbie MacGregor had found the silence intolerable. She was not one who preferred chaos and noise, but the quiet was disconcerting because it served as a reminder that her time as nursemaid to the young duke was coming to a close.
Adam, now only just turned eight, was too young to be at Harrow and was living in a nearby boardinghouse specifically for wee boys whose families had sent them away before their schooltime was meant to begin. They lived there on the same schedule as the older boys who were attending Harrow, and their days were filled with lessons and schooling, like those of their older counterparts. It was both a school and a substitute home for boys who were far too young for either one. Adam would not be at Falstone Castle often anymore. And when he was, he was at the age when a governess was a far more fitting choice than a nursemaid.
Robbie was accustomed to the need to find new employment when the wee bairns she looked after outgrew their need for her. Indeed, before his passing, the late duke had indicated she ought to begin that search again. He and his wife had been estranged nearly all of Adam’s life, and it had been unlikely that there’d be more children in the castle to look after. Now that Adam was fatherless, it was a guarantee.
She cared about all the little ones she’d looked after over the years, but Adam held a special place in her heart. His lifehad been difficult, torn between two parents who were forever at odds with each other, desperate to please them both but not having the first idea how. He was quiet and shy but also deeply curious and had a heart that, while guarded, was tender and compassionate. She’d been concerned about him before his father’s passing; she was full worried for him now.
But a ray of hope had arrived a week before Adam’s return from his first school term break: a letter from Brier Hill, a small estate about a day’s drive from Falstone Castle. Lord and Lady Jonquil were inviting Adam to spend his school holiday with them. The young couple had met him during the last ball held at Falstone Castle before the old duke’s passing. They were kind and had taken a particular interest in him. They’d sent him letters, asking how he was, expressing their sorrow at his grief. Adam was wary of strangers, but Robbie suspected this visit would do him a heap of good.
She stepped inside the master’s bedchamber. The duchess had insisted Adam take up residence there after his father’s death, pulling him from the nursery that had once been his domain. Robbie’d been in no position to deny the order, but how she wished Adam’s mother could see how unhappy he was in this space. It, no doubt, reminded him painfully of his father. And the room was far too large for an eight-year-old boy. The servants had had to find a box for him to stand on simply to get into the bed. The dressing table, the washbasin, even the windows, were set too high for him. The room stood as a stark reminder of what Adam had lost and the burden his tiny shoulders now carried.
He sat in an armchair near the fireplace, dressed in the black of mourning, bent over a book. She wished it were a lighthearted book, the sort most wee’uns read at his age. He’d taken far too much to heart his role as the Duke of Kielder and the master of this castle. He’d become ever more quiet and withdrawn, and henever seemed happy. That change, in particular, fair broke her heart.
She had, under strict orders from the duchess, sent a scared, innocent little boy off to a cold and uncaring boardinghouse to undertake schooling instead of remaining at the castle, surrounded by people who cared about him. He had returned harder and more unhappy and, in many ways, unreachable.
“Well then, my wee Adam, it’s time we were off.”
He closed his book on his lap. His posture remained quite rigid, quite formal. That had become his way while he was gone. He’d never been the easy, relaxed child others were, but this degree of feigned maturity was new for him.
“I’m not certain I want to go.” His imperious tone would likely fool many people into thinking he was stubborn and autocratic. Robbie knew him too well to believe such a thing. Her wee Adam was scared.
“Lady Jonquil said in her invitation that she very much wishes to see you. Disappointing a lady is nae a gentlemanly thing to do.” Robbie had discovered in the single day Adam had been home that he responded more to appeals to his ideas about the correct way for a duke to act than he did to anything else.
His little mouth twisted, pulling at the spiderweb of scars that marred the right side of his face. The sweet boy had been born with a stump of an ear and had endured far too many procedures undertaken by different surgeons. That they had butchered him would be obvious for the rest of his life.
“Would my father have gone to Brier Hill if Lord and Lady Jonquil had invited him?” Adam asked.
Robbie nodded. “He would have, aye, especially if they’d written to him as often as Lord and Lady Jonquil have written to you.”
“But what if they don’t really want me to visit? What if they are only asking because they think they’re supposed to?” Therewas a wee inkling of the uncertain and tenderhearted little Adam she had loved so much these past eight years.
“I do nae think they’d have invited you if they weren’t anxious to see you.”
“But that would be ridiculous.”
Robbie had to bite back a smile at the all-too-familiar word. Adam had adopted “ridiculous” as his favorite descriptor several months earlier. “Why, wee boy, would that be ridiculous?”
“I only met them once. I’m not their friend. I’m not their son. Mothers and fathers want their children to visit at term break.” His countenance fell a little. “Most do, leastwise.”
The poor bairn. He was well aware his mother hadn’t sent for him to spend his term break with her.
Robbie sat on the ottoman placed in front of the chair that engulfed this tiny boy and his enormous burdens. “I think they should very much like to have you visit. They would not have written to you if they did not like you and want to have you come to Brier Hill.”
He sat for a moment, thinking. “People do like to have dukes visit.”
“Dukes are sought-after guests, aye.” Oh, how she wished he understood he was more than a duke. But if leaning on that meant he would undertake this visit, she was willing to go along. He needed to be away from this castle, away from the reminder of his father’s death and his mother’s defection. He needed a term break filled with something happy and uplifting before returning to the boardinghouse, where she suspected he’d been terribly unhappy.
Adam gave a firm, regal nod of his head. He slid off the chair. How tiny he looked in this enormous room.
“We had best go,” he said, his little eight-year-old voice sounding far too old.
Robbie held out her hand to him. He didn’t take it but walkedwith a ramrod posture from the room. He had once clung to her hand like any little one would. That too had changed while he was away.
She ought to be encouraging the separation, knowing it was only a matter of time before the duchess chose to let Robbie go and hire a governess. But this wee lad, with his high rank and his low spirits, needed her. He was hurting and alone. If she were gone, he would slip further and further away.
