Page 27 of Snowdrops and Winterberry
Here, though, he wasn’t alone. Decorations filled the room. He’d had presents. They were going to play a game. Lady Jonquil had said Christmas wasn’t ridiculous. Adam had his suspicions Christmas was actually rather magical.
Masked tag was not a difficult game, he discovered. One simply had to move quickly. He was good at that part. Mr. Simpkin caught and identified Lady Jonquil, who then caught and identified her husband. All the while, Adam kept enough away not to be caught himself. He even grew a bit bolder in calling out to the one doing the seeking.
Lord Jonquil spun about very suddenly and snatched hold of him.
“This can’t be Mr. Simpkin,” he said. “Mr. Simpkin is much smaller.”
Adam then did something he could remember doing only a few times in all his life: he laughed. He laughed from deep in his belly. The laughter rushed out of him before he could stop it. Then, without warning, the laughing turned to crying.
As embarrassed as he had been while talking about his mother, these tears were humiliating. Without a word, Lord Jonquil tugged the black cloth away from his eyes, snatched Adam into his arms, and pulled him into a fierce and protective hug.
Adam wrapped his arms around his neck and held on as if his life depended upon not letting go. He hadn’t the courage to look at the others. If they were eyeing him with pity or, worse yet, mocking his sorrow, he’d be devastated. So he buried his face against Lord Jonquil and pretended no one else was nearby.
“Perhaps it is time for telling stories,” Lady Jonquil suggested.
Lord Jonquil sat on a nearby chair, still holding Adam. Father had sometimes held him like this. It was a different hug from Lady Jonquil’s. Hers felt like a soft, warm blanket. LordJonquil’s felt like being safe.
“You can use your handkerchief to wipe at your eyes,” Lord Jonquil said. “That’s one reason we carry them.”
“I’m sorry,” Adam whispered.
“For what, sweeting?”
“For crying on you.”
Lord Jonquil held him ever tighter. “The most important thing a person can do when he feels the need to cry is to cry.”
“Even dukes?” he asked, his voice tinier than he liked it to be.
“Maybeespeciallydukes.” Lord Jonquil also spoke soft and small.
Adam curled into him, clutching the handkerchief. He wasn’t to be scolded or sent away. And Lord Jonquil wasn’t talking about this so loudly that others would overhear. Adam had spent so much of the months since his father’s death fighting for himself. Feeling protected was a welcome change.
“I’ll tell the first story,” Lady Jonquil said. “I know a wonderfully funny one about Lord Jonquil.”
Adam could feel the gentleman in question laugh, though he did so silently. He’d never experienced that before. It made him smile even with tears still wetting his cheeks.
“When Lord Jonquil was about fourteen years old,” Lady Jonquil said, “he and my brother, Stanley, decided that they were going to set up a house of their own in the boathouse at Lampton Park, where Lord Jonquil then lived.”
Adam turned the tiniest bit, just enough to hear her better. Lord Jonquil kept his arms around him, but not forcefully.
“They gathered blankets and changes of clothing. Determined to feed themselves as well, they made certain the boathouse contained fishing poles and nets. They slipped a backgammon board from Farland Meadows into the boathouse for entertainment. They were even thorough enough to make certain they had a lantern for light.”
Adam looked at Lord Jonquil. “You were like highwaymen with a hideaway.”
He nodded. “Stanley knew how to have the best adventures.”
“What the two of them didn’t think of, though,” Lady Jonquil continued, “was what would happen if their plans were discovered by... Lord Jonquil’s younger brother.”
Adam turned his eyes on the gentleman again. “You had a younger brother?”
“Two, in fact. And a little sister.”
It was probably a good thing Adam didn’t have any brothers or sisters. They would be alone now too. And they would be sad. And Nurse Robbie would be overwhelmed looking after all of them.
“His brother James discovered their plans and hatched one of his own.” Lady Jonquil’s voice had grown mysterious.
Adam turned and faced her.
