Page 49 of Snowdrops and Winterberry
Lord Jonquil took his son and moved back toward his wife and the little boy they had all but adopted, who was turned away from Robbie, fully consumed in the greetings he was receiving from this generous couple.
Howard pulled Robbie into a tender and affectionate embrace. “He looks happy, Robbie. And he seems quite sure of himself. More so than when we last saw him.”
She leaned against her beloved husband. “He is growing up.”
“No longer as tiny as a thistle.”
“He is also no longer alone,” she said. “And neither am I.”
“Life’s been good to us, my Robbie.”
Across the way, Adam was eyeing the infant Lord Jonquil held. He didn’t seem to know what to say or do with a baby, but he was quite content to lean against “Mother Julia” and listen to all she had to say about tiny Philip, Lord Fallowgill.
“Now, Adam, I will set aside my motherly gushing and suggest you make the ‘good day’ that is several months in the making.”
He looked up at Lady Jonquil, clearly confused.
“There is someone standing not far from here, watching all this,” she said. “We’ve kept you so distracted that you haven’t spotted her yet.” Lady Jonquil motioned to where Robbie and Howard stood.
Adam turned and looked in the direction Lady Jonquil had indicated. His greeting would, Robbie didn’t doubt, be very sedate and proper. That had been very much his way when they’d last parted. It appeared to be even more so now.
To her delighted shock, he grinned and ran directly to her, calling out, “Nurse Robbie!”
In an instant, she was holding her beloved boy to her, clutching him tight, and silently blessing the heavens for moments like these.
From within her embrace, Adam said, “Mr. Simpkin, you’re here as well.” And he sounded truly pleased.
“I’d not miss seeing you for all the world, Your Grace.” Howard set a hand on Adam’s back and his other arm around Robbie. “It wouldn’t be a Twelfth Night celebration without you here.”
Adam leaned back and looked into Robbie’s eyes, excitement dancing in his. “Is it Twelfth Night?”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “We have plans to decorate the house in greenery, gather all the games we can think of—”
“Wassail the tree?” Adam asked eagerly.
“Of course,” Howard answered.
“And eat cake,” Lord Jonquil added, he and his family having joined them.
“And crown a monarch,” Lady Jonquil said.
Adam looked at all of them, smiling and happy and, at last, hopeful. “And we’ll be together. That is the best part of Christmas. The very best part.”
Their Christmas miracle continued to be a blessing, and life was, indeed, very, very good.
Bonus Epilogue
December 1791
Adam had discovered very quicklyduring his first year at Harrow that it was tradition for fathers to visit their sons at school, a tradition he had been told continued at Oxford. He’d resigned himself immediately to not being part of that. And he’d told himself firmly that he didn’t care.
But Lucas had, without Adam saying a word about any of it, visited him multiple time at Harrow. He’d worried a little that Lucas and Mother Julia would forget about him as the years passed. They didn’t live at Brier Hill any longer, and they had four children of their own now. He didn’t entirely know how to make sense of their continued presence in his life.
That confusion, however, did not prevent him from accepting the invitation Lucas had extended when he’d arrived at Harrow a couple of days before school recessed for Christmas. Adam would be spending the festive season at Lampton Park.
He’d not had a Christmas with his honorary family in four years. He’d visited them at Lampton Park, just not as part of the holy season. That the prospect made him as nervous as it did eager was a frustrating thing.
He was thirteen years old now, hardly a baby. Yet he was acting embarrassingly infantile.
