Chapter Five

“I don’t understand the purpose of this.” Adam watched Lord Jonquil with tremendous confusion. The gentleman had suggested they walk up a mountain. He couldn’t imagine why.

“Fresh air and exercise are good for a person,” Lord Jonquil said. “And if one can obtain those things while doing something enjoyable, all the better.”

That didn’t sound right at all. “Walking up a mountain does not sound enjoyable.”

“I can assure you,” Lord Jonquil said, “it is tremendous fun.”

Adam looked to Lady Jonquil, not trusting her husband’s explanation. “I don’t know anyone who walks up mountains.”

“I do,” she said.

Adam shook his head. “Other than him.” He motioned to Lord Jonquil.

“We have five very good friends, all respected and proper gentlemen, and every one of them walks up our mountain whenever they’re visiting. And I often go up with Lord Jonquil.”

He hadn’t expected that. “You do?”

She nodded.

“Do you enjoy it?”

She nodded again.

Perhaps people did enjoy the undertaking, but Adam wasn’t entirely certain it was safe. “Do people fall off mountains when they walk on them?” He made certain to ask the question without a single tremor in his voice. He was cautious, but he didn’t want them to think he was a coward.

“I would not for a moment suggest you go up that mountain if I thought you would be in the least danger.” Lady Jonquil had a way of looking at him that made his mind calm and his heart warm. He almost never felt that way.

Adam glanced ever so quickly at Lord Jonquil, then stepped up very close to where Lady Jonquil sat and stood directly in front of her. She leaned a bit forward.

He whispered, “I’ve never walked on a mountain before. What if I’m rubbish at it?”

She took his hands. Hers were so soft. Were all ladies’ hands soft?

“The first time I ever walked on a mountain was with him.” She dipped her head toward Lord Jonquil. “And it was on this same mountain. I’m certain I was rubbish at it, but he didn’t mind in the least. He loves being on that mountain, and he is excessively fond of company. He won’t mind if you walk slowly or uncertainly; he’ll simply be happy to be with you in a place he enjoys.”

“No one is ever happy to be with me .”

“Nurse Robbie loves to be with you,” Lady Jonquil said. “And so do I.”

The confusion in his mind pushed his brows and lips down. Sometimes people didn’t make any sense. “Because I’m a duke?”

“Because you are you .” She squeezed his hands, but not tight, not so they hurt.

He shook his head. “You say strange things.”

“Someday, Adam, you will believe me.” She released his hands and, taking light hold of his arms, turned him about.

Nurse Robbie stood right beside him, holding his coat. “I’ve asked Lord Jonquil about your jaunt today. He says you’ll be safe during your adventure.”

“Dukes don’t have ‘adventures.’” Adam was quite certain of that.

“Dukes can have all the adventures they wish for.” She slipped one sleeve over his arm. “That is one of the advantages.” She slipped on the other one.

“Do dukes have to go to school?” he asked.

She nodded. “When they are children, aye.”

He didn’t like that answer, but it wasn’t a surprise.

“You could go up the mountain with us,” he said. Nurse Robbie always looked after him.

But she shook her head. “This is a journey you need to take without me.”

“I don’t like taking journeys without you.” He pushed down the lump in his throat. He’d cried when he’d left Falstone Castle to live near Harrow. Nurse Robbie hadn’t come with him. He didn’t like when she wasn’t with him.

She buttoned the front of his coat. It was black, like all his clothes. He used to wear other colors, but a person had to wear black after someone in their family died. He wasn’t certain why, but he had thought about it. He suspected it was important for people to know when someone was sad about people dying.

“You’ll not be gone long, wee boy. And you’ll be looked after.”

He wasn’t certain of that. “What if he forgets me and leaves me on that mountain?”

She gave him a doubtful look.

He returned it. “Mother forgets me all the time.”

“Do you think, for even a moment, wee’un, that Lady Jonquil would let you be left up there?”

He looked around Nurse Robbie at the lady in question. She smiled. Her eyes were soft and kind.

Lord Jonquil hunched down next to Adam. “I’ve never, ever left anyone on any mountain. It is one of my unbreakable rules. Another is that I always bring food.” He held up a knapsack and wiggled his eyebrows.

The silliness of his expression made a smile bubble inside Adam’s ribs. He kept it tucked there; dukes weren’t supposed to be silly.

“Another of my rules,” Lord Jonquil said, “is that I never force anyone to do anything or go anywhere if he or she does not wish to. The decision is entirely yours, Adam.”

Nurse Robbie didn’t think he was in danger going onto the mountain. Lady Jonquil wanted him to go. And Lord Jonquil was very funny. Maybe a walk on the mountain wouldn’t be terrible.

He could at least try. That would be a very brave thing. Dukes ought to be brave. He gave a nod to Lord Jonquil.

“Excellent.” Lord Jonquil stood once more. He offered a formal bow to Nurse Robbie and to his wife. “We will now embark on our journey. Our apologies in advance for the overwhelming boredom you will experience without us.”

Even Nurse Robbie laughed. She didn’t do that often. The question of why weighed on Adam’s mind as he and Lord Jonquil stepped from the house. Lord Jonquil whistled for his dog, Pooka, who rushed over immediately. Adam kept a safe distance. The dog wasn’t large, but Adam had learned during his years at Falstone Castle that even small dogs could be ferocious.

He and Lord Jonquil rode in a pony cart away from Brier Hill and out to the mountain they meant to walk up. Adam only half noted the things they passed as the cart journeyed along. His mind was pulled between uncertainty over the dog and his worries about Nurse Robbie not laughing very often. Was she unhappy? People at Falstone Castle often were. He didn’t want her to be unhappy. And he worried also about the fact that she didn’t want to go on the mountain with him. Nurse Robbie had always liked being with him before. Had that changed?

Why was it grown people were so difficult to understand?

The cart came to a stop. Adam made himself pay more attention as he climbed down, not wanting to fall before they had even begun their walk on the mountain. Lord Jonquil gave the coachman who had driven them instructions on when to return, then the pony cart pulled away.

Lord Jonquil was watching Adam. Pooka was on a lead and tugging toward the mountain. Both the dog and the walk ahead of them worried Adam more thana little.

Dukes are meant to be confident. Adam’s father had told him that. He wanted to be a good duke, so he firmed his shoulders and made his face very serious. “It would not do to waste time.” He’d heard his father say that.

The path they walked on was not unlike most country footpaths. It wasn’t terribly steep. There weren’t a great deal of trees, though there were some. Adam’s favorite part was that Pooka kept a whole lead-length ahead of them.

“Did you know I was your age when I first ventured up this mountain?” Lord Jonquil asked.

“Did you live here when you were little?”

“Sometimes. My grandfather was ill, so we lived at his house in Notting-hamshire most of the year.”

“Did he die?”

“He did.”

Adam tugged his hat a little lower on his head, not wanting to look up at Lord Jonquil. “My father died.”

“There’s sadness in the heart when a person dies.” Lord Jonquil didn’t tell him to stop being sad; people were forever telling him that. Maybe he understood about people dying and feeling sad about it. “Lady Jonquil’s sister died when she was your age. Her mother died not long after that. I remember how sad her heart was.”

“She doesn’t seem sad.” Maybe the sadness got better with time.

“She is happy to have you visiting,” Lord Jonquil said. “She told me that, when she met you at Falstone Castle, you asked about her hair but you didn’t say it was ugly. People used to say her hair was ugly when she was younger, and she didn’t like that.”

“The boys at the boardinghouse used to call me ugly, on account of my scars.” He set his hands in his coat pockets. “But Jeb, at Falstone Castle, taught me how to fight. So when they said that, I trounced them. No one calls me ugly anymore.”

“You are likely one of the youngest boys there. Can you really bash the older boys?”

Adam nodded, a surge of pride filling him. He even looked up at Lord Jonquil again.

“Do you have any friends at school? Boys you enjoy spending time with?”

“Dukes don’t need people. My father taught me that.”

“I predict, Adam, that someday you will have a friend, and you will be glad you do.”

That was ridiculous. “Who would want to be my friend?”

“Any highwayman with ambition.”

What a strange thing to say. Adam studied him. “What do you mean?”

“Land pirates need associates who are good with their fives.” Lord Jonquil assumed a fighting stance, fists at the ready.

Adam understood now. “You’re being silly.”

“Nothing of the sort. Why, you’d be invaluable in a criminal enterprise. You can fight. You will soon be an expert at mountaineering. You have a forest, so you are likely very good at hiding in trees. And you have a castle, which means you likely have a dungeon.”

Excitement pulled at his breath. “I have a gibbet.”

“Excellent,” Lord Jonquil said earnestly, but with a grin in his eyes.

Adam had to bite down on his lips to stop a laugh from bursting out of him.

They continued their upward walk, the trail they followed twisting about a little. It brought them to a spot where the ground was flat and no trees blocked the view of the valley around the mountain. Adam had never seen the world from up above it. He liked it.

Lord Jonquil sat on the ground, his back against a large rock. Adam did what Lord Jonquil did, assuming that was the best thing. Pooka’s lead was wrapped around a branch on a nearby bush, but the line was not so short that the dog couldn’t still explore. Lord Jonquil reached into his knapsack and pulled out two paper-wrapped sandwiches.

“Eat your fill,” Lord Jonquil said. “You’ll work up more of an appetite mountaineering than you realize and will run short of vigor on the way down if you don’t eat now.”

Adam obeyed. “Have I done a good job of walking up the mountain?”

“An excellent job.” Lord Jonquil’s eyes slowly roved over the scene in front of them, the valley and the trees around. “If you find you enjoy walking on mountains, we can jaunt over to Long Crag. That’s another favorite of mine. A bit of a journey to get there but makes for a fine day’s expedition.”

“It’s nice up here,” Adam said. “It’s really quiet.”

“Sometimes quiet is nice, isn’t it?” Lord Jonquil gave Pooka a scratch behind the ear as the dog wandered past.

Adam kept an eye on the dog, not entirely trusting it. “Nurse Robbie said the castle was quiet while I was away. Do you think she was glad I was gone?”

“I’d wager she missed you terribly.”

“They had Christmas without me. I was at school.”

That seemed to surprise him. “Your mother didn’t wait to send you?”

Adam shook his head. “I was the only boy at the boardinghouse at Christmas. It was lonely.” He hadn’t told anyone that. Somehow, he didn’t mind Lord Jonquil knowing.

“Then the other boys came back, and you likely weren’t lonely enough.” Lord Jonquil gave him a knowing look. Adam hadn’t thought of it before, but Lord Jonquil would have gone to school when he was a boy. He’d know how miserable it was.

“I didn’t like having Christmas there,” Adam said.

“Too bad you haven’t thrown your hat in with the highwaymen after all,” Lord Jonquil said. “They likely have raucous Christmas festivities.”

Adam tried to imagine highwaymen celebrating Christmas. It was a silly idea, but he couldn’t push it out of his mind. Try as he might, he also couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “What do highwaymen do at Christmastime?” He wondered out loud.

Lord Jonquil hopped up. He pulled off his coat and set it on a nearby branch. “Highwaymen always look a shambles.”

He mussed his hair with his hands, pulling strands of it out of the ribbon that held it back. Pooka jumped about, apparently thinking they were playing a game of some sort. Lord Jonquil untied his cravat and shook it loose. He then tied it around his waist like a sash. He put one foot up on the rock he’d been leaning against and popped his fists onto his hips. He looked off into the distance with a very serious expression. Pooka barked at him, but in a sound that was more excited than angry. Adam didn’t know dogs could bark in more than one way.

“We are highwaymen, Adam. At Christmastime, we have to steal things.”

“Maybe highwaymen take a holiday from stealing at Christmastime.”

Though Lord Jonquil didn’t change his pose, he looked at Adam out of the side of his eye. “What do you suppose they do instead?”

Adam scrambled to his feet. He pulled off his coat as well. He mussed his hair, most of it already falling out of the string Nurse Robbie had tied it back with. He didn’t have a cravat for making a sash, but he thought he looked the part well enough. He popped his fists onto his hips as well. “Instead of taking things from people, we should give things to people.”

“Excellent.” Lord Jonquil made his voice boom with importance.

“Excellent.” Adam did his best to copy the sound.

Pooka barked again.

They spent a while longer on the mountain, eating their sandwiches and making up silly things for highwaymen to do at Christmastime. Lord Jonquil told Adam about some of the things he had done when he was a little boy and about his friend, Stanley, who had always wanted to have adventures.

Best of all, he told Adam that he liked spending time with him. No one ever seemed to. But he now knew four people who did: Lord Jonquil, Lady Jonquil, Jeb at the castle, and Nurse Robbie.

He would miss Lord and Lady Jonquil when he left Brier Hill. And he wouldn’t see Jeb much now that he had to go to school at the boardinghouse.

But at least he had Nurse Robbie. He would always have Nurse Robbie.