Chapter Eight

Howard’s excursion with Miss MacGregor the day before had offered a much-needed escape from the frustration of the job he’d come to Brier Hill to complete. His stone hadn’t arrived. Most of his planting couldn’t be done until the wall was complete. All the while time was ticking away.

But that brief afternoon jaunt and the amiable gab he’d shared with a woman who, at first meeting, had seemed rather more like a fishwife than a friendly sort had restored his spirits. He’d returned to his corner of the estate with more hope than he’d left with.

He set himself to the task of laying bricks for the garden beds, leastwise those nearest the existing walls. It was work he could accomplish while waiting for his stone.

He’d passed a morning and good portion of an afternoon when Miss MacGregor arrived.

“I’ve a spot of time on my hands,” she said. “Can I do anything to help?”

“The soil in the beds here needs breaking up,” he answered.

She gave a quick nod and fetched from among his tools a grubbing hoe—the exact right tool for the job. He watched her a minute as she worked. Poor technique could cause pain or injury.

He needn’t have worried. She set to the work with expertise borne of experience.

“Why is it you’re not looking after your little duke just now?” he asked, kneeling once more to continue his brickwork. “Is he napping?”

Miss MacGregor spoke as she worked. “He’s too old now for napping, except on rare occasions. He’s passing the afternoon with his host and hostess. They’ve asked him to help them decide what’s most needed to turn one of the bedchambers into a nursery.”

Howard doubted they actually needed the help of an eight-year-old. But he’d discovered in his interactions with them that they were compassionate and generous people. They had likely chosen to involve the little duke because they thought he would enjoy it. He likely needed to feel part of a family in some way. Howard was thirty-eight years old, but he still keenly felt the loss of his parents.

“Watching them with the duke,” Miss MacGregor said, “I’ve not a spot of doubt they’ll be fine parents, doting and caring in a way many of their station are nae.”

There was no mistaking she was Scottish, and yet her manner of speaking wasn’t so decidedly that of Scotland that he was left to wonder. He’d wager she’d lived quite some time on this side of the Scottish border.

“Perhaps Lord and Lady Jonquil will be looking for a nursemaid,” he said. “Your charge is at the age where he is unlikely to have one much longer. Might be your coming here will offer you an opportunity to find a new position without too much difficulty.”

She paused in her digging, her face taking on a very thoughtful expression. It seemed she hadn’t considered the possibility of being hired on at Brier Hill. He couldn’t tell, however, whether she was pleased with the prospect.

“They’d likely be right generous employers,” she said as if talking to herself. “And they’re young yet, so there might be more children, which’d give me some longevity in the position.”

“You’ll likely think me terribly nosy, but you don’t sound overly enthusiastic about what seems to be a perfect situation.”

She returned to her efforts at breaking up the soil. “Working here, for this family, would be ideal in many ways. But I confess I find myself wondering lately whether I want to spend another twenty years looking after other people’s bairns.”

“Are you not enjoying your work?”

“I’ve enjoyment in it. But that might owe more to my attachment to the young duke than to the job of nursemaid itself.”

“Are you always as attached to your charges as you are to this one?” He leaned back on his feet and eyed her, ready for some kind of fighting response. He intended to head it off. “I wasn’t criticizing, only observing that you very clearly care deeply for him. I’ve seen other children of the Quality with their nurses, and there’s not ever been quite so much attachment between them as I see between you and this little duke.”

“I’ve been fond of all the children I’ve tended, but none has needed me the way he does. None of them has been as alone as he is. Falstone Castle is very isolated. He’s no neighbors, no little playmates.”

“I can’t imagine a childhood like that. I came from a large family and had a great many little friends in the village where we lived. I loved it.”

A nostalgic smile touched Miss MacGregor’s face, and the effect was lovely. She was pretty—he’d always thought so—but something about that particular smile made a person want to smile in return.

“My family was much the same in my earliest years,” she said. “We’d quite a few children in the household. We worked hard, but we also enjoyed each other.”

“You told me when we were scouting out evergreens that you’ve been in service since you were ten years old. Did all your family seek employment so young?”

“My father was injured in an accident and could nae work. My mother and my older siblings were already supporting the family, but it was no longer enough. All but the youngest two among us found positions. We were employed as servants in households and had to leave home. Last I heard from any of them, my mother told me the youngest had also left to find work. We’re spread out across the kingdom. I’m not even certain where most of them are.”

His heart ached at that. So many who didn’t bear the weight of poverty dismissed its ability to touch every aspect of a life. “Did your earliest jobs take you away from Scotland?”

She nodded. “Aye. They’ve all taken me away from there.”

“I’d wager your parents are in Scotland still. Have you traveled back to see them?”

“Nursemaids haven’t that flexibility. We go wherever the children of the family are. If they are at home, we bide there. If they travel with their parents, we go as well. Our comings and goings aren’t our own.”

He nodded in understanding. “I travel constantly for my work, never staying in one place for long. My home is the traveling coach I converted into a house of sorts. I don’t have a home village to return to or call my own.”

“You told me your father died last year. Were you able to see him before he passed?”

“I was, thank the saints. I’ve more freedom in that respect than you do. I don’t have roots anywhere, but I can travel.”

“I’d enjoy traveling,” she said. “I’ve heard about some bonnie areas of this kingdom, mostly from the books I read to Adam. His is a particularly curious mind. He is forever asking questions. When we read about a new place, he asks me what it looks and feels like and how it smells. I have to tell him I don’t know. He usually grows frustrated and says he would nae want to know anyway.”

“He’s a little petulant, is he?”

“No, not truly.” She didn’t sound offended, for which he was grateful. “He’s spent so much of his life being hurt and overlooked and left behind. When he suspects he’s about to suffer a fresh blow or a new wave of pain, he closes himself off, shields himself with anger. I don’t know how to help him with that.” Her shoulders drooped a bit. “He has no constant but me now, and once his mother sorts out that he is really too old for a nursemaid, I’ll be forced to leave him, just as everyone else has. I worry that the shield of anger he wields will be turned to armor and the tenderhearted little boy I know will disappear inside it.”

Howard’s heart was both touched and sad at the sorrow he heard in her voice. He crossed to where she stood, hoping she saw in him the friendly rapport he was trying to offer. “No matter where life might take you, he will benefit from having been loved by you. Over the years, when he wonders if people care about him, he’ll remember that you did. He’ll trust that you do . That will make a great difference.”

“That’s a shocking thing to hear you say, considering you once insisted I was neglecting him so severely that you were needing to look after him on my behalf.”

He winced a bit as the dart hit its mark. “Heavens, I did say that. My only defense is that I was concerned.”

“About him or about your job?”

“Both. I do not want to see the child hurt. I also don’t want to see my livelihood disappear.”

“That sounds very much like the conversations I’ve been having with myself lately.” She sighed. “My employment at Falstone Castle cannot last forever. Staying in the area so I can keep an eye out for Adam would mean having no job and no income. But leaving entirely would cause him such pain.”

“For two people who began their acquaintance quite at odds, we seem to have a great deal in common.” He smiled, hoping to encourage her and lighten her thoughts a little.

She smiled back, and it did the oddest thing to his heart, setting it pounding against his ribs in a way clearly meant to get his attention. He, however, was quite adept at ignoring it.

“This is the flower bed where I mean to plant the jonquils as a surprise for His Lordship.”

“Lady Jonquil agreed, then?” Miss MacGregor seemed genuinely pleased.

“The lady thought it as brilliant an idea as we do.”

Miss MacGregor looked around. “The trench is where the wall will be built?”

“Aye.” Though not Scottish himself, he’d heard that word often enough to be able to reproduce it just as the Scots would say it.

“And the gate’ll be just there?” She pointed toward the gap in the trench.

“Aye.”

“And what will lie between here and there?”

He took the grubbing hoe from her and leaned it against the existing wall. He guided her over to where the gate would be and positioned her and himself so that they were looking at what would soon be the walled garden. He explained to her what was planned, where the larger tree would be as well as the smaller shrubs, which were flower beds and what flowers would be in them. He walked with her along what would be the stone path. He pointed out the spot where benches would be placed, explaining that one would be in the shade and the other in the sun so visitors could choose between the two.

Miss MacGregor asked impressive questions. Once or twice she offered an alternate idea to what he had planned. She showed herself to have a fine eye for plants and landscapes. She knew trees and bushes and flowers more than he would’ve expected from one who’d passed more than twenty years of her life working inside homes.

“Are you certain you haven’t secretly been filling the role of gardener somewhere?” he asked.

Her smile blossomed ever broader, and his heart pounded ever harder. “I do occasionally work on the grounds at Falstone Castle. The gardener there allows me to join him. I’ve found I like spending a bit of time out in nature. There’s something nice about the feel of the earth in one’s hands, and I’ve just as curious a disposition as Adam does. I’ve asked a great many questions of the gardener, likely driving the poor man mad. But I’ve learned a whole heap from him, and he now eagerly welcomes my assistance. I’ve a great deal more time on my hands with Adam away at school.”

That surprised him. “I didn’t realize the Quality sent their sons away to school so young.”

“Very few do. He is, in fact, too young to truly begin his schooling. But there’s a boardinghouse that sits just outside of Harrow School, where the underage boys who’ve been sent away are given some schooling and a place in which to live out the years until they’re old enough to pass through the school gates and begin their formal education.”

“Sounds rather like an orphanage.”

Her eyes grew sad once more. “To hear Adam speak of it, the place feels that way as well.”

“It’s no wonder, then, that you are so eager to give him this Christmas celebration. This tiny duke needs a spot of happiness in his life.”

“You called it hope. I cannot clear my mind of that word. More than anything, he needs hope. The more life pulls people away from him, the more he’s sent away and left behind, the more he’ll struggle to feel it.”

“While he’s here, he’ll be surrounded by it.”

“Thank you for helping,” she said. “I know you didn’t come here to throw a party for a wee boy. It speaks well of you that you don’t begrudge him the time you’re spending.”

“And it speaks well of you that you’ve a love for shrubs and trees and nature.”

“That is the sort of thing you’d praise in a person.” The observation might have felt like a criticism before their last couple of encounters. He now saw it for the dry humor it was.

They set back to their work, he laying bricks and she turning over soil. Conversation between them was easy. He often hired on workers to help him, but the words passing between them were generally limited to discussions of the work and corrections of their efforts. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d undertaken a job with someone he could easily gab with.

“What other plans do the lot of you have for this Christmas celebration?” he asked as the day went on.

“Lord and Lady Jonquil are planning to undertake some games. That was a tradition they had growing up. It turns out they were wee childhood friends; they’ve a shared history.”

“Perhaps that’s why they seem so deeply bonded.” He began laying bricks for another bed. “Did your family have any Christmas traditions before all of you had to go your separate ways?”

“We’d bring in greenery to brighten the house. Mother’d make the finest meal we could afford. It was never anything truly fine, but she made what she could. We made little gifts for each other. It was quiet, but it was joyful.”

“Sounds very much like mine from childhood. There’s something to be said for simplicity.”

“My father always said it’s people that make Christmas special, nae things.”

“That is very much the philosophy for this party you’re planning. Your lonely little duke will be surrounded by people who care about him, and that will make the day special.”

“I hope so.”

Miss MacGregor stayed another hour, working tirelessly and chatting amiably. He accomplished every bit as much as he always did, but he enjoyed it far more. He liked working with someone who felt like a friend. How easily he could imagine himself having someone in his life he could work with and talk with.

He tried not to ponder too closely the fact that his mind had begun formulating a picture of that someone, and she had a fiery temper, the smile of an angel, and a lilt in her voice that spoke of a childhood spent in Scotland.