She stopped in front of the servants’ entrance, bonnet hanging limply around her neck. Marion had no desire to arrive for her new position with her flame-red hair flying about in complete disarray. She tapped her bonnet back in place and tucked as many of her loose locks inside it as she could manage without a mirror or a single hairpin. That would simply have to do. Marion knocked hard at the door and waited.
After several minutes, the door opened. A girl of no more than fourteen stood just beyond and gave her a questioning glance.
“Is this Farland Meadows?” Marion never had been able to dampen her natural enthusiasm. She didn’t imagine she sounded much like a servant.
“Aye.” The maid nodded.
Marion felt like hugging the girl. She managed to restrain herself. “I am Mary Wood.” Marion had already decided Mary was a more appropriate name for one in her situation. “The new governess.”
“Governess? We didn’t hire a governess.”
She closed the door, leaving Marion in stunned silence on the doorstep.
Chapter Two
Layton Jonquil stood in the midst of his six brothers. They’d already honored an hour’s worth of requests from their extremely enthusiastic mother. Layton didn’t feel particularly in the mood for caroling—and hadn’t for years, in all honesty. But this was Mater. Layton would do anything for his mother.
“‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman,’ I insist.”
“Oh, Mater. Not that one.” Charlie, the youngest, groaned lightheartedly.
What Layton wouldn’t give to be sixteen again, the only weight on his shoulders that of pleasing a mother overly fond of holiday traditions.
“I did not give life to a gaggle of gentlemen only to have them object to such a fitting carol.” Mater gave them a look with which they were all too familiar. Since their childhoods, she’d had the uncanny ability to shame them into behaving with a single glance. She hadn’t lost her touch.
Philip, the eldest, made some flippant comment. Layton heard the laughter around him just before the others began the first strains of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman.”
Layton’s thoughts turned to Father. That carol had been a favorite of his. Layton continued singing mechanically, even as his memories took him miles, years, away. He could remember distinctly where he’d been when news of Father’s death had reached him. Cambridge. Philip had told him in a stuttering, thick voice, obviously trying to be the strong, unshakable head of the family he’d suddenly found himself required to be.
Philip had been so young—he couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Layton had only been a year younger. There’d been no warning. Father had never been ill. He’d been as active and fit at forty-nine as most men half his age. No one anticipated a failing heart.
It still seemed so senseless. Layton glanced at Mater as the carol continued around him. Nine years, and she still wore the blacks of full mourning.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy . . .
The words lodged in Layton’s throat as memories flooded his mind: carefree moments of childhood, talking with Father as they walked the grounds of Lampton Park, long discussions about life and family, a smile sneaking across Father’s face as he tried not to laugh at yet another of Layton and Philip’s pranks.
Around him his brothers began the second verse, and Layton closed his ears to it. That horrible afternoon at Cambridge: riding to Nottinghamshire with Philip, watching him struggle with his composure, Mater’s tear-streaked cheeks, Father’s bleak funeral.
Layton didn’t know how he’d reached the window. He had no recollection of dropping out of the carol or of leaving his brothers, but there he stood, staring at an empty landscape.
He took a deep breath. It didn’t even feel like Christmas, not the type of Christmas he’d known. No Father. No Caroline. No Bridget.
“I had hoped Mater would leave that particular selection off the list.” Philip spoke lightly from directly beside him then added more somberly, “It always makes me think of Father.”
“Me too.” Layton tried to force thoughts of funerals from his mind. There’d been too many in the past nine years.
“He’d have enjoyed being here for Christmas.” Philip sounded regretful.
Regret. Layton chuckled humorlessly, soundlessly. He knew regret well.
“And he would have adored Catherine,” Philip added, indicating their hostess.
“True.”
Their best friend, Crispin Cavratt’s, new bride was a particularly adorable woman. Father had always had a soft spot for females. He’d wanted a houseful of daughters. He sired seven sons.
“That means seven daughters-in-law,” he’d once said with that smile of his that pulled his nose to one side.