All Hearts Come Home for Christmas, page 1
Cover image: Woman in the Snow © Sandra Cunningham / Trevillion Images
Cover design by Christina Marcano © 2019 by Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published by Covenant Communications, Inc.
American Fork, Utah
Copyright © 2019 by Sarah M. Eden, Anita Stansfield, Esther Hatch, and Joanna Barker
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format or in any medium without the written permission of the publisher, Covenant Communications, Inc., P.O. Box 416, American Fork, UT 84003. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of Covenant Communications, Inc., or any other entity.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are either products of the authors’ imaginations, and are not to be construed as real, or are used fictitiously.
First Printing: September 2019
ISBN 978-1-52441-111-4
Chapter One
Falstone Castle, Northumberland
1785
Falstone Castle had been Adam Boyce’s haven for all his seven years of life, the place where he and his father had lived and been happy. But Father was gone now, snatched away without the tiniest warning. Everything that had been safe and warm was empty and cold without him.
The servants moved Adam’s things from the nursery, lugging them by the armful. He swallowed back a lump emotion. Everything about this was wrong.
His nursemaid, Nurse Robbie, stood beside him, watching the efforts.
“I don’t want to leave the nursery,” he told her. “I like being here.”
“The master’s rooms are yours now by rights,” she said.
“But I’m only seven,” he said.
“Aye, but you’re a wee duke now. Your father taught you to be a duke; I know he did.”
He most certainly had. One of Father’s many lessons was that dukes don’t cry. Adam took a shaky breath. Dukes don’t cry. Even when every crack in his heart ached. Dukes don’t cry.
“Is Mama—is my mother staying?”
“Only until you leave for school, love.” Nurse Robbie put an arm around his slight shoulders. “Then she’s for Town.”
Of course she was. Mother hadn’t lived at Falstone Castle for years. Even before she’d moved away for good, Adam had few memories of her being present for more than a day or two at a time, always running off on an adventure. She’d written to Father, but never to say that she was coming home.
After a time, Father had stopped reading the letters and Adam had stopped hoping she would return. She’d come back for the funeral but was leaving again.
“I’m going to be all alone.” Adam tried to hold back his tears like a good duke.
“You’ll not be alone. I’ll be here ’til you’re grown. Jeb’ll stay. We’re not family to you, but we care about you, sweet bairn.”
“Dukes aren’t supposed to be sweet.”
She chucked him under his chin. “Dukes also aren’t supposed to be seven years old. But I suspect you’ll manage.”
“I don’t want to be the duke.” He couldn’t entirely hold back his emotions. “I want Father to be the duke again.”
Nurse Robbie pulled him into a full-armed embrace. “We’d all like that. He was a good man, your father. Took good care of the castle and all who live here. A good man and a good duke.”
“And a good father,” Adam added, breathing through the pain searing his chest.
“The best of fathers,” she answered.
“And he never called me ‘My poor boy’ like Mother does just because my face is scarred and ugly.”
“Scarred, aye, but not ugly.”
He tossed her a dry look of disbelief. “I know what I am.”
With a smile she asked, “And what are you, my wee Adam?”
He pushed out a breath. “I’m a duke.”
A footman placed a traveling trunk in the corridor.
“That isn’t mine,” Adam said.
“It’s Her Grace’s,” the man answered, sketching a bow.
Mother was already packing, already preparing to leave, just as she had done again and again all his life. She was never there when he wanted her to be. When she did come, she didn’t stay. Now he didn’t even have Father to care about him and help fill that Mother-shaped void.
His eyes filled with tears as he stared at that trunk, willing it to unpack, to be put away for good.
Don’t go, Mother, he silently pleaded. Don’t leave me here alone.
Another trunk was placed beside the first, and he had his answer. His next breath shuddered. He sniffled and hiccupped. I am a duke now, he reminded himself.
Father had taught him to be a duke.
Adam fortified his seven-year-old heart. If Mother didn’t love him, he wouldn’t allow himself to love her or long for her or need her. The pain in his heart was so enormous he knew he wouldn’t be able to bear it if he couldn’t relieve it somehow.
He simply wouldn’t care. About her. About anyone. Not ever again.
I am a duke now. Dukes don’t cry. And dukes don’t need people.
Chapter Two
Newcastle, 1816
With inarguably more than half her life already lived, Harriet Boyce, the dowager Duchess of Kielder, looked back to find her regrets far outweighed her comforts.
She sat in the sitting room of a dear friend, one of many she’d spent a great deal of time with over the last thirty years, as the gathered group chatted about their plans for the Christmas season. They were all being welcomed to the homes of their children, anticipating a Holy Season spent in the warm embrace of their families. In years past, at least some of her friends had spent Christmas with each other.
Harriet alone had no anticipation of a warm familial welcome.
Her marriage had been contracted at a time when no one of birth considered anything beyond monetary and social benefit when arranging a match. Joseph, the late Duke of Kielder, had been a good man; she had never said or believed otherwise. But they had been horribly ill-suited to one another. And she had been so very young, completely unprepared for the confusion and frustration of their seemingly hopeless situation. She’d made a mull of the entire thing, as had he.
Joseph had been gone for more than thirty years now. In those three decades, she had seldom returned to the home they had once shared. Falstone Castle housed too many difficult memories and heavy emotions. More difficult even than that, it housed Adam, their son.
Her estrangement from him was, without question, the greatest regret of her entire life.
“What of you, Harriet?” Belinda asked. “Where do you plan to spend Christmas?”
“To be perfectly honest, I haven’t the first idea.”
Two of her friends looked at each other before Juliet spoke. “We cannot like the idea of you being alone. I am certain you could join either of us. Our children would make room.”
That was lowering. Harriet was to be an uninvited and, likely, unwanted guest in someone’s home. She could be that with her own family.
She and Adam were on better terms now than they had been before his marriage eleven years earlier. She saw him every Season in London. His wife had softened him and eased his frustration with his too-often-absent mother. They’d rebuilt some of their connection. They got on well enough, but only in London.
She’d been invited to the weddings of Adam’s sisters-in-law as well as the christening of his little boy, Oliver, a short three years ago. Attending those events, however, had required she travel to her one-time home. All the tension, the resentments, the regrets that stood between them returned with overwhelming force when they were at Falstone Castle.
In the walls of that imposing structure she could no longer deceive herself. She had been a poor excuse for a mother, and she didn’t know if that could ever be made right.
“I may be taking a trip to Northumberland near Christmastime,” she said. “I am to be a grandmother again, you know.”
“So soon?” Belinda asked.
Harriet nodded. “One difficulty for long-torsoed ladies is that estimating when to expect a baby to arrive is made more difficult. Persephone is nearer her time than we realized.”
That launched the group into a discussion of confinements that had begun before or after they were anticipated and the difficulties of being very small-scaled versus larger-scaled when carrying a child. Harriet had introduced the topic of Adam and Persephone’s expected arrival as a means of turning the conversation away from pity-inspired offerings of lodging, but she found her efforts had only added weight to her own mind.
She hadn’t been at Falstone when little Oliver was born. It was more than her pathetic helplessness when faced with physical ailments or pain and suffering. It was Falstone Castle itself. Everything was more difficult there. Happiness. Peace. Any degree of closeness with her son.
But she wanted to be at the castle to welcome this newest arrival. She’d been a failure as a mother, but she would like to be a decent grandmother and mother-in-law. And part of her still hoped there was a way to salvage something of a relationship with Adam, one that could survive the weight of the castle and all the regrets it held.
“So you intend to be there for the birth of your grandchild?” Juliet asked.
The idea grew stronger in Harriet’s mind and heart. Adam loved his sweet little family. They meant all the world to him. Showing them her love a nd devotion would go a long way toward convincing him that she cherished him as well.
And oh, how she longed to have a place in her family. It was her own fault she didn’t, and she wanted to make that right.
Adam, she knew, would allow her to visit whenever she wished, but he would not necessarily truly welcome her. Not there. Not to that home where she had abandoned him so long ago.
But nothing was ever mended without effort. She was more than willing to work to claim a deeper connection with him. She loved him; she truly did. But she knew he didn’t believe that.
“I think I will travel north,” she said in answer to her friend’s question. “It has been a very long time since I spent Christmas at Falstone Castle.”
* * *
Falstone Forest, Northumberland
Roswell Duncan had been the vicar of Falstone parish for six years now. It was a quiet living, a small parish, isolated and relatively uncomplicated. Anyone hearing him describe a living that required he endure the unpredictable temper of the infamous Duke of Kielder as “uncomplicated” would likely assume he was either jesting or a bit mentally unstable. Yet Roswell found the situation very much to his liking.
The position had come available not long after his late wife had passed away. He’d been looking for a new start, a place where he could begin again and relieve some of the weight on his heart and spirit. He was too old now for a bustling village where his presence and efforts would be in constant demand. This parish had proven perfect.
And lonely.
He drove his humble pony cart along the road that cut through Falstone Forest. Though Christmas remained a number of weeks away, a whisper of it hung in the air. The forest sat quiet, the birds having made their annual migration to warmer climes. Cold nipped at Roswell’s face, filling his heart with cherished memories of winters gone by. He particularly enjoyed his sermons as the Holy Day approached, focused as they were on brotherly kindness, love, forgiveness, hope. Christmas was a time of miracles, and he felt in his heart of hearts that one awaited him this year.
Roswell passed through the outer wall of Falstone Castle. He had come to call on the resident family. Though the duke was gruff and often impersonable, the duchess was a favorite. She was kind and thoughtful, welcoming and friendly. He was made to feel like part of her family when he called, a mixture of uncle to her and her sister, who lived at the castle as well, and grandfather to her son, the little Lord Falstone. She was soon to be delivered of another child, and he was anxious to offer what support he could.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” he greeted as he crossed the sitting room to where the duchess stood, smiling at his arrival. “How are you faring today?”
“Quite well, thank you.” She motioned for him to sit.
“How was your trip to Shropshire?” he asked.
“Quick,” she said. The family had only just returned from the duchess’s family home for the second time in as many months. “But attending my brother’s wedding was worth the whirlwind journey. He is so very happy, and I absolutely adore his new wife. It was such a joy to see them begin their life together.”
“Are you here to stay for a time?” he asked.
She nodded. “Until well after this little one makes an appearance.” She tenderly patted her belly, now rounded enough to reveal the impending arrival expected near Christmas.
Miss Lancaster, the duchess’s youngest sister, stormed into the room. She never did make an entrance without some degree of drama. Roswell was rather fond of her, truth be told. If he’d had a daughter of his own, he would very much have enjoyed a theatrically entertaining girl.
“Is Mr. Jonquil coming for Christmas?” she demanded of her sister without preamble.
“No, dearest,” the duchess replied. “He will be with his own family.”
“Good.” She jutted her chin. “One houseguest will be plenty enough, considering we have done nothing but travel from one house to another without so much as a fortnight in our own home, with some degree of peace and quiet.”
Peace and quiet? That didn’t sound like Miss Lancaster at all.
“I hope Linus doesn’t intend to invite him here in the future. I might have to run away from home.” On that threat, she spun about and left again. Miss Lancaster was something of a cyclone.
The duchess sighed. “I think she is going to be the death of Adam
and me.”
“But what a merry death it will be.” Roswell laughed.
She poured him a cup of tea, offering it with all the grace of a seasoned hostess.
“Your sister indicated you were to have a houseguest,” he said between sips.
“Yes,” she said. “Adam’s mother is coming.”
Roswell nearly choked on his tea. The dowager was visiting? Merciful heavens, he hadn’t been prepared for that revelation.
She’d intrigued him from the very first. The brief interactions they’d had over the years had only added to that. She was a bit uncomfortable around her son, but she clearly loved him. The lady, who was within a few years of his age, was a beauty, graceful and refined. She was cheerful and friendly, showed concern for the parishioners, no matter that she ranked so far above them all. He liked her very much indeed. And she was coming to Falstone for the Holy Season.
“I look forward to seeing Her Grace again.” He was proud of the steadiness of his voice. No one, he was determined, would ever be given sufficient clues to piece together his pointless partiality. “How does His Grace feel about his mother’s visit?”
“That is the source of my worries,” she said. “Theirs is a difficult relationship.”
Roswell nodded. He was aware of their strained connection, though he did not know the reason for it. “What can I do to ease your concerns?”
“I am hopeful you would be willing to visit us often and at length,” she said. “Though he hides it well, my husband finds your company to his liking.”
Roswell suspected as much but knew better than to say as much to the man all of Society referred to as the Dangerous Duke.
“And you are a calming influence here, on him, on my sister, on my too-often-worried mind. Having you here might prevent disaster.”
“I will of course come by as often as you would like,” he said.
“I am tempted to suggest you simply stay here for the weeks she will be in residence,” Her Grace said. “It would simplify things.”
“And it would be far less lonely.” He made the admission before he’d realized the words were coming.
True to character, Her Grace responded with immediate concern and kindness. “Then, you simply must stay. No one should be lonely at Christmas, certainly not someone as beloved as you are by us.”
“It would not be too much?” he pressed. “You have a houseguest and an expected tiny arrival. I do not wish to be a burden.”
She smiled. “Your presence will give my mother-in-law someone to talk with, my husband a reason to keep his annoyance in check, and me the reassurance that I will still be able to enjoy a chat with you over tea. That is the very opposite of a burden.”
He accepted the invitation, mind spinning and heart warming with glad relief. It was the first Christmas in six years that he wouldn’t be spending by himself. The prospect of being granted the company of the very intriguing dowager duchess only added to the appeal.
This might very well be the best Christmas he’d had in a long, long time.
Chapter Three
Entering the drawing room at Falstone Castle to find Adam standing with his hand on little Oliver’s shoulder was like stepping back in time. Whenever Harriet had returned to Falstone while Joseph was alive, this was the scene that greeted her, but with Joseph in the role of father and Adam, the tiny boy, watching her with such obvious uncertainty.
There had been no one there on those long-ago days to bridge the gap between them. Thank the heavens for Persephone. The dear lady crossed the room with arms extended and welcomed Harriet warmly.
In a low voice Harriet asked, “Is Adam terribly upset about my visit?”
“No,” Persephone answered with every indication of sincerity. “He is nervous, and you know all too well his tendency to hide that behind grumpiness.”
Her own son was nervous about having her visit. That was not reassuring.
