David puffed his chest a little. “We know plenty. We know how to break rocks, plant seeds at the right time, scrub a floor good and proper, and weave ropes. Lots of other things too. Depends what needs doing.”
“No education?” Adrian paused in his pacing.
Valerie dipped the cloth back in the basin she was using, wringing it out before setting it back on the wound. “His Grace is curious to know if you have attended school,” she explained. “Perhaps, you have a governess at this orphanage of yours?”
At that, both boys collapsed into giddy laughter.
Valerie blushed, glad to have made them laugh, but rather embarrassed that she had said such an ignorant thing. The orphanages of London certainly didn’t have any governesses, so why would the North be any different?
“I went to school for one week when I was eight. Didn’t like it, so I didn’t go back,” David said, and rather proudly too.
Isaac, however, looked a bit more subdued. “I never went, not even for a week. I was already in the orphanage, and they need us to do work and that.”
“How old are you, if that is not too rude a question to ask two strapping young fellows such as yourselves?” Valerie asked, recovering from her misstep.
David smiled. “Eleven, Miss.”
“And IthinkI’m nine,” Isaac said.
“You think?” Valerie removed the cloth and dropped it in the basin, before reaching for a wrapped bundle of bandages.
Isaac nodded. “They don’t know how old I was when I was left there, so Mrs. Atkinson guessed. Might be nine, might be ten, might be eight.”
“Mrs. Atkinson? Is she the proprietor of the orphanage?” Valerie paused at the boys’ blank looks. “I mean, is she the one who runs the orphanage?”
David’s brown eyes brightened. “That’s her, Miss! She don’t like me much. Don’t like any of us wains much, but she feeds us, she don’t treat us badly, and it’s warm enough when it ain’t winter.”
Maybe it was because the boys reminded her so much of Cecil, but Valerie wished she could just put her arms around them, keep them safe, and adopt them there and then. Of course, she couldn’t, but her melancholy heart desperately wanted to.
“And who is Hetty?” she asked, as she began to wrap the bandage around Isaac’s sore knee.
Isaac beamed at the mention of the name. “She’s like our ma. The ma of the orphanage. She’s older than us—fifteen. Means she’ll be leaving soon, to take work somewhere, so there’ll be no one to tell us all the good stories.”
“One of these stories was about the ghosts in this castle?” Valerie pressed, noting that Adrian had gone still, listening with curiosity.
David nodded. “She’s always telling us stories about this castle—about the ghosts, about the hauntings, about the wars between the Cumbrians and the Northumbrians, about the damsels and warriors and that.”
“I have not read about any of that in my history books,” Adrian said drily, while Valerie cast him a pointed look; it would have been too impolite to shush him outright.
“Go on,” she encouraged the boys.
Isaac took over the tale, wriggling in his chair. “We was having dinner, and we was all shivering ‘cause of the storm. Mrs. Atkinson doesn’t let us have a fire very often, you see.” He paused. “Anyway, Hetty says that it’s because of the ghosts here. She says they’re stronger during the Christmas season, and they can play tricks with the weather. So, me and David decided we’d come here and we’d chase them pesky ghosts away! Then, our friends at the orphanage wouldn’t be shivering anymore.”
“They’d still be cold, aye,” David interjected, “but just an ordinary amount. It’s worse when it’s howling a gale and wecan’t even go out walking to warm ourselves, since it’s thick snow outside.”
Isaac nodded. “I love snow, but I don’t like how it’s so cold. If I could warm meself afterward, I’d love it even more, but we’re not allowed to use any of Mrs. Atkinson’s wood unless she says so.”
Thinking of her own dear siblings, Valerie’s heart broke for the two boys before her. She could not imagine Cecil and Nora staring out of the window on a winter’s morning, longing to enjoy the snow, but resisting because it would mean being frozen with no way to get warm.
“Your Grace, you must do something about this!” she blurted out, her voice tight with sorrow.
Adrian’s eyebrows rose in slight surprise. “I suppose I could donate coal to the orphanage as an anonymous donor.” He shook his head. “That does not mean the coal would reach the children, though. This ‘Mrs. Atkinson’ might keep it for herself.”
“That would be a start,” Valerie replied, “but that is not what I meant, exactly.”
Adrian folded his arms across his broad chest, the buttons of his waistcoat straining against such powerful muscles. “Whatdidyou mean?”
His flat tone suggested he did not want to hear it, but Valerie continued regardless.
