A/N: This story is a BONUS story in my Seasons of Serendipity novella series. You do not HAVE to read those stories to be able to enjoy this one, I explain previous events that have led to this point. But this story will SPOIL the events in that novella series. So if you do not want to be spoiled, DO NOT READ this. If you cannot purchase the novellas that are published, EMAIL me and I will get you the files, my email address is on my profile. I am always grateful for the support from readers but 100% understand those that can't or won't purchase, I lived that life for over a decade when money was tight. So please, you need or want my stories, email me, I will get them to your hands. :)

Love, Elizabeth Ann West

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Chapter 1

Whips of wind tormented the sparse winter branches of an old birch, conducting a dazzling choreography of sunlight patches merrily across the stone floor. The well-equipped conservatory of Mr. Darcy's Starvet House provided a glorious access to the minimal Scottish sun. Jane Bennet dug her hands deep into the earth-filled pot to loosen the soil. Lifting the surge of soil bubbling to the top, she wiggled her fingers and allowed the crumbles to fall away. Holding up her unladylike filthy hands, a little giggle escaped the happy baby boy that was her nephew and ward.

"Is your Mama becoming dirty?" She wrinkled her nose and asked the rhetorical question of the young man who could barely sit up, let alone talk.

Jane lifted a sprig of rosemary from the seedling tray and planted the herb securely into the pot before adding a bit of water and placing it in the window sill.

Robert Bennet, affectionately called Robin, watched his aunt intently, amused by the warmth of the room, the fresh smell of soil, and the exciting activity of replanting herbs. Mrs. Buchanan entered the greenhouse to speak with Jane as Robin reached down to grab his own handful of dirt. Peering at the dark clump in his tiny fist, the boy did what any baby would and lifted his hand to his mouth for a taste.

"Oh, no, we do not eat the dirt, we use it to grow the good things we can eat." Jane lifted her nephew and dusted his bottom that had grown quite dirty from his time in the conservatory. She held him on her hip, constantly sparring with his little hands that were reaching for her hair and her earrings and her face all at the same time.

"The wee lad has grown to be such an active poppet." Mrs. Buchanan beamed at the happy child, still slightly soft on the boy over the tumultuous manner in which he came into the world. The entire staff of Starvet House, save one dismissed nurse, took a claiming to the boy that was rescued and literally breathed back to life in the very kitchens of the home. His birth mother was not so lucky to survive that terrible night.

Robin let out a little squabble in frustration that he could not reach any of his aims.

"He is, but I believe it is time for his nap." Jane did not hesitate when Mrs. Buchanan reached out to take the boy. Although the young man was very much Jane's to claim, she respected and appreciated that most of the staff joined her in caring for the only connection to her sister, Lydia, that remained in the world.

Jane moved on to repotting the lavender when a handsome fox turned to his side so that Mrs. Buchanan might pass as he leaned against the doorway. Jane's eyes flitted to the door as Robin squawked again, recognizing Lord Graham Hamilton as his playtime caregiver, though once more the boy was denied. A full wail echoed down the hall of a babe unable to handle so many disappointments in such a short period of time.

"He's tired I take it?"

"Exhausted. He's trying ever so hard to learn how to crawl, but thankfully we are safe from that development for the near future." Jane shared a laugh with Graham, then remembering her mission, furiously returned to the herbs she had started as seeds over two months ago.

"You are forever planting . . . I'm beginning to learn if I cannot find you anywhere else to look in the conservatory." Graham sauntered off the step, his over six-foot-frame starkly contrasting with the lower tables and planters of a room designed primarily for female use.

"I like new beginnings." Jane shrugged her shoulders, closely inspecting the hardy lavender stalk before her. "Gardening is full of new starts and happy colors."

"I had come to see if you wish to take tea together." Mr. Hamilton had very lately taken to inviting Jane in a very formal manner for each of their meals. The two began living at Darcy's estate out of necessity. Graham Hamilton, with his own home burning down at the end of last summer the night before Robin's arrival, rejected living at his parents' estate on the premise of freedom and to offer Darcy's sister by marriage a male's protection. Jane had remained so that she might take care of Robert Bennet, the bastard child of George Wickham and Lydia Bennet, without the prying eyes of English society.

"I'm afraid I ate my meal before seeing to my work." Jane was not being honest, but she found herself uncommonly out of sorts around Graham. Her heart rate would increase and she knew herself to be excessively attracted to the man's kind heart and handsome features.

But there was no hope for Jane Bennet to find a husband. No, her heart and soul had to belong to little Robert if the child was to have any hope of surviving.

Mr. Hamilton frowned but did not allow Jane's refusal to stymie his aims. Seeing her finish the lavender pot, he reached forward to lift the clay vessel to Jane's complaints.

"Mr. Hamilton, you really should not –"

"For the hundredth time, Jane, we live together. After nigh on seven months, don't you think you can give it up and call me Graham?" He offered her a sly smile, placing the pot on the windowsill next to the rosemary, then walking back to stand next to her on the opposite side of the workbench. Jane ignored his closer presence, and insistence about their Christian names even though she found his calling her Jane a sign of affection she desperately cherished. But though she enjoyed his attentions, it was a wretched thing for her to raise his hopes, knowing full well she could never accept the suit of a man so long as she wished to keep Robin.

With only one seedling left, Jane accepted another pot from Graham and added a healthy pile of soil into the clay round. A wisp of hair loosened from her bun and she exasperatedly blew out a breath to try to move the offending lock. Ever so gently, Graham reached out with his gloved hands, hands that were heavily damaged in the fire at Blaylock, and tucked the hair behind her ear. Jane had not meant to, but naturally her head leaned into his hand as he cupped her face for a second longer than necessary.

The last few weeks of desire that had been building between the two of them, grown adults with duties and responsibilities, yet a natural attraction, became too much for either to bear. The stocky, rugged Scotsman leaned forward and pressed his lips against Jane's with the wishful thinking of a lovesick suitor. For her part, Jane returned the kiss, remembering just in time that her hands were filthy before she reached out to touch Mr. Hamilton in kind. But remembering the state of her hands broke the spell, and as the kiss ended with Mr. Hamilton keeping his eyes closed and a schoolboy smile across his face, Jane wrung her apron to clean her as she dashed from the conservatory.

Stricken by a wave of panic, her feet could not scurry fast enough to bring her upstairs and to the sanctuary of her room. She had never intended to give in to her feelings. She could not. She must not!

And Graham knew how much the babe meant to her. Did he honestly think she would put him with some tenant family and be the happy wife and mistress of another household?

She passed Mrs. Buchanan in the hall and startled Robert with her sudden presence and loud closing of the door. The boy began to coo as she hastily drenched her hands in the cold water of her wash basin.

A great pounding began to rattle the wooden portal.

"You cannot run from me forever!" Lord Graham Hamilton, second son of the Duke of Haddington, shouted and pounded on the locked door between him and the infuriatingly beautiful Jane Bennet. He tried the door handle again finding it still locked.

"Jane!" he bellowed again.

"Shh, all is well, Robin. Uncle Graham is not upset." Jane scooped up her orphaned nephew and hushed the babe, though to the bewildered boy not yet a year old, there was nothing amiss. He gurgled happily in Jane's arms as the door swung open.

With key in hand, Graham Hamilton leaned against the doorframe with a smirk on his face. Jane swiftly turned away, holding the baby close to her chest and walking towards the window on the far side of the nursery.

"No, I will not let you do this. You have a responsibility to yourself, first and foremost."

"You do not understand, and how could you?" Jane spun around and accused him of simpleness. "He is not your responsibility. He is mine."

"He is ours." Graham Hamilton walked forward and little Robin reached his arms out for the man he recognized as a parent almost as surely as he recognized Jane. "He could be ours. Plus many more."

Jane cast her eyes to the rug, but Graham reached out with his gloved hands and gently clicked his tongue to draw her attention. Leaning forward, to the happy squeals of the baby between them, Graham Hamilton gently kissed the soft lips of Jane Bennet once more.

She did not run as she did before. This time Jane Bennet returned his kiss with greater fervor, allowing herself to drink deeply of the love and respect she had come to feel for the man.

"There. See? Little Robin approves." Graham Hamilton made a face at the boy and poked his belly for the young child's amusement.

"But—"

"Must I kiss your aunt again? Shall I?" Graham interrupted Jane and posed the question to Robin, then deciding the babe had agreed before acting on the imaginary command. He kissed Jane again with all of the passion of a Scotsman enthralled with his bonny lass. Once he broke away, she gasped for breath.

"You know this is not over." Jane ignored his mocking frown, inciting her to elaborate. "You say we might marry and take him as our ward. And how do we explain his lineage?"

"And your excellent plan is to stay hidden in a castle for your whole existence? How will the boy go to school, find a life?"

Jane furrowed her brow but allowed Graham to take the babe from her, gently rocking the boy back to his cradle.

She had many more questions, but each seemed more forward than the last. One does not demand a man propose marriage though Jane could not find a way to frame her inquiries without doing just that. This was all so very improper and not at all how she imagined their moment of understanding.

"Now, then, do you Jane Bennet accept me to be your husband?" He gallantly walked towards her, the roguish charm of the Hamilton line accompanying his bravado. "To live out your days loyal to me and to bestow your love upon me and no other?"

Jane's heart fluttered with the force of a hundred butterflies, but her mind reeled from his words. This was a very odd proposal of marriage, it almost sounded as a vow. She spied Mrs. Buchanan in the doorway just over Graham's shoulder with a peculiar look of anticipation on her face..

"I — that is, I accept your proposal of marriage, Graham Hamilton." Jane's mouth suddenly felt dry to speak such words out loud.

"Gracious heavens! I'll fetch the staff!" Mrs. Buchanan gushed as Jane shook her head and leaned to her side to address the housekeeper directly.

"Fetch the staff? Whatever for?" Jane suddenly felt ill at telling her betrothal to the whole household the second she became so.

"For a ceremony of course! I witnessed this, but we need at least two!" Mrs. Buchanan actually giggled at the prospect of a marriage in the house. It had been generations since the last one.

Jane's mouth opened in shock and then closed once more as she looked to Graham.

"We've lived together for months. In the eyes of the law, we're married as soon as we declare so." He took a step further to pay more romantic attentions to his lass, but Jane stomped her foot to sidestep him.

"Mrs. Buchanan, wait!" Jane nearly tripped trying to maneuver beyond Graham, but he wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her from falling. "We cannot be married this moment! That is just not done!"

"You're in Scotland, Miss. Bennet or shall I say Lady Hamilton?"

"But no," Jane closed her eyes as Graham nuzzled her neck, his hot breath distracting. "I wish to have a church wedding. A proper wedding. The banns!"

Graham chuckled. "I knew your English would come out."

Jane sputtered and laughed when Graham laughed. Mrs. Buchanan watched the couple, suddenly fearful she was about to witness a grand row.

But the watershed of months of pent up attraction was past and there was no chance of either Jane or Graham releasing the other. Not now. The two whispered and leaned into each other in an embrace as Mrs. Buchanan struggled over whether to leave or stay where she was to see the love bloom between the two lovebirds.

"Pardon my interruption, but—shall I gather the staff?"

Jane looked up at Graham and silently implored him with her eyes to relent to her wishes. She felt safe with this man, without doubts from her wayward romantic adventures in England lingering any longer. But she wished time to enjoy being betrothed and then married, no matter what tradition in Scotland held.

"I truly cannot convince you to marry me this day?" Graham laid the guilt on thickly.

Jane bit her lower lip. "My wish is for a proper marriage before God."

Graham sighed, then twisted his face in mock pain as he fully accepted the implications of waiting three long weeks to make Jane his official wife by word and deed.

"Ready tea in the dining room, Miss Bennet and I shall take our meal, Mrs. Buchanan." And not take each other, Graham thought wistfully as he allowed Jane to leave the room first. He glanced down to check on Robin, but the excitement had bored him off to sleep.

A/N This story DOES tackle the ideas of irregular marriage (why couples could elope to Gretna Green in Jane Austen's time) and a proper church marriage. It's going to be a fun, short novella. And yes, I drool over my vision of Graham Hamilton, second son of the Duke of Hamilton, as I write this story. He is burly and YUM! :) As always, I love reviews, and read them all. HUGS to everyone who supported To Capture Mr. Darcy, I always feel "not worthy" of the love and admiration my stories get here. So ya'll are STUCK with me :)

Love,

Elizabeth Ann West