Chapter 219: Asking Nanny Martha for advise

Julian descended the stairs to the lower levels, where the air was thick with the scent of roasting venison and rosemary. At the center of the frantic kitchen stood Nanny Martha. She was peeling apples with an almost frightening precision, her sharp eyes darting around to ensure the maids didn’t miss a single beat of their work.

​She still didn’t like Julian. To her, he was an intruder who had shattered the stagnant, safe grief of the manor. But Martha was the only one who truly knew the "Jaguar" before he’d grown his claws.

​She had been one of the few maids who had taken care of Alaric after his mother passed away.

He was just four back then.

She and a few other maids had raised him in the shadow of a father who didn’t care and a world that wanted him broken just because he had his mother’s color.

In her mind, the Duke’s legendary stoicism wasn’t a flaw—it was a masterpiece she had helped craft. Her methods were cold because the world she’d survived was colder.

And then, when Alaric had found happiness and came to the North, she followed him. She shared in his gladness and knew that this was the result of living with a hard hand from the start.

Only for that happiness to be snatched away with the birth of a child.

She saw the boy’s existence not as a blessing, but as the physical manifestation of the torment that had finally crushed Alaric’s spirit.

But it was okay.

She believed that by hardening the child through silence and distance, she was preparing him for the same ’strength’ his father now possessed.

That was why she had isolated Lucius.

​But there was one thing her bitterness blinded her to.

​She remembered the Duke’s lonely childhood, but she forgot that even in those dark days, Alaric hadn’t been entirely alone.

He’d had a brother who played with him, a brother who gave him everything he could ask for, whether it was through tooth or nail. Aurelian was always there.

​Alaric had known warmth once; Lucius had been given none. Only the embrace of the cold winds of the North.

​Martha laid her knife down as Julian approached, her gaze as sharp as the blade.

​"The Young Lord is napping, Master Julian," she snapped. "I assume your evening classes do not start for another hour and a half."

​Julian didn’t flinch at her spiky tone, and he said, "It’s not about Lucius." he stepped closer and sat on the wooden bench opposite her. He ignored her scoff. "It’s about the Duke. It’s about Lucien."

That made her stop. She laid the knife down and finally looked at him, her eyes narrowed and suspicious.

"And what could a scholar from the Capital possibly need to know about my Lord that he hasn’t already told you in the dark of night?"

Julian flinched at the bluntness, but he didn’t look away.

"Prince Zane..." his breath got caught, but he continued regardless. "He asked me today what I have ever done for Lucien. He asked me how I have proven my love to a man who gives me everything while I... I give so little in return."

The Nanny’s expression shifted. The hostility didn’t vanish, but a flicker of something else—perhaps a reluctant respect for his honesty—appeared. She picked up a new apple.

"The Prince of the South is a fool who thinks love is a performance," she muttered. "But he isn’t wrong about one thing. My Lord has spent seven years starving in his heart. He’s fed everyone else, but no one has ever fed him."

Julian could tell it was not the normal type of feeding. It didn’t have to do with food. But then again, he didn’t know what being fed entailed.

Julian leaned in, his interest fixed on the nanny.

Around them, the maids had their ears peeled up. There was no way they would miss the gossip of the century.

Martha noticed this and scolded them. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"If I see you dwaddling, you’re cleaning this place alone." She yelled, and they all fixed their attention on their respective positions.

Nanny Martha huffed and then turned back to her peeling when Julian asked,

"How do I feed him, Martha? How do I give him the peace he gives me?"

Martha stopped peeling again. She looked toward the heavy door that led to the courtyard where Alaric was still training.

"He hates the dark at night," she whispered, so low Julian almost missed it. "Since his wife died, he sleeps with the fire high, but you probably already know that since you share a bed."

Julian looked away. Ah, he didn’t really notice.

He was equally scared of the dark, so he only assumed that the Duke had kept the fire burning heavily for his sake.

It seems like because he always kept his own fire on, he didn’t catch the Duke’s own fear.

This made his brows knit together.

Does this make him selfish?

But how was he supposed to know?

Martha watched him wallow and sighed. She did not have time to watch his pity play since she had to get back to making dinner.

There were just too many guests to feed.

"If you want to prove your love, Master Julian, then you need to show him that he’s allowed to be the one who leans, not just the wall that others lean on. You need to give him a reason to take off the armor, not just the leather, but the spirit of it."

She shoved a bowl of sliced apples toward him.

"How much you love the Duke, that is of your concern, but without sincerity, nothing can be done."

Julian looked at the apples. He was sincere. He knew it.

"Tonight is the Eve of the First Frost," she added, her voice returning to its usual gruff tone. "In the North, we don’t give gold. We give ’The Hearth-Gift.’ It’s something made by hand, something that carries the warmth of the giver. If you’re as clever as they say you are, you’ll figure it out."

Julian looked at the Nanny with a newfound admiration. He still didn’t fully like her for isolating Lucius, but she had words of wisdom that he appreciated.

And he was by no means an ungrateful person.

"Thank you, Martha."

"Don’t thank me," she grumbled, going back to her work. "I just don’t want a grumpy Duke stomping around my kitchen because his scholar is moping."

Julian left the kitchen with a spark of an idea. A ’Hearth-Gift’. Something made by hand.