Chapter 17

H e never should have come.

He’d ruined her Christmas. By being here, he had ruined Christmas for all of the Briarwoods, no doubt.

Why? Why had he accepted the invitation? And then why had he attempted to join in? He should have simply kept himself and his falcon away, apart, separate as they always had been.

He gazed down at the bird. His heart still ached at the near loss of him, but even hours later, the bird was rallying. The falcon, despite the small hole in his chest, was now standing on his feet and drinking water.

He was much better, but still Gordon feared. He did not now know what he feared, but he feared it indeed, and he felt in his heart the mistake he had made. The mistake of beginning to soften to the world again.

He sucked in a shuddering breath and touched his falcon’s wing. The falcon batted his wings, and he drew in a shocked breath. The animal was truly already recovering well.

He’d been so afraid that he would not survive the attack. That the wound had to be worse than what Perdita said.

He knew how the world could be stolen away from someone in an instant. Hadn’t he seen it time over time over time?

“Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?”

He whipped around to the sound of that voice and was shocked to see Sylvia standing in the doorway.

“I beg your pardon?” he growled.

“Well, your face looks like thunder,” she said simply, examining her large emerald ring before she lifted her gaze to his again. “My daughter’s face looks as if tragedy has occurred, and she’s trying to hide it because everyone else is so bloody merry. But her siblings know. They can tell something is not quite right. Except for Zephyr. Zephyr is off in his own dream land.” Her lips twitched for a moment as if she was pleased. “I think he is falling in love at present, which is most interesting. And quite good, I think. We all need to bask in love.”

“What?” he asked, unable to keep disdain from his voice.

“Never you mind,” she said with a resigned sigh. “You’ll see it soon enough, as soon as you return to good humor.”

“Sylvia,” he replied, grimacing. “Please cease.”

“What?” she asked, taking a step into the room, her silvery gown shining before the fire.

“This never-ending sense of optimism and false bravado.”

“It’s not false,” she countered as she cocked her head to the side. “You’re one of those silly people.”

“I beg your pardon. There’s nothing silly about me.”

“Oh, the most serious people are the worst silly people,” she replied, heading towards the table, stroking Perdita’s bird. “The crow has stayed,” she observed.

He frowned, mystified. “Yes, he won’t leave my falcon’s side.”

“A true Briarwood then,” she replied softly.

And much to his surprise, she reached out and stroked the crow’s breast, who gave a tilt of his head with clear pleasure. Sylvia cooed, “That’s it, my love. Yes, you are such a good friend to my daughter, and your falcon will be now too, I’d wager. And you,” she asked, turning to Gordon, “will you still be a friend of my daughter, or are you retracting like a little snail into its shell?”

He ground his teeth. “Are you out for blood today?”

She laughed lightly. “It would seem so, because you need it. But I shall try to do it kindly. I shall retract any claws you seem to think I may have put out.”

He narrowed his eyes.

She sighed heavily, shaking her head. “Yes, you’re the worst sort.”

“Please explain,” he said through gritted teeth, the pain inside him stirring. He could still feel his body shaking at the near loss of his friend.

“You pity and mourn for people like me.”

“People like you?” he echoed.

Her brow furrowed. “The people you’ve tried to help but can’t because of all the bloody avarice in the world.”

He cleared his throat. “But—”

“You know that I was an actress, yes?” she cut in, done with patience, it seemed.

He gave a tight nod of his head.

She took a step towards him, lowering her hand from the crow. “And you know that I grew up in the East End.”

“I suppose I do,” he said. “I’m aware of your different background.”

She laughed again, this time the sound ripe with amusement. “That’s one way of putting it. But I suppose you aren’t aware of the way I wore no shoes in the winter, in the poorest area of London. The streets were full of refuse and disgusting pools of water. Rats and bugs were our childhood pets…if they weren’t gnawing upon us. I’m sure you don’t know that my dresses were bought from pawn shops or stolen, filled with holes, eaten by moths, or ripped because they were so worn. They were terribly thin and offered no warmth in the damn winter, where no one could afford a fire. My hands were dirty. My face was dirty. My hair was not combed, nor was my sister’s.”

The duchess’s face grew quite serious, and yet she did not lose the light in her eyes. “My family, well, they were all actors. But my mother and father fell on terrible times, you see. And my mother, she struggled. I would have too if I was her. She had once been a great stage beauty, but the stage can be a terribly unkind place, you know? And I saw that, and I was determined to lift myself out of it, and I did.”

The duchess smiled gently, a smile that was bitter and sweet. “I was very lucky because I also found love. But I saw children die before they were five years old. I looked about me as a girl, and I knew that there was a very good chance that I would not make it to the age of twelve years old. They seemed to fall like chaffs of wheat. Of course, I had never seen a chaff of wheat, you understand. Not at that age. I had only grown up surrounded by rickety buildings and coal smoke. My bread, when I could get it, was half sawdust.”

He swallowed.

She drew in a long breath and held his gaze. “What I saw? It has left a mark on my soul. So, while I understand that you do know about the horrors of this life because you have tried to stop them, you’ve witnessed them and then tried to do something about them, but you’ve never lived them, Gordon. They’ve never been your familiar. Your familiar is very, very valid. To lose one’s parents is a terrible pain. But this idea that you seem to have that the world is truly horrific? It’s not.”

“How can you say that, knowing what you know?” he demanded. “Having seen what you’ve seen?”

She paused, not because she was searching for words. No, she seemed utterly grounded, utterly sure. But she clearly wished his sole attention. “Because Gordon, even in the most horrific places, flowers grow. Even in the most terrible of circumstances, a child can be born that will change the world. Even in the darkest and most awful of homes, love can be found. I have been cold, I have been hungry, and I have been sick, on the verge of death with no doctors, but I have also seen that this life is not about things and gold and the acquisition of more and more, or even winning and convincing other people to do the right thing. Though I’m certainly trying to do that now with you,” she teased. “Life is about accepting that everything is a test of who we are on the inside.”

He drew himself up. “I beg your pardon?”

She lifted her chin and intoned boldly, “The question is, Gordon, who are you truly on the inside? Are you brave enough? Are you strong enough to take this world in all its mad beauty and mad pain, and joy and sorrow, and live to the very fullest? Do you have the will to understand that the only point is to be totally and completely alive with the time that you’ve been given? Are you that brave, Gordon? Or will you waste what you’ve been given and hide and shrink and protect yourself and be lonely and deny the world who you are, and deny my daughter? Will you deny her your true self? Will you deny this family?”

She gave him a smile that was beautiful and soul-piercing at once. “But most of all, and this is the thing that matters, will you deny yourself?”

He opened his mouth.

“No, don’t say anything, darling boy,” she said swiftly. And with that, she closed the distance to him, took his face in her hands, and looked up at him softly. “I cannot choose your path for you, nor would I wish to. Your path is your own, but I see who you are. I see it. I see all the way into your heart, Gordon. Please do not let that muscle shrivel. Please, please, let it expand and let the world see how wonderful it is, no matter how many battles it must face.”

She pulled his head down then, quite a good distance, and kissed his forehead softly. “Now, my boy, I shall leave you to decide what it is that you actually want.”

And she left him alone with the crow and the falcon.

Despite all the agony of the years of failures and his disappointment in the world around him, he suddenly knew exactly what he wanted. He just had to choose to be strong enough to take it.