Chapter 18

O ne could make the argument that the rabbit had started all of this.

Perdita stared at said rabbit in his hutch and wiped her tears away, her shoulders curving. She opened the door, pulled him out, and held him to her chest.

“This has been a terrible Christmas,” she confessed, stroking his soft ears. “I thought it was going to be the best of my life, or at least the first of the best Christmases of my life. But it is not,” she whispered and lifted the rabbit so she could bury her face in his fur.

The rabbit, being a good sort, allowed her to cry her eyes out. It was awful. The children were making merry downstairs. She was delighted that her experience had not destroyed Christmas for all of them. She had noticed her brother, Zephyr, following the governess down the hallway. That had been quite interesting, and it was the only hopeful thing she could find in the day, besides the joy of the children. She liked the governess quite well, though she had not spent a great deal of time with her the last few days.

She had been so fixated on trying to help Gordon wake up to the world. To help the man she was in love with.

She pulled herself back and sneezed. “Oh dear,” she said.

The rabbit blinked at her, twitching his little nose. She put him down and let him hop back into the hutch. She shut the hutch, then closed the dressing room door behind her before heading back out to the fire.

She could not stay in here and allow herself to weep. Life was too short for that and this was Christmas. She did not want to upset her brothers and sisters or the children. They would expect to see her.

Even so, it was hard. So very hard. She crossed to the fire and stared down at it, trying to draw warmth from the flames, but it was no easy thing. She closed her eyes, trying to think of her mother’s words of wisdom and what her mother would do in similar circumstances. But something kept distracting her. Words, a song. Someone was singing in the hallway, far too merry for their own good. No, she wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t begrudge anyone their merriment. That beautiful voice, male, strong, soared through the hallway and through her door.

She snapped her eyes open and lifted her head, looking away from the fireplace mantel. It was him, and he was singing an ancient Christmas carol. One about joy and bringing happiness and light into the world.

It couldn’t be, could it?

It was! And then the voice stopped right outside her door and there was a knock, knock, knock upon the wooden panel.

She wiped at her eyes again, then charged to the door and threw it open, hoping beyond hope. It was her greatest and perhaps most foolish trait to hope, but she could not yet give it up.

He stood there, his falcon cradled in his arms in the box she’d brought him and her crow upon his shoulder.

“Will you let us in?” he asked.

“Only if you’re going to sing to me,” she said.

He smiled softly and slowly. “That’s why we are here,” he said. “To serenade you on Christmas. You have been away from all the joy.”

“I thought there would be, but there has not been a great deal of joy for me today.”

“I know,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry for it. Will you let me in?”

She took a step back, her heart hammering in her chest, her mouth going dry, half terrified of what he might say next.

He crossed into the room and gently placed his falcon down. “He’s already moving about,” he said.

“I see,” she exclaimed, overjoyed, as the falcon stood on his feet and pecked at the straw. “I had hoped that the wound, which was not as grave as I first feared, would not bother him much once he recovered from the scare of the attack.”

He gave a nod. “It seems so, and I think it was my own fear that made it all worse than it was.”

“Fear can do that,” she said, watching her husband and wondering what was coming next. “Sometimes we’re terrified of the worst possible thing happening, and then our fears do not come to pass at all.”

“Yes,” he said softly, turning to her. “Your mother talked to me.”

“Did she?” she exclaimed. “Oh, dear. Was it a long, boring lecture?”

He grew very serious. “It was perhaps the most important conversation of my life.”

“Truly?” she whispered.

“I never had talks like that, you see, with my mother and father, and they died before they could give any talks of real meaning.” His eyes widened and his face transformed with emotion. “Sylvia gave me advice that I, well, that I needed. And she made me feel like…” His eyes filled with tears.

“What?” she whispered.

“Her son,” he said, and a tear did slip down his hard cheek.

Her heart swelled then and she crossed to him and wiped the salty trail away. “My darling,” she said softly, “you are her son.”

He drew in a shuddering breath. “Perdita, I don’t know how to accept it,” he said. “That I finally have a family that might love me for who I am. That I am not alone.”

“You don’t have to accept it all today, Gordon,” she assured, her heart aching for him, yet daring to lift out of its own sorrow. “It is so much, all of us, to take in. Just accept it a little bit at a time, and then one day you will wake up and it will be as natural to you as the Earth going about the sun, as the moon going about the Earth…as the seasons,” she said. “All of which are true and never falter. Just like our love for you. My love for you,” she said.

Her crow hopped down off his shoulder and crossed over to the falcon, gazing at him carefully. The flacon shuffled to the crow. Friends.

Gordon looked down at Perdita then and pulled her into his arms. He was silent for a long moment, and then he said the words that he clearly had longed to say. “I love you, Perdita. I love the way that you saw me in the barn the first day that we met and refused to give in. Even then, you knew you were going to heal me, didn’t you?”

She looked at him strangely. “I didn’t heal you,” she said.

“What?” he asked.

“You healed yourself, Gordon.”

He blinked.

“Briarwoods don’t actually do the healing. Everyone thinks we do. You’re not the first person to tell a Briarwood something like that. You won’t be the last. But I must assure you, we simply show people the truth about life. We take away the lies, pull back the curtains, peel off the masks, and we leave people with the reality of it all.”

“Well,” he said, “I bloody love reality.”

She laughed. “As do I.”

“I’m never going to let you go,” he said softly.

“You’ll never have to,” she replied.

And as he kissed her, her heart sang, sang with the Christmas miracle that surrounded them. The miracle of love.