Epilogue

Christmas

A few years later

T he children sat hushed, quite an amazing thing for children to do, but no one ever dared utter a word or a sound when Gordon was about to sing.

He knew how to sing everything from the most beautiful of old carols to the funniest of songs. And he knew how to make the children laugh as he was about to do. Their favorite was a funny song about a silly sailor.

As soon as he began, as the children had waited for him to do so very quietly, he went up to them and sang the twisty words which always made them burst with laughter.

He was a master at making children laugh. Perhaps most would not have suspected such a thing about him, but Gordon had realized that deep within him, the whole time, there had been a little boy who longed to be quite silly.

And it was a very good thing that he had found that out because his own small little son dearly loved to play.

How Gordon loved to play with him.

And so, as he sang to all the children, he looked over the growing crowd of Briarwoods and locked eyes with his wife and with his own little boy.

The little boy gazed at him with merry eyes. All Briarwood children had merry eyes, thank goodness, for they were surrounded by love. So much love it set his own heart ablaze with a hope he’d long feared gone.

The adults watched him with amusement too. Not the kind where the adult was tolerant, but genuine joy, the kind of joy that surrounded some families only at Christmastime, but which filled the Briarwoods all year round.

For a moment, he and Leander caught each other’s gazes, and Gordon felt a wave of deep gratitude towards the duke, who had so entirely changed his life by pulling him into the Briarwood family. Leander smiled and inclined his head, and Gordon inclined his head in turn. Their friendship had only grown over the years since they had become brothers.

Gordon crossed to his wife and son. He took his little one up into his arms, then laced his hand around his wife’s. His heart was so full of light that he sometimes wondered if it would burst.

On this night of nights, Christmas Eve, where anything could happen, and the world could be changed in an instant, and miracles waited around every corner, he sang to his family.

He sang to his wife. Their eyes locked and he could see the love written there. And when the silly song ended, he began another song about a child, about love, about hope, about the darkness being conquered by the light.

Then his little boy began to sing with him in the purest, most perfect of tones that only children could achieve. The winter night lit that moment with the promise of love and a future made by his child and the love which he shared with Perdita.

Gordon realized as they sang before the family, the Christmas tree, and the snowy evening that no matter what happened in the world or how many times he lost in the House of Lords, he was strong. Strong enough to choose to show the world exactly who he was and how much he loved his family.

And how much they loved him.