Chapter 5

“I have made a serious error,” Perdita said to her crow as she stroked his black breast. “I went too fast. It was a classic error. How could I have been so foolish?”

The crow cocked his head at her and let out his splendid spine-tingling and thrilling cry.

“Yes, yes,” she replied. “No need to point out that I have behaved with far too much enthusiasm.”

Perdita let out a sigh as they walked down the hall towards her mother’s great salon.

She had never been rejected so entirely before.

Well, it wasn’t as if she generally threw herself at the feet of gentlemen. She did not go about asking for kisses, but she had assumed that the first time she did so, she would actually get an assent.

She knew she was good looking. More importantly, she had good humor. She should be pleasing to a gentleman, and surely a gentleman would wish to kiss her, but this one? The one she wanted had turned her down.

It was most infuriating.

Her crow sat upon her shoulder. Perched was a better word. He nestled his head into her dark hair in solidarity. He always knew when she needed a bit of comfort.

Her cat had gone off. He was doing it more of late, and she wondered if she was going to lose the cat. She didn’t like it, but the truth was that her cat, well, he liked to roam just like many a creature did, and she could not begrudge him his freedom, even if it broke her heart.

The idea that the cat might not come back one day…

Still, the best thing one could do with a creature like that was to let him have his freedom and wait for his return and show him love, which she would certainly do. Her crow never went very far unless, of course, Perdita was the one who had to go. She would leave him in her room, and he was a happy creature there, poking away at all the shiny things. Nesting himself, cleaning himself.

Crows were by nature social birds, but this one? He had lost all of his family. She was his family now, and generally he went with her wherever she went.

He began prancing about a little bit on her shoulder, which was quite pokey given his talons.

“Whatever is it?” she asked the crow.

The bird flapped his blue-black wings and then suddenly lifted off, soaring away from her.

“Here now,” she called. “We’ve guests in the house! Don’t startle them too much.”

But he was already almost out of sight.

She followed her crow with a swift pace. He went soaring down the long corridor, making a winged turn to the left, into her mother’s salon.

How odd, she thought to herself.

She did hope he wasn’t going to cause trouble tonight. She quite liked her crow. Her family understood her crow, but sometimes visitors were alarmed by him as he swooped about. The crow was fascinated by jewels and ladies’ coiffures. A few, clearly unworthy, guests had tried to bring him down with fans or canes.

Luckily, her family always put a quick stop to it.

She darted into the room and was shocked to find that it was not a crush.

Where was everyone? Usually, at this time of year, there was a great crush of people visiting, but it was just family. Now, that was no small number in and of itself.

Her brothers and sisters were there, along with her mother, her grandmother, her aunt who had come down from London, her cousin Jean-Luc, and his two sisters.

There were also several small children, all of them crawling about on the floor or sitting and eating sweets.

It was the one time of year when they were allowed to go a bit wild in that regard.

There were all sorts of nuts in silver bowls. Oranges were arranged in beautiful pyramids and the room was heady with the scents of cinnamon, cloves, and greenery.

Her mother loved to make the castle festive and given the way things had gone so horribly wrong in France, she had insisted that they celebrate early this year. So, the house had been festooned with holly, ivy, evergreens, and mistletoe.

Her crow circled about and then, much to her surprise, the bird suddenly descended onto his shoulder. There was really no other way to put it.

She hadn’t spotted him at first.

She stared at the earl across the room as her bird landed upon him. He did not do as others might’ve done, which would be to wave the bird away.

Instead, he eyed the animal. He looked quite patient and said, “I’m not your master, good sir. Get back to her.”

The crow looked at Hythe, picked at his hair, and then flew towards her.

Goodness.

The entire room was staring, quite astonished at the whole event. Her sister Juliet turned to her twin Hermia, and the two of them engaged in a very secret sort of quick whisper, the sort of interaction that can only happen between twins.

She was oftentimes jealous of their relationship, but there was no real point in being envious. They had been in their mother’s womb together, for goodness’ sake. Of course, they were going to have a sort of bond that Perdita could never understand. Her older, now married, sisters were very loving to her, so she could not complain.

Her mother threw up her bejeweled hands, her gown shimmering in the candlelight with all its golden embroidery in the cherry silk. “Ah, there you are, my darling! We were waiting for you. What has kept you?”

What indeed had kept her?

Consternation? Rejection? The fact that the gentleman had not kissed her. Outrageous. It had left her quite dismayed. She had been expecting a glorious kiss when she had led him up to her rooms. Not the cold comfort of being left alone with oneself.

“I had to find just the right thing for my hair this evening, Mama.”

She’d chosen holly. She’d felt prickly, after all.

“It is splendid, my dear,” her mother enthused.

She had put the green leaves decked with red berries into her hair and it did look splendid, but it wasn’t at all why she was late. She’d have to tell her mother later.

Perhaps her mother would have advice.

“Now, we have a guest,” her mama declared, gesturing to the earl. “This young man is to spend Christmas with us. It is a few days until the exciting day, and it’s perhaps a trifle early for us to begin Christmas festivities, but I say the world has gone completely mad. So celebration of any kind is essential. We must enjoy ourselves, and so, my lord, we shall ask you what you would like to do for our Christmas revels? Would you like to do Shakespeare? Would you like to read a poem? Sing a song? Would you like to—”

“Mama? Give the man a moment,” the duke said, cocking his head to the side, his gaze dancing merrily.

“I’ll sing,” the earl said quickly and with surprising confidence.

Perdita was quite astonished by this. Most of those who had to sing for their supper in her mother’s salon chose Shakespeare or suffered several moments of trepidation.

He did not seem at all nervous.

“I need someone to play the pianoforte,” he added.

The duchess beamed, her earbobs dancing. “Perdita is the one for that.”

The earl winced. The entire room, no doubt, witnessed the wince. The devilishly handsome man bowed his head. “Of course, I’m delighted to have her.”

Perhaps sensing her unease, her crow, having left the earl, alighted on her shoulder again.

Perdita marched to the pianoforte and sat down. She was a creature of nature and music. Music was part of nature. The birds’ song, the bees’ hum, the way the world turned, the flow of water over rock.

She was familiar with the music of the universe, and so the music of the pianoforte had come naturally to her. She felt it in her blood, her heart, her soul in a way that none of her other siblings did. They were all tremendously good at acting or recitation.

That was not her best suit, though she liked it well enough. No, she preferred the vibration of the instrument and the tunes she could tease forth.

She adjusted the bench and looked at him, arching a brow. “What would you like?”

There was something in his eyes that she could have sworn whispered, You .

Her breath caught in her throat, and she shook the thought away lest she let it give her too much hope.

“I’d like something old. Something for the season, to please the dowager duchess,” he said.

She thought for a moment. She knew her mother well. And she wondered if he was up to the task. She lifted her gaze to his, then she began to stroke the keys at the pianoforte. “Do you know it?”

He nodded, a strange smile that was both shockingly beautiful and painfully sad tilted his lips.

He stood beside her and placed his hand onto the panel as if he longed to feel the reverberation of the hammers hitting the strings.

She played the old German song about hope in the winter passionately, slowly. Usually, she played with her eyes closed, lost to the music. But for a reason she could not fathom, she opened her eyes and lifted her gaze to him.

He was not looking out at her family.

No, he was looking at her, and he began to sing.

Dear God in heaven! His singing, his voice, was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, and she had heard many a beautiful thing. The entire room went silent as he sang of the cold, pure snow and the promise of new life finding its way in winter.

Her heart ached because of the power in his voice, the passion. She could feel it in every fiber of her being.

She could feel his unrequited longing to change the world and bring it love. She had questioned him on love earlier, and he had seemed to think it odd that she believed in love. But in that moment, she knew he believed in love as much as, or perhaps more than, anyone in this room.

Unlike her siblings, he had love taken away, and he could not seem to awaken the world to the fact of what he understood. That to be loved was the greatest thing in the world, and so he had stepped away from the world at his failure.

She knew it. She knew it at once in her heart. All his exhaustion. It was not from a lack of ability to feel love. But from feeling love far too deeply.

Then his singing and her playing melded into perfect harmony. Two separate sounds, entwining and becoming one. For a long moment, she felt as if her heart was his, and his soul was her own.

And she’d never felt more alive.

It was a revelation that hit her so suddenly she almost stopped playing. Her fingers nearly tripped over the keys, but she kept going until, at last, he sang out the plaintive final notes of the song.

There was a hush when he finished, a hold, as if he had left the entire room enthralled, and then suddenly her mother brought up her hands and began applauding wildly.

“Bravo, my dear boy, you would be worthy of any stage in Europe,” the dowager said from her place of honor.

The earl bowed. “Thank you, Your Grace. I do not think my family would have approved though. Still, your compliment is much appreciated for you have the best of taste.”

The dowager duchess cocked her head to the side, her earbobs dancing again, shimmering with light. “I say we do what gives us happiness. This life is short, after all. And we never know what may befall us.”

He inclined his head and said to her, “Perhaps you have the right of it, since I have done for so long what I thought I should and have not done well at it.” He gave her a sad smile. “Perhaps I should turn to music.”

The dowager duchess gave him a sympathetic nod, then she stood. “You are not a failure in any way. My son has told me much about you and your persistent pursuit of justice and goodwill towards all men. That is to be valued now more than ever.” The dowager crossed to him and gently laid her hand on his forearm. “Do you understand me, Hythe? It is your perseverance in the face of failure that makes you such a good man. Others give up. But not you.”

For a moment, the earl looked as if his heart might break, and Perdita wondered when the last time was that someone had said such kind words to him.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” he replied, bowing over her hand. “That’s beautifully said.”

The dowager nodded as if she had been deeply moved. “Now, Perdita. Would you lead our guest into dinner in a moment?”

“Of course, Mama.” Perdita stood and turned to him.

The rest of the room seemed to become suddenly involved in conversation. Jean-Luc’s two sisters, both beautiful but still quite affected by fleeing France, engaged in rapid conversation with the governess, who was quite fluent in French. Unlike many aristocratic families, the Briarwoods always invited the governess to dine and converse with them. After all, she deserved a bit of adult conversation after an energetic day with all the children.

The dowager had already turned to her grandchildren, chasing one of the toddlers, pretending to be a bear, giving the governess a much-needed respite. But the marvelous portrayal of the bear was also because the dowager adored her grandchildren beyond words.

It was quite a sight in her gown and jewels, but it was also a common one. For above all, Perdita’s mother loved her family.

“You are an excellent musician,” Hythe said at last.

“Thank you,” she replied, feeling a trifle awkward given their last exchange. But what was the point of that? So she decided then and there to trust her feelings and sense, which had never let her down before and certainly never would.

“You have a most striking voice,” she said honestly. “It touched my soul. You must have a very deep connection to singing.”

His eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

“My mother played the piano quite well,” he said, his voice surprisingly rough with emotion. “But my father? His voice…” His face transformed then as if he was somewhere else, with someone else. And it was clear that it was a time of great love, safety, and happiness. “I can still hear it. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. He would sing all the old Latin songs, and sometimes I used to think I was in the Tudor court. His voice… Whenever I felt sad or uncertain, or could not sleep, his voice changed everything. With a few notes, he could bring me to a different place.”

“And you shared that with us tonight,” she breathed. “It was very good of you.”

He hesitated. “If you must know, this time of year makes me quite sad.”

“But it’s Christmas,” she protested.

He laughed. “That’s right, it is. And sometimes I look out through the dark window to the snow falling and the frost on the pane, the candles lit in the house, leaving a golden glow, and I feel…sorrow,” he lamented quietly. “Forgive me if I wasn’t in the mood earlier to entertain your goodwill or your kisses or your flirtations, or even your absolutely maddening optimism. But I feel it in my heart.”

“What?” she dared to ask.

“What you said earlier with terrifying accuracy, Lady Perdita.”

“I said many things,” she pointed out ruefully.

His eyes warmed with amusement. “So you did. You said that having had such loving parents would make their loss more painful. You see, sometimes I feel as if a great cavern has been left where my heart should be, and I will never be able to fill it up again.”

She let out a quick, astonished breath and held his gaze. “My lord. You would have the world believe you are a grump. But you? You have more heart than this room combined. And that’s saying something, because the Briarwoods have great hearts indeed.”

“How could you possibly know that?” he asked.

“I just do,” she said simply. “Remember my odd abilities? Even if my brother doesn’t go around saying the Earl of Hythe this or the Earl of Hythe that, I know people, just like I know animals like my crow here,” she said, stroking his feathers. “Your falcon knows too. You are a good heart.”

“Oh no, my lady,” he replied, his voice a barely audible sound. “I am not.”

“Why do you say that?” she protested.

“Because I am badly tempted to take you up on your offer. Very tempted indeed. And a man with a good heart would never entertain such a thing.”

“Oh yes, he would,” she replied, her heart now skipping beats, wondering if the greatest Christmas present was about to be hers.