Chapter 18
Laertes never thought that he would be the reason for his sister’s heartbreak, but it seemed to be so.
Or if he was not the direct reason, he certainly had helped cause it, and he wanted to do something, anything, but he had no idea how he could turn the course of events about.
His sister was currently a wash of emotion and in dismay, standing in the foyer, shaking even with her shawl about her shoulders. Standing in the shadows, he shook too, but with anger.
What he had just seen? The Duke of Crestfield leaving her standing there? It was enough to make him curse himself.
He should wish to do murder to the duke, and yet Crestfield was his dear friend.
“You didn’t do this, my boy.”
His grandmother approached, her own gaze trained on Phoebe, yet she paused beside Laertes.
He wanted her to condemn him. He wanted to be punished for ruining Phoebe’s Christmas. The family’s Christmas. For, surely, this would ruin it.
“Yes, I did,” he gritted.
“Don’t be arrogant, my boy,” she returned. “You are not a god in all of this. You did not make your friend act this way.”
“I brought him here,” he said, turning to her.
Phoebe was so lost in her emotions that she had not noticed them standing on the edge of the vast foyer.
He wanted to go and take his sister in his arms to comfort her, to tell her that all would work out. But he did not know that all would. “I should have left him in London. I never should have tried to change him. I never should have tried to save him.”
“You care about him,” his grandmother pointed out. “He is a wonderful man in much pain, and we all try to help the people we care about. You did a good thing. You did the best of things, Laertes.”
“And look what it has done,” he said, gesturing to his sister.
“Do you regret it?” his grandmother called loudly.
Her voice boomed off the high-painted ceiling of the foyer and the marble floor below it.
His sister whipped towards them, her face a white mask of shock. “Regret what, Grandmama?”
“Loving him,” the dowager duchess said factually.
Phoebe’s brows rose, and she swung her gaze back to the closed door as if she could will Crestfield to appear.
He did not.
“Grandmama,” Laertes began. “This isn’t—”
“Your brother thinks that he has made the most tremendous of errors by bringing the Duke of Crestfield here,” his grandmother continued without yielding. “And I want to know, my love, do you regret Crestfield being here, as Laertes does?”
Phoebe stood silent for a moment, but then she turned back towards them, her eyes wide, even though they swam with tears.
“How can I regret love?” she demanded. “Even if it doesn’t seem that…”
Phoebe’s voice broke and her face crumpled for but a moment, but then some unseen steel straightened her spine, and her tears vanished as she said, with a fire that would have impressed any Briarwood, “I regret nothing.”
Her grandmother nodded, proud. “I understand that right now, it feels dark and impossible. But there’s one thing this family has always understood, one that I have known since I was finally introduced to a world of love.”
“And what is that, Grandmama?” Laertes gritted, unable to see the path out of this.
His grandmother lifted her chin, and the jewels at her throat shone like stars in the sky. “That love can only truly grow when one has had to fight for it. You see, it is dark now, but if you can but make it to the other side—”
“And if he doesn’t wish to make it to the other side?” Laertes challenged. “What if he loves the darkness?”
“That’s not what he loves,” Phoebe declared boldly.
His grandmother gave a knowing glance. “And what is it that he loves?” she asked.
“Me.” Phoebe’s face transformed to one of understanding and strength. “And you, Laertes. I think he loves you too. I think he even loves this whole family, but he doesn’t know how to leave the darkness. It’s not that he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t know how to.”
Phoebe sucked in a breath, then rushed, “He has been in it so long. We are so accustomed to the freedom of this family, to the unconditional love that is shown to every single one of us. Sometimes I think we forget how brutally cold and cruel it is out there for everyone who must face it alone.”
She stood fierce, a warrior for love. “None of us are ever alone because we have each other. But he? He was alone as a child and as a duke. He still thinks he has to be alone, the great duke. So let us show him that he does not have to be alone,” Phoebe finished.
Laertes drew in a long breath, uncertain.
“Would you abandon your friend?” his grandmother asked.
He winced, then whispered, “Never.”
Though, in a way that’s what he had been thinking about doing, abandoning his friend out of vengeance for his sister. But what if abandoning him, turning on him, and threatening murder to him was the very worst thing that he could do?
What if the one thing that he needed to do for his friend was to be there for him and show him the true way? Was to show him that even in his pain, he would not be left out in the cold.
Phoebe started towards the stairs, determined.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get a cloak.”
How he loved his fierce sister, who refused to wallow in her disappointment. She wouldn’t wait for love. She would seize it. And by God, he would help her.
“I’ll join you,” Laertes declared.
“As will I,” Ajax drawled from the top of the stairs. “You lot are so very loud. No doubt the Duke of Crestfield has run off into the snow, all the way in Scotland.”
She squared her shoulders and arched a brow at her uncle. “You may come only if you promise not to bury him.”
Ajax gave her a sly grin. “I won’t promise anything. The pup might need it, you know, a good stint underneath the earth might remind him that life is short and he could lose you.”
“He already knows that he could lose me,” she said. “He tried to lose me. He’s doing everything he can to lose me. And that’s exactly why I have to show him that he never can. It’s he who is trying to flee. Not me.”
“Are you sure?” Laertes asked. “It could be a terrible mistake…”
Phoebe’s eyes glistened and with a passion that was wiser than the ages, she said, “There are no mistakes. Not in our family. I will not allow myself to think so.”
His grandmother smiled. “Well said, Phoebe. Now, go and get the man you love. Others might abandon him, but we never will.”
Out in the middle of a frozen field, Oliver really had no idea where to go.
He contemplated the woods, but that seemed a very bad idea. He was shaking. His hands had turned to ice. He needed to go back. But if he went back, he had to face the house, and he had to face the family, and the truth be told, he would have to face himself.
He had to face himself, no matter what.
With each step away from her, he felt her pull. It was like a cord that could not be severed, an enduring bond that had been forged and now could not be shaken. He wanted to turn up his face to the sky and rail at the heavens.
How had this happened to him? How had he so entirely been taken by this family, by her?
How could he break free from it?
He couldn’t. And he didn’t want to.
Not when he really, really thought about it.
The pain inside him was still there, raw and horrible. But with each step, and each moment in the cold snow, the crunch of it beneath his boots, he thought of the joy on Nestor’s son’s face and on Nestor’s too as he had danced with his son.
Would he risk the unhappiness of his own son one day by insisting on clinging to a look his father had given him, to words spoken in ignorance and arrogance?
Would he do that? Not to himself, but to his future children. For he would have children. He wanted them. Very much so.
But if he was going to dare to have those children, didn’t he need to do better than his father? Didn’t he need to stop passing down the pain that seemed to be as intense as any inheritance could ever be?
He gazed upward.
The clouds had slipped away, and now the stars shone. The Milky Way was bright overhead with an intensity and clarity that he did not know if he’d ever seen before. And he felt that clarity in his soul.
Perhaps it was his pain. Perhaps it was love. Perhaps it was the sudden understanding that he wanted to look at his own child with the sort of love that Nestor had looked at his son.
That he wanted to be accepted the way the Briarwoods wanted to accept him.
As he sucked in a sharp, horrified breath, he realized the only thing stopping him from having it all was himself.
He could continue to try to pretend that wasn’t true.
He could continue to resist it, to fight it, to ignore that the little boy inside him still desperately hoped that his father would look on him in love when he stood in ribbons and jewels.
His father would never be able to do that now, but Oliver could do that for his own children, for his own son, whatever that son chose one day. Even more so, he could do it for himself. He started to turn, ready to go back.
“You are lucky I didn’t bring a shovel, you know,” Ajax Briarwood drawled.
But instead of tensing, he let out a loud, booming laugh. “The earth is rather hard for digging, my lord,” he said, facing the tall Viking of a man and then sucking in a breath.
He had expected the large Briarwood uncle to come out and make him see reason or perhaps try to put him in his place.
But Ajax was not alone.
She was there in a long crimson cloak that kissed the snow like holly berries, and Laertes was there too in his long winter coat.
“You didn’t think we’d actually let you wander out into the snow and die out here, did you?” Laertes quipped.
“You are correct,” Ajax said, striding forward and whipping open a thick wool coat. “It would take a terrible long time to dig you a grave.”
Oliver could hardly believe it as Ajax wrapped the wool about his shoulders with kindness rather than disdain. And though he was chilled to the core…he felt the first hint of warmth, here with Phoebe and the care of her uncle and his friend.
“With the ground this hard, we’d have to put you in the crypt,” sallied Ajax. “And the crypt is reserved for family. Which you have promised to be,” Ajax said. “So, what say you? Are you still going to be a part of this family? We promise, any burying shall be deferred for decades to come.”
“That is a very unique invitation. To join you all through the ages.”
“There are worse fates,” Ajax pointed out, “but, lad, we want you. We welcome you. What do you say? Or are you going to go up to your room this evening and endure the season as you have clearly always done?”
Phoebe took a step towards him, her cloak floating about her. “You don’t have to do that, you know. You never have to do that again.”
He strode through the snow and pulled her into his arms. He didn’t care if Ajax was there. He didn’t care if Laertes was there.
He wrapped his arms about her and held her tight. “I’m never letting you go,” he whispered, “ever again. I’m never letting your whole family go ever again because you all are my Christmas gift. This, right here, right now, is my gift.”
“And what is that gift?” she asked.
He stroked a lock of her hair back behind her ear. “I have finally seen that love is passed down through families, and pain is too, and I won’t be passing down pain to mine. Will you help me, Phoebe? Will you help me to stop passing down the pain?”
She cupped his face in her hands. “Yes, my love,” she said, “I will help you.”
As Laertes and Ajax whooped and hollered their approval when he stole her lips in a kiss, he couldn’t resist a single thought.
Whoever would’ve thought that ending up flat on his back, the air knocked out of him by an Irishman, would have been the beginning of a beautiful life?
But it absolutely was.