Chapter 8
Laertes played with furious passion.
How could he not? He always did, but today, he felt it even more intensely. He poured it into the piano and the music.
His entire existence had been upended in but a day. His fingers coursed over the keyboard, and he was so grateful for the transformation of the pianoforte from the harpsichord.
If he was doing what he did best now to a harpsichord, he would have broken the poor thing to bits. But now, the pianoforte was strong and capable and could take every sweeping pounding of his emotions. His favorite composer, of course, was Beethoven.
The moodiness of his music really suited Laertes.
And, at present, he did feel a bit moody.
He had felt moody all night long. It had been the strangest thing to be half awake through the long night, longing for the woman next door.
He knew that she had been put in that chamber.
He hadn’t needed to be told, though his grandmama had mentioned it with a mischievous smile.
And if he was quite honest, he could sense Seraphine.
It had been all he could do not to get up, walk to the door, knock upon it, and bid her join him to play a tune or two. He had not. Instead, he had spent the vast majority of his night thinking of her.
He had lain in his bed thinking of her.
One hand flung up over his head, staring at the ceiling, doing everything he desperately could to get through the night and have some semblance of sleep.
Visions of her entwined in his arms had danced through his head.
Somehow, he felt it was so real. As if he could reach out and touch her.
He wanted to will it so. To make his visions reality.
The night had been long, yet thoughts of her had been tantalizing. When dawn had come, he’d returned to the pianoforte, playing as softly as he could.
He’d need to find a way to get some sleep.
A Briarwood Christmas was one of continual activity, and it did one no good if they were exhausted all the time.
Luckily, he was still quite young and could get by on very little sleep.
He had gotten up early, drank a good deal of coffee, done his best to avoid his cousins, and found the piano downstairs, where he could thunder upon it without fear of waking up the other people whose rooms were near his.
Most of the Briarwoods were up anyway. They loved the morning light.
He had ignored the loud cacophony of noise in the breakfast room, largely because he wasn’t entirely certain what to do next.
He wasn’t a creature of solitude per se.
He was very good with his cousins. He loved to banter, to bandy about, to go on the town, and to help everyone else, but he had no idea how to help himself.
In particular, he had recently helped Oliver, the Duke of Crestfield. He’d been determined to do it.
His grandmother had even helped him to do so. But now he began to understand some of the allusions she had made in their most recent conversations about his life and nature.
When he was on his own, dare he say, he felt in a pit of confusion. Right now, with the woman of his dreams somewhere in the house, he truly had no idea how to help himself.
He had no idea how to go about convincing the young lady, who he was certain was the one, that she should choose him.
So instead of trying to seek her out or sort out how, he played.
Oh, how he played! Despite being lost in the music, he savored the Christmas tree in the corner, the crackling fire, the candles that had been lit about the room, despite this gray hue pouring in through the windows.
The Christmas cheer pulled at the darkness of his heart, keeping him afloat.
The long hall was massive and the shadows often lurked in the corners. This could feel quite cozy, even in the deepest winter months.
But this time of year was a very difficult time, despite the color of Christmas. He was one of those whose heart was already aching, and it grew even more sorrowful with the darker hours of the months.
Indeed, he was much like his Uncle Zephyr, who suffered greatly when the cold winters came.
Zephyr was a cheerful soul all year round, but winter did something to him.
Christmas was usually fine, but once the lights and shine of it all vanished, Zephyr could vanish into a well of despair if he was not careful.
The whole family helped him.
Laertes was different. His melancholy did not pick a season. It was his constant companion, but winter did make it worse.
He hated it, but there it was. Nothing that he did could counter it. No matter how often he threw himself into cold rivers or cold ponds, took bracing walks, or engaged in dancing or conversation, the darkness walked beside him, its weight growing heavier at times.
Luckily, no one tried to cajole him out of it or pretend that it wasn’t real.
Instead, he gave himself over to music, sliding into the nuanced hues of passionate tunes to assuage his inner turmoil. But at present? Despite the brevity of their acquaintance, all he wanted was her.
“Do you really play like that all the time?”
He gasped. It was almost as if his thoughts had made her appear.
He knew thoughts were powerful. Maybe she had come to this room because he had been thinking so intensely of her.
Maybe he had reached out to her via his thoughts, and she had followed them.
Or perhaps it was just the music, because she clearly did love music.
But he rather hoped it was his thoughts. And that maybe his thoughts from the night might summon her to his bed soon too.
“Yes,” he said. “Do you find it amiss?”
“Well,” she said, “surely so much passion cannot do anyone good.”
He glanced over at her, surprised. “That is quite odd coming from you.”
“Is it?” she queried, striding in.
Today, she wore a gown of a beautiful cherry hue. It was a perfect Christmas color, and it whispered over her body, just as he wished to slide his hands over her. It was a promise, that beautiful fabric over her perfect form.
He adored it. He hungered for her.
He adored how she looked as she cut across the room, elegant, regal, perfect, but he wished to muss that perfection, to take her dark coils, which were so artfully arranged on her head, and let them tumble down her back, caressing her waist.
How he longed to thrust his hands into the coils and shake them loose. He wanted to see her shaken loose. Not undone, but no longer imprisoned by her mother’s rules.
“Do you care for more traditional tunes?” he asked.
“Well, there’s something to be said for Mozart and for Bach, though Mozart certainly wasn’t always measured.”
In Laertes’s opinion, Mozart’s music often felt frothy, but the man had burned himself to a cinder with his obsession and passion.
“I agree,” he rumbled, “but one mustn’t be tricked by his and Bach’s more sugary tunes.”
She nibbled on her beautiful lower lip, turning it a berry red as she took another step towards the pianoforte. “Mozart did have his moments of great power, but somehow they always made the soul soar. Beethoven has a tendency to…”
“What?” he demanded.
“Well, to cause one to ache, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” he agreed without hesitation. That was why he felt such an affinity for Beethoven’s music, but he kept that to himself.
She strolled over, stood beside the piano, and gazed down at the bench. He did not even need to be told. He scooted over, and she sat down beside him, her thigh aligned with his.
Their bodies touched, and oh he wished to sweep her into his arms. But instead he drank in the way their sides and their limbs touched.
She was considerably shorter than him. If he had wanted to, he could have leaned over and placed his head atop hers, or it would have been the perfect moment for her to press her head into his shoulder, but they had not crossed such thresholds, even though he dearly hoped that they would.
Even so, they lingered quietly side by side, holding the pianoforte in suitable reverence.
He took in her scent of soap, and he could smell the tea that she had drunk for breakfast. Such simple things were more intoxicating than the rarest things. Because they were her.
“Your father is quite interesting,” she said, caressing her fingers over the ivory keys without pushing down upon them.
“Oh?” he queried. “Do tell.”
“I had a good conversation with him this morning over breakfast. He had quite a few things to say about music and your mother.”
He let out a groan. “Oh, dear. Did he share their Christmas antics?”
She glanced up at him, those berry lips curved in a bemused smile. “Yes, or at least a few of them. He seemed to suggest that the two of them had fallen in love over Christmas and that their music had been involved. He had sung and she had played.”
He smiled softly. “It’s true, and if you’re here on another Christmas Eve, you will find them every year in the shadows, dancing by the tree over there.”
She glanced over the long hall at the towering tree festooned with shining ornaments. “It’s very beautiful,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “The children helped to decorate it. The entire family does. Grandmama brought the tradition over after she visited friends in Austria many decades ago.”
“I like the trees in Austria,” she said easily. “It brings cheer to the darkness.”
His breath caught in his throat. “Do you find the winter to be dark? To be difficult?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t know how people make it through. I rather understand the ancients and their obsession with the longest night of the year, making great bonfires and celebrating. Sometimes I think that’s exactly what we should do too.”
He gave her a merry grin. “Don’t you think, in many ways, that’s what Christmas is?” he said. “An attempt to make it through the longest nights of the year?”
She blinked. “Yes, I rather suppose it is.”
“I never would’ve thought that you felt thus,” he said.
“Why?” she queried.
“You seem so cheerful,” he put in.