Chapter 14
“That bad, is it?” Lady Perdita Ripton, Countess of Hythe, slipped into the now silent room.
A few hours ago, the children had been in this room, eating cakes and dancing with Monsieur Georges.
This room was different than the one the adults spent so much of their evenings in, but it was beautiful all the same.
It usually wasn’t silent.
Now, it should have been rattling with rage. She could feel the Duchess of Crestfield’s anger. Her despair. It coated the room that had recently been alight with the feelings of Christmas. The children’s tree stood in the corner.
Undaunted, though saddened by the Duchess of Crestfield, Perdita paused and observed the tree and still managed to smile. She did not feel fear, trepidation, or dread, not for her son, Laertes, and not even for Seraphine.
But in her heart, she knew that the only choice was to be here right now with this woman who was so angry and upset, who had lost her way, and who had chosen despair over joy during the Twelve Days of Christmas.
She gazed at that beautiful tree and thought of the children’s joy when they had looked upon it for the first time. Her own mother, the dowager duchess, and Oliver, the Duke of Crestfield, her soon-to-be son-in-law, and the Duchess of Crestfield’s son, had decorated it together.
Perdita’s mother had told her how Oliver had helped string the oranges on the tree and put the decorations on, even though he had insisted that he thought Christmas was ridiculous, a holiday for the deluded. He’d thought it was a day only for those who needed a bit of hope in a world that was dark.
Perdita wouldn’t argue that the world wasn’t dark, not at all. She was no fool. She saw nature at its finest. She saw when the fox ate the rabbit. She saw when the cat ate the mouse. She saw when the hawk dashed down from the sky and took up the hedgehog.
And she often cared for the animals who had barely escaped being the consequences of nature’s cruel processes, and yet she knew that joy and hope was still possible.
And so she would not yet give up on the Duchess of Crestfield, despite the cruelty that she had just perpetrated in the room next door to her daughter and her son, and really to the entire Briarwood family.
What amazed her was that the duchess likely had no idea she’d been cruel. She felt she was the one who was wronged, the one who needed to be apologized to.
The duchess whipped towards her in her grand wool cloak lined with fur. Her face was white. Her cheeks gaunt. She looked as if she had seen hell.
“Yes, it is that bad,” she said with a quiet intensity. “My daughter is going to marry—”
“My son,” Perdita cut in gently but honestly.
“I see,” the duchess said, a brow arching. “And you have raised such a one who will seduce a girl in but a few days and trick her out of her path of greatness to marry a mere English earl, when the crown heads of Europe have considered her as a future daughter-in-law?”
“Some might think that being the wife of the future Earl of Hythe was not such a terrible thing,” Lady Perdita put in, unimpressed by the lady’s declarations.
“Some people might wish it,” the Duchess of Crestfield returned, squaring her elegant shoulders. “But my daughter is more than some people.”
Perdita smiled. She couldn’t help herself, and she knew it irritated the duchess immensely.
The truth was the Briarwoods felt the exact same way about themselves. They were not some people. They never had been and they never would be. But there was a fundamental difference in the type of people who they were compared to and the type of people the duchess seemed to admire.
“And what life is it that you hope for your beautiful darling daughter?” she asked calmly, trying to remain curious. Trying to understand.
“A life of power, a life of importance,” the duchess returned swiftly. “People will remember her name.”
Perdita’s brows rose, and she stifled a laugh, for she knew that would not help at all. “They will?” she said.
The duchess scoffed. “No one will remember you. Perhaps you’ll be marked down in the annals of history as the wife of the Earl of Hythe.
Perhaps you might be mentioned…” Her voice dropped, and she smoothed her gloved hands down her cloak.
“And I, perhaps, might be mentioned, but it is not enough. The history books will record my daughter as a princess or an archduchess. That will matter.”
Dear God in heaven. The duchess was quite deluded and in pain. Was she so afraid to be forgotten? Had she ever had any real worth at all? She rather thought not, Perdita realized, and oh that sunk her heart. She wouldn’t wish that on any soul.
And then she realized that was what Oliver had said about Christmas. He’d said it to several people. That Christmas was for those who were deluded, but it seemed like his mother was the most deluded of all.
“My dear,” Perdita said, “no one will remember me. You’re right.
They likely won’t recall you either. Some might remember my mother, actually.
She was a great actress. Unique. Lauded in papers, and some say novels were even written about her.
But even if your daughter becomes a princess, no one will remember her for that.
No one will remember her if she becomes an archduchess.
In the end, almost everyone is forgotten. ”
“Don’t say that,” the woman hissed. “I want my daughter to have power, to be more than I was. To rise.”
“Rise to what?” Perdita asked, folding her hands before her.
“To greatness,” the duchess replied without hesitation. “To be more than just herself.”
Perdita frowned, startled. “Why would you want her to be more than herself?”
“Because isn’t that what we’re meant to strive for?” the duchess demanded. “We are born to this world to improve ourselves every day, to make ourselves more than what we are brought here as.”
“Why?” Perdita took a step forward and pointed out, “Does the hawk ever wish to be more than the hawk?”
“We are not animals.”
Lady Perdita laughed. She could not stop herself.
“Oh, but we are, Your Grace,” she said. “Each and every one of us. We are born into this world as animals, and we die in this world as animals, and like animals, we are forgotten quickly. If we are lucky, our children will remember us and our grandchildren, and perhaps our great grandchildren will hear stories of us. We will be whispered of, and perhaps the history books might write our names down. But most of us, well, we will not even be whispers in the wind.”
The duchess pressed her mouth together, then said tightly, “I have arranged things for her. I have made plans for her. She could live in a palace. She could sway governments. She could—”
“Be happy?” Perdita prompted.
The duchess gazed at her with confusion. “What is happiness?”
“Have you never known it?” Perdita asked with a sinking feeling.
The duchess took a step toward her, matching her stance. “I don’t need to know happiness. I only need to know purpose.”
Lady Perdita’s stomach tightened with growing resignation. She wasn’t a fool. She hadn’t thought that she was going to walk into this room and somehow convert the woman to the Briarwoods’ way of thinking in a few moments.
After all, it had taken Oliver several days, and Seraphine several days too.
They needed to work on the duchess. They needed to give her a chance, but she was so cold.
And then Perdita said the only thing that she thought might work.
“Yes, you have a purpose, and it is to make your children afraid of you.”
The duchess stilled. A look of sheer horror washed over her, and Perdita knew she had said the right thing, for the duchess appeared appalled.
“That’s not true,” the duchess bit out.
“It is,” Perdita replied without hesitation.
“Your daughter was terrified when she came here. Terrified of disappointing everyone, terrified of making the wrong curtsy, terrified of saying the wrong thing, of playing the piano wrong. She smiled in just such a way. She danced in just such a way as to win the approval of everyone in this room. She was terrified she might displease us. But most of all, she is terrified of displeasing you. I’m sure you trained her to be highly effectively, and she’s quite good at charming everyone, but she doesn’t do it because she has joy in anything.
She does it because she’s afraid that you will look at her with disappointment, that she will not be the girl that you need her to be. Do you understand?”
The color drained from the duchess’s face, and her hands clenched into fists, but she said nothing.
“Your son was so ashamed,” she continued. “Ashamed he might disappoint a dead man, but he has left that behind.”
“You are wicked,” the duchess replied at last, her voice barely a whisper. “How can you say such things? I love my children. My husband loved our children.”
“I’m glad of it,” Perdita said, “but if you think what I have said is wicked, then I’m glad to be wicked. I’m glad to choose my children’s happiness over making them worry they will disappoint me. I would never want my children to look at me as yours did you this night. Do you see?”
The duchess pivoted away from her and went to the windows. “Stop. I do not wish to hear more.”
But Perdita couldn’t stop. She’d always been a truth teller, and she always would be.
“I always thought fear was the worst thing. That’s what my mother has always told us.
But looking at you here in this room, I see that is not true.
You’ve tricked yourself into believing something, believing that your daughter being a princess will make your life have meaning, that you will not have wasted your life if your daughter can be someone.
But I promise you this. Once she is wed, your life will not have more meaning.
Her being a princess will not give you anything.
The only thing that can give you fulfillment is your own life, and the only thing that can give you fulfillment is if you let your daughter go to live hers. ”
“I am her mother,” the dowager said, her voice wracked with pain. “I must not let her go. It is my job to—”
“Let her become a woman.”
“I must choose for her. She cannot choose for herself.”
Perdita nodded sadly. “Well then, I understand you cannot be like the birds and the beasts who raise their children and let them go. I have seen many animals do it, and in my opinion, it is far better to be a beast than a human. Humans are so full of misery. You are so full of misery, aren’t you?
And I’m sorry for it because your children are wonderful, and they’re going to join our family, and they will be wonderful in it too.
But every Christmas, we will know that you are not here, and it will break our hearts. ”
The duchess glanced back over her shoulder, her jaw tightening. This had clearly not occurred to her. “She won’t marry him. She will do as I say.”
“Do you think so?” Perdita asked. “I’m not so very certain myself.”
The duchess snapped back to her, panicked. “Bring her to me, and I will show you who will win. I will show you who she will follow. Your lot or mine.”
“No, Mama,” Seraphine gritted, her voice deep with emotion as she stood in the doorway. “I will not follow the Briarwoods’ lot or your lot. I will follow my own.”
Perdita looked to her beautiful future daughter-in-law and tears filled her eyes. Tears of pride. She wanted to cheer! The girl was so remarkable and so brave to stand there and be so bold.
Seraphine licked her lips and lifted her chin. “Mama, you must understand.”
“I cannot understand,” her mother said. “You could have a prince.”
“I don’t want a prince,” Seraphine countered, exasperated. “I want Laertes.”
“Why?” her mother demanded.
“Because he needs me,” Seraphine said.
A chill washed over Perdita then, and all her hope suddenly began to dim. Perdita was not certain those were the words that she wished to hear. Seraphine was choosing Laertes because he needed her? Not because it was what she wanted more than anything?
“I can make him happy, Mama,” Seraphine rushed, her eyes bright with her determination. “I can bring him peace. I’ve seen it on his face how I make him feel. I…”
Perdita closed her eyes for a moment and winced.
Seraphine was still trying to please people.
She was still trying to win people’s affection and love.
She still needed their approval. She still thought that her role was to make other people happy before herself, and Perdita wanted to cry at that, because all the triumph that she had just felt, all the amazement, came dashing down about her.
She looked to the Duchess of Crestfield and felt real, true anger for the first time in many years.
And even though she understood that the Duchess of Crestfield thought she had not won, she had, for the woman’s teachings were embedded deep in Seraphine’s heart. And Perdita did not know if Seraphine would ever be able to free herself of them.
Especially now that she thought she had, especially now that she’d chosen Laertes. Perdita longed to hug the young woman and tell her to let it all go, to walk away from it all, even her son Laertes, even if it meant Laertes would be heartbroken forever.
Because Seraphine should never marry anyone unless it was because it what she wanted, and not how she could make others feel.