Chapter 15
“Do you feel sorry for me?” he demanded.
Laertes could not believe those words slipped from his lips as he stood in the doorway, watching the woman he loved. His entire body was shaking. In all his life, he’d never felt such distress.
He was no small man. He was capable, strong. Yes, he knew the darkness of his heart, but that had never made him feel small or incapable before. But here now, listening to her, he suddenly wondered at everything that he had assumed before.
“No,” she whispered, turning to him, her eyes wide with horror.
“Are you marrying me because you feel sorry for me?” he blurted.
“No,” she exclaimed again. “Why would you say that?”
He took a step into the room, not caring that his mother was there, not caring that Seraphine’s mother was there. Anyone could hear this conversation. Anyone could see it. He needed the world to see it because he would not have her choose him out of pity.
He would not allow her to sacrifice her life because she thought that he needed her, because of the sorrow inside of him. He had made it many years alone so far, and he would continue to make it many years if he had to. He would not allow her to make a martyr of her life just because…
“Cease,” she cried out. “Cease. I see it on your face. I do not know what is happening, but I beg you to cease.”
With every word, her voice grew heavier with emotion. “Whatever you were thinking, it is not true,” she gritted. “It is not correct.”
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “You just said that you were going to marry me because I need you.”
“Don’t you need me?” she gasped. And somehow, she seemed grander, more powerful than she’d ever been, willing to face the truth and say it, to hell with what anyone thought. “Your grandmother and I discussed it. You need someone like me.”
Still, he couldn’t stop the niggling doubt inside him. The doubt that seemed to come from his darkness and whisper no one could ever love that part of him.
He stilled. “I see,” he said. “You don’t wish to marry me for myself or because you love me, but because you can save me from myself. Is that it?”
“Laertes, no,” she said, darting forward, grabbing his hands. “I refuse to let you speak like this, to misinterpret what I have to say. You and I together, with your sorrow and my capability, we are…”
He sucked in a sharp breath, feeling as if he had no idea what ground he was standing on anymore.
He had been the solid one up until this moment.
The one who was doing the convincing, but now it seemed as if that part of him that had always been there was determined to keep him alone. “Perfect,” he said.
Her face paled.
“Was that what you were going to say?” he bit out.
Pain darkened her eyes. “Yes, I suppose it was. Because it is true. Please, don’t do this,” she begged.
“Do what?” he whispered. “Say the truth? We both are truth tellers now.”
He could feel her mother’s triumph rising as the end of their relationship began to threaten.
His own mother? He could feel her pain at his growing suffering.
He gazed inside himself and at the dark well that had always dawned inside him and then he looked at Seraphine, the woman he loved.
He was stronger than all of this doubt, all his darkness. Yes, it hurt. Yes, he felt horrible. Yes, every moment of this felt like hell, but he was not about to let anything triumph over him or over her.
He took her hand. “Come with me,” he said.
Her mother let out a cry of protest at her victory, almost within her grasp, now possibly being seized away. His mother gave him a nod, and he stole Seraphine out of that room, down the hall, and into a quiet room.
And as he lingered with her in the darkness of winter, the darkness of the season, and the darkness in his heart, he looked into her eyes.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
“I love you,” she said, her own eyes shining with the ferocity of her feeling. “I love you with all my heart.”
He shook his head, trying to understand. “But why would you say that you were going to marry me because I need you?”
“Because you do,” she exclaimed. “And I need you. Is that such a very terrible thing that we need each other?”
“It can be,” he whispered. “It can be if you are marrying me because you’re sacrificing yourself somehow, because you want to make me better, because you want to please me, because—”
“Cease,” she called out, refusing to let him continue, it seemed.
“I don’t know how many times I need to say it.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe in my mind, I’ve justified choosing you because I believe that I am the best thing for you, and maybe that is a certain sort of arrogance, but it’s also not wrong.
You do need me,” she ground out. “And I am glad of it.”
She squeezed his hands back, as if she could keep him and hold him for all eternity. “I will be there for you, and I will never let you be alone in all the sorrow that you feel. And I understand your sorrow in a way that no one else can…”
Tears began to slip down her cheeks as she spoke feelings that had clearly been deep within her for years.
“From the time that I was a little girl to the time that I stand here now with you, I have been alone with an ache in my heart, bearing it eternally, desperately wishing someone would love me, desperately wishing that someone would see that I am here. I, Seraphine. Not the diamond, not the perfect pianist, not the perfect singer, not the girl who speaks multiple languages and knows how to negotiate a room of courtiers and could be a princess if someone but allowed it.”
She sucked in a shuddering breath. “At long last, Laertes, I am standing here and don’t give two figs for your approval or anyone’s but my own.
I am standing here because you do need me, and I need you.
Could we walk away from this moment and survive?
Yes, we could, but I think the one thing that the Briarwood family has taught me is that this life is meant for more than just survival.
And don’t you want that? Don’t you want more than to just survive?
Don’t you want more than to just watch your family be happy?
You deserve it too, my love,” she said, lifting her hand to his face.
His entire body trembled under her touch, and her words washed over him. “I feel confused,” he said. “I don’t know. I have striven so hard to help you see that you don’t have to marry for someone else’s pleasure or approval that I fear…”
“Don’t,” she said. “I love you, Laertes Ripton, Viscount Hawthorn, and all I need to know is if you love me too.”
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you with everything that I have, everything that I will always have. From the moment that you walked up to me and asked me if I was responsible for Oliver and Phoebe, I think I loved you, with your jaunty grin and your merry eyes. And when you sat down next to me and our bodies already moved as one with the music that we made… It was otherworldly, Seraphine. We are otherworldly.”
“Yes,” she breathed, her tears turning to tears of happiness and relief.
“From that first moment, it was clear. And I wanted to resist it, to run away from it. I even contemplated heading back out on Christmas Day because it shocked me so. You saw it, but I didn’t go.
I stayed. Because in my heart of hearts, I knew that you were my prince, Laertes.
You are the prince of everything that I’ve ever wanted and everything that I have denied myself over and over again for years, but I don’t wish to deny myself anymore.
So I do need you, and you need me, and I think it is the most beautiful thing in all the world. ”
“You are the most beautiful thing in all the world,” he replied, as he let go of her hands and wrapped his arms about her, knowing he would never ever let her go.
And as she slid her hands about his back, holding him just the same, all his worries that she was martyring herself, all the resistance that he felt, melted away because she was right.
He did need her, just as she needed him, and there was no shame in that. There was no embarrassment in that.
Their entire lives, they had been waiting for each other.
Two halves to make a whole, two wounds to heal.
He’d always thought that would never work, that wounds could not heal each other, but now as he stood with her in his arms, holding her tight, he saw that in their case, it did.
His pain was reflected in her pain, and they understood each other in a way that no one else could, and that understanding would be the basis of their entire lives.
Because when they walked through this life hand in hand, she would not be confused by him, and he would not be confused by her. No, they would build each other up. They would whisper encouragement to each other, and they would be the bedrock of each other’s lives.
So he pulled her tightly to him and slid his hand up into her perfectly coiled hair.
“Take it down,” she murmured.
“What?” he whispered.
“My hair. Take it down,” she said, her lips tilting into a smile that could have warmed all of winter. “I know you want to. I know you love it best when I am not perfect…and that is why I love you so much.”
Laertes did as she asked. He slipped the pins from her dark hair, let the coils tumble down her back, and he threaded his fingers into those silken, dark, heavy waves, unleashing the scent of lavender and soap. He leaned towards her, breathed her in, and then he kissed her.
He kissed her slowly.
He kissed her with all the time in the world, because now they did have all the time in the world. There was nothing that could take her away from him. She wouldn’t be leaving him when the twelve days were over. Nothing could ever take her from him again, and he couldn’t be taken from her.
Their lips melded. Their mouths moved as one. They surrendered to each other and to the joy of Christmas, to the joy of the season.
Oddly enough, in many ways, the season of Christmas was about darkness and sorrow, but it was also about finally having the promise of love in that darkness, the promise of a new life being born from that darkness, and a promise of everything changing.
Yes, that was what Christmas was, the fulfillment of a promise that everything would be better than it was before.