Epilogue
Seven Years Later
After the poetry had been recited, the pianoforte had been played by herself and by her husband Laertes, and by their son, who was but six years old and yet could sit on the piano bench and play a carol, the room seemed to hold its breath. Just as it did every year.
Yes, everyone loved when the presents were opened, when the oranges were eaten, and the hot chocolate was drunk.
They loved the cold, bracing swims in the river during the celebration of the twelve days.
And Seraphine now quite delighted in taking part in the river swim with her dearest cousins, Josephine, Emily, and Anne.
But those antics were not the best part.
This was. This moment which transcended any gift.
Seraphine and her little family sat nestled amongst all the other Briarwoods as her father-in-law, Gordon, stood to sing.
Seraphine held her youngest daughter on her lap. She had three children now, a boy and two girls.
Perdita, who was the most doting of grandmothers, sat at the pianoforte and began to play.
Her father-in-law began to sing. And then he crossed over to his grandchildren and his son and sang to them.
He did not sing to them as if there was no one else in the room because with the Briarwoods, the entire family was the most important thing. They all supported each other.
They all loved each other.
And yet Seraphine could see that Christmas so very, very long ago in her father-in-law now, when he had chosen love, when he had chosen healing.
And she could feel the Christmas a few years ago now inside herself where she had done the same thing.
Her brother, Oliver, stood with Phoebe and their children, basking in the warmth of the day and the peace that the Christmas evening brought.
And wonder of wonders, her mother sat beside Seraphine with her middle granddaughter, who was not quite two years of age, on her knee as she bounced her joyfully.
Her mother was smiling. The Dowager Duchess of Crestfield looked years younger than she had when they’d first been in this room, because it seemed that when one shed all their expectations and all their pain and realized that life could be about so much more than being perfect, then one finally looked as if one was loved.
And that always made one look beautiful.
Beautiful like the Dowager Duchess of Westleigh, who gazed upon them all with so much love it could steal her breath away.
Seraphine took Laertes’s hand in hers and then she began to sing, her voice twining with her father-in-law’s. Then Laertes joined and then her children, her mother, and every single Briarwood in the room.
Their voices intertwined, a harmony that would stretch on for years, a harmony that she hoped would never ever end.
The End