Page 54 of All I Want for Christmas… Is You
But the sound that drew him into the drawing room was another sound entirely. It was the sweetest singing he had ever heard.
Your vows you've broken, like my heart,
Oh, why did you so enrapture me?
Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to find Emma at the keys, singing like an angel, her hair flowing gloriously down her back like he’d never seen it before. But despite the melancholy words of the song, she sang with joy for her audience. And with her guard down, she was fluid and graceful and the sight of her sitting before the pianoforte, so at ease, filled him in that instant with a strange sense of peace... mingled with sorrow, for it reminded him of a happier time.
She was so like his mother… before his father had managed to shatter her heart. Before she had taken the last deadly dosage of laudanum and then her face had been gray and the white in her hair had washed the once lustrous color from the lifeless strands. Even death had not been able to erase the grim lines from around her mouth, or those etched within her brow.
He fully intended to hire a carriage and go…
Now I remain in a world apart
But my heart remains in captivity…
The words of her song struck a chord. He had heard them oft enough, and though she sang without melancholy, he heard his mother in her voice.
He was confused, at a crossroads.
Should he stay, or should he go?
What did he truly have to offer Emma, except for his name and a title that she probably didn’t care two whits for? It was clear to him that what she wanted was exactly what she had here… a family and a home. And it was no less than she deserved.
Glancing at the hearth, he found the crèche filled to brimming with straw—no doubt one blade each for each and every misguided deed the kids had committed against him—all for her sake. Loyal they might be, but a more nonsensical practice he’d never witnessed... cradles, and straw, and unfulfilled dreams—bah, humbug!
Ah, Greensleeves, now farewell, adieu,
To God I pray to prosper thee…
He heaved a sigh, for he’d grown accustomed to finding them this way—so cozy and familiar... the way it should have been... the way it had never been for him...
The acute sense of loss plucked at him like a discordant note. Still, he watched...
She had no notion he stood there.
None of them did.
So he continued to do so in silence, in the shadows of the corridor, taking private pleasure in the melodious sound of Emma’s sweet voice... in the way she turned to smile softly at her brother’s children, who were all gathered about the pianoforte... in the way she gracefully performed the music.
He should leave now, he knew...
He should turn and walk away before anyone happened to notice he was standing there... intruding once again.
For I am still thy lover true,
Come once again and love me…
He stood entranced.
And then it was too late.
Emma turned and saw him and ended the ballad with a most unharmonious chord. Those disarming brown eyes of hers gazed at him with apprehension, and guilt overwhelmed him. Ill at ease with the silence that followed, Lucien turned his gaze to the crèche.
There he stared.
And then he did the only thing he knew to do.
He did what he should have done long before now.
