Christmas at Eden Manor Read online

  She’d thought that life would be hers.

  And she realized in that moment that she didn’t need that life. She didn’t want that life. She didn’t want that kind of husband.

  She wanted a life with Cyrus.

  And she didn’t care if he was so much older than her or rich and notorious or with a reputation for eccentricity. She didn’t care if he was weighed down by guilt and tragedy, so much that it was still dogging his steps, his decisions. She didn’t care if the rest of the world would automatically assume she was just after his money, and they would judge her for it.

  She didn’t care.

  She wanted the man she’d known for the past two weeks, no matter what else came with him.

  Because she hadn’t made a mistake. In everything he did—even in saying good-bye—it was so clear to her that Cyrus cared more about her than he did about himself.

  She was almost breathless from the revelation and nearly forgot that Cassandra was still beside her.

  “It’s strange sometimes, isn’t it?” Cassandra said softly.

  Brie turned and saw that the other woman was staring at the same young couples she herself had been a minute ago. “What is?”

  “When you’re looking at a life you might have had, knowing you’ll never have it—but also knowing the one you have is the right one. For you.”

  Brie wasn’t sure if Cassandra had read her mind or if she was thinking of something different. She seemed to be staring at the belly of the pregnant woman, so Brie decided there was a story there she just didn’t know.

  She didn’t have time right now to know it though.

  She had something else she had to do.

  She excused herself and walked across the hall to the parlor, where she knew Cyrus was. He was there, sitting in a chair with a glass of wine in his hand. By himself. Watching the world go on around him.

  His eyes strayed over to where she was standing but then immediately looked away.

  She took a deep breath and walked toward him.

  He turned his eyes back to her as she got closer, and she could see the question in his face. Without speaking, she reached down and took his free hand and then pulled him out of the chair, out of the room, out the doors that led onto the side porch.

  “Brie, what are you doing?” he asked, putting his glass of wine on the railing of the porch. “It’s cold out here, and you don’t have a coat on.”

  “I’m fine. And I want to talk to you.”

  His face softened slightly as he gazed down at her. “Dear heart, we’ve already said everything there is to say.”

  “No, we haven’t. You’ve said what you want to say, but I haven’t. And I have some things to say now.”

  The sound of laughter from right inside the door startled her by its closeness. This was between her and Cyrus. She didn’t want anyone else to hear. She took his hand again and pulled him down the steps and across the yard toward the lake. It felt like winter here, when it hadn’t in Savannah.

  “Brie, it’s too cold out here.”

  “Would you stop saying that? I’m not cold at all.” She was speaking the truth. She didn’t feel chilled. She felt on fire with everything she was feeling.

  They stopped close to a bench swing, and Brie turned to face him. Then it all came pouring out. “I don’t care how old you are. I just don’t care. I don’t care if you’re twenty or thirty or fifty years older than me. That just doesn’t matter to me. Age is meaningless to the way we are together. You know it’s true. You felt it just like I did for these past two weeks. I’m not a girl anymore. I’m almost thirty years old. I’m an adult, and you get to a point where the age difference just doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Cyrus closed his eyes briefly and said very softly, “It may not matter now, but it will eventually. Twenty years from now when I’m in my seventies and you’re… not. It’s going to matter then.”

  She brushed his words away. “You don’t get to decide that for me. What we have is special. You know it is.”

  “Of course I know it is.” He started to reach for her face but then drew his hand away.

  “Then why can’t we have more than those two weeks?”

  “You know why. You know who I am now. Even without the age difference, we’re worlds apart.”

  “None of that matters.” She was almost crying again with her urgency. She reached out to take his shirt in her hands, clutching it helplessly. “Can’t you see? I just don’t care about Cyrus Damon. He’s not important enough to get in the way of us. I want to be with you. Just you. Cyrus. My Cyrus.”

  Cyrus’s face twisted slightly, and he made a strange little moan in his throat. He reached out for her again, and this time Brie knew he was going to kiss her. She could see it in his eyes.

  He felt the same way she did. She knew it.

  But he turned away from her with a sudden jerk of his body.

  Her tears started to fall again, even before she heard him say, “I’m so sorry, dear heart. I wouldn’t have hurt you for anything. But I’m absolutely convinced that you’ll hurt even more if I give in on this. My life will not be good for you. I know you say you don’t care about all the rest of it right now, but one day you will. You’ll suffer because you’re attached to me, and I refuse to let that happen.”

  “But I want to suffer with you. I want to do everything with you. Please, please let me, Cyrus.”

  She was still holding on to one little flicker of hope that simply wouldn’t die, but it went dark when Cyrus shook his head, an iron will she’d never seen before in his eyes. “I can’t. You’ve been my most precious gift, but I can’t.”

  She was crying helplessly now, no way to hold it back. Cyrus gently brushed her hair back from her face. He kissed both of her cheeks, her temple, her lips.

  Then he turned and walked away, leaving her alone in the dark.

  ***

  Forty-five minutes later, Cyrus was staring in confusion at his empty suitcase.

  It shouldn’t be empty because he’d just packed it.

  He blinked a couple of times and then turned his head when Gordon entered the room. He’d been at Eden Manor ever since Cyrus had arrived, but he’d kept out of sight, no matter how many times Cyrus told him he was welcome to join the others.

  “What happened to my clothes?” Cyrus demanded.

  “I put them where they belonged, in the closet and the dresser.”

  “I mean just now. I had them packed, and now they’re…”

  “Back where they belong,” Gordon said blandly.

  Cyrus almost groaned. He couldn’t remember anything hurting the way watching Brie cry earlier had, and he had no emotional energy left to handle even a silly argument. “Pack them up again,” he said curtly. “I’m leaving.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve.”

  “I know that. But I can’t stay here. It will make things even harder for Brie. I’ll spend Christmas with Lucy and Benjamin. I need to leave.”

  “You know what I think about that.”

  “Yes, I do. But this is my decision. It’s made, and it’s final, and everyone needs to stop trying to talk me out of it.”

  Gordon didn’t react to the harshness of his tone. “Is it possible,” he began mildly, “that if everyone who cares about you disagrees with your decision, that your decision should perhaps be rethought.”

  “I have rethought it. I’ve rethought it over and over again, and I always end up in the same place. I can’t be with her. I have to leave.”

  Gordon didn’t say anything. He also didn’t make a move to start packing up the clothes again, so Cyrus went to the closet to do so himself.

  When the silence was simply too oppressive, he burst out, “I can’t, Gordon! What kind of hypocrite would I be if, after years of holding everyone around me to impossibly high standards, so much so that I’ve hurt the people I love, I just throw all my standards out the window because there’s something I want so much. What kind of hypocrite would I be?”


  There was a long pause before Gordon answered. “Not a hypocrite at all. Simply a man who has changed.”

  The words startled Cyrus. He paused in grabbing a couple of shirts off hangers in the closet, staring blindly in Gordon’s direction.

  He wasn’t sure what he would have said then if there hadn’t been a knock on the door.

  Harrison came in without waiting for an invitation.

  Cyrus sat down in a slump on an upright chair. “Not you too, Harrison. How many times do I have to explain to you that my mind is made up?”

  “Not to me,” Harrison said with a shake of his head. It was only then that Cyrus saw he had a phone in his hand. “It was an emergency. I had to bring in the big guns. He’s always been better with people than me.”

  Cyrus frowned as Harrison handed him the phone. He put it to his ear automatically. “Hello?”

  “Lord Uncle?” came a familiar voice.

  Cyrus let out a breath. “Andrew.” Another one of his nephews. Harrison’s brother.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Harrison said there was an emergency, and Laurel and I might need to fly in from Santorini.”

  “You do not need to fly in. There is no emergency.”

  Andrew was silent for a moment before he asked, “So you fell for someone after all this time?”

  Cyrus’s throat tightened, and he couldn’t manage an answer.

  “I guess that’s a yes. Listen, I don’t know the whole situation, but I don’t care who she is. You deserve to be happy, and you’ve never let yourself be happy before. And if anyone gives you grief about it, you can move to Santorini and live with me, Laurel, and the dogs. Theo sleeps on a bed now—I mean a real person bed—but I’m sure he would share with you and your girl.”

  Cyrus gave a hoarse huff of amusement. No one in the world but Andrew could make him laugh, even when his heart was breaking. “Thank you, Andrew.”

  “No problem. You know, I always knew you were secretly a rogue.”

  The word was an almost nostalgic callback to some of the things Cyrus had called Andrew years ago. His throat hurt from too many emotions at once as Cyrus said, “I learned from the best.”

  He’d relaxed slightly when he said good-bye and handed Harrison the phone. Gordon had left the room sometime during the phone call.

  Letting out a long breath, Cyrus turned to Harrison, who’d lowered himself to sit on the bed across from him. “Harrison. I do appreciate the effort.”

  “But?”

  “You shouldn’t be helping me with this after the way I treated you and Marietta. I’m not lost to the irony, you know.”

  “Please. That’s ancient history. It’s forgiven. It’s not important anymore.” When Cyrus started to argue, Harrison reached out a hand and touched Cyrus’s wrist. “You know very well that’s not how love works.”

  Cyrus couldn’t speak for a moment.

  Harrison went on. “I was surprised at first, but that wasn’t my final response. I don’t give a damn about who you fall for or who you choose to love, just as long as she wants the best for you. I’m happy if you’re happy. That’s how it works.”

  Cyrus was so emotional he could barely breathe. He stared down at his hands with blurry eyes.

  “Are you happy?” Harrison asked after a long moment.

  “No.”

  “I want you to be. Andrew wants you to be. Gordon wants you to be. Ben and Jonathan and all our wives and kids. Aunt Lucy. All of us want you to be happy. And it seems pretty clear that’s what Brie wants too. You’re the only one who doesn’t want that.”

  Cyrus lifted his eyes at this, vaguely surprised to see that Harrison’s expression was very kind.

  “You think because you’ve made mistakes in the past that you don’t deserve to be happy. The least you can do is admit it.”

  It was the same thing Gordon had tried to tell him more than once. Harrison was right. Gordon was right. He’d been sacrificing everything to get the future he thought he deserved.

  But any other option was absolutely terrifying.

  He said, “So I just shouldn’t care about what will happen to Brie if she’s with me? How the world will believe she’s a shallow fortune-hunter? A trophy wife?”

  “If she doesn’t care about that, then I don’t see why you should.”

  “How will she feel twenty years from now, when—”

  “Listen to yourself,” Harrison interrupted. “Twenty years from now. You’re willing to give up twenty years with her on the off-chance she might have some extra difficulty as you get older? Twenty years with her.”

  Twenty years. With Brie. Or more. Maybe even twice that amount of time.

  Cyrus wanted it so much he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see straight.

  And it seemed like the universe—like everyone he cared about—was conspiring to make it happen.

  To give him the happiness he wouldn’t give himself.

  Cyrus stood up, wanting to find Brie, wanting to take her in his arms, to never let her go.

  But he just couldn’t seem to make his body work. His will had always been so much stronger than his heart.

  Harrison stood up too. “Listen to me.” He put a hand on his shoulder until Cyrus was looking him in the eyes. “It’s never been about deserving. I know this better than anyone. My name is Harrison Damon, and that wouldn’t mean anything without you.”

  It felt for a moment like Cyrus cracked inside. He took a ragged breath and turned his head toward the door.

  “She’s down by the lake,” Harrison said in a different tone although still hoarse from the moment before. He’d evidently read a resolution on Cyrus’s face. “You should go find her.”

  Cyrus lowered his brows. “What? Why is she still outside? It’s too cold to be out there so long, and she doesn’t have a coat!”

  Harrison laughed and reached into the closet to grab one of Cyrus’s. “Then maybe you should bring her one.”

  Eight

  Brie was huddled up on the bench swing next to the lake, staring out at the starlight and moonlight reflected on the still water.

  She wasn’t crying anymore, but she was shivering in her thin sweater. She just couldn’t bring herself to move, much less go back inside and rejoin the others.

  It felt like if she just stayed here, then maybe she could hold back time and she wouldn’t have to go through Christmas day, the rest of this year, the whole next year, the rest of her life without Cyrus.

  A little voice at the back of her head was laughing at her, telling her this was a very dramatic reaction to a man she’d only known for two weeks.

  She didn’t care about that voice. It didn’t know anything.

  It was wrong, so wrong—an injustice so clear she could feel it shuddering inside her—that Cyrus hadn’t changed his mind and let himself be with her.

  She hoped he was okay.

  He would probably leave, not wanting to make Christmas awkward for her. He would go back to that archaic mansion of his in England and try to forget the man he’d been with her this month, the man he’d finally let himself be.

  It was just wrong, but wrong things happened in the world all the time. Cyrus might have been right in his theological reflections. Maybe power would always trump grace in the workings of the universe.

  She was mulling over this—her mind drifting into odd, disconnected ramblings—when she heard a slight sound from behind her. She didn’t turn around. It was probably the wind ruffling the tree branches. Or maybe a raccoon, snuffling out something to eat in the dark.

  Then she heard a voice. “Brie! Brie, what are you doing out here in the cold?”

  She was so startled and disoriented she just stared as Cyrus hurried up to the swing, wrapping a coat around her shoulders and sitting down beside her.

  The coat was warm, and it smelled like him. She pulled it tighter around her shoulders.

  Then she burst into tears.

  “Oh no. Please don’t.” He pulled her into his arms, rather awkwardly sinc
e they were both still sitting on the rocking bench swing, and she sobbed into his chest.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help it,” she gasped, completely out of control but still trying to explain her breakdown to him. “You keep breaking my heart.”

  “I know. I know. I’m not going to do it again.”

  She almost choked when the soft words made their way into her clouded mind. She pulled away and stared at his face reflected in the moonlight. His eyes were beautiful chocolate brown. Soft and very tender. Stripped bare from the internal defenses he’d always worn like armor.

  “Do you still believe in second chances, Brie?” he asked, his mouth turning up in the slightest of smiles.

  “Yes, I do,” she rasped. “I always have.”

  “Then I would like to ask for a second chance with you if you would extend me that grace.”

  The careful, almost formal words were a jarring contrast to the naked emotion in his eyes, and it completely undid Brie again. Her whole body shook with barely suppressed sobs, and she threw herself back into his arms.

  “Oh, my dear heart,” Cyrus murmured, tightening his arms around her almost painfully. “If this is your answer, I’m not sure what it means.”

  “It means yes!” she burst out, finally able to straighten up again. She was smiling like a fool now through her tears. “I told you I believe in grace. I told you it was the most important thing, the thing that makes the world beautiful. You’re the one who didn’t believe in it.”

  Cyrus lifted his hands to cup her face, like she was precious, like she was the most precious thing in the world. And he murmured thickly, “I believe in it now.”

  So she was smiling and crying and shaking and overflowing with joy as he pulled her into a soft kiss. She wrapped her arms around him as she kissed him back, causing his coat to slide off her shoulders.

  Even as he was kissing her, Cyrus kept pulling the coat back up to keep her warm.

  After a few emotional and rather messy minutes, they finally pulled apart. With a silent, mutual understanding, they rearranged themselves so they were leaning back against the swing. Cyrus’s arm was wrapped around her, and she was pressed up at his side. Brie even managed to put her arms through the sleeves of the coat so it wouldn’t keep sliding off. It was too big, but it was warm and heavy—and his. She was very happy.