“Ben is encouraging conversation?” Timothy scoffed. “A Christmas miracle.”
Philip’s brows furrowed. “How do you two know each other?”
Timothy chuckled. “Ben ruined my engagement ball.”
“Thank you for that,” James put in, nudging Timothy with his shoulder before rounding on Philip. “But don’t change the subject. You told her why you were gone, didn’t you?”
Philip began walking blindly, searching the treetops for more mistletoe. Perhaps if he made Aunt Margaret happy, one woman in the household would tolerate him. “I did.”
“And she was…” Callum prompted.
“Surprised.” He paused, kicked the toe of his boot—still damp from the snowball fight—against a fallen log. “Angry that I never told her what I was facing.”
Ben huffed. “I don’t blame her.”
Philip wasn’t certain he liked his American brother-in-law. “But I couldn’t let her see me in my darkest hour. If she knew what I’dbecome, she wouldn’t love me.” His insides chilled at the memory, when the thought of Lily was the thin veil keeping him from giving up the battle for sobriety. When he’d been a sweating, stinking mess, sleeping in hovels or on the streets, shelling out endless coin to any charlatan who offered a cure.
He wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love those days, let alone Lily’s.
They paused at the next tree to shoot and bag another clump of mistletoe. “That’s enough,” Callum grumbled. “My feet are getting cold.”
“Dinnae let anyone hear ye say that.” James leaned into his normally undetectable brogue. “People will think ye’re nae a Highlander.”
Callum scowled. “We’re fromEdinburgh, ye arse.”
The cousins continued to bicker as the woods parted onto the snow-covered parkland leading up to the manor house. But after only a few paces, Ben stopped, and the men followed suit.
“What’s wrong?” Timothy asked.
The normally taciturn man scrubbed a hand down his face and fastened his dark gaze on Philip. “My darkest hour was when my first wife died.”
The men went motionless. Philip’s breath caught in his chest.
Ben fixed his gaze on an indistinct point in the distance. “I was alone and afraid I wouldn’t be able to go on. But I did, one minute, one hour, one day at a time. Just like you did. And every day I wished I could go back tobefore, wished I could have changed something,anything, to avoid that pain.”
Philip nodded, but Ben wasn’t finished.
“And then this English beauty shows up on my doorstep.” He shook his head with a huff of amusement. “She drove me wild.”
Timothy chuckled. “Did she ever.”
A smile played on Ben’s lips at the memory. “And I kept trying to be who I was before, someone who hadn’t nearly drowned in tragedy, because that was the type of man she deserved. But she didn’t want that. Rose wantedme, as I was, as I am. She was my princess, my magpie. And until I could accept my darkness, she couldn’t be my light.”
The love pouring from the man’s words was palpable, and Philip’s chest ached with its potency. “What are you saying?”
“Stop pretending to be the man you were and let her fall in love with the man you are now.”
Philip was speechless, flattened. He had been trying to convince Lily to forget the past, or at least brush over the past eight years and pretend they hadn’t happened. But that was an impossible task, and he’d never win her back if he ignored what came between them.
Timothy’s low whistle brought him back to the present. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that many words before. Ever.”
Callum chuckled. “A new record.”
Ben’s cheeks bloomed crimson as he landed a friendly punch on Callum’s arm, then nodded his chin towards the barn. “You should hurry if you’re going to catch her.”
Philip turned to see Lily charging from the house, a long black cloak billowing behind her. With a jolt, he handed the canvas sackto Ben and took off running, his heavy boots crunching through the packed snow.
By the time he entered the barn, she already had Calpurniaout of her stall and bridled.
