“So you left me alone!”
“I thought that was the best way to protect you from who I was. I wasn’t worthy of you—”
“That’s not true!” She stomped her foot, no longer caring that her family must be listening, that she resembled a grouchy child instead of an adult woman. “I am yourwife, and I love you, and—”
The root of her pain revealed itself so suddenly it pulled the air from her lungs with a pain that scraped across her insides, leaving her bloodied, breathless.
Philip stepped forward and ran his hands down her trembling arms, taking her hands in his. “Tell me, Lily.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at him, and spoke in a whisper. “You didn’t trust me with your weaknesses, and you never gave me the chance to take care of you when you were at your lowest. You didn’t believe I’d still love you when I—”
I could never stop loving you.
She couldn’t say it out loud, not when she’d already shown her deepest wound, offered it up to him to tear to shreds, just as he had with her heart.
She cleared her throat and boldly met his gaze, determined to have her say before she sent him off again. “You decided what was best for me without even asking. You chose your pride over my heart and left me to believe I’d failed you, that you didn’t want me.”
“I always wanted you. That never changed.” He carded his hands through his tousled hair and tugged on the ends. “I did everything wrong. I know that now, but I needed the time.”
A barked laugh escaped her throat, scorching her from the inside. “You had the luxury of forgetting about me until you were ready, when Ineverforgot about you.”
“I never forgot you, not for a second of those years, Lily.”
Her hand wrapped around the doorknob. “If that were true, you would have written to me, not our land agent or my father’s creditors. You would have spent a damn second thinking about me, because I couldn’t do anything but worry about you.” She turned the knob to fight the urge to swipe at her leaking eyes. “But you didn’t think about me once.”
“That’s not true,” he ground out as she shoved the door open. “Lily, wait—”
“I’ve waited long enough for you—” Her words died on her tongue when she saw her bedchamber. Like the parlor below, poinsettias and Christmas lilies perfumed the air, but the blooms were clustered around a single, slim evergreen tree beside the fireplace. Dozens of ornaments hung from the fragrant branches, popcorn and berry garlands looping from branch to branch. Beneath the tree sat a trunk with a thick red velvet ribbon tied on the handle.
Her feet stuck to the ground, and her lips parted in a soundless gasp. “What is this?” she finally managed.
She sensed Philip behind her; she suspected she’d always know when he was near. “Proof I never stopped thinking about you, not for a moment.”
She spun to face him, no longer able to fight the tears.
His expression was open, honest. Even more than it had been when he told her why he’d stayed away the night he arrived. That night seemed like a lifetime ago.
He wrapped his hand around hers and, when she didn’t resist, led her towards the tree. Through the haze of her tears, the ornaments became clearer. Delicate painted glass bulbs on strips of satin, crudely hewn wooden figures, a horse crafted entirely of crystal…
“When I bought you that first ornament, for our first Christmas,” he said, “I dreamed of our own tree, in our home at Whitby House, covered in baubles I’d picked out for you. I wanted to creatememories with our family, together.” He rubbed his fist against his breastbone, as though speaking pained him. “When I left, I lost the chance to build that life, but I never stopped dreaming of it. Of you.”
She lifted one ornament off the tree, recognizing it now as a roughly carved horse. She turned it over in her hands, the wood smooth despite the lack of sophistication in its craftsmanship.
“I worked on that for months after I left.” The pain in his words sent an answering ache beneath her sternum. “I had a dull blade and no idea how to carve, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Every time I wanted more of the opium, I’d work on this and remind myself why I had to fight the cravings.”
She rubbed her thumb along the figure’s side, the lifeless piece somehow warm in her hand. Infused with the love its creator had put into crafting it. “And this one?” She gestured at a twelve-pointed star made from bleached wood shavings.
“I was in Germany when I made that, two years ago. I asked a craftsman to teach me, and once I could hold a knife without shaking, I knew I was closer to beating my addiction. You always enjoyed watching the night sky with your sister, so I wanted you to have your own star.”
“Did you make all these?” Her heart couldn’t stand it if he had.
“No,” he said with a chuckle as she ran her fingertip over a glass flower in greens and purples. A lily. “Whenever I was at my lowest, when I was ready to stop fighting and succumb to my desire for the opium, I would look in a shop window and see the perfect ornament. Like a sign from God that you were still here, waitingfor me. A reminder that I loved you too much to be weak. Before long I had such a large collection I needed a trunk to carry them all.”
Her chest had grown so tight she worried her heart might collapse, or perhaps burst with the force of emotion flooding through her. “And this?”
He dragged his finger around a disk with intricately folded paper covered in illegible text, a visage of St. Nicholas painted at the center.
“That took me days to get right. I saw some in a shop and thought you’d love them, but I wanted yours to be unique. I bought a card for the middle, but the rest—” He cut off, his swallow audible. “I couldn’t find a book or poem or anything that felt right for our tree. So I used the letters I wrote to you.”
