The following morning dawned cold with a layer of low-hanging clouds. Merry had pretended to be asleep when her mother entered her bedchamber sometime after midnight. She’d known her mother was worried but she’d not had the strength to reassure her at that moment in time.
She hadn’t closed her eyes the rest of the night. Instead, she lay awake worrying and wondering. Had she made the right decision? Should she have accepted his proposal and hoped he would learn to love her again?
As soon as the sky was the slightest bit light, she climbed out of bed and dressed in her oldest but warmest clothes. Tomorrow was Christmas. She’d be expected to get up and go to church with her family. She’d be expected to laugh with the twins and join in on their sometimes boisterous games. She’d be expected to sit at the dinner table and eat and exclaim about how deliciously Cook had prepared the goose and the plum pudding.
But for this morning, she would forget expectations and follow her own preferences.
She slipped out of a side door and, after pulling her scarf more closely around her neck, set off for the oak. She needed to go there one last time, to say goodbye to the girl she’d once been, to the silly young thing who’d had the audacity to believe that all she had to do to embrace her dream was to reach for it.
After today, after she visited the oak one last time and said goodbye to that girl, she’d find a way to go on, to build a life on whatever terms were available to her. Perhaps she would find another love at some point in the future and then discover a way to be happy. She couldn’t think about that today though. Today she had to finish saying goodbye to the past.
Her feet were nearly numb by the time she arrived at the oak. Today was no doubt going to be the coldest of the year so far, and the promise of snow hung heavy in the air. The oak’s branches reached out as though to embrace her, and its brown leaves, which often fluttered noisily in the slightest of breezes, today hung still and silent as though in wait for some ominous and unknown event.
Merry paused and looked around her. She wouldn’t come this way again, and she wanted to memorize the look of this spot—the leaf-covered forest floor, the bare limbs of the birch and elms, the clumps of maidenhair ferns. There was a peacefulness to the area that had often helped ease any worries she might have had. That was not true today, however, and she had no desire to linger, especially since the threat of snow had materialized and huge flakes had started floating through the air.
She cast a last look toward her beloved oak and the crevice where she and Edward had once left notes for each other. Wait! Was that the corner of a piece of paper she saw, or had the snow already begun to gather in the crook of the tree?
She pulled her bonnet closer around her head and strode across the ground to the tree. Reaching up, she pulled a folded note from the crevice. The paper was crisp and white, proving the note had been left there recently, not an overlooked relic of the past. Merry’s pulse fluttered, her heartbeat accelerating.
Bending forward to shield the paper from the snow with her upper body, she quickly unfolded the paper and started reading.
My dearest Merry,
If you have discovered this note, I pray your presence at our oak means you still harbor a few fond thoughts of me. I know I completely botched my proposal last night, and I have only myself to blame if you continue to refuse me. But I wanted you to know—even if you never speak to me again—that I have always loved you and will continue to do so as long as I live.
With my deepest regard,
Edward
She read through the missive a second time, her heart lightening and her mind racing with every word. Obviously, Edward had been here before her today. He would have had to arisen early. Had he, like her, been unable to sleep? Surely, they had not missed each other by much. The day was too new for him to have found his way to the oak very many minutes before her. Perhaps, she could still catch him.
She needed to see him again after all, to look into his eyes and ascertain for herself if his love still burned as strongly as he claimed. She wanted to hear the words from his lips, assuring her he loved her. She lifted her skirts and ran down the pathway that led toward Summerton Hall.
The ground was growing white with the accumulation of the increasing fall of snow, but the forest floor was soft enough that her footing was sure. Still, it was no longer easy to see past the swirling flakes that filled the air. She was forced to concentrate on the ground below her feet to ensure she didn’t wander off the pathway.
“Merry!”
She heard Edward call out to her a mere second before she slammed into his chest. Her breath left her in a whoosh, but Edward’s arms immediately wrapped around her, steadying her.
“My love,” he murmured, tickling her neck with his breath and warming her heart with his words. “You came. You visited our oak. I prayed you would, that you would find my note. I’ve been a fool not to assure you every day for the past year that my love for you was as steady and strong as it ever was. No, not steady. Growing every day. Merry, Merry, my love. Please say you still care, that you’ll marry me after all.”
Her breath returned in a rush and she wrapped her arms around his waist. Never had she felt more loved, more needed, more at peace than she felt in Edward’s arms. This was where she belonged today and for the rest of her days.
“Yes, my love,” she whispered. “I’ll marry you, and I’ll love you with all my heart for all of our tomorrows.”
He kissed her then with more depth and more feeling than she’d ever experienced before. And she kissed him back. He was her love, her destiny, and he would soon become her lover in every way in which a man and woman could love.
She wasn’t sure how long they might have prolonged that kiss, but the snow was piling up around them, settling on her bonnet and on Edward’s shoulders. Laughing, he reached up to brush a flake of snow off her nose.
“We’d best go, my dear,” he said. “Shall we try one more time to walk from our oak to your house so that I can again ask your father for your hand in marriage?”
She laughed also, her joy bubbling up in her throat so that she could not have restrained it had she tried. “Yes, yes, yes,” she replied.
And this time, she knew, there would be no hindrances. They would walk together back to their oak and to her house and from there they would begin their journey into the future.
Still, Merry paused to close her eyes a few seconds. Tomorrow was Christmas. She’d been dreading the day, but now she could not wait for it to arrive. It would be her last one as a member of her father’s household, and she would relish every moment with her silly siblings and her beloved parents.
And she would hold in her heart the knowledge that she shared with Edward the most wonderful Christmas gift anyone could ever hope for.
Deep and abiding love.