Mismatched Under the Mistletoe - Jess Michaels Page 0,17

lower lip with her teeth. An action he’d always found wildly distracting, but today he couldn’t be mesmerized by it. Today it meant her pain and her worry. Those were things he only wished to ease.

He drew in a long breath and smiled at her. “You brought me here to assist you,” he said. “And so I shall.”

She tilted her head, but before she could ask him what his intentions were, before he could talk himself out of them, he strode away and jumped up on a bench beside the garden path.

“On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me four colly birds. And so I present to you Richard Jago’s ‘The Blackbirds.’”

He held Emily’s gaze as he said it and the reaction he expected was the one she gave. After all, this was the poem she had recited over and over after Rutledge’s death. The one he knew by heart because her voice had been the one to say it. And yet it was the way to both assist her with her troubles and allow him to reveal something of himself to her.

The words he was about to recite were also ones that meant the world to him. He could only hope she might catch the meaning of them when he spoke them to her here and now.

“The Blackbirds” had been a favorite poem of Emily’s all her life. Not only was it passionate and romantic, but it was bitterly sad, since it ended with the mated birds being parted by the reckless shot of a hunter’s rifle. How much she had clung to the bitter heartache after Andrew’s death. How often had she repeated the poem out as Cav looked on, his own expression as broken as hers.

It had become their poem, in a way, something that celebrated what they’d lost. Cav had never been one to exhibit, though. He was not the man who had a few drinks and sang songs or gave speeches. She could see the discomfort in his face and heard it in his voice as he began to recite the lines.

The crowd fell silent, for his voice was passionate and clear, echoing in the quiet of the winter day. Captivating all who heard those words.

“O fairest of the feather’d train! For whom I sing, for whom I burn.” He emphasized that word as his gaze held hers, and she realized in that moment that she was no longer breathing. “Attend with pity to my strain. And grant my love a kind return.”

Her heart was throbbing as he continued, recounting the courtship of the blackbirds to the enraptured crowd that was gathering closer with each word.

“But trust me, love, the raven’s wing. Is not to be compar’d with mine. Nor can the lark so sweetly sing. As I, who strength with sweetness join.”

She was whispering the words out loud with him, her hands clenched before her, unable to tear her eyes away from him.

He looked so big standing on that bench. So broad and strong and in that moment he wasn’t her friend. He was something else. And that terrified her and enraptured her all at once.

“He led her to the nuptial bower. And nestled closely to her side. The fondest bridegroom of that hour. And she the most delighted bride.” His voice was rough now, strong but low and powerful.

And God help her, but a tremble worked through her body. He continued, but as he reached the last four stanzas, where the blackbirds flew into the wrong vale and encounter the gunner who would end their passions, he looked away.

That allowed the strange spell between them to break, and she staggered backward, turning from him as he finished the poem. Her hands shook as the party applauded, their sniffles indicating that all had been moved as she had once been by the tragic poem.

Only today, for the first time in many years, it hadn’t been Andrew she thought of when those words were said. Today the poem had locked her with Cav. Linked her to him as much as the strangeness that had sprung up between them in these last few days.

She pivoted toward him and found he’d come down from the bench. The men were shaking his hand, the ladies all cooing and complimenting him.

“What a fine way to celebrate four colly birds, my lady!” Lord Weatherall said.

She forced a smile. “Indeed. It was kind of Mr. Cavendish to present one of my favorite poems for us this afternoon.”