"Don't thank me yet. You still have to prove you can actually stay, actually be part of this place. And that's harder than big gestures and pretty speeches."
"Then I'll work on small gestures and quiet actions."
"See that you do." She started to turn away, then looked back. "Your singing is terrible, by the way."
"I know."
"But it was honest. Terrible, but honest."
"Is that better than pretty but false?"
"Ask me in a month."
She walked away then, back to her table where her mother was waiting. Mrs. Whitby senior gave him a small nod; not approval exactly, but acknowledgment that he'd made a beginning.
The dinner continued with a different energy now—still awkward in places, still uncertain, but with an undercurrent of possibility. People approached him throughout the evening, some to express gratitude for the financial relief, others to share ideas for the hall, and some just to size up this duke who claimed he wanted to be their neighbor.
Thomas appeared at his elbow as the evening wound down. "So, did I win my bet?"
"I don't know yet. I haven't fled to London, but I haven't won her forgiveness either."
"But you got a gingerbread heart. That's something."
"It's something," Alaric agreed, looking at the carefully wrapped biscuit. "Whether it's enough remains to be seen."
"It's Christmas," Thomas said philosophically. "Miracles are supposed to happen at Christmas."
"Do you believe in miracles?"
"I believe in Mrs. Whitby's gingerbread. And she doesn't give that to people she completely hates."
"That's a very specific belief system."
"It's worked so far."
As the evening ended and people began to leave, Alaric found himself standing outside again, looking up at the stars that were brilliant in the clear winter sky. The same stars his mother had looked at, the same stars Marianne was probably looking at now.
"Not fleeing then?" Grimsby appeared beside him, impeccable as always despite the late hour.
"Not fleeing."
"And tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow I start proving I can be the man this place needs. The man she might someday trust again."
"That could take a very long time, Your Grace."
"Then it's fortunate I have nothing but time."
"And if she never forgives you?"
Alaric looked down at the gingerbread heart in his hand, then up at the bakery where a light still burned in an upstairs window.
"Then at least I'll have tried. At least I'll have stayed. At least I'll have been brave enough to fight for something worth fighting for."
"Your mother would be proud."
"I hope so."
