"Trees can't have inappropriate things happen to them. They're trees."
"Tell that to the one you got tangled in yesterday."
"That was mutual tangling. The tree was a willing participant."
"The tree was a victim of your enthusiasm."
"Can we please just go get the pine boughs?" Jeremy interjected, looking pained.
They set off toward Wickham Wood, which lay about a mile outside the village. The snow from the previous night had settled into a thick blanket that crunched satisfyingly underfoot, and the morning sun made everything sparkle like it had been dusted with diamond powder. It was, Alaric had to admit, rather beautiful in an aggressively festive way.
"So, Mr. Fletcher," Thomas said, falling into step beside him with the easy confidence of youth, "is it true you're courting Mrs. Whitby?"
"Thomas!" Marianne exclaimed from behind them. "That's inappropriate to ask!"
"Mrs. Morrison says you were expressing physical affection in the street this morning."
"Mrs. Morrison needs better spectacles and fewer romantic novels."
They entered the woods, where the snow had filtered through the canopy in patches, creating a dappled pattern of white and brown on the forest floor. The silence was profound, broken only by their footsteps and the occasional complaint from Jeremy about the cold.
"The best boughs are deeper in," Marianne said, leading them down a narrow path that showed evidence of recent deer passage. "The ones near the edge have been picked over for years."
"How do you know so much about pine bough retrieval?" Alaric asked.
"I've been doing this every Christmas since I was seven. My father used to bring me. He said the forest was different in winter, more honest."
"How can a forest be honest?"
"No leaves to hide behind. You can see the true structure of things, the bones of the world."
"That's rather poetic."
"My father was a baker who read poetry in his spare time. He used to say bread and words were both about transformation—taking simple ingredients and making something greater."
"Wise man."
"He was. He died when I was fifteen. Mother never quite recovered from losing him."
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago. But I still come here every Christmas, looking for pine boughs and remembering his lessons about honesty and bones."
There was something in her voice, a wistfulness that made Alaric want to comfort her, though he had no idea how. Comfort wasn't something he'd been taught. His father had believed in stoicism, his mother in putting on a brave face. Neither had prepared him for dealing with genuine emotion in others.
"My mother loved Christmas," he found himself saying, the words emerging without conscious decision. "She used to say it was the one time of year when magic was socially acceptable."
Marianne looked at him with interest. "Used to say?"
"She died when I was nine." The words came automatically but he couldn't very well say his mother was the former Duchess of Wexmere.
"That's very young to lose a mother."
"Any age is too young to lose a mother."
"True. Did she teach you about Christmas? Before she died?"
"She tried. I was perhaps not the most receptive student."
