A Breathtaking Blessing
This is the entirety of "Chapter 46: Christmas by Candlelight, Part II" from Carlisle's point of view.
Carlisle had always been confounded by photographs. When he had first learned of the curious invention which had the ability to capture an image from real life in several minutes without missing a detail, he longed to learn everything about it. It always struck him as ironic that his memory had no need for such a device, yet he'd found all things daguerreotype more fascinating than most humans had in the early days.
Even now as his fingers wandered through old boxes of photographs on his desk, his eyes were drawn to the faded faces and stiff bodied figures, frozen in a single moment of time forever. A photograph was the only way for a human to live eternally as he did – never aging and never changing. Perhaps that was why those grainy shades of sepia haunted Carlisle so.
Each familiar face took its toll on his emotions. He regarded each patient with either a fond smile or a regretful wince, recalling those he knew were now deceased and those whom he had been able to save. It was invigorating to think that with his aid, some of these people had been granted the gift of several more years to live. So many of the gifts worth giving came from a place far, far out of his reach.
Esme asked him questions – so many questions – about the photographed people. Just when he thought there was nothing more to be asked, she came up with some tiny detail he never would have expected. But it was perhaps no secret that he was indecently thrilled to answer every one of her questions, sometimes elaborating more than necessary for the sake of impressing her. Carlisle had always been especially fond of storytelling, and it only made it better that all of his stories were true. It enticed him to think about all of the stories he had locked away in his memory for centuries, just waiting to be told... and he wanted to share them all with Esme someday.
He hoped there would come a time when he would be telling her a new story every night after the sun went down. Maybe he would take her outside and sit beneath the stars and whisper into her ear for hours. He would whisper to her about the Sistine Chapel and the streets of Barcelona, and the way the Seine River sparkled under a full moon in Paris no matter what the season. It wouldn't matter what he talked about – in this dream, Esme was smitten with every word he uttered, and every time he paused, she begged to hear more. He would fulfill her wish until she was satisfied, and then he would answer every one of her insane little questions about all the places he had visited. God knew she would have quite a few.
Carlisle breathed in, quick and heavy, as Esme's fingers brushed his inside the photo box. She scooped out a few photographs and smiled as she held them closer to study the faces of men and women she had never met. Carlisle smiled to himself as he watched her wonder blossom with each new photo her fingers touched. While it baffled him that she could find a pile of damaged photos of complete strangers so worthy of her interest, he was overjoyed by her enthusiasm all the same.
Every once in a while she would look up from one of the photos she was examining and meet his eyes. A quick smile would flit across her soft, pink lips before she turned her head down, but the effect of her fleeting glance lingered in his mind like the fiery residue of sun glare.
Her eyes were a bright, deep red, shining and opaque like the skin of an apple. Only when he looked closely enough could he see tiny threads of gold swimming through the scarlet. He was fascinated by the way her eyes changed from day to day, the fine threads turning into small bursts of amber, evidence of her promise to abide by his lifestyle. But this was not the only reason why Esme's eyes were so beautiful to him. He could imagine lying beside her in a world where he could reach freely for her cheek, turn her face toward him and stare for as long as he liked. He would study every fleck of color in her sunset eyes, learning every one of her secrets from just one gaze. The notion was so appealing it made him ache.
It was this ache, he presumed, that encouraged his son to finally leave the room for the evening.
Carlisle was slightly embarrassed by how excited he became when Edward simply stepped out of his study, but as a gentleman he tried not to show it, especially not when Esme was standing so close to him. He distracted himself with another handful of photos, flicking through them until he stumbled upon one that ignited a profound pang in his heart.
His first thought was how Esme would surely fawn over the story that went along with that photograph.
Just like that, he knew he had to tell her.
"I have a story for you."
She peeked up at him with her chronically curious eyes. "You do?"
He nodded. "Yes, I think you will appreciate it." He held out the old photograph out for her to see. "See this boy? His name is Luke. He was my patient in 1912, not long after I treated you. His parents had both died about a half a year before I met him. They had been passengers on the Titanic, coming home to him from Europe."
Predictably, Esme's tender heart was outraged. "Oh, that's tragic!"
"But you must listen to my story," he said softly, trying not to show his amusement. "It has a happy ending."
He recounted the brief but touching story for her, carefully watching her eyes the entire time, and the way her face changed when he told her about the boy's unfortunate conditions. By the time Carlisle reached the part about the young woman who had been unable to bear children, Esme had already guessed where the story was going.
"You brought them together? Tell me you brought them together," she guessed hopefully, eyes shining.
"I did." Carlisle was never more proud to say those two words before. "I never saw a child so happy before in my life, nor a grown woman for that matter. They became a family shortly after that, and they were inseparable." He smiled at the memory. "Sadly I don't have a photograph of Luke with his new parents. But there was no sight more heartwarming than watching him hold each of their hands as they took him home."
"I'm sure they never forgot that Christmas," Esme sighed. "Or you for bringing them together."
He could hear how much she meant it – Esme's words were never light. They had always carried with them the wholesome weight of sincerity. She made kindness a passionate practice; it was something about her voice.
"I like to think that Luke lived a few years longer because he finally had people who cared for him," Carlisle added quietly. He was leading Esme on purposefully, needing her to infect him with her brightness.
In an instant her hand was tucked reassuringly behind his shoulder. "Well, who knows? Maybe he is still alive and well, enjoying this Christmas just the same as we are right now."
There it was. He couldn't keep the smile off his face, just from her sweet, simple hope.
"Somehow I feel this is true," he sighed in agreement.
He expected her hand to slip away then, but instead she moved it forward, rubbing his shoulder almost tentatively while she spoke. "That's a beautiful story, Carlisle. Have you ever told it to Edward?"
He shrugged. "Not aloud."
"I wish I could entertain you with precious stories from my past," Esme teased.
He cocked his head in doubt. "You have no memories of the holidays when you were human?"
"The last Christmas I remember was when I was just a little girl. It was just one of those odd memories that seeped into my subconscious a few nights ago."
"Tell me about it," he insisted, feeling oddly as though he were asking her to reveal some dark secret.
"Well, I might have been eight or so, I'm not sure," she said, a tiny smile tugging on her lips. "I was standing in the open doorway, and it was snowing outside...and...I was holding one of those bonbonnière boxes. Remember those?"
He nodded, laughing gently in encouragement. Everything she said, no matter how mundane it may have seemed to her, was precious to him.
"My father was doing something with the garland on the banister outside..." She pulled her hand away from Carlisle's shoulder to press her fingers to her forehead in thought. "I can't remember his face at all."
Not remembering faces from his human life was a familiar frustration for Carlisle. There was one face in particular, however, which he had not even been able to remember in his human life.
Thoughtlessly, Carlisle asked his ever-burning question. "Do you remember your mother?"
It was something he seemed to ask everyone, in the hopes that someone would share his estranged fate. His mother was and forever would be the most important woman in his heart. It felt so wrong that he had never even had the chance to see her face or hear her voice...
"No," Esme whispered. Carlisle's heart was torn between being pained at Esme's loss and being comforted that she now shared his sorrow. She looked up to him questioningly, encouraging him to elaborate.
"As a child I used to wish, most ardently, for a mother around Christmastime," he found himself speaking more fluidly now. "It wasn't as if I was the only boy without a mother, of course. So many women passed away during childbirth in those times. I was only one of many children who were left with just one parent."
"Do you ever imagine what your mother might have looked like?" asked Esme.
"Yes," he confirmed, feeling tears of venom sting in his eyes. "All of the time."
Her pale blond hair, her warm blue eyes like a sunlit sky, her rosy cheeks, her smiling lips. He had imagined all of his mother, from what she would have looked like to the things she would say to him if she could meet her only son.
"Sometimes I do the same with my son," Esme echoed the longing Carlisle felt, tempting his heart to break.
He felt her pain blooming inside his own chest, as if she had somehow summoned it through to him with just the sound of her voice. All at once it crashed into him, strong and unexpected, like a rogue wave from a wild ocean.
"Oh, Esme," he all but gasped her name, his hand braced firmly against his heart as if he feared it would shatter without the support. He looked away from her, unable to stare her in the eyes and see that pain he felt firsthand. It was too unbearable for him to even face.
"I never named him," she mourned, her tone lost and empty. "Can you believe that?"
No matter how deep the pain struck him, Carlisle needed to see her eyes in that moment. He turned his head in one fluid motion, eyes wandering over her features like a child would wander through a streaming brook – with a frantic sort of cautiousness, a curious but quiet intensity. Her lips parted and he failed to prepare himself for what she was going to say.
"If you were ever to have your own son, what would you name him?"
Her words pulled his heart into a long lost rhythm; even if it was only in his imagination, he felt it, hard and true. Esme wanted to know what he would have named his own son, if given the chance.
"Gabriel," he responded, too stunned to notice that his voice had lost all its strength in just one word.
"After the archangel?" she asked, a fond hint of smile in her lips.
He nodded, marveling at how she seemed able to predict his every motivation for every choice he made. She was running her fingers along his moral compass daily, and quite soon he feared she would be the one controlling it.
"Then that will be my son's name," she decided. Her velvet voice savored the syllables, letting them ripple like calm water from her gentle tongue. "Gabriel."
Carlisle shuddered with mirth as he watched Esme cradle an invisible child in her arms. He could see that she was imagining it – her vivid dreams coming to life behind her closed eyes. He wished fervently that he could share the experience with her somehow...but such a hope was impossible. He settled for watching her from a distance, standing apart from her mysterious little world, an outsider looking in.
"You don't know how long I've needed to do that," she said quietly, her voice laced with relief. "For so long I've avoided naming him, afraid that I would only miss him more. But now that I can finally call him by name, I only feel more...complete."
Overjoyed by her confession, Carlisle felt a sharp and sudden urge to touch her somehow.
"That's wonderful, Esme," he said softly, his fingers twitching toward her slightly. "Hearing you say that – it brings me such peace, you cannot even imagine." Mustering the irrational surge of courage it took to reach out and touch her, he lifted his hand and stroked two fingers delicately over her jaw. A pleasant thread of electricity pulled through him, making his fingertips ache, and he had to retreat too soon. "Every time you feel that sense of completeness, you take another step forward," he added.
"I couldn't take those steps without you," she said, her tone soft but insistent. "Everything you give me is a gift, Carlisle. You know that." Her eyes were bold and assuring, everything he felt he wasn't in that moment. "Don't look melancholy, it's true," she chided ever so gently.
"I wasn't feeling melancholy," he said slowly, apologetically. "I was only...pondering."
"Pondering?" The endearing dimple on the corner of her mouth both mocked and tempted him at once. "What about?"
"I don't really know how else to explain it – but this is the first Christmas I've had in a very long time that truly feels like Christmas," he tried to explain.
She nodded slowly. "I know what you mean."
"Hm."
"What?"
"I'd always imagined you to be the kind of person who could never feel depressed on a holiday," he said with a shrug. He turned back to rearrange the photographs on his desk, waiting for her response.
"I don't think that kind of person exists, Carlisle," she sighed in a distinctively motherly way. "As much as we'd like to think it does."
He tilted his head to look at her face, catching a flicker in her eyes that filled him with unease and confusion. "You were...troubled the last several years of your life, weren't you?" he asked gently.
"Yes, very much so," she admitted, her eyes darkening. For a moment he feared she would not be able to speak any further, but she seemed steadied by a quiet strength. "There was no one there for me during the rest of the year, let alone the holidays."
The tightness in his chest shattered with the coming of a sickening pang. The mere thought of Esme being alone in any circumstance physically hurt Carlisle in a most frightening and unfamiliar way. No thoughts of any other person had ever affected him so deeply. He imagined Esme, consumed by fear, locked away in a dark house on some cold Christmas without the company of anyone but herself and her unborn child, her hands folded over her belly as the tears streamed down her cheeks. Just the thought was like the stab of a sword through his throat.
He released a heavy breath and she followed suit, her fingers twisting uncomfortably while she stared at the floor as if trying to blink back tears. He moved closer to her, the urge to touch her nearly overruling his good sense. He held back with some restraint, almost afraid to disrupt her in such a personal moment.
"Do you not know that when you tell me these things, I literally ache?" The passion he had been trying to suppress poisoned his voice, betraying him even in a whisper.
"You shouldn't," she told him firmly. There was an edge to her voice that was almost scolding, and he stilled. Immediately she seemed to notice the change in his demeanor and she softened, reaching out to place her palm against his heart. "The worst of the pain has left me," she said calmly. "It's all so distant now, it's almost like... like I'm remembering another person's life, and not my own."
"But you still remember it," he gently reminded her. "That must hurt sometimes."
He could see that her emotions had been churned by his words. Her face changed, becoming more mask-like as she pulled her hand away from him. He mourned the loss of her touch, longing to seize it back.
"Of course," she answered mildly. "You would know that just as well as I do."
"I was not abused, Esme," he argued, his voice quiet and his resolve flushed.
"You were neglected," she disproved, so deliciously firm. "That can be just as painful."
He stared back at her, enthralled by the soothing storm in her eyes, a lump of emotion lodging itself in his throat as he considered her words regarding his past.
"That kind of pain is...transient," he responded shakily.
"Is it really?" she questioned him, her eyes like fire opals, sparking with challenge. But her voice was so soft when she spoke again. "You still fear being alone, Carlisle. I can sense that about you."
He felt the pooling of darkness settle into his own eyes as the meaning behind her words sunk in. The mere implication that Esme could sense his fears was somehow both terrifying and titillating at once.
"You sense this?" he breathed, incredulous. "How?"
Her eyes flitted over his face, leaving each feature to burn beneath the mark her gaze had left upon it. "I see it in your face. I hear it in your voice. Even the way you move tells me this."
A bullet of warmth pierced his middle, stretching across his body. His knees felt shaky and his throat felt far too tight. Esme was still staring at him as if she knew something he didn't – the incredulity of her expression spurred him to seek more of this curious notion.
"I don't understand what any of these things have to do with my fear of loneliness," he pointed out, too desperate to care that his voice sounded so weak.
"There's always been something about you that looks sad to me," she confided, cocking her head to study his face again. "Something in your eyes. The way you look at people... almost like you're pleading with them."
He swallowed hard and hoped to God she could not hear it. Inside his heart tingled with panic, hanging on her every word as she continued to pick his secrets apart piece by piece.
"When you're sharing a room with someone you'll never leave more than a certain amount of space between you and the other person," she pointed out, and his cheeks could have flamed seeing the lack of space between their bodies right now, knowing full well it had been all by his doing.
Everything she was saying to him was so frustratingly intimate, so boldly caring, so thrillingly attentive. That she had bestowed enough scrutiny upon his every move to notice such tiny details about his interactions both frightened and excited him. The maternal side to her behavior struck him as most appealing, that she felt a need to protect him, to watch over him. Though he had once believed that was his job alone, he now could see Esme as his quiet savior, the small observant woman who needed so desperately to smite his pain before she even thought of her own.
"And my voice," he urged her on, struggling to spend his words on one final breath. "How do you sense it in my voice?"
He saw her take a preparatory breath – the swell of her breasts, pressing against the soft blue fabric of her bodice as she opened her lips to answer—
Thwap.
Carlisle gave a start at the sound of snow hitting the window behind them, his eyes wide and alarmed, still frozen in place while Esme flurried over to the source of the interruption, laughing happily, "Is that Edward?"
Carlisle felt the tight heat of anticipation fade from his limbs as his unanswered question was forgotten. He slowly approached her from behind, peering out the window into the snow covered yard where Edward stood proudly showing off his hours of hard work.
"Oh, look at him." Carlisle couldn't help but chuckle grudgingly at his son's antics.
"Well, he's quite talented. You can't deny that," Esme said brightly.
"He's a genius. And I'm not just boasting on his behalf. He truly is one of the most brilliant young men I've met," Carlisle said fondly, "and I've met many."
"He seems much happier lately," Esme pressed, clearly in an effort to drag the conversation further and further away from their previous discussion. It hurt Carlisle that she was so intent on leaving his question behind, but it was not something he wished to impose on her any longer, being too afraid that her obvious discomfort would despise his insistence.
"You seem happier, too," he said significantly, watching as her eyes went from nervous to relieved in a matter of seconds.
"I am."
"I'm glad," he said, only half his sincerity spared for her, but none for himself.
She turned her head down with a bashful little smile, trailing her fingers boldly over his desk as she made her way around it. It bestirred him to watch her touch his space so liberally; it pleased him that she looked so comfortable there beside his desk. He wished he could find her there every day...
"Are these?" She paused, gesturing to the stack of Christmas cards on the corner of his desk.
"From my patients, yes," he supplied swiftly.
She raised her eyes to his for permission before she tentatively touched the corner of one card. "Do you mind if I...?"
Hastily, he urged her on. "No, not at all. Would you like to look at them?"
He knew her answer would be yes, and so he moved into action before she had the chance to speak. He gathered the cards together and headed for the couch, settling down by the fire in suggestion for her to join him. She came quickly enough, comfortable with the closeness and with the number of times their hands seemed to touch whenever he passed her a new envelope to look at.
Carlisle was surprised by Esme's apparent fascination with the Christmas cards. She was always finding the simplest things intriguing, but here he was finally beginning to see the source of her rapture. She would take every envelope from his hands as if handling a piece of crystal, with the utmost care and delicacy. Her fingers would trace over the blotted handwriting with a fond and familiar touch. He hovered over her and watched while she read all of his private letters – from the most personal stories of grief and healing to the simplest, four-word holiday greetings.
"They're beautiful," she said at last, her voice filled with mystique and awe.
"They are, aren't they?" he agreed, just now understanding the truth of her statement.
"The things they say to you," she marveled, as if the humans' notes were something so rare and precious. "You can just see how much they care about you."
Her choice of words kindled such sweet warmth in his heart.
Carlisle let his chin nestle atop her head, his skin savoring the silky touch of her hair. "You can?"
"Absolutely." She placed a card back into its envelope and sighed. "They adore you – what you've done for them."
A peaceful silence settled over the room like a blanket, leaving each to their own thoughts for a while. Carlisle held Esme in that drawn-out moment, wishing it would never end so that he could keep her near forever. She felt so perfect against his body, her Circean appeal and her sweet gentleness married together to create his ideal match in a woman. She was endlessly fascinating and endearingly soft-hearted, altogether infuriating in her loveliness.
The dull glow of the crackling fire soothed his eyes shut as he rested his arms around her, his breaths mating with hers as her back rose and fell along with his chest.
"These cards are precious," she interrupted the silence with a timid voice. "You should treasure them forever."
He hummed in agreement, his secret contentment not so secret with the telltale depth of the sound.
"Do you realize how blessed you are to have so many people who respect you and care for you?" Esme pressed, her tone slightly stronger now.
His arms tensed a bit as they struggled to keep hold of her, somehow sensing that she was about to gesture wildly or do something unexpected.
"They think about you, Carlisle. My God, they've seen you, and they remember you," she was saying, stunned by the prospect.
"Esme?" he inquired apprehensively.
"Humans, Carlisle. Humans!" she repeated the term like it was something outrageous, her body seeming to heat up as her fervor grew. "You interact with them, and they respond to you. They know you. Don't you see how miraculous that is?"
"Miraculous..." The word drifted in and out of his comprehension as he considered the truth in what she had said. "You compare this with a miracle?"
He shifted as he felt her head begin to turn, allowing her to look up into his eyes. This was where he found the realm of miracles. In Esme's eyes, he saw the world reflected back at him, heavenly and perfect. Her intensity tugged him deeper until he was drowning in the unfathomable wonders she promised the other half of his soul.
She blinked once, as if politely warning him that he had fallen too far. His senses came back as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shrugged shyly, coming back down to her spot on his shoulder.
"I'm just trying to say, it feels strange when no one knows that you exist," she whispered, sounding so lost that it broke his heart.
He felt a burning behind his eyes, a longing to redeem his gaze with hers. His body tingled at the rush of warm breath she released over his neck, a thrilling reminder that her lips were dangerously near to the scars he had forgotten to keep hidden beneath his collar. Suddenly he was aware of just how close she was, how intimate her place in his arms, how willing she was to be pressed against him like this.
Out of sheer need, he slipped his fingers gently around her chin and tilted her face up to meet his eyes. "Edward and I know you exist," he said, his voice coming forth darker than he had intended.
He felt her chin quiver lightly in his hand before she buried her face in his chest again. "I know it should be enough, but there's something inside of me that longs to be recognized by the society I once belonged to," she mourned, shaking her head against his shoulder as she tried to make sense of it all.
"Oh, I know how you feel," he attempted to comfort her, holding her tighter. "It won't be this way forever, Esme. I will help you. One day you will be there again, just as I am. I can promise you that."
"Your promises seem impossible sometimes, Carlisle," she whimpered softly, her fingers fiddling around with the fabric of his shirt like a distracted child.
"I would never make a promise if it were impossible."
"I know that," she whispered as her hand began to slide slowly down his front. "I trust you."
He stayed entirely still as her palm made its way down his chest, and with every new inch she passed, he assumed she would stop. But she only kept going further, lower...
A quiver flew up his spine as her hand neared his lap. Already flushed with desire, he tried to shift so that the placement of her hand would not make him so vulnerable...but he could not even move. He was seconds away from seizing her hand before it reached its inevitable end, when she finally decided to pause mere inches above his belt.
Perhaps it was closer to a mere inch. He was afraid to look.
He found that he wanted, in this moment more than any other, to know if Esme's inner thighs were as soft as he had always imagined them to be. He wondered what tiny nooks and parts of her beautiful, feminine body would still hold the tainted story of forgotten motherhood. He wondered if she would let him explore her like a vast, mysterious sea, if she would let him seal his lips to her breast and never let go, if she would cure his ache with her artistically finessed fingers.
Dreaming about her thighs and lusting after her fingers did him absolutely no good. Just one short moment of those kinds of thoughts only served to billow the dreaded fire in his groin.
As a doctor, he should have known this.
The lust tugged at him mercilessly, and the more he tried to ignore it, the harder it became. The harder everything became.
His eyes flitted frantically to the scattered pile of cards in Esme's lap, suddenly all the more appealing for entirely different reasons. As much as he questioned the idea of reaching anywhere near Esme's lap, it was the only solution he could find to the peril he perceived himself to be in.
Somehow keeping his panic in check, Carlisle reached calmly across Esme's knees to slip the mess of cards from her lap onto his. He hoped she would not notice, or at least think little over the peculiar action, but he needed some means to protect himself from her.
His face felt a strong, fiery flash of heat as her hand at last carefully crept away from his belly. She must have noticed his discomfort, and this worried him, even humiliated him to some degree. But just as soon as she withdrew her hand, she nudged her small head against his chin, nestling herself so sweetly into his embrace that his worries were slowly but surely replaced by soft sparks of appreciation and contentment.
From above, he silently consumed her heady fragrance, her scent sugared and pure, like peach nectar. Her hair was so smooth against his sensitive skin, each strand glinting like streaks of tarnished gold through maple silk in the firelight. Carlisle found that he could admire her without the barbaric hunger of lust rising inside of him. He could hold her and have her, and even touch her without cracking the whip on his desire.
Oh, and her presence was so exquisitely gentle, so honest. She was small and warm and truly alive – half his creation – a beautiful gift, a breathtaking blessing.
"Why are candles holy?" she suddenly asked him, the question as welcome as it was unexpected. Her voice was alluring and deeper than usual, and Carlisle paused, determined to answer her with something just as deep in its meaning. Something she could ponder for hours; something that would intrigue her imaginative mind and kindle her spirited heart.
"Because they bring warmth to places of coldness and light to places of darkness," he replied in a whisper as soft as the wind. "Because even when their flames go out, they can always be lit again. And they will burn just as brightly as they did before."
If he listened carefully enough, he could hear the sound of her heart expanding, wildly accepting of his honest words.
"That's so beautiful," she acknowledged, with the voice of a lover lost in slumber.
Syrupy warmth seeped through his body at the sound of her whispered words.
"It is the Truth," he said, cupping one soft elbow in his hand. "The Truth is always beautiful."
Darkly, she countered him. "Sometimes it isn't."
With a sigh he shook his head, smiling patiently above her. "I don't believe we are speaking of the same Truth, Bright Eyes."
Bright Eyes.
The accidental nickname had slipped out, utterly uninvited by his tongue. However, he could nearly feel the surge of happiness pour through Esme as he said it; she even seemed to flutter a bit in his arms. It made him feel joyful, and proud, and a little giddy.
"Hmmm," she murmured low and gentle. "What is your 'truth'?"
Carlisle forged a path between their anchors of faith, and bravely declared what he believed. "My 'Truth' is the truth which was promised to me. The everlasting Truth. The answer to eternity. Life Eternal in the kingdom of heaven."
He waited with bated breath after he had finished spilling half his soul, listening with wary ears while Esme thought deeply on all he had said.
"You are like a candle, Carlisle," her heart at last said out loud. The endearing way she said his name was as soothing as a warm spring night. And in the middle of winter, it was all the more pleasant to hear.
"Is this a compliment, dear Esme?" he asked her, a lighthearted chuckle chasing his words.
"Yes," she said with a resolute nod that knocked his chin delightfully to the side. "The best sort."
He laughed quietly behind her as she tucked her body against his; this time he was utterly comforted by her closeness, with not one iota of distress to mar his shared mirth.
"You've brought me such joy, Esme," he said to her, letting it sound like a secret just to tease her. It sort of was.
"Are you always so sentimental around the holidays?" she asked him, her sweet voice touched with exuberance.
From outside the window, Edward graciously answered for his father.
"Trust me, he is."