Page 18 of A Merry Christmas
Merry observed him, her mare shifting beneath her. “Older, and yet improved—at least in the horse.”
Smiling, Joshua mounted. “I might contest the comparison. If you do not object, I shall ride with you. It would be a pity to waste all this frost for want of conversation worthy of it.”
She lifted a careless shoulder, though a spark of mischief lingered in her expression. “Very well. Only promise you will not tell me how to manage my ewes.”
“I shall not presume to instruct you in sheep. My experience extends beyond horses only to mules, which hate me, and men who behave the same.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
They set out down the lane, the horses’ hooves cutting crescents in the frost. The air turned their breath to clouds, and the hedges glistened as though dressed in lace.
“You go often, then?” Joshua asked.
“Every day now,” she replied. “Lambs do not read calendars.”
“And your shepherd?”
“Old Dawkins has eyes like a hawk and hands like bark. He misses nothing…but he never minds if I ask foolish questions and pretend to be useful.”
Joshua studied her as she spoke, the ease with which she described her part in the work. “I doubt the pretence. You are not half so ornamental as you would have the world believe.”
“That is an insult if ever I heard one.”
“It is praise in disguise. You are very bad at being merely pretty.”
“You do not improve the matter, Captain,” she said, though her lips curved despite her rebuke.
They reached the fold, where Old Dawkins greeted Merry with respect, Joshua noted keenly. She went among the ewes without fuss, crouching to take a shivering lamb into her arms and murmur comfort until both ewe and lamb settled. Dawkins, leaning on his stick, nodded toward her.
“She has a way,” he told Joshua. “Some frighten beasts by trying to be kind. She comes, and they sense she means no harm. Born with it, she was. Miss Merry has saved more lambs than I can count, only for want of affection.”
Joshua watched Merry, her auburn head bent over the lamb, and could not dispute him. “That is a gift,” he said quietly.
They lingered awhile, aiding here and there. When Dawkins withdrew, Merry blew on her hands. “The sheep never ask when I mean to wed, or whether the vicar will allow the waltz,” she said.
“They only require you to be faithful,” Joshua returned.
Her expression wavered, and for a moment the lightness slipped. Beneath her teasing, he sensed a quiet restlessness, as if she were weighing matters not yet spoken. She rode with her chin lifted, but her eyes held the look of someone searching for answers, uncertain of what she hoped to see.
Joshua did not press her, though he felt the urge. It was in her nature to decide quickly, with the courage of a woman who preferredaction to waiting. Yet he could not help but fear she might leap over a hedge when the gate was just ahead.
They turned their horses homeward, the sun higher now, the frost sparkling brighter. The church bells rang faintly across the fields, calling them back to Christmas-tide noise and family. Joshua glanced at Merry, the restlessness still lingering beneath her composure, and thought to himself that he must tread carefully. If she hurried into a future she did not deserve, it would not be because he had failed her.
They tookthe longer way back to Wychwood, down a track that curved by a stand of birches and then ran straight across open meadow. The sun had climbed a little and turned the snow to a dazzle. Merry allowed her mare to break into an easy trot, and Brutus answered with a spring of eagerness. It was impossible not to admire the way man and horse moved as one.
“I am told,” Merry said, fixing her eyes on the path ahead, “that in London mornings are different from these. One may sleep through them and nobody minds.”
“In London, for most morning begins after noon,” Joshua drawled.
She laughed. “You disdain it?”
“I am remarking upon it for people who like lamps more than sunlight—people who stay out until dawn.” He looked across at her. “You would like parts of it very much. You would scorn parts of it.”
“What parts would I scorn?”
“The parts that pretend crowds are an ideal to be attained. The parts that mistake glamour for goodness. Yet you would love your first sight of the theatre. You would forgive London anything for an evening at Covent Garden with a singer who can turn silence into music. You would love the bookshops and the picture galleries. I suspect you would like the Thames when it freezes and everyone pretends they can skate.”
“I should like the skating,” she said at once. “I should not like the noise.”
