Page 20 of A Merry Christmas
Her cheeks burned. She urged the mare faster, wanting only to be away, to put distance between herself and that sleigh, from Joshua’s silent company, from the treacherous hope that had filled her earlier in the ride.
She knew she should not care so much. She told herself, sternly, that it was nothing—a lark, a trifle, a scrap of winter amusement that meant no more than a snowball tossed by children. Yet the words rang false and hollow. Somewhere deep inside, she had wanted Barnaby’s attentions to mean more. She had wanted to believe. And now the sight of him, so at ease, so gay with another lady, told her more than any whispered warning could have done.
The beautiful morning was ruined.
CHAPTER 8
Joshua would have spared Merry that scene if he could possibly have done so. The moment her chin lifted rigidly and the light went out of her eyes, he knew exactly how deep the cut had gone. Tremaine, on Lord Bruton’s lawn, a sleek pair tossing their heads, a bright-eyed little beauty pressed close for warmth and laughter, obvious intimacy between the two of them. It was a tableau arranged to wound, even if by accident. Merry did not look at him. She did not need to. He saw her gather the reins and heard the decision in the quickened step of her mare. He let her go because pride sometimes needs speed more than company, and because if he had tried to hold her in that moment he would have said more than prudence could mend. He therefore followed at a polite distance.
Back at Wychwood, the day resumed its cheerful tyranny. Children tugged at his coat to show him the best of the slide they had made in the snow. Then he joined his brothers in chopping some wood, followed by his mother pressing a cup of chocolate into his hand and telling him he looked as he had at nine years old, when a Latin exercise had offended his sense of justice. He smiled whenrequired and answered when spoken to, yet under all the bustle the image burned steadily of Merry’s set mouth and that cursed scene.
By noon he had done everything he could do that involved muscle and little that involved speech. He went in search of quiet and found the library empty save for the smell of leather and the creak of winter in the panelling. A fire had been left alive, and he stood by it until his hands forgot the cold, thinking about the letter he had sent. He did not expect an answer from London so soon. The post did not fly. Yet hope, like a child, often runs to the door before it hears a knock.
The knock came sooner than sense would have predicted. Not an hour later the butler entered with a plain packet and that particular tilt of the head which meant a letter a man might prefer to receive without witnesses. Joshua broke the seal with measured carefulness. He knew the hand before he reached the signature. Renforth wrote as he spoke—briskly, with more truth than comfort.
My dear Fielding,
Your note findsme in town when I wish to be elsewhere, and thus better placed to answer than my sins deserve. You ask for truth rather than scandal, so I will tell you what I know and what I infer.
Lord Bruton is a man I know well. He despairs of his son with an energy worthy of a better cause. The young gentleman’s losses are heavy and deep. There were unpleasant scenes at two gaming houses in November and a very ugly whisper at a third, which I will not set down here.
His lordship has cut him off in everything but name and shelter. He took him into the country to get him out of sight of creditors and unsavoury companions. His statement, to at least three men of my acquaintance, is that the boy must marry fortune, and speedily, or he will be allowed to experience the inside of a sponging-house.
As to associates, your old seaman speaks no more than the truth. The lad has been in nefarious company. In your small Gloucestershire village, those who seek him will stand out like a rotting carcass.
Keep me informed on your side. I do not love being the author of ill news at Christmas, but I love the thought of a good girl being used worse still.
Your obedient,etc.,
Renforth
Joshua readit twice through and then once more, though nothing altered. He had asked for truth and been given it. Tremaine was driven by desperation. Lord Bruton had set him upon the country like a hound slipped from leash with only one scent in its nose: fortune. If the fellow smiled at Merry it was not because he had discovered a heart he had not known he possessed, but because her portion had presented itself as a remedy that did not taste of physic. Nevertheless, would Bruton tolerate such amésalliance?
Joshua laid the letter upon the table and set his palms upon the wood on either side. Anger moved across him and was gone, leaving only the stubborn steadiness that had always done him more good. Anger would tempt a man into ungallant action. Steadiness would keep him from ruining everything with the right words at the wrong time.
He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. He took out paper and wrote a brief reply while the facts were still clear in his head.
My thanks.Your candour is a kindness and will be used as best I am able. I will enquire here as quietly as I can. If you learn anything further, a second cruelty will be another favour.
J.F.
He sanded and sealed it.The action calmed him a little. Then the question that had been waiting since he had first thought to write to London came and stood in front of him and refused to move. Howwas he to tell Merry without making her hate him? There are truths that feel like contempt when they fall from the wrong mouth, and warnings that sound like jealousy even when they rise from care. He could produce evidence. He could name names. He could lay the thing out as neatly as a plan of attack, and still she might hear only,I think you a fool and myself in the right of it.
He went in search of his mother because she had never once mistaken his motives, even when he had been six and had cut his own hair with kitchen scissors in order to look more like a cavalry officer. He found her in the small parlour with her work-basket and a little regiment of stockings. She looked up at him and then down at the letter that he was aware had altered the set of his mouth. She put her mending aside at once.
“Well,” she said. “You have been fed something bitter and are deciding whether it will do more good than harm to share it.”
“Renforth writes,” he said, and handed her the letter because his mother had earned the right to see what moved his face.
She read it with that tranquil speed she reserved for serious matters. There were only two places where her lips pressed together. She folded the paper along the crease he had made and gave it back to him.
“I had hoped you to be wrong,” she said, very quietly.
“As had I.”
“And now you intend to tell Merry.” It was no query; she knew her son.
“I mean for her to know, if necessary. I do not mean to be foolish about it.”
