Page 23 of A Merry Christmas
He pressed her hands and let them go. “I do not deserve you,” he said. “I shall spend a lifetime attempting to prove I do.”
He left her there, by the marble shepherdess, with a bow. The door closed behind him. The tread of his boots faded down the corridor.
Merry stood very still until she could hear the clock in the hall count two slow minutes. Then she walked back into the green drawing room and sat down in the chair she had left. She placed her hands upon her lap. They trembled and she did not wish them to. She clasped them until the tremble became less.
She told herself she had done a sensible thing. She had accepted a man of good family who had asked for her with respect. She had granted him three days to arrange family matters in a way that would spare both houses discomfort. There was nothing in it that a sensible woman would refuse. A world of safety had opened, with a door that bore her name. She only had to walk through. The trouble was that safety felt like a room with too little air.
CHAPTER 9
Joshua went in search of Merry with the idea of finding a moment alone. The house had entered that bustling restlessness which followed breakfast at Christmas-tide, when plans were made or discarded with cheer. He meant to ask for ten minutes of her time, intending to give no speeches and no warnings, only reassurance.
The corridor to the green saloon lay empty when he reached it. The winter light fell in a thin square across the carpet. He took two steps and then halted. Voices, low and urgent, came from the room.
Joshua knew at once whose voices they were. Barnaby Tremaine’s tones were smooth and persuasive.
“Will you walk with me for two minutes where the door is in sight? I will not steal you past a chaperon. I wish only to say one thing without every servant listening.”
Joshua did not move. It was not virtue that kept him still. It was the battlefield instinct which tells a man to see exactly what is happening before he charges into it. He took a breath and let it out silently. If he turned now, his boots would ring on the boards and his retreat would be louder than a declaration.
“Merry,” Tremaine went on, bringing his voice down to a whisper. “You must know I admire you above every lady I have ever met. Your sense, your spirit, your beauty. I have been clumsy and the village has eyes that enlarge everything. I will not pretend to be better than I am, but I can promise to try to be worthy of you. Will you do me the honour?—”
Joshua’s heart lurched. He could not see Merry past the angle of the alcove, only the movement of Tremaine’s dark coat and the tilt of his head as he bent closer to press the advantage he had made for himself. It felt like watching a comrade go down in the smoke twelve paces away, too far to reach in time. What had his silver-forked tongue said to make her forgive his behaviour?
Joshua told himself there was still a world of difference between being asked and being won. He told himself she might refuse. He told himself anything that would keep him where he stood and not send him blundering forward into a scene and make everything worse. Tremaine continued on and Joshua could not make out the words. Then he heard Merry speak.
Her voice was clear, though low. “Why must it be secret?”
“Because I know my father,” he said, with a little grimace. “He is a man who will ask to see your portion first. I will not have him insulting you with figures when I can oblige him to remember he has a heart. Give me three days to manage him and then I will stand you before him and make him thank me for the honour.”
There was a pause that bit into Joshua’s chest like frost. When Merry spoke again, the single syllable seemed to strike the wainscotting and return to him in a shape larger than itself.
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes. The word gave him no right to move or intervene. He pressed his palm hard against the cool wood of the panelling, as if to remind his body it still had a wall to lean on. When he opened his eyes he saw, reflected in the glass opposite, Tremaine’s figure bow with triumph held in check and Merry’s face lifted, pale and composed. He could not read her eyes in that thin reflection. He did not need to. He knew the look she wore when she had done a difficult thing as if it were nothing.
He stepped back soundlessly until he reached a bend in the corridor and then walked swiftly but without evident haste. The house swallowed him. Voices came and went. Some child laughed with the kind of sudden explosive joy that told of victory at a game. Joshua kept his pace even and his face free of the tumult within.
He went to the library for solace, but it offered none. He stood with both hands upon the back of a chair until his breathing settled. Then he let the first wild rush of anger and despair pass through him and out again.
He could not think of Merry as lost—not yet. It was not too late until the vows were said before God and the register signed. A secret engagement was not a sacrament. It was a thread that could be cut by truth if truth were revealed properly. He had no wish to triumph. He had every wish that she be spared a life that would grind her spirit to dust while people admired her title and her jewels.
He sat down soberly and put his head in his hands, not because he was beaten, but because he needed to act quickly yet with caution. If he blundered now, if he came to her with facts that sounded as though he was merely intent on proving himself right, he would deserve the contempt she would hand him—and the marriage he could not prevent.
How miserable would she be, tied to what lay beneath that handsome coat and those practised compliments?
Merry, with her love of mornings and lambing pens and the clean honesty of a day’s work, would be crushed. The best of her would either grow bitter or hide itself. She would still smile. She would still be herself in company. But the private person—her spirit would be crushed.
Abruptly, he stood up and paced the length of the Turkish carpet. Should he approach her? Yes—but how? She had given her word. He would not ask her to break it lightly or make of himself the villain in the story. All at once, he must be near enough to catch her if she stumbled and far enough to let her choose the path. It was a hard business, but hard business was what he knew.
Very well. He would go on gathering the truth quietly to haveready the moment she reached for it. He would make himself the safest person to come to when she needed someone. She must know he wanted her happiness more than any victory. Later he would examine why he felt so intensely.
The library door opened a crack. His mother’s face appeared in the gap, her eyes as quick as a bird’s. She read him in one glance.
“Well?” she said. “I saw her return to the drawing room looking shaken.”
“She has given her word to keep a secret,” he answered, which told his mother all she needed.
“For how long?”
