Page 31 of A Merry Christmas
Mrs. Roxton was sitting in the morning room with Mrs. Fielding, both of them industriously engaged in not doing very much at all. A basket of mending lay untouched between them, for the conversation was of neighbours and not of stockings. The moment Merry entered, her mother’s eyes lifted in instinctive welcome.
“My dear,” she said, noting the cast of her daughter’s cheeks, “you have been out without your proper hat again.”
“I am going home,” Merry said steadily. “Roxton House is quieter, and I wish to look in on the lambs.”
Her mother gave her a long, measuring look—one that saw far more than Merry intended to show—and nodded. “You may go, if you promise to dine with us tonight. Your father will send for you himself if you are late.”
Mrs. Fielding nodded approval. Clearly, they had heard the gossip.
Merry curtsied, kissed their cheeks, and escaped before either could offer more sympathy. Within half an hour, a groom had been called, her mare saddled, and she was riding through the pale winter lanes toward home.
The road between Wychwood and the Roxton estate wound through frost-edged fields, the hedgerows bare but sparkling in the thin light. The sky promised more snow before evening. Merry rode swiftly, welcoming the sharp air against her face. When she reached her own gate, the familiar sight of the home farm steadied her—its smaller, plainer windows, the honest smoke from the chimney, the low murmur of ewes in the fold.
Dawkins appeared at the pen with his habitual grave smile.
“You be early for the New Year, Miss Merry,” he said. “Two ewes have lambed, and another’s thinking of it. I’d wager she is but waiting to make certain we be watching.”
Merry dismounted and passed him the reins. “I am come to reason with her, then. No creature in Gloucestershire has yet held out against me.”
Dawkins chuckled and led her toward the lambing pens. The warm musky scent of straw and lamb enveloped her the instant she stepped inside the old barn. The ewes murmured softly, their great dark eyes shining in the lamplight. There was a peace here—earthy, practical, forgiving—that soothed her as nothing else could. The animals cared not that she had been betrayed and would never be a fine lady.
“That one is struggling to suckle,” Dawkins remarked.
Without being told, Merry began to help. She knelt beside the smallest ewe, coaxing the feeble lamb to drink, her hands firm and practised. The tiny creature fumbled at first, then found its strength and began to suckle greedily. Merry’s shoulders relaxed. For the first time all morning, she was able to smile.
“There, now,” she murmured. “You see? You only needed patience and persuasion.”
When the lamb had finished, she settled against the timber wall, cradling the warm bundle in her lap. The steadiness of its heartbeat against her arm was an answer to something she had not dared to voice. And yet, even here, the ache remained.
She could no longer deny what must be done.
Setting the lamb carefully in the straw, she rose, brushed the straw from her skirt, crossed to the house and went into the small parlour to write. The pen was blunt, the ink cold, but her hand was steady as she wrote:
Sir,
You askedme to keep a secret. I will not. I cannot be engaged to a man who will not acknowledge me in daylight, who gives one name to me and another to the world. You have been lavish with words, but I require honour, noteloquence. There is to be no betrothal, secret or otherwise. You will not call upon my father. You will not call upon me. Seek your fortune where you and your father have chosen. I wish you as much honesty as you can find, and as much kindness as you can learn.
MR
She read it once,sealed it and directed it. Dawkins sent young Tom to deliver it to the Crown with instructions to forward it to Lord Bruton’s house. Tom, wise enough not to ask questions, rode off at once with the air of a boy entrusted with state secrets.
The letter gone, Merry returned to the sheep. There was always more work—water to draw, straw to turn, lamps to trim. She lost herself in it gladly, but as the hours passed and the sky turned pearly grey, the first measure of peace she had gained began to slip away. She knew she must return.
The lamb she had been tending stirred in the straw beside her. She took up the bottle once more and settled against the wall to feed it. The little creature’s trust was complete and unthinking, which made her own shame all the sharper.
“How wise you are,” she whispered. “You want only warmth and food and company. You do not mistake pretty words for goodness.”
Footsteps sounded on the stone outside. She assumed it was Dawkins until Joshua Fielding stood in the lamplight before her.
He had hung his hat on a nail; damp hair clung to his temples. He looked, as ever, too tall for comfort and too composed for pity.
“Miss Roxton,” he said quietly. “Your mother has asked me to fetch you home—if you wished to come.”
Merry blinked at him, uncertain whether to laugh or cry. “That sounds precisely like her,” she said.
Joshua smiled faintly. “It does.”
He came no nearer, which was kind of him. The lamb stirred, and Merry resumed feeding it. He watched in silence, his hands in his coatpockets. There was something profoundly steady in his presence; even the animals seemed to sense it.
