Page 43 of A Merry Christmas
“You were very brave,” Joshua said. “You did what needed to be done.” He chuckled. “You rescued yourself.”
She looked down at her bowl. “I suppose I did.”
The farmer’s wife glanced between them, smiling. “You will not go tonight, I hope. Snow’s near blinding.”
Joshua glanced at Merry, then shook his head. “My family is searching,” he said. “If we do not return soon, they will be half mad with worry.”
The woman clucked her tongue. “Then we will see you wrapped like parcels. There’s blankets to spare.”
By the time they left, the storm had eased to a whisper. The farmer and his wife stood in the doorway, lanterns casting a gold halo through the snow. Merry was wrapped in two thick cloaks, her hair tucked under a shawl, her eyes bright against her pale skin.
Joshua lifted her carefully into the saddle before him, settling her against his chest. She was trembling still, though whether from cold or from the long strain of the day, he could not tell. “You will be warmer this way,” he said quietly. “Hold on to me.”
She did. He felt her relax back against him, and he tucked his greatcoat about her as best he could. He let Brutus go at a steady, careful pace, the snow crunching softly beneath his tread. The windhad gentled and stars pricked faintly through the thinning clouds. It was as if the heavens had settled again now she was safe.
Merry’s head rested lightly against his shoulder. “You came,” she murmured, as though it surprised her.
“I will always come for you,” Joshua replied, and he meant it.
They rode in silence after that, save for the steady rhythm of Brutus’s hooves. Now and again, Joshua looked down at the top of her head—at the loose curl that had escaped her shawl, at the way her lashes brushed her cheek. He thought of Tremaine—drunk, craven, deceitful—and of this woman who had freed herself with rope-burned hands and a will stronger than reason.
He tightened his arm a fraction, not to claim her, only to anchor her closer against the cold.
If only, he thought, if only it had been he who had asked for her hand instead of that entitled fool. She stirred faintly, sighing against him, and he bent his head, letting her warmth sink through the layers of wool, silence and snow. The relief of having her safe settled upon him like a mantle of happiness.
When warmthand motion returned enough for thought to take shape, Merry tried to speak. Her words jostled against each other, clumsy with cold and shame.
“I am a fool,” she began against the wool of Joshua’s coat. “I ought to have realized?—”
Her voice faltered with the admission between them. Joshua’s arm tightened just slightly, enough that she could feel the steadiness of him—his breathing even, his heartbeat slow and certain beneath the layers of cloth. There was something unspoken in that silence, the kind that exists only between those who have come through a darkness together and still found each other on the other side.
In another life, she thought, he might have spoken of such things to a fellow officer over a campfire—the strange kinship of those who hadwalked through fear and survived it. Then, as if hearing her thoughts, Joshua murmured, half to himself, “It is like war, you know. You do not forget the ones who stand beside you when you are going through hell.”
“I feared not for losing my life, but for what I was losing. I hope you can forgive?—”
“Hush,” he said, very gently, without censure. “There is nothing to forgive.” His arm drew the blanket closer about her shoulders. “You are safe. That is all the talking needed now.”
She subsided. It was surprising how easily the burden shifted when told…when one was safe. The steady beat of Brutus’s stride, the measured rise and fall of Joshua’s breathing, made a cradle of safety. She must have dozed, for the next she knew the world had opened into lamps and voices and the arch of Wychwood’s great door flung wide like a held breath set free.
She woke as the horse checked and Joshua’s arm tightened to steady her. For an instant she did not know where her body ended and began. Then the reality of the house, glowing against the snow, put its stamp upon the moment. She had fallen asleep in Joshua’s arms—and nothing about it felt wrong. It was, rather, as if ’twas where she belonged. It is easy to know the shape of rightness once one has been shown its opposite. Barnaby had taught her that much, in the unkind way of lessons one does not ask for.
If only it had been Joshua who had asked for her hand, she thought in one treacherous streak before the clamour of welcome swept all such thoughts to a distant corner.
It seemed the entire household had been watching for them. Lanterns bobbed in the drive, figures hurried across the flags, and the hall beyond was peopled to its furthest shadow. Merry could not tell, at first, who belonged to Roxton and who to Fielding—the two families were so interwoven that their grief and rejoicing wore the same faces.
“Thank God!” her mother’s voice exclaimed—and then everything dissolved into a purposeful flurry. Joshua dismounted and slid her down into his arms, then contrived to carry her inside and set her down without surrendering an inch of protection.
She thought she would be spared at least ten seconds before the fuss began. She was not. Her wet cloak was eased from her shoulders; snow shaken carefully from her hair; questions asked and answers not waited for. The relief of so many beloved faces was a force that had nowhere to spend itself but in action.
“I can walk,” she protested faintly, finding it necessary to assert herself in some manner.
“Of course you can,” Mrs. Fielding said with brisk tenderness. “You shall practise on the morrow. For tonight we shall indulge you with a bath, tea, and being wrapped up near the fire.”
The Fielding brothers and Mr. Lennox had returned from their search not half an hour before, having decided she had not travelled north. Some of the flustering was spared her and transferred to them.
“Mama,” Merry said, and her mother’s arms closed about her with a restraint that made it stronger. Mrs. Roxton did not weep. She breathed, “My love,” against Merry’s hair as a blessing.
Merry wished, for a moment, that she were back within Joshua’s protective circle. It was absurd to feel at once so cosseted and exposed. Affection, when poured by many at once, can feel like a bath drawn a degree too hot. Joshua, she saw, had retreated a half-step, far enough to give the women their space. Their eyes met, and the ribbon of panic that had been coiled just under her ribs loosened.
