Page 44 of A Merry Christmas
“You will not be ill, will you?” Penelope whispered, crouching at her knee like a girl rather than a married elder sister. “Say you will not be ill.”
“I will not be ill,” Merry said, and smiled with the relief of being permitted a joke.
Voices fluttered around them like dry leaves. The sound made her giddy with gratitude. She sipped her tea obediently. Heat slipped down to the places that had gone cold and thoughtful.
“Lord Bruton?” Joshua’s father asked him, leaning one shoulder against the doorpost, the question spare and precise.
“Has his son,” Joshua answered. He did not elaborate. A line of weariness around his mouth said enough about the remainder.
His father gave a brusque nod, indicating the answer to be enough.
Mrs Fielding laid a hand on Merry’s shoulder and offered nothing but touch. It was enough to hold the next rush of tears at bay.
“Can you tell us—?” Mrs. Roxton began.
“Later, Mama,” Merry said, a little too quickly.
“Very well,” her mother returned. “Later. Come upstairs, dearest. A bath should be prepared by now.”
In her chamber, steam and soap turned the world from chaos to order. Merry endured being undressed like a child and washed like a dowager, grateful to be told what to do by women who loved her enough not to ask whether she wished it. The hot water stung her rope-burns. Her hair was coaxed into civility; her wounds were dressed. She was tucked into a night-rail and a warmed wrapper and then into bed with warm bricks and a roaring fire flickering in the grate. She thought she would sleep at once. However, once alone, memories intruded.
Merry lay still under the weight of clean linens and tried not to relive the last twenty-four hours. Tremaine’s betrayal—the rope—the fear—being chilled to the bone. Then, of course it was the brave, gallant Captain Fielding who would ride to her rescue. The relief at hearing his voice and realizing he was her saviour… The particular feel of his coat under her cheek, and of his arms around her as if she had been something precious and hard-won. No recriminations came from his lips, only strength and reassurance.
A tap at the door saved her from that dangerous pathway of thought. Penelope slid in sideways as if she were not a full-grown woman but a conspirator in a nursery.
“I shall be only a minute,” she whispered. “Mama said you must not talk—so I came to talk.”
“Sit down, then,” Merry said, suppressing a smile. “Whisper at once.”
Penelope perched on the bed. “I wanted only to say you need not be ashamed. People—” She waved a hand to include all of creation. “—have made a religion of pretending women are to blame for men’s sins. We will stand by you no matter what is said. That is the entirety of my sermon. How are your hands?”
“They sting.”
Penelope’s expression softened into something fierce. “What a horrible human he turned out to be. None of it was your fault.”
Merry reached and squeezed her sister’s fingers. “How grateful I am for you.”
“Likewise.” Penelope kissed her quickly on the brow and vanished with the efficiency of a smuggler. Merry was wiping away tears when the door opened a second time.
It was Joshua. He halted at once, as if the threshold might mislike gentlemen past midnight. Mama must have sanctioned the visit.One does not slip past that garrison, Merry reflected, though it hardly mattered now.
He looked larger in the small light, and gentler. His hair was wet from his own bath and he was in fresh clothing but down to his shirt sleeves. The sight was absurdly moving.
“I promised two minutes,” he said, his voice low. “May I squander them?”
“Please,” she answered, and sat up, the pillows rearranging themselves dutifully about her shoulders.
He came no nearer than the chair by the hearth. Even that felt daring. He set his forearms to his knees, hands loose, as men do when they speak without armour.
“Joshua—” She heard the plea in it and disapproved of its nakedness. She tried again. “I am grateful beyond anything I can?—”
“You must be grateful to a farmer,” he returned. “As for me—” His gaze dropped to her bandaged hands. “You did the difficult thing yourself.”
“I climbed out of a moving carriage like an idiot,” she said, attempting levity and failing. The corners of her mouth betrayed her. She looked at him fully then. “I knew you would come.”
Something changed within that moment.
His breath dipped a fraction. “I am surer of finding a road in snow than most men,” he answered.
