Page 12 of A Merry Christmas
Merry watched, laughing, as he obliged them all. He carried sledges back up when smaller arms flagged, dusted snow from flushed cheeks, and never once appeared weary of the clamour. Her heart did an odd, rebellious flutter. She remembered his words from the night before—‘Soldiers do not always return’—and thought what a pity it would have been if he had not returned.
They had nearly worn themselves out with runs when another figure appeared at the edge of the meadow. Barnaby Tremaine, splendid as ever in a fur-collared coat, his boots far too fine for trudging snow, strode down as though arriving at a ball rather than a slope of noisy children.
“Miss Roxton!” he called, raising his hat. “You make the snow look pale.”
The compliment, practised as it was, brought a flush to her cheeks—for she disliked having every ear within hearing of it. She managed a smile. “Mr. Tremaine, you are late to the sport.”
“I should not be late at all if I had known there was sport to be had.” His eyes lingered upon her face, then shifted toward Joshua, who had just launched Edmund down the hill. Something sharpened in his expression. “Ah. The soldier has turned nursemaid.”
Joshua heard, for he turned, though his face betrayed no flicker of offence. “It is easier than managing recruits,” he said simply, and bent to adjust another sledge.
Barnaby laughed, though it rang a little too loud. “Then let us see if soldiering teaches a man to keep pace on the hill. Shall we race, Captain?”
The children squealed at the idea, keen for a contest. Merry hesitated. Something in Barnaby’s tone unsettled her, but to object wouldonly heighten the tension. Joshua rose, snow clinging to his coat, and inclined his head. “If you wish it.”
Two sledges were brought up and placed side by side. Roger was appointed starter and puffed out his chest with the importance of the role. Merry stood back with the others, her heart curiously tight.
“Ready!” Roger cried, raising his mittened hand. “Go!”
Down the hill they flew—Joshua steady, his sledge carving straight and swift. Barnaby leaned forward far too eagerly, his finer boots slipping as he pushed off. For a moment, they ran neck and neck, snow spraying in glittering arcs, but Joshua held his line while Barnaby’s sledge wobbled, then struck a hidden lump and swerved. With a cry of frustration, he tumbled sideways into a drift, while Joshua flew cleanly to the bottom, snow rising in applause.
Cheers erupted from the children. Roger and Edmund whooped. Joshua rose, brushing snow from his coat, and only laughed when the boys crowded around him as though he had won a tournament.
Barnaby emerged from the drift, his cravat askew, his face dark with anger. “A child’s trick hill,” he muttered, too loudly. “It proves nothing.”
“Oh, but it proves everything!” Roger declared with wicked delight. “Uncle Joshua won fair, and you fell!”
Barnaby’s eyes flashed; for an instant, Merry feared he might scold the boy. Instead he forced a laugh that was strained and thin. “Well, perhaps the soldier can manage toys, after all.”
The words fell flat. The children frowned and looked away, and Merry felt a hot flush rise to her cheeks—not of pleasure, but of shame for him. A gentleman should lose a race with grace; Barnaby had lost with petulance.
Joshua merely lifted Roger onto his shoulders and said mildly, “The hill has chosen its champion.” The children roared approval, and Barnaby’s laugh grew harsher.
“A childish remark, as one might expect.”
He held out his arm to Merry and they followed along behind the crowd of children clamouring about Captain Fielding on the return to the house.
CHAPTER 5
Joshua watched the flicker of disappointment cross Merry’s face. Barnaby Tremaine, brushing at his fur collar with impatient fingers and laughing too loudly at his own misfortune, looked every inch the spoiled child denied a treat. It had been a simple race, yet Tremaine must turn an honest tumble into insult. The children’s cheers for Joshua had not been gloating. They were the uncomplicated joy of small creatures who love a sure line and a true finish. But Tremaine perceived mockery where there was none and answered it with a sneer thin enough to show the grain beneath the polish.
Joshua felt something within himself loosen by a degree. He had planned to observe, inquire, and gather proofs and present them to Merry. This afternoon taught him he need not. Tremaine was conducting his own campaign of ruin. The question that lodged in Joshua’s mind was not whether Tremaine would unmask himself, but whether Merry would accept a mask she knew to be false for the petty respectability of a title and a carriage crest.
He did not think her mercenary. She had never looked so little like a girl who counted vanities as when she had knelt to tie a child’s boot-lace on the icy hill, but he knew, better than most, how years of beingtold one is almost good enough can wear grooves into judgement. A cit’s daughter courted by a baron’s son received more counsel than she bargained for.
His brooding lasted only as long as the boys allowed. Roger discovered that his hero could be made to shoulder a sledge and three children at once. Edmund declared that any gentleman who had won a race must necessarily toss each of his admirers into a bank of snow in celebration, followed by a chorus of voices: “Me first, Uncle Joshua! Me first!” The honour of man did not, at present, require a philosophical answer about Merry’s marriage. It required a man with strong arms and a willingness to be used.
“Very well,” he said, suppressing a laugh, “but you will mind the rules: one at a time, no ambuscades, and no tears when you are buried as deep as Buonaparte’s hopes.”
“Will there be drums?” Archie demanded, already scrambling into Joshua’s hold.
“There will be a drum made of your belly when you land,” Joshua returned, and with a swift pivot, he tossed the boy into a drift so soft and powdery that he went in with a whoop and emerged a moment later, snow-covered and triumphant.
“I want a go too!” cried Rose, too small for hurling but eager for some share of the ritual.
“For you,” Joshua said, hoisting her gently and setting her into a miniature puddle of snow as if she were the queen of a frosted island. She crowed and clapped mittened hands.
One by one he fulfilled the absurd ceremony—Roger, Edmund, Archie, Rose, and Jasper, the youngest, who, after much persuasion, consented to a very shallow drift and came up laughing with a face like a sugared bun.
