Page 25 of A Merry Christmas
“No, Mama,” she whispered. Her voice felt brittle, as though one more word might shatter it.
Joshua turned his head slightly, his gaze resting on her for a heartbeat before returning to his prayer book. He said nothing. He never said anything unnecessary. Yet something in his look—so calm, so knowing—made her cheeks flame. He must have guessed. He must know how wretched she felt.
The sermon droned on. The Bruton pew glittered like a tableau of privilege. Lord Bruton stared straight ahead, his expression carved from marble. The lady beside Barnaby leaned nearer still, her gloved hand brushing his sleeve as she whispered something that made him smile—a slow, indulgent smile Merry remembered too well.
Merry fixed her gaze on the altar and prayed, not for patience or understanding, but simply to be invisible.
When the final hymn rose—‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’—she sang too loudly, desperate to drown the ache in her chest. Joshua’s deep voice joined hers, steady and sure, a sound like earth under her feet. Yet she felt only humiliation.
When the service ended, the congregation spilled into the churchyard, bright with frost and chatter. Lord Bruton’s party moved through them like a miniature procession. Merry watched, unable to stop herself. Barnaby bowed to Lady Bruton, handed the beauty into the waiting carriage, and only then turned to acknowledge Merry’s presence across the path—with a polite inclination of the head, no more.
No warmth. No familiarity. Nothing that could betray the secret he had pressed upon her only yesterday.
She stared at him, willing him to offer some explanation, some hint of apology. He merely smiled, thin and distant, before turning away to assist his mother into the carriage. The door shut with a soft, final sound.
Joshua appeared beside her then, his voice quiet as he spoke. “The frost is biting. Allow me to see you home.”
She nodded mutely. The words she wished to speak—to scream, perhaps—stuck fast in her throat. As they walked down the lane, shecould hear the jingle of the Bruton carriage fading into the distance, at once both cheerful and cruel.
Joshua said nothing more, but his silence was the kind that waited for her to speak when she could.
Merry, however, could not yet bear it. In her heart, she knew the truth. Nothing was worth being tied to someone who would not acknowledge her—but how to extricate herself? If only she could unburden herself to someone, but she had given her word. To betray that secret now would be to confess her foolishness to the entire world.
They walked in silence, side by side, falling behind the others. Merry drew her cloak closer and fixed her eyes on the ground. At last, unable to bear the weight between them, she found her courage. Her voice came small at first, then firmer.
“Do you wish to say something about Tremaine’s inconstancy?”
Joshua’s expression did not change. He clasped his hands behind his back and took several measured steps before answering, as though each word required its proper distance.
“I wish nothing of the sort,” he said at length. “I want only your happiness, Merry.”
She stopped walking. The cold air clouded between them. “My happiness,” she repeated, half in disbelief. “Even when I have made such a fool of myself?”
His gaze met hers, steady and gentle. “Especially then.”
Her throat tightened. He was too kind. His composure, his restraint, made her feel suddenly young and small and, unbearably, seen as such. “You must think me very foolish,” she whispered.
“I think,” he said quietly, “that anyone with a generous heart may sometimes be deceived by the appearance of generosity in another. A moment of blindness does not make a fool of anyone. It makes them human.”
She blinked hard, the frozen air stinging her eyes. “A generous sentiment.” Merry glanced sideways at him, her heart heavy yet a little lighter for his company. Unfortunately the situation was not so simple.
CHAPTER 10
How Joshua wished Merry would confide in him and he could ease her burden. The restraint it cost him to remain silent was almost a physical pain. Every look, every quiet word from Merry seemed to ask something of him, and yet not the one thing he wanted her to ask. She had pride enough for ten men. She would fight to the last inch of self-respect before admitting that Barnaby Tremaine’s attentions had cut her to the quick.
Joshua could not bear the thought of her discovering Tremaine’s perfidy in some public way—of being made a spectacle by his deceit. Better by far that she hear it from him, he reflected, even if she despised him for saying it. And yet, he remembered his mother’s counsel.
No, he must not speak—unless she invited it.
He could act, however. He could discover who the lady was upon Tremaine’s arm that morning at church, the same young beauty who had ridden beside him in the sleigh. Joshua was almost certain now that Tremaine was playing both young ladies false, his confidence built upon a gambler’s instinct that one of the fortunes would fall his way. He had seen men like that before, in London parlours and incamp tents. They thrived on risk and did not care who was hurt along the way.
Joshua clinched his teeth. The difference now was that the stakes were not money, but Merry.
And Merry was no man’s second prize.
Still, Joshua’s tortured thoughts continued, he could not expose Tremaine without proof. If the young lady belonged to another family of means, then there might be whispers in the village or something to be gleaned from the vicar’s wife, whose knowledge of lineage rivalled Debrett’s. He would begin his inquiries discreetly—it was his occupation, after all. For today, however, he would do something simpler: he would make Merry smile again.
The ice on the lower lake had been declared sound that morning, and the children were clamouring to skate. It was an occupation that left little room for brooding, and if he could coax Merry onto the ice, perhaps she might forget—for a time—about Tremaine’s intolerable behaviour that morning.
