Chapter 14 #2
“Only bruised—and very cold,” she said, through chattering teeth. Her smile, faint but steady, made something inside him tighten. “I climbed out while he slept…and jumped when the carriage slowed. I had to, Joshua. He, he…” She turned away.
“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 wind had 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 warmth and 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 had walked 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.
“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.
Of course he would minimize his efforts. Courage, like warmth, seemed to return in little waves. “You are hurt nowhere?” she asked.
“Only my pride,” he said solemnly. “I had thought to prevent this folly.”
“It was my folly,” she insisted. “Had I listened to you sooner instead of my own pride…”
“I only want what is best for you, Merry.” Colour touched his cheekbones and vanished. He rose, as if he had said too much. “I shall see you in the morning,” he said.
“Good night, Captain,” she said, more formally than her heart intended.
He stood, and then, on some private impulse, took two steps nearer and reached for her blanket. He drew it an inch higher at the shoulder and tucked her in. His fingers brushed her shoulders, but she felt it to her toes. Then he kissed the top of her head and left.
When he had gone, the air he had warmed by standing in it cooled at once.
She lay back and stared at the ceiling’s fine cracks and the shadows of holly pricked soft along the cornice.
Exhaustion came at her from both ends—mind and body—but still her mind wondered.
Could he forgive her stupidity? Could he see her as more than a silly little sister?