Chapter 15 #2
And hope, Joshua thought, was as good a beginning as any.
Alas, they had reached Twelfth Night. The greenery drooped a little lower, and the yule log, so triumphantly set on Christmas Day, was a faint glow of embers.
Merriment still reigned, yet in every laugh there lurked a little ache for the morrow.
Tomorrow meant trunks and wraps and farewells.
It meant Joshua would be returning to London, and Merry held more sadness in her heart over that than she did for the foolishness she had imagined to exist with Barnaby.
Loss took a clearer shape now. It was not a wound that smarted with shame. It was an empty space that had discovered its size only when a certain gentleman’s presence had filled it, and now threatened to be vacant again.
The great table shone with the last splendour of the season.
Candles threw clear light over polished silver and bright crystal.
The children occupied their saloon with a riot of puddings and giggles.
Merry slid into her place and only then saw that fate, or two mothers, had organized the company to perfection. Joshua sat at her right hand.
He glanced down, humour alive in his eyes. “Our mothers are meddling again,” he remarked in a voice pitched for her alone.
Merry adopted an air of patient resignation. “May I remind you it is inevitable. Does it trouble you?”
“Not at all,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I need all the help I can contrive.”
Before she could ask what he meant, his brother, Aaron, demanded a history of some army story from Portugal, and Joshua turned obligingly to tell it. Merry took a sip of wine and watched the easy animation with which he complied. He made attention feel like warmth.
The courses moved forward with all their ceremonious cheer. Somewhere between a dish of salmon dressed with capers and a roast of beef in Hollandaise, Merry said quietly, “I had an apology from Lord Bruton earlier.”
Joshua stilled. “Did you?”
“He begged pardon without artifice. He accepted the full blame and declared himself at my disposal should I ever need anything in his power to give. The line that caught me was the last. ‘I will not ask your forgiveness for my son. I ask it for myself, who saw the path he was taking and did not succeed in turning him from it.’”
Joshua considered her for a breath. “How does it make you feel?”
“I am beset by sadness,” she said. “Sadness that a gentleman like him has such an undeserving son. I believe he meant to do better and could not.”
His gaze softened. “Your graciousness does you credit.”
“I do not feel gracious,” she said, setting down her fork. “I feel tired of being angry at Tremaine, and more so at myself. Anger is rather a heavy burden to carry.”
He paused, and in that single pause she felt a conversation grow between them that no one else could hear. It lay there in the quiet as if it had always been waiting and had at last found voice.
They were not left to it for long. Twelfth Night refused to be solemn.
The Fieldings welcomed several village families as the dishes were cleared, the room filling at once with the good noise of neighbours.
Mr. and Mrs. Finch came from the mill; old Mr. Parkes, who had tuned the church spinet since the reign of the last vicar, arrived; and also came the vicar and his wife themselves.
Scarves were unwound. Cloaks were whisked away.
Boots were stamped clean in the passage.
The company widened like a circle of lantern light in a winter lane.
The first set began as soon as the footmen had rolled up the carpets.
Mr. Roxton took Mrs. Finch’s arm with a gallantry that suited him.
Mr. Lennox bowed to Mrs. Fielding. Joshua made a point of claiming little Rose and took her through the figures with such kindness that the child glowed pink and bold by the close.
Someone had brought a fiddle. Someone else had a lute. The music was jovial.
Merry stood a little apart when she could. On the fringes of laughter one hears notes that do not belong to the tune. A remark, thrown away by a woman who wished to be known for saying what others would not, was levied directly into her ear.
“Well, Miss Roxton,” the woman murmured behind her fan, “you will just have to remain a spinster now, I dare say. A safe choice for everyone, do you not agree, for who would take you now?”
Merry turned her head very slightly, enough to meet the woman’s gaze without gifting it consequence. “A safe choice is sometimes the best,” she said. “There are worse fates than being one’s own responsibility.”
The woman coloured and laughed as if she had meant only a jest. Merry let it pass.
If that was the worst folks were saying about her, then she would endure.
Joshua was on the other side of the room, speaking to the vicar, and she would not let the evening sour while she could still watch him and memorize every line of his face.
When the second country dance was called, he crossed to her as if the space belonged to his stride. “May I have this dance?” he asked, at once both formal and simple.
“You may,” she said, and placed her hand in his.
They took their places. The set was lively, full of turning and pursuit and quick crossings.
Merry found her feet obedient again, her breathing keeping time with the measures.
Joshua’s hand was sure when he took hers, assured when he let it go.
Once or twice their eyes met and slid away; once or twice they held.
She was astonished at the calm in her own chest. This ought to have been a moment for tremors and desperate questions.
Instead it felt like standing where she was meant to be.
When the dance ended, a draught rose as someone opened the French doors to the terrace. Cold air washed the crowded room. Merry, warm and a little flushed, lifted her face to the breath of winter and smiled. Joshua saw that smile and, without ceremony, offered his arm.
“Would you care for some fresh air?” he asked.
“Yes, I should like that,” she answered.
They stepped out into a world made silver by frost. The terrace stones were dry but cold.
Beyond, the lawn lay smooth and pale under a sky pricked with hard stars.
Their breath smoked in the lamplight. Behind them came the faint strum of the fiddler tuning for another set.
For a moment they stood with the night laid open like a page before them.
“My brothers mean to take down the greenery tomorrow,” Joshua said, because a gentleman must say something as he learns to be brave. “The house will look very dull.”
“I admire a thing that does not pretend to be what it is not.”
They walked the length of the terrace in companionable quiet. Twice she thought he would speak; twice he did not. The second time she spoke for him, not to hurry but to solve the earlier riddle. “You said our mothers were meddling.”
“They did,” he said with a faint smile, “and I find I am grateful to be easily managed.”
They reached the end of the terrace, where a little bough of mistletoe had been tucked into the lintel. A sprig still hung there, absurd and audacious, its white berries dull in the starlight.
Merry looked up and laughed, but her laugh came out as a breath rather than a sound. He looked up too. The mischief of the thing lay between them like a delicate trap. She felt the balance of the moment shift. One step would spring it—or save it.
“Do I imagine,” she said, and her voice trembled in a way that made her cross with herself, “that there is something more than there is?”
“No,” he said at once. “You do not imagine.”
She let out the breath she had not known she held. “Then I am not mad?”
“You are not mad.”
“Only foolish,” she said, attempting a smile.
“Brave,” he corrected, but he did not step away when they stopped.
He stood very straight, as if he had come to attention. “Merry,” he said quietly, “if I am honest, I have come to admire you greatly. I find I cannot look at a day and not wish to put you into it. You deserve someone who values you as you are, and I aspire to be that man.”
She felt tears threaten, quickly rejected them, and paced once the length of their little shelter.
Words poured out before she could tidy them.
“I should like to explain. It may appear I am fickle. I am not. At the time, I had no hope of a better match. I thought myself already on the shelf. I thought Barnaby to be a door to a different world, and I was foolish enough to be grateful for any door that opened.”
He listened without flinching, which was how a man should listen. “I might be your second choice,” he said, almost lightly, “but I would offer you the protection of my name nonetheless.”
She stopped and faced him. “But you are not my second choice.”
He went very still. “No? There is another?”
She almost laughed then, from nervousness and joy together. “You mock me when I would lay my heart before you?”
“Indeed not,” he said, and something like relief moved across his features. He took one step nearer, enough to bring the starlight into his eyes. “But I am going to kiss you now.”
He raised his hands and set them to her face with a care that made them feel like a blessing.
The first touch of his mouth was light. The second found its courage in the first. He kissed her as if he was learning every bit of her and wished to know by heart.
It was nothing like Tremaine’s cold kiss.
It was steadier, warmer, and in its warmth there lay a promise—that he would not take what was not given and would treasure all that was.
In fact, the two men were not comparable at all, she told herself in irritation, and she would stop thinking about that horrid man whilst Joshua’s lips were upon hers.
When he drew back, he rested his forehead against hers. Their breath mingled and made a small cloud between them that broke and vanished and formed again.
“And indeed,” he murmured, almost against her lips, “I will beg an answer of you since you seem to enjoy taunting me.”
“Tit for tat,” she said, smiling now without fear, “but I will not accept you merely for the protection of your name.”
“No?” He sounded entirely ready to be improved by instruction.
“I would accept you for your heart as well, if you please, since mine already belongs to you.”
He gave a sound that might have been a laugh and might have been a prayer. “I can think of no better Christmas gift.”
“Happy Christmas, Joshua,” she whispered, and then, remembering what he had once said, corrected herself with a little tilt of her head. “Or perhaps that should be Merry Christmas instead?”
“I shall prefer it always,” he said.
Then he looked at her—really looked—and some soft restraint in his eyes gave way.
He bent again and kissed her once more, longer, deeper this time, as if sealing something sacred between them.
The world seemed to fall away—the cold air, the faint music drifting from the house, the snowlight trembling over the terrace.
There was only the quiet thud of her heart and the steady warmth of his hands.
When at last they parted, he kept his brow resting against hers. “I love you, Merry,” he said quietly, as if the words had been waiting years for air. “I believe I have for longer than I understood.”
Her eyes shone with tears she did not attempt to hide. “And I, you.”
Above them hung the mistletoe, its pale berries gleaming like drops of milk in the lamplight. Joshua reached up and plucked one, holding it between finger and thumb.
“There are far too many left,” he said, his voice roughened with laughter and tenderness both. “It would be a pity to waste them.”
“Then you must take one for every kiss owed,” she answered, daring him now with a glint in her eye.
He tucked the berry into her palm, closing her fingers over it. “A token,” he said, “to remind you that I am a man of my word.”
She smiled up at him, her hand still enclosed in his. “Then I shall keep it close—though I suspect you will make me earn the rest.”
“Indeed,” he murmured, drawing her near again, “but not before Twelfth Night is through.”
And with the last of the snow whispering against the terrace stones, he kissed her again beneath the mistletoe—until laughter and promise mingled on their lips, and the rest of the world could only wait.