The noise of boots and laughter met him at once—his brothers gathering in the front hall with their father and Mr. Roxton, the air alive with talk of the day’s shoot.
“There he is!” cried Aaron, his cheeks ruddy from the cold already. “Come, Joshua, we are for the lower covers. The pheasants are fat and lazy after Christmas, and we have been ordered to bring back our supper.”
“Indeed,” Caleb added, handing Joshua a spare fowling piece. “You have no excuse, Brother—unless you mean to sit indoors with the ladies and the children.”
Joshua forced a smile, taking the gun. “I should hate to deprive you of your best shot.”
Their father appeared then, adjusting his gloves with military precision. “The weather holds. I suggest we take advantage while we may.”
“Where is Merry?” Mr. Fielding asked suddenly, glancing toward the staircase. “She is usually the first to come when there is a chance of sport.”
Mr. Roxton, already donning his heavy coat, sighed with an indulgent smile. “She has gone to check the lambs, I am told. Foolish girl—she thinks no creature in the county can manage without her. I dare say she will have them all named before the day is out.”
The men laughed good-naturedly, but Joshua’s heart tightened.
She would find peace there if anywhere—among the quiet,trusting animals that required nothing from her but gentleness. They would comfort her when no words could.
Lennox clapped him on the shoulder. “You are brooding, Captain. Come, we will shake the melancholy from you with a good march and worse aim.”
Joshua let them herd him out, the weight of the gun familiar in his hands. The cold bit cleanly through his coat as they crossed the park, several dogs bounding ahead, their eager barks scattering the morning stillness.
“Tell me truly,” Simon said as they walked, “is it not absurd that Bruton still insists upon parading about that peacock, Tremaine? I should sooner trust a fox with a hen-house.”
“Careful,” James chided. “You will wound his pride if he ever hears you call him that. A man so devoted to mirrors might die of the shock.”
Their father gave a low chuckle. “Gentlemen, you are forgetting yourselves. We are guests in this county, not barrack-room cynics. If the man is a fool, the world will discover it soon enough without our help.”
Joshua’s lips curved cynically. He suspected the world knew. Yet he thought of Merry, and the look in her eyes that morning—a look that had glimpsed truth and would rather not have done so.
The dogs flushed the first pheasant, and the report of a gun shattered the silence. The smell of powder mingled with wet earth and old leaves. The brothers began to call and laugh, their voices echoing down the slope. Joshua loaded and fired when his turn came, but his mind was elsewhere.
He thought of Merry’s small figure, in her wool cloak, against the grey fields with the wind tugging at her hair. He thought of her crouched beside a newborn lamb and the way her voice softened when she soothed a frightened creature. Perhaps she was there now, her hands warming the tiny body, her breath mingling with the animal’s as she whispered some nonsense word of comfort.
He hoped she had found peace there—that the quiet steadiness of the place would ease the jagged edges of her disappointment.
The men tramped further afield, their laughter rising again as another brace went down. Joshua reloaded methodically, his thoughts turning inward once more.
There were kinds of battles he knew how to fight: visible enemies, tangible threats, problems that could be solved with action, but the one before him now required another sort of strength. He could only wait.
He took aim again and fired, the echo rolling across the hills. A pheasant dropped, feathers scattering like confetti against the snow.
“Capital shot!” Mr. Roxton called. “That will do nicely for dinner!”
Joshua smiled faintly and lowered the gun. The smell of burnt powder drifted on the wind.
By the time they turned back toward Wychwood, the sky was heavy with unfallen snow. The others were jovial, trading boasts and laughter, but Joshua’s mind lingered still on Merry, her courage unbowed though her heart was bruised.
“May she find her peace,” he murmured under his breath.
“What was that?” Caleb asked, looking over.
“Nothing,” Joshua said with a faint smile. “Only thinking about our dinner.” And Merry.
There wasno peace to be had at Wychwood, Merry discovered. Not in the hum of the passages, not in the bright chatter of the nursery, not in the murmuring of card tables or the cheerful tyranny of the drawing room fire. Everywhere she turned, the house seemed too full of noise, too bright with laughter that mocked her own thoughts. Even the tick of the great clock above the stair had become an accusation, counting each foolish moment she had wasted on a man who had never deserved her regard.
She fled into the side garden, pretending that she only wished to breathe the air. The yews stood solemnly, collecting the thin snow upon their dark boughs. Smoke drifted from the chimneys, and the air smelled of damp earth and frost. Merry stood beside the sundial—useless in a winter noon—and told herself that in five minutes she would feel composed. The five minutes came and went, however, and her heart continued its painful rebellion—though was it her heart or her pride that was wounded? There were no answers to be found when the wound was so fresh.
At last, she went to find her mother.
