A Hero for Christmas

by Jo Ann Brown

  “I guess I am.” She relaxed against the seat. “Not about marrying Charles, though. I have never been so sure of anything in my life.”

  Squeezing her sister’s hand, Cat said, “You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that.”

  “I am glad that—” She grabbed the leather strap hanging from the ceiling as the carriage rocked. “What...?” Her words ended in a scream.

  Cat grabbed the other loop and held on as the carriage teetered wildly to the right. She looked out the window. She saw only sky and falling snow. They must be up on two wheels. Was the carriage going over?

  “Jonathan!” she moaned. Could he hold on in the box when the carriage was tilting so far to one side?

  Sophia gasped out a prayer.

  Oh, how she hoped God would hear Sophia! Lord, please listen to her!

  For a moment, she thought Sophia’s prayer had been answered. The carriage righted itself, the wood screeching a protest as the vehicle was twisted in ways it should not go. Then the carriage leaned in the other direction. Branches thrust through the window. They must be falling into the hedgerow.

  Cat ducked beneath the greenery. She clutched her sister’s arm and pulled Sophia down as a thicker branch slammed into the window frame. Splinters and icy snow ricocheted through the carriage. Covering her head with her arms, she winced when the corner of her sketchbook struck her ribs.

  She shrieked as the carriage righted again. How was Jonathan keeping it from flipping over completely?

  They hit the hedgerow again. The sharp crunch of a broken wheel came seconds before the back right side of the carriage dropped to the ground. Sparks burst up as the metal axle struck rocks beneath the hedge.

  The front of the carriage struck something in the hedgerow and slammed to a stop. Cat flew forward, banging into the other seat. The heat box careened toward the door, but did not break open. Sophia fell to the floor and moaned.

  Cat pushed herself up by grasping a window. The carriage slanted toward the hedgerow but not so much that they would not be able to get out.

  “Sophia?” she whispered, unable to speak louder.

  Her sister slowly raised her head. A bruise was already darkening along her left cheek. “Are you all right, Cat?”

  “Yes.” Every muscle ached, and she guessed she had bruises of her own.

  A horse screeched in pain and terror.

  Cat exchanged a glance with her sister and then reached for the door.

  It opened before she could touch it. Jonathan called, “Are you all right? Are either of you hurt?”

  “We are fine,” Cat replied. “What about you?”

  “Nothing that time won’t heal.” He pulled his hat lower as a line of blood seeped out of his hair.

  “You are bleeding!” She pushed the door farther open and grabbed the sides to pull herself out. She ignored his caution about her thin slippers being useless in the rapidly accumulating snow. Jumping down, she cringed when she heard the horse scream again.

  “I am fine.” He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his greatcoat. Jamming it beneath his hat, he flinched as the cotton brushed against his wound. “One thing you learn in battle is that even the most minor injury to the skull causes a lot of bleeding.”

  “What happened?”

  “Something burst out of the hedgerow and onto the road in front of us. The horses panicked.” He looked down at his gloves that were torn from where he had held the reins so tightly that the leather had cut through them. “I need to check the horses.”

  Cat put her hand on his arm to steady him as he reeled forward. How badly was he hurt?

  As if she had asked that question aloud, he shrugged off her hand. He walked stiffly through the snow toward the front of the carriage, and she followed. She gasped when she saw both horses down, tangled in the straps connecting them to the carriage. Jonathan motioned for her to stay where she was. Biting her lower lip, she watched, hoping that he would not be kicked by one of the panicked horse’s hooves.

  He sliced the straps from the traces. One horse scrambled up. It turned and raced toward Meriweather Hall. He leaped forward to grasp the leather flapping from the other horse as it came to its hooves. The horse screamed and rose on its back legs. He stumbled back, pushing Cat out of the way.

  When the horse came down on all four hooves, he jumped toward it. His fingers closed on nothing as the horse sped after the other one.

  Cat stared after it, too shocked to move.

  When Jonathan put his hand on her arm, he said, “You should get back inside the carriage. You are going to freeze your feet. My toes are cold, and I have boots. Get inside while I see what the damage is to the carriage.”

  She started to protest, then became silent as he walked away. She went to where Sophia called to her from the open doorway. Her sister gently probed the bruise on her cheek. Scooping up some snow, Cat handed it to Sophia who held it against her cheek.

  “Thank you, Cat. That eases the throbbing.”

  “Use it only for a few seconds. Otherwise it will give you frostbite.”

  Sophia nodded. “Where is Mr. Bradby?”

  “Checking the damage to the carriage. He needs to get in out of the storm, too. I will be right back. I want—I should—” Cat was startled to realize she had no idea what she wanted. That was not quite true. She wanted Jonathan to love her as she loved him. That did not seem likely, because she was adrift as she never had been, not even after Roland died.

  Sophia gave her a gentle shove. “Go. With that wound on his head, he must feel even worse than we do.”

  She wondered if that was possible.

  * * *

  Jonathan was not surprised to see Cat had not gotten back into the carriage. He had hoped that—for once—she would heed his request. Trying to make his eyes focus, he strode to her. He was determined not to show any sign of how much his head swam with each step.

  He was not very successful, because she rushed forward to put her arm around his waist and steer him into the lee of the carriage where the wind was less biting.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  Instead of answering her, he checked under the coachee’s seat. He found a gun, but if there had been more balls and powder, they must have fallen out when he lost control of the carriage. By now, the snow would have buried them.

  “You need to get in the carriage and stay warm as long as you can,” he said.

  When she began to protest, he scooped her up in his arms and slogged through the snow. There must be more than two inches of new snow on the ground, and, if possible, it was falling even faster. He had never seen snow pile up so fast. Maybe the wind was making it drift, but he knew better than to expect the weather to change because he wished it to. He had learned that during his months of living through blistering heat on the Iberian Peninsula.

  Cat put her arm around his shoulders and nestled her head against his neck. He savored her slight weight in his arms, as he turned her so her heart beat against his. Holding her strengthened him and made his steps more sure, even as he struggled to keep his mind on getting her into the carriage, when all he wanted to do was kiss her again.

  When he placed her on her feet in the sloping carriage, his arms felt too empty. He climbed up behind her and closed the door.

  “Sit here,” Miss Meriweather ordered, shifting on the seat so Cat could sit facing her. “You both need to be close to the heat box.” She frowned when Jonathan opened his mouth. “Do not resort to gallantry, Mr. Bradby. I have been sitting by it the whole time. If you don’t get warm and dry out a bit, then both of you will be sick. I shall not have you sneezing during my wedding.”

  Cat chuckled as he sat beside her. Sophia edged closer to the heat box, and they took care that their knees did not bump.

  He looked from
Cat to her sister and back. “Miss Meriweather, we are stuck here. We have no horses, and the weather is getting even worse. You and Cat are not dressed for walking any distance.”

  “Then we shall wait,” Cat said with a courage that he had to envy. “Someone will be along soon when we fail to show up at the church.”

  He shook his head.

  “Of course they will,” Cat insisted. “They will come looking for us.”

  “Not here.” The carriage door blew open. He pulled it closed and latched it. “I took a different route than the other carriages.”

  “What?” gasped Miss Meriweather.

  “Randolph told me the road closer to the cliffs is quicker. I saw the storm coming, and I thought we had a chance of beating it if we came this way.”

  “So he knows where we are?” Cat hunched into her pelisse as an icy wind chased snow into the carriage.

  “No. He mentioned that to me days ago, so, if anyone asks him, he most likely will assume that we took the usual road into the village.”

  Cat flinched along with her sister. “So nobody knows where we are?”

  “The first horse was headed in the direction of Meriweather Hall. When it gets there, the stablemen will know something is amiss. They can track its hoof prints back to us.”

  “See?” Cat said to her sister. “All is not lost.”

  But Jonathan’s eyes were shadowed with worry. He was trying to give them hope, when he had little. The snow was piling up, and any sign of the horse’s route would quickly disappear.

  He stretched past Cat and began rolling down the curtain on the window in the one door they could still open. He looked to tie it down, but the hooks were broken off. He tried tying it to the small piece left. It was futile.

  “Can I help?” Cat asked.

  “Do you see any way to keep this from flapping in the wind?”

  She moved to sit on the other seat and ran her fingers along the side of the carriage. “No, there is nothing close enough.” Suddenly she smiled. “Wait a minute.” She took off her bonnet and undid the ribbon holding up her hair.

  As the dark waves washed down over her shoulders, Jonathan stared. Her lush curls teased his fingers to comb through them as he brought her mouth to his. Even from where he sat, the light fragrance of cinnamon drifted from her hair. It was intoxicating, and he fought to keep a new wave of dizziness from sending him into oblivion.

  He forced his eyes to focus and discovered that she had tied her ribbon to a curtain cord. She was able to lash it around a hook beneath the window beside her. The curtain still flapped, but only on one side.

  “Excellent,” he said. “We need to conserve what little heat we have in here. We might be here for a while.”

  Miss Meriweather collapsed into sobs, startling Jonathan. He had never seen Cat’s sister lose control of her emotions.

  Cat put her arms around her sister. “We will be fine,” she said, giving Jonathan a silent plea to help her console her sister.

  He took Miss Meriweather’s hands in his and waited until she looked at him. Pulling a second handkerchief from beneath his coat, he handed it to her.

  “You don’t want those tears to freeze to your face, do you?” he asked.

  He was rewarded by Miss Meriweather’s smile and Cat’s quick nod. He was glad he had chosen the right way to bring Miss Meriweather out of the dolefuls.

  “You always carry two handkerchiefs?” Miss Meriweather asked.

  “Any wedding I have ever attended has more tears than handkerchiefs, so I thought to be prepared.”

  “But now there isn’t going to be any wedding,” groaned Miss Meriweather.

  “Nonsense,” Cat said. “Whether it is today or another day, you and Charles will get married. Think how you will laugh in the years to come as you tell the story of our misadventures.”

  Jonathan listened as Cat continued to bolster her sister. He remained silent, while he tried to decide what they should do. He was not exactly sure how far they had come. If Randolph was right, and this road was shorter, they must be about halfway between Meriweather Hall and the church. None of them were in any condition to walk the distance.

  “I saw something!” Miss Meriweather pulled back the loose curtain on the door.

  “What?” Jonathan sat straighter.

  “Look! A light!” She jabbed a finger toward a faint glow coming along the road from the direction of the village. “We have been found.”

  Jonathan smiled and quickly untied the curtain. He rolled it up so they could watch the lights come closer. “We still may get there in time for the wedding.”

  “By the motion of the lights, I would say they are walking.” Miss Meriweather squinted through the snow. “They won’t have any way to help us reach the church.”

  “If they are out in this storm,” Cat said, “they must live close by. Maybe they will have a wagon or horses to hook to the carriage.”

  Miss Meriweather’s smile returned. “I hope you are right.”

  “We should gather what we don’t want to leave behind.” Cat bent toward the floor, groping around the metal box that gave off less heat with every passing second.

  Tearing his gaze from the lights, Jonathan asked, “Did you lose something important? Leave it for now. We can come back once the storm blows itself out.”

  “My book! It must have fallen out of my pocket when the carriage rocked.”

  He bent to join the search, and she had to draw back so their heads did not bump. He stretched out his arm to sweep the floor with one smooth motion. Was that her book back in the far corner?

  “Cat, don’t move!” Miss Meriweather screamed in terror.

  He dropped what he had found. Straightening, he asked, “What...?”

  He stared in disbelief at a pistol stuck through the window. It was aimed directly at Cat’s heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jonathan heard Cat’s quick intake of breath. He kept his eyes focused on the men standing beside the carriage. Even if it had not been snowing so hard, he doubted he would be able to describe any of them other than greatcoats with raised collars and felt hats with brims that sagged over their faces almost to the kerchiefs covering their mouths and noses. Beneath the clinging snow on the wool coats were more white lines that could have been salt stains, but he did not need that clue to warn him that these men were some of the faceless Sanctuary Bay smugglers.

  When the man motioned with the pistol for them to get out, Jonathan considered for a brief second begging the men to have compassion for the women. He said nothing. If the men cared about the Meriweather sisters, the pistol would have been pointed at him instead of Cat.

  He stepped out of the tilting carriage, then helped both women. He kept his hands on their backs as they walked around the carriage and to the middle of the narrow road. A quick shove might be the only way he could save their lives if one of the smugglers decided to use a gun. When they stopped, facing the mob, he stepped in front of the women. He was one man against twenty or more, but he would fight to protect Cat and Miss Meriweather.

  Be by my side, Lord. Turn the tide in our favor, and watch over us. Be our shepherd and hold off these sea wolves.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded a muffled voice.

  Jonathan wondered if it was only his imagination, but the voice sounded almost familiar. And why not? He probably had greeted each of these men at some point on the beach below the village. Then they had been pleasant, giving no sign of the treachery hiding deep in their souls.

  “We slid into a snowbank on our way to Miss Meriweather’s wedding.” He saw no reason not to be honest. Maybe if they thought he was going to be straight with them, they would not suspect if he had to resort to lies to protect Cat and her sister.

  The men conferred among themselves, s
urprising him. He clenched his hands by his sides. That not all the men knew about the wedding at the village church suggested that not every smuggler was from the Sanctuary Bay village. The network must be far larger and better organized than anyone at Meriweather Hall had guessed.

  That was a disturbing discovery, not just for him, but for Cat who had clearly come to the same conclusion. Her face was so colorless that he could see a large bruise on her chin. He had not noticed it before, and she had not complained. Not that he would have expected her to.

  For one minute, then two, the smugglers whispered so Jonathan could not hear. Were they arguing about what to do? Or were they debating how to do it?

  He looked past them but could not see far into the snowstorm. Had they been missed at the church yet? Lady Meriweather had seen her daughters get into the carriage, so she knew they should have arrived right after her. How he wished he had Meriweather and Northbridge at his back now!

  A man who had not spoken before stepped forward and said, “We will tek t’ bride wi’ wee.”

  “Pardon?” He could not understand the man’s thick Yorkshire accent.

  The man pushed his face closer to Jonathan’s and snarled, “Ah sez we will tek t’ bride wi’ wee.”

  “Shout all you want, but I can’t understand you. Speak the King’s English, man.”

  The man pulled his hand back as his fellows egged him on, and Jonathan prepared himself to block the blow. It did not come because Cat stepped in front of him.

  She turned to face him, then flung her arms around him. Snide remarks filled the air, but she whispered, “He said they want to take the bride with them. Don’t let them take her, Jonathan.”

  “C’mun,” growled the man. “We dooant ’av orl day. Wea’ar takin’ t’ bride. Naw!”

  He did not need anyone to translate that for him. He understood enough to know the smugglers were getting impatient.

  “Why do you want the bride?” he asked.

  “So you and the other one will be mute as a fish until we are done with our business.” That was the first man who had spoken; the man did not use the hard-to-understand Yorkshire pronunciations. “We will bring her back unhurt by morning’s first light, if you do not try to follow us. Come after us, and she dies.”