A Hero for Christmas

by Jo Ann Brown

  While they tied the strips in place, he jumped into the drift that had blown up against the carriage almost up to the base of the door. He was so fadded out that he could barely move. In addition, his head throbbed from where he had been struck, first when the carriage had tipped and then by the smugglers. He had made every effort to keep his pain hidden from the ladies, but he had seen how Cat glanced time and again at the dried blood in his hair.

  He looked in both directions and discovered the carriage had overturned closer to the village than to Meriweather Hall. Even so, when he had helped the Meriweather sisters from the ruined carriage, he turned his back on the village. Neither Cat nor Miss Meriweather had protested his decision. He guessed, like him, they wanted to avoid villagers who had been among the men who had treated them so heartlessly during the night.

  Nobody spoke as he broke a path through the snow to allow the ladies an easier walk. When Cat offered to trade places with him, he pretended not to hear. His eyes had a tendency not to focus at times, but with the hedgerows on either side of the road, he could not wander too far off the straightest path to Meriweather Hall.

  Then the hedgerows ended, and he had no idea where the road was. He could see the cliffs dropping to the sea on his left and a wood on the right higher along the ridge. The road was somewhere between them, but he had no idea where.

  He stopped, breathing hard. He could not chance leading Cat and her sister into a low wall or onto a pond hidden by the snow.

  The quiet morning erupted with loud barking. Shading his eyes with his hands as well as the brim of his hat, he peered across the snow. Something large and dark was coming toward them. Two large and dark things. Were those men following?

  He needed to hide the women, in case the smugglers had changed their minds. As he turned to motion them into the shadows of the hedgerows, Cat shouted.

  “’Tis Jobby!” She ran as best as she could to the large dog. A sledge bounced in the dog’s wake.

  Jonathan was too tired to move. He watched as a half-dozen men appeared out of the glare. Sophia threw herself in Northbridge’s arms. They clung to each other as if they never intended to let go again.

  Words swarmed around him but made little sense. The pain along his skull seemed to drill into his brain. He forced himself to heed what they were saying.

  “None of the wagons or carriages could move in the snow.” Meriweather motioned for the other men to keep Jobby from jumping on them in his excitement.

  “So you thought of putting a sledge behind the dog,” Sophia said. “Brilliant!”

  Meriweather and Northbridge cut their eyes toward each other and burst into laughter.

  “Michael came up with the idea. Something he had seen in a storybook that their nurse read to them.” Northbridge drew Sophia back into the arc of his arm. “Once he mentioned it, I had everyone in the stables looking for a sledge that might work.”

  “And it did work.” She leaned her head against her fiancé’s shoulder. “Thank the good Lord.”

  “What happened?”

  “We should wait until we get back to Meriweather Hall to say much,” Cat answered, glancing over her shoulder toward the hedgerows where one or more men could easily hide. “Suffice it to say, we encountered smugglers.”

  “Smugglers?” demanded Northbridge and Meriweather at the same time.

  “Charles,” Sophia said, “Cat is right. We should talk about this once we are inside and warm. As you can see, we survived the experience. Cat and Jonathan heeded the smugglers’ request, and I was returned to them unscathed.”

  Northbridge’s face reddened, and his eyes narrowed. “You let them take Sophia? I would have thought a hero like you, Bradby—”

  This was his chance to be honest. His friends were already angry. The truth could not make them more furious.

  Before he could speak, Cat said quietly, “You should not judge before you hear the whole story. Jonathan saved all our lives with his choices.”

  Meriweather winced at Cat’s unfortunate choice of words. Jonathan knew she had not intended to remind her cousin of his inability to make the simplest decision as a way to deflect his anger.

  “If he had gone after them,” she continued in the same low, taut voice, “Sophia would be dead. Can’t you see that it took more courage to wait for them to return her than to risk her life?”

  Jonathan swallowed the bile rising in his throat as he realized he had a greater problem than telling his friends the truth. He had to tell Cat. Once his greatest worry had been losing Northbridge and Meriweather as his friends. Now, if he spoke the truth, he risked losing Cat.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cat had never been happier to see the front door of Meriweather Hall. The men had insisted that she and Sophia ride on the dog sledge. By the time she had sat on it, she could barely feel her toes. Her fingertips burned. Her hands and feet ached when Charles set a box with heated stones between her and her sister. All the way back home, she had wished she could offer Jonathan her spot for a few minutes. He must be as cold as she was, and he was injured, but he would not admit that he needed help.

  The sledge stopped, and footmen hurried out to assist them into the house. Cat paused long enough to pat Jobby on the head. The dog’s tail wagged as his tongue lolled.

  “Have Jobby taken to the kitchen,” she said to Ogden as soon as she walked into the entrance hall. “Make sure he gets a bone with lots of meat still on it.”

  The butler nodded with an aplomb that suggested she gave such an order every day.

  Charles assisted Sophia up the stairs. Cousin Edmund called for some of the footmen to help Jonathan while her cousin led Cat slowly toward the risers. At the top, the footmen led Jonathan toward his rooms as Cat and Sophia were guided to theirs.

  Cat faltered, wanting to go with Jonathan to make sure someone tended to his head wounds. But she could not go with him to his rooms, and she knew the Meriweather Hall staff would take good care of him.

  He glanced at her and then at the clock. He held up three fingers. She should meet him in three hours. That would give them a chance to get clean and warm, and take a nap.

  Hot water was already being poured into a bath when Cat limped into her room. She dropped to her chaise longue, and was grateful when two maids knelt at her feet and began to loosen the snow-crusted blanket strips. Once they had removed the cloth and her ruined slippers, she let them undress her.

  She sank into the hot water, and winced when pins and needles jabbed her fingertips and toes. It was a good sign but a painful one.

  As the maids bustled around the room, taking away her ruined clothes and bringing clean items, Cat thanked God for bringing them through the trials of the previous night. The same sense of comfort that had filled her when she had prayed with Jonathan surged through her now. God had always been standing beside her, waiting like a patient parent, knowing she would return when her heart was ready.

  Thank You, Lord. I won’t forget that again. A smile spread across her face. And thank You for opening Jonathan’s heart so he understood why I was being so silly about both You and my artwork. Please heal his pain as You are healing mine.

  Telling the maids to make sure someone woke her up before the time she was supposed to meet Jonathan, she snuggled into her pillow, stretched her toes toward the warming pan beneath the covers and fell asleep.

  * * *

  Jonathan was waiting by her desk, exactly as Cat had expected. A white bandage circled his head, bright against his ruddy hair. She smiled when she saw he was wearing his usual garish clothes.

  He did not return her smile as he crossed the room. “That eye is going to get very black.”

  “It won’t be my first black eye.” She tried to keep her tone light. “I ended up with one when Sophia dared me to ride a sheep. I tumbled off and landed on my face
.”

  “But this is my fault.”

  She grasped his forearms. “Stop it, Jonathan! Sophia and I are alive because of your skill in the box, and your good sense in dealing with the smugglers.”

  “And by God’s grace.”

  “Yes, because He gave you the skills you needed last night.” She stared at the bandage. “How are you doing?”

  “My head is hard.” A smile raced across his lips. “Something I learned as a child when my sister dared me to ride a cow.”

  Cat laughed as she had thought she never would again. “And thank God for your sense of humor, Jonathan. It will help heal us.”

  He remained somber. “How are you faring, Cat?”

  “I didn’t think I would ever be warm again, but I am beginning to thaw. I hope I will be back to normal temperature by the time we need to leave to go to the wedding.”

  “When will it be?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. Christmas Eve. The wedding in the afternoon with the masquerade to follow tomorrow evening. The wedding breakfast will now be combined with Christmas. Sophia sent that message to me asking if I would be well enough to go. I suspect you will find a similar note in your room.”

  He took her hand and led her to a chair by the hearth. He turned the screen so the full heat from the fire washed over them. Pulling up a footstool, he sat on it. Again she had the unusual experience of looking down into his eyes.

  He started to speak, but she halted him by saying, “I must tell you what I heard in the carriage.”

  “You heard the smugglers say something that will betray their identities?” His predatory grin startled her, and then she wondered if he had worn the same expression each time he went into battle.

  “Not them but possibly their true leader.” She told him how she had heard the smugglers discussing his qualityship.

  Jonathan slammed his fist into his other palm and jumped to his feet. “Brilliant! They did just as I had hoped they would.” He squatted down in front of her. “Cat, I got the one spouting orders to argue with me in hopes that his fellows would get bored and start talking among themselves. This is amazing information.” He sprung back to his feet. “We must let Meriweather know.”

  She grasped his hand. “Don’t say anything to cousin Edmund until after the wedding and Christmas.”

  “But—”

  “Jonathan, the smugglers have been in Sanctuary Bay since before my father was born. They will be here after the New Year begins.” She smiled sadly. “Sophia and Charles and the children are eager for the wedding. They have waited long enough.”

  “And you have done so much work for it. Now everything must be changed.”

  “I can do it. With your help.”

  “Ask of me whatever you wish, Cat.”

  Tell me that you love me. She bit back the words that battered against her lips.

  Instead, she forced a smile. “Let’s start in the kitchen. I want to make sure Jobby got his reward.”

  * * *

  “I pronounce you man and wife.” Mr. Fenwick closed The Book of Common Prayer that he had cradled in his hands during the ceremony. “You may kiss your bride, my lord, if that is your wish.”

  “It is my wish.”

  Cat laughed along with the other guests as Charles swept her sister into his arms and kissed her. Beside them, Charles’s children squealed with excitement as they waited their turn to kiss their new mother.

  “At last,” Cat whispered.

  Not quietly enough because Jonathan leaned toward her and asked, “Did you think either your sister or Northbridge would let a small thing like an abduction or a blizzard halt their wedding?”

  “Absolutely not.” She smiled as Charles, now her brother-in-law, thanked Mr. Fenwick for holding the wedding on Christmas Eve.

  Cat thought it was the perfect time for a wedding. With the church bedecked with greens interspersed with white and red candles, it was the most beautiful setting she could imagine for a wedding. Her sister wore the dress made for her by Mme. Dupont, but Cat’s gown had been torn beyond repair. She had selected a light blue gown that she wore often to church. Only when she came down the stairs to see Jonathan waiting with the other men did she realize the silk was the exact color of his eyes.

  No one among the guests, who included many from the village, mentioned Cat’s black eye. Her sole attempt to try to lighten the bruise with powder had been futile, so she had not bothered for the wedding. She had seen many shocked looks exchanged, and she wondered how many were real and how many were feigned because some of the smugglers were among the guests in the pews.

  “What a beautiful bride Sophia is!” Vera said. “The next Meriweather wedding will be yours, Cat.”

  “Or maybe Cousin Edmund’s.”

  Vera’s brows lowered. “Is he courting someone?”

  “No, but Sir Nigel mentioned his great-niece will be attending church here. That makes it clear to me that he hopes Cousin Edmund will offer for Lillian.”

  “Time will tell.” Vera smiled. “Anyone with two eyes can see that Lord Meriweather will not allow Sir Nigel to tell him what to do.”

  Cat laughed along with her friend.

  When it came time to leave the church, Cat followed behind the newlyweds. She stepped outside, and the wind pummeled her. She grabbed the children’s hands and hurried them to a waiting carriage. As she waited for them to climb in, she looked out over Sanctuary Bay.

  Small boats were heading out to sea. Legitimate fishing trips or were they smugglers bound to pick up more untaxed cargo?

  She turned her back on the sea and stepped up into the carriage with the help of a footman. There was nothing she could do to stop the smugglers, and it was her sister’s wedding day. She was going to forget about smuggling and concentrate on joy.

  * * *

  “Mrs. Porter, you have worked wonders,” Cat said as the cook placed the multitier wedding cake in the middle of a preparation table in the kitchen. “It looks as fresh as if you made it this afternoon.”

  “The cold weather is a blessing in a few ways.” The cook motioned for the waiting footmen to carry the cake upstairs and have it ready to be brought into the great hall.

  Mrs. Porter shooed Cat out, telling her that, after all her hard work, Cat should enjoy the masquerade.

  Cat hurried up the stairs, the flounces on her shepherdess costume fluttering around her ankles. She grabbed her crook that was decorated with a white ribbon to match the ones in her gown and in her hair.

  The great room was filled with guests in a variety of costumes. She saw several other shepherdesses, but none of them had a black eye, so she knew she stood out among them. Ogden was conversing in a corner with Cousin Edmund, so she went toward them. If the butler needed a decision made, she could offer her cousin help. The orchestra was playing, and the music provided a soft background to conversations.

  She veered away when she saw Sir Nigel and Lillian walking straight toward her cousin. It was not very neighborly of her, but she did not want to have to listen to more of Sir Nigel’s veiled suggestions that her cousin marry his great-niece.

  Where was Jonathan? She should be able to see him towering over most of the guests. The newlyweds and their children would not arrive for a half hour. At that time, the dancing would begin.

  Over and over, she greeted guests and then asked, “Have you seen Jonathan Bradby?”

  She got the same answer from each one. Nobody had seen him.

  He had been quiet at the wedding, and she wondered if his head ached too much for him to join in the party. She looked around for a footman to send to his room to check on him. All of them were busy with other tasks.

  She went to the entrance hall. She might find a footman there who could set aside his other duties long enough to check on Jonathan.

/>   Then, as she stepped into the entrance hall, Cat saw Jonathan bending over to pat Jobby. He stood and faced her, and she saw his packed bags beside the dog. She stopped, unable to take another step.

  * * *

  “I was just going to come and look for you, Cat,” Jonathan said. When the dog leaned heavily against his leg, pain rushed through him, reminding him of every bruise from head to toe. But it was nothing compared to the anguish in his heart as he gazed at Cat.

  She said nothing.

  He looked down at the dog. “I was saying goodbye to Jobby. He will be better off here than in Norwich. One wag of his tail in my sitting room and everything would be on the floor.” He forced a smile.

  She continued to stare at him without saying a word.

  “I assume Jobby can stay here.”

  She remained silent.

  “My work for Meriweather is done. I figured I should start back for Norwich before another storm comes. I haven’t had much luck in dealing with North Yorkshire blizzards. I know I should have mentioned this to you this afternoon, but I really didn’t plan to leave tonight until after I heard some of the guests talking about another storm brewing.” He could not seem to halt the words that usually were so indispensable to him as a solicitor. “By leaving now, I may be able to get to East Anglia without getting stuck in another storm.”

  “So that is that?” Her voice was as icy as last night’s wind.

  “Cat, you must understand. I planned to stay for the masquerade. My wolf costume is upstairs, but I could not put it on. I am no wolf.”

  Her eyes slitted. “Is this about last night? I—”

  “Cat, I told you that the weather is why I am leaving now.”

  She walked closer to him, and her tone became even colder, if possible. “Stop interrupting me! And you may believe that out-and-outer, but I do not!”

  “It is not a lie.”

  “But it’s not the whole truth, is it? Isn’t that what a solicitor is required to deal with? All the truth, not some portion of it?” She drew in a ragged breath, then said in a gentler voice, “I understand what last night cost you.”