Authors: Jillian Hart
Every muscle protested as she tried to sit straighter and found herself held by strong arms. The frigid wind scoured her face, and she groaned.
Her ice-caked lashes fought her as she struggled to open her eyes. She reached up and rubbed her eyes, then wished she had not. Not only was her bruised eye tender, but she could barely open her eyes because the light was too bright. What light was that? The carriage lamps should have sputtered and gone out by now. When she opened her eyes again, tears trickled down her cheeks. She hastily wiped them away before they could freeze on her face.
Or she tried to. Her cold hands refused to move as she intended.
“Cat, stay awake.” A deep voice rumbled beneath her ear along with an uneven heartbeat. Gentle fingers brushed the tears off her face.
She moaned.
“I am sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you more.”
That was Jonathan's voice!
She was sitting with her head against Jonathan's chest!
That thought pushed aside the tempting tendrils that teased her to fade into the false warmth that she knew led to freezing to death. She started to sit up.
“Don't move,” Jonathan whispered against her torn bonnet. His breath ruffled her hair. “I have blankets wrapped around us, and I don't want to chance any cold air seeping in.”
“Blankets?” She sounded witless, but she was confused and so sleepy. She fought to stay awake and not succumb to the cold again.
“I found two in the boot, and I wrapped both around us.” His voice caught. “So you would not freeze to death.”
“But you were out in the cold longer than I was. Are you all right?”
“I am now that we have the blankets around us. Also I have a heavy greatcoat and boots. They have helped protect me from the cold.”
“The lights?”
He smiled grimly. “I found two lanterns by the back of the carriage. I don't know if some of the smugglers had a morsel of compassion and left them for us, or if the lanterns were forgotten. Either way, I lit one and set it on the other seat to give us some light, and we will have the other when this one goes out. Too bad they don't give off more heat.”
“Maybe if we talk, we'll be able to stay awake until morning.” Her teeth began to chatter again. She was so cold. When his arms tightened around her, holding her closer to his chest, she knew he had felt her shiver.
“What should we talk about?”
She shrugged, then wished she had not when her stiff bones protested with aches. “Whatever you want to talk about.” She peered past the blanket and out the window at the wind-swept snow. More snow had drifted into the carriage, blown onto the branches and then falling on the floor. “Anything except the weather.”
“We could start with why you looked at me as if I were no better than a cur after I kissed you.”
“I don't want to talk about that, either.” Cat stiffened and pushed her hands against his chest.
“But I do.” He held her tight to him. “Why did you ruin our kiss by running away?”
“I didn't ruin it. You did.”
“Me? I ruined it. How?”
“By acting as if it were nothing special. You kissed me and then told me, that as tradition requires, you should wish me a happy Christmas. Just as anyone does who shares a holiday kiss under the kissing bough.”
He put his gloved hand on her unbruised cheek. As he gazed down into her eyes, she wondered what he hoped to see. “My sweet Cat, I kissed you because I could not bear
not
kissing you any longer.”
“But you saidâ”
“I know how important traditions are to you and your family. I thought saying something about a tradition would make you laugh.” He sighed. “My joke was only on me.”
His voice was so sad that her heart threatened to break in midbeat. “I'm sorry, Jonathan. I thoughtâ”
He put his fingers to her lips. “You have no reason to apologize. The truth is that I am envious of how many traditions your family has and how much you enjoy them.”
His honesty gave her the courage to ask, “Doesn't your family have traditions?”
He leaned her head against his shoulder and made sure the thick wool blanket covered both of them. He stared into the snow that was falling even more heavily.
“We have traditions, but not ones I want to be part of.” His voice hardened. “Our traditions have more to do with obtaining a better place among the
ton
than spending time together.”
“Oh, Jonathan, that is sad. But surely there must be something that you shared that brought you joy.”
“I thought so, too, then I got a hard lesson from Augusta.”
A pinch of jealousy seared her, but she ignored it. “Who is Augusta?”
“She was my younger sister's best friend. We were always together as children. Even when I didn't want them along, Gwendolyn and Augusta found a way to tag along after me.”
“As I did with Sophia.”
“We remained friends as we grew. Even when I went away to university and began to read the law, Augusta sent me letters and was delighted to see me when I visited my mother's house.” He paused. Each word sounded more difficult to speak than the one before it as he added, “Then one year, after her coming-out in London, I saw her at an assembly during the Season.”
Cat bit her lower lip, remembering how he had disparaged the Season. She remained silent. Was
this
the secret that made his eyes fill with sadness?
Find a way to open your heart to God, Cat, and maybe you can find a way to help Mr. Bradby open his.
Vera may have had it backward. If Jonathan opened his heart, could he help Cat find a way to open hers? She had to take the chance that it would.
“What happened?” she whispered, her lip cracking from the cold. She put her glove to it to keep it from bleeding.
“She cut me directly.”
Shocked, she blurted, “Why?”
“I asked myself that, and it puzzled me. Then I heard that she was going to marry a baron. I wanted to do whatever I could to halt the wedding. When I went to Gwendolyn to ask her advice, she laughed in my face. I can still hear her asking me why Augusta would want to marry a mere solicitor when she could marry a peer.
That
is what the Season did to my gentle sister and her kind friend. It altered them into fortune hunters.” He put a crooked finger under her chin and tilted her head back. His intense gaze matched his words. “Cat, I don't want to see that happen to you.”
“It won't.”
“You can't be certain of that.”
She smiled, as she stroked his cheek that was roughened by the cold and his whiskers. “I can. I saw what the Season did to Sophia, and Iâ” Her breath caught, and sobs overtook her.
Turning her face against Jonathan's coat, she wept. Would she ever see Sophia again? He let her cry, until she had no more tears to fall. She clung to his lapel as if it were her only lifeline out of the insanity surrounding them. Instead of sitting in the frigid carriage and struggling not to freeze to death while they waited to see if Sophia was brought back to them, they should have been raising toasts to the happiness of the newlyweds.
When her sobs had faded to hiccups, Jonathan whispered, “Have faith, Cat. God is watching over your sister just as He is watching over us. We must keep praying for her safety and ours. God will hear our prayers and protect her.”
Her fear and frustration metamorphosed into rage as she snapped, “That is easy to say.”
“It is just as easy to believe.” His voice remained calm. “All during the war, God never abandoned me. He has a plan for me, and I only have to trust that He knows the road that lies before me.”
“I used to believe that, too.” She looked away from him, embarrassed by her outburst. She was not angry with Jonathan. She was angry with...with whom? God? Herself?
“But your belief in God has been shaken,” he said in a tender tone.
“No. I believe in God. That belief has never faltered.”
“But?”
Tucking the blanket more closely around herself again so she could avoid his steady gaze that seemed to see too much, she said, “I used to pray. I prayed for help through bad times and prayed with gratitude for good and happy events. When Papa sickened, I prayed harder than I ever had that he would not die.” She shuddered as she recalled those difficult days. “I prayed and I prayed, but he died. I don't believe God hears my prayers.”
“He hears everyone's prayers, but we must remember that His plans for us and those we love are something we can't always understand. His time is not our time. He sees beyond what we can.”
“I understand that, Jonathan, but my heart doesn't.”
“What is in your heart now?”
She almost said, “You,” but she halted herself. “Fear. Loneliness because God is no longer with me.”
“And anger.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Because I have been angry at God, too. When I saw good men die in battle and from sickness, I was angry. Then I see my former commander laid low with terrors that stalk him during his sleep. I watch my good friend Edmund Herriott suffer from an invisible wound, and I'm angry. I want to shake my fist at the sky and demand that God explain how he could allow such things.” His voice deepened with emotion. “Then I remind myself that faith is accepting that God's plan is a loving one, even if I cannot see it at the time.”
“I want God back in my life, but He has moved away from me.”
“Has He, or have you let your pain move you away from Him?”
Cat started to give him an answer and then realized she did not have one. Was it possible that
she
had pushed God away and stopped listening for His voice? She had been so filled with grief after her father had died that she had shut herself off from everyone, even Sophia and their mother for a short while. It had taken her weeks before she could bear talking to her very best bosom-bow, Vera. Slowly she had opened her heart to each of them again.
Except God. She had made some halfhearted attempts, but God wanted her to come to Him wholeheartedly.
Jonathan clasped her gloved hands between his and bowed his head. “Why don't we pray together?”
“I'm not sureâ”
“
I
am. Let me start, and you join in as you wish.”
She closed her eyes and laced her fingers through his. Then she opened herself to the words Jonathan whispered, words of hope and supplication for her sister, and guidance to help Cat feel God within her.
Keep Sophia safe. Keep us safe,
she prayed silently.
Let me know Your love within my heart again. I miss You, heavenly Father. I need You now and always.
Warmth flowed out of her heart. Not a great rush, but a trickle, so slight that she might have overlooked it. The bands of pain loosened, as she opened herself to welcome God back into her life. More tears sprang into her eyes, but these were tears of joy.
Jonathan embraced her. “I see the light inside you burning brighter.”
She curved her hand around his nape and guided his mouth down to hers. As their lips melded, she softened against him. His fingers tangled in her hair as he kissed her again and again and again until she no longer felt the cold. He brushed her brow, her eyelids, her nose and her cheek with a flurry of light kisses, taking care not to touch any of her bruises. When he found her lips again, she knew her heart was lost.
She loved him.
The carriage shifted beneath them as it sank more deeply into the hedgerow. His arm over her head pressed her toward the seat as he threw himself over her. She grabbed the lantern before it could topple over and set the carriage on fire. More branches stabbed into the carriage, whipping once they were free and spraying them with snow. Wood cracked, and wind gusted through a hole that had not been there a moment before.
“If it keeps settling,” Cat said as she steadied the lantern and then raised her head, “the carriage is going to fall apart like a ship on a shoal.”
“It is our only shelter.”
“And the smugglers will bring Sophia back here.”
He nodded and flicked the blanket around her shoulders. “Let's hope they get here before the carriage is kindling.” He looked down. “Say, what is that?”
Cat bent and picked up the leather book. “It's my sketchbook.”
“I wondered if you had one.”
She stared at him, astonished. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you are an artist.”
“How did you know?”
Jonathan rested his cheek against her battered bonnet, and his words seeped through it to brush her face. “I am a solicitor, Cat. I look at the facts and see how they fit together. My first suspicion was when you chose to decorate the wedding breakfast tables with mermaid tears. Only someone with an artist's eye could look at bits of glass and see their potential beauty.”
“I never thought of that.”
“And I watched you with Mme. Dupont's sketches. You drew quick lines on them, and even those simple lines were elegant.” He held out his hand. “May I see your sketchbook?”
Cat wanted to shove it back under her pelisse, but halted herself. She needed to know if she could trust him with her art. If she was willing to give him her heart, how could she deny him such a vital part of her soul?
Without speaking, she placed the sketchbook on his hand. She drew back her fingers and clasped them under the blanket. The light from the lantern flickered wildly. For a moment, she feared it was going out.
Jonathan moved the lantern so it was not tilting, and the light grew even again. He did not open her sketchbook. Her fingers quivered with more than the cold.
“Have you showed this to others?”
“Yes, my parents and Sophia have seen some of the pages.”
“No one else?”
“Vera, of course.”
“Of course.”
She lowered her eyes, not wanting him to see the humiliation that still stung. “I showed it to a few callers, but they were not interested in my art. Roland was the only one who didn't think a woman should concern herself with keeping her house instead of drawing.”