by Mary Balogh
"Glad to row you along, Ruby," Freddie said, panting a little from his exertions. "Pleasant view from the water. I can row, y' know, as well as Jack. Can't do most things; don't have the brains. But rowing a boat is easy."
"Nevertheless, Frederick," Miss Fitzgerald said kindly, and the two men meekly exchanged the oars.
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"Mamma," Kitty wailed, "the boat is rocking." She clung to the side with one chubby little hand and grabbed a handful of her mother's skirts with the other.
"There are waves on the lake," Davie said. "This is famous, Papa. It is like being pirates on the sea." He swayed his body from side to side, increasing the slight pitching motion of the boat.
"Sit still, my lad," his father said. "The wind is coming up and I have to row against it to get back to shore. The elements do not need your assistance."
"Kitty is frightened," Meggie explained to anyone who had not noticed. "I knew she would be. I should have stayed on the bank with her. Cousin Anne would have played with us. I like Cousin Anne."
Celia wrapped one end of her shawl around the shoulders of the tiny child who huddled at her side, and drew the rest of it more closely around herself. It was chilly out here on the lake, and the clouds were getting heavier and grayer by the minute. Stanley rowed steadily for the shore, while Davie sat in the middle of the boat, one hand on either side of it, swaying to the natural movement of the craft through the waves and trying his best to increase the size of the dips without appearing to do so.
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On the bank, Addie, Hortense, and Peregrine had dragged the blankets farther back into the shade of the trees, where they would be more sheltered from the rising wind, and spread out the contents of the picnic baskets, despite the fact that neither of the two boats had yet returned and Merrick and Anne had not reappeared.
"Stanley has turned back, anyway," Prudence said, seating herself beside Addie. "There is plenty of food here for an army. I do not believe anyone will object if we have our tea."
By the time the first drops of rain began to fall, the only missing members of the party were the two who were on foot. Everyone had eaten his fill.
"I think we should go back to the house," Jack said. "In not many more minutes this rain will be heavy and we do not have a closed carriage even for the ladies. If Alex wants to play the romantic in the woods with his wife, I say we should leave them to it."
"It is a long walk back to the house, though," Prudence said dubiously. "I believe we should wait for them."
"You all go back," Freddie said. "I shall look for them and bring them safely home."
"Rubbish, old boy," Jack said. "They are not lost, you know, and the walk back to the house will be no shorter than if you are with them."
"It was a very kind thought," Miss Fitzgerald added, "but Jack is right, Frederick. You might wander into the woods and never find them. And while you are there, getting wetter and wetter, they might well be home already steaming before a warm fire. And as Jack says, they are not lost. Alexander grew up here, after all."
"Don't like to think of Anne getting wet," Freddie said. "A delicate little thing, y' know. I like her."
"So do we all," Miss Fitzgerald said, taking his arm and leading him in the direction of the closest gig, which had already been loaded with the half-empty picnic baskets and the blankets. "But she has her husband to take care of her. She does not need you, Frederick. And we do. The rain is already coming down quite steadily. You must keep the minds of us ladies off our discomfort by conversing with us."
Jack snorted inelegantly and maneuvered Rose along to the next vehicle, an equally open gig. There was one small delay, while Freddie insisted on running back to the boathouse with the two blankets "in case Alex should think of sheltering there," as he put it. The horses were put into motion without further delay and the carriages were soon bowling along the uneven path in a race against the increasingly heavy rain and cold, blustery wind.
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Merrick sat on the bank of the lake, staring out across the water until spots of rain began to land with some regularity on his hands and the back of his neck. He noticed for the first time that the water ahead of him was slate gray and choppy and that a cold wind was whipping at his hair and his neckcloth. He looked up. This was no spring shower that was approaching. There was heavy rain on the way, and from the look of the sky, he guessed that it would last all night at least. He had better go and see if he could find Anne. He did not think that she had found her way back to the rest of the party. Between him and the bend in the path that would take him in sight of the others, the trees thinned out considerably, so that he would have seen her if she had gone in that direction. She must be sulking in the woods somewhere.
He really did not want to have to face her again this afternoon. He would far rather join the others and let her find her own way back. But the rain was not going to stop. The others would be wanting to return to the house and it might take her a time to make up her mind to come back again. She might even be lost. Farther back from the lake the trees became quite dense and one could quite easily lose one's sense of direction. Not that one could be lost for long, but it could be long enough to be an annoyance to the rest of the party waiting on the bank. Merrick considered the idea of going back to tell them to leave, but he did not do so. Surely they had enough common sense not to wait. Jack, at least, thought enough of his own comfort to persuade the others to go back to the house. He took one sighing breath and headed into the woods.
Had he really treated her as badly as she had suggested through her sarcasm earlier? He knew he had. But it was so easy to excuse one's own actions, to find justification for behavior that would appall one in someone else. He had felt so bitter ever since his marriage about the way he had been forced into it and about his own weakness in not merely laughing in the face of that straitlaced brother of hers. Every day of his life since, even though he had resumed his former manner of life in London, he had been aware of the constraint on his freedom, aware that at some time he would have to do something about Anne and his marriage. And always there had been guilt about his shabby treatment of her.
Until he had been confronted so unexpectedly by her little more than a week before, he had always managed somehow to convince himself that one day he would make everything right with her. He had remembered her as a very plain, dull mouse of a woman who would probably be happy enough with her present way of life anyway. All he would have to do, he had sometimes told himself, was take her a few gifts, perhaps increase her allowance, and give her a child to fill her days with activity and at the same time to solve the problem of his own succession. As the heir to a dukedom it was his duty to perpetuate his line.
Merrick stopped and listened, but it was hopeless. All he could hear was the swishing of leaves and the gusting of the wind. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called her name several times, but there was no answer. He plodded on, looking constantly from left to right in the hope of catching sight of her. She could not possibly have returned to the others without his seeing her, could she?
His feeling of guilt had multiplied since his arrival more than a week before. She was a part of his family. There had been no reasonable argument for refusing to allow her to come. She had a right to be here, and if she was to remain his wife and was to give birth to his heir at some time in the future, it was even desirable that she meet his relatives. She would, after all, be the Duchess of Portland one day, the wife of the head of the family.
Because he had felt guilty, he had treated her unfairly. And because he now found her attractive and wanted her, he treated her in an abrupt and domineering fashion. He felt ashamed of his own desires, bewildered by his own feelings, and consequently he had turned his contempt for himself against her. But until an hour before, he had never seen himself in quite the unfavorable light she had described. Was he arrogant? Selfish, yes. He would admi
t he had been that. But arrogant? Did he think himself vastly superior to her? Would he have treated her the way he had if he had not considered her unworthy of him?
Where was she? The canopy of leaves over his head no longer protected Merrick from the rain, which was now sheeting down and dripping from his hair down his neck. He wore no hat. He did not know whether to plunge on into the wood, which became thicker and more tangled with undergrowth ahead of him, or whether to walk parallel to the lake in the hope that she had stayed in the area of more open trees. He gambled on the belief that she would have chosen the latter course, and walked on after calling her name yet again in vain.
She had claimed that she would not wish to live with him even if he would allow it. She could never love or respect a man such as he, she had said. The idea was totally new to him and uncomfortably humbling. He had always thought that his chief cruelty to her had been keeping her away from his presence. And now that he put the thought into words in his mind, it did seem quite insufferably arrogant. Did he think he was the answer to any maiden's prayer? Why would she want to live with him? Had he ever spoken a word of kindness to her since the day he had proposed to her and lied about his true motives for making her an offer? Think as he could, he could not remember one word.
She liked his lovemaking, though, did she not? There could be no mistaking the eagerness of her response each night over the past week and more. He had never, in fact, known a woman who so openly enjoyed a sexual encounter. But did that alter any of the facts? He enjoyed her too, but that fact had made no difference to his resentment of her and his desire to hurt her. Perhaps they were just two people who were unusually compatible sexually but who had no other point of contact.
Merrick almost missed her. She was standing quietly against a tree trunk, her hands clasping her shawl across her breasts, her hair plastered to her forehead and neck. She was looking silently at him. He would have walked on by if her dress had not been pink and a noticeable contrast to the colors around her.
"Did you not hear me call?" he asked. "Why did you not answer?"
"Yes, I heard you," she said, "but I did not wish for your company."
Merrick strode toward her, his face setting into hard lines. "What did you plan to do?" he asked. "Stand here and commune with nature all night?"
"I will shelter here until the rain passes and then walk home," she said calmly.
"You are soaked," he said, "and this rain is like to last all night and all tomorrow too. There is no point in standing here. Come, let's go."
Anne bit her lip. He was obviously right. She had been telling herself for all of five minutes that she should move, but she had heard him calling and she did not want to be seen. But now it seemed childish to argue, to explain to him that she wished to be left to find her own way home. She stepped away from the tree, tried to pull her shawl even more closely around her, and began to walk in the direction from which he had come.
Merrick shrugged out of his jacket. He wore only a silk shirt beneath it. "Here," he said, "take off your shawl. It is saturated, I see, and will bring you no warmth. My coat is still dry on the inside. Put it on."
"Don't be foolish," Anne said, hurrying on and refusing to relinquish her hold on her shawl. "There is no reason why you should make yourself uncomfortable for me. Put your coat back on."
Merrick grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to a halt. "By God, Anne," he said, "I do not know what has got into you today, but I have no patience left. Take your shawl off immediately and put on my coat. I will take no more of your nonsense."
"I am sorry," she said, removing her shawl. "I did not know you were giving an order, my lord." She took his coat and put it around her shoulders, but she did not put her arms inside the sleeves. She walked on.
Merrick ground his teeth. It was just as if he acted a part when he was with her. She made him into a tyrant. He had meant for once in their relationship to do her a kindness. He followed her and placed an arm firmly around her shoulders so that he could guide her along the shortest route back to the picnic site. She did not try to disengage herself from his touch.
The place was deserted, of course. Merrick had not expected that anyone would have waited for them. But there was a two-mile walk back to the house and they were already shivering from the cold and wet. They would go into the boathouse for a while. It was unlikely that they would find there anything more than a temporary respite from the wind and rain, and there was no way he could build a fire, but even the thought of temporary shelter was welcome at the moment. His shirt was clinging to his body like a second, unwelcome skin, and he could see Anne's hair dripping down into her face and down her neck inside the collar of his coat.
Anne made no objection to being taken to the boathouse. She felt more miserably uncomfortable than she could ever remember feeling, and believed that she would rather lie down in the soaking grass and wait for death than plod on to the house, which must be miles away. For a few moments the inside of the shed felt like the interior of heaven. There was no wind and there was no rain. It felt almost warm.
"Ah," Merrick said through chattering jaws, "someone was thinking. They left us the blankets." He bent down and scooped up a blanket that Anne could hardly even see in the darkness of the shed, and tossed it to her. "Take off your dress," he said, "and wrap yourself in this. Wring out your shawl and take the worst of the drips from your hair with it."
Anne was too thankful for the promise of dryness and warmth to argue. She turned her back on him and peeled off her clothes before wrapping herself completely in the blanket. But she still had to clamp her teeth together to prevent them from audibly clacking together.
"Come here," Merrick said.
She could see him in the semidarkness, standing against the overturned hull of one of the boats. He too had a blanket draped around him.
"Why?" she asked.
"You feel warm at the moment only because of the contrast with what you were just feeling," he said. "It is really miserably cold in here, and the thickness of one blanket is not going to do much to hide the fact. We will have to share body heat for a while."
"No," she said. "We must start back soon if we are to be home before it is dark."
"Anne," he said, "I do not intend to do any more walking in the rain for a while. If someone had sense enough to leave these blankets for us, I am sure the same person will eventually send a carriage for us, especially if we are not back by dinnertime. I intend to make us as comfortable as possible until it arrives. Come here."
Anne came and was immediately enfolded, blanket and all, within his covering. He pulled her down to the floor, where they sat, their backs propped against the side of the boat. He was right, she found. Her nose and her wet hair soon registered the fact that it was cold inside the hut. She allowed her head to burrow its way into the blanketed hollow between his neck and shoulder. They sat silently for a while.
"Will Grandmamma not worry?" she asked at last.
"Worry?" he said. "Why would she? You are with me, are you not, and I am your husband. The worst she will imagine is that we will catch cold and not be able to speak our lines in four days' time."
"Should we not start walking, Alexander?" she suggested. "I feel warm now. I am sure it would be better to leave and get back to the house, where we can find dry clothes."
"I feel warm too," he said, "and comfortable. I say we stay."
There was silence again, during which dme Merrick turned a little toward her and pulled her further into the warmth of his body. "We seem to make a habit of getting caught in storms together, Anne, do we not?" he said, brushing his nose against her damp hair.
She did not answer but could not for the life of her have stopped lifting her face to him after a while, knowing even as she did so, just as if she had lived it all before, what would happen when she did so. They looked deeply into each other's eyes, questioningly, and then their lips met in a light, searching exploration. He was so warm. His breath was warm on her cheek, his
lips against hers, his tongue circling her own and stroking against the roof of her mouth.
She moved back from him to allow his seeking hand to open the blanket that was wrapped around her and roam over her shoulders and down to her breasts. She could feel her nipple harden against his palm, and her own hands spread over the muscles of his chest and shoulders. This was ridiculous. It was one thing for him to come to her at night, a man claiming his conjugal rights. It was quite another for them to be kissing and fondling like this in broad daylight on the dirty floor of an old boathouse. She pushed at his chest.
"What is it?" he said, his eyes heavy as they looked into hers. "Are you not comfortable?"
"Don't, Alexander," she said. "Someone may come."
He laughed. "It would be an everlasting shame, would it not," he said, "for someone to find me in close embrace with my wife? But don't be afraid; we will hear the approach of horses for quite a distance. I shall have you chastely wrapped in your blanket again by the time anyone comes here."
He continued to smile at her, and Anne was mesmerized by the charm of such an expression directed fully at her. Her resultant hesitation was her downfall. Before she had a chance to argue further, his mouth was teasing hers again and his warm hand had strayed to her other breast to work its magic there. When he pushed impatiently at her blanket and brought her against his naked chest, she did not protest.
When the ache of their desire could no longer be satisfied with mouths and hands, Merrick slipped to the ground, taking the hard coldness of the floor against his back, and lifted Anne astride him so that he might cushion her body against his own warmth. But he was unaware of either the discomfort or the cold as he plunged them both into the world that they could find only together. He paced himself almost by instinct to the tensions of her body, allowing himself release only when he felt hers coming, seeking her mouth with his at the moment when he knew she would cry out.