‘You wish to marry her. Is she breeding or are you after her money since you refuse to spend mine?’
‘That is none of your business.’
‘Has she refused you?’
He must have betrayed himself with a slight movement of his eyes.
Gareth crowed, ‘She has and rightly so. She’s far too good for a wastrel like yourself. This is rich. The infamous lover of London has been refused. Perhaps you’re losing your touch? It’s not been a good year for you. I hear you can’t pay your rent, that you’ve moved in with Bedevere. All that money in the bank would set your world to rights.’
‘I won’t touch a penny of it. I want nothing to do with you or anything that’s yours.’ Of course, his father knew. His father knew everything.
The marquis gave a cold smile. ‘Take your estate and go. Find a bride if anyone will have you without my money. Remember, it’s fine to have a poor man in bed, but don’t fool yourself, Merrick. No woman wants a poor man for ever.’
Chapter Eighteen
It had been two weeks since she’d seen Merrick and Alixe was starting to fear she was going to need him, after all. Alixe pushed a needle through the fine Irish linen she was embroidering with a delicate border of flowers. Her bravado had been only that the night she’d left him in the Couthwald’s library. She’d been angry and stunned, although in hindsight she shouldn’t have been.
Alixe rummaged in her bag for a strand of blue silk and carefully threaded her needle, letting the routine of the activity and the warm sun in the garden soothe her rampant thoughts. Her mother had offered to sit with her and sew, but Alixe had wanted to be alone, afraid she might betray herself in the company of another.
Her mother would be mortified if she knew the direction of Alixe’s thoughts, nearly all of them bent on the person of Merrick St Magnus.
She’d known the truth about Merrick from the beginning. Jamie had seen to it with his discreet warnings. Even without Jamie’s warnings, London had seen to it. Merrick’s reputation could not be hidden in town. She’d heard about it in juicy bits and pieces behind fans at teas where the ladies would pretend to report his antics in appalled tones when they were really titillated. And she’d seen what he was for herself. He was handsome, charming, wickedly dashing in his behaviours and a second son with no other prospects than the ones purchased by his searing blue gaze and well-displayed physique.
She knew men like that. She’d been warned about them all her life. Every heiress possessed of a fortune the size of hers knew who was acceptable and who was not. But she’d wanted to believe Merrick was different. For a time that had been possible. No one expected or wanted her to marry him. He’d not been thrust in her path as a suitor. He had been given a very defined role to play in her life for a very brief period of time. That made him safe.
Then he had kissed her and everything had changed, for her at least, and nothing had been safe any more: not her dreams of freedom through self-imposed spinsterhood, not her determination to avoid fortune hunters and not her determination to avoid a marriage for the convenience of an alliance. If she married at all, she had her standards: respect, fidelity and perhaps even love.
Those were not items Merrick could offer and yet she found herself willing to forgo them in return for the extraordinary pleasures he did offer and the astonishing moments of connectedness that came with them. In fact, she’d already risked forgoing those ideals twice and it appeared there were going to be consequences.
Oh, yes. Alixe feared she was going to need him very much. She was late. It was early days yet, only five days past the expected arrival of her monthly flow. She could still pretend there were any number of reasons for it: the hectic stress of the Season, the personal stress of her own matrimonial drama, the heat of London in July. There was no reason to panic. But she needed to make plans for the worst, of which there were only two possibilities. Accept Merrick’s offer of marriage or accept Archibald Redfield’s and push to marry quickly, which shouldn’t be a concern in either case.
Archibald wouldn’t care; perhaps with his own blond looks, he wouldn’t even notice the child wasn’t his. He wanted only her money and all the prestige she represented. There was security in knowing what that marriage would be from the start. There would be no illusions, no pretences towards romance, no wounds to heal later when the pretences were stripped away. But that marriage would represent all that she’d fought so hard to avoid.
If she had to choose, would marriage to Merrick be any better? There’d be pleasure, to be sure. There would be moments when all would be well. But there’d be moments of heartache, too, when the reality, once obscured by bouts of pleasure, would shine through and she would realise Merrick didn’t love her. There would be doubt, too. Had he engineered this from the start? Had he seen the opportunity to snare her fortune for himself as Redfield had so inelegantly suggested? Perhaps he’d even hoped she’d become pregnant and forced to marry him. But she was hard pressed to view him in such a devious light. No matter what the scandalmongers said about him, she did not think many of his pranks were undertaken with malicious intent or with those who didn’t understand the risks.
What to choose? Illusion or reality? Merrick or Archibald? How could she choose either and still be true to herself? Alixe prayed she wouldn’t have to choose at all. But it might be too late to escape all damage. She highly suspected Merrick had already broken her heart.
‘Miss, you have a caller. Will you be receiving?’ It was Meg and Alixe noted immediately that her maid’s colour was high. Her voice quivered ever so slightly with excitement and her hands were clasped tightly together at her waist. Alixe’s suspicions rose, her own pulse leaping irrationally at the prospect that Merrick St Magnus was waiting in the foyer, further proof that she had not escaped unscathed.
Alixe smoothed her skirts with her hands, gathering calmness. ‘You may send him to me, Meg. Bring him to the garden and ring for lemonade,’ she said in her most placid tones.
‘Shall I tell your mother?’ Meg asked.
Alixe thought quickly. ‘No. You shall be our chaperon and that will be enough.’ Merrick had a certain amount of audacity to come calling at the town house after her father had summarily dismissed him at the house party. She also suspected Jamie had reiterated that same dismissal in, she hoped, more polite tones at the Couthwalds’ ball. Merrick had fulfilled his purpose and the Earl of Folkestone had no more need of him.
It also raised the question of what could possibly bring him here. He was not oblivious to having been given his congé. He knew the reception he’d likely receive. A small flicker of hope leapt low in her stomach. Had he come for her? What a wonder it would be if a twenty-six-year-old heiress, relegated to society’s shelf, had stirred the honourable passions of a veteran rogue like St Magnus. What a wonder indeed. If he could love her, it might change everything.
If she would accept him, it would change everything and for that, Merrick was willing to risk it all. It had taken some time to wrestle his answer to Alixe’s question. Who was he? But now that he had, the path seemed straight, although no less dangerous for its simplicity of direction.
Merrick strode behind Alixe’s maid, who was beaming with barely contained excitement. She hurried him out to the garden with all the haste decorum allowed. He understood the reason for it and it both inflated his hopes and reminded him of the risk he took in coming here. Alixe had consented to see him, but he was still persona non grata in the Burke household. He was not Folkestone’s choice of a proper husband for his daughter.
But he was through the door. He’d been received. One hurdle overcome. One risk conquered. The next was Alixe. He must conquer her inhibitions in regards to marrying him. To that extent he’d taken great pains in the past weeks. Merrick gave his waistcoat a final tug and followed Meg out into the sunlight of the Folkestone garden.
Alixe was sewing at a stone bench, surrounded by lush roses. Her dark head was bent to the needlework and she looked the veritable po
rtrait of genteel English womanhood in a light muslin gown of celadon: beautiful, refined and calm. The illusion brought a smile to Merrick’s lips. His Alixe was so much more than that and seldom was she calm. His boots crunched on the gravelled path and she looked up, her sherry eyes unable to hide the questions bubbling beneath the calm surface.
‘Why, Lord St Magnus, what brings you out so early in the day?’ She rose and let him kiss her hand, all a great show for Meg’s benefit. Her gown did her figure all sorts of favours. The neckline enhanced the fullness of her breasts and the skirt flared ever so slightly over the curve of her hip. She looked entirely womanly and he felt himself stir at the sight of her.
Merrick made a show of his own, consulting his pocket watch. ‘It’s not as early as all that, Lady Alixe. It’s nigh on eleven.’
‘Not too early for lemonade at least.’ Alixe sent Meg a not-so-subtle look and the maid scurried off. The moment she was gone, Alixe dropped all pretence.
‘What are you doing here? Surely you know you’re not welcome.’ Alixe took up her needlework, keeping her hands busy.
‘By you?’ Merrick sat beside her, drinking her in. Two weeks had seemed an eternity, but he could not see her until he’d been sure of himself.
‘You know what I mean. My father has dismissed you.’ Alixe bit off a length of string between her teeth. Merrick found the motion delightfully erotic.
‘But you haven’t, Alixe. I find that I am not satisfied with our last conversation. We have not finished it. I asked you a question and you have not answered it,’ Merrick forged ahead. Lemonade would only keep Meg occupied for so long.
‘Correction, I did answer your question. You simply did not care for it.’ Alixe stabbed the linen with uncharacteristic roughness.
‘Hence, my dissatisfaction with our conversation.’ Merrick reached over and took the embroidery hoop from her hands. ‘Lay this aside for a moment, Alixe. You’ll kill the cloth otherwise.’ His hands closed over hers to forestall any of her fidgets and it gave him strength, too, to feel the warmth of her skin beneath his.
‘You asked me a question at the Couthwalds’. I’ve come to answer it. You asked me who I was, the rogue or the husband,’ he began. He could feel her hands clench beneath his as she tried to pull away. ‘You were right to ask. I had no answer that night.’
Meg returned with the lemonade. Merrick waited for her to set the tray on a nearby table and take herself off a discreet distance before continuing.
‘I believed because I looked so much like my father I would act like him, too. I would only be capable of being like him. But I’m not him. He has no hold over me. I haven’t spent a penny of his allowance and I hadn’t set foot in the family town house for seven years, until two weeks ago.’ Merrick paused here to pull out a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket. ‘I haven’t been a perfect gentleman …’
Alixe squeezed his hands. ‘I’ve told you once before I don’t believe you’re as awful as all that.’ Something born of innate goodness shone in her sherry eyes, a refusal to believe someone was so inherently flawed.
‘You should. There’s plenty of proof.’ He was tempted to tell her about the Greenfield Twins, but an errant sense of decency poked at him.
‘Could this be enough for you, Alixe? This chance that I could be a better man for you, because of you?’ He handed her the papers he held. ‘I hope this is further proof that I can be redeemed. I want to be redeemed, I want to be all you need.’
Alixe took the papers and scanned them. ‘You’ve come into property?’
‘From a great-aunt. It’s mine upon marriage,’ Merrick began. He wanted to be honest about the conditions, but he didn’t want Alixe to think he’d come begging for her hand simply to get his hands on the property with the added benefit of her money. ‘It could be ours, Alixe,’ he said. ‘I would have something of my own. I wouldn’t be entirely reliant on your fortune. It’s not a big estate, but it would be our place. It’s not too far from Folkestone. You would be able to keep an eye on your historical projects.’
‘What are you asking me, Merrick?’ Alixe ventured cautiously, handing the papers back.
‘I am asking you to reconsider. In all fairness, I have overcome your initial objections at no small risk to myself.’
‘You would have made a fine barrister, Merrick.’ Alixe smiled softly in the wake of his closing arguments.
‘Well?’
‘I am fully cognisant of the honour you do me.’
His heart sank. She was going to refuse. That’s how refusals started. Not that he knew firsthand, but he’d heard others talk about it at the clubs. No one had ever refused him. Then again, he’d never proposed anything honest like this to a decent woman before.
‘It will not be enough,’ Alixe said sadly. ‘I wish I could accept, but it will not be enough.’
‘Then tell me what it will take.’
‘Love and fidelity, Merrick. That is my price.’ Alixe squared her shoulders, her chin going up in piquant defiance. ‘Can you be faithful to me, Merrick St Magnus?’
How could he promise permanently something he’d barely experienced temporarily? The right answer would be yes. But the honest answer was, ‘I’ll try, Alixe.’
‘There can be no “try” in this, Merrick.’
‘I will not bind you to me with a lie, Alixe. Would you prefer I say “yes” for the expedience of gaining your agreement without knowing it absolutely for the truth?’
‘No, of course not.’ Alixe rose, signalling it was time for him to leave. But she rose unsteadily and swayed. Merrick caught her by the arm and righted her.
‘Are you unwell?’ Merrick gestured for Meg. ‘Pour some lemonade, please.’
‘It’s just the sun.’ Alixe attempted a smile. She sat down and took the cold glass from Meg.
But Merrick thought differently. ‘Meg, perhaps a parasol might help. Would you be so kind as to fetch your mistress one?’ Surely Alixe would have said something.
‘Alixe, is there something you’d like to tell me?’ he said gently, although his insides were a sudden roiling mess.
She shook her head and sipped the lemonade. It occurred to him that she might not know. He tried again, forgoing any delicacy. ‘Alixe, have you bled since we’ve made love?’
She looked up, startled by his bluntness. ‘No.’ It came out in a rueful, breathy little sigh.
‘Is there a chance you may be pregnant?’ Merrick pressed.
Alixe would not look at him. She kept her gaze fixed on the trellis of climbing roses across the path. ‘It is too soon to know. I am not so very late.’
But she was late and Merrick had seen other signs: the smallest of changes in her body barely visible to the casual eye beneath her gown. He would wager her courses would not come. ‘You should have told me.’
She looked at him with eyes that threatened to tear and it stabbed him to his core that his Alixe should be suffering. He’d been careless with her, caught up in the magical madness of her and now she had no choices left. It seemed she’d have to settle for ‘try’, after all. He’d speak to her father this afternoon whether she liked it or not.
Chapter Nineteen
Admittedly, Merrick had little experience with being proper, but women were mainly the same whether they were proper or not when it came to courtship. He presented himself sharply at four o’clock at the Earl of Folkestone’s town house, flowers in hand for Lady Folkestone and a box of chocolates for Alixe. Gifts usually went a long way in smoothing rocky paths, as did a clean appearance. A clean, well-kempt man bearing gifts was hard to refuse.
Always careful with his grooming, Merrick had taken extra pains that afternoon to be turned out at his sartorial best. A sapphire stickpin glinted in the snowy folds of his cravat and a thick band of antique gold adorned the middle finger of his left hand—both pieces a quiet testimony to what he hoped would be perceived as his ‘wealth’.
Lady Folkestone received him first in the front parlour, offering him a pol
ite, albeit empty, smile as she took the flowers. But mamas were women, too. Merrick employed a compliment about the wallpaper and the general good taste of the room, drawing her into a lively discussion of the latest trends towards more ornate furniture. ‘Being a man, naturally, I prefer a sturdy chair. Those spidery-legged baroque pieces are lovely, but they’re hardly able to support a man’s weight. Every time I sit down in one I find myself waiting to hear it crack,’ Merrick confided in a conspiratorial tone, letting his eyes smile with the sharing of a secret. ‘They’re not at all like these chairs. Now, these chairs are hardy and yet elegant with the upholstery you’ve chosen. The light colours of the striping detracts from what might be seen as their heaviness.’
‘That’s precisely what I was thinking. My husband did not agree. Folkestone thought the lighter colours would show wear and dirt more quickly, but I insisted,’ Lady Folkestone exclaimed, obviously thrilled to have a male divine her reasoning and agree with it. She was warming to him, although Merrick thought such warmth might fade if she knew what her daughter and he had been getting up to. But surely Lady Folkestone, with all her matchmaking abilities, was not oblivious to the reasons he was here in a home where he’d been all but banned.
A footman arrived to announce the earl was ready to see him. Merrick rose and bowed graciously to Lady Folkestone. ‘It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. I’ve enjoyed your insights on decorating very much. I hope to have some property of my own shortly in which I might employ your talents.’ Lady Folkestone smiled, a much more genuine smile than the one she’d given him upon his arrival.
The earl was another matter. Folkestone couldn’t be wooed with chocolates or flowers or comments about cushion colours. He sat stoically behind his desk, not unlike Merrick’s own father, and glared. ‘You are not welcome here,’ he said baldly.
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