by Susan Ward
When his eyes widened at her reluctance, Merry pushed from the door and padded on bare feet toward the bed. How strained everything was between them, so strained that even the act of joining him in bed, when it was where she wanted to be, felt unnatural and forced to her. It slapped at her as a vicious reminder of how different everything was between them.
The minute she settled beside him, Varian pulled the blankets up over her, but he didn’t eased her from the edge of the bed nor did he take her in his arms. It occurred to her in a miserable flash he was deliberately keeping the distance between them.
“Are you well, Little One? The journey to Cornwall was hard on you with the pace we set. I wish we hadn’t had to do that, but I had to reach Lucien before the gossip did. As badly as it went, it would have gone worse if he had known of our marriage before our arrival. Nothing is wrong, is it, Merry? Are you all right?” One of his large hands slipped to her womb, the curl of fingers moving in light strokes there. The feel of him brushing their child made the ever present ache in her heart sharpen. “Is our child still inside of you?”
The worry in his voice sounded genuine. It only confused and unsettled her more. She broke his contact by easing her knees into her chest and hugged them with her arms. “I am fine. The child is fine. I was just unable to sleep.”
“I would have never forgiven myself, Merry, if you had lost our child.” His voice was webbed with strain and she was shocked by his readiness to let it be there. Tension and strain were things practically never seen on this man. They were lapses in composure he did not tolerate in himself, not in any of the transformations he created. “If I could have gotten passed Lucien I would have looked in on you hours ago. I have been worrying about you all night. You did not look well.”
She cut him off. “I am well.” Trying to maintain her own safety of reserve, she changed course and said, “I don’t know what has shocked them more. My return. Or that I am married.” Making a face, she added, “Or that I am married to you.”
His gaze was on her in a strangely combing way and to Merry’s astonishment it was as though in indecision on how to react to that. Indecision? She couldn’t begin to put meaning to that.
He settled on a chuckle. “It’s me, Little One. I am two-thirds of the shock.” There was a long pause. “I have not told your father about the child, Merry. His emotions are running very high right now. Your father is more angry than I have ever seen him. It is best we not push Lucien any farther. For a while I think it best we don’t tell your family more. Not until your father calms down. The child would not sit well with Lucien in his current temper. And I think you should return to your room. It wouldn’t go well if you were found here. Not tonight.”
Merry digested that in silence, unsure what to make of Varian’s warning. She pushed down the blankets then. “You are right. My father would not be manageable. I am sorry I disturbed you.”
She would have climbed from the bed if Varian hadn’t stopped her. His eyes were suddenly wide open and alertly searching her face. “What is wrong, Merry? Are you imagining because I am wanting to be considerate of the explosive emotions of your male relatives that I don’t want you here with me? I am trying to be cautious of Lucien at present. Do you think this situation is the one I would gladly choose?”
Struggling not to collapse in tears, Merry countered stiffly, “I am tired, Varian. I wish only my bed and to sleep.”
Varian’s eyes devoured her face. Merry fought to hold his gaze. He rose from the bed, shrugging into a wine colored robe. He stood above her, staring down at her for a very long time.
“Do you think I would want you in a room half a house away from me if the decision were mine?” he announced with unfamiliar venom. “Do you think I enjoy catering to Lucien’s fury and his vile speculations as he suffers the imaginings of how he thinks I may have abused you? Letting him dictate the terms of our marriage, aware that he loathes me and is afraid to let you near me? Do you imagine any part of this is what I want?” When she didn’t answer, he took hold of her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. “Answer me, Merry. Do you think it is my want not to be with you? Is that all that you think is happening here?”
Whatever emotional containment she’d possessed through that long miserable journey to Bramble Hill left her wounded, deadened flesh. Her anger surged upward in disorienting force. “Do you expect me to believe that my father should have such power over you that you would not have your way if you wanted me here with you? I am your wife, but more importantly I know who and what you are. So don’t play games with me and pretend this is my father’s will.”
She jerked free of his hold, scrambled from the bed and went toward the door. Varian blocked her path.
“Do you know so little about your father you can’t see the ax in his hand he has held at my neck since I walked through his door? He could have me arrested tonight and not a soul would question his right to do it. Our marriage has sent your father beyond reason. He has the power to do with me as he wants. Lucien knows that and so do I. It was an insult to him to enter this house with you as my wife. I can’t bait his wrath any further. If I provoke him he would not hesitate to destroy me, whether you are my wife or his only grandchild the product of my seed.”
“How foolish I have been not to realize that your every actions has been out of consideration of my father’s dangerous temper. Was that humiliating farce of a marriage ceremony the first example of your worry over him? Should I prepare for more of such considerations?”
Merry wasn’t certain, but it seemed she had stung him with that.
“It was not my intention for our vows to be a humiliation for you. The necessity of getting it done before Lucien found you was the only cause of its less appealing aspects.”
“Less appealing aspects,” Merry repeated in outrage. “Describing what you did to me in such banal terms as ‘less appealing’ is in the least insulting. You carried me from your ship, dressed only in your shirt, paraded me before the Bishop and Camden’s staff and forced me to exchange vows with you when I did not wish to. You are trivializing all you did to me by tossing it about with words like unappealing. But it doesn’t matter, not what you did, or our marriage for that matter. I want only to return to my room and to pass a single night free of the thought that I am married to you. Morning is soon enough to deal with the misery you’ve made of my life.”
“It was never my intention to make your life a misery, Merry. Contrary to the appalling way I started this marriage, my only wish is that I can bring you enough joy in the coming years that you don’t regret it and that you will forgive me its inception.”
“You gave me your name to protect yourself. You’ve done all you need to. I want nothing more from you. I want you gone from my life.”
She made a step to the door and Varian stopped her with the quick move of a hand. He said, “You are not going anywhere until I have settled all misunderstandings, past and present, between us. I have waited all night for you to come to me so that we could talk. I am not about to make matters worse between us by letting you go. You will sit and hear me out, Merry, before you will leave this room.”
She watched Varian cross the room, remove the key from the door, and then turn to the decanter and reach for two glasses. The color drained from her face.
“Let me out of here or I will scream,” Merry whispered on a harsh breath. “I have no interest in hearing anything you have to say.”
Varian splashed a small drought of brandy into a snifter. “You will hear me out. Then if you wish to go, you may go.”
No, no, no. She would not hear more of his grim resuscitations. She wouldn’t survive if he forced upon her the truth, yet again, of what she was to him. That she meant nothing to him. That he loved Ann…panicking, Merry did the only thought that came to her.
Turning to hand a glass to her, it was only by iron will Varian kept from dropping it and his reaction from showing on his face. There by the door he’d locked was his wife, that ridicul
ous billowy white nightgown a heap at her feet and her long curls cascading down her naked flesh. As beautiful as Merry looked, it broke Varian’s heart to see here there. She had every right to be angry with him and he was seized by a sudden desperate need not to hurt her more. This would hurt her more, but she didn’t know it. Or she wouldn’t have done it.
She closed the space between them. With a tiny hand, she lifted the glass from him, consuming the fiery liquid in a single swallow before setting the crystal on the table. She slipped one silky arm around his neck and eased her body forward until they touched full length. “If you intend to speak I will go. But I do not think you want me to go or to speak.”
She joined their lips in a fiery kiss. There were no words after that, and Varian lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the center of his bed. His caresses came to her with tender sweetness. She twisted in his arms until they became rougher and bolder. His kisses moved lovingly on the surface of her face. Her mouth and tongue demanded deep, lusty thoroughness.
The currents inside of Merry were explosive, her emotions a rapid churn of fury and pain. Everything she was feeling was there in her limbs, in her movements, in her need, and in her touch.
Varian tried to slow her; Merry would not slow. He tried to gentle it; she only tempered it. It was fierce, it was exciting, but most of all it was painful, painful to be aware she was making love in the scorching force of her hurt. Varian couldn’t escape the awareness that this body he knew and cherished so well felt a stranger to him, in how it moved and demanded. The roughness of her touch, those tiny hands which were never rough, and the frantic moves of her lips, which were always, even in madness, giving and sweet.
Merry was in his bed. But Merry was in his bed in fury. He didn’t want this and couldn’t seem to stop it. Violent fury. That was what she had brought to him this night. Fury and pain and sorrow.
~~~
Varian jerked awake to the sound of his door clicking close, the feel of empty sheets around him, and the bitter aftertaste of what he’d done with his wife. He’d wanted to woo her back to him, to shed the sting of her hurt with his love for her, and that’s how he’d started it. By letting her feed her hurt with the frantic, unsatisfying coupling of only her body. Damn, how the hell could he have done that? He had to fix this soon or Merry would destroy them both before this was over.
CHAPTER THREE
Morning came with a familiar Falmouth drizzle through misty clouds, and a knock on Merry’s door shortly after she completed dressing. She was dressed in a simple gray poplin frock, not one of the elegant and stylish gowns Varian purchased for her. Her hair was left long and in a simple knot over shoulder, and other than her wide wedding band she wore no jewelry. She was not the proper and elegant image of a duchess, the image Rhea managed with graceful perfection. She was the image of Merry.
There was a large breakfast waiting downstairs. The Merricks always ate as a family, and when she opened the door it did not surprise her to find her father in the hallway. She knew the knock. Lucien like to walk below with her, a familiar part of their old routine. And here she was, the perfect image of his daughter, demurely in her room after having spent hours in her husband’s bed in a passion that had been quite simply scandalous.
Throwing open her door, Merry announced in delight, “You are as dependable as the sunrise, Papa. I have been waiting for you to escort me to breakfast.”
Lucien chuckled and gave her a quick, sweeping once over. “I am pleased that you wait for the company of your father now that you are a married woman. I have missed our ritual and starting my day with your chirrup.”
“I don’t chirrup.” She took his hand and began to walk toward the stairs. “I have missed you too, Papa. I am glad to be home.”
Lucien’s intense blue eyes softened. “I am relieved to find you are looking better this morning. I did not sleep well in my worry over you. You cried a lot yesterday, my dear. And you did not speak more than two words at supper. That is not like you. But you look my daughter today. Smiling and a joy to see. Your mother was under the impression I was the cause of your unhappiness yesterday with my obvious displeasure of your marriage. Is there anything you want to tell me that you did not share with me yesterday? A year is a very long time, my dear. Your tale was surprisingly brief.”
“I have told you everything, Papa. There is nothing more and there is no cause for your concern. I am well and happy to be home.” Merry reached up to fix a straying lock of silver-black hair. “The tears yesterday were simply the result of having missed you all so much and seeing the worry I caused everyone.”
Lucien’s blue eyes sharpened as he met Merry’s sapphire gaze. Thoughtfully, he inquired, “What exactly are your feelings for Varian Deverell? Your mother seems to believe you have a deep affection for the man and you did marry him, my dear. There must be something.”
Merry smiled to cover her shock. She had forgotten she could never hide anything from Mama. What else did Mama suspect? “I have no romantic feelings for His Grace. I married him because I couldn’t escape the necessity of it after having traveled with him. It is as we’ve said. A fiction to dampen the scandal. But I do not think your harshness toward him correct. He is a kind man, Papa. He doesn’t deserve your low opinion of him. You should be less harsh with him. He married me because he could not do otherwise as a gentleman. I married him because it was my duty as your daughter. I am sorry I had to cause you all such distress to finally learn what it was you always tried to teach me. That is what my willfulness brought to my life, this marriage, and that is my just punishment, the cost of learning a lesson well.”
Lucien gazed down at his daughter. This was not his Merry, not those carefully chosen words. Oh, she looked like his daughter, not changed at all, but it was only surface. She had acquired a womanly presence, a womanly thought process, and a womanly sorrow.
Lucien’s temper began to simmer again. Windmere had done something to his girl. He did not know what, but he knew who. The scandal was already out there, enormous and growing in scale. He did not need this marriage to protect his daughter. Even tinted of disgrace, he could settle a better match on Merry than Varian Deverell. A younger man and less disreputable, who would care for Merry in a manner she deserved. Merry was changed and the change went deep, and Lucien didn’t like it one bit. He would annul the thing, and scandal be damned. The Merricks had survived scandal before, even worse than annulling this hole-in-the-corner marriage.
“If you want this marriage annulled, it will be annulled. What do you want, Merry?”
“I don’t want my marriage annulled, Papa,” Merry said, a little too anxiously.
Lucien Merrick halted in mid-step. They were at the door to the dining parlor. “If he makes you so unhappy, my dear, why not let me end this marriage and send him on his way?” He studied her face, those shrewd blue eyes sharply searching. “Merry, what are you afraid to tell me?”
She couldn’t meet his gaze. “There is nothing. Please, I don’t want to be more of a disgrace for my family than I have already made myself. There is no reason to annul the marriage.”
She pressed a quick kiss to her father’s cheek and went ahead of him into the salon. The rest of her family was already there. Merry took in the room. Rhea was at her place at the table, Varian at her side, and she was chattering away gaily as though her father’s dislike of this man was of no importance. Camden sat across from him, smiling, pretending to be amused. Philip and Kate talked across the chair where Merry usually sat. Uncle Andrew was quiet and remote, at his place at the left of the head of the table where Lucien would sit. It was a familiar scene, the Merricks at breakfast, beloved and ghastly at once.
Feeling her mother’s watchful gaze, Merry went to her, kissing her on the cheek. “Good morning, Mama,” she whispered quickly, not daring to look at Varian, and wanting to reach the safety of her chair at the other end of the table close to her father.
Rhea gave her an affectionate pat on the cheek. “Good mor
ning, my dear. You have slept uncommonly late and I was worried that you would not join us. I have missed your laughter at our table, Merry. It is so good to have you home again.” Her soft brown eyes ran Merry’s form and then shifted, cheerfully glowing, to Lucien. “Home and as lovely as ever. See, Lucien. There was no need to worry about our daughter. A night’s rest after three days travel was all she needed to return the radiance of her beauty.”
Merry forced a smile. The footman had already stepped forward at her place, anticipating where she would go, but before she could get passed Varian was pulling the chair out next to him. Finally, unable to avoid it, she lifted her gaze and met the probing black eyes of her husband.
“Please excuse me, Your Grace,” Merry said on a prim voice. “It is my habit to sit with my brother. A habit I have missed for a very long time.”
Varian arched a brow. “I would not have you place yourself so far from me, Little One. I am sure your brother will indulge me in this since I am your husband.”
She lifted her chin, wanting to move on, and searched for a sharp retort she would dare make in front of her family. “My brother might very well indulge you, Your Grace. I will not.”
Varian’s expression was a polite fiction of amusement. “Your mother is right. You look beautiful this morning. However, your night has not improved your mood as I had hoped it would.”
That sent a flush across Merry’s face. The glow in his eyes reminded her of what they had done in his bed. Dropping her gaze from his, praying no one realized her discomposure or knew the cause of it, she sank quickly into the chair he held for her.
“This is my usual mood, Your Grace. If it is not to your liking perhaps you should return to London,” she replied dryly.