Love's Patient Fury (The Deverell Series Book 3)

by Susan Ward

Rhea tried to brush a strand of hair from her face without touching herself with her hands. Varian did it for her, tucking it back into the elegant arrangement of curls.

  “It is only natural for her mood to grow more serious now, Varian. Go to her. I am sure seeing you is all she needs to feel herself again.”

  There was worry in Rhea’s voice, a quiet trace, but it was there. Varian went directly to his room. He entered through his dressing room, wanting to toss off his dusty traveling garments before going to Merry. The scene there stopped him.

  Every drawer was ripped apart. It was so like the scene of his cabin in her early days aboard ship when Merry used try to irritate him. It should have made him laugh, but something warned him that this was nothing he should laugh at. This was much more than Merry’s whimsical playfulness.

  Shedding his over garments, he stepped into the bed chamber and took in the scene with a thorough and quickly moving glance. What the devil was wrong? What had been going on while he was gone? Plates on trays were everywhere, forgotten meals hardly touched. Their bed unmade telling him Merry had kept even the servants out. She sat in a chair, her feet balanced on a stool, bent because it was obvious by the alarming size of their child she couldn’t curl her legs in front of her on the chair as she liked to. Her doe’s eyes were somber and harsh as they fixed on him. Not even a word in greeting.

  Varian went to her and gave her kiss. She allowed it but didn’t respond to it. “Are you all right, Merry? What is wrong?” he asked.

  Merry’s voice was quiet and intense when she spoke. “What is going on in our life which you have not yet confided in me about? Do not lie. I will know it. Why do you travel to London so often?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you know, Little One,” Varian said calmly, “and how you know it? I will tell you the parts you’re not aware of yet as I can see I should have done long ago. You are upset. I can see that. I won’t lie to you. I have never lied to you, Little One.”

  It was clear Merry was struggling to maintain her composure in this.

  “By chance I overheard a discussion between my father, Uncle Andrew and Warton,” Merry began in a small, agonized voice. “Why did you not tell me father was investigating you and somehow he had tied you to Morgan? That he is trying to destroy my husband and take him from me while we stay in his house? Do you have any idea how it hurt me to learn of this in that manner, not from you, but by chance from my own father, Uncle, and dear friend.”

  The enormities of his mistakes were staring at Varian now in how she looked at him. “You overreact at times, Merry. I did not want to upset and worry you. I don’t know what Lucien intends to do with this. What he will do to me at the moment he finishes gathering his proof. I am not as harsh in my judgments of him as you are as to what he will do when absolute certainty is fully there for him. He is being careful and slow in this, trying to come to terms with his own loyalties before he acts. I can’t afford to act rashly because it may harm you needlessly if I do. I don’t want to cost you your family.”

  There was a heavy pause as Merry absorbed his words. Then quietly she asked, “What happened to Rensdale? Are you involved in his disappearance? How much of a threat is he to us?”

  Varian studied her tense face. It was quite a detail packed discussion she had overheard. It was also a clear sign of her loyalty to him that she betrayed her father to bring this to him. It was clear this was difficult for her and she felt her loyalties as intensely as he did.

  “I am not involved in Rensdale’s disappearance. Not in any way. I don’t know how much he knows or how much danger there is from him. I have been inexcusably careless of late in my protection of us. I had a man watching him after the evidence I had gathered started to be distributed about London by Camden. The investigation was started regarding his cargo on the Hampstead as I planned it would. He is close to facing charges for his crimes. But he escaped my man and I don’t know where he is or what he is about. I have people searching for him now. I apologize for not taking better care in seeing to you and our child’s safety. I won’t let him harm you, Merry. Have no fear of that. You are angry and hurt and have every right to be. I pray you can trust me still and are not worrying about your safety. Or the safety of our child.”

  Another pause, equally long and equally tense. She ran a shaking hand through the curls she hadn’t bothered to brush today. “Who have you been meeting at the waterfront and why?” she continued grimly. “Is it Indy? They have a sketch of the man. They don’t know who he is, but they are trying to search an answer to that. Who is it?”

  Varian hated having her in the middle of this silently waged war. It was tearing her apart. The signs were there, in her voice, her expression, and the disarray of their room. He did not want to bring this pain to her, this pain that was there in her eyes so clearly. Seeing pain there was tormenting to him.

  “Tom Craven came to London at my request. My ship is at port in Bristol and my son would not welcome a visit from me, though I attempted to see him. So I sent for Tom because I needed assurance the boy is well.”

  That made those bluebell eyes even more ravished by her pain. “You can’t even share with me your worries about your son, when your child is growing in me,” she whispered, steady and quiet, unlike Merry because her emotions were hollow with hurt. “You will not even let me help you with the pain I know you feel from that, to provide what comfort I can as your wife, a wife who loves you and is to be the mother of your second child. You send for Tom Craven and tell me nothing.”

  Varian went to her then and tried to take her tiny hands in his, but she jerked them free. “I was wrong not to have told you all this. I didn’t want to burden you with my worries about our safety and my son when you should only be burdened with our child. You’re happiness is the greatest of all the comforts you can give to me.”

  “I am not your wife, unless you let me be, Varian. Your worries are my worries. Your joy my joy. Your pain my pain. I expect total honesty from you, no more guises or manipulations regardless of any need you may feel justifies them. I will not tolerate anything else from you ever. It is not fair for you to ask me to. I advise you not to forget that again.”

  “You have made your point extremely well, my dear. I will not forget, ever. You have my word on it, Merry. I need to know you are at least willing to try to understand my errors. Can you not try to understand why I might feel the need to have kept this from you? I can’t bear the thought I might lose you when I only tried to love and protect you. I will not survive another break from you, Little One.”

  “I love you, Varian. You seem not to understand what that means to me. If you are always truthful with me then I will always be with you. This is not about forgiveness for me. It is about understanding this marriage of ours and what I am to you. Knowing with love in our life we also share truth and honesty. I am selfish with you. I want all of you. I can’t receive less from you and not be hurt by it.” Merry was still huddled in the chair, her eyes on him harshly. “Thank you for telling me at last the worries of our life, though you should have told me in the beginning and not let me hear it alone by chance.”

  Merry rubbed her brow, as though trying to will herself calm. Varian watched her. He knew better than to feel relief just yet. This discussion was far from over. Whatever was in her still churned. It was not fear of what she’d heard or the hurt he hadn’t confided in her. It was something else, stronger and deeper than fear and hurt.

  He could not image what else there might be since he had told her everything. There was nothing more. But she was angry, very angry, and for once struggling to hold onto her emotions, almost as though she were afraid to let them go.

  “I am sorry, Merry. I did not want to distress you more than necessary. I wanted this time with your family to pass happily for you if we had to leave England permanently. I wanted to spare you worry for as long as I could. I was wrong in how I did it. I see that now.”

  Merry stood up then, very slowly. She had such diffi
culty in movement now, and her hand went to her lower back, pressing there against the discomfort. He wanted to go to her, but he could tell by her face and her posture she would not welcome him at this moment. To try and touch her might make whatever she was trying to contain explode.

  “Is that all that forces you to London so often, Varian? Have you told me everything?”

  “I have told you everything, Merry. All the things I should have told since our arrival here. I go to London to stay aware of the dangers in our life and to keep informed of my son.”

  It was the truth. Merry always knew when he spoke the truth if he worked at himself for full expression. Therefore, Varian was unprepared for her reaction. It was by chance and not his reflexes that spared him as the decanter from table was lifted in her tiny hand and thrown fiercely at him to crash against the wall behind him.

  Shouting, she said, “You are a liar. I could forgive anything you may have done, Varian, but not lying to me after all I have said to you. But you have chosen to lie and I will never forgive you that.”

  And then there were no more words. It was all crashing glass, goblets and decanters and plates and pictures, anything she could break, crashing glass and tears.

  Varian watched silently as Merry’s anger ran full course with the destruction of their bedroom. He wanted to stop her. He was terrified she would injure herself in this frenzy, but if he made a move toward her now he knew her reaction would be to fight him. That might cause greater harm to her.

  She always reacted too strongly to every fast rising emotion, never giving a pause to think them through, not even now with the possibility she might injure their child. The best he could do was not to react and wait until she could tell him what is was she thought he had done.

  It finally stopped. There was nothing left she could break. She was leaning on a table, palms down upon it, surrounded by a floor scattered ankle deep of glass, breathing heavily and crying fiercely.

  Her voice was rough with misery. “You spend your time in London with her. Why her? Could you not have at least replaced me in our bed with a woman other than Christina Wythford? You made it hurt the most it could, by wanting her and lying about it to me.”

  “I have not replaced you in our bed, Little One. Christina is my friend and ally, nothing more. Warton’s men watch every move I make. I can’t move freely in my life at all. Christina is willing to endanger herself to help us both, Little One. She is my go-between, so that I may make contact with the people I must and not risk their safety by having your relatives become aware of them. That is all there is to it, Merry, but there is gossip and I apologize to you for that. I have not had a physical relationship with Christina since you, Little One.”

  Merry brushed at her tears. His explanation made perfect sense. She wanted to believe him, but there were other worries, suspicions in her mind that would not let her, that had grown over the days since hearing her father’s meeting. Things that would have given her no cause to worry if she hadn’t heard the speculation he had taken a mistress and all the things Varian hadn’t told her.

  Her voice held the quiet of exhaustion and was laced with sadness. “You did not touch me in the last two weeks before you left. You would not lay with me. It would only be natural for a man to go and find relief elsewhere, burdened and unsightly as I am. If not the Wythford woman, was there someone else?”

  Varian went to her then and took her in his arms, burying his lips in her curls. He hated she had heard the rumors, that he had been away while she had been hurting, and that she now doubted him.

  “No one else, Merry. I don’t find you burdened or unsightly. You’ve never been more beautiful to me than you are with our child in you. But even in the manner of making love we have done recently, I can’t see not hurting you when you take me inside you, as tiny as you are and as large as our child is in you. You have been so obviously in discomfort regardless of what you’re doing. I don’t want to give you pain while trying to share an act of love. That is the only reason I have not made love with you. Though I burn to, Little One, and these months of both our waiting will not pass without agony for me. There would be no satisfaction with another woman. No pleasure because I love you.”

  Varian held her against him, randomly kissing through her hair, feeling her body quiet, and praying this was over and that she believed him. She rubbed her nose lightly back and forth against his shirt, leaving little streaks across the front and he wanted to laugh— Imperfection. Touch of Merry —but he wasn’t sure it would be timely yet. It was a good thing he didn’t laugh. This was far from over.

  Merry stepped back and asked, “Did you consider it?”

  She was so young. It was the question of a young wife, new in her understanding of men and the workings of their minds. And it was a test. A test to see if he would be truthful with her. He would be truthful, but he’d be careful. Her emotions couldn’t take much more. They were running wildly inside her.

  His eyes met hers squarely. “I did not considering making love with another woman. I have not touched another woman since you came to my bed. I have no desire to share my body with another woman as I share it only with you.”

  Her eyes were sharply probing his face now. “What did you consider? You did consider something. Not laying with a woman perhaps, but something. And don’t think to lie to me.”

  What had slipped into his voice when he had been so close to being through this? If he lied now she would know it and he would hurt her more than he already had, because her thoughts would be harsher, wildly running speculations, more cruel than the blunt truth.

  He had done nothing, not wanting to harm either of them by a meaningless act and she would push until she got answers. She’d push for the truth and there was no way to stop this.

  Hesitantly and carefully, Varian whispered, “Why do you push, Little One? Push always toward the things that will hurt you. I have been faithful to you. I will always be faithful to you. But I am human too. I have natural male thoughts. I did none of them. Made no act toward any of them. Because I love you. I want no other woman and never will.”

  “What did you consider?” she said, fierce and angry again. “If not laying with a woman, what is there? What did you consider having her do with you? What else does a woman do to a man to ease his needs if she doesn’t lay with him?”

  Sighing and closing his eyes, unable to believe he was forced to confess this to his wife he adored, in the gentlest way he could explain this to her, he said haltingly, “I considered having her ease my needs using other areas of her body than the areas I enjoy with you.”

  Her wide eyes fixed on his face, clearly not understanding. Given all things she loved for him to do to her, it amazed him she was still innocent enough not to understand those acts could go both ways. It was too grim. He had no choice but to explain. Her eyes harshly cutting into him wouldn’t allow him another choice and he’d made enough mistakes thus far.

  “I considered having her ease me with her mouth, because the thought of laying with another woman disgusts me. Are you satisfied now, my dear? It was a brief thought. I felt guilty that it came to me. I didn’t do it and I came home.”

  He hated the effects of his words on her. Why did she have to push for them? Her face was tragically sad and her tears streamed down her cheeks in furious rivers. He made to take her in his arms, but she twisted free.

  Her tear glazed eyes were damning as they fixed on his face. In an agonized whispered, she said, “It is not better that was all you thought of, Varian. That you would think you cannot bring this to me. That I am not as generous as you in wanting to share every pleasure we can know together. That you would think me unable or unwilling to share this. That you did not think to lay with another woman, that you thought of something I still may share with you, it is not better. It is worse. Because you do not think me all the things you need me to be. All the things I am so happy to try and be for you. There is nothing you could ask of me I would not share with you. Out of
love. When you think I won’t, it hurts and shames me.”

  Varian watched as she sank back into her chair and tried to pull her legs up on the seat in front her in an all too familiar manner and couldn’t. Her little feet instead settled back on the stool, her legs only able to manage a slight bend at the knee. The gesture made his pain greater. His strongest impulse was to drop at her feet and beg for forgiveness, and all he had done was to try to protect her, have a fleeting male thought, not an act committed, just a thought. A thought he’d just gone through hell’s cellars over and confessed to her, as ghastly as it had been to do so, because she demanded it of him and he could refuse her nothing. It was not a demand most men would grant their wives. Was she even aware of how powerfully she held his heart?

  Softly, he said, “What do you want me to do, Little One? I hate to see you hurt simply because I am not perfect. I did not think to share this with you, because you are young and new in our physical passion. It is not a thing that a man would ask for from his gently born young wife, especially as you are with our child. I did not ask you because it would have shamed me to ask you, to be weak and not to be able to deny myself out of love for you. You are angry with me for loving you.”

  Merry didn’t look up. “I am not angry with you. I want to understand why you felt you could not tell me what was happening with my father. I want to understand why you would turn to Tom Craven in your pain over Indy and not me. Why you would trust Christina Wythford with the dangers in our life and keep me ignorant of them. Why you could not ask to share an intimacy with me and to think it would be a shame to ask for it from me. I want to understand why you believe I can’t be all the things I hope to be for you, as your wife. I need time alone to understand, to make reason of this. I will see you at supper, but I want you to leave me now. Go away.”

  Varian did as she asked. He didn’t want to leave her, but he knew when Merry was this calm, pushing her now would only make it worse. He went downstairs, to the west drawing room crowded with Merricks, and though none betrayed by look or word they’d heard the crashing glass, it was obvious they had.