by Susan Ward
Varian was quiet, but Merry could feel his emotions churning inside him. “He is still unwilling to see me, then? Is that why you did not come to the house for me?”
Merry kissed his arm. “He won’t see you, Varian, but it has less to do with you than it does with me. Indy is in love with me. It bothers him. For many reasons, not the least of which is that I am his father’s wife. Did you know he was in love with me? How long has this been a problem between you two?”
Varian laughed. “How could I not know Indy was in love with you, Little One? Of course I knew. What manner of man wouldn’t fall in love with you?”
Merry’s eyes sparkled. “Mr. Craven. But he does not like lunatics. Lunatics are the fancy of the Deverell men. Give the boy time. He will come to peace with this in time.”
“I wouldn’t be certain on Craven, Little One.” He gave her an affectionate kiss on her nose. Then, less calm, he asked, “Why did you kiss him, Merry? What was that about?”
Merry’s eyes began to sparkle. “Are you jealous, you insufferable man? Ah, how flattering. And how foolish. Are you imagining I would want any man to touch me as you do? He surprised me with it, Varian. I would have never allowed it, but I am glad he kissed me. It gave him answers he needed. It told him I love you.”
“Was that all to your meeting with boy? Was there anything else?”
“He told me that you are being very reckless,” Merry said. “He said that he has been followed. That he only managed to lose the man two days ago. That’s another reason why I indulged Uncle Andrew and his unflattering assumptions. I don’t think it’s one of Warton’s men. Uncle Andrew had no idea who Indy was and was very worried that you would harm me in fit of pique for having been foolish enough to kiss a man where you might see it. It was sincere, his worry and his reaction to what he witnessed. If Uncle Andrew would knew who Indy was , he would never have let me know he saw us together. He doesn’t know about Indy. I am certain of that. Who do you suspect it is watching the boy, Varian?”
“I don’t know, Little One. But I think I should find out. I am going to leave in the morning. I will be back as soon I discover who is following my son. I shouldn’t be gone more than a fortnight. I have made arrangements, Merry, for us to sail from Falmouth to America. My ship, the Eagle, will be ready to leave Falmouth in a fortnight. I would prefer not to have to go to now. But I can’t afford not to learn what other problems might follow us from England.”
Merry stared up at those handsome facial muscles carefully arranged not to instill worry and instantly began to worry. Varian could strip every nuance of emotion from his voice and face. He could do nothing to shield the currents of himself that ran in her soul.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Merry rolled onto her side, lightly brushed her cheek into the lingering warmth of Varian’s pillow and let her eyes slowly drift open. An hour ago Varian had rolled her over in their bed and made love to her sleepy body. The all-consuming tenderness of his passion and the worshiping lightness of his had brought tears to her eyes. Later, as she laid in his arms, folded against his chest, she had wept. She had fallen back to sleep, feeling fragile and loved, her limbs tied in lover’s knots around him.
It was still only just past sunrise and Varian had slipped from her arms without stirring her. He now stood fully dressed in his traveling garments before a window. He was framed in a soft wash of pinkish-blue light that sneaked through the under drapes and had baby Kat in his arms.
The image of father and daughter usually brought a smile to Merry. Katherine was a large baby for six months, everyone who saw her commented on that, but cradled against Varian’s chest, his long fingers and broad palms supporting her pudgy length, she all but disappeared against him. She was dressed only in a nappy, which meant her daughter had woke in need of a changing and her noble father had seen to that himself.
He had left her cherub firm flesh bare because he loved the texture of her sweet new skin beneath his fingertips, so openly proud and shamelessly in awe of their tiny miraculous girl. His lips were dancing against her dark crown of curls, moving in both kisses and words. Whatever the content of his discussion, it never failed to quiet Kat. Her daughter’s eyes were wide, now a mosaic of blue and black, and she was curled into the warmth of her father’s shirt, relaxed and content, not even her tiny arms doing a flutter. Quiet and at peace and awake. Touch of Varian.
Merry eased up into a sitting position and hugged her legs with her naked arms. The smile she wanted refused to surface. What came instead was fear. Numbing fear. Fear had prickled at her nerve-endings since seeing Indy at the beach. It had followed her to bed and hovered during their coupling. Now it was humming all through her in fierce warning.
Seeing Varian with Kat crystallized her worries, giving definition to them. They had stayed in England too long. Kat was six months old. It had been foolish and dangerous. Indy had been right. How could she have let her bliss blind her to Varian’s recklessness?
Something was wrong. It was here all around her. She didn’t want Varian to go and she couldn’t ask him not to. Indy was his son. The boy was as much his flesh and blood as Kat was. There were no words she could speak to keep him here with her and no words she could say that wouldn’t shame her to say them. Yet, it was just as certain there was some unknown danger out there waiting for him.
Was that why this familiar scene disturbed her? Varian’s deep love for Kat walked hand and hand with his love for Indy. There was no limit of what he would risk and give of himself for either of his children. He had traded his life once for the boy. She didn’t doubt he would offer it again if needed.
Merry pulled her wayward locks into a bunch and tied them into a knot. That Varian’s senses were failing him, that he was claimed so deeply by his concerns that he hadn’t noted her movements in bed, made her anxiety sharpen. This journey filled him with absolute unease and worry as well.
She watched Varian and Kat for a while, and it was only after he turned to find her awake that she said, “What do you talk to our daughter about, you insufferable man? I am both jealous of the ease you keep her quiet and the secrets you share with her. Have I been replaced in your affections by a younger, more beautiful girl?”
The smile Varian flashed should have sent worry to flight. It caressed and softened each perfect line of his face into a thing of undeniable masculine beauty. It was disarming and should have calmed her. Merry was not diverted by it for a moment. It was a guise. A guise she knew well and she wondered if he were even aware that it had surfaced. Was it reflex or did that insufferable man still think he could seal off even a single part of himself from her?
Her bright blue eyes followed his easy strides to the bed. He dropped a playful kiss on her nose. “I would have thought by now I would have proven you are irreplaceable to me, Little One.”
She managed a gentle upturn of her lips that was winsome. “I will never let you know when you have proven your affections for me. I enjoy your reassurance too much.”
She opened her arms for their daughter and the babe began to squirm at Merry’s touch in the rapid gestures and half cries she made when she was hungry. Letting the blanket drop, naked from the waist up, she was unselfconscious before her husband’s brightly fixed eyes as she turned Kat into her, brushing a nipple on her cheek that was greedily seized in her mouth. Closing her eyes, she felt shivers ease down her and the warmth of his gaze alertly watching.
When she spoke, her voice was soft and no longer playful. “What do you think is happening, Varian? You are concerned. I can feel it. Who do you think is following Indy? How close is the danger to us? We’ve stayed too long in Cornwall, haven’t we?”
There was a lengthy silence between them. The wind was a pleasant purr against the glass and it sang in the room with the suckling sounds Kat made. It was such a quiet life here. Merry made even quiet enchantment. Varian was at peace with her in their simple routine of living. He wanted to savor it, but felt it slipping through his fingers like sand.
He let it bath him, this wonderful quiet he had found with her, and then said, “Whatever the danger, it is close if they’ve discovered Indy. It would be careless for me to ignore that threat and I have been careless too long. If it’s Indy they are following it means the pieces of my past have started to come together. If it is James Deverell they are following it means they are fully joined and I am existing here on borrowed time. I don’t know the source of the danger, Merry, or I would tell you. It could be Warton’s men. Or Rensdale’s. Or any one of a hundred enemies I made as Morgan. That I was unaware of the danger and don’t know its cause is why I am worried. The only thing certain is our necessity to leave England. I am sorry, Merry. Sorry my love for you will cost you so much.”
Merry digested his words before she opened her eyes. She adjusted Kat to the other breast and eased into Varian to place a kiss on his lips. Her eyes were bright and full of love. “You have cost me nothing, and you have given me more than any woman should dare to hope for. Thank you for being honest with me and don’t ever apologize to me again for loving me. You are my happiness, Varian. Wherever we go, I will know happiness, if you are there with Kat and me. We made the decision to go to Virginia before Indy’s visit. The necessity of it now does not change my want to be by your side wherever you take me.”
He ran a fingertip down her cheek. Everywhere he touched her answered for him. “It’s no different for me, Merry. My only desire is to live out my days with you and our children. It doesn’t matter where we are, just that we are together.”
“Children? Were you planning on us having many, Your Grace?”
Those black eyes were thoughtful and shimmering. “With how easily you caught this one, my love, it will be a small miracle if we don’t end this century with a score of them.” A smile played at the corners of his lips. “You had best resign yourself to a large family unless you decide to give up having all of me. I am shameless in my hunger for you. You prove extreme in every way.”
She pulled Varian’s face down and gave him a lusty kiss. “That is good. I am shameless in my hunger for you. My father made sure I was aware. It is good we are leaving.”
Merry watched in amazement as a faint flush crawled up on his features. It was a wonderful things to see and amusing.
She couldn’t resist adding, “You are not as wicked as you imagine yourself to be. And your cheeks are charming when they are pink. My father blushed less while advising me I should acquire a touch of discretion in these marital matters.” With sudden purpose, Merry stated sweetly, “Another kiss like that and we’ll wake up Kat. She’s fallen asleep, in case you hadn’t noticed. You are ready to leave and if I keep you here flirting with me then you will travel at night. The sooner you go, the sooner you will return. Take Kat to the nursery and call Netta to stay with her so that I may dress.”
“Of course I noticed Kat was sleeping. What do you imagine we discussed this morning? Her need to nap so that I may say goodbye to her mother surrounded by the morning and the touch of the sun falling on her cheeks.”
Merry watched as his hands slipped between her and Kat to lift the babe from her arms. Such large hands and yet always so gentle, so elegantly careful that the babe didn’t stir. Kat snuggled on Varian’s shoulder, lost in sleep. The touch of pure tenderness. Pure love.
As the bedroom door clicked behind him, Merry sprang from the bed and went to her bureau. Pulling open the bottom drawer, she rummaged through the layers of nightgowns until she found it on the bottom, a simple white shirt with the bite marks of a bat on the cuffs. It was the only shirt she had of her days with him as Morgan. Ironically it was her wedding gown, the shirt she had been wearing when he carried her from his ship to speak their vows at Camden’s.
She didn’t know what possessed her to wear it today. Was it to remind him of all they’d survived together already? Or was it just another of her whimsies to amuse him, and to ease a measure of the guilt he carried because of all the other things he had brought to her life with his love? She was uncertain what moved her spirit in this even as she pulled the shirt into place.
Merry posed in a chair before the window, a leg looped over an arm, her feet bare and her hair only finger brushed into a wild cloud of black curls. The white ruffled shirt swallowed her body with three buttons undone at top, and she was lightly chewing on a cuff.
Varian stepped into the room, froze, and ran her in a single fast moving glance. A mischievous grin greeted him.
He said, “Are you trying to prevent me from leaving or trying to irritate your father or both, my love?”
Long lashes dipped over absurdly rosy cheeks and now he was enchanted as well, enchanted she could still blush like a virgin in her sweetness. He appreciated the sparkle of her eyes that always came with the color on her cheeks.
“The last time you left for London I threw a book at you. I thought you deserved a better memory.”
He ran a finger along her smooth shoulder, down the flesh exposed beneath the collar of the shirt. “You enflame me no matter what you do, Little One. Tossing the book did more than you know. The shirt just adds capriciousness to your charms.” He held out his hand and helped her form the chair. “Walk me out, Little One, before I change my mind about going.”
Merry curled into him and he carefully shortened his strides to match hers. The house was quiet, only a handful of the staff moved in the halls and none of her family was about yet. He always left on his flying trips at first light, wanting the privacy of the house still abed when he said his goodbye to Merry.
Though Lucien’s scowl was less murderous than it had been in their first days here, it still moved his brow whenever Merry was in reach of him. They’d been married over a year. It was absurd how slowly Lucien was coming to accept that Merry was his wife. Varian thought of Kat. Perhaps not absurd at all.
As they stepped out onto the porch, the morning was a dazzling backdrop for the beauty of his wife. A light breeze combed wetness from the thistle and grass, lifting Merry’s hair and showering them in a spray of silky wisps and dampness. The air held the freshness of a shower, lush with newly turned earth and moisture-fed grass and flowers, the scents all the more striking because of the rain. Sharp early morning sunshine shot through the parting clouds, sucking up the aftermath of the storm and though the roads were wet at dawn, they would be well on their way to dryness by noon. After a week of drenching rain, the day was a brilliant burst of color and brightness.
Tanner stood with Varian’s horse in hand, respectfully reserved and un-watching. He was often the only witness to their partings. Too many witnessed his returns.
Varian turned Merry so her face could catch the sunshine and her creamy skin seemed to sip and hold the colors of the morning. Every line, every shade seemed more exaggerated. The blackness of her hair and brow. The brilliant blue of her eyes that put to shame a Caribbean sea. The gentle pink that never faded completely from her softly sloping cheeks, the ruby red line of her lips, and the silken ivory of her skin.
He lowered his mouth to hers and around him capered her scent, nested in her hair, spiced along her flesh, a whisper of rose and her own sweet flavor. His love for her ran through him, so startling in its strength it was still of wonder to him. She was so beautiful, so young and rich of heart, and he found himself lost in the miracle of touching Merry.
Varian would be, in every sense, a man at peace if he could have only this. The quiet of the land. Merry. Kat. A simple routine of living, comforting and joyous. This filled him with a total lack of want for anything else.
He nuzzled his cheek against hers. The gesture playful. More like her. Less like him, but oh, each day he was claimed a little bit more by who she was. “I never expected to know this happiness I know with you, Merry. You have healed my heart, breathed life into my soul, and brought hope to my future. I am a happy man.”
She smiled up at him, overwhelmed by the easy unsealing of his emotions and knowing she had in part given the ability of that to him. She
lay a finger on his lips, feeling his mouth kiss her on the tip and soften beneath her touch.
Faintly tracing the line, she whispered, “I wish you could feel everything you make me feel by loving you. Then I would be certain you would know what you are to me.”
Varian watched the slow change of her face, each nuance as it happened. Her cheeks were softer, her eyes a little more sapphire from her tears, and her fingers curled around his great-coat almost trying to hold him back.
Against her ear, he assured her, “There is nothing for you to worry over, Merry. It will all be well. I will be gone less than a fortnight. We will sail on the Eagle. Then you will be my captive for the rest of your life. Perhaps that is why you are worried?”
Thank you, you insufferable man, for trying to jest. It will not work. I am afraid.
She didn’t laugh. She dragged him to her kiss, standing on tiptoe and arching into him. It was long and sadly desperate and when she freed him her voice held a fluttering airless quality to it. “You had better be careful. You had better come home. It is not your time to leave me.”
They began to walk again, together. Their partings were lingering, but it seemed to him they were both making this one deliberately slow. Varian lifted her tiny fingers, linked through his, to his lips. Merry pressed her face against his arm, running the tip of her nose along his sleeve, drinking in his scent before kissing him lightly there and pulling back.
Merry closed her eyes. Her face turned into his chest. “I don’t want you to go, Varian. I won’t ask you not to. I understand why you need to. Indy is your son. But I have a terrible feeling about this journey. I don’t want you to go. Not today.”