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

by Susan Ward

  She slapped his hand away and sprang from the sofa. “You have your nerve coming here and being critical of me.”

  She met him angry stare for angry stare. This woman before him was someone he did not know any more. Once, he had thought he’d known every corner of her heart. Or had he? Did any man ever truly know a woman?

  “I am not being critical of you. I am trying to keep your spite from destroying us both,” he said in a low harsh voice.

  She paused for a moment. She stared. Hate in her eyes. It hurt Varian to see it there. He started to walk toward the door.

  Behind him she said, “Rensdale knows about the boy, Varian. They are going to use Indy to destroy you and then they are going to kill him.”

  ~~~

  The past, the present and the future, unleashed, were colliding. Inside of Varian they were colliding as well, only there was also guilt and regret mixing with the powerful unsettled forces unleashed by his own hand. Indy had accused him long ago of thinking he was above other men. Those words rang in haunting eloquence in his memory this day.

  In the custody of his worry and guilt, for this brief moment he regretted not having murdered Rensdale the day he had learned him responsible for all the tragic events that had befallen his life.

  Death would have been merciful to Rensdale, he had told Merry, explaining why he had not exacted vengeance in preference to justice. How foolish he had been to trust that fate held fairness in her fingers. His first task should have been to put a bullet in Rensdale’s head. Death would have been equitable.

  He’d made the crossing from London to Falmouth in two days’ time. If they knew about Indy, he couldn’t trust that they didn’t know Tom and the Corinthian were meeting the boy in Falmouth. Varian would not permit the thought that Indy wouldn’t be there when he arrived. To lose the boy again to Rensdale’s villainy; god would not be cruel enough to grant that fate.

  Feeling the untimely possession of guilt and regret, he fought against his rising worry as he attempted to plot his next plan of action. Finding Indy and seeing him safe was the priority. He would deal with the threat of the Merricks and his past as Morgan later. He would not lose his son a second time; not even Merry would be able to heal that hurt in him.

  He was just nearing the darkened waterfront of Falmouth when his senses became overly alert in the strange way when things suddenly seem to move too slowly, an illusion of too many things moving all at once. Popping and crackling in ear-piercing loudness. Shouting voices. Men running toward the ships. The worst imaginable hell was unfolding before his eyes in a grim scene of panic and fire. There in the Falmouth harbor the Corinthian was rapidly being turned to ash by flames.

  ~~~

  “Kate, will you stop that infernal pounding!” Merry shouted, springing from her chair in the west drawing room.

  Kate froze, her trembling hands hovering above the keys of the pianoforte. Her posture and the quivering lips made Merry instantly regret her sharpness. She could feel her parents watching her, and she crossed the carpet to where Kat played, dropping down to take her daughter in her arms.

  She hid her face against Kat’s pudgy cheek. Her nerves were as taut as an over-tightened bow string, and each day was another turn making her insides knot even tighter. A month. Varian had been gone a month and had not sent word. He would not have done that if something had not gone terribly wrong.

  Putting her lips to her daughter’s brow, she tried to reason the right course in this. Was it safe to ask for her father’s help? How much was it safe to tell him? She did not know, Varian was nowhere to ask, she only knew deep in her soul she needed to act quickly if she hoped to see her husband again.

  She lifted her face to find her father’s intense blue eyes watching her. Feeling Kat fidget in her arms, her decision was made. If she could not trust her father with her heart, then there was no one on this earth to help her.

  Blue eyes locked on blue eyes. “Find him,” Merry whispered in ragged agony. “I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care what you learn. You have men at your disposal. Send them to find my husband.”

  Lucien’s face remained without reflection. His daughter’s anguish was not without anguish for him. He had dispatched men to find Varian a fortnight ago. An internal warning had sounded in him, instinct born of a lifetime managing dangerous endeavors.

  Lucien rose and went to Merry. It would hardly comfort his daughter to learn his men had not been successful in their task. Varian had all but disappeared, though his men continued to search, and Lucien had grown increasingly less hopeful day by day. That disclosure would do Merry no good at present.

  “I have done all I can do,” Lucien said, easing down in front of his daughter.

  Merry’s eyes flashed with hurt and anger. She misunderstood him, he noted with a sharp pain in his heart, but before Lucien could explain, she snapped, “You have done nothing but try to take my husband from me since he walked through the door. If you permit harm to come to Varian I will never forgive you. Do not pretend you cannot fix this for me, if you had a wish to do so.”

  She ran from the room, battling her tears until she was alone in her bedroom. She paced the stifling confines of her room, bouncing Kat in her arms as she tried to make her worry-muddled mind work so she could figure out how to help Varian. Her anxiousness caused her to jiggle the baby too fiercely. Kat started to wail.

  She was so distraught, she couldn’t calm her own daughter. She went to the nursery and set Kat in the arms of Netta. She needed time alone to think.

  What to do? What to do? She could feel it in her bones. Something was terribly wrong. Today the anxiousness in her limbs was unbearable. It had been with her from the moment she woke.

  Impending doom. Death. It was in the air all around her. And there her family sat, peacefully carrying on while her heart was near to breaking.

  Back in her room, she settled in her chair, her fingers curling around the armrests. Helplessness was a cruel being, curling through her limbs and picking at her heart.

  Suddenly her worry dulled senses became aware of much commotion in the house. Voices raised. Her father yelling. The quick running feet of the staff in an agitated state. Varian? Was he finally returned to Bramble Hill? She could think of nothing else that could so quickly agitate her father but Varian. She sprang from her chair, running as fast her feet could take her to the stairs.

  Eyes round, Merry halted for a brief suspended moment on the landing, fighting to put into order what she was seeing. There inside the front door a hulking form, long blond hair, burley arms, and rough seaman clothes…Shay! There was a body beneath him on the floor, but his wide back blocked from view who it was.

  Oh please, oh please let it be Varian and let him be well, was her frantic prayer as she tore down the stairs. As she came around Shay’s hovering form, her heart fell. It wasn’t Varian on the floor. It was Indy, covered in soot, a bloody and lifeless body the Irishman wouldn’t release from his hold.

  Merry looked up at her father. “Damn it! Why are you all just standing there? Take him to a bedroom. Get Netta. For pity sake why has no one gotten the boy help?”

  Her father came quickly to her side. “He won’t let us near the boy, Merry,” her father said urgently. “He won’t put down his weapon.”

  It was then she noticed the pistol in Shay’s hand pointed at the room. Merry gently took hold of Shay’s shoulder. “Shay, listen to me, it’s Merry. Whatever has happened you’re safe now. I won’t let any harm come to you or Indy. Put down the gun. You don’t have to shoot anyone here. Let my father take Indy. He won’t harm him. I promise! It’s me Merry!”

  It was then Shay’s eyes, wild and flashing, turned on her, and his face held the look of shock. “Oh, Merry lass, thank god a soul I know. Himself sent me here with the boy, but I didn’t know who to trust. And someone has already tried to kill him once tonight. He is halfway to dead as it ’tis.”

  Her eyes widened. “Himself. You’ve seen Varian? Is he well? Where
is he?”

  “’Twas awful, Merry lass!”

  Fighting to keep her wits about her and not drown in her fast rising panic, Merry motioned for her father to come as she gently eased lower the pistol in Shay’s hand. “Give me the gun, Shay.” She closed her hand over his, then unbent his fingers and eased the pistol from his burly hand.

  The footmen rushed forward, retrieving the boy, and her father was rapidly barking orders as Indy was sent to an upstairs bedroom, and a servant dispatched to fetch Netta.

  Remaining on the floor with Shay, but desperate to check on Indy and even more desperate to know what Shay knew about Varian, Merry turned his face toward her and asked anxiously, “Tell me what has happened. You said you saw Varian. Where is he?”

  Shay shook his head. “It was madness. We’ve been at port in Falmouth but a day. And the lad come back aboard ship as he was to. I was just get’n into me bunk when the smell of smoke touched me nostrils and I could hear run’n feet and shouting men. Fire on ship and not just any fire, Merry lass. A blaze set near the magazine to destroy the ship. The men, they rushed about trying to put out the flames, but there were other men on the ship not of the crew. Had the lad, they did. Were taking him by gunpoint. I charged down the passageway, I did. Wasn’t going to let them take me captain. That’s when the boom happened and a beam licked with fire gave way, falling on the blackguards try’n to steal the lad. Trapped me on one side of the fire and Indy on the other. I couldn’t get through the flames, Merry lass. I tried.”

  He wiped his tears and nose on his sleeve, and his brawny form made a ragged shudder. “That’s when Himself appeared.”

  Merry’s eyes rounded. “Varian? He’s in Falmouth?”

  Shay shook his head. “I don’t know, Merry lass. ’Twas a sight I won’t soon be forgetting. Himself like a mon possessed. Pushed me from his way, he did, back from the fire. Then himself charged through the flames to save the boy, he did. Carried him topside and such a look I’ve never seen on the mon’s face. Chilled me to me bones, it did. Then a loud explosion before Craven could get off the decks of the ship. Tom Craven is dead, Merry lass. The ship a giant burning mass of rubble. The fire got to the powder magazine. Himself put me in a cart, with the lad and a gun, he did. Ordered me here, Merry lass. Told me to bring the lad to you and you alone. Ordered me not to let anyone near the boy. And then Himself left like a fury on horseback.”

  “Shay! Who set the fire? Who were these men trying to get hold of Indy? Where did Varian go?”

  Weak with exhaustion, Shay’s tired eyes fixed on her face in misery. “I don’t know, Merry lass. Himself not be telling. I not be asking. Left Falmouth in the direction of Land’s End. That’s all I know.”

  Merry sprang to her feet and ran up the stairs in the direction the footmen had carried Indy. When she entered the bedroom, Netta was already there, cutting away his blood soaked garments. When his scarred chest was bared, Netta let out a gasp and said, “Oh lord, what has this poor lad had done to him?”

  Collapsing on the bed beside his still form, Merry took Indy’s hand and looked to her maid. “Will he be alright, Netta? You can’t let him die!”

  Netta shook her head and continued her work. “He’s lost a lot of blood, lass. I don’t know. And I’ve still got to probe in his flesh to get the chunk of wood from his shoulder.”

  Merry’s eyes fixed pleadingly on her. “Don’t let him die, Netta. Please. You can’t let him die!”

  Netta motioned toward the footman. “Hold the lad down. Unconscious he is, but when I take the wood from his flesh, he might stir. Don’t want to hurt the lad more with the knife because he’s not still.”

  It was not the footman, but Lucien Merrick who came to hold Indy down, taking firm grip of each of his arms.

  “Merry, what has happened. Who is this man?” Lucien asked as Netta began to cut into Indy’s flesh.

  Merry lifted her tear glazed eyes to her father. In a dazed and desperate way, she said, “This is James Deverell. Varian’s son.”

  Two hours later, Netta announced she’d done all she could do for the lad. She’d carefully removed the wood from his shoulder, cleansed and then stitched closed his flesh. Indy was still alive, but very weak, and Netta announced grimly he was in God’s hands now. But the boy had survived Netta’s surgery, and Merry held firmly to the belief Indy would survive.

  Terror had brought exhaustion to her limbs such as she had never known, and noting Shay sitting in a chair close to the bed guarding Indy, Merry slipped quietly from the room and back to her bedchamber.

  She settled in a chair and put her aching head against the steeple of her fingertips. She was too tired to think. Worries and thoughts continued to spin in her head, even as she slumped in a chair, afraid she could not stay alert another minute.

  The sound of pug growling pulled her from her haze. Spying what that miserable mutt had done this time, nearly in tears she exclaimed, “Damn you,” as she went from her chair to dog.

  Pug was chewing on the picture book Varian had given her for her birthday. She grabbed the book from his mouth. It was ruined. Completely ruined. She started to cry. A frightening omen. The pug had torn apart Varian’s gift, and in her worry it felt as if another rent had pierced her heart. Frantically, she tried to put the pieces together, and then she noticed the thickness of the cover was uneven. The back was heavier. She fingered the tear pug had made with his gnawing. Her eyes rounded. There were letters inside. Everything you may ever wish to know of me if you have a wish to know it is contained in this book, Little One, Varian had said. Within the cover it holds every part of me.

  How could she have never realized that the covers were uneven in thickness? She broke the seals to the letters. The first contained a chart identical to the one he had shown her months ago in his bedroom. The second letter made her heart ache and her tears come even more fiercely. The one and only love letter Varian had ever written to her and he had hidden it in a book.

  My dearest Merry,

  I am watching you now, Little One, on my land in Virginia. You are covered from head to toe with thistle, in a meadow, lost in your own private, dreamy contentment and how beautiful you look. Like a glorious spring day after too long of winter. That is what you are, my dear. A glorious spring after too long of my winter. If there had been even a glimmer of doubt before this day that I loved you and wanted you it would not have survived the picture you make. It matters not that I know not who you are or how you came to be. It only matters that you are and that you are here with me.

  My dear Little One, these words are so much less than I had hoped to give you. It is an attempt to put the pieces into order so that perhaps you will understand at last this man who loves you. If you are reading this letter it means I’ve not had time for the pieces to fully join and you know not who has loved you or what has brought us both to this day: you with a letter and me I know not where. It is a dangerous game I play, with dangerous ends, and I wish that I had had the power to end it sooner so that I may be with you now.

  Know this: that each hour of the day since you were first brought to me I have had some thought of you and have prayed to a God I have long since disbelieved exits that he grant me his mercy to, if nothing more, know only the joy to exist with Merry. Everything I do, Merry, I now do for you.

  With all my love,

  Varian Charles Deverell, Duke of Windmere

  On this day 13th of March 1814

  Brushing at her tears, she ripped through the seal to the third letter. Across the top was scrawled, deliver to Lucien Merrick, Bramble Hill, Falmouth England. It began: My journey to find my son, James Deverell, started with Lord Montrose… Her heart stopped, as she rapidly scanned Varian’s neat swirling scrawl. It was all here. Everything he carried in the vault of his mind was here in her hands on parchment from a letter tucked into a book he’d given her more than a year ago.

  Think, Merry, think. He gave you the letters. He wanted them to reach your father. There was no need to thin
k any longer about what she should do. She sprang to her feet, intending to find her father, but instead the world went dark and the letters slipped from her hand, scattering across the floor.

  ~~~

  Once Lucien was able to finish what questioning he could accomplish of the Irishman, he went to his daughter’s room in hopes of making reason of the events this night at Bramble Hill. James Deverell. How was it possible for the lad to be Varian’s son, when the boy had died nearly a decade ago? He needed that answered and a more complete detail of what Merry knew if he was going to help his daughter find her husband.

  Entering the empty bedchamber, he sensed immediately something wrong with the scene. There was a wide open window in winter. Letters scattered across the floor.

  This is not right, he thought to himself. Knowing from instinct something was wrong and Merry was not only not in her room, but would not be found anywhere at Bramble Hill, he raced from the room to raise men for Merry’s rescue.

  ~~~

  Consciousness returned to Merry with the grim awareness she was blindfolded, gagged and her arms were bound. She was in a cart and she was certain it was moving. She could hear the screech of wheels laboring across rutted roads, the scent of moldy straw was around her, and the touch of chilled air against her face told her she was outdoors. But where, where was she? How long had she been unconscious? And who had taken her from Bramble Hill?

  Answers came when the cart jolted to a stop and a repulsive voice filled the air. “What took you so long?”

  Rensdale! She fought against the terror spin of that discovery as she tried to catch any clue of where he had taken her.

  “Took time to get the wench. Weren’t no easy fete.” A rough, hard voice. Merry was certain she had never heard it before.