Kisses that had changed her forever.
Passion unlike anything she had known existed.
Only everything.
She blinked, doing her best to keep her expression carefully blank. “Nothing happened between us, Dev. He was a gentleman, and the only crime he is guilty of is looking after my wellbeing and bringing me safely to you.”
“You are lying, Beatrix,” he charged, his jaw still rigid, his tone still inflexible. “I will give you one more opportunity to tell me the truth. You are staying here as husband and wife, damn it.”
“To protect my reputation,” she defended instantly.
“I am a man, Bea. Do not think I did not note the manner in which Hart has looked upon you in the past,” he gritted. “I will own the blame for not taking steps to prevent something so ruinous from happening, but I was foolish enough to believe his sense of honor and loyalty would prohibit him from despoiling my youngest sister. I can see now how wrong I was.”
“But he did nothing untoward.” Though she had for a wild moment entertained the notion of ruining herself with Merrick to further her own purposes, she could not bear to do so now. All she could think of was protecting him. “I was left utterly alone at Dudley House, and he was my saving grace.”
Dev’s lips twisted. “Utterly alone. Hell and damnation, I had forgotten about the domestics. I hope you understand the ramifications of this, Beatrix. You were alone with Hart two nights in a row as an unwed female. It is wholly unacceptable, and you have been thoroughly compromised. Our only hope it to find you a suitable husband from among the ranks of guests invited to Abingdon Hall.”
“No,” she denied. “I have already told you, Dev, that I do not wish to marry some foppish lord.”
Dev was unyielding, eying her with a stony detachment. “It is too late, Beatrix. The damage has been done, and marry you must. And quickly.”
“Then if I must marry anyone, I should prefer to marry Mr. Hart,” she cried out before she could stop herself.
Her brother’s mouth compressed into a grim line. “That is impossible. Hart’s position with me has already been terminated.”
Her brother’s words were like a blow to her midsection, leaving her struggling to take a breath. She had known he would be angry, but she had never imagined he would dismiss Merrick from his position with such icy haste.
“You cannot mean that, Dev,” she pleaded. “None of this was his fault. I am the reason I was left behind at Dudley House—I only returned after you had all departed.”
Dev stilled, but his countenance turned even more frigid. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was out,” she rushed to explain. “I had gone to aid in a birth, and it did not go well…”
“Damn it,” Dev interrupted, disgust and anger dripping from his voice. “I forbade you from seeking out that scoundrel accoucheur.”
Yes, he had. Bea had first met Dr. Nichols at the foundling hospital Dev funded when she had been visiting the children with her sisters. He had brought an infant girl he had delivered of a mother who had not been capable of raising the child. Her older sister Pru had been taken with the babe, and Bea had been instantly intrigued by the work of the doctor. Subsequent visits to the hospital had provided Bea with more occasions to speak with him, until eventually, she had been able to persuade him to allow her to assist.
Dev, who had ears and eyes everywhere, had discovered what she was about and had forbidden her from seeking out Dr. Nichols again. But she had been determined, and she had not heeded him.
She took a deep breath, forging ahead. “I went despite your disapproval. Dr. Nichols sent word to me of a difficult birth. He needed my aid, and so I left. It was not the first time I did so. This time, the birth took all night. I returned the next day to find Dudley House empty, all of you gone.”
“Damn it, Bea,” he roared. “Why must you be so headstrong and stubborn and reckless? You could have been robbed or attacked or worse. What can you have been thinking, going about town on your own, sneaking from the house like a thief? I ought to lock you in your chamber for the next year after such flagrant disregard for my authority and your own welfare.”
She clasped her hands together, knowing a swift rush of regret for having gone against her brother’s wishes, for having lied to him. She had known what she was doing was dangerous to not just her person but her reputation, after all. It had merely been that she did not care enough to stop.
“You see, Dev? You must punish me and not Mr. Hart,” she begged. “He is not to blame for my actions. I am.”
She had never seen her brother as furious as he was now. He fairly vibrated with it, so much that she took an involuntary step in retreat, wondering what he would do. He was a good brother, kind and generous, if overbearing and protective. She knew he would never strike her, of course. But the sheer rage in his eyes was blistering.
“You are correct, Beatrix,” he said at last, his voice tight. “You alone are to blame for your own actions, and you must now face the consequences.”
“What will you do?” she asked quietly, dreading the answer.
He passed a hand over his face, weariness spreading over his features for a beat before it was replaced, once more, by uncompromising anger. “I do not know yet. All I do know is that I cannot stand here looking upon you for another moment. Remain here while I think about what is to be done. If you leave this room, I will lock you in your chamber for the next century. Do not think I won’t.”
She nodded. “I will wait for you as you have asked.”
With a muttered curse, he spun on his heel and began stalking from the chamber. Suddenly, he stopped, reached into the bedclothes, and plucked a scrap of white fabric from them, holding it aloft.
Merrick’s cravat, she realized.
“Perhaps not as alone in the blame as you would have me believe,” he muttered.
With that, he left, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 9
Merrick had resigned himself to his fate. He had known, after all, the risks he had been taking in dallying with Beatrix Winter. But he had been weak, and he had been reckless, and he had given in to temptation despite what he had known was right.
He had expected Devereaux Winter to dismiss him from his post. He had also expected Dev to strike him after discovering him within Bea’s chamber. He had anticipated every charge Dev had irately thrown his way.
And he had accepted it all. The dismissal, the crushing fist to the jaw, the coldly furious assertion he was an unscrupulous scoundrel. He had simply stood still and held his tongue, absorbing the blow of Dev’s massive fist without so much as a grunt. No amount of explanation could absolve him of the sins he had committed in touching, kissing, and tasting an innocent woman who was not his to deflower.
What he had not expected was for Dev to seek him out when he was in the midst of procuring his means of transport back to London, where he would gather the ashes of his life and attempt to begin again. The day was even colder than the previous one, a frigid wind buffeting his cheeks and cutting through his coat and breeches as he stood near the inn’s stables, facing down an angry Devereaux Winter for the second time in the span of an hour.
He gritted his teeth. “If you have come to hit me a second time, I cannot help but feel compelled to warn you, as a gentleman, that I will not allow the second blow to go unanswered.”
The last thing he wanted was to challenge Dev Winter to a bout of fisticuffs. His former employer could murder a man with his massive fists alone. But his pride would not allow him to accept a beating, even if part of him inwardly acknowledged he deserved it.
Dev shook his head. “What I have to offer is a different sort of blow entirely.”
Merrick frowned at that, wondering what in the hell he wanted of him now. “Say what you must. As you can see, I am concerned with the business of getting myself back to London before the snow begins to fall.”
Though it was early in the season for such weather, the gray sky over
head and the damp cold in the air were both indicative of precipitation. And he had no wish to become trapped on an impassable road when he needed to get back to town and attempt to secure himself a new position without letters of reference.
Dev sighed. “I spoke with Bea, and she has revealed everything to me.”
Merrick tensed. Precisely what was everything? Had she told him about the kisses? About what he had been in the midst of when Dev had suddenly interrupted them? He studied the man opposite him and decided she could not have possibly, or he would have already had another fist planted in his jaw.
“I see,” he said, noncommittally.
“Damn it, Hart,” Dev growled, scrubbing a hand along his jaw as he did whenever he was irritated, “I know about the bloody accoucheur. I know about her leaving Dudley House at great peril to herself, and I know you were only acting in her best interest, escorting her back to me.”
Not entirely in her best interest. This morning had been proof of that.
But Merrick was not about to incriminate himself. His jaw was still aching. “I am relieved she was honest with you. She cannot carry on as she has been doing. She is damned fortunate no ill has befallen her yet. What she was doing was not just reckless, it was dangerous. I trust you will put a stop to it.”
He told himself he had revealed too much. That Bea and her future were none of his concern. But the thought of her continuing to court ruin by gadding about London alone filled him with an impotent surge of fear.
“We are in agreement on how foolish and careless she was,” Dev said grimly. “But I am afraid I will not be able to put a stop to her wild ways.”
“You cannot mean to allow her to carry on as she has.” Merrick’s hands balled into fists at his sides as the wind whipped against him, making him shudder.
“I do not,” Dev reassured him. “I intend for her to get married. It is the only answer. I underestimated her desire to learn midwifery. It was never my intention to keep her from pursuing her interests. I merely worried for her. The Winters are already reviled, and any hint of scandal will please the gossipmongers all too well. But if she is married, and if her husband approves, perhaps she may seek out her interests in an environment which is safe both for her person and for her reputation.”
Merrick went even colder, and it had nothing to do with the punishing winter air and everything to do with the notion of Bea marrying another man. “You cannot believe any lord will allow her to do such a thing. She would be miserable, and so would the fop you shackle her to.”
Dev grinned then, and the sight ought to have warned Merrick, but somehow, it did not. Not until Dev’s next words sent him reeling.
“Fortunately for Bea, I have no intention of seeing her wedded to a lord. She is going to marry you, Hart.”
He nearly swallowed his tongue. “Me?”
“Yes.” Dev’s grin deepened, a touch of deviltry in his eyes. “You seem the likeliest candidate for the task. I need someone I can trust to keep her waywardness in check, and she needs a husband who will not seek to crush her spirit. It may as well be the man who just spent the entire night in her bed. Would you not say so?”
Devil take it. Dev had known after all.
“Your cravat was in the bedclothes, Hart,” Dev said, his grin fading. “Play Galahad all you like, but you compromised her, and now you are going to marry her.”
For some reason, Dev’s forbidding pronouncement was not accompanied by dread. But instead, all he felt was…a curious blend of anticipation and relief.
Perhaps, for the first time in his life, what he wanted was not beyond his reach after all. Perhaps Bea Winter could truly be his.
Bea descended from the carriage at Abingdon Hall as a cold rain had begun to fall from the sky. She had spent the remainder of the journey being scolded by her brother for her impetuousness.
But it was only after they had nearly reached their destination, just as the carriage had begun ambling up the drive leading to Abingdon Hall, that he had truly shocked her.
“There is just enough time for the banns to be read before Christmas.”
She had stilled, wresting her gaze from the window and settling it upon her unsmiling brother. “I already told you, I have no intention of wedding one of the lords you have invited for this house party. You shall simply have to settle for finding husbands for Pru, Eugie, Christabella, and Grace.”
“Though none of them are perfect, they are not recently compromised as you are,” he had reminded her.
“I am not compromised,” she had argued for what must have been the hundredth time since their journey had begun that morning.
“The cravat in your bed suggests otherwise.”
“At least allow me some time to find a suitor of my liking,” she had begged. “You have discovered great happiness with Lady Emilia, after all.”
His lips had compressed. “I married Lady Emilia for the sake of our family. I fell in love with her afterward.”
She had thought of Merrick once more, of how she had caused him to lose everything, and she had known what she must do. “I will marry the gentleman of your choosing, as long as you give Mr. Hart his position back.”
Her brother had smiled as the carriage drew to a halt. “Good, because the gentleman I have chosen for you is Mr. Hart, and he already has his position back, as long as he keeps you from wandering all over London in the middle of the night.”
With that verbal gauntlet thrown, he had leapt from the carriage, turning to offer her a hand down. She placed her gloved hand in his now, shock making her almost lose her footing and go plummeting to the gravel drive. She caught herself at the last moment, saving herself from further ignominy.
“You thought I would simply allow my sister to be compromised without making him answer for it?” Dev asked, one of his inky brows lifting.
“I—you…” she sputtered, trailing off as she collected her scattered wits. “You told me you had dismissed him from his post. I thought he was on his way back to London.”
Dev offered her his arm. “When I initially found him in your chamber, I will own, I was determined to destroy him, because I erroneously assumed he had seduced you with the intent of forcing marriage. Hart is a good man, but a fortune the size of yours could turn even an angel into the devil. However, after I had calmed down and you revealed the full extent of your deceptions to me, I understood he had been escorting you to Oxfordshire with the intention of keeping you safe. And I realized there was only one solution to my problem.”
Marriage? Merrick? How could it be? She ought to be alarmed, perhaps, but the notion made a strange tingle begin deep within her. If she married him, she could kiss him whenever she wished, and he would be free to… A shudder rolled down her spine, but it had nothing to do with the December air biting at her skin.
She took her brother’s arm then, still somewhat in shock, allowing him to guide her up the steps leading to the impressive portico of Abingdon Hall. “I had not thought you would find him suitable. I thought you wanted me to marry a lord.”
He slanted a shrewd look in her direction. “It would seem the two of you made that decision for me.”
Her cheeks went hot for the second time that day. Yes, she rather supposed they had. But still, she was not entirely convinced. “What if Mr. Hart does not wish to marry me? Have you not considered that?”
Dev gave her hand a gentle pat. “Hart wants to keep his position and his teeth, Bea darling.”
Dear Lord. Her brother could be as cunning and dangerous as a fox. But she could not accept a marriage her husband did not want. Indeed, she did not even know a marriage was what she wanted, though she did know the wicked interlude they had shared had not been the sort which ought to occur between a man and woman without the sacred bonds of matrimony.
“I will not have him forced into marrying me, Dev,” she insisted as they reached the top of the steps and approached the front door.
“He had a choice to make, and he made it,” her brother t
old her, his tone going hard once more. “I do expect the two of you to refrain from further scandal for the duration of the house party, however. I’ll not have a whiff of anything inappropriate to ruin your sisters’ prospects. Hart will court you like a gentleman, the banns shall be read, and the two of you shall be wed before Christmas day.”
There was no time to think or to argue further, for the door swept open to reveal a forbidding butler and just beyond him, Lady Emilia and all four of Bea’s sisters.
“Bea!”
They seemed to greet her as one, and she was instantly swallowed in a series of sisterly embraces. First Lady Emilia, who was a brunette beauty with flashing blue eyes and a stubborn spirit to rival Bea’s own. Then there was her oldest sister, Pru, followed by Eugie, Christabella, and Grace, the most solemn of all the Winters.
“I cannot believe we left you behind in London,” Christabella was chattering.
“Oh do be quiet,” ordered Eugie. “Emilia said we mustn’t speak of it.”
“I hope you were not too sad without us, darling,” chimed in Pru, the most maternal of the lot, who was always quite like a mama hen, clucking over the rest of the Winter sisters.
“Welcome to Abingdon Hall, Bea,” Lady Emilia added above the din, smiling with a serenity that belied the clamor all around them. And then she turned a private smile toward Dev. “I missed you, husband.”
Her brother’s countenance went from harsh and imposing to besotted as he softened before his wife. “And I missed you, my darling.”
“It was but one day,” Grace said pointedly, in standard Grace fashion.
Bea smiled at them all, happy to be in their boisterous mix once more.
But even as she reunited with her beloved family, Merrick was not far from her thoughts. In spite of Dev’s warnings, she knew she had to meet with him, in private, as soon as she possibly could.
As it turned out, Bea’s chance arrived sooner rather than later.
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