Justin had stood and was glaring down at her. “No? Forgive me, then, but it certainly felt like it to me. What do you call it where you come from?”
“I don’t call it anything,” Merriana said. “I don’t do it.”
“Oh, we’re back to that again, are we? Frankly, my dear, of all the lies you’ve ever told me, that’s the one I’m most unlikely to believe.”
“Believe what you want, then. You’ve always believed only what pleases you where I’m concerned. The truth is of so little significance to you, it might as well be a bucket of garbage to be fed to the hogs.”
“Your metaphors are somewhat lacking in elegance, my dear,” he said, “but I get the idea. You seem to be suggesting that I am at fault for not taking you at your word. But I recall your telling me yourself that you gave Antonia drugged wine. And am I not to believe the evidence of my own eyes? I saw you this morning riding away from that cabin with your accomplice in seemingly perfect amiability. What am I to believe, Merriana—only what’s convenient for you to have me believe?”
She made no attempt to answer him. She was too tired, too confused, and too disoriented. She kept her hands over her face while she shook her head at him. She heard his sigh of exasperation and his footsteps moving away to the window. The rain had slackened from the earlier torrents and was now a steady soft symphony of sound being played on green leaves and standing water and the roof above them. There was something comforting in the unchanging cadence of it, and Merriana felt some of the tension being lulled from her body. Then, mercifully, her mind temporarily relinquished its efforts to come to grips with the multitude of problems that faced her and allowed her body to gift her with the sleep she so badly needed.
When she awoke two hours later, Justin was sitting on a crate, watching her.
“What are you thinking?” she mumbled, still half asleep.
“I’m thinking about the fact that we’ll have to spend the night here because it’s still raining. I’m wishing that I had thought to bring some food with me. And I’m trying to understand why, after all that’s happened, I still want you more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman.”
“And have you reached any conclusions?” Merriana asked. She waited for his answer with her heart pounding, hoping for… she was not sure what.
Whatever it was, she was not to receive it. Justin ignored her question. Instead, he stood and began to saddle his stallion. “There must be a farmhouse near here where I can buy some food,” he said. “Someone is responsible for storing all this hay here. If you want to run while I’m gone, feel free. I won’t come after you another time.”
Merriana sat alone in the darkness after he had ridden away, wondering over and over again why he had made that last statement.
Chapter 22
Justin returned an hour later with food, blankets, and a lantern. He was soaked to the skin, had paid three times its worth for their provisions, and was furious with himself because more than anything he could think of, he wanted to make love to a woman who gave every appearance of being an adventuress. His mood was not improved by the intensity of the relief that washed over him when he found that Merriana had not left in his absence.
She was just sitting up in the pile of hay when he lit the lantern, and the yellow light instantly sought her golden hair and danced in it like a thousand ecstatic fireflies. The blue of her eyes had been deepened by sleep, and Justin felt his desire awaken despite all his efforts to tamp it down.
“You’re back,” Merriana mumbled groggily.
“Have a nice nap?” he asked, then dumped the blankets on the hay.
“There wasn’t anything else to do. Is it still raining?”
“No, I’m soaked to the skin because I decided to go for a swim fully clothed.”
“My goodness, you’re irritable,” Merriana noted. “Is that shepherd’s pie I smell?”
“Yes, although it ought to be called ‘Emperor’s Pie’ considering what I paid for it. A more greedy farmer I’ve never met.” He’d been spreading a blanket on the floor but looked up at Merriana and felt some of his anger dissipating, although his desire had not. She obviously had been sleeping on her stomach. Bits of hay clung to the fabric of her bodice, and Justin found himself staring when she paused to brush them away from the soft green velvet. He looked away only when Merriana pushed herself to her feet and began to investigate the basket of food. A second later she was tearing into a warm loaf of bread.
He forced restraint into his voice. “How long since you’ve eaten, Mary-Merriana?”
She paused to think. “Last night. My uncle gave me some cheese and bread and wine.”
She had said just what he needed to give him an excuse to dampen his rising passion.
“Is that the same wine you drugged to give to Antonia?”
Merriana sighed as she slowly placed the bread back in the basket and then turned to regard Justin. “I didn’t drug the wine,” she said, exasperation for his suspicions clear in her tone. “My uncle did that. And I didn’t want to give it to her, but she begged me to. He wouldn’t let me loosen the ropes otherwise, and he had tied them much too tightly.”
His eyes narrowed. “I saw her wrists and ankles. Tell me, Merriana, if you weren’t his accomplice, why don’t your wrists and ankles have rope burns like Antonia’s did?”
“He didn’t have to tie me. He used Antonia as a weapon against me. If I had not followed his instructions, he would have killed her.”
“Which you almost did anyway. She’s alive today only because someone underestimated by a fraction of an ounce just how much of the drug it would take to end her life.”
Merriana sighed, her head drooping under the burden of his accusations. “You don’t want to believe in me, do you Justin? You much prefer to think me guilty.”
“Strangely enough, Merriana, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, I really do want to believe you. I might even do so had I not seen you accept part of Antonia’s ransom money.”
Merriana’s head jerked up and her eyes widened as she realized that Justin had watched while she had unwillingly taken those coins from her uncle. “I can explain that,” she said quickly.
“Oh, I’m sure you could, my dear. I’ll grant you one thing. You have one of the most inventive minds I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.”
His reaction was much as Merriana had expected. Suspicion had never been far from the surface in dealings between them. Still, she had hoped he could give her the benefit of the doubt. Two days ago, he had appeared to trust her unquestioningly, yet today he believed her capable of trying to murder his stepsister.
Continuing to plead her innocence would only harden his opinion, she feared, so she quit trying. She sank onto the blanket and, feeling his scathing gaze on her, picked up a plate of shepherd’s pie with an unsteady hand only to find that, after all, she wasn’t really very hungry. She set it back down.
“Eat,” he commanded as he too sat on the blanket that held their supper. “I’m hungry, whether you are or not. But I suggest you eat either way. I don’t intend to ride back out for breakfast in the morning.”
Merriana had picked up the plate and fork and started toward her mouth with a bite of the rapidly cooling food when his mention of the morrow reminded her that she had no idea what her tomorrow would hold. She carefully replaced her fork on the plate, noting that it rattled a bit due to the tremble she could no longer control. “Justin?”
“Yes?” He didn’t look up from his dinner, and Merriana found that she had to moisten her lips before she could continue.
“Do you plan to have me arrested?”
“No.”
Merriana exhaled a breath she had not realized she was holding. “Then what are your intentions?”
“I plan to let you go, of course.”
He had surprised her, that much was certain. “What do you mean?” she asked, certain his plans were more convoluted than he was willing to say.
“I’m sorry—I
didn’t realize I was being obtuse. I plan to allow you to do whatever you wish, go wherever you desire. You are free. I suggest you spend the night here and then leave in the morning for whatever destination you might choose.”
Merriana stared into his eyes for long seconds before daring to believe he spoke the truth. She had heard too many stories about the horrors of Newgate not to fear its specter. “I don’t know how to leave,” she said. “I don’t know where we are.”
Justin sighed. “Very well. I can lead you to a village about five miles from here where you can buy a ticket on a coach. Will that suffice?”
Merriana forced herself to look into his eyes. He watched her with an expression in his gaze that she couldn’t decipher. “Yes,” she said, running her tongue over her dry lips. “That will be fine.”
“I don’t usually give in to morbid curiosity, but in this case I will. Where do you plan to go?”
Merriana took a few seconds too long in deciding just how much she should confide in him about her plans, and he obviously decided she preferred secrecy.
“Very well,” he said sharply. “Obviously you don’t wish to tell me. I won’t ask again. But if I may make a suggestion? Wherever you decide to go, be sure that it is far away from me and from Antonia. I don’t ever want her to see you again. Is that clear?”
She nodded. “I understand,” she whispered. “You will never have to see me again.”
She found it nearly impossible to sleep that night, with her only comfort being that Justin’s rest was equally as fitful. She could hear him twisting on his blanket several feet away. Not wanting to reveal her own inability to rest, she lay as still as possible and prayed for dawn to come with all possible speed.
The sun had barely begun poking thin slivers of light through the dissipating clouds when she and Justin mounted and began riding through the forest toward the village where she was to catch her ride. They spoke only when necessary, although Merriana, on more than one occasion, opened her mouth to attempt an explanation for her hesitation the night before. Then she’d recall the finality of his words and would close her mouth again.
The inn where she was to catch the stage was a small place, not much larger than the Drake and Cock. “I’ll not come inside with you,” Justin informed her when he had led her up to the front door. “I’m sure you’ll wish to purchase your ticket in private.”
“Justin,” Merriana began, deciding at last that she really must try to discuss her plans with him.
But Justin had already wheeled his horse around and was riding away. She watched until he rounded a curve and disappeared from her view before she turned with a sigh to enter the inn and buy her ticket.
Finding a home for the horse her uncle Ernest had provided her was her next hurdle, for she didn’t want to desert the poor old swayback nag. She would gladly have given him to the innkeeper, but feared to make the offer lest that gentleman assume the horse was stolen. So she decided instead to try to sell the animal and, after a bit of haggling, the innkeeper was content to buy the horse for about half of its value, and Merriana was then free to order breakfast and sit down to await her transportation.
The wait was long, which was unfortunate, for Merriana was finding her spirits sinking with each passing minute. Within an hour, she’d decided that she wanted nothing so much as to give in to the despair she could no long ignore—to rent a room in this tiny inn in this remote village and to spend the rest of her life sitting within its four walls and mourning her losses.
But she had knowledge that must be shared with Charles, who was, she realized, almost certainly in grave danger from their uncle’s designs on Sylvester’s money. And so she forced herself to stand when the coach was announced, and to move outside into the caustic brightness of the day, and to climb into the coach that would take her to London and, hopefully, to Charles. She only prayed that she could find Charles soon and that, when she did, he would believe her story.
It was noon before Justin arrived back at Hilltops, and Mrs. Chesterson met him in the front hall.
“Miss Antonia is fine,” she informed him quickly. Then, when he asked for particulars, she continued. “She first woke up about three hours after you left yesterday and began asking for you and someone called Merriana. I recalled the doctor saying she might be confused so I just told her you both would be here shortly. That seemed to satisfy her and she dropped back off to sleep and slept through the night.
“This morning when she woke up, she seemed much more alert, but she was still asking for you and this Merriana person. I told her that you were away and I had no idea who Merriana was. Then she began asking for Tom and Luke, so I sent to the inn for them. They’re with her now. I hope I did the right thing, but it seemed best to try to pacify her until you got back.”
“You did very well, Mrs. Chesterson. I’ll see her now, and then I want to get cleaned up. Would you have a light luncheon ready for me in about an hour?”
“I certainly will, my lord.” Then, as Justin started for the stairs, “My lord?”
Justin turned.
“Did you find that Frenchwoman you went after?”
“No,” Justin told her. “She got away.”
Mrs. Chesterson was shaking her head sadly as Justin mounted the stairs toward Antonia’s room.
Antonia looked hale but not happy. “Justin,” she cried as he entered her room. “I’m so glad you’re back. Did you bring Merriana with you?”
Justin stopped at the foot of her bed. Tom and Luke were seated on either side of it, and they were regarding him as expectantly as was Antonia.
“Merriana is not with me,” Justin told them. “I caught up with her but I didn’t bring her back with me.”
“Where is she?” Antonia demanded.
“By now she should be on a stage. She didn’t enlighten me regarding her destination.”
“Tom and Luke say you thought she was part of the kidnapping plot, but that’s impossible. She saved my life.”
Antonia explained to Justin, as she had to Tom and Luke, about Merriana’s pouring the wine into the dirt and then having Antonia pretend to drink much more than was left in the cup.
“So that proves she had no part in my kidnapping.”
“I’m afraid not, Antonia. It could have been planned between her and her accomplice to make it appear that she was innocent.”
“That’s nonsense, Justin. Merriana would never have done anything to hurt me. Why can’t you see that?”
“Because of what I did see when I caught up with her yesterday. She and her uncle had obviously decided to go their separate ways, and their parting appeared quite amiable. In addition to that, I watched as he handed Merriana a portion of the ransom money.”
Even Tom’s expression showed glimmers of doubt at that piece of news, but Antonia was unimpressed. “Why shouldn’t she take money from him if he offered it to her? Perhaps she meant to return it to you. Did you ask her if she had planned to return to Hilltops?”
“She claimed that she had intended to, yes, but she was traveling in the opposite direction. I believe she had planned to leave the country.”
“Then why didn’t you bring her back with you?” Tom asked.
“What for? To have her arrested? I didn’t want to do that, despite all that she’d done. And I didn’t want her around Antonia anymore. So I let her go. She had a destination in mind, but she wouldn’t share it with me, so there’s no more to be said. Now, if you three will allow me, I’m going to go take a bath and get something to eat.”
He hurried from the room, leaving Antonia and Tom and Luke to gaze at each other in surprise. “He’s obviously touchy about it,” Luke observed.
“Very,” Tom agreed.
“That’s because he knows he’s wrong,” Antonia stated flatly. “Merriana saved my life and he’s treating her like a criminal. And I don’t care what he says, if it’s ever possible, I plan to see her again someday.”
Chapter 23
It was almost nine
in the evening before Merriana’s slow-moving coach arrived in London, and Merriana felt rumpled, exhausted, and thoroughly out of patience with her fellow travelers. She had been flirted with by law clerks traveling on their masters’ business, interrogated by farmers’ wives traveling to visit relatives, and studiously ignored by a very prim governess who had apparently decided on the basis of Merriana’s looks that she was no better than she should be.
Now, standing alone at the front door with only the clothes on her back, as she had stood on another occasion, Merriana felt as frightened as she had the first time she had approached her uncle Sylvester. Her hand was less than steady as she sounded the heavy brass knocker.
But her luck had changed for the better. Daniels opened the door, took one look at her, and smiled more broadly than she had ever seen him do.
“Miss Merriana,” he exclaimed in delighted tones. “How lovely to see you. Come in.”
Merriana stepped inside her uncle’s elegantly decorated hallway and felt like crying with relief and the sense of having come home, but she forced herself to appear calm. “How are you, Daniels?”
“Very well, thank you, miss. I had thought you to be with His Grace in the country. Is His Grace well?”
“Yes,” Merriana replied, praying her answer was true. “Yes, he is fine, but I need very much to see Charles. Do you know where he is?”
“Why, yes, Miss Merriana. He’s in the library. Shall I announce you?”
“Is he alone?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Then I believe I’ll go on back. Thank you, Daniels.”
Merriana tapped on the library door and heard Charles bid her enter. She was not sure what reaction to expect from him. She anticipated surprise. She prayed he would not be angry or hostile.
Charles was seated behind the large walnut desk near the windows, a stack of correspondence in front of him, but he jumped to his feet when he saw who had just stepped into the room. “Merriana,” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay at Hilltops. Is something wrong?”
The Mysterious Merriana Page 19
