by Susan Ward
They both understood the deeper meaning of that comment. Lucien Merrick met his brother’s eyes. The worry he felt was unconcealed in Andrew’s expression. He shook his head. “It is as if he’s worked at nothing else since quitting England.” He lifted a sheet and scanned it. “It is a puzzle. It is not meant to make sense. Look at the tally of those he holds credit for. The notes he’s purchased. Such an odd assortment of men he has maneuvered into indebtedness of him. Whitehall. The admiralty. Parliament. Bankers. Titans of Commerce. I wonder if they even know he is the man they are indebted to.”
Andrew shrugged. He had thought it best not to probe further before speaking to his brother. Lucien’s reaction was not unlike his own as the pieces of this had started to pull together. It was baffling and it was grim; grim to see a well laid plan and know not what it represented. Even grimmer was the sensation that Varian had led him here and wanted them to find all this. It had fallen into Andrew’s lap too easily.
Wryly, Andrew stated, “So, Lucien, I think it is safe that we may put aside the concern he married Merry for her fortune.”
Lucien laughed gruffly. “He could buy and sell us both, Andrew. And worse he knows it. No wonder the blackguard was so amused by my discussion of settlement contracts. He must have been laughing at me the entire time over my confusion of his refusal to accept settlement for Merry.” His eyes sharpened. His expression stiffened. “This is not an aimless pursuit. This is a battle plan. This took time and patience to construct and conceal so expertly. It smacks of something sinister. There must be a connection among these men, though I admit I cannot see it now! He is garnering influence over the men of our government, Andrew, do not doubt it. Holding them in debt and maneuvering them God knows where. But why? Find out Andrew. Whatever this is, I don’t want Merry in the middle of it.”
Andrew pulled another document from his valise. “This was slipped under the door at the rooms I have in keeping.”
Lucien arched a brow. Andrew had stayed in Town with his mistress and not their mother. “So, you did not make call upon our mother while there? We will be hearing from her soon enough about this hideous hole-in-corner marriage and our unwillingness to take her counsel in this.”
“I saw mother the last day. She had much to say about many things, Lucien. She sent me with a correspondence to you. I was wise not to join her at Merrick Hall. She is suspicious and plotting something, and as shrewd as ever. I did not want her watchful eyes trying to make reason of the haste of my endeavors. My investigation of Windmere is only a small part of what occupied my energies while in London. I thought it best to keep my purpose of this journey one unlikely to be speculated upon.”
Lucien laughed. “Though I imagine you got a lecture regarding having stayed in your rooms.”
Andrew sank into his chair and accepted a glass of brandy from his brother. “I did that. I would not be so gloating on the matter. Mother has sent a correspondence to you, with curt instruction to shove it directly into the hand of that insolent whelp she spawned.”
A chuckled slipped from Lucien, though he fought it. For all her vexing interference in every life she touched, Lucien adored his mother, Margaret. All of London adored Margaret and had for eight decades. The Dowager Duchess of Dorset would not permit otherwise.
Andrew set down his drink and pointed at the sketched cartoon laying on Lucien’s desk. “That is not in circulation as of yet. I think I was its sole intended recipient.”
Lucien eyes rounded. The crude image in flowing black capes was not difficult to distinguish. Varian Deverell. However, it was the verse contained on paper that claimed Lucien’s full attention.
A murderer from shore to shore, claims a gentle bride, from a family he does scorn. Treason, piracy, murderer, thief. He cannot escape justice, behind the skirts of one so sweet.
“Ah. Crude verse. Not a particularly good rhyme.” Lucien set the verse down on his desk. “Have you discovered who sent this?”
“No. Warton is working on it as we speak. There are so many street verses. The streets are flooded with ballads. It seems organized and a deliberate pursuit. There are others about Windmere. Merry. The Merricks. But this one was a warning personally sent to me.”
Lucien studied the sketch again. Why dress Windmere that way, in a flowing cloak of black over such common clothes? Treason? Piracy? Those were not part of those old accusations and rumors. The wheels began to turn in his head and he was not comfortable in the direction it was taking him.
He looked up at his brother. “You said much was going on in London. What other matters are there to concern me.”
Andrew made a detailed and concise report on the accusations that only recently surfaced in the Press. Accusations of crimes and war profiteering among some of the most powerful peers and their government offices. The arrest of Lord Branneth. Castlereagh’s investigation of the war and customs offices. Lord Liverpool’s fury over the Regent’s interference and want to leave matters exclusively in Castlereagh’s hands. Maneuvering and fracturing had already started in Parliament. There was rumor of more arrests yet to come.
Andrew delivered to his brother the rest of Lucien’s correspondence. “There are letters from the Regent, Castlereagh, Liverpool and Montrose. I am sure they will want you in the center, unraveling this coil that is taking hold of England. Oh, and this is from mother. I suggest you read it first.”
As grim as the day’s findings were, Lucien nearly laughed. He took Margaret’s correspondence and sat tapping it against his hand. “What progress have you made on annulment.”
“There will be no interference from the Regent or the Queen and there is enough support if you make petition.”
Lucien nodded. At least one good turn of events this day. He used the opener to cut through his mother’s seal. A moment into the letter, which started insolent whelp, his brother stood up abruptly, his brow furrowed into a scowl.
“Blast,” he growled between gritted teeth.
Andrew said nothing. He knew what the letter contained. He watched Lucien move briskly from the study.
Lucien found his wife busy at work in her flower garden. “Is this your doing, Rhea? Have you taken to plotting behind my back to achieve your own ends?”
Rhea arched a brow, but she was calm. She was used to Lucien’s temper. “Really, Lucien, what a dreadful accusation to make to your wife. I’ve done no such thing. What has you so irritated?”
“We’ve been ordered to London.”
Rhea’s brow puckered in a worried frown. “The Regent?”
“No,” Lucien placed the letter into her hands dusted of hummus and dirt. “Mother.”
“Oh dear,” Rhea said, before anxiously scanning the harshly penned note. There was not much more she could say.
CHAPTER NINE
Rhea gently touched her daughter’s cheek. “Merry? Netta has brought your breakfast. We are leaving for London within the hour.”
Reluctantly, Merry opened her eyes. “I don’t wish to go to London, Mama.”
Rhea arched a brow. “We are going, my dear. Even your father does not dismiss a summons from your grandmother.”
Merry tossed the blankets off. Whatever her grandmother was plotting, she wanted no part of it. No one gave her opinions much notice. It was clear she could refuse to go until two Sundays ran together before anyone would care what she thought. Her father had been impossible to have a rational discussion with. Varian had been no better. Quite simply, he had said we are going. She could not fight them both.
Once bathed and dressed, she went downstairs to the waiting carriages. Merry paused for a moment on the top step. The row of carriages and riders was very long, her parents did not usually do things with such ceremony, and she noticed with the fine livery bestowed of her father’s crest was an equally fine livery with Varian’s crest as well.
The luggage was packed and her family was waiting. The horses were thrashing the moisture softened earth, their haunches with their short cropped tails, and their
rolling massive shoulders straining against their collars betraying they had been standing in the drive for some time.
She went quickly toward her parents’ carriage. Kate stopped her with a gentle hand. “I am to ride with you and His Grace. Your parents are to ride ahead.”
Merry’s jaw tightened, but she allowed Kate to guide her to Varian’s carriage. Everything about this journey would be done in formal and unpleasant correctness. Except perhaps having Kate riding with them. That was neither correct nor reasonable. Pure nonsense forced upon her by her father’s continued apprehension over her marriage to Varian. There were times her father made no sense to her at all.
Shortly after she climbed into the carriage, Varian joined her. It was hard not to have her unease heighten as she rolled in the jolting carriage toward London. There was tension in the air, though no would share with her why her grandmother’s summons had stirred such strange and varied reactions among her family. Nor would they explain why each detail of this endeavor had been handled with special care. Her parents were putting on a flawless show. A perfect charade of rank and celebration of marriage, a marriage that’s future was uncertain at best, and her husband was a more than willing participant. It was a nightmare in every way.
Staring through the window at the melancholy grandeur of the Cornish hills, the sweeping lonely valleys, and the jagged tumble of cleft boulders, through the stark villages, she could not help but wonder why Varian had agreed to this. As bad as the scandal was in Falmouth, it would be worse in London. Why had he insisted on going there?
It was well into night before they stopped at an Inn. Merry was so tired, she did not protest as Varian carried her from the carriage into the slant roof structure of tawny yellow and handed her over to Kate. In her bedchamber, she was helped to bathe, given hot food, and then assisted to a feather bed with a warming pan. In the morning, she opened her eyes to Kate again, and the order was reversed; bed to food to carriage to Varian.
For two days, this was the structure of her life. Exhaustion dulled her to the landscape and the journey. Legs stiff, she would climb from the carriage for her midday meal: tea and toast, with lamb chops or mutton in a small parlor, usually deserted except for her parents.
It was the third day hence and this night they would stop for a two day rest at Deverell House. How that fit into her grandmother’s plotting was anyone’s guess. Her father was absolutely livid about this element of Dowager Duchess of Dorset’s request.
The closer they got to London, for they were but a day’s journey out now, the more scrutiny they received. The notice increased and so did the stares. Merry had forgotten how she must appear—young and woefully unprepared to deal with the scandal tainting her, her family, and Varian. The looks she received back were repelling at times, and she wondered how her parents expected her to manage all this.
She had not been allowed a moment alone with Varian since their journey began. She tried to banish her distress as her husband sat beside her staring straight forward, his posture erect, her little dog settled on the seat between them. Her eyes ran the length of his long body, noting the unbuttoned great-coat and the austere stillness to the imposing arrangement of his facile features. There was not a single thing presently about Varian familiar to Merry. She was rolling head-first into a nightmare with a stranger at her side.
She turned her gaze back out the window. It was a sorry attempt at propriety they made and Merry did not miss one grim detail of it. She was living the result of a year of disgrace and a hole-in-the-corner marriage that fooled no one, and even the quiet elegance of her parents did nothing to diminish any of that.
Her grandmother had ordered them to Merrick Hall. Her grandmother meant to put a coat of white-wash on this shoddy building Merry had made, but it was a shoddy building nonetheless. It was going to be an unbearable torture to be on display before the fashionable set. They had mocked and ridiculed her before this scandal. What fuel she had given them this time. An older husband of ill-repute. A year of speculation and unanswered mystery. It was the kind of fodder London lived for. They would be brutal to her in this.
The journey filled her with dread and anxiousness. She wished she had spent the last three nights in the comfort of Varian’s arms instead of sleeping in a bed next to Kate. She wished they had never returned to England. She wished he loved her…if wishes were horses… she cut off her thoughts. Merry had fast learned that no good would ever come from wishing for what one could never have.
They were several hours from Deverell House. Afternoon came a brilliant orange ribbon on the horizon. Inside the carriage there was silence. Reality slipped away in swiftly vanishing stabs. Mercifully behind it there was sleep.
~~~
The sound of dozens of bells vigorously ringing slowly roused Merry from sleep. Lifting her face from Varian’s thigh, she sat up in the carriage. Her drowsy eyes slowly focused on the crowds surrounding them.
She made a frantic look out of each side of the carriage. There were people everywhere, lining up and down the road, standing on cold cobbles to witness their passing. She had never seen such a display before. Not even for her parents. Not even for the Regent. It was quite simply overwhelming.
She looked at Varian. “Why are there so many people? We are nowhere near London.”
Varian’s smile was amused. “We’ve been traveling on my land for an hour, Merry. This is my home. I’ve been gone nearly ten years. It’s little wonder people turned out this day. Though I more suspect they are here to see you.”
“Me?”
Comprehension came in slow, disturbing waves. Her marriage to Varian was not a private affair, no matter how she wished it would be. Somehow reality had a way of being tempered at Bramble Hill. She was no longer Meredith Ann Merrick. She was the Duchess of Windmere. Strange that that should not have occurred to her until today.
As they rolled on, Merry caught quick view of a face here and there. They were ebullient like the workers on the Merrick farm had been. In alarm, she realized why, the importance of Varian’s marriage to them. On her shoulders rested their hope for the restoration of a great family and the restoration of a man. It shone in their eyes as they watched the carriages pass.
She looked up at Varian. His hand moved over hers in a manner she was sure he meant merely to be reassuring. But there was much on his face, in the shadowy depth of his eyes not fully concealed, and she half suspected he didn’t know it. Frowning, she wondered what returning to England must feel like to him. The danger of his task. The torment of his past. The ugly suspicions and the accusations that haunted him, striking at a heart devoted to a woman long gone, a woman she feared still claimed him.
She was reminded of the words he’d spoken to her in the cabin on the Corinthian the night they’d married. He had told her long ago he had no wish to return here. He had not wanted his unpleasant history in England to touch her, and yet here they were, his marriage to her fanning the flames of those old accusations and suspicions against him. Reluctantly, she admitted parts of that dreadful recitation held new meaning and less cut within her heart, for she now understood more than she had then, his reaction to the truth of who she was and all the implications it held for him.
No matter the broken feelings between them, she loved this man, in their worst moments she could not escape that pressing truth, and her love would not permit her to ignore that in measure, she added to the unrelenting scandal which tainted him. A scandal untrue and without mercy it its ability to hurt him. It was a small thing to do for him, she told herself, staring up at his aloof countenance so regal even in this misery. If it could dampen even a part of the added sordidness their marriage brought to those grim denunciations, then it was worth an effort by her to at least try. She had watched her mother enough to know how to do this well.
“Stop the carriage,” she said suddenly.
She’d surprised Varian. It showed in the dark depths of his eyes. “It’s been a long day, Merry. You must be tired. We shou
ld really get to the house so you may rest.”
She lightly touched his face. “Please, Varian, stop the carriage.”
Varian gave a tap on the ceiling. The carriage rolled to a stop. When the door was opened, the steps were pulled down and she was surprised to find Mr. Pitt, garbed in the Deverell livery, there to assist her. She had only a moment to wonder where Pitt had come from and why he was here, before her tiny legs had carried her toward the line of people.
All through the journey to London she had silently told herself over and over she would not be afraid. She would not be cowed by the ton’s cruelty. She would maintain her dignity at all cost as they ripped at her with their vile rumors and speculation.
Now surrounded by these welcoming souls and filled with a purpose she understood, Merry was not afraid. Men stripped off their hats, white aprons began to bob and children stared at her in wonder as she moved among them. With each step she made some gesture. A wayward touch on a child’s head. The unveiling of her dazzling smile. She spoke a brief word here and there.
They had only gone a short walk before her arms were overflowing with flowers. She turned to hand them to Mr. Pitt and found Varian standing patiently behind her, his great dark eyes shimmering discreetly with tenderness. The way he looked at her took her breath away and she felt a change all through her.
For a moment, her thoughts took her back to another walk she’d shared with Varian, so long ago on Barataria, and in this moment she felt it in her heart as rich and fully as she had that day.
“How far of a walk is it to Deverell House?” she asked.
Varian smiled. “It’s a good walk. Nothing more.”
Willing temperance to her breathing, she lowered her eyes and said, “I could use a bit of walking and a touch of sun on my face.”
Varian leaned into her, gently gathering the flowers from her arms. His face for a moment was close beside her ear, so close that the touch of his breath against her flesh made her shiver. She wondered if he would kiss her, and then he eased back to put her flowers into Pitt’s arms. “Pitt, send the carriages on ahead. Her Grace wishes to walk the rest of the way. And I wish to watch her.”
