by Susan Ward
Merry studied the woman, and knew at once the cause of Regina’s sudden interest in her. So Morgan had yet another mistress in America.
“We are going to be fabulous friends,” Regina chirped.
I wouldn’t count on it, Merry thought, forcing herself to smile.
Back at the inn, in the custody of a strange woman, Merry found herself sitting at a table listening to a ridiculous stream of endless drivel. When Regina wasn’t probing about Merry’s fictitious marriage, the woman’s mind was focused on all the things that bored Merry. Gossip, the arts, fashion, and the latest books. None of the subjects of this woman’s table talk were ones Merry was fond of.
Wondering how to extradite herself from this annoying creature, Merry looked up to find Morgan closing in on the table. There was nothing on his face that betrayed it, but oh he was furious. Merry’s eyes dropped quickly to her cup.
Regina looked up and exclaimed, “Ah, Varian, returned from sea at last and as full of surprises as ever.”
And then Morgan smiled at both women as though not a single thing about this occurrence was troubling in any way. “I would say this surprise is no surprise at all.”
It was the kind of thing Merry had long discovered Morgan was likely to say, a slightly preposterous ambiguous gambit that was impossible for her to make reason of. Regina’s eyes began to flash. Obviously not impossible to decipher for her.
Morgan pulled back Merry’s chair. “I’m sure you’re tired from your day, Little One. Run along to our room. I’ll be there shortly.”
Merry was only too willing to run. Alone in their bedchamber, the first impulse to claim her was to break something. Instead, she went to stare out the window at the bustling city below. If ever a chance to escape Morgan had presented itself, it was now. She didn’t doubt he’d be well occupied for some time with Regina, and she could disappear into the crowds below before he ever discovered her missing.
She should run from him. She made no move toward the door.
A handful of minutes later, the door opened and Morgan entered.
“I apologize for that,” he said.
Merry whirled from the window. “It matters naught to me. I don’t need your apologies. I am only your hostage and a fiction here.” What was wrong with her? She sounded like an angry wife. “I am surprised you were not kept occupied below longer.”
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Let it go, she told herself. You are behaving like a fool. Why couldn’t she control these chaotic emotions inside her?
Something in how Morgan looked at her made her internal unrest whirl faster. His voice, quiet and gentle, surprised her as much as his words. “It is never my intent at any moment to distress you, Merry. I hope you know that.”
“You cannot help but to distress me. You are my captor.”
“I wish to be more than that for you.”
“I wish only my freedom.”
“Do you?” he asked.
There was a short silence while she looked at him. Slowly his hand lifted, and she realized he had touched a tear from her cheek. Why did it have to be so painful to be a woman? She looked away.
“What an unexpected creature you are, Merry. But I would not change you in a single way.”
With heavy meaning of her own, she replied, “I am what I am, Varian. And you are what you are. I doubt anything will ever change that.”
Darn, why had she said that! She had only succeeded in amusing him further.
“Then in this battle we both win. A war where everyone wins.”
Another of his preposterous remarks. Her frustration with him made Merry want to scream. She watched him move away from her to pour a glass of wine and then sink into a chair.
In a rapid shift back to equanimity, he asked, “Would you care to go to the theater tonight, Little One? The play is a farce and sure to agree with your politics.”
“I don’t care to go anywhere with you.”
His smile was beguiling. “When will you have the opportunity to experience American theater again? I can see that you want to go, Little One. Why fight me in this? It is just the right entertainment after creating insurrection in a shop of books.”
That made Merry color profusely. How did Morgan know about the hullabaloo at the book shop? Merry’s gaze narrowed on his face. Regina, no doubt.
Lifting her nose in the air, she said, “I did not create insurrection.”
His gaze fixed on her in a wandering hold. His voice was a husky whisper. “I cannot imagine what it is like to feel even a single thing as thoroughly as you feel all things. To exist inside of your brilliant extremes.”
Willing temperance to her breathing, Merry said, “And I cannot imagine what it would be like to feel nothing.”
Morgan arched a brow. “Is that how you see me?”
“How else?”
His eyes were glowing above a small smile. “A flesh and blood man, Merry. No more. No less.”
CHAPTER TWO
The theater that night was crowded and hot. It wasn’t long after being shown to their private box Merry forgot her displeasure over Morgan. Adding to her peevishness at being ordered to join him on this adventure, was the greater annoyance that he had actually selected for her the gown she wore this night.
It was a graceful, sophisticated garment in black. The maid Morgan had gotten to assist her in bathing and dressing had gone so far as to artfully arrange her curls atop her head with sparkling combs of diamonds. With the unexpected arrival of the combs were diamond earrings, which now dangled from her ears. Both had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere.
Morgan’s dark and elegant figure claimed the full attention of the theater from the moment he stepped through the columned doors. She suffered a long line of introductions as Merry Devereaux. He was so convincing in his tale Merry nearly half believed it as truth herself, before the curtain even lifted.
Merry soon discovered American society was no less irritating than society in England. Light, superficial interchanges, the flattery, the cunningly made invitations of bold women to Varian and their false smiles to her.
It fascinated Merry how little Morgan seemed to care for all this. He had carefully crafted a persona of the American gentry’s class. Yet, this bored him.
Seated beside Morgan, the rowdy enthusiasm all around her quickly turned Merry’s focus away from Morgan and onto the activities on stage. American theater was a boisterous event.
Laughing in delight, she spread her arms atop the box’s wall, leaning her chin on her hands as she studied every detail in rapt attention with dancing eyes. She was sitting on her knees in her chair to maintain her careful balance, since at the intermission she had preferred to remain in their box to watch the people below.
It was not until nearly the end of the final act that Merry glanced over her shoulder to look at Morgan. She had all but forgotten him during the whimsy of the night.
Something in how he sat, in the shimmering blackness of his eyes, told her he had watched nothing but her through this. Butterflies filled her stomach. They were fixed upon her as they had been in Ireland, and tonight he was letting her see it. The response of her flesh was instant. The hold of his eyes made her tingle and burn.
The smile faded from Merry’s face. She searched for something to say. “You do not like the play?” she asked.
“Seditious and anti-monarchal.” His eyes turned enticing. “I prefer to watch the performance not on stage.”
She drew a quick breath. “And what performance would that be?”
He smiled. “Watching Merry has become one of my most cherished pursuits.”
His gaze slowly melted into a caress. In a breath, she was pulled with him into a shockingly intimate moment. The air caught in her throat. How was it possible that so effortlessly he could make the world change?
She stared at him. He looked the same. The air she breathed was the same. Her circumstance was still not comforting. Her earlier anger at him was justifi
ed. Yet, the subtle altering of his gaze made her feel weightless and held to earth only by him.
It was impossible to enjoy the festivities after that. Merry tried to focus on the performers, but she couldn’t calm her capering senses with the burning touch of Morgan’s eyes never leaving her. She was more than a little relieved when the evening’s entertainments concluded, and Morgan announced it was time to return to the inn.
In the carriage, Merry was silent. When things changed in her world they changed quickly, and she was no more able to make reason of this change than she had been with most things since Morgan’s advent into her life. She knew he was watching her, she could feel him watching her, and it was strange the effect when he let her see his eyes upon her.
Merry stared stonily out the window, half praying he would leave off on the staring, and half praying she could rally the composure to look at him.
Carefully, she altered the tilt of her head and shifted her eyes so she could see him. His black stare caught her, locked on her eyes, and effortlessly held her to him. She couldn’t withdraw her gaze from Varian, it was mesmerizing and luring, and she wished she had never met it.
He burns. He is burning for me, she realized in wonder and dismay.
The expression in his eyes banished forever all doubt over what Morgan wanted from her. This was no game he played with her. His acts were the artful moves of a man who knew how to guide a woman to him.
Varian’s eyes were lush with promise, fluid pools of tenderness and want. Understanding of him came to her at last, snippets of words he breathed between them capered through her memory. A chide reminded her of how he always pulled back when her body raged in his arms disobedient to her will, and only his restraint rescued her from being a willing fool in his bed. She had thought him unruffled by every flashing passionate encounter, indifferent and untouched, but she’d been wrong about him from the start.
He burned for her, and it was his innate elegance and composure that left her believing him unaffected by her.
The expression in his gaze when he had watched her dance she now understood with greater maturity and awareness. And tonight, he burned for her and was letting her see it.
What Merry saw on Varian’s face turned her insides to melting liquid. The pull of his gaze was glorious and terrifying all at once.
She felt the feather light glide of his thumb across her cheek. The whispering gentleness of his touch made her ache. “Don’t be afraid, Little One. In this, you are mistress of both our fates.”
A shudder passed through Merry, and she lowered her gaze quickly from the drawing iridescence of his eyes. She couldn’t answer him; her mind could not catch and form words. What good would words do her anyway? It was too late for words. Too late to escape him. Too late to stop herself from loving him.
She suspected Varian knew that, and it was why he didn’t reclaim the glow of desire back behind the shadowy darkness of his eyes. Despair was curling around her in crushing bands as she turned away from him.
Immersed in panic and anguish, she turned back toward the window, praying the carriage would reach the inn so she could run from him. The second it stopped, she leapt out and ran, ran through the lobby and up the stairs, until she reached their bedchamber.
Inside, she bolted the door and leaned her forehead against the frame. She burst into tears. How wrong she had been. It was not better that he cared for her. It was worse. If she surrendered to him there would be nothing left of the girl she had been in Falmouth, and she will have failed her father, at last, completely.
~~~
When Merry woke the next morning, Varian was not in the room. She sat up in bed and something about the feel of the air told her he had not joined her last night. He had let her run from him, and then left her alone in her discoveries.
Staggered as much from at last understanding him as she had always been in her confusion of him, she waited for the voice of reason to tell her what to do. There had to be a way to work free of this desperate entanglement she had too foolishly allowed herself to become entrapped in. When inspiration did not come, she rose, washed, and dressed.
She sat on the edge of the bed for some while. She needed to stop behaving like a coward. Morgan was not the first man to have pursued her. She quickly dismissed that thought for the foolishness it was.
Varian was no ordinary man. He had been masterful in each move he’d made. He had spun the trap so well, she had not even seen the spinning. Indy had warned her. Why hadn’t she listened? She was trapped. Trapped by him and by her heart, which seemed determined to betray her at every turn.
When a half turn of the clock passed, she decided to abandon her wait for Varian and go alone to the dining parlor. The room was nearly empty when she entered.
Sitting at her table, she stared at the door. She could leave before Varian returned and run to the American authorities. She lowered her eyes to the menu.
It boasted Liberty teas meant to be a substitute for imported teas from England. She found herself foolishly ordering all three carried by the establishment. A tea made of strawberry leaves, a tea made of raspberry leaves, and one made of the currant plant.
Nearly finished with her breakfast, again she sat staring at the door. Run, Merry, run, she warned herself. She refilled her teacup, realizing the day had slipped to midmorning. She had lingered over her meal a ridiculous length of time. She wondered why Varian hadn’t returned, and then she knew that Varian had left her to her own devices, purposely.
Every move he made was calculated. She wondered what point he wished to make leaving her alone for the morning. It was surely another of his games, but Merry had fast learned his games were not without purpose.
It was not until she returned to the bedchamber that she found Varian, fresh faced and elegantly garbed, awaiting her. She was disappointed in herself, yet again this morning, when the first thought that flashed her mind was to wonder where he had spent his night.
Fixing on him casually reclined in a chair, looking rested and handsome, was more than a little disquieting. Her flash of jealousy and anger were both unwelcomed emotions. She covered her discomposure by moving to the window to stare out at the street below.
From behind her, Varian softly remarked, “You’re still here. I’d hoped you would be, Little One.”
His voice had an unfamiliar quality that stirred strange reactions all through her. For some reason, she was caught in an odd sort of shyness. Why she should feel shyness in facing him now was anyone’s guess, but shy she felt. A sweet feminine shyness that moved through her restless limbs, baffling in every way.
Merry turned from the window. “Do I even have a choice, but to be here?”
A hush fell. A minute passed before Varian rose and crossed the room to her. With kind and gentle eyes, he said, “There is always a choice, Little One. As I said, in this you are mistress of both our fates.”
Temptation held out his hand. Merry stared at Varian’s long, tanned fingers. She couldn’t stop herself. She took it.
~~~
Varian’s home in Virginia was a sprawling plantation named Winderly. The house was a stunning red brick and white column neoclassical, surrounded by elegant lawns and gardens. There were five thousand acres of tobacco and mixed crops, and thick groves of ancient trees of oak, pitch pine, cedar and cottonwood.
The house sat on a small rise, in the middle of the twenty thousand acres he owned. A dramatic view in every direction of sweeping valleys, forests that ran to the river’s edge, of workers’ cottage rows, and diligently tended flower gardens. It was breathtaking, the rugged naturalness of the land spotted of elegantly carved parcels here and there. There were expertly tended walks and carriage roads. The shear vastness of the land he owned, and the wealth it contained, was unthinkable in scale in England.
This was a house where happiness could dwell.
What dwelled inside of Winderly were the Devereaux sisters. Aline and April were small, round, blond, and impetuous. Two more unw
orldly and harmless women, Merry was sure could not be found anywhere. They swallowed the lie that she was the Captain’s wife, as effortlessly as they had swallowed the lie a decade ago that Varian was their cousin.
This was an impossibility since Varian Devereaux was nothing more than another of Morgan’s fabrications. A fabrication he wove to perfection, with the trust of two spinsters and what they termed his gallant rescue of them from their poverty.
Her first morning at Winderly found Merry sitting on the back porch, skirts hiked up over knees like the sisters had instructed to catch the cooling breeze, sipping apple cider as the women tried to explain the Devereaux family history.
Aline smoked a pipe when Varian couldn’t see her and paused over it, staring through the swirl of smoke at Merry. Her expression was partly perplexed and partly child-like. “It was such a sudden thing, Merry,” she said. “So long ago, it is hard to remember it all exactly.”
April nodded. “Sudden or not, it saved us sister.”
“Yes, indeed it did. You see, Merry, we were unmarried and without protection when our father died. And the care of the estate was left quite properly in our nephew’s hands.”
“Jeffrey was quite without character, we soon discovered,” April chimed in.
“Then one day we found ourselves without family, without wealth and without hope,” Aline recalled sadly. “We thought we’d be forced to leave Winderly, and then, as if by miracle, there on our doorstep is a Charleston cousin we know nothing about. Cousin Varian was the new and rightful owner of our home here, and more than willing to permit us to remain.”
“Our father was not one to worry over much about the future care of his daughters,” April put in grimly. “We rarely saw him in our childhood, no more than once a year at that, and knew nothing of his family. Not that we had a cousin and not that he would come to our aid.” A frown gathered on her face as she looked up from her sewing. “Though that is the part that always confuses me, Aline. Exactly how Varian is our cousin. What is he? Second? Third? I always get lost in the theology.”
