by Susan Ward
Trimming a thread from the Tambour, which April had left dangling overly long, Aline said, “I’m never at all clear about the connection. It only makes sense when Cousin Varian explains it. Such an intelligent young man.”
Young man? Merry stifled a smirk over that. The sisters doted on him, as though he were a beloved younger brother, and somehow were unable to see the man he was before them.
“He is nothing like Charles,” said April firmly. “Such a dissolute man.”
Merry looked up from her task of shelling peas. “Charles?”
April had a blank look on her face. “Charles? Did I say Charles? Who is Charles, Aline?”
Her sister patted her hand. “Our father, April. Father, my dear. Go back to your sewing.”
It took only a single day for Merry to learn there were times April was not all there in her faculties. Her memory came and went with spurts, and she was dependent, in many ways, on her sister’s care. They were the perfect unwitting fools to participate in Morgan’s deception.
She would have been furious with Varian for taking advantage of the goodness of these harmless women, if the sisters didn’t adore him, and if he were not the only thing standing between them and poverty.
April did not go back to her sewing. She sat there gnawing on her lip in that way she had, when her confused memory frightened her. It was then Aline tapped the Richmond paper she was holding, and exclaimed, “Ah, sister, there is a story here of our favorite villain.”
April’s expression changed into one of enthusiasm. “Oh, do read. Do read.”
“Villain?” Merry asked.
“Captain Morgan,” Aline announced. “Quite a hero and curiosity in America. Do the English papers carry stories of our dashing rogue?”
For as long as Merry could remember, she’d read stories about Morgan. How strange it was now Varian was real to her, stranger still to hear these dear spinsters an ocean away from her followed his exploits with the same enthusiasm. The world at times was a very small place, and women, at times, similar in spite of age or history.
Misinterpreting her expression, April announced quickly, “I imagine not, Aline. He could not possible be the hero in England he is here. What mischief has he been up to this time?” April looked at Merry. “We do so love the stories of him and his mischief against the British. Though I suspect you do not appreciate them, being British yourself.”
Aline folded the paper as if to put it away. “I will read it to you later, sister, after supper.”
Merry smiled. “You do not have to wait on my account. Please read, Aline.”
“Well, if you don’t mind.” Aline unfolded the paper in a flourish and chewed on the tip of her pipe. She scanned the print excitedly. “Well, well, well. This is from November. It seems that the latest victim of the Corinthian was the British ship Morning Star. Apparently after ransacking the decks, stealing the cargo, and using the Captain’s hat for target practice, our nefarious villain had his liberty with the Captain’s wife. Carried her below decks he did, and after being forced to endure unspeakable acts, the woman, quite clearly unstrung, refused to return to her husband’s ship.”
April frowned. “Unspeakable acts. What do you imagine that to mean?” She asked, turning her eyes on Merry with the eager curiosity of a little girl provided opportunity to have the secrets of the universe revealed to her.
Both women were now staring at Merry. Merciful Heavens, they were waiting for her to explain unspeakable acts! Their want of her to inform them on this was almost as absurd as the fact the story was untrue. She’d been with Varian on the Corinthian in November. There had been no Morning Star. No Captain’s wife. No unspeakable acts. That last thought made her blush.
The sisters cackled like naughty school girls. It was Aline who said, “We are all family here, Merry, and we are all women. We have never been married and our mother—”
“A woman of loose virtue,” April broke in. “But unfortunately tight lipped.”
“Our mother died before she could explain this,” Aline finished sadly.
Merry tensed before the expectant stares fixed upon her. It would hardly serve to tell them she didn’t know much more than they did. Reluctantly, she decided to share with them the practical terms Grandmamma Merrick had used in this. “You have seen the animals on the farm mate? It is no different with people.”
The sister’s rounded their eyes in unison.
“No,” April exclaimed shocked. “Why do woman do allow it? It cannot be a pleasant thing.”
Wishing out of this conversation, with a firm nod Merry said, “Duty. The forced submission of marriage.”
That made sense to the sisters, but somehow that belief made less sense to Merry. It wasn’t duty that made her melt beneath Varian’s touch. It wasn’t duty that made her welcome his kisses. It wasn’t duty that made her want him. It wasn’t duty that kept her from running from him. And it certainly wasn’t duty that made her love him.
Merry set aside the peas she’d been shelling and rose. “Do you know where the Captain went?” It was nearly noon and he’d been gone all morning.
April smiled at her thrillingly, as though there was something romantic to the question. “I imagine he is where he is every morning.”
Every morning? So he disappeared every morning here as he had done on Isla del Viento.
Aline interrupted her thoughts with an approving nod. “Such a religious man.”
Religious? Merry could well imagine what activities Varian thought to shield from the overly curious nature of the sisters with this clever canard. Religious, indeed. More likely a mistress in close proximity. She thought of Regina, hated herself for the jealousy, and then forced a smile at the sisters.
“So unlike Charles,” April said in displeasure.
Charles again. Merry knew better than to ask, smiled, and excused herself. The haphazard puzzle of this fabrication Varian created would probably remain as much a mystery as his true identity.
Into the vacuum of a pirate’s life, he expertly wove multiple backgrounds and personas. Into the vacuum of her heart, he expertly wove her love for him. He had led her step by step into loving him, and had taught her desire in his arms. How was it possible one man could be so expert at all things?
In Varian’s study, Merry found nothing to solve a single mystery. It was tidy, the drawers of the desk locked, and on the polished top one of the sisters had left a day ledger.
The sparsely worded entries made Merry smile. They were amusing and sweet. A careful day by day record of all items used, purchased, and sold. Weddings and births of the workers, and an occasional reminder note to Varian of some want the sisters had.
The last entry had been made yesterday, a note about a donation to be made to the Society of Patriotic Ladies on their behalf. It was penned beneath the entry noting her fake marriage to Varian.
Merry fixed on the date. It had not occurred to her until she saw the date it was nearly her birthday. In a few weeks she’d be twenty.
She rose from Varian’s chair and went to look out the window. All around her the plantation was alive and in the bloom of spring. Bramble Hill was so far away, there were days now when she did not think of it, and life, it seemed, did go on however it wanted, dragging you with it. Dragging you into a world unimagined and a man you could never have dreamed.
~~~
In spite of their contentment with each other’s company, the sisters were lonely. Merry realized this the next morning when, without ceremony, they burst through the door of her bedchamber to take her off sugaring. It was like waking up to two old hens in shoddy dresses over men’s breeches. Their tiny forms were tucked beneath wide straw hats and their pale hands concealed within thick leather gloves.
It was March. When the syrup ran, it was time for them to run the trees to collect it and get with the business of sugaring. No imported British products from the Indies. The Devereaux sisters would not let others profit from the toil and suffering of the enslaved, so t
hey could finance their oppression and future enslavement of America. Somehow it escaped the sister’s notice that the muslin they wore and the tea they drank were indeed British products—smuggled in by a notorious pirate, no less.
Both their politics and logic were a bit muddled, but Merry found it pointless to argue or stay in her bed. It was definitely not worth the effort to point out the obvious. That they lived on land toiled and worked by slaves.
She soon found herself dressed in a simple cotton gown, tucked beneath a wide straw hat dropped on her head by Aline, and hands in clumsy thick men’s gloves shoved over her fingers by April. As the morning progressed the Devereauxs were not as focused on their success in this as they were the activity. There was more syrup on the ground than in their pails and all anyone had to do to find them was to follow the trail from tree to tree. An entire day’s toil resulted in only one partially filled sap bucket and a pitiful amount of boiling maple syrup that would eventually turn to sugar.
Merry’s first days at Winderly flew by for her. Every morning, Varian disappeared and she was alone in the sisters’ care. They made new bedchamber curtains for Aline that were a nightmare. They made twelve fine, large cheeses they planned to give to the needy. They picked flowers for vases, creating lopsided arrangements to grace the exquisitely decorated rooms that were, no doubt, Varian’s contribution to the household. They walked the fields being plowed and planted, and explained with surprising thoroughness the process of planting and crop rotation. They were knowledgeable about many things though not capable in anything. They were dear, defenseless women in every way.
Far away the world’s wars raged. At Winderly the only war Merry fought was Varian.
As on Isla del Viento, the Captain never behaved like Morgan with the Devereaux sisters. He was only those dangerously appealing parts Merry now labeled in her mind “Varian.” She wondered if Varian were the true man, and if that were why he had brought her here, away from the ship, free from the burden of command so he could be only what he wanted her to see.
One evening two weeks later, Merry looked up from her supper plate and found Varian watching her. He did it so frequently these days. Her persistent shyness over this was a thing of utter nonsense. But the way he looked at her moved through her veins a warming sensation that left her slightly breathless. She could only meet his gaze a few moments before she felt the urgent need to look away.
It was the knowing sureness of why he watched her, knowing he was pursuing her, which made every part of her stir in answer to the desire within those great dark eyes. His manner was unfailingly correct and artfully restrained, but the tension in him was a thing she felt in her own flesh. The burn in his eyes was one of meaning, and it was becoming harder each day to resist him.
She knew he was leading her where he wanted her to go. It would not be long before she was unable to stop him. What a pitiful girl she’d become. What she didn’t know was where Varian wanted to take her or if there was still a way to escape him.
The meal was nearly concluded when a servant bearing an envelope on a silver tray held it beneath April’s face. Ripping open the seal, a smile grew on the sister’s face as she read the note.
She looked up from the page and announced, “We are invited to a party.” She said it in a confused way as though such a thing had never happened.
Aline leaned across the table to read the note. “We’ve never been to the Well’s before. And it’s a ball, no less!”
Merry felt her temper flare. Wells? Was it possible the invitation had been from Regina? She wondered what mischief the blond sow was about now.
“I for one think we should attend.” April lifted her eager eyes to Merry. “Don’t you think we should go, Merry?”
Not bloody likely, Merry thought forcing a stiff smile. When April’s attempt to gain Merry’s support in this did not stir enthusiasm for the sisters’ wants, both sisters turned to stare at Varian.
Varian held out his hand and April dropped the letter into onto his palm.
“We’ll only go if you think we should, Cousin Varian,” said April. The sisters regarded the world beyond Winderly as a place only to be ventured into fearfully with their sole male relative at their side.
Aline was the more composed of the two Devereauxs, but into the quiet she said, “It’s a sad day when a single invitation can cause such a stir in you, sister. We don’t get out enough.”
April jutted her chin. “Not a stir. But you must admit, a party would be a pleasant change.”
Aline fixed her stare on Merry. “Perhaps we should attend. I think it is time you were introduced to American society, Merry. After all, you are mistress of Winderly now.”
The hopeful glint in the sisters’ eyes made Merry suddenly see the Devereauxs in a new way. Why they’re not old at all, she thought. Her gaze took note of their slim forms and smooth faces. She couldn’t imagine why she had thought them old. They were no more than a handful of years older than she, certainly not beyond their twenties.
Against her will, Merry suffered facing a truth she did not wish to see. Is this what becomes of women who never marry? They are trapped here, with only each other, and their link to the world a man who is nothing to them. Is that what will become of me?
“We shan’t go if you don’t want to, Merry,” said April softly then.
Merry’s gaze shifted to Varian, and she said pointedly, “I will do as I am ordered.”
The words came out more harshly than she intended and had an even harsher effect on the sisters. Merry rose from the table, without ceremony, and raced from the room. Her future had been sitting across the table from her and it was not a comforting thing to see.
Merry made a quick flight up the stairs to her bedroom. Breathing heavily, she sank onto the floor before the fire in the hearth. She tried to contain her rioting emotions and failed at it dismally.
What she learned of the world during this strange journey she was trapped on with Varian was not always kindly lessons. It did not occur to her until now how little of the world she had known before Varian. It was no less a disturbing confession to realize she had known even less about herself.
Did any woman truly know herself before she loved a man? Merry wondered.
She was brushing frantically at her tears when her bedroom door opened. Footsteps sounded behind her, and she forced her trembling form to perform an act of stillness. She knew it was Varian without looking. The spacious confines of her bedchamber seemed to shrink with his presence. She felt him lower to the floor, then he eased her back into his chest to be held the warm cocoon of his arms.
“Why are you crying, Little One?” His whispering voice teased against her ear. The feel of him ran all through her. “Is it the prospect of a party? Regina? Or the sisters?”
How effortlessly he could read her. She sniffed and tried to halt her careening emotions.
“I don’t know,” she whispered disconcertedly.
His lips touched her hair. “All will be well, Merry.”
There were times when Varian’s arrogance was infuriating. This was one of those times. How could he say with such tempting certainty all would be well when she did not even know the circumstance of her fate.
Her temper flaring, Merry snapped with more disquiet than she wanted. “All will be well for who? The spider or the fly?”
She looked over her should at Varian.
Attractive creases softly bracketed his smile. “Is that how you see us? Which one am I?”
The telltale blush stained Merry’s cheeks like cheap rouge. It wasn’t the words, so much as how he said them, which sent her senses into greater disarray. And he was sitting too close, far too close, and his expression at times could be so cleverly misleading.
His watching gaze was thorough, and Merry, having more than a nodding acquaintance with the swift processes of his mind, worked quickly from his embrace.
“Was there something you wanted?” she said with dignity, and received back a long, hot
stare.
“I can think of no less than a hundred things. Would you like me to impart them to you?”
“What I would like is for you to leave my bedchamber,” she said, her expression angry and sparkling at once.
Varian’s hands found her shoulders in a movement that was swift and Merry was drawn back into him before she had time to stop him. His mouth on hers exploded the happy fiction that understanding Varian’s games would make her more able to fight him. Not breaking his kiss, he somehow managed to pull to the floor a pillow from the chair and maintain his embrace. He guided her downward until she was curled into his side with her cheek on his chest. His hand made a wayward caressing motion against her back.
Lifting her chin so she could meet his eyes, he was smiling when he whispered, “You are a very stubborn girl, but you are starting to show promise.”
Merry’s first instinct, prompted by the slumberous warmth of his voice, was to melt against him. Her second was to hit him, and it was not until she felt a sudden pain in the curl of her fingers she realized which one she had acted upon. It was far from the first time she’d tried to hit him, but it was the first time he’d let her. She found the experience galling, since he only laughed and her hand smarted painfully.
“Damn you. I hate it when you laugh at me when you make me angry.” She was on her feet, screaming the words so loudly that the sisters below could surely hear. The pug skittered across the room under the bed. Her eyes were murderous as she stared down at him. “Isn’t there another woman out there you can go torture with your nonsense. I am tired of your games.”
Varian’s answering expression was roguishly unregretful. The smile hovered at the edges of his lips and was only slightly held at bay. His black orbs fixed on her like sparkling berries and, on top of everything else, the urge to laugh was fighting her temper.
“You are deranged. Do you know that?” she announced.
Merry was above him, hands on hips, a frustrated martyr in every way. God help him, he didn’t want to laugh. Varian couldn’t stop himself.
