by Susan Ward
It was too late to undo having gone to his bed and to remove what was beating in her heart for him. She was stained by his touch forever. Morgan’s legacy was an ugly tarnish on her and the entire Merrick family. This part of Varian—Morgan—would leave at best her future a horror if she stayed with him, or her family in disgrace if she went back to them.
Merry was ruthlessly seized from the deck by a pair of careless hands, which held her dangling in the air. “What the devil are you doing, you little lunatic? We haven’t got time for a woman under foot. Go back to Morgan’s bed where you belong.”
Her face burned, but her body twisted with fight. “Let me go,” she cried out, frantically trying to disengage herself from Tom Craven’s long, thin body and the horrid stench of his flannel shirt. “Let me go or...”
“Or what?” he sneered, bringing her face up close to his and silencing her with a shake. “Morgan will kill me? Is that what you think? You haven’t a notion of where you are or who he is, do you girl? Do you think your changed sleeping arrangements has changed your importance?” He gave a harsh laugh that ran a chill up her spin. “You are his whore. It’s enough to make him indulge your idiocy, but not enough that he would kill any man on this ship over you.”
He tossed her from him and she nearly fell down the steps. “Get the hell out of here, girl. This is no place for you.”
Back in the cabin, Merry whipped the door shut behind her and leaned against it as the tears erupted. Mr. Craven was right. She had to get away from Morgan while she could still salvage some part of herself.
~~~
Has it occurred to you that the clever raping of one’s heart is crueler than the forced raping of the body? A kind man would satisfy his body of her and let her go.
Indy’s words rose in haunting eloquence in Varian’s memory. A kind man. You can be brutal sometimes, Indy.
Merry was huddled on the window bench beneath a blanket, looking like a tiny quivering cat just run over by a carriage wheel. She had clearly been sobbing for quite some time.
He understood her feelings without having to ask her to explain them. It had not been an expeditious process, the shift from numbing horror as the man who had recoiled from this madness, to the man who drifted through the violence matter-of-fact about it all.
Tom had warned him she had watched the battle from the hatchway. Tom had reluctantly admitted he had words with her, regrettably unkind. He would deal with Tom later. This would be enough to deal with for a single night.
Varian crossed the cabin, easing down on the bench beside Merry. Gently, his fingers closed around her icy hand, but she was unwilling to look at him. She continued to stare out the window at the starless fog-covered night, which had allowed them to quietly slip from the limping British frigate without having to destroy her.
His voice was carefully quiet. “Little one, you’ve been with me on my ship six months. You came to my bed on your own knowing I am Morgan, and what that would mean to you. Why do you think I left it to your choice what you would have of me?”
Merry’s face whipped toward him then. What Varian saw tore at his heart. She hadn’t understood any of it, it was there in every tense line, the never ending conflict between who he was and where he was forced to exist, and how both had left her the choice in sharing his life. He was not surprised by her words when she finally spoke.
“I want to go home,” Merry said, her voice bitter and young. “I want you to take me back to England and away from you and away from this. I will not stay here with you. I demand you return me to my home in Falmouth.”
Varian brushed back the limp wisps of dark hair from her colorless face. He sighed and then said firmly, “You may have anything you want, Merry, but I am not going to return you to Falmouth.”
He was answered with silence.
Varian didn’t always enjoy her temper, wouldn’t welcome it this night as exhausted as he was, but it would have been better than this. This tragic silence.
She looked very tired, the ghastly and long hours of battle having drained her into this absolutely horrible calm. A horrible calm because it was unfamiliar to him on her body. She moved through her days in whimsical exaggeration, the liveliness of her flesh like a ghost that often hovered in the air after she left it. Even in sleep, there was a playfulness to her in the gentle turns and rolls, the unconscious swat at hair, and the light chewing on the bed covers. Stillness did not belong on Merry’s flesh.
Varian scooped her up in his arms to carry her to his bed, and Merry began to fight with wild exhausted limbs, trying to escape him.
“No, I want to sleep on the bench,” Merry exclaimed in misery. “I want to forget that I ever let you touch me. I want it gone from my body. I will not add more shame to me. Put me back. Now.”
Careful not to harm her as she squirmed to break free of him, he set her in the center of his bed. “I won’t touch you, Little One,” Varian assured her, as he tucked her in beneath his blankets. “I would never share an act of love with you if you were not willing. There is no reason to sleep in discomfort on the bench. You are just as safe lying next to me.”
Merry cried all night. Off and on, in and out of sleep, her tiny body huddled on the farthest edge of the bed away from him.
The tears were a suffering for Varian to endure. They were almost as bad as not taking her in his arms to comfort her.
Patience. All battles are won with patience. She needs time, you fool. Let her alone in this.
So, he struggled not to touch her, struggled not to respond to the sobs, and struggled not to leave the cabin.
The next morning, Varian climbed from the bed somewhere before the bells would toll eight—not at dawn which he had done since Merry’s advent on his ship. He moved about the cabin as if it were any other morning, normalcy, as though he hadn’t lay all night next to this miraculous girl, who had spent it weeping out of regret over him.
Whether she accepted it or not, Merry was his lover, no longer innocent and not in need of his care in what she witnessed. It was time to resume his routines in their complete normalcy as well. Normalcy would bring calm back between them, ease her back into seeing him in totality, as a man, good and bad, and as the man she loved who loved her.
It would be a living agony to live apart from her now. Merry whispered through him, like the air he breathed, into every chamber in his body, those reclaimed, those unwanted, and those still adrift, hopefully not lost. If he pushed her now, she would collapse, like a wet sugar cake, melting and disappearing, slipping through his fingers, then gone.
She needed time. Time could heal so many hurts. Time to be left alone, to allow the inescapable intimacy of living with a man, to help ease her peacefully back into his arms again. Those little rituals couples shared, not physically, but in the simple routine of living, were as strongly binding as anything they do in bed.
The knock on the door was Indy with their breakfast. Before Varian made the first step to let the boy in, Merry rolled away and jerked the blankets high. She couldn’t hide from the truth, she had to learn to live within it.
So Varian opened his door and let truth in. Let the scowling Indy in to set their meal on the table. The only two people he cared about on his ship were both grim images today. Grim and damning.
Varian settled in a chair and watched the boy’s glare shift to Merry and then return back to him even harsher. “How many do we have in sick bay?” Varian asked quietly.
“Twelve,” said Indy short, uncivil, fierce.
“Ah.” Varian continued to eat. “Have Tom do a tally of all repairs we need. Before I speak with Tom, tell me what happened.” Looking up, with a severely arching brow turned on the boy, Varian commanded dryly, “Damn it, lad, sit while you speak to me. You know how I hate it when you hover while I eat.”
The boy settled in a chair. He explained the events that led to battle in brief, clipped, non-judgmental terms. A tactical error. Tom had moved to the leeward poorly, hadn’t caught enough wind, wasn
’t able to pull out with enough speed to evade, and the warship had closed. It took all of two minutes, Indy’s dispassionate narrative of the parts of the battle Varian had missed. It was clear the boy was waiting to be excused. He sat in his chair scowling, silent, and staring out the window. Varian continued to eat.
Varian said, “Merry, come eat. It will get cold if you don’t and the food is particularly bad because the galley hasn’t been set in order yet. It will be intolerable when it’s cold. Would you like to join me here or would you like me to join you there so that you may eat before it turns wretched?”
No response. Varian hadn’t expect one. That had been a jab at the boy. It was time for Indy to accept Merry’s new place in the Captain’s life, and move on from the scowling. Varian finished the gesture by taking her plate and laying it next to her in his bed.
In a low, severely displeased voice, Varian said to Indy, “You may leave. I will be on deck shortly. Tell Tom to the have the information ready for me by the time I get there.”
When the door closed behind Indy, Merry jerked out from beneath the covers and gave Varian a damning glare. Her bluebell eyes fixed on him, bright with fury.
“You should really try to eat, Little One,” Varian said, in comforting tones. “There is no telling where my supplies are, what was damaged, what was lost, and the food can get worse. Though I am sure you will not believe it after you’ve tried that. It’s wretched.”
“I don’t want to eat,” Merry said in a brittle whisper. “I want to go back to England. I refuse to stay in this madness. Why won’t you take me back? I could never tell anyone anything about you, not now, after I have shared your bed. If I told them about you, they would learn what I have done. The disgrace of that would ruin me. I don’t wish to remain here. I want to go home.”
Varian settled his gaze on her. Those blue pools were searching, alertly searching, as they did whenever she could not find what she wanted in his eyes. He made a conscious effort for the tenderness he felt for her to surface, and he prayed it brought with it nothing that would scare her.
“I can’t take you back, Merry. We are an ocean away from English shores and returning you to England wouldn’t accomplish anything. At least not what you want. I can’t give back to you what you lost when you climbed into my bed to wait for me. Not by returning you to Falmouth.”
He paused for a moment, as if waiting for her to speak, and when she answered him with silence, he continued.
“I can’t give you back your innocence,” he told her gently. “I can’t change what sharing your life with me means to who you are. But I can give you what I offered you before. As I described before. A permanent union. It was part of the offer, Merry. I will not undo that part of it now.”
He paused again, knowing she was absorbing his words slowly and needed a moment to comprehend. “But of course, you know this without me telling you. You would not have battled loving me for so long if you had not understood having me came with trades and costs. I will never return you to Falmouth.”
Miserable and hurt, she hissed, “I don’t want what you offer me. If I have to have Morgan, I don’t want you. I will never want Morgan and as the costs have been mine, it is not your concern what it will do to me. I want only to be returned to Falmouth.”
Varian stepped away from her. Without a word, he went through his morning routine. Done washing and fully dressed, he went to cup her chin in the palm of his hand, and told her with gentle care, “I am the same man who walked through that door yesterday, Merry. You did not have a problem reconciling your duty and your love while with him. Regrettably, I can’t be always be only what you want me to be. If Morgan existed not at all, I would still not always be only what you want me to be. No man can. I am a blend of good and bad, tenderness and battles. Human. Like you, Little One. You will see that when the shock of seeing men die recedes a trifle, and if you allow yourself to see. When you are over the shock of the battle, you will not have any desire to leave, because you love me. You are distraught by what you’ve seen. You like to act on the first flash of impulse. Not always with calmly explored thought. You may come to regret leaving if I allow you to return to Falmouth. I know I will.”
Merry jutted her chin and looked away. “I went into your bed on a flash of impulse. I regret it. I have thought and I won’t repeat my foolishness.”
That made Varian smile. He couldn’t hide it, not even in his sympathy for her. “No, Little One. That was not a flash of impulse. You battled loving me for six months. That is very carefully explored thought.”
“Whatever love I felt for you died yesterday.”
“Oh, Little One, the feelings we share are rare. They are not a thing to die at first blow. They are the kind few people ever find, and should be savored as the gift it is and never squandered. It was strong enough to pull us together. Very strong to have won the battle over your stubborn mind.”
Varian went to the door, opened it and then paused, looking back at Merry. She had followed his movements with her eyes and was still staring at him.
“I have wanted you since the first night I set eyes upon you, Merry,” he told her, in a low whisper. “But it has been torment not having you since Ireland, when you danced for me. It’s a memory I will cherish when we’re old and gray. I adore you, Merry. In every way. Why would I let you go?”
Varian almost left, but paused once more. He remembered her innocent wonder at his not stirring while she played with his flesh as he pretended to sleep. He’d gotten a quick peek at her, her thoughts clear on her face. He wondered if she knew that her emotions and thoughts flashed on her face, like pictures in a book.
Thoroughly enchanted with her and in a better mood than he had thought possible after such a grim morning, Varian laughed, “I am thirty-nine, Little One. Older than you, but not so old that I can’t keep pace with you.”
~~~
Merry remained in the cabin, curled in a chair, staring at Varian’s bed. Her vacant shock since the battle had begun to recede. The first emotion she could isolate and label was shame. It had been belated in coming, but it was here with her now in full force.
How effortlessly she had pushed from her thoughts who Varian was, who she was, in her want of this man. She had betray herself and her duty with appalling completeness. She couldn’t comfort herself by saying he had forced her. That added to the shame. She had fallen in love with such a vile man, had gone into Varian’s bed willingly, had reveled in those sinful hours in his arms, and was ill prepared to explore what that said about her.
Last night she had hated him, had been repulsed by him. Every minute lying beside him had been a hard battle not to turn to him in her tears and accept the comfort of his arms around her.
It was strange he could be the cause of her hurt and she should need him to ease the hurt. They made no sense, these impulses inside her. Perhaps that is why she had been unable to fight them. She realized grimly that nothing about you makes sense, once you’ve allowed yourself to love a man.
She wanted him gone from her flesh and heart, and knew it wasn’t possible to break free of his spell over her. His touch lingered in her, a taunting presence, urging her toward him even when she did not want him. He had only brushed her lip this morning, and she had ached for him in all those secrets spots, inside and out, that had not existed before him.
How does one remove from their body the touch of a man after having known it?
Brushing quickly at her tears, she pulled the blanket higher up to her chin, because she knew it wasn’t Varian turning the knob.
Sick at heart, she huddled in the chair as Indy entered the cabin. The boy said nothing as he went about his chores. The silence between them was unbearable, but Merry wasn’t about to open a discussion, not today. Not to hear he had warned her, or to let him know that he had been right.
It took Indy a quarter turn of an hour to do his chores and he respected the silence between them. Merry thought that at least, this one event, would pass withou
t humiliation. She was wrong.
Indy changed the berry sprayed bedding. As the young pirate bent to lift the tangle of sheets from the floor, her maiden’s blood glared brightly red against white for both of them to see. Was nothing private on a ship of men? Not even a woman’s humiliation and pain?
Dropping her face into the cradle of her hands, shame and fury came in a floodtide of fresh tears. She couldn’t even face the boy. How would she ever face her family with this?
When she felt Indy’s hand on her shoulder, she slapped it off her. “I won’t be able to endure a lecture from you. Go away.”
Indy eased down, trying to meet her eyes, but she refused to look at him. He said, “I am not going to lecture you, Merry. I just want to know if you are all right. I want to know if Morgan hurt you.”
And because Indy was here and he was at times comforting to her, Merry slipped into his arms and let her tears go with full force.
Indy lifted her against him, and settled in the chair with her on his lap, letting her cry. The tears were violent. They were awful.
The morning slipped to afternoon and Merry, in spite of his quiet urgings, had been capable only of tears. She had said not a single word through it all. It alarmed him that she wouldn’t speak to him.
Indy tucked her back into the bed and she drifted off to sleep beneath the patient strokes of his scarred hand. Her riot of black curls framed the delicate lines of her red and swollen face.
Before he knew it, he was on the quarter deck, his easy strides carrying him there without thought. Before he realized it was a mistake to have dared seeing the Captain just yet, he had gone too far and had been seen. Seeing Morgan intensified the tumult inside of him.
Tom Craven spoke to him first, angry enough to put a hand on him as he tried to leave. “I asked you six hours ago to have that worthless Irishman finished the repairs on canvas, and not only are they not done, you never gave the order. What the hell’s wrong with you, lad?”
