by Susan Ward
Laughing softly, he spread his fingers on her cheeks, brushing his thumbs beneath her eyes and kissed her lightly on the lips. “You are too impatient with everything. You want instant understanding. You should have just come to me and asked me what was going on if you didn’t understand. I would have told you.”
Merry sighed. “If I am impatient, it is because there is much intrigue on this ship you will not explain to me. Tell me what is going on.”
Presently he remarked, “Did you ever once bother to take note that the crates they are dropping to the bottom of the ocean floor are empty? It would never serve not to have the passengers see that, not after all the bother I went through. And while I admire Tom’s unexpected whimsy with the Captain and the pig, Tom should have probably managed that differently, but we can’t have everything, Little One, so remind me not to be overly critical later when I am meeting with Tom. It will, however, be something that people do remember to talk about, Merry. And certainly one won’t fail to remember the crates we gave to the sea had nothing in them. I imagine it will only be small matter of time before there is an inquiry at the customs exchange in London. We’ve left them supplies enough only for a return to England. It would never do if they continued to Bermuda after the bother we’ve put in. They should reach Falmouth within a fortnight.”
She knew without Varian telling her, snippets of conversations over the past year, joining in her memory to her. “Rensdale. This is all about Rensdale, isn’t it? How is this ship connected to Rensdale?”
This time Varian’s smile of appreciation came more fully. “Oh, Little One, killing that one would never accomplish as much for me as this. The ship I sank was little more than Rensdale’s hired murderers sent to destroy the Hampstead. This is the seventh ship he’s sent fictitious cargo out on, intending to destroy it, as he did the Carolina a decade ago in his first insurance fraud crime. Six times I have chased his victims, five times I was too late. Today my vendetta against Rensdale is resolved and resolved as it should be. In the pure equitable justice of the slow, agonizing destruction of a man hanged by his own deeds. Death would be merciful to him, Merry, compared to this; the scandal, the horror of the loss of his position, money, and power. The result of this will not come quickly. And all the while he will be wondering who it was who brought his ruin. It is in almost every way complete justice for me. Why settle for one moment of satisfaction with a bullet, when you can get endless years of agony with subtle manipulation? The cost of what he did ten years ago. The cost of continuing his crimes. I could never kill him, Merry. If I killed him I would only destroy me. He can barter with God and England for his fate.”
Ironically, it occurred to Merry that the thorough hand of Varian would have rescued her from marriage to Rensdale if she had only been patient and not gone to Grave’s End. It was odd how people existed with strange connections in the world, finding each other when logic should have deemed that impossible. Rensdale had been her nemesis before her advent on the Corinthian. Rensdale was Varian’s enemy for a decade. Even if she’d never met Varian, she would have been served by his acts as well. Varian loved irony. He would have been doubly amused by this.
There was a long moment of silence, before Varian asked, “Are you ever going to tell me who you are and what Rensdale was to you? Your reluctance to do both is pure nonsense.”
Merry searched Varian’s face, wishing she could see all the things he concealed too well. She couldn’t begin to fathom what his reaction would be if she told him the truth. A truth that didn’t matter since she would never return home as long as she loved this man.
Merry said instead on frustrated laughter, “Why is it that every time I fight with you, I am force fed equal doses of fury, embarrassment, shame, and...an annoying impulse to lay with you?”
Varian arched a brow. “Annoying?”
Merry crinkled her nose playfully. “Perhaps I should have said untimely.”
He laughed and picked her up. “That is an answer I hope you never find. I enjoy your untimely impulses. Why do you think I love your temper? Your untimely impulses are among your best.”
Her lips were a sweet breath against his ear as he closed the cabin door. “Would it be untimely to lay with you now?” she whispered, pressing her lips against his neck in the softest of touches, sweetly shy at times with initiating her passion with him.
“No, it is not untimely. It is very appropriate,” Varian returned, meeting her kisses and caresses.
Varian set Merry on his bed, staring at her in satisfaction, wondering if she were even aware of how far a cry she was from the girl who had been taken from Cornwall and left fresh and quivering on his bed. She was just far enough away from that girl, but not too far. Any farther would have ruined her.
He noticed the stain on her chin beneath Merry’s shamelessly glowing doe eyes, wondering how the devil she had gotten a berry smudge there while undressing when the bowl was nowhere near her. He wondered if she had any idea how supremely masterful she’d become in her guileless love for him. He would never want Merry to be anything other than who she was at this moment.
She watched him undress, cherry spots of color on her softly sloping cheeks, innocence somehow still laced in the feverish impatience of her brightly sparkling eyes. The petals of the rose fully unfurled, but with not a one of them bruised or tarnished.
Taking Merry into his arms, Varian wondered, Oh, Little One, do you even have an idea of your power over me?
~~~
Varian was overly critical of Tom Craven and his bit of whimsy with the pig. Merry glared at him on and off through the meeting in the Captain’s cabin. It had done nothing to stop him. It was Varian’s nature; he was at times ruthless in his love of drama as Morgan.
Merry sat on the window bench, a forgotten figure while the men met, her body still warm and tingling from Varian’s lovemaking. She struggled to resist sweet sleep, the inescapable aftermath of his possession of her. He had told her to dress because there were more of the crew to be in the cabin than the three familiar figures who usually haunted Varian’s table.
She had dressed, and she wondered if it were some sort of remnant sense of British politesse within him that forced the discomfort of propping herself on the pillow, eyes nearly shut, when she would have much preferred sleep in the warmth of his bed. Given where they were, given what she was to them, it was preposterous to make her dress and sit. There were times Varian was a complete fraud. She wondered if he even knew it.
They were going to London. The how and the why her fatigue dulled mind couldn’t quite catch in the rapid flow of talk. She felt stinging annoyance he hadn’t discussed any of it with her. She had not seen England for almost a year; of course, it mattered to her. She glared at Varian, and wondered why she tolerated the man at all. He was insufferable. She saw Tom Craven look at her. She glared again, more fiercely, and noted the swirl of wine in Varian’s glass.
So you are not pleased I am glaring at Morgan in front of your crew? How do you see me, you insufferable man, without ever looking?
Merry closed her eyes and gave herself to a dreamless sleep. She woke in the wee hours of the morning, in a cabin lit only of moonlight with the feel of Varian’s arms around her and the sensation of being carried to his bed. His hands undressed her limp body.
When her head touched the pillow, she retreated under the blankets and murmured in a small, grumpy voice, “Leave me alone. I am angry with you. Could you not have told me yourself we were going to London, you insufferable man? You never tell me a thing.”
Through gentle kisses, he whispered, “Does it matter where we go? Where we are? The destination of this ship has no effect on us. I thought you would realize that by now.”
How odious he was to be obtuse. She might have been made of putty for all she could refuse him. He made love to her sleepy, hot body and drowsy mind, and angry she was, but just a little now, and her exulting body had no thought of quarreling while they lay in the afterglow of their passion.
“Don’t think you can run from me in London. I will hunt you down and find you,” Varian warned severely. “Then I will bring you back and beat you. Consider yourself well warned.”
Languid in his arms, Merry lifted her face, eyes closed, and her soft breath was against his chin as she snapped, “Shut up and let me sleep. Your threats are useless, you insufferable man. You never carry them out. You are a fraud, but I am the only one who knows you are a fraud. I am too tired to listen to your drama. I am not going to run, not unless you continue to keep me awake with your nonsense. Now let me sleep.”
She turned into Varian’s chest and was pulled into the quiet of deep slumber. He adjusted her head and smiled.
~~~
Merry’s illness started as a small, annoying, random irritation that struck quickly at odd times of the day that gave them both little bother in the beginning. The seas were turbulent in their north Atlantic crossing, and among the handful of new crew they had taken on in the Caribbean were members topside that didn’t look much better than she did.
Two weeks later, seas calmer, illness worse, it was more clearly a fact.
Varian entered his cabin after a morning on deck, to find Merry huddled on knees in the center of his bed, retching into the washbowl, her tiny form shrouded by her riot of black curls. Frequency and youth. All the care in the world could not protect a couple from the inevitable combination of those two forces. He had only been reckless in his bedding of her once. The night after he had nearly lost her in Bermuda, when he had made love to her in mindless, uncontrolled, intense passion, needing to sooth himself with the burning feel of life within her.
At least that was his memory of that night. God, at times had a perverse sense of humor. God must have heard and decided to answer Varian’s pleas literally.
Varian’s easy strides took him to Merry at the bed as she hovered over the bowl again, her tiny body quivering from another spasm.
“I will send Indy to fetch you something small to eat,” said Varian quietly.
Merry’s face snapped up at that, pale, tense, and decidedly not pretty, half hidden by hair she hadn’t bothered to brush.
“I don’t want anything to eat.”
Whatever could be said about such condition making a woman glow, it clearly could not presently be said about Merry. However, even with her unpleasantly sharp temper and somewhat haggard looks, the vision she made was a warm, present balm. He took the basin from her as she settled back against the pillows.
“You will eat. It will make you feel better to get something into your stomach, Merry.”
It was the discomfort of the sickness which made her slap his hand away from their patient strokes on her brow and hiss, “I am not a member of your crew to be ordered about. Stop ordering me. I have had enough of it. Will you not leave me alone even in illness, you insufferable man? If I eat I will only throw it up. How do you know what will make me feel better? Are you in my body?”
Merry could not have put together a poorer choice of words if she had tried. Varian forced into submission the stirring laughter which was untimely, knowing it would only make her emotions more volatile as they progressed in this discussion—a discussion he was reluctant to have with her—and rallied patience.
Obviously, the cause of her illness was not something she had suspected yet. It reminded him how in need she was of his careful handling of this.
Varian settled next to her against the pillows and moved to take her in his arms. Merry began to squirm. “Stop that,” he admonished firmly, and instantly she quieted in his arms. He settled her against his chest. “Do you think I would indulge my pleasure with a woman pale and puking? I just want to hold you, Little One. Why do you still resist these little intimacies at times when you behave with such wanton abandon in bed?”
Merry pressed her fingers to her lips as she struggled through another wave of nausea. “Because your little intimacies always lead to bed. I am not well enough today, damn you.”
Varian couldn’t hush his laughter. He buried his lips in her hair, touching her with light kisses, waiting for her nausea to pass. It was the gentlest way he could think to bring the issue between them since it hadn’t occurred to her, though juvenilely indirect for a man his age, but he found himself saying it anyway, “Little One, has it occurred to you at all that our intimacies, as you so quaintly call them, often lead to more than just bed?”
Merry’s body was still curled calmly against him. The words seemed to float around her, having no meaning, no effect, and he wondered if the allusion were too vague. And then Varian felt the difference in her, the tension, the withdrawal, and her despair even before her bluebell eyes turned on him with raw emotion followed on its heels by tears.
He met her gaze concealing all reaction. He was an arrogant man, but not so arrogant he could believe he understood even a measure of what she was feeling and all the implications this held for her. He waited, while she slowly comprehended, and then hopefully would be ready to discuss.
Comprehension came with swift response. Merry hit him, Varian let her, her tiny fist landing rather well on his chin, and he was sure by tomorrow there would be a bruise, noted by many, questioned by none except possibly Indy and Tom. Varian owed her at least that humiliation to himself. What he found difficult to allow her was her dismay over hitting him or the uncontrollable weeping that followed with full understanding of her condition. She was head under the blankets, sobbing like a madwoman.
“Go away. Leave me alone. How could you do this to me? I will never forgive you for this.” Her voice was muffled by linen and sobs.
Varian ran a soothing hand atop the blanket where her back was. “I gave you a child, Little One. A child you were a willing participant in every act that caused its creation. Are you willing to come out and talk in a sensible manner, or must I be reduced to sitting here like a fool talking to the bedding?”
Merry had learned with Varian that truth was at times a merciless thing. Yes, she had gone to his bed willing. Yes, this was the result. Yes, she was as much to blame as he was. Hitting him had done nothing to change that. Still, how could she explain to him what this meant to her, without explaining who she was?
“I don’t expect you to understand what this means to me,” she whispered miserably. “I am forever complete in my ruin. I am carrying your child. I can’t go home. Not ever. I will never see my family again. That door is barred. Do you think I could bring this shame to them? They might have forgiven me your bed, they won’t forgive me the disgrace of your bastard child.”
They. Would she ever tell him who they were? Somehow Varian had failed to note until this moment she still had never fully let go of the belief that someday she would return to Falmouth. It had not occurred to her that her family was lost until the child, when they had been lost to her the first night she had taken him into her heart.
Sighing, Varian also realized the convenient workings of his internal composition spared him from troubling overly much about who Merry had been before her advent on his ship. Was he so greedy, so self-absorbed and selfish in all she brought to him, he was unwilling to acknowledge their happiness came at a loss to her; a loss she might still feel and be hurt by?
Varian said, “I happen to like children, Merry. I am selfish enough to feel vain pleasure from the thought of you carrying mine. If you are hiding under the blankets out of fear of what you think this means to me, that I will put you ashore in Falmouth and leave you to your plight, you can stop that nonsense now. It is an insult to you. It is an insult to me. I am pleased about the child. You may not have them, Little One. I think you are pretty safe in assuming, if I have not already proven my devotion to you, that you are stuck with me if you want me. Both of you are stuck with me. As always I get the better trade.”
It was not until Varian spoke the words that he realized how deeply true they were. What surged upward inside him shocked the hell out of him. He was not a man who anticipated being shocked by himself, not any mor
e, not after all the changes of his life, not at his age. Having brought it to the surface between them, he was happy about the child. That was what he was feeling; happy because he wanted this child with Merry.
Merry pulled free of the pillows to look at him then. What Varian found on her tear stained face shamed him. It was clear she had been frightened over his reaction and what it would mean to her.
Merry swept his face with her eyes, then frowned. “I am sorry I behaved childishly. I didn’t want to have to cope at present with seeing your reaction if it were bad. This reaction I did not anticipate. Why are you happy?”
Varian smoothed the gossamer curls from Merry’s face. “In case you have forgotten, I adore you, Merry. I adore the thought of us having a child. We can raise the child in Virginia if you wish, Little One. The only place I can’t live is England. Too much risk, too much unpleasant history for me, and too much burden for you and our child. That is the cost of this child, never returning to England. And of course, there is the cost of being stuck with me.”
Merry slowly eased upward into a sitting position beside him. “What about the ship? What about Morgan? Me in Virginia or us in Virginia?”
Varian knew her well, and could read every subtle nuisance of change on Merry’s face. Worry, fear, uncertainty, curiosity, and, yes, there was even pleasure there, as if the idea of a child was beginning to form some small appeal for her.
“We would live in Virginia, Merry. I have lived ten years in Virginia as Varian Devereaux during my years as Morgan. I have returned there throughout the decade with none the wiser. I am confident of our safety under that alias. I have business in London with Camden, but when I am through with that, I can leave the ship and be with you as long as you want me. I just can’t be with you in England. Too much risk and too much unpleasantness, for us both.”
