by Susan Ward
The Major was clearly unnerved after the threat of Lucien Merrick leveled at his head, however, he did add if His Grace would permit, he would ring in the morning to inspect the marriage documents.
After the soldiers departure, in the cabin there was a heavy silence. Varian was staring at Merry, his black eyes shed of all inner reflection.
“Do you not think it is time, Little One, for you tell me who you are?” Varian said in an inflectionless voice. “Who is your father that he should possess enough supremacy to use the Regent of England as an errand boy? Those weren’t soldiers of the field, Merry. They are part of the Regent’s private guard. I deserve the truth from you since you risked my life tonight by not telling me.”
“The truth, as you have been so complete in truth with me, Your Grace?” Merry countered furiously. “It’s so ironic, but you will not laugh at this. Is this what I am not to be angry with you for? Your noble birth? It means nothing to me. But I doubt who I am will mean nothing to you. It will mean too much. If you don’t like what I tell you, will it matter? You will not like the truth, and I am not certain what your reaction will be so I will not speak it. I don’t want to be the one who speaks the words that will destroy our happiness together.”
It was Camden who answered her. “He is not going to like what you tell him, girl, but not for the reasons you think. Your worry is needless. Would you prefer me to tell him who you are or would you prefer to do that yourself? One of us will, Merry, before I leave this cabin. Not to tell him would be dangerous to us all.”
Light flickered in Varian’s black eyes and was quickly concealed. “You had better tell me who she is, Camden. I think it is past time I know who has been in my bed.”
Varian turned then to look at his friend. What he found on the Earl’s face was unsettling.
“How could you not know who she is, Varian?” Camden barked in irritation. “Look at her. The answer is there in front of you.”
Camden sank in a chair, shaken in a way Varian had never seen before. The earl ran a hand through his thinning, graying mane.
Varian shifted his stare to Merry. “Who is this girl, Camden? How much danger am I in?”
Camden’s face was red with fury. “You took this girl a year ago in Falmouth. Falmouth, Varian! I fail to understand how you could not reason out who she is after a year. Or that you would be foolish enough to return to England with her.”
Varian’s scowl was a thing of murder. “Don’t lecture me now, Brian. She was not inclined to tell me. What has you so alarmed?”
Camden sat shaking his graying head. There was no kind way to tell Varian this.
“It should have been obvious to you the moment you set eyes upon her. Her family has had half of England searching for her since her disappearance. They maintain a pretense she was kidnapped. The scandal grew enormous driven on its own and even with their power over society they were unable to stop it to shield her from unkind speculation as to her fate. The streets of London are flooded with handbills offering a hefty reward for the head of whoever took her from them. They in the privacy of their family believe she ran away, distressed over her upcoming marriage to Rensdale. You will not make a smooth exit from this, Varian. It is of an enormity beyond any possible management, even in your skillful hands. You have come full circle in your life and you don’t even know it.”
Full circle?
And then Varian knew without Camden telling him, remembering Indy had woven this. Even if Varian had despised Merry he would have been compelled to marry her once she was brought aboard ship; compelled out of duty and loyalty when he learned her identity.
Oh, he might have been able to escape those things Indy termed his absurd sense of duty and honor, returning her without the benefit of marriage after having indulged her in his bed—but no, oh no, not with this girl. Never this girl—and the boy had known it from the start.
That was the reason Indy had brought her aboard the Corinthian. Indy had set this in motion, victory at its inception, an inescapable result. That the boy would remember enough, be ruthless enough, cruel enough, so without soul as to do this, Varian would have never thought possible. That Indy could harm Merry to accomplish his own ends, knowing who she was to them all, the total connection of lives, pure, brutal manipulation to the fullest.
The riot of shock and horror sent the blood through Varian’s system in a disorienting jolt.
Camden could tell by the expression on Varian’s face, the words were really unnecessary now. He went through the motion of saying them into the acutely tension laden air anyway.
“You have had in your bed for a year Lucien Merrick’s daughter. This girl you took from Falmouth is Lady Meredith Ann Merrick, Rhea and Lucien Merrick’s daughter, and you will be damn lucky if Lucien doesn’t hunt you down and hang you for this within a fortnight.”
Varian silently stared at her, and Merry felt coldness slip over her like a dangerous being, ready to strike at her from all directions. She did not fully understand Varian’s reaction to the truth. What was burning in his black eyes was the result of something more than learning she was Lady Meredith Ann Merrick. It was a violently intense battle raging inside him.
Dropping her eyes, unable to meet his gaze, she was unprepared for his voice to come in uncapped fury. “What did the boy tell you? How did he get you to agree to this? What did he promise you?”
Merry’s face snapped up. “Agree to what? What the devil do you think I have done?”
His ruthless black eyes were damning. “Are you saying you had no part in this madness?” he said with false civility. “That I am to believe it was pure chance I left Falmouth with Lucien Merrick’s daughter in my bed and you were not a willing participant in this farce of cruelty?”
Mortified by his question, she countered fiercely, “How could you ask me such a thing? Do you forget how I came to be with you? Indy took me at knife point from the beach. He stripped me, and put me in your bed. I was not a willing participant. How dare you suggest that I was?”
Her words pushed Varian into greater fury. His hands shot out and jerked Merry up beneath his face. She could see each straining rise and fall on his chest, and the bitterness of how he looked at her.
Each word pushed through his teeth was rough and grinding, hitting her with bludgeoning force. “Do you expect me to believe the daughter of the Duke of Dorset would settle for being my whore and mother of my bastard child? You knew very well at any moment you could open your mouth with the truth and slip a ring through my nose or a noose around my neck. Did Indy warn you to keep your mouth closed? Is that why you would never tell me who you are? Did he warn you I would never have touched you knowing you were Rhea Merrick’s daughter? That if I had known the truth I would have sent you back to shore in Falmouth the first night and your scheming would have been done. How long have you known the boy? Did you meet him in London? It was last year, the spring before you came to my ship, I sent him there, to watch Rensdale. But, he watched you. A perfect match of pieces. Did you create your plan then? Each of you getting what you wanted at my expense? You, your bloody freedom with a conveniently controllable spouse, with an ax on his neck, so you could do your every whim and not live in servitude to Rensdale, whom you could never hope to control? And the boy achieving his freedom from me at long last, to have my ship to finish his revenge as he pleases? Was the child part of the plan to? To help along the forcing of my hand, to lock the trap completely, as if you hadn’t already done enough by coming to your ruin in my bed? Is that why you did this for him? Damn it, answer me.”
When she didn’t immediately respond, his fingers tightened in their bands and, panicking, Merry slapped him as hard as she could across the face. “Let me go. You will hate yourself forever if you hurt me.”
Varian’s response banished that worry and replaced it with crushing pain.
“I could not hate myself more than I already do being a participant in the disgusting ruin of you. A ruin you so eagerly engaged in. How could
you do this? Every part of what I hoped to lay to rest you have brought back to life and will make it twice as vicious. It will haunt me with added sordidness and nip at our heels forever. Damn you. You were willing to turn yourself into a whore, and forever into an object of pity. Leaving me a greater object of scorn, to buy for yourself and the boy what you both wanted. Damn you for forcing me to suffer the giving of this hurt to you. And damn you for adding to the suffering for both of us.”
There was a shocking quiet in the room. He quickly set her back into the chair, as though he wanted her away from him, then loomed above her, his eyes coldly raking her with venom. Every line of him was taut and filled with fury.
Feeling the threat of tears behind her lids, she lifted her chin and said with all the dignity she could muster, “I did not think by loving you I was committing a ruin of myself. It seems I was naive to believe it was possible to accept what you offered without being what the offering made me.”
His ringing laughter was scathing. “You are masterful. A combination of youth and beauty which makes you ruthlessly capable in your destruction of any man. You were never going to tell me the truth until it served your purpose to tell me.”
Beyond composure, Merry said haltingly, “In the beginning I remained silent because I thought Morgan would kill me if you learned I was Andrew Merrick’s niece. I was afraid of the truth after having witnessed your meeting with Camden. Later I stayed silent because I feared it would cost me you. I don’t know what it is you think Indy was trying to accomplish by giving me to you. I don’t have any idea what you think I have done to you.” After a shuddering breath forced itself from her lungs, trembling with rage she exclaimed, “Why should it matter to you I am Lucien Merrick’s daughter? I am the one who was foolish in my affections for you, to have tossed into the bargain my duty, my family, my respectability to be your whore and mother of your bastard child. How dare you fling in brutal accusation I have wronged you.”
Varian’s blistering eyes raked her once, and then abruptly, without a word, he stepped back. She watched him face toward the window. His posture was less coiled, almost his natural pose of composure, but she could still tell there was something raging within him he was trying to bring back under control.
Breaking loose of the numbing hold of what he’d witness, Camden studied Merry with searching, disbelieving eyes. “Do you not know who this man is, Merry?” Her face whipped toward the Earl, and the truth was there on every line of her face. Softer this time and more gently, he said, “You don’t know who he is, do you? You know nothing of his past? What his connection is to your family? You don’t even know whose child you carry. What this child will become.”
Merry felt humiliation run burning to the marrow of her bones. She hated that the Earl knew of the child, and had not even been allowed her the private shame of this.
On a small and ragged voice, she said, “He is a hundred different men so you need to be more specific. The offering of truth is not one of the offerings you receive being his whore.” She missed sarcasm by a mile; what she found was bitterness. “I demand you take me to my father, Lord Camden. I do not wish to stay here with him.”
Camden began to wonder why Varian was not explaining this history to her now. The truth had become an unpreventable thing. Varian knew that.
The Earl’s eyes were hard and damning as he looked at his friend. “For God’s sake, Varian, as belated as it is do you not think it time to give her the truth,” he snapped. “It’s indisputable she knows nothing and has done nothing deliberately to harm you. Damn it, she knows nothing. I am appalled you could assume that she did. Tell her the truth and lessen a slight measure of the worry if not the pain you’ve given her.”
Varian looked at Merry then. He had known his condemnation of her was wrong even as each word had proven impossible to stop. His shock and fury over Indy’s cunning in this had sent him into insane accusations, accusations which would never have occurred to him, not for an instant, if he had been thinking at all rationally.
The residue of his cruelty was on her beautiful face and in her tear ravished blue eyes. It tore through the center of him. He had spoken a great deal he needed to reclaim. But there would be no talking reason to Merry this night. No fast apology could fix this catastrophe he’d created. He had hurt her with brutal thoroughness, so much so she would destroy herself to get away from him and he had no one to blame but himself. He’d let loose the full fury and savage bite of his temper on her. A temper he’d held tightly in check for a decade, for in temper, no man was ever truly clear thinking.
Camden pressed, “What reason can you possibly find to drag out her suffering, Varian? You know very well you can stop her misery and put at least a part of her worry about her child at ease with the truth?”
Varian stared out the window, nausea twisting his gut. Merry would never forgive him as quickly as the danger of their circumstance required. It would take time to heal her heart. And he did not have the luxury of that much time. If Lucien Merrick discovered Merry before the vows were spoken, Varian would lose her forever. He would never get her back from the Merricks. And this night of misery was far from finished for the both of them.
A low mocking voice. “Do you think the truth is not a suffering of its own, Brian?”
Turning from the window, Varian locked on Merry’s eyes. He lifted her with a single arm, set her in the center of his bed, and poured her a goblet of wine. He forced it into her fingers. “Here, you’re pale as a birch. You will stay silent through this or I will tie you to that bed until I am finished, Merry. You will ask me no questions and I will not speak of it again.”
Varian settled in the lambskin chair, staring at but not into Merry’s eyes. His hands raised, knotted absently, and he touched his lips with the tip of his fingers.
Merry’s eyes narrowed into slits of rage. If for nothing but her pride she should leave without bothering to hear him out. But as desperately as she wanted away from him, there was a part just as fierce to understand what had happened, to finally learn who this man she had shared so much with was. This man who was the father of her child.
Varian might look calmer, back in control, but something warned her not to dare leave until he was finished, warned her not to push him, though she sensed she did not want to hear what he would tell her. She could feel a difference in him, a difference she did not like, and his thoughts seemed to claim him in a way that felt as though he was no longer even here with her.
Merry was staring down at her hands as he started to speak. As brutal as what passed had been, instinct warned her this would be more brutal.
“I was eighteen when I met her,” he said suddenly. “I was sent off to America at fourteen, wild and bored, sent politely from sight for my scandalous amusements as second sons of my station are prone to be. I was in America when my older brother died, so I went off to find one last adventure before returning to the tedious existence and my duty here. What I found in Charleston was Ann. She was less beautiful than you are, less wild, but I loved her, in a way only an eighteen year old man ever loves his first love. She was unsuitable in spite of her impeccable breeding, my father forbade me to marry her, but I took her as my wife. She had the gentility and softness of a proper English girl and just enough vigorous American spirit to keep me wanting her. I loved her, Merry, in every sense a man can love a woman.”
Merry’s face jerked up. He loved her. He has never said those words to me. He loved her.
His dark gaze was empty, but light flickered in the ebony depths with an intensity that did not match the coldness of his voice.
“We had been married seven years and had a son before my father died. I realized the necessity of coming home. When I returned I found Rensdale had run through his own inheritance with his dissipations and his gambling, and had run through a considerable part of the fortune my father had left in his care. My father had grown quite dependent on Rensdale. He was the favorite of my cousins, and soon into my father’s conf
idence in all matters. Within a year of my father’s death, my estates were in ruin from his mismanagement and thievery. I returned to England to reclaim my birthright and cast him out into the gutter where he belonged. My mother interceded on his behalf. His creditors were closing in, and he was her sister’s son, my blood, and his shame would be our shame as well. The conventions of society can make a man foolish. I cleared his debts and settled a sum on him, and went about restoring my fortune. Rensdale hated the control I had over him. He hated how society adored Ann. He hated my son because he stood between him and succession to my title, and he would never have free reign with my fortunes again.”
Merry released an aging breath from her lungs. “That’s why Rensdale killed your wife.”
“Yes, however, years would pass before I knew it was Rensdale’s doing.” Varian uncrossed his ankles and reached for his goblet. “I was wrong to underestimate the power of hate in a man. To think myself invincible. He came to the docks to see us off on our return to America. I was foolish enough to be touched by the gesture, his flattery of my wife, and those kinds words he knows how to use with such cunning. He did not know that I did not join my ship when it sailed. That I had sent Ann on ahead, with our son James. The explosion was such on the Carolina it is amazing anyone survived and surely I would not have survived, even if I had lived through the fire and ruin, so devastated I would have been to see Ann tortured like that. Fire on a ship is a hell unimaginable, Little One. A gruesome, waiting death in every way. Hearing what it was like, the panic, the explosion, it is beyond fathoming that anyone survived. But two did. Ann’s brother, Tom Craven, who was Captain of that ship and a boy.”
He was staring into his wine, the slow swirl of it, almost as though he were waiting for her mind to catch up to him in all this.
“Grief is a horrible thing, Little One. It blinds you to your enemies and sends you into ruin. I was drunk for a year and around me everything I had was being slowly taken from me, so unaware was I, doing nothing to stop it, and only feeding the suspicions by my behavior. Cleverly forged letters, implicating me in the explosion sprang up here and there, and society whispered of my villainy, mindless of my grief, and accused me of the destruction of the Carolina, and the murder of my own wife and son. I was living as Varian Devereaux in Virginia, trying to put order to my life, assuming a new persona in an attempt to be free of the cruel speculations of being assumed a murderer. I found Tom Craven by chance. I was drunk in a tavern on the waterfront in Richmond. He was just there as far from me as you are. He told me of the boy. There was nothing there holding me, so I bought a ship and I became what I am so that I could search every corner until I could find the boy.”
