She looked stunned. “But it’s my inheritance,” she insisted. “I never knew there was a stipulation of marriage involved.”
Anne didn’t want to believe him, Merrick realized. She still clung to the hope that her aunt and uncle cared more for her than their actions showed. “They didn’t want you to know. They are heavily indebted. I heard your aunt say so when she argued with your uncle about it, though they kept their voices low. Even the roof over their heads will someday pass to your husband. They stand to lose everything if you marry, Anne.”
Doubt still clouded her eyes. It was hard for her to trust a stranger’s word over what she wanted to believe about her aunt and uncle. “I have no wish to hurt you, Anne,” he said. “If you don’t want to believe me, then don’t. At least I told you what I heard and my conscience is clear.”
His duty done, he thought he’d turn from her and go back to the loft where he slept before he gave into temptation and pulled her into his arms. Merrick remembered she’d come to tell him something. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”
Still wearing a dazed expression, she chewed her full lower lip. “I… it was nothing. It was none of my business, just as this is none of yours. Never mind.”
He’d hurt her whether he wanted to or not. Even if Anne had long suspected her aunt and uncle did not love her, hearing they only thought of her as a means to an end, fulfilling their own selfish desires, had hurt her deeply.
Merrick understood the pain of not being wanted. Still, maybe she needed to sleep on what he’d told her before it could penetrate—before she accepted that he had no reason to lie to her. He started to turn away from her again when his sharp ears caught the slight snap of a twig underfoot. The scuffle of slippers against the pebbles that made a path to the stable from the house.
“Someone’s coming,” he said. “Better hide until we see who it is and what they want.”
Anne seemed to mentally shake herself. She glanced around. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Quiet,” Merrick warned again. He took her arm and led her toward an empty stall. “Go in there and don’t come out until whoever it is has left.”
“But,” she started to protest. Merrick didn’t allow her. He gently pushed her inside the stall and hoped she’d stay put. He didn’t need to be found with her alone this time of night.
A figure appeared at the stable entrance a moment later. Merrick wasn’t surprised by her visit. It was Anne’s aunt. The woman had been ogling him since the morning he was introduced to her. He was used to such visits from his previous employers’ wives. Merrick was usually amused by their interest, but not tonight, and not this particular woman.
“Can I be of assistance to you, Lady?” he asked.
She sashayed toward him. “I hope so. I noticed something that distressed me today and thought we should clear the matter up. I didn’t see call to involve my husband.”
“I don’t imagine so,” Merrick said drily.
“It concerns Lady Anne,” the woman forged ahead. “I fear she may be smitten with you. And that you might take advantage of her innocence.”
“Do you now?”
The woman stepped closer. Anne’s aunt wasn’t an unattractive woman, but she was nearly old enough to be Merrick’s mother and the scowl she usually wore had deepened the lines in her forehead and around her mouth. “I’ve seen the way you look at her… and the way she looks at you. Anne is a beautiful young woman and I don’t doubt you find her to your liking, but I won’t have you making sport of her.”
Merrick leaned casually back against the stall where Anne hid. “It’s honorable that you want to protect her.”
She shrugged. “I suppose even a sensible girl like Anne’s head can be turned by a handsome face. And I am sure that you are well used to women throwing themselves at you, Merrick. There is no need, however, to go sniffing around her skirts when another option is open to you.”
Although he knew what her answer would be, Merrick asked, “What option is that?”
Her hand shot out and her fingers traced a lazy path up the front of his chest. “Me, of course,” she answered. “Despoiling an innocent is one thing. Having a dalliance with an experienced woman is another. My husband bores me and has since a week into our marriage.”
Merrick didn’t want the woman touching him, but Anne needed to be convinced that her aunt and uncle did not have her best interests at heart, no matter if she wanted to believe otherwise. “Are you worried that I’ll ruin Lady Anne before you can marry her off?”
“Don’t be silly,” the woman snapped. “To be honest, I was simply feeling a bit like she’d intruded upon my territory. I consider everything on this property mine… you included.” The woman cocked her head to one side. “Now that you mention that, however, it is not a bad idea. You see, I would prefer that Anne not marry. It would be to my benefit if she does not.”
Merrick knew every word from the woman’s mouth shattered Anne, but maybe Anne was too innocent for her own good. “So now you’re asking me to ruin her so she won’t be a fit wife for a gentleman of her own station?”
“It is a possibility,” the woman answered. “But first, I want my fill of you. Do we have an understanding?”
He stopped the woman’s hand from traveling farther up his chest. “No. We do not. I am not yours to command. You don’t own me like I am a horse in your husband’s stable. I have no wish to bed you, Lady.”
Her face, maybe once pretty but now only bitter, suffused with color. “Are you refusing me?”
“I don’t have many rights, but I imagine deciding who I pleasure and who I don’t is one of them,” he assured her. “Go back to the house and get what you need from your husband.”
The woman’s mouth fell open. “It’s Anne, isn’t it? You only want her.”
Merrick thought about his answer. “I care for Anne. I would not demean her in the manner you want me to, and certainly not for your own gain.”
“How do you know it would be to my gain?” The woman’s eyes narrowed upon him. “And why would you care as long as you got what you want… unless.” She suddenly laughed. “Oh dear, you’re in love with her.”
Was he? Merrick had never been in love before. He only knew he wanted to protect Anne. He wanted her to be happy. “You should go,” he said to the woman. Anne had heard all she needed to hear.
“Poor fool.” The woman clucked. “Even Anne knows her place in life, and yours. Don’t think you’re the first to be smitten. We’ve had to beat the suitors back with a stick, although Anne is not aware of that. I’d prefer she stay in the dark. Let her think she is not interesting enough to capture a man’s attention. At least for a while longer.”
“I can tell her what you’ve said to me,” Merrick said.
The lady lifted a brow. “You wouldn’t dare. And she wouldn’t believe you anyway. Anne sees the best in us and always has. She is cursed that way, I suppose. Poor thing, so hungry for love.”
Anger for Anne churned his gut. “How can you not love her?” He hadn’t meant to speak the thought out loud.
Lady Baldwin drew herself up straighter. “I have done my duty by Anne. I didn’t want children. I don’t even like them, but my husband convinced me there would be rewards by taking Anne in and raising her. I will not see my just rewards stripped from me. And I think your time here has come to an end. You won’t cooperate and I will therefore see you dismissed. I’ll simply tell my husband you are not only trying to get Anne into your loft, but you have propositioned me, as well. Pack your things; you’ll be gone come morning.”
With that warning, Lady Baldwin turned and stormed from the stable. Merrick waited a moment to make certain she had gone. He opened the stall behind him and went inside. He found Anne huddled on the straw-covered floor. Her hands covered her face and her shoulders shook. His heart broke for her. He bent beside her and gently touched her.
Anne glanced up, tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t want to believe you. I’m so b
linded by my own hopes at times. I feel like a fool. Does that make you happy?”
At one time, Merrick supposed it would have brought him some sense of pleasure to expose her aunt’s deception, to tear a family apart, one of the upper classes anyway. Merrick felt no pleasure in seeing Anne’s tears. They tugged at his heart. “I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say.
In her pain, he expected her to lash out at him, and he would understand, but instead she only covered her face with her hands and leaned into his body. “What am I going to do?”
Merrick took her shoulders and forced her to sit. “Look at me, Anne. You need to get married. And the sooner the better.”
She blinked up at him. “Married? To whom?”
“To whomever,” Merrick insisted. “The two of you can slip away to Gretna Green. You can marry before your aunt and uncle can stop you.”
Anne ran a shaky hand through her hair. “It’s impossible. First I’d have to go to London to find someone, then talk him into marrying me. My aunt and uncle would never let me go without them. I can’t go alone. Not all that way without some type of protection. There are thieves on the roads. It wouldn’t be safe.”
Merrick would be dismissed tomorrow anyway. “I can take you to London, Anne. Now, tonight. I can protect you.”
Her large doelike eyes lifted to him. She reached out and gently touched his cheek. “Why would you? Why do you care, Merrick?”
Why indeed? He’d never stuck his nose in matters that weren’t his business before. But Anne felt like his business. “I know what it’s like to feel as if you mean nothing to someone. But you aren’t nothing, Anne. I won’t have them making you feel that way.”
Even though her heart was broken, Anne felt it flutter to life in that moment. No one had cared about her like Merrick seemed to care. He encouraged her hopes and dreams. He had protected her when she needed protection, and he had exposed her aunt and uncle’s deceit to her, when she’d been too innocent to see it for herself. Anne couldn’t think of one gentleman in London she would wish to marry. But she did know one man who made her feel like no other man made her feel, or no other man ever would.
“Marry me, Merrick,” she whispered.
His eyes widened for a moment. “No, Anne,” he said softly. “You can’t marry me. You know that.”
“I can,” she argued. “We can run away together tonight, just like you said. We can go to Gretna Green.”
Merrick shook his dark head. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Anne. You’re upset, not thinking clearly.”
Anne knew exactly what she wanted, maybe for the first time in her life. She loved Merrick. How or when or why didn’t seem to matter at the moment She knew he cared about her, if of course he didn’t love her. But she was used to that. She had to make him want to marry her for reasons that would best benefit him. She sadly understood that now, too.
“You are bitter because of the life denied to you,” she said to him. “What better revenge than to marry into it? All I have will become yours. You won’t have to sleep in a stable anymore, Merrick.”
He shook his head again, but Anne saw that he was thinking about what she’d just said. Considering her offer. “If all you have is going to a man anyway, why not just let your uncle have it?” he reasoned.
Anne wouldn’t lie to him about that “I am angry,” she admitted. “And hurt. I’ve spent my life dancing to their tune in hopes of winning their approval, their love. I will have stipulations if you marry me.”
He lifted a brow. “Such as?”
“My independence,” she answered. “I expect to do as I please.”
“And what would you expect of me?”
Staring into his eyes, she wanted to say that she expected him to love her, but Anne had learned her lesson about love. She knew now that it wasn’t something one person could wrest from another. It had to be given willingly, freely. “I expect you to do as you please, as well,” she answered. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with what pleases me.”
He made a snorting noise. “You want me under your thumb.”
That was not what Anne truly wanted, but she couldn’t tell him what she really desired. It would show him that she had learned nothing. “I am not as blind as I was yesterday, or even the day before. I understand now that my vision of the world has not been a true one. People are not good and kind simply for the sake of being so. They always want something.”
Her answer broke his heart. Merrick had shattered her view of the world. He had already stolen her innocence. But she was right. What better revenge against a class who had wronged him and his mother than to marry into it? To have all that had been denied him? To have everything… but Anne. Still, he wasn’t a fool. And Anne needed his help.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll marry you, Anne.”
Anne ran her sleeve across her nose. “I haven’t any money of my own.”
Not a problem at the moment. Merrick supposed not a problem in his future, either. “I have the purse I won today. It will get us where we need to go and back.”
They stared at each other in the darkness. Merrick felt her sudden indecision, was glad for it, to be truthful. He’d be a fool to refuse her offer. But if she decided to come to her senses, he couldn’t say he wouldn’t be relieved. She drew in a deep breath a moment later.
“Saddle the horses,” she said.
Chapter Eight
Merrick and Anne were camped not a day’s ride from Gretna Green. Anne had changed into the stable boy’s trousers and boots before they stole from the stable. Merrick had proven unsurprisingly useful on the journey. He knew when to take to the woods and when to use the road. Where to find fresh game. He knew too many things for a mere mortal man. Tonight he’d said they could have a fire.
They sat before it now, eating a roasted rabbit he’d caught and skinned earlier. Merrick sat across from her. His eyes glittered in the darkness. Anne tried to tell herself it was due to the flickering firelight… but she’d seen them gleam before when there was no fire.
She hadn’t told him about her suspicions regarding his father. Their flight from Blackthorn Manor hadn’t given her time to think about anything but getting away. But now she had to tell Merrick. He deserved to know.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” she said.
“What’s that?”
For a moment Anne was mesmerized by the sight of Merrick licking grease from his long, slender fingers. The meat was somewhat messy and it wasn’t as if they were afforded the luxuries of home.
“Anne?” he asked.
She tried to regain her thoughts. “I believe I know who your father was.”
His strange eyes pinned her in the darkness. “How could you possibly know that? I don’t even know.”
Anne used the coarse britches she wore to wipe her own greasy hands. “When I first saw you, I mean in the light of day, I had the strangest notion I had met you before. The day of the race, I realized it was because you are the spitting image of Lord Jackson Wulf. The reason it didn’t immediately dawn upon me is because you have dark hair and light eyes and with him it is the opposite.”
Merrick’s brow furrowed. “Wulf? I’ve heard of them. Any man who knows anything about horses has heard of them. Never seen them. They don’t spend a good deal of time in London to my knowledge.”
“No,” she agreed. “They prefer the country estate for the most part. They… well, there is talk about them.”
His eyes met hers again. “Cursed,” he said softly. “It is said they are cursed by insanity.”
Anne waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t believe they are cursed. Lord Jackson is really quite nice if one takes the time to get to know him and as sane as the next man. I am not familiar with the other brothers but assume they are also as well mannered when the mood suits them. Lord Jackson and I are friends.”
Merrick lifted a brow. “Friends?”
She might be fooling herself again, but Anne thought she caug
ht a note of possessiveness in his voice. “He’s married,” she blurted. “I mean, he wasn’t when I first met him abroad, but he is now.”
Merrick continued to study her, as if trying to decide if her friendship with Lord Jackson might have been more than innocent. Finally, he asked, “And I look like him?”
She nodded. “More than a little. Too much for it be coincidence.”
Lifting a water skin, Merrick took a drink. “The father is dead, if I recall.”
“Yes,” Anne responded. “A little more than ten years ago. He… he killed himself. They say he was mad when he did, and his wife insane, as well, when she went shortly after. It caused a scandal.”
He was silent, as if mulling over what she’d told him. “What you say may be true, Anne, but I don’t suppose it makes any difference now.”
His response surprised her. Anne rose from the fallen log she sat upon. “No difference? To know you are a Wulf? To learn that you have half brothers? That makes no difference to you?”
Merrick shrugged. “It doesn’t change anything for me, Anne.” He stood as well. “I’m still a bastard. A secret my father wanted to keep hidden from the rest of the world. His dirty deed. I doubt the brothers would welcome me into the family with open arms, would be willing to share their lives and their wealth with me. I’ve still got nothing. No name, and now, no position.”
Anne walked around the fire to join him. “Tomorrow, that will all change,” she reminded him. “Tomorrow, you will have all that I have. More important, you will have your revenge.”
His glittering gaze bored into hers. “And you will have yours. Right, Anne?”
She had to look away from him. For her, the marriage was not simply a matter of revenge. But Merrick need not know that. “Yes,” she answered. “I will have my revenge.”
The touch of his fingers upon her chin was gentle. He forced her to look at him again. “You should want more than that, Anne. Me, I cut my teeth on a need for revenge. But you’re not like me. You’re different.”
Tears burned her eyes. Anne blinked them back. He was wrong. She was bitter. “I’ve wasted my life trying to be the person I thought my aunt and uncle wanted me to be. I’ve wasted my life trying to make them love me. That’s all I wanted, to be loved again.”
Love At First Bite Page 32
