Читать книгу Sins and Scandals Collection - Nicola Cornick - Страница 21

WHEN MERRYN ENTERED the library, Garrick was standing by the window looking out over the gardens. He did not turn immediately at her entrance. She was not even sure he had heard her. She stood for a moment and looked at him, while her heart beat a violent tattoo against her ribs.

This was the man who was responsible for her brother’s death yet when she looked at him all she could remember was his kiss, his touch on her skin, the broken endearments he had whispered to her as he had made love to her with such searing thoroughness and delight. In some ways she barely knew him and yet in others she knew him so intimately that the knowledge made her tremble. And it was not simply that she had so strong a physical awareness of him. Honesty prompted her to admit that something bound her to Garrick Farne so deeply that she could neither explain it nor escape it. It had been so from the start.

She saw that Garrick had done her the honor of dressing immaculately. His broad shoulders were encased in a coat of brown superfine. Buff pantaloons molded his thighs and his boots had a high polish. He had shaved closely. The stubble was gone. The thought that Garrick had done this because he was intent on proposing to her gave Merryn the oddest lump in her throat. And then he turned, and she saw that his face was pale with a livid bruise on the temple and a cut down one cheek, she saw the bandage at his wrist, and she remembered the darkness and the terror of their imprisonment and the intimacy it had forced them into, and she wanted to run.

Instead of fleeing she came forward into the room, drawing on all the strength and courage she could muster.

“Lady Merryn,” he said. His voice was very deep. “You are well?”

He had taken her hands in his. Heat and awareness enveloped her instantly. She felt the abrasions of his raw skin against her fingers. Instantly she was back in the tumbled ruins of the beer flood with Garrick’s body shielding hers from the falling masonry. He had defended her against all peril. Misery twisted within her. Impossible choices …

“I am … tolerably well, I thank you, your grace,” Merryn said.

She saw a spark of amusement light his eyes at her formality. No wonder, when the last time they had met she had been naked in his arms while he took the most outrageous liberties with her willing body. The thought made her feel faint. She wanted to pretend it had never happened. She wanted to do it all over again. She did not know what she wanted but she felt as though she was being torn apart.

She took a deep breath. “I appear to have compromised you, your grace,” she said.

The smile in Garrick’s eyes deepened, warm and tender. Merryn’s composure faltered, hanging by a thread.

“That is a novel way of expressing it,” Garrick said. “It is generally the gentleman who takes the responsibility.”

“I think we must both do that,” Merryn said. “I do not blame you in any way for what happened between us.”

Garrick’s smile faded. He still held her hand. “How very just and fair you are, Lady Merryn,” he said, “but it was my loss of control. I knew what I was doing.” His eyes darkened. “You did not.”

“I could have stopped you,” Merryn whispered. Her heart was beating erratically, butterflies fluttering in her throat. “But I did not wish to do so.”

The gentleness in his eyes was almost her undoing. “Always so honest,” he said. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her palm. She shivered.

His tone changed. “Merryn,” he said again.

Merryn wished that he would not use her name so informally and speak it in such gentle tones. Something in his voice struck the deepest chord within her and undermined all her defenses. It reminded her of the way in which he had whispered her name in the hot darkness. Of the way he had shouted it, with an edge of desperation, when he had urged her to throw herself into his arms. It reminded her of the intimate connection there was between them, the ties of memory and desire that she wished did not exist. But they did exist and she could not escape them.

She turned her face away from him, suddenly unable to meet his gaze.

He went down on one knee before her. Oh, dear, this was bad—this was like a proper proposal rather than one borne of necessity and scandal. Merryn bit her lip and forced back the unexpected tears.

“Merryn,” he said, “will you marry me?”

Merryn felt the most insane urge to put a hand out to touch the crisp auburn hair that curled over his collar. His head was bent. She could see the line of his eyelashes against the straight slash of his cheek. Fair lashes, like hers. Any child of theirs would not have the thick dark lashes so beloved of artists and the fashionable ladies of the ton.

“I cannot marry you, Garrick,” she whispered. “I am sorry.” She closed her eyes against the pain inside her and the thought of a little girl—or boy—blessed with fair eyelashes.

Garrick had straightened up but he had not moved away from her. She felt as though his physical presence engulfed her. “May I beg you to reconsider?” His voice was strained. “Society will destroy you if you do not accept my offer, Merryn. I cannot allow that to happen.”

“I do not pay any regard to the opinions of society and I never have,” Merryn said fiercely.

“Yes,” Garrick said. Despite everything she could hear a tinge of humor in his voice. “I do know that.”

“I’ll find something else to do,” Merryn said desperately. She took a few agitated steps away from him. “I can see that I can no longer work for Tom but perhaps I could gain employment elsewhere—” She stopped. There was an expression on Garrick’s face that could only be described as pity.

“Merryn,” he said again. “Not this time.”

There was a silence.

Everyone is talking scandal … It is in all the papers … Caught naked in a brothel in bed with the Duke of Farne … Merryn could hear Tess’s whispered words. She knew she was the most notorious woman in London.

Ruined.

Compromised.

She liked words but she did not like this one with its overtones of suspicion and disrepute. Her reputation was sullied, her virginity lost. Even if she did not bear a child, the proof of her fall from virtue, gossip and scandal would cling to her name forever. No one would offer her employment. She knew that, in her heart. If she did not marry Garrick she would become an outcast, shunned by all except her own family. The lectures and talks, exhibitions and concerts that she had relished would become events where she ran the gamut of public gossip. She had gone from being invisible to being the most visible, the most talked about, person in the ton.

“I wonder,” she said bitterly, “if it would have been different had it been a flood of champagne?”

“Much better ton,” Garrick said with a faint smile, “but I fear that in the end the effect would have been the same. You would have to marry me.”

“I cannot marry you,” Merryn said. She took several more paces across the room.

“Merryn,” Garrick said. “Please reconsider.” His tone had changed. There was iron in it now, absolute, immovable. “If there is a child,” he said, very deliberately, “I cannot—I will not—let it be born out of wedlock.”

“But there may not be a child,” Merryn said eagerly. Hope and desperation warred inside her. “We can wait,” she said. “In a little while we shall see …” Her voice trailed away unhappily. She knew it would not serve even as she saw Garrick’s expression.

“We wait what—a month, two?” His voice was extremely polite but the look in his eyes was not. It was furious. “Then if you are not pregnant we congratulate ourselves on a lucky escape, and if you are, we marry one another quickly, quietly, with everyone counting days and months and gossiping about us?” His mouth twisted. “That is too shabby. I will not do it.”

Merryn looked into his dark, implacable eyes. She knew Garrick was correct—she could not take the risk of condemning a child to the stigma of illegitimacy, another bastard Farne offspring, like father like son. She pressed her fingers to her lips to hold back the hysteria that suddenly threatened her. Confronted with such cruel choices she felt smothered with guilt. She wanted to run.

But she could not. She had to face what she had done.

“You must marry me,” Garrick said. “Good God, Merryn—” Suddenly there was raw anger in his voice. “I already have your brother’s death on my conscience,” he said. “I have no intention of adding to the scandal by giving the gossipmongers ammunition to claim that I have destroyed your life, too.” He took her hand and she could feel the tension that gripped him. “This way I can atone,” Garrick said. His voice was rough. “I tried to do that when I gave back Fenners and your fortune. I righted one small wrong. If you wed me—”

“It will not put right Stephen’s death,” Merryn said heatedly. “Nothing can do that.”

“No,” Garrick said, “but it will right you in the eyes of the world. And that way we can present the marriage as a further step toward reconciliation between our two families instead of simply a way to prevent scandal. Have you thought—” he let her go abruptly and turned away “—that many people may well imagine that you have been my mistress for some time?”

This time the silence was taut with emotion. Merryn sank down heavily onto one of the chairs. She had not imagined it for one moment. It cut her to the heart.

She remembered Lord Croft’s carelessly cruel words in Bond Street. He had implied that she had been willing to overlook Stephen’s death in return for a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. How much louder, how much more salacious, would be the gossip that she was Garrick’s mistress. She could almost hear the whispers, the hiss of silken skirts withdrawing from her. She could see the flick of fans as the delicious on dit sped through the ton. Nothing could be more scandalous than the suggestion that she had turned to the bed of the very man who had ruined her family.

Garrick was right. Marriage would at least put a respectable gloss on a deeply unrespectable situation.

“Perhaps a marriage of convenience …” She started to say. “In name only. To promote the fiction that this is indeed an alliance intended to mend the breach between our families—” She stopped as she saw the look in his eyes.

He took a step toward her, and another. “A marriage in name only,” he said softly, mockingly. He took her chin in his hand and turned her face up to his. His touch was featherlight but Merryn felt it echo through her whole body. She closed her eyes for a moment against the potency of it.

“Do you think you could do that?” he asked in the same tone that had the shivers chasing down her spine. “For I could not. I warn you now—I would not even try.” He bent his head until his lips brushed hers. The heat flared inside her.

“Could you do that?” he repeated, his lips an inch from hers. His mouth took hers before she could reply and he was kissing her with skill and a mastery that set her shaking from head to toe. Her body recognized the taste and the touch of him now and responded to him with an eager need she could neither hide nor deny, opening to him like a flower to the sun. It shamed her all over again that she could be so avid for his touch when her mind was so cloudy and confused with grief and misery.

Garrick deepened the kiss and Merryn caught hold of his jacket to steady herself in a world that was spinning. The material of it slipped beneath her fingers and his arms came about her, steadying her, holding her close. His kiss was a statement of possession and intent, and Merryn recognized it as such. She would be his wife in every way possible. There was no escape.

He released her and stood back. He was breathing hard and his eyes glittered with desire.

“I already have a special license,” he said. “We will be wed within the week. Oh, and Merryn—” There was an odd pause. “I should be very grateful,” Garrick said, a little formally, “if you were able to honor your wedding vows.”

Merryn stared at him for a moment uncomprehending. For all Garrick’s forcefulness and the blazing passion between them she had sensed raw anguish in his voice then. Her heart jolted to hear it.

“Kitty,” she whispered. “You do not wish for another unfaithful wife.”

“It would be most unfortunate,” Garrick agreed, and there was a thread of humor in his tone that did not quite disguise the hurt. “I fear I am most unfashionable in that regard. The somewhat … flexible … morals of some members of the ton do not suit my taste. Although,” he added bitterly, “I can see that it would also be the most perfect revenge for you to marry me and then betray me. Life comes full circle.”

Merryn shook her head abruptly. She was shocked by this insight into Garrick’s pain. He had always seemed so confident and so supremely sure of himself, so unapologetic for what he had done in the past. In the dark intimacy of their confinement she had tried to provoke him by goading him about Stephen and Kitty’s love. He had responded by telling her that he regretted his wife’s betrayal of him every single day. She had heard his pain and disillusion then. Now, looking into his eyes, she felt it, believed it.

She swallowed hard. “I am not the sort of woman to do that,” she said. “If I give a promise I keep it. I would never dishonor you.”

She saw a flash of something in Garrick’s eyes, some emotion so profound that she felt shaken. “Yes,” he said. His tone had warmed a shade. “I believe you. You are too honest to play me false. You keep your promises.”

“You did not wish to wed again,” Merryn said, watching his face. She felt as though she was learning something new, stumbling along a strange path. She knew that insight was not her strong suit. Tom’s betrayal had pointed that up rather painfully. But now with Garrick she found she wanted to learn and understand.

Garrick shook his head. “No. I never wanted to marry again.”

Merryn understood that now. It had not occurred to her before that Kitty’s unfaithfulness must have damaged Garrick so badly that he would never remarry. She had thought he had not cared. She realized that she had been wrong.

“But surely you need an heir?” she said.

“I have brothers,” Garrick said. He smiled at last. “I may not speak to them but I can count on them to continue the Farne line.”

It seemed a cold world to Merryn, who had only that morning come to value the extent of her sisters’ love.

Garrick was watching her with those dark, dark eyes. “Do we have an agreement, then?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” Merryn whispered. The word was out, no going back.

She saw him smile with relief and triumph and possession. He kissed her again and she felt her head spin and her knees weaken as the pleasure rocked through her like a sweet, hot tide.

He released her. “Thank you,” he said. “I will call on you later.”

He bowed to her and went out and Merryn crossed to the window and sank down onto the seat, remembering the pressure of Garrick’s mouth on hers and feeling the heat still thrum through her body. Her lips felt impossibly soft and sensitive, swollen from Garrick’s kisses. Her belly was aching with a tight, hot sensation. She knew how that might be eased now. She knew what she wanted.

With a groan she covered her face with her hands.

How could she marry this man and live with him as his wife when she hated what he had done?

Garrick Farne. Her husband. She felt impossibly torn.

JOANNA HAD DECREED that the winter exhibition at the Royal Academy was the event at which Merryn and Garrick would make their debut in society as a betrothed couple. The wedding was two days away.

“You cannot hide away forever,” Joanna snapped, when Merryn objected. “Yes, there will be gossip but better to tackle it head-on. Trust me—I know a little about facing society’s censure.”

“I did not enjoy social occasions before,” Merryn argued. “Why should it be different now?”

“It won’t be,” Tess put in. “It will be worse.” She and Joanna were wrestling their sister into a brand-new yellow gown. Merryn felt like a tailor’s dummy, pummeled and pushed between them. “But you have to do it, Merryn,” Tess continued, “otherwise you will become even more of a hermit than you already are. They will call you the Reclusive Duchess, or something else snide and more alliterative than I can think.”

“The Desolate Duchess?” Joanna suggested.

“The Dismal Duchess,” Merryn said.

“Oh, yes,” Tess said, smiling, “I like that one.”

The sisters stood back, spun Merryn around and presented her to the mirror. “There. You look lovely.”

Merryn thought that she looked like a very reluctant Cinderella with two beautiful fairy godmothers smiling behind her. Her hair had been curled and teased into precisely the sort of upswept arrangement she hated and could never maintain, even though the prettiest yellow bonnet secured it. The gown was … Well, it simply was not her style. But then she did not have a style. Shabby bluestocking was scarcely the mode and certainly would not do for the Royal Academy.

She was about to dismiss her reflection, thank her sisters politely and make the best of a bad job when she looked again and felt a small frisson of excitement. She had never previously paid the slightest attention to her appearance, never had any interest in it and yet now, suddenly, she could hear Garrick’s words.

I do not even notice your sisters when you are close by …

A little shiver shook her. She looked again. Her hair, so glossy and golden, framed a face that had regained its color and gained also something of sensual knowledge and experience. Her eyes glowed deep blue. Her lips were parted on the edge of a smile. The gown skimmed her shoulders and fell like a golden waterfall from below her breast to spill about her feet. She was aware of the caress of the silk and the way it swathed her body with a soft cocoon like a lover’s embrace.

She reached out one gloved hand and touched her reflection, trying to pin down the difference in her, the difference in how she felt. She thought of Garrick and the way that he watched her. She pressed her fingers to her lips in an unconscious echo of his touch. She felt alive.

“I think Merryn has woken up,” Joanna said, a little dryly, from behind her.

Merryn spun around. Just for a moment, lost in a world of new and sensual discovery, she had forgotten her sisters. They were both laughing at her. They were also both looking frightfully proud of her and a little bit anxious. She felt a pang of love and gratitude and caught their hands.

“Thank you,” she said. “I won’t hug you because it would crush the silk.”

“Gracious,” Joanna said, squeezing her hand, her eyes like stars, “we will make a fashionable lady of you yet, Merryn!”

“Pray do not set your sights too high,” Merryn said, laughing, and then they were all hugging each other anyway and she clung to Joanna and to Tess because everything had changed, she had changed and she was a little bit afraid, and because she had only just realized how much she loved them.

“At least you will not have to run the gamut of Garrick’s family,” Tess said as she disentangled herself and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I hear that they do not speak.”

“Poor Garrick,” Joanna said. “That must be unconscionably lonely. I wonder why they are estranged?”

“Well,” Tess said, “it could be because all his siblings are the most unconscionable snobs. Ghastly, you know. He is better off without them.”

It felt odd to hear Joanna and Tess speak sympathetically of Garrick, Merryn thought, and yet on a purely human basis she had to agree with them. Garrick had always struck her as the most solitary of men and in some bitter way this marriage, borne out of necessity not love, might make him more solitary still. She had always deplored the cold business arrangements of aristocratic marriages yet at least in an arranged marriage there was usually companionship if not love, mutual support and sometimes respect. Garrick had offered her his name to save her reputation. She offered him nothing. It felt wrong to enter marriage on such a basis. She gave a violent shiver. She felt small and lonely, smothered by convention. For one terrifying moment she could see her life spinning out before her in a series of images of great country houses with huge, empty rooms, spaces where she would always walk alone.

“Here …” Tess handed her the yellow coat that matched the silk gown. “You are cold.”

“I am frightened,” Merryn said frankly.

Joanna and Tess exchanged a look. “We will be with you,” Joanna said encouragingly, “and Alex, too, although he says he is too much of a philistine to appreciate art. But I have always thought Mr. Turner’s pictures most fine. I adored his painting of Hannibal crossing the Alps.”

Merryn bit back the retort that would previously have sprung to her lips, a blistering comment on Joanna’s appreciation of any picture that was fashionable and approved by society. Besides, that was not really fair to her sister who as well as being generous to a fault had a very fine eye for style that was all her own.

I have been very unkind in the past, Merryn thought. I must try to do better.

It was odd; she had thought she was happy before, keeping secrets, doing her work for Tom, harboring her hatred of Garrick Farne. Only now, with her past life in tatters and an uncertain future before her as Duchess of Farne, could she see that perhaps what she had thought was happiness had been something different, a partial life bringing interest and challenge through her work and her studies perhaps, but also devoid of love.

Shrugging off the disturbing thought, she grabbed the fur muff that matched the trim on the bonnet.

“Well,” she said, smiling at Joanna and Tess, “let us go and make them talk!”

Despite her bravado, the journey to the Royal Academy in the Strand was accomplished in tense silence. The fact that the exhibition rooms were crowded with people also did nothing to soothe Merryn’s nerves. Alex offered her his arm and Joanna and Tess walked ahead, arms linked, terrifyingly à la mode, challenging anyone, Merryn thought, who dared to look askance at them. Even so there was absolute silence for a moment as they swept into the main exhibition room before a positive barrage of chatter broke out around them. Merryn unconsciously raised her chin in exact parody of her sisters’ nonchalant disdain but she was horribly aware of all the flutter of speculation and gossip, the whispers, the sideways glances. She could imagine all the unpleasant things they were saying, the comments about her fall from grace, her scrambled betrothal to save face, the delicious on dit of her being found naked in a bordello, a piece of scandal that surely could never be surpassed. Her face burned and the tears pricked her eyes but she was not going to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing how she felt. She had always hated to be the center of attention; this was hideous, her worst nightmare, as the fans flicked and the eyes followed her and someone tittered, a laugh full of lewd suggestiveness.

“I wish Garrick had escorted me,” Merryn whispered impulsively to Alex. Although she appreciated her brother-in-law’s support a very great deal she felt bereft without Garrick at her side, an odd but undeniable sensation that she had not expected.

“He is here now,” Alex whispered back, smiling.

Merryn turned slowly, her heart in her mouth. Garrick had come through the main entrance doors and was walking toward them flanked on one side by a man Merryn recognized as Captain Owen Purchase. Purchase seemed to be looking at Tess with the expression of a man struck dumb with admiration.

“Another good man goes down under the onslaught of the Fenner sisters,” Alex was saying ruefully.

Merryn was not paying attention, however, for on Garrick’s arm was a tiny elderly lady, very stiff and upright in rustling black silk, not a white hair out of place and a truly astonishing diamond necklace glittering about her neck. They approached very slowly and by the time they were within a few paces every single person in the room was watching and once again the gossip had died to a murmur and then faded altogether.

“Is that not … Surely it is … I … Oh, dear …” Merryn was suddenly terrified.

“Lady Merryn.” Garrick had stopped before her and executed the most immaculately perfect bow. He raised his voice a little so that everyone nearby could hear him. “It is my very great honor and pleasure,” he said, “to introduce you to my aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Steyne. Aunt Elizabeth, my fiancée, Lady Merryn Fenner.”

The Dowager’s keen black gaze swept Merryn up and down as she made her curtsy and Merryn felt as though she was taking in every aspect of her appearance while leaving the verdict undeclared. The Duchess’s bearing was regal, her expression haughty. Around them the crowd bobbed and fluttered, waiting. The Dowager Duchess of Steyne was a high stickler, a relic from a previous age. She was a friend of the Queen, rarely seen in public these days but still wielding the most enormous social power. It was unthinkable that Garrick Farne would have introduced his father’s sister to a woman who had been his mistress, engaged in some shoddy affaire. All the same, the crowds waited in case the Dowager titillated their taste for gossip with the cut direct.

Merryn held the Dowager Duchess’s unreadable dark gaze until she felt her nerves were at screaming point. Then something that might have passed for a wintry smile flickered across the Dowager’s lips and she said, “It pleases me greatly that the breach between the Fenner and the Farne families is soon to be healed by your marriage to my nephew, Lady Merryn.”

There was a whooshing sound as everyone released their breath at the same moment, turned away and pretended that they had not really been listening at all. Merryn felt herself go limp with relief. She dropped another slight curtsy.

“Thank you, your grace.”

The Dowager Duchess nodded. “Charming,” she said, and turned to acknowledge Joanna.

“Lady Grant,” she said. “I congratulate you on the most beautiful design you created for Lady Drummond’s drawing room. Exquisite taste.” Her gaze moved on to Tess. “And Lady Darent … I congratulate you on once again being a rich widow.” She turned to Alex. “Now, Lord Grant. I have long wanted to make your acquaintance.”

Garrick drew Merryn slightly to one side. His broad shoulders blocked out the inquisitive crowd.

“Well,” Garrick said, raising his brows, “you seem to have made quite an impression. Aunt Elizabeth is not normally so fulsome in her praise.”

“That was praise?” Merryn tried for a light tone. She put a hand on his sleeve. “Thank you for what you did,” she whispered.

Garrick looked down at her, a smile lightening his dark eyes again, and Merryn felt a rush of feeling that left her light-headed and a little dizzy. “It was a risk,” he admitted, “but after I had explained everything to Aunt Elizabeth I trusted her to support us.”

“Everything?” Merryn said faintly.

“Almost everything,” Garrick amended. His gaze met hers, sliding over her, bringing heat in its wake. His smile was intimate, tender, for her alone, and it made her heart ache.

“You look very beautiful tonight, Merryn,” he said.

The Dowager had turned back to them. “Lady Merryn,” she said, her sharp black gaze traveling from her to Garrick and making Merryn feel as though her emotions were naked, “I have a fancy to see the Collins exhibition. You will accompany me.”

Merryn shot Garrick an anguished look. He laughed.

“I will come and find you shortly,” he said, a smile and a promise in his eyes. He leaned closer. “Remember she does not bite,” he whispered.

“Pray do not interrupt us too soon,” the Dowager snapped.

Merryn followed the Dowager’s ramrod-straight figure through the archway into the next, smaller exhibition room. There were fewer people here and those that were present took one look at the Dowager’s fierce expression and melted away, leaving the room empty. The Duchess stopped before a small portrait in the corner. It was a picture of a seated woman and might have been painted some fifteen years before. The subject was young, a girl of about eighteen or nineteen, exquisitely pretty, curvaceous, with dark hair curling softly about her face, limpid black eyes and a little smile just starting to dimple the corners of her mouth. A small dog sat a few feet away, gazing adoringly at the woman who looked as though she took such adoration for granted from animals and people alike.

Merryn caught her breath on a little gasp and the Duchess looked sharply at her.

“You recognize my nephew’s wife, Kitty Scott? This was painted just before their marriage.”

Merryn’s heart was beating fast in her throat. “I … Yes, I do. We … met once or twice,” she stammered. “I was only a child …”

The Duchess nodded. “Kitty was a pretty little chit. I liked her spirit but she had the most vicious temper when she was thwarted.”

Merryn was shocked. She frowned, trying to match the memory of the Kitty she had known with the woman of the Dowager’s description. The Kitty Farne of her recollection had been the sweetest, kindest creature in the world, always giving her sweetmeats and little gifts, ribbons and thread, asking her what she had been reading, showing an interest in all the ordinary aspects of Merryn’s life that Joanna and Tess had been too wrapped up in themselves to care about. It was one of the reasons that Merryn had loved Kitty. And because Kitty had loved Stephen, of course …

The Dowager Duchess was looking at her very directly. “My nephew has suffered a gross betrayal in his life and experienced a great deal of misery and loneliness,” she said. “I trust, Lady Merryn, that you will not add to his unhappiness.”

I would not dare, Merryn thought. Pinned under the Dowager’s cold, dark stare she felt like a specimen on a slab.

“I would never willfully cause anyone unhappiness,” she said.

The Duchess nodded briskly. “I believe that. You seem a straightforward sort of gal, not in the common style.” Once again that faint smile touched her lips. “Garrick says you are a bluestocking. That is all to the good since he is a notable scholar. And being a Duke is a lonely business. One needs a helpmeet.”

“Yes,” Merryn said. She thought of Farne House with its long, empty echoing corridors, devoid of life, of love. “Yes, I do understand that.”

She looked back at the portrait, at Kitty Scott painted on that verdant summer day so many years ago, so soon before tragedy. Kitty had not been much of a helpmeet to her husband, that was for sure.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I did not realize that Garrick loved her.”

The Dowager gave a dry laugh. “Oh, he did not. My brother sold Garrick into marriage to further his political ambitions. He was a blackguard, Claudius. It was a fine dynastic match and Garrick would have done his duty. A pity that Miss Scott’s heart and much else was already given elsewhere.” The Duchess’s voice was very dry.

“Yes,” Merryn said. She felt a dull ache in the region of her own heart.

Garrick would have done his duty …

Merryn did not doubt it. It was the reason that she now found herself betrothed to Garrick, because he was a man who held honor and obligation above all things.

She thought of what she knew of Garrick, the young rakehell who had been sold into marriage by his father for gain, who had been prepared to make the match work out of duty. She felt an enormous sadness. She looked up to see the Dowager Duchess watching her keenly, and with some other emotion in her eyes, something softer.

“I am sorry,” she said again and she was not really sure what she was apologizing for. The Dowager Duchess actually patted her hand.

“It was not your fault, child.” She paused. “But now you bear a huge responsibility. If you cannot love Garrick, you will, I am sure, do your best to honor and respect him.”

If you cannot love him …

Merryn jolted to a stop, staring blindly in front of her. Garrick had taken her body and left her heart shattered, torn with doubt and confusion. She had thought that it was because of guilt and grief and the impossible choices she had to make. But that was not the whole truth. She felt breathless, frozen with shock. How had she not realized that her feelings were involved? Perhaps it was because she had never loved before. Perhaps it was because Garrick was the last man on earth that she had wanted to love. Yet she knew she did. The truth beat through her mind until she wanted to cry out to try to drown the words. It was impossible but it was undeniable. She loved Garrick Farne.

She had known it, in her heart. She had known there in terrifying dark when they had been trapped together and she had turned to him with absolute trust to hold her and protect her and keep her safe. She had known but she had turned the feelings away, reaching instead for her hatred and her grief to build a barrier and defend herself against him. Now, though, she could deny it no longer. And the thought brought a new wave of terror. Garrick had not wanted to wed her. He had been honest enough to admit that he had never wanted to wed again and without love those burdens of duty and honor and obligation that tied him to her could become the heaviest of shackles. She loved him but in return he could give nothing of his heart.

“Lady Merryn?” The Dowager Duchess sounded impatient. “You are woolgathering, my dear.”

“I beg your pardon,” Merryn said, blinking, pushing away the tumble of thoughts and emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. “I was thinking …” She realized that she was still staring at Kitty’s pretty painted face and that the Dowager had misunderstood her.

“It was all a long time ago,” the Dowager said, “and nothing to do with you, child that you were. Don’t let it taint you.”

Too late. She had let it taint her life for twelve long years.

Merryn shuddered. She had made so many mistakes, taken so many false steps. What if she had been wrong about Garrick from the start? What if …

What if it was not Garrick who had shot Stephen at all? What if there had been a terrible accident and Kitty had shot her lover and Garrick had taken the blame?

Merryn’s heart started to hammer in long, slow strokes. She thought of the instinct that persistently told her that Garrick was an honorable man. She thought of his life raised in duty and service. She trembled at the enormity of what must have happened.

Suddenly she was possessed with the most monstrous impatience. She had to speak to Garrick, to ask him to tell her the truth. She had to get him alone. Not even she could be so direct as to ask him in front of the assembled crowd at the Royal Academy whether his wife had shot her lover by accident and he had taken the blame.

She looked across at Garrick. He was standing with Alex and Joanna, admiring a William Collins engraving, The Fishing Boys. His head was bent, his expression grave and thoughtful. He turned slightly to answer some remark of Joanna’s and for a second a smile lighted his eyes and Merryn felt a rush of emotion so strong and turbulent that it stole her breath.

He had to be innocent of the heinous crime of which she had accused him. She was sure that she was right. She had to be right. Kitty had shot Stephen and Garrick, out of duty and honor, had protected her.

Something urgent in her stance must have communicated itself to Garrick because he looked up and his gaze tangled with hers. For a moment they stared at one another while the crowd spun past them in a blur of color and noise. Garrick excused himself from Joanna and Alex and came across to her.

“What is it?” he said, raising his brows. His brown eyes were very steady. He took her hand, entwining his fingers in hers.

“I need to speak with you alone,” Merryn whispered.

The Dowager bent a very disapproving look upon her. “Not before the wedding, Lady Merryn. That would be quite improper. You shall be chaperoned at all times.” She looked around, summoning Joanna and Tess with the merest glance.

“It is time to take Lady Merryn home,” she instructed, making Merryn feel like a child. “I need hardly add,” she said, fixing Merryn with a very hard stare, “that the slightest sign of inappropriate behavior will destroy all the good work we have achieved tonight.” Her gimlet eye slid around from Merryn’s flushed face to Garrick’s rueful one. “Is that clear, nephew?”

“As crystal, aunt, I thank you,” Garrick said. He raised Merryn’s hand to his lips and placed an irreproachably proper kiss on the back. “Good night, Lady Merryn,” he said. “I will call on you tomorrow.”

As the coach trundled home Merryn sat between Joanna and Tess, the least proper chaperones in the world, she could not help thinking, and contemplated how on earth she was going to get Garrick alone now that she was watched over as closely as any virginal debutante. That was not her only difficulty. She could foresee that Garrick, who had guarded his secrets so well out of duty and honor, might not necessarily be willing to tell her the truth. She was going to have to make him talk.

Merryn’s heart was suddenly thumping, shivers of equal nervousness and excitement skittering across her skin. She understood now the power she had over Garrick. She understood how much he wanted her. She wondered if she dared to use his desire against him.

She had every intention of being very inappropriate indeed.