Читать книгу Sins and Scandals Collection - Nicola Cornick - Страница 25

GARRICK HAD LOOKED everywhere for Merryn, asked everyone he had seen and had drawn a blank at every turn. With each empty road and every negative response his anxiety for her had grown, desperation lending his steps even greater speed as he had searched everywhere he could think.

All he could see was Merryn’s stricken face and the blank shock in her eyes as she had reproached him.

“I had nothing of him left,” she had said of her brother. And he had remembered the long, dark night in the beer flood when she had told him that sometimes she could not even remember Stephen’s face, that he was slipping away from her even as she desperately tried to hold something of him to her, to keep his memory alive. He knew that this business of the child was one thing that she could never forgive him for. She had said that she never wanted to see him again. He understood that. But even so he had to know that she was safe.

He had been searching for her since the previous day, tracing her steps to the White Lion in Holborn where the landlord remembered her taking the Bath Flyer, driving hell for leather on the Bath Road, calling at the White Hart in Bath, following her trail to Shipham, becoming more and more anxious for her with every mile that passed because he knew that when she discovered the whole truth as surely she would now, it would shatter her illusions once and for all and destroy her world. Bradshaw had been as slippery and deceitful as Garrick had known he would be, swearing that Merryn knew nothing of the child and that he himself had no interest in the scurrilous gossip that Harriet had carried to him. Garrick had sensed the man was lying about something but in his haste to find Merryn he had let Bradshaw go.

Now he paced the courtyard of the inn in Kilve. As a last resort he had assumed that Merryn would return there intent on taking a carriage home, intent at least on getting as far away from him as possible. He had waited ten minutes, in an agony of impatience and doubt, and a further ten barely able to contain his feelings. And now, another five minutes later, he knew that something was wrong. He could feel it. The unease prickled along his skin and nagged at his mind.

The ostlers were unharnessing his carriage horses, leading them to the stables and rubbing them down. Suddenly Garrick made up his mind.

“Saddle me up your best horse,” he said abruptly to one of the gaping grooms. The anxiety grabbed at him again. “Quickly, man!”

The ostler was looking dubious. This was a country inn, after all.

“The best, your grace?” he queried.

“Now!” Garrick snapped.

The best horse was perhaps not quite as highly bred as those in the Farne stables. In fact it looked suspiciously like an Exmoor pony and he was afraid that his weight would prove too much for it. However it was no broken-winded nag, Garrick saw to his relief, and it proved game enough when he turned it on to the coast path and gave it its head. The stones flew from its hooves. The thunder of the surf was in Garrick’s ears and the whip of cold air on his face, and the ride should have been exhilarating had fear not held him tight in its grasp now, a dark formless dread that told him that something was terribly awry.

He saw the blue of Merryn’s gown from the cliffs and immediately changed his course to go down onto the beach. There was someone with her; Garrick could not see clearly what was happening but they were by the water’s edge. Merryn appeared to be on her knees …

Then two things happened at once. He recognized Tom Bradshaw when Tom began to run. And Merryn did not move.

With a muffled oath Garrick set the horse to the edge of the cliff, scrambling and slithering down the precipitous slope until they reached the beach. Thank God, he thought, this was an Exmoor pony. It looked as though it took such inclines in its stride every day of the week. It was not even pulling for breath. He urged it to a gallop and the little creature responded, the sand flying. On the way he passed Bradshaw running away as fast as he could. Bradshaw took a shot at him, the bullet flying so close that it passed through the horse’s mane. Garrick did not even pause. His entire being was focused on Merryn, on reaching her in time, on saving her. His heart was thumping.

He reined in six feet back from the edge of the water so that the horse did not become mired in the quicksand, too. He cut the reins.

“Keep still,” he said to Merryn. “Don’t move.” There was no time. She was already up to her thighs in the sand, then her hips, her waist. Her face was white as chalk, her eyes huge, terrified. But he could not allow himself to think of that. He could not allow himself to think of her fear, or feel his own. He had to concentrate. He knotted the reins into a loop with hands that were absolutely steady.

“Listen to me,” he said, and saw her give a tiny nod. “I’m going to throw this to you. Slip the noose around your body and hold on tight.”

Merryn did not respond. Her eyes were blank.

“Do you understand?” Garrick said. He injected a hint of steel into his voice. “Merryn.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

Another wave broke around her and Garrick saw her slip an inch deeper, two inches. The sand was almost up to her armpits now. In seconds she would be gone. The fear clawed at his throat, paralyzing him for a brief second. To lose Merryn now would be intolerable, eclipsing everything else that had happened in his life, driving out light and love forever. When Purchase had confronted him about his feelings for Merryn he had denied that he loved her. He had believed it. He had thought himself too tarnished and bitter to love. He recognized his mistake now in the seconds before he was about to lose that love forever.

He could see the horror in Merryn’s eyes. It filled her whole being. The sand sucked at her and she slipped another inch. She opened her mouth to scream. Garrick knew she was on the very edge of hysteria and that if she gave in to it she would be lost. She would sink in an instant and be smothered, drowned in sand.

“Merryn,” he said. “I love you. Don’t leave me now.”

Her gaze jerked up to his. Her breathing calmed a fraction.

He threw the makeshift rope.

She caught it and slipped the loop over her head and the breath left Garrick’s lungs so fast he felt dizzy.

“Hold on!” he shouted.

The snow was swirling, blinding him now. He pulled harder than he had ever pulled in his life before and felt the resistance. He pulled again, almost wrenching his arms from their sockets, and then another wave broke and he felt the sands shift and move and Merryn came free to her waist, then her knees, and then she was sprawling on the sand in a tumbled heap, half conscious, as Garrick lifted her with hands that shook so much now he could not keep them steady. He held her close against his racing heart and pressed his lips to her hair.

“I am sorry,” he said. “If you cannot forgive me—” “Be quiet, Garrick,” Merryn said very clearly. Her eyes opened. She reached up and cupped his face in her hands and kissed him and then Garrick was kissing her back, over and over, desperate, famished kisses as though he would never let her go.

THEY DID NOT TALK on the way back. The horse was tired now and carrying a double weight and Merryn felt colder and more tired still. Garrick had wrapped her in his jacket and though she murmured a protest and tried to shrug it off he just fastened it all the more closely about her and after a moment she accepted his gift. The coat was warm and smelled of Garrick and she turned her face against the collar and drank in the reassurance of it. She found that for once she did not want to speak at all. She felt simultaneously too full of emotion to be able to grapple with it, yet utterly drained and exhausted. She had questions—she would come to those soon enough and this time, she knew, Garrick would answer—but for now she was content to lie quietly in Garrick’s arms as he encouraged the little horse back to the village.

It was only a matter of minutes before they were back in Kilve’s broad high street and turning through the arch into the courtyard of The Smugglers Inn. Garrick handed the shivering pony over to the ostlers, gave it an appreciative pat, lifted Merryn down again and carried her into the inn. This time her protests were stronger.

“Put me down,” she snapped, wriggling in his arms. “I am perfectly capable of walking. I am not an invalid!”

Mrs. Morton chose that precise moment to appear from the parlor and seemed extremely flustered to see Merryn clasped in the arms of a man.

“Lady Merryn!” she exclaimed.

“Mrs. Morton,” Merryn said as Garrick gently restored her to her feet. “This is—”

“I am Lady Merryn’s husband,” Garrick lied smoothly, shooting Merryn a swift look that positively forbade argument. “Garrick Farne, at your service, madam.” He executed a perfect bow.

“You did not tell us you were married!” Mrs. Morton exclaimed, seemingly torn between indignation that Merryn had kept such a prime piece of gossip from her and a certain admiration for Garrick’s evident style.

“I am afraid that Lady Merryn has not quite got used to the idea yet,” Garrick said, before Merryn could respond. His hand tightened warningly on hers. “Our relationship is only of recent standing.”

Merryn opened her mouth—saw his expression—and closed it again. Garrick, she thought, looked extremely forbidding. “Come, my love,” he added, shifting his grip to her arm. “You are chilled to the bone. I will ask the landlady to draw a bath for you.”

The landlord appeared at the moment, with promises of spiced wine and hot food and when he addressed Garrick as “your grace” Mrs. Morton’s mouth fell open, her eyes became as huge as dinner plates and she hurried off, presumably to acquaint the rest of the inn’s occupants with the news of their august guest.

“I don’t know what you had to do that for,” Merryn said as the landlord ushered them into a private parlor where a fire roared in the grate.

“Because,” Garrick said, “I had no wish to make you the butt of yet more scandal.”

“I think,” Merryn said, “that my reputation is probably beyond saving now.”

“Probably,” Garrick concurred.

There was a little silence.

“Did you mean it?” Merryn said. Her voice trembled.

Garrick did not pretend to misunderstand her. “Yes,” he said. “I meant it. I love you with all my heart.” There was so much of pity and regret in his eyes. “But I also meant what I said in London.” His voice was lacerated by pain. “I can never be the man you want me to be, Merryn.”

The landlord knocked at the door and came in with the spiced wine and a tray piled high with food. Garrick poured for her and passed her a glass. He moved away again immediately and Merryn knew that despite their passionate embrace when he had saved her from the quicksand he would not touch her again. Only she could put matters right now if she had the strength and courage to face the past.

She took a sip of the spiced wine, feeling the rich liquid burn a line of fire down to her stomach, feeling it warm and soothe her.

“When I discovered that Kitty had been pregnant,” she said, “I wanted to believe that I had been right about you from the start, Garrick. I wanted to believe that you had killed Stephen in cold blood, out of anger and revenge. It would have made perfect sense. Your best friend had betrayed you with your wife. There was an argument. You shot him. I wanted to believe that you had lied to me when you told me Stephen had tried to kill Kitty.” She stopped, rubbing her fingers over the delicate tracery of the goblet, over and over. “Except by then I had already come to know you.” She looked up. “I had already come to love you. And I knew you would not lie.”

She looked at him. His mouth was hard, his eyes shadowed.

“Tell me what happened,” she said.

Garrick came to sit close to her, not touching, but near. There was a long silence. Merryn waited. Garrick started to talk, slowly, reluctantly. It felt as though the words were dragged out of him, gathering fluency only when he seemed to forget that she was there and lost himself in the dark memory of the past.

“I found them in the maze at Starcross Hall,” he said. “Kitty had been expecting me—I had been up in London on business but then I received a note from her asking me to come down to Somerset on a matter of urgency. I set off as soon as I could.” He raked a hand though his hair in a quick, anguished gesture. “Perhaps she planned for me to find her with Stephen to force a confrontation. To this day I do not know. But whatever she had planned, it had gone wrong. I heard them arguing violently as I tried to find my way through the maze toward them.” He stopped. Merryn watched the play of emotion across his face like light and shade—anger, pity, regret. “Kitty was crying,” Garrick said, “and pleading with Stephen to run away with her. She said that they could make a new life together, the two of them with their child.” He glanced at Merryn’s face, then away. “That was the first that I knew she was pregnant.” Merryn saw him look down at his clasped hands, the knuckles gripping white. “Stephen was laughing at her,” he said tonelessly, “and taunting her. He said that he had no intention of running off with her, that he had never loved her, that she was nothing more than a whore and that if she was sensible she would pay him to keep his mouth shut about the baby and pretend that it was mine all along.”

Merryn gave a little moan, covering her face with her hands. For a moment it was as though her heart had stopped. Her memories were splintering now, dissolving, reforming into a new pattern. In her mind’s eye she could see Stephen, hear his voice echoing down the long garden corridor of Fenners on the last morning of his life. He had been dressed for riding and was halfway out of the door already, the sun behind him, lighting him up so that she could not see his expression.

“Congratulate me, little sis! I am on my way to make my fortune!”

She had thought that it was odd that he had seemed so happy because only the night before she had heard him arguing with Lord Fenner over money. He must have had Kitty’s note, telling him of her pregnancy, begging him to elope. And he had known he had no intention of doing so and every intention of threatening to broadcast her disgrace unless she paid him off. Kitty, who had been fathoms deep in love with him. Kitty, whom he had betrayed …

Garrick was still talking in that rough, painful tone.

“The next thing I heard was Kitty screaming,” he said. He glanced at Merryn, looked away. “She had a pistol. I don’t know why. I have often wondered. Maybe she did not trust Stephen from the first and that is the saddest thing of all. Anyway, she swore to kill him if he abandoned her.”

Merryn felt the anguish rake through her, raw and sharp. The tears clogged her throat, tears for Kitty, so disillusioned and alone.

“There was a shot,” Garrick said, “and I forced my way through the hedge to the center of the maze and I found them.” He stopped, breathing hard. “Kitty had shot Stephen in the shoulder. She was mad with grief and distress. Stephen was on the ground. He was bleeding copiously and swearing at her. He was still taunting her, telling her that she was so stupid she could not even kill him. He had his own pistol leveled at Kitty and he said he would show her how it should be done.” Garrick stopped. “We both fired together,” he said. “Stephen’s bullet hit Kitty in the arm. Mine killed him.”

Merryn sat dry-eyed and frozen. Stephen, she thought. You blackguard. You utter scoundrel. The tears prickled her eyelids and closed her throat, tears of bitterness and disillusion. There was a sharp pain in her chest, a crack in her heart, stealing her breath. All pretense had been stripped away now and she had to accept the fact she had always known in her heart of hearts and yet had chosen to deny: that her brother had been worse than a wastrel and a rogue. He had been arrogant, vain and dangerous. He had played with people’s lives, with Garrick, with Kitty, with herself, as though they were counters in a game.

She buried her face in her hands again as the shivers racked her.

She felt Garrick move and then he pressed her glass of wine into her hands, holding them steady as she drank obediently and once again felt the warm liquid flower within her giving her warmth and strength. She raised her head and looked at him. The lines of grief and unhappiness were etched so deep in his face that she wanted to reach out to him and smooth them away.

“I’m sorry, Merryn,” he said. “I wish I could say it was not true.”

“You took Kitty away to protect her,” Merryn said. “I thought you had run to escape trial.”

“I thought I would have had a good chance of acquittal if I had stood trial,” Garrick said. “I wanted to stay, to face justice for what I had done.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “But it was impossible. Everything would have come out—not merely Kitty’s affaire, which we could not hide, but her pregnancy, too …” His voice fell. “She would have been utterly ruined and the future of the baby, too.” His face twisted.

“I would have given the child my name if I could have done,” he said, and Merryn could hear the rawness in his voice. “I would have done anything for her to be mine—” He stopped.

“You could not claim her as your own because it was too late,” Merryn said. She watched the way that his fingers tightened around his wineglass and wanted to ease that pain in him. “Kitty was already pregnant when you wed her.”

“Three months gone,” Garrick said, “and I had been out of the country until a month before our wedding.” He shook his head. “Even so, I thought there might be a way, if I took Kitty abroad where nobody knew us. I thought we could pretend and that I could give the child my name.”

“But if the child had been a boy,” Merryn said, “he would have been your heir.”

Garrick shrugged. For a moment a hint of amusement lifted the harsh lines of misery on his face. “That would not have mattered to me,” he said. “God knows, it was not the fault of the child—it was innocent in all of this—and there have been bastards aplenty in the Farne line before. Ethan …”

There had been Tom, too, Merryn thought. Soon she would need to explain to Garrick about Tom but not until everything else had been laid bare between them.

“My father, though,” Garrick said, his voice bitter and hard. “He would not stand for a bastard inheriting the Farne Dukedom. He had too much arrogance and pride. It was our final quarrel. And in the end—” His shoulders slumped. “It did not matter because Kitty had no will to make a future with me after Stephen had died. Susan was born prematurely and Kitty slipped away. It seemed as though she had no reason to live.”

Merryn took his hand and laced her fingers tightly in his. She felt his surprise and his instinctive move to draw away from her before he relaxed and let her hand rest in his.

“You had a reason to live, though,” she said softly. “You had Susan.”

Garrick looked down into her face. “She had lost her mother,” he said, “and I had robbed her of her father before she was even born. What else could I do other than to protect her?” His fingers tightened painfully on Merryn’s. “I could not keep her with me,” he said, “in exile, alone. Besides Kitty’s family wanted her.” He raised a hand to Merryn’s face and touched her cheek. “Just as you wished for something to remember Stephen by,” he said, “so they wanted to have something of Kitty, something good and unspoiled and true that need not be tainted by the scandal. So I gave Susan to them and I promised to keep the secret of her parentage. I swore never to speak a word to anyone to protect her always.” Again his fingers brushed her cheek, his touch full of regret. “I did not know you then,” he said harshly. “I did not know how much I would come to love you and how desperately I would want to tell you the truth. When we were to wed I wrote to Lord Scott begging to be released from my oath. But he …” He stopped.

“He forbade you to tell,” Merryn said. Her voice shook. “I understand. No one had cause to hate the Fenner family more.”

She thought of the way that she had hated Garrick in the beginning with such a blind passion that it could not be quelled. Kitty Scott’s family had had equal reason to hate.

It was then that Merryn realized that she was crying, silently, big fat tears dropping onto the arm of the chair like the snowflakes outside. She rubbed them away with her fingers. Garrick took her damp hands in his and his touch was warm and comforting and for a moment she clung to him before he freed himself and moved away. She could sense the loneliness in him again, the solitariness that she had seen from the first, that had set him apart. She remembered the way he had rejected her love for him because he believed that what he had done had made him a pariah, unworthy of love. First she had hated Garrick Farne with a passion, she thought, and then she had wanted him to be a hero and neither was fair to the man he was, the man who had been forced to make terrible choices and had lived with the consequences ever since. Now at last she saw Garrick as he truly was: an honorable man who had been in an intolerable situation, who had made mistakes and tried to make reparation, too.

“I don’t understand why you blame yourself, Garrick,” she said carefully, wanting to reach out to him, to breach that frightening coldness and give him the comfort that she knew he needed in his soul. “You acted to protect Kitty and her daughter. Everything you did, you did for their sakes, out of honor.”

Garrick shook his head. There was stark unhappiness in his face, so sharp it cut Merryn to the bone. “Don’t seek to give me absolution, Merryn,” he said. He turned away from her as though he could not bear for her to look on him. “You were right all along,” he said briefly. “I was jealous of Stephen. When I discovered that he had bedded Kitty I hated him for his careless arrogance and the way he could simply take whatever he wanted.” He shook his head. “Every single day,” he said, “from that moment to this, I have thought that I need not have killed him. I could have put a bullet through his shoulder or shot the pistol from his hand …” His voice fell. “But I did not. And I will never be sure that I did not act through jealousy and revenge.”

Merryn got up slowly and crossed to him, putting her arms about him. He did not respond. She could feel the resistance in him. “You have tortured yourself every day, Garrick,” she said softly. “You had no time to think, no time to do anything other than to react. And if there was an element of anger and jealousy—” she shook her head “—then every day since you have atoned for that by protecting Kitty and then her daughter from harm.”

She felt a tiny slackening of the tension in him. “I acted out of duty,” Garrick said. “What else could I do?”

“You acted out of honor,” Merryn corrected. “What else would a man like you do?” She freed him, stepped back. There was something that she had to tell him now. “Listen to me,” she said. Her voice shook. There were tears in her eyes. “We all do wrong,” she said. “There is something you do not know.”

Garrick had heard the painful note in her voice. He turned toward her.

“I was Kitty and Stephen’s go-between,” Merryn said.

There was a silence. Garrick stared at her, dark eyes narrowed. He looked incredulous. “You?” he said. “But you were a mere child—”

“I carried messages for them,” Merryn said. “They could not trust the servants so they used me. It was easy,” she added. “No one suspected me.”

Her mind was opening now like a window into the past, and the memories she had repressed for so long because of her grief and guilt came tumbling out. That summer had been hot, the fields yellow and dry under a baking blue sky, the sea a perfect cobalt-blue. She could see Stephen, lounging on the grass under the plane trees in the garden at Fenners, calling her over, teasing her, smiling at her.

“Merryn, be a sweetheart and take this letter to Lady Farne for me …”

His laughing blue eyes had been narrowed against the sun. He had smiled, a smile for her alone.

“Don’t tell anyone … It’s our secret …”

It had been so exciting to be so important. She had rubbed her dirty palms on her even dirtier skirt, hauled up her stockings and taken the letter from his hand. She could feel it even now, smooth and cool against her hot skin. She had sped across the fields to Starcross Manor, tumbling over the stile, with the dry stalks of the meadow grasses whipping her legs. Kitty had been waiting for her. She had sent the maid for lemonade and Merryn had gulped it down thirstily. Kitty had written a reply but she had not sent Merryn back at once—that was one of the things that Merryn had grown to love about her. Kitty always took the time to talk to her, to ask her what she was reading, to give her little presents of ribbons and bookmarks and quills. She was kind. And later Merryn knew that she was unhappy, that she had been forced to wed when her heart was given somewhere else. Given to Stephen.

“You were only a child,” Garrick repeated. He rubbed his forehead as though it pained him. “You cannot have known what you were doing.”

“I knew exactly what I was doing,” Merryn said. “Do not make excuses for me, Garrick. I was thirteen years old. I thought it was romantic. I wanted them to run away together.” She gulped in a breath. “You said that Kitty wrote to you,” she said. “It was the reason you came down that last day, the day you found them together. But it was not Kitty who wrote to you, Garrick. It was I.” She looked away, her words wrenched from her. “I loved you,” she said. “Oh, I was only young but I felt it so passionately! You know me now—” a small sad smile cut through her grief “—you know how wholeheartedly I give myself up to every thing I believe in. It is my greatest weakness, I think. And I thought that if Kitty and Stephen were to elope then you might notice me at last.” Her breath caught. “I was almost fourteen,” she said. “I thought that in a couple of years I would be old enough for you.”

She stole a look at Garrick’s face and the shock and the dawning horror she saw made her feel sick. She gave a despairing gesture. “So I wrote the letter. I lured you to Starcross Manor.” She struggled to control her voice, raked by the agonizing grief of what she had done. “I thought it would force a confrontation,” she said. “I knew you were a good man, a generous man. I thought you would let Kitty go. But instead …” She put her hands to her face then let them fall. “That was why when you told me in London that Stephen had tried to kill Kitty I could not believe you,” she whispered. “I did not want to believe you. It was not meant to be like that.” She stopped, her throat dry, her heart aching. Garrick was standing absolutely still. He had not moved, had not spoken. His face, dark and drawn, was turned away from her. Merryn felt her soul wither.

“I’ll go now,” she said and her voice broke.

She was shaking. She was not sure how her legs carried her to the door. The handle slipped under her fingers as she fumbled with it.

Then Garrick’s hand closed over hers, holding it still. “Merryn,” he said softly. His arms came about her and as she felt their strength she turned her face against his chest and her grief burst out and she cried and cried while Garrick held her as gently as though she were a child.

“Hush,” he said, stroking her hair. “Merryn, sweetheart—”

She raised her face to his and he kissed her lashes, brushing the tears from her wet cheeks, kissing her trembling mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said brokenly. “I’m so very sorry.”

“To think that you have lived with that all these years,” Garrick said, his voice rough with emotion, “never knowing what happened, desperate to understand.”

Merryn clung to him. “I could not let it go,” she whispered. “When you came back I had to know. I had to find out what had happened, what had gone wrong.”

“And I thwarted you at every turn.” Garrick sounded bitter, regretful. His arms tightened about her.

“I blamed you because I could not face my own culpability,” Merryn said, the words tumbling out. She wiped the streaming tears away with the back of her fingers. “I knew I had done wrong but I could never tell anyone …” Her voice trembled. “Oh, Garrick …”

They stood for a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms, lost to all else, drawing strength and love from one another. After a while Garrick loosed Merryn enough to look down into her face.

“Merryn,” he said, “will you marry me?” He smiled, brushing the tumbled hair gently back from her flushed cheeks. “I asked you before,” he said, “and you did not want me. If you have changed your mind—”

“With all my heart,” Merryn whispered, reaching up to kiss him.

Garrick patted the pocket of his coat. “I brought the special license with me. Was that very presumptuous of me?”

“Frightfully,” Merryn said. She looked at him under her lashes. “When?”

“I thought tomorrow?” Garrick said. “If you are in agreement and if the vicar of Kilve agrees.”

“What do we do until then?” Merryn said, more softly still.

“Well,” Garrick said, “you need to take a bath for you have almost been drowned in a quicksand and threatened, and sustained any number of shocks and it is remiss of me to have kept you from your bed for so long …”

Merryn smiled. “I bespoke a bedchamber but it was the last one available,” she said. “I am afraid that you will have to sleep in the taproom.”

“And have Mrs. Morton assume that we were already in marital difficulties?” Garrick said. “I thank you, no. I have no wish for her to press on me her sovereign cure for impotence, nor for my alleged shortcomings in the bedroom to be broadcast to all of her acquaintance.”

Merryn was betrayed into a giggle. “She could help you,” she said. “She told me in the carriage that she has a range of remedies to cure all ills.”

“Thank you,” Garrick said, “but I do not recall you having any complaints before.” He scooped her up in his arms and strode to the parlor door. Out in the hall, Mrs. and Miss Morton were lighting their candles at the bottom of the stairs. Mrs. Morton gave a little shriek to see Merryn once again clasped so tightly in Garrick’s manly grasp.

“Good night, Mrs. Morton,” Merryn called as Garrick took the stairs two at a time.

“I do not believe those two are married at all,” she heard Mrs. Morton hiss to her daughter. “And they call themselves the Quality!”

UP IN THE PRIVACY of a tiny chamber under the eaves of the inn Garrick stripped the blue gown from Merryn’s body, peeling off her underclothes with gentle hands, shaking out the sand that seemed to have penetrated every fold of her dress and clung to her skin, making it salty and rough. He concentrated very hard on the practical task, trying to ignore the delicate curve of her breast as she stepped out of her shift, trying to blot from his sight the luscious arch of her hips, the long, pure, tempting line of her bare leg. He had been quite enough of a brute keeping her downstairs in the parlor, cold and filthy, while they talked. He felt racked with remorse. The best way to make it up to her, he thought, was to see her safely into bed, make sure she was wrapped up warm and tight so that she did not catch an ague, and then retire to the taproom for a long, frustrated wakeful night alone and Mrs. Morton’s impotence aids be damned. This was no time to be thinking of ravishing Merryn. He would wait until she was recovered from her ordeal, wait until they were wed, wait until he had the marriage lines and they were respectable as the Duke and Duchess of Farne. He looked at Merryn as she rolled the stockings down her legs and felt the heat rise over his body, felt the color sting his cheeks and his eyes burn and he turned away so that she did not see the evidence of his arousal.

A hipbath stood in the corner, the scented water steaming. It smelled divine of lavender and herbs and he heard Merryn give a little greedy moan. She skipped across the room, all rosy skin gleaming in the firelight, and slipped beneath the water with a sigh of pure physical pleasure. Garrick gritted his teeth hard and turned his back. Unfortunately that brought the wide bed into view, with its fresh white sheets turned down so very invitingly. Garrick stomped across to the window and stared out into the snowswept darkness. That was better; a cold winter night should chill his ardor.

There were splashes, more sighs of bliss and then Merryn’s voice, deceptively innocent. “Garrick, please could you help me wash my hair? I cannot reach …”

With a tortured sigh Garrick turned back and walked across to the bath, dropping to his knees beside her. Her skin was pink from the heat of the water now. Her shoulders gleamed wet and pale in the firelight, the shadows leading down to the hollow between her breasts and lower. Garrick’s mouth dried to sawdust. He wrenched his gaze away so violently it hurt.

Merryn placed one hand on his arm, compelling him to look at her. Slowly, very slowly, her blue gaze came up and met his. Her eyes were burning as deep and rich as sapphires with a flame in their depths. The moment spun out like a golden thread between them and Garrick thought he had never been so aware of her, of every inch of her beautiful body begging for his touch. And then she smiled at him and his heart expanded under the radiance of it and she held out her arms to him and he swept her up out of the water and laid her down before the fire, following her down. For a while they lay there, his breath shortening, his arms about her, his palms flat against the smooth skin of her back. Then she gave a little sigh and raised her lips to his and he kissed her with passion and hunger, as though he were starved. Her hands were moving over him now, tugging at his shirt, eager and clumsy with haste. She pressed her lips to the point of his shoulder and bit down, making him groan, then feathered tiny kisses across his chest and lower over the taut skin of his belly. She was all quicksilver and fire and impatience, fumbling with the fastenings of his breeches. They defeated her and she made a soft sound of irritation and he covered her hands with his, showing her how it was done. He kissed her again, the passion and greed easing into tenderness, running his hands into her hair, nipping at her throat and lower to her breast, tugging the nipple to a tight aching peak. Her eyes were closed, her breathing quick and sharp as she held him, digging her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders, sliding her hands down his naked back. He kissed the hollow of her throat and the cleft between her breasts. She tasted sweet as honey with the tang of salt still faintly on her skin and he licked the underside of her breast up to the nipple and heard her moan. He watched the play of the firelight over her skin, stroking her in graceful curves, tracing the lines of her body until she arched beneath his touch.

“I love you,” he said, kissing her again with aching gentleness and saw her smile. She reached up and touched his face.

“Garrick, my love …”

He carried her to the bed and laid her down on the cool white sheets, kissing her belly, gently parting her so that she lay naked, open and spread to him. With shaking hands he cast off the rest of his clothes and came over her and slid into her with triumphant tenderness. Now at last there were no shadows to darken their lovemaking and no secrets between them. Garrick poured out his love for her and felt Merryn meet it and return it, matching his movements with her own, wider, deeper, faster, stroke for stroke, equal at last until they plunged into brilliant ecstasy and he claimed her at last in all love and honor. They slid into the deepest and most peaceful of sleeps and Garrick wrapped his arms about Merryn and knew he would never let her go.

IT WAS ALMOST NOON when Merryn woke and then it was only because it sounded as though the inn was in complete uproar. She bent over to kiss Garrick softly and he murmured in his sleep, his mouth curving into a smile of love and gentleness. They had made love again and again through the night, Garrick possessing her with a triumphant passion that had awed her to her soul.

The sounds from the inn courtyard became louder and more chaotic still. Throwing on her nightdress—and how had that come to be left in so tangled a heap on the floor—Merryn hurried to the window and stared out.

The courtyard was in chaos with no less than six coaches all busily disgorging people, portmanteaux, servants, silver, furniture, wall hangings, brightly wrapped presents and one small white dog. Merryn gasped.

“Darlings!” Joanna appeared beneath the window, staring up. Behind her stood Alex with Shuna in his arms. A crimson hood framed Joanna’s face. There were snowflakes in her hair. She looked, Merryn thought, like a fairy princess. Merryn, her hair tousled, her feet bare, wearing no more than a crumpled robe, immediately felt shabby. Garrick came to stand behind her, dropping a kiss on her hair.

“I am so pleased that you are here!” Joanna called. “Are you wed yet?”

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and then the door burst open. With great presence of mind, Garrick scooped Merryn up and tossed her back into the bed, sliding in beside her. A moment later Tess stood in the doorway. Behind her was Alex, Shuna and the Duchess of Steyne, her tiny upright figure wrapped in the most extraordinary traveling furs. Then a tall, dark and shockingly handsome man appeared. Merryn thought he looked vaguely familiar. She heard Garrick gasp.

“Ethan?” he said, and Merryn heard the uncertainty and the pleasure in his voice, the hesitation of a man who had been accustomed so long to being alone and now could not quite believe what was happening to him. A dark-haired woman ran into the room and threw herself against Garrick’s naked chest, planting a kiss on his lips in a way that made Merryn feel absurdly possessive.

“Garrick darling, I never had the chance to thank you,” the woman said. She spun around on Merryn, catching her in her arms.

“Merryn!” she said. “You lucky, lucky girl!”

“Lottie!” Merryn said, dazed. “What on earth—”

“I sent for them,” Joanna said. She had appeared in the crowded room now. She was looking slightly sheepish. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said.

Garrick grabbed Merryn’s hand in his. “Of course not,” he said. “But …”

His face, Merryn thought, was a perfect reflection of everything that she was feeling: bewilderment, astonishment and dawning joy.

“But I don’t understand,” Merryn said. “What are you all doing here?”

“We have come to celebrate your wedding, of course,” Joanna said. “And then we thought we might travel on to Dorset and open up Fenners for Christmas.” She looked at Garrick. “Did you not tell her that we planned to follow you down?” she asked.

“I apologize,” Garrick said smoothly. “We had rather a lot to talk about.”

“And to do, by the looks of it,” Lottie said, her bright brown gaze taking in the tumbled sheets of the bed.

“But you hate the country,” Merryn said to Joanna. “You and Tess and Lottie—none of you can stand it.”

“Well, this is different,” Joanna said. “It is Christmas and you are newly wed, Merryn darling, and there is much to celebrate.” She looked at them. “You are married, aren’t you?”

“Not yet,” Garrick said.

“Then you had best get your clothes on and get down to the church, nephew,” the Dowager Duchess proclaimed. “At once!”

“Give us an hour,” Garrick murmured, drawing Merryn back under the sheets.

“A half hour,” the Dowager declaimed. “And then I will come back.”

Garrick, ignoring them, rolled Merryn over, and started to kiss her. “Out!” he said briefly, over his shoulder. “If you please, Aunt Elizabeth,” he added punctiliously.

There was a gasp from the Dowager. The room emptied as though by magic.

“I am sorry,” Merryn said, looking up at him. “It seems that when you marry me you marry my family as well.”

“I am content,” Garrick said. He bent his head to kiss he again. “Very content,” he said, as his lips left hers.

“I really did not want my sisters at my wedding,” Merryn said, miserably. “And Lottie as well! They are all so beautiful and stylish—”

“I didn’t notice,” Garrick said. He stripped the crumpled nightgown from her body. “You know I can see no one else when you are by.” His hands started to move over her, with love, with tenderness. “Darling Merryn,” he said, “shall we leave them all here and elope?”

Merryn giggled. “It is very tempting,” she said.

“But poor recompense for the love they have shown us, I suppose,” Garrick said. He raised himself on one elbow. “Will you mind very much being at Fenners for Christmas?” he asked. “I know it may be difficult for you—”

Merryn silenced him with her fingers against his lips.

“It will not be difficult,” she said, “if you are with me.” She pulled him down into her arms. “It is a time for new beginnings,” she said.