Love's Patient Fury (The Deverell Series Book 3) (16 page)

For two days, this was the structure of her life.  Exhaustion dulled her to the landscape and the journey. Legs stiff, she would climb from the carriage for her midday meal: tea and toast, with lamb chops or mutton in a small parlor, usually deserted except for her parents.

It was the third day hence and this night they would stop for a two day rest at Deverell House. How that fit into her grandmother’s plotting was anyone’s guess. Her father was absolutely livid about this element of Dowager Duchess of Dorset’s request.

The closer they got to London, for they were but a day’s journey out now, the more scrutiny they received. The notice increased and so did the stares. Merry had forgotten how she must appear—young   and woefully unprepared to deal with the scandal tainting her, her family, and Varian. The looks she received back were repelling at times, and she wondered how her parents expected her to manage all this.

She had not been allowed a moment alone with Varian since their journey began. She tried to banish her distress as her husband sat beside her staring straight forward, his posture erect, her little dog settled on the seat between them.  Her eyes ran the length of his long body, noting the unbuttoned great-coat and the austere stillness to the imposing arrangement of his facile features. There was not a single thing presently about Varian familiar to Merry. She was rolling head-first into a nightmare with a stranger at her side.

She turned her gaze back out the window. It was a sorry attempt at propriety they made and Merry did not miss one grim detail of it. She was living the result of a year of disgrace and a hole-in-the-corner marriage that fooled no one, and even the quiet elegance of her parents did nothing to diminish any of that.

Her grandmother had ordered them to Merrick Hall. Her grandmother meant to put a coat of white-wash on this shoddy building Merry had made, but it was a shoddy building nonetheless. It was going to be an unbearable torture to be on display before the fashionable set. They had mocked and ridiculed her before this scandal. What fuel she had given them this time.  An older husband of ill-repute. A year of speculation and unanswered mystery. It was the kind of fodder London lived for. They would be brutal to her in this.

The journey filled her with dread and anxiousness. She wished she had spent the last three nights in the comfort of Varian’s arms instead of sleeping in a bed next to Kate. She wished they had never returned to England. She wished he loved her…
if wishes were horses
… she cut off her thoughts. Merry had fast learned that no good would ever come from wishing for what one could never have.

They were several hours from Deverell House. Afternoon came a brilliant orange ribbon on the horizon. Inside the carriage there was silence. Reality slipped away in swiftly vanishing stabs. Mercifully behind it there was sleep.

~~~

The sound of dozens of bells vigorously ringing slowly roused Merry from sleep. Lifting her face from Varian’s thigh, she sat up in the carriage. Her drowsy eyes slowly focused on the crowds surrounding them.

She made a frantic look out of each side of the carriage. There were people everywhere, lining up and down the road, standing on cold cobbles to witness their passing.  She had never seen such a display before. Not even for her parents. Not even for the Regent. It was quite simply overwhelming.

She looked at Varian. “Why are there so many people? We are nowhere near London.”

Varian’s smile was amused. “We’ve been traveling on my land for an hour, Merry. This is my home. I’ve been gone nearly ten years. It’s little wonder people turned out this day. Though I more suspect they are here to see you.”

“Me?”

Comprehension came in slow, disturbing waves. Her marriage to Varian was not a private affair, no matter how she wished it would be. Somehow reality had a way of being tempered at Bramble Hill. She was no longer Meredith Ann Merrick. She was the Duchess of Windmere. Strange that that should not have occurred to her until today.

As they rolled on, Merry caught quick view of a face here and there. They were ebullient like the workers on the Merrick farm had been. In alarm, she realized why, the importance of Varian’s marriage to them. On her shoulders rested their hope for the restoration of a great family and the restoration of a man. It shone in their eyes as they watched the carriages pass.

She looked up at Varian. His hand moved over hers in a manner she was sure he meant merely to be reassuring. But there was much on his face, in the shadowy depth of his eyes not fully concealed, and she half suspected he didn’t know it. Frowning, she wondered what returning to England must feel like to him. The danger of his task. The torment of his past. The ugly suspicions and the accusations that haunted him, striking at a heart devoted to a woman long gone, a woman she feared still claimed him.

She was reminded of the words he’d spoken to her in the cabin on the
Corinthian
the night they’d married. He had told her long ago he had no wish to return here. He had not wanted his unpleasant history in England to touch her, and yet here they were, his marriage to her fanning the flames of those old accusations and suspicions against him. Reluctantly, she admitted parts of that dreadful recitation held new meaning and less cut within her heart, for she now understood more than she had then, his reaction to the truth of who she was and all the implications it held for him.

No matter the broken feelings between them, she loved this man, in their worst moments she could not escape that pressing truth, and her love would not permit her to ignore that in measure, she added to the unrelenting scandal which tainted him. A scandal untrue and without mercy it its ability to hurt him. It was a small thing to do for him, she told herself, staring up at his aloof countenance so regal even in this misery. If it could dampen even a part of the added sordidness their marriage brought to those grim denunciations, then it was worth an effort by her to at least try. She had watched her mother enough to know how to do this well.

“Stop the carriage,” she said suddenly.

She’d surprised Varian. It showed in the dark depths of his eyes. “It’s been a long day, Merry. You must be tired. We should really get to the house so you may rest.”

She lightly touched his face. “Please, Varian, stop the carriage.”

Varian gave a tap on the ceiling. The carriage rolled to a stop. When the door was opened, the steps were pulled down and she was surprised to find Mr. Pitt, garbed in the Deverell livery, there to assist her. She had only a moment to wonder where Pitt had come from and why he was here, before her tiny legs had carried her toward the line of people.

All through the journey to London she had silently told herself over and over she would not be afraid. She would not be cowed by the ton’s cruelty. She would maintain her dignity at all cost as they ripped at her with their vile rumors and speculation.

Now surrounded by these welcoming souls and filled with a purpose she understood, Merry was not afraid. Men stripped off their hats, white aprons began to bob and children stared at her in wonder as she moved among them. With each step she made some gesture. A wayward touch on a child’s head. The unveiling of her dazzling smile. She spoke a brief word here and there.

They had only gone a short walk before her arms were overflowing with flowers. She turned to hand them to Mr. Pitt and found Varian standing patiently behind her, his great dark eyes shimmering discreetly with tenderness. The way he looked at her took her breath away and she felt a change all through her.

For a moment, her thoughts took her back to another walk she’d shared with Varian, so long ago on Barataria, and in this moment she felt it in her heart as rich and fully as she had that day.

“How far of a walk is it to Deverell House?” she asked.

Varian smiled. “It’s a good walk. Nothing more.”

Willing temperance to her breathing, she lowered her eyes and said, “I could use a bit of walking and a touch of sun on my face.”

Varian leaned into her, gently gathering the flowers from her arms. His face for a moment was close beside her ear, so close that the touch of his breath against her flesh made her shiver. She wondered if he would kiss her, and then he eased back to put her flowers into Pitt’s arms. “Pitt, send the carriages on ahead. Her Grace wishes to walk the rest of the way. And I wish to watch her.”

The husky whisper of his voice made her tremble and with the return of his eyes upon her she knew. She could pretend otherwise and fight her own heart. Even though she did not know what her fate with this man would be. Even if he did not love her, lied to her, and later left her. It was an inescapable fact, it had always been so, had been from the first moment their eyes touched.  He was in her flesh. A necessity of her living. The suffering of her soul. The beat of her heart. She was and always would be in love with Varian.

~~~

They cut off the main drive onto a curving walkway beneath trees of oak and alder. In the slowly spreading twilight, alone with him, Merry became increasingly aware of the closeness of Varian’s long hard-knit body beside her.

The sky was a deep oil blue of impending night before Merry saw for the first time Varian’s home. Deverell House ablaze with lights was a breathtaking place, even grander than the ancestral home of the Merricks. The velvet lawns, the meticulously tended carriage roads and walkways, the topiary, Grecian summer house, fountains, a chapel, down to the most insignificant detail for the eye to find held the look of aloof correctness. Varian had been gone for over a decade. Everything gave the appearance he had never left.

She also noted Winderly held a striking resemblance to Deverell House. Varian had paid much attention to each detail he’d imported to his replacement home in Virginia. Every artfully constructed line of Winderly, the garden, walkway and structure, could be found in evidence here. In America, more rugged. Less intimidating. But Winderly possessed the same faultless magnificence and precision of style as Deverell House. Different and yet the same. Extremes and yet mirror images of each other. Like the man who stood beside her. Morgan. Devereaux. Deverell. It did not matter what incarnation he revealed in his unfathomable extremes. In the center of each guise there was Varian.

As they stepped onto the sandstone drive, she smiled. The staff was no longer lined up to welcome Varian. They had dispersed after the arrival of the carriages and her family, no doubt. She had not thought of that when she had decided they should walk here. But Varian must have, since not even the most insignificant detail ever escaped his consideration.

Staring up at his face, with its strong angles and noble brow, she wondered why he had indulged her and what he made of this unspectacular homecoming. He had been a most accomplished, willing participant in her grandmother’s choreographed charade. She had unthinkingly altered it, and he had let her. She didn’t know what to make of this.

About to place her slipper on the line of stairs up to the entrance, Varian stopped her. The look in his eyes held just a touch of shimmer, and it surprised Merry to find resting on his face, where she had not seen one in many days, a hint of a smile. Keeping her fingers in the clasp of his blood warm hands, she soon found him guiding her away from the main entrance at a hurried pace, around the side, past windows and doors and potted shrubbery.

Struggling to keep stride with him, since he had not shortened his steps as was his custom with her, Merry asked, “Varian, what are we doing?”

Merry found herself flattened against the cool surface of wall just inside a servant’s entrance, and then Varian’s mouth upon hers, teasing her lips apart for a ruthlessly deep kiss. His hand slipped beneath her, to lift her against his eager manhood. The need in his flesh matched her own, and it moved through her veins excited and urgent. All afternoon, in the gentle hold of his presence and silence, it had slowly built into a thing of pure-agony for Merry. It had not occurred to her he had felt that way as well.

He lifted his face, just enough so that his eyes filled the world above her. “If they see you, they will take you from me, and I am not ready to let you go. Runaway with me, my touch of Merry. I have had enough of this for one day. I wish to have only
you.
”

You
was said in a caress. Staring up at his face, she had only a moment to ponder what he was about before he clutched her against his body for another fast, probing kiss. An air of hungry playfulness, she had only ever seen in those too brief moments of custody when he was in all parts Varian, seemed to be running on the surface of his flesh. His behavior at present was absurd and baffling. But it kept her hand in his as he tugged her along to the servants’ stairs.

Moving through the stark, narrow arteries within the house, with sure steps he pulled her with him to the upper floor. Inside the master’s chamber, he locked the door and with rakishly glowing eyes, announced, “Alone at last.”

Merry started to laugh, though she was not sure why and did not wish to laugh. The Duke of Windmere stealing into his own bedroom with his new bride. How preposterous she made his existence at times, when Varian was not a preposterous man in any way.

Merry had only a moment to make note of her surroundings before she was whisked away to quickly be lost in the fury of Varian’s bed.

~~~

Merry came awake to the sound of Varian’s laughter. Rubbing her cheek against the softness of his pillow, she slowly opened her eyes to find light peeking from the door of the adjoining room.

Her eyes floated across the details of his bedroom, though calling it a bedroom was a gross understatement. It more resembled a chamber in a palace than the whimsical elegance that could be found at Bramble Hill. It was not really a bedchamber at all, but rather a series of rooms creating an apartment that had once been used to house visiting royalty. The bed was enormous and without Varian in it felt unwelcomingly so.

Someone had pulled back the curtains from the posters, a fire had been lit in the hearth, and the flames danced in reflection on the high polished wood of the frame of the bed bearing the ornate embellishments of the Deverell crest. She had slept so soundly, spent and awash in the sweet flavors of Varian’s passion, that a servant had been in the room, Varian had left her, and she had not known it.