Love's Patient Fury (The Deverell Series Book 3) (10 page)

As she marched ahead of Philip toward the house, she realized she believed the words she’d spoken in defense of Varian. She remembered Shelby’s importance to him. Shelby was the link between the men who had murdered Ann Deverell in the sinking of the
Carolina
, and Jack Shelby had existed unknowingly in Varian’s protection for many years. Varian would be the last person to have reason to commit such an act of violence. Wherever her husband had disappeared to, it had not been to murder Jack Shelby.

Philip caught up to her and retook her arm. “I did not mean to offend you, Merry.”

“You did not. You offended my husband,” Merry countered swiftly.

Philip studied her face, slowly shaking his head. “I do not understand you. One minute you decry your hatred for the man and the next you defend him.”

Merry arched a brow. “That makes me a rather commonplace wife.”

Once inside the house he paused at the foot of the stairs and waited until his sister had disappeared on the upper landing before he went down the long corridor to his father’s study.

Philip found his father walled in with Uncle Andrew. The grimness of their expressions left no doubt what they were discussing. His father’s eyes were sharp and probing as Philip settled into the chair across the desk.  He felt a need to be cautious in all this. Prudence in every word was necessity. The last thing he desired was to hit his father on an open nerve.

“I found Merry. She spent the night in the old hay barn in the west pasture.” Philip answered his father’s intense blue stare with a slight, careless shrug.

Lucien sat back in his chair. “Why the devil did she do that? Is she well?”

Philip shrugged. “She’s greatly troubled, father. She will not share a thing with me. But she is well. I informed her of Jack Shelby’s death, as you suggested I do.”

“And?”

“She defended her husband, but I think the revelation was not without meaning for her. She seemed greatly distressed by the disclosure.” Then coming right to the point, Philip said, “Do as you will with Varian Deverell and do it quickly, father. Mother is wrong in this.”

~~~

Merry found Netta waiting in her bedroom. The first words out of her maid’s mouth were to announce that the Duke of Windmere had left Bramble Hill. There was a harsh note in the old woman’s voice as she dropped this latest development while she helped Merry dress for the day.

If her maid had thought to stir a betraying emotion so she could run to the Rhea with tales, Netta had thought wrong. Merry had seen her husband leave. She knew he was gone and had not yet returned. Had felt the emptiness of the air the moment she’d entered the house.

Still, that did not mean that Merry wouldn’t investigation herself Varian’s disappearance. She immediately went to the west drawing room where she found Camden alone, reading.

He rose at once and bowed. “Your Grace.”

Merry arched a brow. Without preamble, she inquired, “Where is my husband?”

Camden’s eyes sharpened. He said pointedly, “It is better you do not probe His Grace’s activities. There is much to claim his attention now that he has returned to England.”

Merry rolled her eyes. “Are you referring to his intrigue with Rensdale or Lady Wythford?”

That made Camden flush. “I am referring to nothing beyond a wife’s proper role in not meddling in the affairs of her husband,” he countered carefully.

“Affairs? Interesting choice of words.” With the uneasiness that had taunted her through the night, now there was jealousy. The mention of Lady Wythford had been a flippant remark, designed more to shock Camden and hopefully goad him into betraying Varian’s activities. The result was not as Merry intended, and she had learned nothing. Angry with herself, she was unable to stop herself from probing Camden directly on her most pressing worry.  “Do you know if His Grace intends to return?”

Camden’s face softened as a smile surfaced. “You need have no fear of that, Merry. He will be gone but a handful of days. And you need have no fear of the Lady Wythford. Varian is most devoted to you.”

So, Varian had thought it necessary to inform the earl of his activities, but he had not thought it necessary to inform his wife. It seemed to miserably underscore her position in Varian’s life.

“Devoted indeed,” she replied glibly.

She whirled, quickly leaving the room in search of her mother. As she walked, it occurred to her Camden would not still be at Bramble Hill if Varian was not returning. What Merry wasn’t sure of as yet, was if she wanted him to.

CHAPTER SIX

Merry stumbled upon Varian four days later in the west drawing room. The sight of him sitting calmly playing cards with Camden as if his treatment of her, on all levels, was perfectly reasonable, sent her into a rapid mix of fast rising emotion. In the span of a week, he had disappeared for four nights without explanation to her, and there he sat, in the bosom of her family without even having notified her of his return. It was infuriating in every way. And it was doubly infuriating the relief she felt seeing him there.

Since her encountered with Camden and her comment about the Lady Wythford, jealousy had been her constant companion. It did her suspicions no good to find Varian looking so well. Fresh faced. Rested. Relaxed. Not a single glossy black hair out of place.  Elegantly garbed in the intricate white cravat and meticulously tailored trousers that were the costume of men of his class. It was galling how effortlessly Varian managed the sham of their marriage and galling how easily his doing so brought her more pain.

She ignored his greeting to her, sank into a chair beside her mother, and grabbed a book. She could not stop the disobedient drift of her eyes from the book.  She searched his face to find anything that would betray what he’d been about, or even a hint of remorse for his callous treatment of her. There was nothing.

After an hour of feeling as though she wanted to crawl from her own skin, Merry tossed her book on a table, excused herself, and went promptly to bed. Sleep eluded her. Haunting memories of Ireland rose in her thoughts. How Varian had made her weak from his kisses, then left her for Christina’s arms. How the Lady Wythford had looked at him, and more miserable how he had looked her. She hadn’t understood their manner toward each other in Ireland, she had been an innocent girl then, but how they’d smiled and touched each other had meaning to her now. Varian’s relationship with Christina Wythford had not been a casual dalliance. He cared for Christina. She didn’t know at what level, but it would not be beyond possibility that he had gone to her now that he’d returned to England.

The moments of the night dragged in an endless stream of questions in her head. After the hurt he had given her, she should not care where Varian had gone, what he had done, but not knowing was driving Merry into slow madness. Unable to bear it a moment longer alone in her unrelenting suspicions, she climbed from the bed and her legs carried her to Varian’s room. Pride as a protector was doing a dismal job again of keeping her from him.

Quietly, she slipped in and closed the door. She found Varian awake as if only having just gone to bed. He stood with his back to her and she watched as he worked free the studs on his cuffs. He raked his tanned fingers through his hair, made a sound that was half-yawn and half-sigh, and then poured himself a hefty glass of brandy.

She wondered what had kept him occupied until the early hours of the morning. Whatever it was, it claimed his thoughts so strongly he was unaware she had joined him. It was not until she made a step from the door that Varian’s head turned, and she was held in the burning warmth of his gaze.

“You came. I was hoping you would,” he said, making a move with his drink to an arm chair. “We need to talk. About many things.”

Varian smiled, the slight softening at the edges of his lips with the slowly rising gentleness in his eyes having an immediate effect on Merry. He had transformed in front of her as he had always done on ship. She had come to confront that aloof stranger she had married and run straight into Varian. With the subtle altering of his features and the return of light in those shimmering black eyes, her blood flamed in disobedient answer.

What a pitiful woman she’d become. He should have no power over her at all. Not anymore. Not after what he’d said to her. Yet, the strongest impulse inside her was to run to him and wrap her arms around him. Instead, she moved to the bed and settled on the edge, her posture stiff and unwelcoming.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “You left for four days without bothering to give explanation. I may be nothing to you, but do you not think you owe me at least that?”

She looked down at her clasped fingers and Varian could see she was struggling to maintain her reserve. As proud as she was, it was no small act for her to have come to him this night.

He reluctantly made note of each emotion fighting to the surface of her. Worry. Jealousy. Suspicion and fear. It was painful to witness the legacy of his mistakes on her face, but her wide doe-eyes were even worse. They carried but a single emotion. They were sparkly with hurt. He hated seeing it and hated more knowing he was the cause of it.

He knew what direction
this
conversation was going to first take. She stared at him a moment and then looked away.  He could feel it raging within her, the anxiousness to ask, her pride that fought to stop her, and the fear to know. It struck like a dagger into his heart. She was so dear to him. It would be too absurd if he lost her after all he’d been through to have her, just because she believed him unfaithful. Staring into his drink, he damned the infuriating limits of their life at Bramble Hill which would make it so much harder to help her through this hurt he’d given to her.

Varian wondered how much he should tell her. He did not want to push her further from him, but in the coming days he could see no way not to hurt her. He would hurt her with his silence, some bound by necessity and others the distrust of him he had given to her.

Even the truth would not fully aid in preventing hurt to Merry. Telling her too much would endanger her, an act no power on earth could force him to commit, and the full disclosure of his endeavors would only add to the heavy burden she must manage because of him. Their current circumstance was intolerable for him. He could not imagine what it was for Merry.

He didn’t want this conversation and he realized there was no way to prevent it. There was no direction to go, except direct battle in the direction she took him. He said nothing.

“Were you with a woman?” Merry snapped, her voice brittle and ragged.

He arched a brow and quelled the unrest within him. A young wife’s question. Artless and direct. Somehow it made it harder to reason a course to deal with this. A long pause. Then he said, “Do you really think so little of me?”

She met his stare evenly. “You’ve hardly given me reason not to.”

Black eyes locked with blue. “I have given you reason you should well know. I adore you.” His voice was a little more rough than he intended it to be. He was tired. “I want no other woman, Merry. And I never will.”

She disbelieved him. It sat in her eyes. It was too soon. He had hurt her too well in his unchecked fury. The evidence of each word he’d spoken the night they married touched her face. Regret, sharp and untimely, pulsed through his veins.

“I was in Falmouth,” he said abruptly, surprising her. “There were matters I could not delay that required my attention.”

His concise response, truthful, was hardly an improvement. It had sounded crass. Even to him. He braced himself for the tears that would come next.

“Jack Shelby is dead.
Grave’s End
was burned to the ground. Were those your urgent matters in Falmouth, Varian?”

Both the calmness of Merry’s voice and the question surprised Varian. The question  was also worrisome since Lucien, no doubt, had informed her of Shelby’s murder—Varian wondered what Lucien’s suspicions were that he felt compelled to share this development with his daughter—and more worrisome Merry’s obvious uncertainty over whether he had done it. Did she really think him capable of that? He fought to calmly hold the even study of her gaze. Hurt. It was an ugly emotion in every way. And there is sat in her eyes, stoking distrust of him in all things.

Nothing changed in his expression. “I had nothing to do with Jack Shelby’s murder. It would serve no purpose for me to kill him.”

“Who would have wanted Jack Shelby dead?”

“I don’t know,” Varian said, truthfully again. “My man is dead.”

Her eyes rounded. “Do you think he was murdered because of you?”

He cupped her chin. He didn’t want to frighten her. Jack Shelby’s death was an unexpected, ominous warning from someone. “If he was murdered because of me, I’d be in Newgate awaiting trial as Morgan.”

Merry studied his face. He was doing it again, walking that careful line between truth and lying to her. She had been a fool to think she’d get truthful answers from him tonight or any night.

Varian brushed back the unruly wisps of hair from her tense face. “Have patience with me, Merry,” he whispered, in a voice of husky supplication. “I will not permit this to last long.”

Tears rose in her throat.
This? What did he mean by this? Their marriage? What was he trying to tell her?
She struggled not to crumble before his watching gaze. Later, she would cry later when he could not see her.

Varian rose from the chair and crossed the room to her. He eased down before her tiny form until they were at eye level and took one delicate hand from her lap. He ran her fingers down his cheek, then placed a light kiss on the tips. “It’s late, Merry. Can we go to bed? I will not survive much longer if you do not forgive me this quarrel soon.”

Quarrel
. He had the nerve to call all he had done to her a
quarrel
. Merry watched him lever himself upright. He started to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. She should have left the room the moment she entered it.

He wrapped his arms around her slim hips, lying his cheek against her. Varian placed a kiss on the fabric covering her womb. Her insides grew shaky and desperate with the memories of other kisses, of his tenderness and joy over this child of his she carried. Merry bit her lower lip and looked away from him.