Love's Patient Fury (The Deverell Series Book 3) (2 page)

He was eagerly waiting for Merry to laugh at that. That she didn’t brought immediate alarm. She was clutching onto him for support, when the sister he’d known his entire life would have pulled back with a jaunty swish and taunted
you would have to catch me first
, and then would have ran from the room laughing at him.

He leaned back from her and saw for the first time the unsettling stranger sitting close to his mother.
Oh, nestling who the hell have you have brought home with you
, he wondered in trepidation, only then spotting the familiar figure of the Earl of Camden sitting in chair a good distance away, almost intentionally apart from the events.

If Kate hadn’t been bouncing in the line of his vision drawing his gaze to his mother, Philip would have missed Rhea’s eyes sharpening in caution to maintain control over his temper.

Varian’s black eyes shifted, locking with Philip’s above Merry’s head, and a warning flashed in their dark depths. Philip was immediately cautioned to be vigilant in his reactions. This was not a man to deal with imprudently.
Who the devil was this man?
Philip wondered as he allowed Kate to drag Merry from his arms.

“If I don’t get a hug, I will scream,” Kate exclaimed, crying and laughing as she surrounded her cousin with arms that visibly trembled. “We had all but given up hope of ever seeing you again. You had better have a grand tale to tell me because you have scared a score of years off my life.”

When Merry didn’t respond to the jest, Kate’s brows lowered in a frown and she fretfully looked to Philip. In a rush she pulled Merry back up against her in a fiercely protective hold. “There is no need to worry, Merry. You are home and that is all that matters to any of us. Whatever you’ve done, sweetheart, it matters naught. Not to us. The Merricks stand together. You know that. There is nothing you could have done that would make any of us not welcome you home.”

“Don’t squeeze her so hard, brat. You’re going to make your cousin faint,” Andrew Merrick warned on a raw whisper.

He was hovering just inside the doorway. He could slip into a room with the quiet of a panther. Even Varian hadn’t noticed his arrival before he spoke, though Andrew had been watching long enough to make an accurate assessment of everything.

“You had better come quickly and give your Uncle a hug before I am reminded of all the bother and worry you’ve put me through. I have been searching for you for a year, flower.”

Andrew didn’t wait for Merry to come to him. He seized her against him with a protectiveness that belied his words. He had taken in each detail of the room and unpleasantly suspected what was unsaid.
How had Merry come to be with Varian Deverell, of all people?
He had to ignore his own simmering rage, knowing a cool head would be needed once Lucien joined them.

Still holding Merry, over her head Andrew said with a flicker of disdain, “Varian, it has been a long time. I hope you do not oppose my informality. We were at one time family.  How long will you be staying?” Andrew managed to convey without effort that Varian’s staying was not an option to count on.  “You were never fond of Cornwall as I recall. I assume you and Camden are eager to return to London since my niece no longer requires safe escort now that she is returned to the protection of her family at long last.”

The battle had begun and Lucien had yet to join them. “How long I stay is entirely up to your brother,” said Varian in a relaxed way, though he let his smile take on an edge of amusement. “Your memory serves you well. It has been a decade since I was in Cornwall. Right now I can think of no place in England I would prefer to be.”

Varian let his gaze find and hold Merry in an affectionate way that made Andrew stiffen in rage. It was the harsh tightening of his well-knit muscle that broke through Merry’s numbness. Uncle Andrew’s arms had turned to iron against her back. Merry stepped back from her Uncle like an animal too close to a flame.

Her senses had been blissfully asleep since leaving London, and she hated that they had decided to awake and betray her now. Acid fluid ate the surface of her eyes as she tried to pull into order the frantic emotion now uncapped in her center.

She looked at Varian then, for the first time since they had entered the house, and felt a knot rise in her throat.  He gave every appearance of being serene and in high spirits, though she seemed to be the only one in the room aware he was neither. She could feel the tension in him. His posture was as untroubled as his voice had been, as though this shuddering tension filled room was of no consequence at all. The moment his eyes touch hers he made the flawless show of letting a smile surface in those great dark eyes.

The image he made tore at Merry’s heart like a jagged knife. Everything she felt for him surged upward in a single, savage rent that stripped deadness from her flesh. It brought with it the cruel bit of shame and the bitter reminder that this was only a charade he was forcing her to participate in.

What would the rest of her family think when they learned she had not only returned home, but was married to Varian Deverell?
Swallowing down the tears, Merry didn’t doubt they would assume the worst.

Merry stood in the ensuing silence feeling vulnerable surrounded by her family. As horrible as this moment was it would only get worse than this. It would get worse when they discovered she’d been foolish enough in her affections for him that she carried his child, a child conceived well in advance of their belated union before God. The irrefutable proof of her disgrace and a marriage that had happened out of haste and need. As impossible as it seemed, it would only get worse than this.

Merry realized her mother was watching with a careful gaze that was quietly probing. What was there on her dear face made the tears rise in Merry’s throat?
Oh, Mama, will you ever understand and forgive me for what I have done?

“Merry!”

That beloved stern voice made the last thin thread of control desert her. Merry looked up to find her father standing beside Philip. Rhea had wisely gone from her chair to her husband, her face a prudent blend of elation and caution, one hand placed on his chest.

“She is back, Lucien. She is well. And...” there was no way to put this that wouldn’t infuriate her husband. So Rhea said it simply, “.... she is married. Married to Varian Deverell. Is that not wonderful news, my dear? I am so happy.”

~~~

Lucien Merrick’s study held the cheerful clutter and disarray of a dozen unfinished projects. On a small tri-pod table lay a partially completed dissecting puzzle that Philip had started at the age of thirteen. The tambour and short cut threads scattering the worn wooden floor were Rhea’s. A sketchbook rested on a pillow beside the hearth, open to show that an uneven hand, most probably belonging to Kate who seemed to move with none of Merry’s natural grace, had tried to capture the decor of the room. A trail of pencil shavings showed a move from the sofa to the lush pelt of an enormous white bear that Lucien had received as a gift during his days of diplomatic missions.  Varian knew the book that rested open on the arm of the chair position loving close to the massive desk was Merry’s, and had sat forgotten, untouched for a year:
Wordsworth.

There was not a trace of imposing stag comforts which one would expect in a duke’s private haven, and not a single element missed Varian’s eyes. Each gaily forgotten project was out of place in this room where serious affairs of England at times had been decided. They were an unmistakable warning of what his family meant to Lucien.

Lucien had handled the scene in the drawing room with the fast moving experience of a man use to commanding explosive and unpleasant situations. The moment Merry had stepped into Lucien’s arms she had shattered under the strain and began to weep fiercely against her father’s chest, holding the edge of his coat like a lost child unable to let go. She’d cried for an hour, choking sobs, and each line on Lucien’s face had stiffened in turn with his rapidly mounting fury. It was amazing Lucien hadn’t lost his temper in the first minute.

The moment Merry had calmed, Lucien had kissed her once on her curls, disengaged her tiny fingers and handed her to Rhea to be taken off to a bedroom to rest. Varian was ushered into Lucien’s study by the Merrick men. With Merry’s tears the pretense of happy acceptance had vanished, and now only with the Merrick men, the pretense of civility was gone as well and he was in for a bloodletting. Given how Merry had managed it all, it was little wonder Andrew Merrick hadn’t as yet called for his public flogging.

Staring into his glass, feeling the untimely possession of regret and guilt when he needed to think fast and cleverly, Varian conceded he owed them in the least his flogging. Loving Merry excused nothing he had done. It was an even more severe possession than it had been since London now that he could see Merry in her natural setting.

On his ship her liveliness and brightness had settled in whimsical exaggeration; once she was herself again here it would dance in perfect harmony with the generously flowing and expressed affections of this family. It made it all the more startling her uncharacteristic swing from absolute detachment to soul wrenching tears. She had held an air of tragedy with enough force to smother a village.

Varian’s gaze was drawn to the book beside her father’s desk. Thank God Camden was here, assuring Lucien the marriage was legal. If he made it through this night, it would be because of Camden and Rhea’s quick actions. ‘I am so happy.’ Rhea was brilliant at managing her husband.

Away from Rhea, Lucien’s temper erupted and he was not bothering to maintain his famous iron control over it, a rare and dangerous event. Because his reserve never failed him it warned that anything could happen. Varian patiently heard him out. He was thirty-nine, being lectured like an errant twenty year old man caught with the village milk maid. It was a total insult, getting a dressing down at thirty-nine, but he listened respectfully silent, not wanting to push Lucien further into temper by cutting it off.  Lucien Merrick was a dangerous man. Lucien Merrick was Merry’s father. He owed Lucien this tirade for both those reasons.  It was a bold move to have stepped foot into the Merrick household with Merry as his wife.

Lucien had the full power of England at his fingertips, and knew how to use it both wisely and ruthlessly.  Lucien was the more powerful of the two of them on English soil, and they both knew it. Which was why Lucien bellowed and Varian listened. Lucien wouldn’t hesitate in the use of his power if he feared for a moment Varian had harmed Merry in this. There were few in England who did not owe this man something, favors that could be called in at whim, favors Rhea had called upon a decade ago to keep Varian from being charged and tried for the destruction of the
Carolina
.

Lucien’s fit ended at last. It had gone on nonstop for three quarters of an hour. Looking up from his glass, Varian met the smoldering blue gaze with unwavering black eyes. He made a deliberately slow upward ascent of a brow. His voice without effort conveyed he was unshaken by all he had been forced to listen to.

“The men you sent to search my ship found your daughter in my cabin. I did the only appropriate thing, Lucien. I married her. By special license. Camden was there as a witness and my Uncle, the Bishop, performed the service. It is a legal union, blessed by the church and as proper as I could manage. All of London is aware by now your daughter is back and where and who she was found with. I was not inclined to leave her dangling for the malicious delight of the gossipmongers. There was no alternative. What would you have me do? I married her.”

Lucien’s icy blue eyes began to glitter. With stiff-neck composure loosely in place, he shot back, “I did not expect you to offer for my daughter’s hand and then to abscond with her for a year to press my will in this. The years have not improved your character. I did not expect you, at whim, to disappear with her, breaking Rhea’s heart with the misery of all those days not knowing if Merry were alive. Nor did I expect you to harm my daughter as you have indisputably done.” The last of that had been spoken through gritted teeth on little more than a growl.

“It was not
whim
,” Varian countered, a sharp edge he took note of slipping into his voice. Lucien had always had a way of baiting both his anger and his irritation. Time had not changed that. Flailing his temper into submission, he added more evenly and less provokingly, “I have already explained this. Repeating it over and over again regrettably will not change it into something more favorable to you, Lucien. I made my offer of marriage for Merry without having ever seen her on Camden’s assurance of her suitability. I have not moved in society for a decade. I did not know who she was when I found her on my ship.  Your daughter refused to tell me who she was. She didn’t want to be returned home. She didn’t want to marry Rensdale.  She was on my ship when it sailed, not at my invitation and not at my knowing. Would it have been better to toss her off and leave her to her own devices? It was Camden who told me who she was, regrettably a year after she joined me, after the damage had already been done to her reputation and future.”

Flashes of worry peeped through the cracks of Lucien’s wall. “If it is as harmless as you claim it is, Varian, can you explain to me what is wrong with her? She is a ghost of the daughter who left me. What have you done to her?”

Varian fought to subdue the harsh effects of Lucien’s worry as he ran a finger along the rim of his glass. Three days of travel, three days of strain and three days of maternal sickness had not left Merry in her best of looks. By the time they had reached Bramble Hill she had looked distraught and worn-down. It was little wonder Lucien’s temper was so explosive. It would hardly soothe the situation to let the Merricks know by morning Merry most probably would be in her glowing beauty, that her current look of ill health was not permanent, but the result of the child she carried and an hour of having tossed up her breakfast on the side of the road.