Love's Patient Fury (The Deverell Series Book 3) (34 page)

He wiped his tears and nose on his sleeve, and his brawny form made a ragged shudder. “That’s when Himself appeared.”

Merry’s eyes rounded. “Varian? He’s in Falmouth?”

Shay shook his head. “I don’t know, Merry lass. ’Twas a sight I won’t soon be forgetting. Himself like a mon possessed. Pushed me from his way, he did, back from the fire. Then himself charged through the flames to save the boy, he did. Carried him topside and such a look I’ve never seen on the mon’s face. Chilled me to me bones, it did. Then a loud explosion before Craven could get off the decks of the ship. Tom Craven is dead, Merry lass. The ship a giant burning mass of rubble. The fire got to the powder magazine. Himself put me in a cart, with the lad and a gun, he did. Ordered me here, Merry lass. Told me to bring the lad to you and you alone. Ordered me not to let anyone near the boy. And then Himself left like a fury on horseback.”

“Shay! Who set the fire? Who were these men trying to get hold of Indy? Where did Varian go?”

Weak with exhaustion, Shay’s tired eyes fixed on her face in misery. “I don’t know, Merry lass. Himself not be telling. I not be asking. Left Falmouth in the direction of Land’s End. That’s all I know.”

Merry sprang to her feet and ran up the stairs in the direction the footmen had carried Indy. When she entered the bedroom, Netta was already there, cutting away his blood soaked garments. When his scarred chest was bared, Netta let out a gasp and said, “Oh lord, what has this poor lad had done to him?”

Collapsing on the bed beside his still form, Merry took Indy’s hand and looked to her maid. “Will he be alright, Netta? You can’t let him die!”

Netta shook her head and continued her work. “He’s lost a lot of blood, lass. I don’t know. And I’ve still got to probe in his flesh to get the chunk of wood from his shoulder.”

Merry’s eyes fixed pleadingly on her. “Don’t let him die, Netta. Please. You can’t let him die!”

Netta motioned toward the footman. “Hold the lad down. Unconscious he is, but when I take the wood from his flesh, he might stir. Don’t want to hurt the lad more with the knife because he’s not still.”

It was not the footman, but Lucien Merrick who came to hold Indy down, taking firm grip of each of his arms.

“Merry, what has happened. Who is this man?” Lucien asked as Netta began to cut into Indy’s flesh.

Merry lifted her tear glazed eyes to her father. In a dazed and desperate way, she said, “This is James Deverell. Varian’s son.”

Two hours later, Netta announced she’d done all she could do for the lad. She’d carefully removed the wood from his shoulder, cleansed and then stitched closed his flesh. Indy was still alive, but very weak, and Netta announced grimly he was in God’s hands now. But the boy had survived Netta’s surgery, and Merry held firmly to the belief Indy would survive.

Terror had brought exhaustion to her limbs such as she had never known, and noting Shay sitting in a chair close to the bed guarding Indy, Merry slipped quietly from the room and back to her bedchamber.

She settled in a chair and put her aching head against the steeple of her fingertips. She was too tired to think. Worries and thoughts continued to spin in her head, even as she slumped in a chair, afraid she could not stay alert another minute.

The sound of pug growling pulled her from her haze. Spying what that miserable mutt had done this time, nearly in tears she exclaimed, “Damn you,” as she went from her chair to dog.

Pug was chewing on the picture book Varian had given her for her birthday. She grabbed the book from his mouth. It was ruined. Completely ruined. She started to cry. A frightening omen. The pug had torn apart Varian’s gift, and in her worry it felt as if another rent had pierced her heart. Frantically, she tried to put the pieces together, and then she noticed the thickness of the cover was uneven. The back was heavier. She fingered the tear pug had made with his gnawing. Her eyes rounded. There were letters inside.
Everything you may ever wish to know of me if you have a wish to know it is contained in this book, Little One
, Varian had said.
Within the cover it holds every part of me.

How could she have never realized that the covers were uneven in thickness? She broke the seals to the letters. The first contained a chart identical to the one he had shown her months ago in his bedroom. The second letter made her heart ache and her tears come even more fiercely. The one and only love letter Varian had ever written to her and he had hidden it in a book.

My dearest Merry,

I am watching you now, Little One, on my land in Virginia. You are covered from head to toe with thistle, in a meadow, lost in your own private, dreamy contentment and how beautiful you look. Like a glorious spring day after too long of winter. That is what you are, my dear. A glorious spring after too long of my winter. If there had been even a glimmer of doubt before this day that I loved you and wanted you it would not have survived the picture you make. It matters not that I know not who you are or how you came to be. It only matters that you are and that you are here with me.

My dear Little One, these words are so much less than I had hoped to give you. It is an attempt to put the pieces into order so that perhaps you will understand at last this man who loves you. If you are reading this letter it means I’ve not had time for the pieces to fully join and you know not who has loved you or what has brought us both to this day: you with a letter and me I know not where. It is a dangerous game I play, with dangerous ends, and I wish that I had had the power to end it sooner so that I may be with you now.

Know this: that each hour of the day since you were first brought to me I have had some thought of you and have prayed to a God I have long since disbelieved exits that he grant me his mercy to, if nothing more, know only the joy  to exist with Merry.  Everything I do, Merry, I now do for you.

With all my love,

Varian Charles Deverell, Duke of Windmere

On this day 13th of March 1814

Brushing at her tears, she ripped through the seal to the third letter. Across the top was scrawled, deliver to Lucien Merrick, Bramble Hill, Falmouth England. It began:
My journey to find my son, James Deverell, started with Lord Montrose
… Her heart stopped, as she rapidly scanned Varian’s neat swirling scrawl. It was all here. Everything he carried in the vault of his mind was here in her hands on parchment from a letter tucked into a book he’d given her more than a year ago.

Think, Merry, think. He gave you the letters. He wanted them to reach your father.
There was no need to think any longer about what she should do. She sprang to her feet, intending to find her father, but instead the world went dark and the letters slipped from her hand, scattering across the floor.

~~~

Once Lucien was able to finish what questioning he could accomplish of the Irishman, he went to his daughter’s room in hopes of making reason of the events this night at Bramble Hill. James Deverell. How was it possible for the lad to be Varian’s son, when the boy had died nearly a decade ago? He needed that answered and a more complete detail of what Merry knew if he was going to help his daughter find her husband.

Entering the empty bedchamber, he sensed immediately something wrong with the scene. There was a wide open window in winter. Letters scattered across the floor.

This is not right, he thought to himself. Knowing from instinct something was wrong and Merry was not only not in her room, but would not be found anywhere at Bramble Hill, he raced from the room to raise men for Merry’s rescue.

~~~

Consciousness returned to Merry with the grim awareness she was blindfolded, gagged and her arms were bound. She was in a cart and she was certain it was moving. She could hear the screech of wheels laboring across rutted roads, the scent of moldy straw was around her, and the touch of chilled air against her face told her she was outdoors. But where, where was she? How long had she been unconscious? And who had taken her from Bramble Hill?

Answers came when the cart jolted to a stop and a repulsive voice filled the air. “What took you so long?”

Rensdale!
She fought against the terror spin of that discovery as she tried to catch any clue of where he had taken her.

“Took time to get the wench. Weren’t no easy fete.” A rough, hard voice. Merry was certain she had never heard it before.

She was pulled from the cart in a harsh jerk. It was Rensdale. She could smell that cloying scent he wore. Not a whisper of wintergreen, but a heavy mask overly sweet. She was set on the ground without care, her bound arms held in punishing fingers.

Coins jiggled and moved through the air near her. “You had better not have been followed, or I will hunt you down and kill you myself,” Rensdale snarled.

“We wouldn’t be let’n the hangman know of this task, took an extra turn and road afore we got here. Were no easy fete to get the wench. Hey! This payment is short.”

“You’re late!” Rensdale snapped back. “I expected the girl before morning.”

There was a short curse and then the carriage groaned as her kidnapper must have retreated there. Cart wheels again. Morning. Merry latched onto the word. She was less than a day’s journey from Bramble Hill. It wouldn’t be long before someone noted her disappearance and rescued her.

Close to her ear, a revolting whisper. “I have a present for you, my dear. A little payback of my own for your foolishness in Bermuda. Didn’t think I’d get my hands on you again, did you? I’ve been one step behind you since
Grave’s End
.” She fought to hit him, but couldn’t raise her arms. Rensdale laughed. “Oh yes, I’ve known all along who took you from
Grave’s End
, and thanks to that stupid act of lunacy of yours, I know Varian is Morgan.”

She struggled harder and he laughed more, then he jerked her forward into a space that was cold and eerily silent. The only sound was their footsteps and then she realized they were on stairs, moving downward, surrounded by close icy walls. She felt spikes of coolness cutting into her flesh.

A door closed loudly behind her and a heavy bolt, it seemed from the exterior, dropped into place. She had been locked in somewhere and she wondered if Rensdale was still with her. Then she felt his hand on her arm, the chill of a knife slashing at the ties of her wrists, her gag removed and at last the blindfold from her eyes.

Rensdale held her as she was with a ruthless hand clutching her arm and her eyes anxiously floated about the dimly lit space surrounding her. It looked like a cell of some kind, a heavy stone prison without windows, the floors dirty from neglect, cobwebs from the heavy beams of the ceiling to the walls…
an abandoned jail?

“Perhaps you will rethink your resistance to returning to me what’s mine,” Rensdale sneered. “Having your wife at this party should make more interesting our negotiations.”

It was then her frantic gaze saw Varian. He lay on a cot, bloody and beaten, one leg in a shackle chained to the leg of the bed. Nerve-jolting relief shot through her veins when Varian opened his eyes and fixed them on her.

He’s alive. Thank you, God. He’s alive
, Merry thought as Rensdale tried to keep hold of her, but she became a twisting and contorting, struggling collection of fighting limbs. The chain was long enough for Varian to stand and the second he did, Merry broke free of Rensdale and ran to her husband.

She buried herself against him, firmly clutching him to her. “Did they hurt you? Are you well?” she inquired numbly.

“All is well, Little One,” he quietly breathed, before he said over her, “If you think you can harm one hair on her head and Lucien Merrick will permit you to live, you are not as clever as I thought you were. A strategic error, Rensdale. Lucien will hunt you down and finish what I started.”

Rensdale’s brow skipped upward, richly amused. “Who said I was going to kill her? You are right, her death would not serve, and a definite waste it would be. Such a beauty she is.” His amber eyes sharpened ruthlessly. “How long do you think you can listen to her scream while I take my pleasure of her while you watch, before you sign that order for your men to release to me my gold which you stole from the
Heritage?
”

Hysteria was now running through Merry’s veins rapidly. To be touched by Rensdale would be worse than death, and it rose in her mind that awful night in Bermuda, when he had mauled her and kissed her and nearly gotten her to his bed.

Merry whirled, putting herself between Rensdale and her husband, and much to Varian’s dismay, stepped just beyond the reach permitted by the chain on his leg.

“I will kill you if you touch me,” Merry hissed.

“Brave words of a devoted wife. How do you mean to stop me?” Rensdale jeered. “You have no weapon and your husband’s leg is in shackles in case you have not noticed. It will make it so much more pleasurable to rape you while he watches and struggles.”

Whatever Varian’s thoughts, his surface was relaxed and composed. Nothing changed on his face, not even when Rensdale started to make his move towards her. Merry frantically rushed back to Varian.

Good girl
, Varian thought. The panic that had claimed him since she’d stepped from his reach fled his limbs in rapid spurts. He locked his eyes on Rensdale, and silently Varian sent  a quick, frantic prayer to Heaven that Merry would understand without explanation what he was about to do, respond wisely, and not be knocked off of her feet by it…

“A most well thought-out plan,” he said in an oddly civil way. Then, a low mocking voice. “But I have a
better idea
.”

Merry stilled. Her eyes rounded. The fear that Varian’s hatred toward Rensdale might lead him to act rashly disappeared, even as her hair was jerked back painfully, and a knife from his boot pressed against her throat, the sharp coolness of the blade flooding her senses.

“Let’s see if you can put a bullet in me before I slit her throat. I would rather slit her throat than let any man touch what’s mine.” He gave her hair another hard jerk. Merry cried out in pain. “I kill her, Michael, we are all dead. You kill me. And Lucien kills you. A neat perfect circle. Complete. Or you can run now like the coward you are before Lucien Merrick gets here.”