Love's Patient Fury (The Deverell Series Book 3) (25 page)

“Be blunt, Warton. Did Varian kill Rensdale? What are the reports from the men you’ve had watching Windmere? Is that the speculation?” Andrew asked.

Lucien spoke before Warton. “Damn it, Andrew, I wouldn’t blame the man if he did. It would be a damn ill-timed stupid move since we’ve all played at our intrigue with calm and patience, but I wouldn’t hold it against him. I don’t believe for a moment Varian killed Rensdale. I more suspect he’s responsible for the appearance of these documents. The act of murder is the act of an uncontrolled man. These documents are the act of a patient man. It must have taken a decade to assemble all these, thorough, complete, and irrefutable. Varian is a patient man. He’s proved that by staying here with us so long, fully knowing where we are with our investigation of him. Waiting for us to tip how we’ll act. Calmly waiting to react. It’s little wonder we were unable to catch him before. He’s patient and thorough, Andrew. Patient men are successful. They are not rash and stupid.”

“There is no speculation on what has become of Rensdale. None,” Warton said. “There is also no evidence Varian is involved in his disappearance, though there is rumor out there again. Windmere has met only with three people since his arrival in London. He’s had four meetings with Camden. He’s had seven with this man at a tavern on the waterfront. We put a sketch artist in there and managed to get this. Do you know who he is?”

More sounds of ruffling paper. “I have never seen him before,” Lucien Merrick stated with heavy speculation. “Have you Andrew?”

“No,” Andrew replied. “Has this been distributed yet to see if we can locate his identity?”

Warton again. “It’s being done, Andrew, though it seems unlikely we’re going to get answers there. That’s why Varian is unconcerned about meeting him in a public place where he knows we’ll most probably witness it. The dockside tavern was an act of amusement. You should have seen it, sufficiently low and dreadful. My first operative got a good thrashing trying to leave the tavern to report on the meeting. This man has no ties to anything or anyone in London. He’s proved to be a dead end. We tried to put a man on him, but that was not successful. He lost him.”

It was Lucien Merrick. “You said he’s been meeting with three people. Who is the third? Do we know who he is?’

Warton’s voice came to Merry, and something in it made her nerves prick with sudden rawness even before the words had meaning. “I most certainly know who she is, Your Grace. I can’t even tell you how many times they’ve met. Most of their meetings have been at his house in Mayfair, though they have been seen in society and there is quite a bit rumor about this also. It’s not worth counting meetings. Frequent. He spends most of his time on his visits to London with the Lady Wythford. I am sorry, Your Grace. I would have preferred not to tell you that. But the firm speculation is that she’s his mistress and he seems quite content to stay in London, and he’s not the least careful about not letting it be known.”

Merry was already out of the room, wanting privacy and tears. She never heard her father. “Put a man on Lady Wythford. She’s not his bloody mistress. He wouldn’t make a point of displaying her if she was. The man’s prudent and the man’s clever. He wanted you to think he’d taken a mistress so you wouldn’t put a man on her. She’s been coming and going without your men speculating or following her. He’s using her as a go-between. Make sure you find out where it is he’s sending her and why.”

~~~

Varian turned his horse down the desolate country lane that was the last part of his journey back to Bramble Hill. Giving no notice to the countryside, he was thinking of his homecoming and wishing necessity had not made him leave Merry for so long. He never liked leaving her. But he loved coming home to her. Her wild and passionate displays of affection, half done out of the intense love they shared, and half done, he suspected, to irritate Lucien. Why did the girl love to irritate? She was such a whimsical and ridiculous creature at times, and he adored all of her. He would never want to change any part of what made her the miraculous woman she was.

He wanted to think of Merry in his arms and not the things that continue to force him to London and dimmed the joy of his life.  He needed to locate Rensdale. Rensdale was dangerous. He was desperate and somehow knew who was responsible for the slow destruction of his life.

He had escaped the man Varian had left watching the viscount as the drama of the ruining of his world unfolded. Damn, he didn’t want this complication, or the worry that Rensdale might strike a second time at the thing he cherished most in this world, his wife.

Varian had enough to concern himself with, what with the Merricks still probing for evidence against him and the uncertainty of what they would do when they succeeded. They would eventually succeed. Christina was moving vigilantly amid the myriad of political and government connections of her husband, keeping close to Warton and watching the Merricks for him, there to warn of danger before it came.

Tom had journeyed to London. Varian’s ship was in Bristol. The boy had been successful in taking a rather valuable prize and with a cargo rich in the hold, and his never failing ability and shrewdness, Indy was deep in the process of selling his cargo under the guise of having legally obtained it. Indy wouldn’t visit him, though he had known from Tom that Varian had been in London.

The boy wanted time away from him, and Varian had to give it to him. That the boy, freed, hadn’t immediately rushed off the kill Rensdale was a good sign. That he had no part in Rensdale’s disappearance a greater sign of hope and evidence of the healing he was sure Merry had brought in the boy’s soul. So he settled for knowing of his son by meeting with Tom Craven in a dockside tavern on the waterfront where Tom had booked lodging.

He was getting too content in his life and it was making him foolish, not careful as he always had been. A sketch artist had been there. Christina had informed him of that before leaving London, getting Tom’s image permanently trapped on paper, and his senses hadn’t even warned of the danger.  Rensdale had slipped from his watching eyes. His senses were too focused on Merry. He would have to do a better job if he were going to protect them all.

A month. It was too long and Merry would be furious with him. He missed her so much it hurt. She’d been enormous when he’d left her, and that was only in the middle of her eighth month, if his calculations were correct. He could not imagine her size near the end of her time with their child in her.

That was another worry. How tiny she was. How difficult of a birth this would be for her. He had lost a young girl on staff this way, the agonizing death of being unable to pass a child too large. He would rather not have the joy of this child than to lose Merry. He loved her in a way he had never known before, with an intensity at times that was aching, because it made him afraid of life without her. He couldn’t even remember his life before Merry.

When she finished bringing this child of theirs into the world, he would let it be enough. He would never be reckless again in his lovemaking of her. Though how he would manage to deny himself the glorious full expression of his love for her with the passion she stirred in him, was something he was unsure he’d accomplish. 

Varian noted that the worker’s on the Merrick farm greeted him with less reserve than they had six months passed. He climbed from the saddle, tossed the reigns to a footman, and was surprised his return was only greeted by a smile from Rhea. She was in her front garden, hands grubby with hummus, and his wife’s tiny running form hadn’t burst through the door yet. Sharp worry struck him, and then died as Rhea came to him. If something were wrong with Merry and his child, Rhea would not be so calmly in her garden potting flowers.

Rhea’s soft brown eyes held a smile as she held her dirty hands wide and gave Varian a light kiss on the cheek. Chiding, she admonished, “You have been gone too long...” then playfully, in a manner that so resembled her daughter, she added impishly, “...you insufferable man. However I have a feeling today you are going to be
an odious, insufferable man
. So you had best tread carefully. My girl has been miserable this prior week. You’ll understand why when you see her. She has been resting in your room most of the day. Go and make my daughter smile so I will not worry for her. She hasn’t smiled and laughed in days. She has been crying, though I think it’s discomfort and fear about the birth, and worry for you.”

Varian took one of her filthy hands and carried to his lips. “Oh, Rhea, I hope you know how much I love your daughter. I could not leave her at all if I did not know you were watching over her for me.” Then more seriously, his senses alert to some unknown danger, he asked clearly troubled, “Is she all right, Rhea? It’s not like Merry to stay indoors on such a beautiful day.”

Rhea tried to brush a strand of hair from her face without touching herself with her hands. Varian did it for her, tucking it back into the elegant arrangement of curls.

“It is only natural for her mood to grow more serious now, Varian. Go to her. I am sure seeing you is all she needs to feel herself again.”

There was worry in Rhea’s voice, a quiet trace, but it was there. Varian went directly to his room. He entered through his dressing room, wanting to toss off his dusty traveling garments before going to Merry. The scene there stopped him.

Every drawer was ripped apart. It was so like the scene of his cabin in her early days aboard ship when Merry used try to irritate him. It should have made him laugh, but something warned him that this was nothing he should laugh at. This was much more than Merry’s whimsical playfulness.

Shedding his over garments, he stepped into the bed chamber and took in the scene with a thorough and quickly moving glance. What the devil was wrong? What had been going on while he was gone? Plates on trays were everywhere, forgotten meals hardly touched. Their bed unmade telling him Merry had kept even the servants out. She sat in a chair, her feet balanced on a stool, bent because it was obvious by the alarming size of their child she couldn’t curl her legs in front of her on the chair as she liked to. Her doe’s eyes were somber and harsh as they fixed on him. Not even a word in greeting.

Varian went to her and gave her kiss. She allowed it but didn’t respond to it. “Are you all right, Merry? What is wrong?” he asked.

Merry’s voice was quiet and intense when she spoke. “What is going on in our life which you have not yet confided in me about? Do not lie. I will know it. Why do you travel to London so often?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you know, Little One,” Varian said calmly, “and how you know it? I will tell you the parts you’re not aware of yet as I can see I should have done long ago. You are upset. I can see that. I won’t lie to you. I have never lied to you, Little One.”

It was clear Merry was struggling to maintain her composure in this.

“By chance I overheard a discussion between my father, Uncle Andrew and Warton,” Merry began in a small, agonized voice. “Why did you not tell me father was investigating you and somehow he had tied you to Morgan? That he is trying to destroy my husband and take him from me while we stay in his house? Do you have any idea how it hurt me to learn of this in that manner, not from you, but by chance from my own father, Uncle, and dear friend.”

The enormities of his mistakes were staring at Varian now in how she looked at him. “You overreact at times, Merry. I did not want to upset and worry you. I don’t know what Lucien intends to do with this. What he will do to me at the moment he finishes gathering his proof. I am not as harsh in my judgments of him as you are as to what he will do when absolute certainty is fully there for him. He is being careful and slow in this, trying to come to terms with his own loyalties before he acts. I can’t afford to act rashly because it may harm you needlessly if I do. I don’t want to cost you your family.”

There was a heavy pause as Merry absorbed his words. Then quietly she asked, “What happened to Rensdale? Are you involved in his disappearance? How much of a threat is he to us?”

Varian studied her tense face. It was quite a detail packed discussion she had overheard. It was also a clear sign of her loyalty to him that she betrayed her father to bring this to him. It was clear this was difficult for her and she felt her loyalties as intensely as he did.

“I am not involved in Rensdale’s disappearance. Not in any way.  I don’t know how much he knows or how much danger there is from him. I have been inexcusably careless of late in my protection of us. I had a man watching him after the evidence I had gathered started to be distributed about London by Camden. The investigation was started regarding his cargo on the
Hampstead
as I planned it would. He is close to facing charges for his crimes. But he escaped my man and I don’t know where he is or what he is about. I have people searching for him now.  I apologize for not taking better care in seeing to you and our child’s safety. I won’t let him harm you, Merry. Have no fear of that. You are angry and hurt and have every right to be. I pray you can trust me still and are not worrying about your safety. Or the safety of our child.”

Another pause, equally long and equally tense. She ran a shaking hand through the curls she hadn’t bothered to brush today. “Who have you been meeting at the waterfront and why?” she continued grimly. “Is it Indy? They have a sketch of the man. They don’t know who he is, but they are trying to search an answer to that. Who is it?”

Varian hated having her in the middle of this silently waged war. It was tearing her apart. The signs were there, in her voice, her expression, and the disarray of their room. He did not want to bring this pain to her, this pain that was there in her eyes so clearly. Seeing pain there was tormenting to him.

“Tom Craven came to London at my request. My ship is at port in Bristol and my son would not welcome a visit from me, though I attempted to see him. So I sent for Tom because I needed assurance the boy is well.”

That made those bluebell eyes even more ravished by her pain. “You can’t even share with me your worries about your son, when your child is growing in me,” she whispered, steady and quiet, unlike Merry because her emotions were hollow with hurt. “You will not even let me help you with the pain I know you feel from that, to provide what comfort I can as your wife, a wife who loves you and is to be the mother of your second child. You send for Tom Craven and tell me nothing.”