It had been so exciting to be so important. She had rubbed her dirty palms on her even dirtier skirt, hauled up her stockings and taken the letter from his hand. She could feel it even now, smooth and cool against her hot skin. She had sped across the fields to Starcross Manor, tumbling over the stile, with the dry stalks of the meadow grasses whipping her legs. Kitty had been waiting for her. She had sent the maid for lemonade and Merryn had gulped it down thirstily. Kitty had written a reply but she had not sent Merryn back at once—that was one of the things that Merryn had grown to love about her. Kitty always took the time to talk to her, to ask her what she was reading, to give her little presents of ribbons and bookmarks and quills. She was kind. And later Merryn knew that she was unhappy, that she had been forced to wed when her heart was given somewhere else. Given to Stephen.
“You were only a child,” Garrick repeated. He rubbed his forehead as though it pained him. “You cannot have known what you were doing.”
“I knew exactly what I was doing,” Merryn said. “Do not make excuses for me, Garrick. I was thirteen years old. I thought it was romantic. I wanted them to run away together.” She gulped in a breath. “You said that Kitty wrote to you,” she said. “It was the reason you came down that last day, the day you found them together. But it was not Kitty who wrote to you, Garrick. It was I.” She looked away, her words wrenched from her. “I loved you,” she said. “Oh, I was only young but I felt it so passionately! You know me now—” a small sad smile cut through her grief “—you know how wholeheartedly I give myself up to every thing I believe in. It is my greatest weakness, I think. And I thought that if Kitty and Stephen were to elope then you might notice me at last.” Her breath caught. “I was almost fourteen,” she said. “I thought that in a couple of years I would be old enough for you.”
She stole a look at Garrick’s face and the shock and the dawning horror she saw made her feel sick. She gave a despairing gesture. “So I wrote the letter. I lured you to Starcross Manor.” She struggled to control her voice, raked by the agonizing grief of what she had done. “I thought it would force a confrontation,” she said. “I knew you were a good man, a generous man. I thought you would let Kitty go. But instead …” She put her hands to her face then let them fall. “That was why when you told me in London that Stephen had tried to kill Kitty I could not believe you,” she whispered. “I did not want to believe you. It was not meant to be like that.” She stopped, her throat dry, her heart aching. Garrick was standing absolutely still. He had not moved, had not spoken. His face, dark and drawn, was turned away from her. Merryn felt her soul wither.
“I’ll go now,” she said and her voice broke.
She was shaking. She was not sure how her legs carried her to the door. The handle slipped under her fingers as she fumbled with it.
Then Garrick’s hand closed over hers, holding it still. “Merryn,” he said softly. His arms came about her and as she felt their strength she turned her face against his chest and her grief burst out and she cried and cried while Garrick held her as gently as though she were a child.
“Hush,” he said, stroking her hair. “Merryn, sweetheart—”
She raised her face to his and he kissed her lashes, brushing the tears from her wet cheeks, kissing her trembling mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she said brokenly. “I’m so very sorry.”
“To think that you have lived with that all these years,” Garrick said, his voice rough with emotion, “never knowing what happened, desperate to understand.”
Merryn clung to him. “I could not let it go,” she whispered. “When you came back I had to know. I had to find out what had happened, what had gone wrong.”
“And I thwarted you at every turn.” Garrick sounded bitter, regretful. His arms tightened about her.
“I blamed you because I could not face my own culpability,” Merryn said, the words tumbling out. She wiped the streaming tears away with the back of her fingers. “I knew I had done wrong but I could never tell anyone …” Her voice trembled. “Oh, Garrick …”
They stood for a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms, lost to all else, drawing strength and love from one another. After a while Garrick loosed Merryn enough to look down into her face.
“Merryn,” he said, “will you marry me?” He smiled, brushing the tumbled hair gently back from her flushed cheeks. “I asked you before,” he said, “and you did not want me. If you have changed your mind—”
“With all my heart,” Merryn whispered, reaching up to kiss him.
Garrick patted the pocket of his coat. “I brought the special license with me. Was that very presumptuous of me?”
“Frightfully,” Merryn said. She looked at him under her lashes. “When?”
“I thought tomorrow?” Garrick said. “If you are in agreement and if the vicar of Kilve agrees.”
“What do we do until then?” Merryn said, more softly still.
“Well,” Garrick said, “you need to take a bath for you have almost been drowned in a quicksand and threatened, and sustained any number of shocks and it is remiss of me to have kept you from your bed for so long …”
Merryn smiled. “I bespoke a bedchamber but it was the last one available,” she said. “I am afraid that you will have to sleep in the taproom.”
“And have Mrs. Morton assume that we were already in marital difficulties?” Garrick said. “I thank you, no. I have no wish for her to press on me her sovereign cure for impotence, nor for my alleged shortcomings in the bedroom to be broadcast to all of her acquaintance.”
Merryn was betrayed into a giggle. “She could help you,” she said. “She told me in the carriage that she has a range of remedies to cure all ills.”
“Thank you,” Garrick said, “but I do not recall you having any complaints before.” He scooped her up in his arms and strode to the parlor door. Out in the hall, Mrs. and Miss Morton were lighting their candles at the bottom of the stairs. Mrs. Morton gave a little shriek to see Merryn once again clasped so tightly in Garrick’s manly grasp.
“Good night, Mrs. Morton,” Merryn called as Garrick took the stairs two at a time.
“I do not believe those two are married at all,” she heard Mrs. Morton hiss to her daughter. “And they call themselves the Quality!”
UP IN THE PRIVACY of a tiny chamber under the eaves of the inn Garrick stripped the blue gown from Merryn’s body, peeling off her underclothes with gentle hands, shaking out the sand that seemed to have penetrated every fold of her dress and clung to her skin, making it salty and rough. He concentrated very hard on the practical task, trying to ignore the delicate curve of her breast as she stepped out of her shift, trying to blot from his sight the luscious arch of her hips, the long, pure, tempting line of her bare leg. He had been quite enough of a brute keeping her downstairs in the parlor, cold and filthy, while they talked. He felt racked with remorse. The best way to make it up to her, he thought, was to see her safely into bed, make sure she was wrapped up warm and tight so that she did not catch an ague, and then retire to the taproom for a long, frustrated wakeful night alone and Mrs. Morton’s impotence aids be damned. This was no time to be thinking of ravishing Merryn. He would wait until she was recovered from her ordeal, wait until they were wed, wait until he had the marriage lines and they were respectable as the Duke and Duchess of Farne. He looked at Merryn as she rolled the stockings down her legs and felt the heat rise over his body, felt the color sting his cheeks and his eyes burn and he turned away so that she did not see the evidence of his arousal.
A hipbath stood in the corner, the scented water steaming. It smelled divine of lavender and herbs and he heard Merryn give a little greedy moan. She skipped across the room, all rosy skin gleaming in the firelight, and slipped beneath the water with a sigh of pure physical pleasure. Garrick gritted