Chapter 25 #3
She wandered farther into the room, trying to overcome the silence by seeming to study her surroundings, which made it particularly fortunate that this was an interesting room to study. Otherwise she might have looked a little foolish.
The apartment had an air about it of a hundred projects left uncompleted.
A dissecting puzzle that was a map of England lay on a center table with the southern counties missing.
Upon a canvas cloth on the window bench someone had begun transplanting pink and crimson geraniums from individual terra cotta pots to three glazed earthenware tubs; only one lovely arrangement was finished, and on the heap of rich earth tiny weeds were beginning to sprout like trees on some miniature hillock.
Unclipped threads dangled from a stand of tambourwork.
Periodicals were jumbled with books on a side table, and a scattering of handwritten recipes sat atop a commonplace book with a paste pot.
Without really deciding to she seemed to have stopped evolving plans.
Plan A, Plan B, Subplan B in case Plan B went out the window, Alternate Plan C if Plans A and B failed…
Why had she married him? Her first refusal had been so resolute; it was hard to understand why her resolution had wilted miserably.
At the very least she wished she’d held out for a day or two.
Her back was to him as she uncorked the paste pot, opened the commonplace book to the oval of painted fabric that was a page marker, and began to daub paste on the back of a recipe with her ring finger.
The recipe was for common Flemish tarts, and that made her smile.
Close acquaintance with Raven and Will Saunders had permanently altered the tone of her mind.
“Will my aunt come today?” she asked, flipping the recipe on its back and pressing it onto an empty page.
“Tomorrow.”
“And your mother also?”
“Also.”
Merry drew from the basket a small scissors with brass blades shaped like a stork’s bill and began to trim the ragged edge of another recipe. “What sort of a person is she?”
“My mother? A grubby urchin. She spends most of her time pulling roots and earth from one pot and squashing them into another. When I was a child and wanted to find her, I went through the house following the trail of humus.”
Surprised by the image, she pasted in that recipe and had started to trim a third when his voice came to her again.
“Merry… I love you.”
One of the scissor blades sliced into her finger. She released the finger grips in a sudden movement, and the scissors fell, clanging and open-spread on the table. Dark scarlet drops from her bleeding finger spattered the white pages like red petals strewn on virgin snow.
“Fiddlesticks!” Her heartbeat was heady, the rhythm of a folk drum. “You didn’t love me yesterday, when you thought I was connected to—you know who. Then you tied me up.”
There was a faintly apologetic pause. Then he said, “Being angry at someone isn’t the same thing as not loving them.”
The wounded finger curled tightly into her fist. “You’re trivializing what you did to me. People in love don’t mistreat each other.”
His voice, coming to her over her shoulder, was webbed with strain.
“You have a few things to learn about love if that’s what you believe.
It’s a saber with two edges, Merry. I could have borne your being Granville’s mistress.
What I couldn’t stand was the thought that while you were in my arms you might have been acting. ”
In a way, albeit unwillingly, that was something she could understand. Cat’s kiss, with its careful ambiguities, had taught her that much. “Why would you rather trust in dockside gossip than me?”
“Damnation, Merry, can’t you see you were the last person I had any motivation to believe in?
I wanted to believe you were guilty, so I’d have an excuse not to let you go.
Though there was part of me that always knew you were the person you seemed.
” Then, quietly, “I was almost able to let you go once, after you were sick on St. Elise, because I had so much saved-over guilt.”
“By then I wanted to stay,” she said, staring down at her fists.
“I know. But why? You were isolated, dependent, stripped of everything familiar…” The brittle voice stopped, as though dissatisfied with its own urgency.
When he began to speak again, his voice was calmer.
“You knew I wanted you. How much of your response to me was because you were afraid of what might become of you if you refused to indulge me?”
She would have spoken then, but he intercepted the words by saying gently, “No, love, you don’t know, and neither do I.
There isn’t any way to be sure. For that, at the very least, I had to set you free.
As restitution it wasn’t too impressive, I know—I was trying to listen to some remnant sense of justice. ”
“Some remnant sense of justice,” she repeated, as though it were worthy of being mulled over.
“That phrase has a certain something. And it’s particularly eloquent when applied to you.
” She turned and found he was standing beside the desk, his expression open as she had never seen it before in the soft interior shadows.
“A remnant sense of justice. It lies there withered like a Montgolfier balloon. If only we could inflate it or something, so you could have a real conscience instead of a useless scrap to toy with when it suits you.”
Just outside the window a breeze tossed the crown leaves of a walnut tree, and their shadows drifted over his face. “You don’t have to retreat into symbolism; I’m not Rand Morgan. You want me to understand that you find my apologies vacuous and self-serving.”
“I find your apologies thinner than skimmed whey!” she said hotly. “That night in my bedroom you attacked me.”
He wondered how many years would pass before he could call up that memory without being sick at heart from it. Very gently he said, “I can only hope that with time I’ll be able to fill you so totally with my love that you will be able to shed the sting of my abuses.”
“And?”
“And I’d see my hands cut off before I’d hurt you again. Ever.” The corners of his eyes began to play with a smile. “Love, have a care. You’re coming close to listening to an apology.”
If a hundred men were to smile at her, not one could affect her as deeply as the barest glimmer of suppressed mirth-light in Devon’s eyes. The muscles around her mouth begged her to respond. Thank heavens her wrists remembered the rope he had put around them yesterday.
“Listening to isn’t the same as accepting.
” Once the words were out, they sounded childish, which was a disappointment.
One always kept hoping one would be able to outgrow the occasional clumsy remark.
Especially at moments like these. Gathering back her retreating dignity, she said, “You seem to be thinking far ahead of me, so I have a question. Just what is it you want?”
Leaves rippled beyond the muting window glass; as gentle was his gaze, holding her as he said, “I want to wake each morning with your breath on my shoulder. I want to sit talking to you before the fire on rainy days.” Softly, “I want to sleep with your back curled into me, and your breasts under my palm.”
His warmly animate glance strayed to her firm lower lip, to the faint vibration of the pulse on the incline of her throat, and then to the swell and fall of her breasts.
The golden eyes were strained as they returned to hers.
“Merry, if I can’t be with you now, I don’t know how I can stay intact for one more day.
Whatever was there that helped me not to take you before has gone.
It seemed to vanish on the Joke on the way to England.
When I heard your laugh across the deck, when I turned to look at you, I wasn’t sure each time that I could keep myself from going to you.
… Love, I need you. Will you come to bed with me? ”
His naked urgency shocked her as much as his readiness to show it to her. From Devon the last thing she would have expected was this blunt, almost shaken plea. Her blood flamed in answer—her breasts ached for the offered caress.
“I don’t think so,” she said, trying to maintain an expression of cool reserve.
“I’ve just come from bed, and I can’t think of a single reason why I’d like to go back.
” Reserve fled as he combed her with a curious smile and went to shut the door.
She scampered like a hare behind a chair-backed settee near the window bench.
She had surprised him. That much was evident.
He folded himself into the nearest chair and studied her impassively.
Finally he said, “You could put down the flowerpot, Merry pet. I can see this won’t be a simple adjustment for you, but you’re not on the Joke anymore.
One shout from you would bring the entire household and half the garden staff at a run. ”
“You’re the Duke of St. Cyr. Your servants would gainsay you nothing!” she said and then immediately felt rather embarrassed. Even for her current state of burning sensitivity it sounded a little theatrical.
“You’ll find out,” he predicted. A dry smile hovered on his lips.
“They’d gainsay me in a second if I tried to force myself on a woman.
Whatever you might think of me, these are very respectable people.
They’ve known me all my life—I was concerned they’d keep you awake for hours telling my baby stories. ”
She stared at him. Then, “As a matter of fact, they did tell me one or two.”
“I hope it wasn’t the one about the time I ingested my name in alphabet tiles?”
“No. The baby cap.”
“The alphabet tiles will come.” He sighed. “Anyway, there you are. Safety.” He gave her a fresh smile that went straight to her heart. “I have an idea.”