am afraid that Lady Merryn has not quite got used to the idea yet,” Garrick said, before Merryn could respond. His hand tightened warningly on hers. “Our relationship is only of recent standing.”
Merryn opened her mouth—saw his expression—and closed it again. Garrick, she thought, looked extremely forbidding. “Come, my love,” he added, shifting his grip to her arm. “You are chilled to the bone. I will ask the landlady to draw a bath for you.”
The landlord appeared at the moment, with promises of spiced wine and hot food and when he addressed Garrick as “your grace” Mrs. Morton’s mouth fell open, her eyes became as huge as dinner plates and she hurried off, presumably to acquaint the rest of the inn’s occupants with the news of their august guest.
“I don’t know what you had to do that for,” Merryn said as the landlord ushered them into a private parlor where a fire roared in the grate.
“Because,” Garrick said, “I had no wish to make you the butt of yet more scandal.”
“I think,” Merryn said, “that my reputation is probably beyond saving now.”
“Probably,” Garrick concurred.
There was a little silence.
“Did you mean it?” Merryn said. Her voice trembled.
Garrick did not pretend to misunderstand her. “Yes,” he said. “I meant it. I love you with all my heart.” There was so much of pity and regret in his eyes. “But I also meant what I said in London.” His voice was lacerated by pain. “I can never be the man you want me to be, Merryn.”
The landlord knocked at the door and came in with the spiced wine and a tray piled high with food. Garrick poured for her and passed her a glass. He moved away again immediately and Merryn knew that despite their passionate embrace when he had saved her from the quicksand he would not touch her again. Only she could put matters right now if she had the strength and courage to face the past.
She took a sip of the spiced wine, feeling the rich liquid burn a line of fire down to her stomach, feeling it warm and soothe her.
“When I discovered that Kitty had been pregnant,” she said, “I wanted to believe that I had been right about you from the start, Garrick. I wanted to believe that you had killed Stephen in cold blood, out of anger and revenge. It would have made perfect sense. Your best friend had betrayed you with your wife. There was an argument. You shot him. I wanted to believe that you had lied to me when you told me Stephen had tried to kill Kitty.” She stopped, rubbing her fingers over the delicate tracery of the goblet, over and over. “Except by then I had already come to know you.” She looked up. “I had already come to love you. And I knew you would not lie.”
She looked at him. His mouth was hard, his eyes shadowed.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
Garrick came to sit close to her, not touching, but near. There was a long silence. Merryn waited. Garrick started to talk, slowly, reluctantly. It felt as though the words were dragged out of him, gathering fluency only when he seemed to forget that she was there and lost himself in the dark memory of the past.
“I found them in the maze at Starcross Hall,” he said. “Kitty had been expecting me—I had been up in London on business but then I received a note from her asking me to come down to Somerset on a matter of urgency. I set off as soon as I could.” He raked a hand though his hair in a quick, anguished gesture. “Perhaps she planned for me to find her with Stephen to force a confrontation. To this day I do not know. But whatever she had planned, it had gone wrong. I heard them arguing violently as I tried to find my way through the maze toward them.” He stopped. Merryn watched the play of emotion across his face like light and shade—anger, pity, regret. “Kitty was crying,” Garrick said, “and pleading with Stephen to run away with her. She said that they could make a new life together, the two of them with their child.” He glanced at Merryn’s face, then away. “That was the first that I knew she was pregnant.” Merryn saw him look down at his clasped hands, the knuckles gripping white. “Stephen was laughing at her,” he said tonelessly, “and taunting her. He said that he had no intention of running off with her, that he had never loved her, that she was nothing more than a whore and that if she was sensible she would pay him to keep his mouth shut about the baby and pretend that it was mine all along.”
Merryn gave a little moan, covering her face with her hands. For a moment it was as though her heart had stopped. Her memories were splintering now, dissolving, reforming into a new pattern. In her mind’s eye she could see Stephen, hear his voice echoing down the long garden corridor of Fenners on the last morning of his life. He had been dressed for riding and was halfway out of the door already, the sun behind him, lighting him up so that she could not see his expression.
“Congratulate me, little sis! I am on my way to make my fortune!”
She had thought that it was odd that he had seemed so happy because only the night before she had heard him arguing with Lord Fenner over money. He must have had Kitty’s note, telling him of her pregnancy, begging him to elope. And he had known he had no intention of doing so and every intention of threatening to broadcast her disgrace unless she paid him off. Kitty, who had been fathoms deep in love with him. Kitty, whom he had betrayed …
Garrick was still talking in that rough, painful tone.
“The next thing I heard was Kitty screaming,” he said. He glanced at Merryn, looked away. “She had a pistol. I don’t know why. I have often wondered. Maybe she did not trust Stephen from the first and that is the saddest thing of all. Anyway, she swore to kill him if he abandoned her.”
Merryn felt the anguish rake through her, raw and sharp. The tears clogged her throat, tears for Kitty, so disillusioned and alone.
“There was a shot,” Garrick said, “and I forced my way through the hedge to the center of the maze and I found them.” He stopped, breathing hard. “Kitty had shot Stephen in the shoulder. She was mad with grief and distress. Stephen was on the ground. He was bleeding copiously and swearing at her. He was still taunting her, telling her that she was so stupid she could not even kill him. He had his own pistol leveled at Kitty and he said he would show her how it should be done.” Garrick stopped. “We both fired together,” he said. “Stephen’s bullet hit Kitty in the arm. Mine killed him.”
Merryn sat dry-eyed and frozen. Stephen, she thought. You blackguard. You utter scoundrel. The tears prickled her eyelids and closed her throat, tears of bitterness and disillusion. There was a sharp pain in her chest, a crack in her heart, stealing her breath. All pretense had been stripped away now and she had to accept the fact she had always known in her heart of hearts and yet had chosen to deny: that her brother had been worse than a wastrel and a rogue. He had been arrogant, vain and dangerous. He had played with people’s lives, with Garrick, with Kitty, with herself, as though they were counters in a game.
She buried her face in her hands again as the shivers racked her.
She felt Garrick move and then he pressed her glass of wine into her hands, holding them steady as she drank obediently and once again felt the warm liquid flower within her giving her warmth and strength. She raised her head and looked at him. The lines of grief and unhappiness were etched so deep in his face that she wanted to reach out to him and smooth them away.
“I’m sorry, Merryn,” he said. “I wish I could say it was not true.”
“You took Kitty away to protect her,” Merryn said. “I thought
