Sins and Scandals Collection: Whisper of Scandal / One Wicked Sin / Mistress by Midnight / Notorious / Desired / Forbidden

Garrick sighed sharply and took a stronger grip on her, drawing her forward. She followed him carefully over piles of rubble that shifted disconcertingly beneath their feet, around fallen walls, under hanging beams. Garrick seemed very surefooted, stumbling only once and biting off whatever expressive oath had sprung to his lips. Merryn followed, her hand tight in his now, every sense she possessed aware of him, of the roughness of his palm against the softness of hers, the sound of his breathing.

“Where are we going?” she whispered, and he turned his head, so close that she felt his breath feather against her cheek.

“Toward the light.”

It sounded simple, but the light was elusive, skipping a little ahead of them all the time. Merryn caught her foot in the hem of her gown and almost fell again and Garrick went down on one knee and then she heard a ripping sound and the bottom twelve inches of her skirt and petticoats came away.

“What on earth are you doing?” she gasped.

“Preventing you from breaking a leg.”

“And for that you needed to … to disarrange my clothing?”

In the growing light she actually saw him grin. He straightened up. “Don’t tempt me,” he said.

Merryn looked up into his face. He was standing so close to her that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. She felt her stomach swoop at the intimacy of it. She wondered if she would ever be free of the acute awareness she had for him.

For a long moment they stared at one another and then Merryn tugged on his hand. “Come along,” she said again, sharply, compensating for the warmth of her feelings with the chill of her tone. “Toward the light.”

She was not sure whether it was getting hotter in the darkness or whether she was starting to develop an ague. The gloom was disorienting now, with tiny pinpricks of light dancing before her eyes, tempting her on only to lead to deep pools of stagnant beer or piles of rubble that were impossible to traverse. Their progress was excruciatingly slow and when, finally, they were confronted by a blank wall with only the tiniest hint of light beyond, Merryn could have cried out of sheer frustration.

Garrick was kneeling on the floor; she heard the scrape and chink of metal on stone and then a strange, hot breath of stale air engulfed her.

“All these houses have open cellars beneath them,” Garrick said. “They lead on from one house to the next.” He straightened up, dusting his palms. “I need to go down and see if they are flooded. If not we have a good chance of getting out that way—”

“No!” Merryn was shocked by the terror that hit her as hard as a tidal wave. She grabbed him and shook him. “Don’t go!” she said. “It’s dangerous. You might drown—” Her voice broke on a sob. She realized that she was holding Garrick so tightly that the material of his coat was scoring her sore palms. She felt frightened, an inch away from losing all control. All she knew was that he could not leave her. With him she was stronger. Without him she felt lost. And if anything were to happen to him … She could not bear the thought of it.

And then his arms came about her and they felt like steel bands, so strong and firm, and his lips were pressed against her hair and she could hear his heart beating steadily against her ear.

“Merryn,” he said, “I have to go. It’s the only way we can get out of here—”

“No,” Merryn said. She burrowed closer into his arms. “You might be hurt—”

Garrick put a hand under her chin, forcing it up so that she was looking at him. Her heart was pattering like a trapped bird but she could still feel the steady beat of his against her hand and when he spoke, his voice was very calm, too.

“Nothing will happen to me,” he said. He bent his head. His lips were very close to hers. “I’ll come back for you,” he said. “I promise. I won’t leave you.”

I’ll never leave you …

The words trembled on the air between them.

Merryn prized her fingers from his jacket and took a step back. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He sounded fierce. The kiss he gave her was equally fierce, brief, forceful, setting her head spinning. He turned to go. Merryn closed her eyes and prayed hard that he would not be gone for long and that he would find a safe way out.

Barely a second later there was a scraping, sliding sound that started softly but grew to a ferocious roar, and then without warning the world was falling again, the dust thick as a cloud about them, the brick and stone plummeting down and the only constant was Garrick’s arms about her and his body shielding hers as once again he stood between her and destruction. “GARRICK! GARRICK!”

Merryn’s voice sounded a very long way away and it came from a place Garrick did not want to go back to. He knew that to return would hurt; even now, with consciousness lapping at the corners of his mind, he could feel the pain eating at him in a dozen different places. But Merryn had never called him by his name before and that mattered. He did not know why, but it mattered profoundly. She sounded frightened and lonely. She was so brave. He had to help her.

He tried to move. Nothing happened. No response at all. Oh, well … At least he had tried. He started to slip back.

Something brushed his face. Her hair. He could smell the scent of bluebells—astonishing when they had been trapped with beer and dust that Merryn Fenner could still smell of fresh flowers. Then her hands were moving over him, shifting aside some of the dead weight that was pressing down on him and robbing him of breath. He felt something else against his face, something warm and wet … Tears?

“Don’t die.” She sounded furious. “Damn you …” More tears, though he heard her sniff as though she were trying to dash them away.

“I’m fine.” The words were no more than a croak. His throat was full of dust. So were his eyes. He could not seem to open them.

“I’m not going to die.” With an enormous effort he forced himself to move. A hundred muscles screamed in protest. He ignored them. “See?” He half sat. “I’m alive. I wouldn’t dream of robbing you of your revenge by leaving now.”

“Oh …” There was a world of emotion in her voice. Garrick cleared his throat and blinked the dust from his eyes. He could see Merryn now, kneeling beside him, a pile of stone next to her. They must have been crushed beneath it and she had wriggled free and arduously dug through the rubble that trapped him. Her hands were bleeding and filthy.

Garrick shook off the remaining debris. He was aching all over, battered from the onslaught of falling masonry, fresh cuts oozing from his arms where the sharp edges of several bricks had caught him. He felt the warm, sluggish seep of the blood. He looked around. They had been more than lucky this time. One of the roof beams had fallen from two floors above, spearing the ground not three feet away from them. He shuddered to see it.

“You saved my life again.” Merryn sat back on her heels, resting her battered hands in her lap.

“You saved mine, too,” Garrick said. They stared at one another. “It could become a habit,” Garrick added.

She gave him a hesitant smile. “Well … Thank you. Again.”

“My pleasure.” He raised his brows. “Have you noticed anything?”

“Only that you look extremely disheveled … Oh!” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “I can see you properly!”

He could see her, too. In the narrow shaft of light that now penetrated from above she looked like a dusty angel. Her hair was almost white with dirt, a stiff, tousled halo about her face. Her skin looked unnaturally pale under its coating of grime but her eyes gleamed as bright as sapphires. She was filthy, her skirts in tatters, the skin of her hands and arms chapped and rubbed raw, but in a heartbeat she had regained all her courage and confidence. Garrick felt his heart jerk with admiration. Gently bred women were not raised to deal with disasters such as this. When danger struck they showed whether or not they had that core of steel and Merryn had shown character through and through. She had been brave beyond measure.

Her brow had wrinkled. “Why are you smiling at me like that?”

Garrick hastily wiped the smile from his face. “Um … You, too, look most … disheveled.”

She frowned. “You were laughing at me. How ungallant!”

“You are right, of course,” Garrick said. “A gentleman should never make adverse comment on a lady’s appearance.” Yet still he could not take his gaze from her. The light was growing stronger all the time, illuminating the streaks of dirt on her face and the tracks of those fierce, angry tears she had shed when she thought she might have lost him. Her hands, as small and capable as the rest of her, were punctured with faint blue bruises among the cuts. Garrick raised a hand as though in a dream, and brushed away the smudges of her tears with his thumb. He heard her breath catch and felt her skin warm beneath his touch. He pushed the filthy hair away from her face. The back of his fingers brushed her cheek and she made the softest sound in her throat and turned her face against his caress like a cat seeking the sun.

He cradled her head in his hand and drew her forward for his kiss. This time it was not a kiss in anger or passion. It was gentle and sweet but so deep that when he let her go he found he was shaking. They gazed at one another, the moment spinning out, the dust motes dancing in the light that seemed to surround Merryn like a halo, and then she turned away and her face was in shadow and instead of pulling her back into his arms and kissing her senseless, as he ached to do, Garrick let her go.

The latest fall of masonry had revealed what had once been a chimney and now it stood straight and tall among the debris of tumbled walls, offering a tantalizing glimpse of light and sky. It seemed a very long way up.

“I assume,” Merryn said, looking up, “that we have to climb out of here?”

“Yes.” Garrick cleared his throat. “We do.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Merryn had already started to scramble over the rubble at the base of the chimney. Before Garrick could say anything she was reaching for footholds, clambering up like a monkey, clinging to impossible ledges and giving him a most enticing view up her skirts at the same time. Garrick felt distracted, hot and confused, left behind by her sudden energy. He had to make a very deliberate effort to get to his feet. His whole body seemed to rebel against movement.

Ten feet above him Merryn stopped and looked down. A shower of grit and small stones rattled past Garrick’s head and he flinched.

“What are you waiting for?” she said it again. She sounded impatient. Garrick thought that it was probably not the moment to tell her that ever since he had fallen out of a tree at the age of five, he had been afraid of heights.

“You will probably have more difficulty than I …” She had started to climb again and her voice sounded faint and far away. “Because you are much larger than I am.”