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

She took a deep breath. “I appear to have compromised you, your grace,” she said.

The smile in Garrick’s eyes deepened, warm and tender. Merryn’s composure faltered, hanging by a thread.

“That is a novel way of expressing it,” Garrick said. “It is generally the gentleman who takes the responsibility.”

“I think we must both do that,” Merryn said. “I do not blame you in any way for what happened between us.”

Garrick’s smile faded. He still held her hand. “How very just and fair you are, Lady Merryn,” he said, “but it was my loss of control. I knew what I was doing.” His eyes darkened. “You did not.”

“I could have stopped you,” Merryn whispered. Her heart was beating erratically, butterflies fluttering in her throat. “But I did not wish to do so.”

The gentleness in his eyes was almost her undoing. “Always so honest,” he said. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her palm. She shivered.

His tone changed. “Merryn,” he said again.

Merryn wished that he would not use her name so informally and speak it in such gentle tones. Something in his voice struck the deepest chord within her and undermined all her defenses. It reminded her of the way in which he had whispered her name in the hot darkness. Of the way he had shouted it, with an edge of desperation, when he had urged her to throw herself into his arms. It reminded her of the intimate connection there was between them, the ties of memory and desire that she wished did not exist. But they did exist and she could not escape them.

She turned her face away from him, suddenly unable to meet his gaze.

He went down on one knee before her. Oh, dear, this was bad—this was like a proper proposal rather than one borne of necessity and scandal. Merryn bit her lip and forced back the unexpected tears.

“Merryn,” he said, “will you marry me?”

Merryn felt the most insane urge to put a hand out to touch the crisp auburn hair that curled over his collar. His head was bent. She could see the line of his eyelashes against the straight slash of his cheek. Fair lashes, like hers. Any child of theirs would not have the thick dark lashes so beloved of artists and the fashionable ladies of the ton.

“I cannot marry you, Garrick,” she whispered. “I am sorry.” She closed her eyes against the pain inside her and the thought of a little girl—or boy—blessed with fair eyelashes.

Garrick had straightened up but he had not moved away from her. She felt as though his physical presence engulfed her. “May I beg you to reconsider?” His voice was strained. “Society will destroy you if you do not accept my offer, Merryn. I cannot allow that to happen.”

“I do not pay any regard to the opinions of society and I never have,” Merryn said fiercely.

“Yes,” Garrick said. Despite everything she could hear a tinge of humor in his voice. “I do know that.”

“I’ll find something else to do,” Merryn said desperately. She took a few agitated steps away from him. “I can see that I can no longer work for Tom but perhaps I could gain employment elsewhere—” She stopped. There was an expression on Garrick’s face that could only be described as pity.

“Merryn,” he said again. “Not this time.”

There was a silence.

Everyone is talking scandal … It is in all the papers … Caught naked in a brothel in bed with the Duke of Farne … Merryn could hear Tess’s whispered words. She knew she was the most notorious woman in London.

Ruined.

Compromised.

She liked words but she did not like this one with its overtones of suspicion and disrepute. Her reputation was sullied, her virginity lost. Even if she did not bear a child, the proof of her fall from virtue, gossip and scandal would cling to her name forever. No one would offer her employment. She knew that, in her heart. If she did not marry Garrick she would become an outcast, shunned by all except her own family. The lectures and talks, exhibitions and concerts that she had relished would become events where she ran the gamut of public gossip. She had gone from being invisible to being the most visible, the most talked about, person in the ton.

“I wonder,” she said bitterly, “if it would have been different had it been a flood of champagne?”

“Much better ton,” Garrick said with a faint smile, “but I fear that in the end the effect would have been the same. You would have to marry me.”

“I cannot marry you,” Merryn said. She took several more paces across the room.

“Merryn,” Garrick said. “Please reconsider.” His tone had changed. There was iron in it now, absolute, immovable. “If there is a child,” he said, very deliberately, “I cannot—I will not—let it be born out of wedlock.”

“But there may not be a child,” Merryn said eagerly. Hope and desperation warred inside her. “We can wait,” she said. “In a little while we shall see …” Her voice trailed away unhappily. She knew it would not serve even as she saw Garrick’s expression.

“We wait what—a month, two?” His voice was extremely polite but the look in his eyes was not. It was furious. “Then if you are not pregnant we congratulate ourselves on a lucky escape, and if you are, we marry one another quickly, quietly, with everyone counting days and months and gossiping about us?” His mouth twisted. “That is too shabby. I will not do it.”

Merryn looked into his dark, implacable eyes. She knew Garrick was correct—she could not take the risk of condemning a child to the stigma of illegitimacy, another bastard Farne offspring, like father like son. She pressed her fingers to her lips to hold back the hysteria that suddenly threatened her. Confronted with such cruel choices she felt smothered with guilt. She wanted to run.

But she could not. She had to face what she had done.

“You must marry me,” Garrick said. “Good God, Merryn—” Suddenly there was raw anger in his voice. “I already have your brother’s death on my conscience,” he said. “I have no intention of adding to the scandal by giving the gossipmongers ammunition to claim that I have destroyed your life, too.” He took her hand and she could feel the tension that gripped him. “This way I can atone,” Garrick said. His voice was rough. “I tried to do that when I gave back Fenners and your fortune. I righted one small wrong. If you wed me—”

“It will not put right Stephen’s death,” Merryn said heatedly. “Nothing can do that.”

“No,” Garrick said, “but it will right you in the eyes of the world. And that way we can present the marriage as a further step toward reconciliation between our two families instead of simply a way to prevent scandal. Have you thought—” he let her go abruptly and turned away “—that many people may well imagine that you have been my mistress for some time?”

This time the silence was taut with emotion. Merryn sank down heavily onto one of the chairs. She had not imagined it for one moment. It cut her to the heart.

She remembered Lord Croft’s carelessly cruel words in Bond Street. He had implied that she had been willing to overlook Stephen’s death in return for a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. How much louder, how much more salacious, would be the gossip that she was Garrick’s mistress. She could almost hear the whispers, the hiss of silken skirts withdrawing from her. She could see the flick of fans as the delicious on dit sped through the ton. Nothing could be more scandalous than the suggestion that she had turned to the bed of the very man who had ruined her family.

Garrick was right. Marriage would at least put a respectable gloss on a deeply unrespectable situation.

“Perhaps a marriage of convenience …” She started to say. “In name only. To promote the fiction that this is indeed an alliance intended to mend the breach between our families—” She stopped as she saw the look in his eyes.

He took a step toward her, and another. “A marriage in name only,” he said softly, mockingly. He took her chin in his hand and turned her face up to his. His touch was featherlight but Merryn felt it echo through her whole body. She closed her eyes for a moment against the potency of it.

“Do you think you could do that?” he asked in the same tone that had the shivers chasing down her spine. “For I could not. I warn you now—I would not even try.” He bent his head until his lips brushed hers. The heat flared inside her.

“Could you do that?” he repeated, his lips an inch from hers. His mouth took hers before she could reply and he was kissing her with skill and a mastery that set her shaking from head to toe. Her body recognized the taste and the touch of him now and responded to him with an eager need she could neither hide nor deny, opening to him like a flower to the sun. It shamed her all over again that she could be so avid for his touch when her mind was so cloudy and confused with grief and misery.

Garrick deepened the kiss and Merryn caught hold of his jacket to steady herself in a world that was spinning. The material of it slipped beneath her fingers and his arms came about her, steadying her, holding her close. His kiss was a statement of possession and intent, and Merryn recognized it as such. She would be his wife in every way possible. There was no escape.

He released her and stood back. He was breathing hard and his eyes glittered with desire.

“I already have a special license,” he said. “We will be wed within the week. Oh, and Merryn—” There was an odd pause. “I should be very grateful,” Garrick said, a little formally, “if you were able to honor your wedding vows.”

Merryn stared at him for a moment uncomprehending. For all Garrick’s forcefulness and the blazing passion between them she had sensed raw anguish in his voice then. Her heart jolted to hear it.

“Kitty,” she whispered. “You do not wish for another unfaithful wife.”

“It would be most unfortunate,” Garrick agreed, and there was a thread of humor in his tone that did not quite disguise the hurt. “I fear I am most unfashionable in that regard. The somewhat … flexible … morals of some members of the ton do not suit my taste. Although,” he added bitterly, “I can see that it would also be the most perfect revenge for you to marry me and then betray me. Life comes full circle.”

Merryn shook her head abruptly. She was shocked by this insight into Garrick’s pain. He had always seemed so confident and so supremely sure of himself, so unapologetic for what he had done in the past. In the dark intimacy of their confinement she had tried to provoke him by goading him about Stephen and Kitty’s love. He had responded by telling her that he regretted his wife’s betrayal of him every single day. She had heard his pain and disillusion then. Now, looking into his eyes, she felt it, believed it.

She swallowed hard. “I am not the sort of woman to do that,” she said. “If I give a promise I keep it. I would never dishonor you.”