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

The snow was swirling, blinding him now. He pulled harder than he had ever pulled in his life before and felt the resistance. He pulled again, almost wrenching his arms from their sockets, and then another wave broke and he felt the sands shift and move and Merryn came free to her waist, then her knees, and then she was sprawling on the sand in a tumbled heap, half conscious, as Garrick lifted her with hands that shook so much now he could not keep them steady. He held her close against his racing heart and pressed his lips to her hair.

“I am sorry,” he said. “If you cannot forgive me—” “Be quiet, Garrick,” Merryn said very clearly. Her eyes opened. She reached up and cupped his face in her hands and kissed him and then Garrick was kissing her back, over and over, desperate, famished kisses as though he would never let her go.

THEY DID NOT TALK on the way back. The horse was tired now and carrying a double weight and Merryn felt colder and more tired still. Garrick had wrapped her in his jacket and though she murmured a protest and tried to shrug it off he just fastened it all the more closely about her and after a moment she accepted his gift. The coat was warm and smelled of Garrick and she turned her face against the collar and drank in the reassurance of it. She found that for once she did not want to speak at all. She felt simultaneously too full of emotion to be able to grapple with it, yet utterly drained and exhausted. She had questions—she would come to those soon enough and this time, she knew, Garrick would answer—but for now she was content to lie quietly in Garrick’s arms as he encouraged the little horse back to the village.

It was only a matter of minutes before they were back in Kilve’s broad high street and turning through the arch into the courtyard of The Smugglers Inn. Garrick handed the shivering pony over to the ostlers, gave it an appreciative pat, lifted Merryn down again and carried her into the inn. This time her protests were stronger.

“Put me down,” she snapped, wriggling in his arms. “I am perfectly capable of walking. I am not an invalid!”

Mrs. Morton chose that precise moment to appear from the parlor and seemed extremely flustered to see Merryn clasped in the arms of a man.

“Lady Merryn!” she exclaimed.

“Mrs. Morton,” Merryn said as Garrick gently restored her to her feet. “This is—”

“I am Lady Merryn’s husband,” Garrick lied smoothly, shooting Merryn a swift look that positively forbade argument. “Garrick Farne, at your service, madam.” He executed a perfect bow.

“You did not tell us you were married!” Mrs. Morton exclaimed, seemingly torn between indignation that Merryn had kept such a prime piece of gossip from her and a certain admiration for Garrick’s evident style.

“I 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 you had run to escape trial.”

“I thought I would have had a good chance of acquittal if I had stood trial,” Garrick said. “I wanted to stay, to face justice for what I had done.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “But it was impossible. Everything would have come out—not merely Kitty’s affaire, which we could not hide, but her pregnancy, too …” His voice fell. “She would have been utterly ruined and the future of the baby, too.” His face twisted.

“I would have given the child my name if I could have done,” he said, and Merryn could hear the rawness in his voice. “I would have done anything for her to be mine—” He stopped.

“You could not claim her as your own because it was too late,” Merryn said. She watched the way that his fingers tightened around his wineglass and wanted to ease that pain in him. “Kitty was already pregnant when you wed her.”

“Three months gone,” Garrick said, “and I had been out of the country until a month before our wedding.” He shook his head. “Even so, I thought there might be a way, if I took Kitty abroad where nobody knew us. I thought we could pretend and that I could give the child my name.”

“But if the child had been a boy,” Merryn said, “he would have been your heir.”

Garrick shrugged. For a moment a hint of amusement lifted the harsh lines of misery on his face. “That would not have mattered to me,” he said. “God knows, it was not the fault of the child—it was innocent in all of this—and there have been bastards aplenty in the Farne line before. Ethan …”

There had been Tom, too, Merryn thought. Soon she would need to explain to Garrick about Tom but not until everything else had been laid bare between them.

“My father, though,” Garrick said, his voice bitter and hard. “He would not stand for a bastard inheriting the Farne Dukedom. He had too much arrogance and pride. It was our final quarrel. And in the end—” His shoulders slumped. “It did not matter because Kitty had no will to make a future with me after Stephen had died. Susan was born prematurely and Kitty slipped away. It seemed as though she had no reason to live.”

Merryn took his hand and laced her fingers tightly in his. She felt his surprise and his instinctive move to draw away from her before he relaxed and let her hand rest in his.

“You had a reason to live, though,” she said softly. “You had Susan.”

Garrick looked down into her face. “She had lost her mother,” he said, “and I had robbed her of her father before she was even born. What else could I do other than to protect her?” His fingers tightened painfully on Merryn’s. “I could not keep her with me,” he said, “in exile, alone. Besides Kitty’s family wanted her.” He raised a hand to Merryn’s face and touched her cheek. “Just as you wished for something to remember Stephen by,” he said, “so they wanted to have something of Kitty, something good and unspoiled and true that need not be tainted by the scandal. So I gave Susan to them and I promised to keep the secret of her parentage. I swore never to speak a word to anyone to protect her always.” Again his fingers brushed her cheek, his touch full of regret. “I did not know you then,” he said harshly. “I did not know how much I would come to love you and how desperately I would want to tell you the truth. When we were to wed I wrote to Lord Scott begging to be released from my oath. But he …” He stopped.