Jo Goodman (49 page)

Colin's voice was soft, his eyes intent on her bent head. "I didn't tell you before the wedding because I didn't think you would marry me. All your life you've accepted responsibility for what others have done. You protected your cousins, the staff, the Park itself from your uncle. You protected him and found some way to blame yourself. I had no reason to believe this would be any different. Indeed, it's not."

"I'm not protecting him," she said, letting her hands fall. Anguish clouded her gray eyes. She stared at a point past his shoulder. "I just don't believe you."

"I don't care that you don't believe me," he said. "I wanted you to know it's what I believe."

"You're not going to tell my cousins, are you?" she asked. She looked at him briefly. "You can't be that cruel."

Colin felt his heart being squeezed. "No, of course I'm not going to say anything to them. And cruelty has nothing to do with telling you."

Her short laugh held no joy. "You'll forgive me if I think differently. You've just named my uncle a murderer. More than that, you've said he murdered my own parents and that I've known it all along. If that's a kindness, then I hope to God I am never the subject of your cruelty."

Mercedes looked to the door. There was no escape there. She had the entire manor at her disposal and no room she could properly call her own. She went into the adjoining dressing room and stood at the basin, wondering if she was going to be sick.

Colin went to the doorway but didn't enter. "You would have asked about my parents," he told her quietly. "Someday you would have asked about the circumstances of their deaths. I would have a choice then: to lie or tell the truth. Lying would be disrespectful to you. The truth would have led to other questions and eventually we would have traveled this road. The journey might have been longer if I had only told you a little at a time, but I believe we would have arrived exactly at this point. Only then you also would have been hurt that I hadn't told you sooner."

Mercedes said nothing. He was right.

Colin stepped back and pulled the door closed, giving Mercedes her privacy.

It was thirty minutes before Mercedes reappeared. She had changed into her nightshift and brushed out her hair. She padded quietly to the edge of the bed. Colin was lying on his side under the covers. The rose petals had all been brushed aside but their fragrance still clung to the pillows. He raised the blankets and she slipped under them.

Mercedes lay on her back, not touching Colin, but close enough to feel his warmth. He didn't speak but she knew he was watching her. It didn't even bother her anymore. "What did you mean when you said it would be disrespectful to lie to me?"

Colin was silent a moment longer. "Lying would have meant that I didn't believe in you, that I thought you were weak or incapable of thinking for yourself. I don't think any of those things, so lying was never a choice."

She considered that. "That was a compliment, wasn't it?"

He smiled in the darkness. "Yes," he said. "That was a compliment."

Mercedes turned on her side. "I need time to think about what you told me," she said. "It may have been different if I had worked it out on my own, but to be confronted with it..."

"I understand."

"And you have no proof."

"None."

"But you believe it."

"Yes."

Mercedes drew her knees up. Firelight slipped over her shoulder and touched his face. She reached up and touched his cheek with her fingertips. There was no evidence that she had slapped him. The color had long since faded. "I'm sorry," she said. "If I could change anything about today, I would take that back."

He laid his hand over hers and held it against his cheek. "Why are you here now?" he asked.

If she had still borne him malice she could have said it was because she had no place to go. Instead she told him the truth. "This is where I want to be."

Colin moved her hand to his mouth. He pressed his lips against the heart of her palm. Relief washed over him. Somehow they had survived the worst truths he knew. She had heard him out, railed against him, and in the end only asked for time to think it through herself.

Mercedes withdrew her hand and turned over so that her back was to Colin. He didn't move closer until she reached behind her and placed his arm across her waist. She snuggled into him. The fire was almost out in the grate when she said, "Whatever he did or didn't do, it's not about me, is it? I'm not to blame."

"No, Mercedes." His breath ruffled her hair. "You're not to blame."

* * *

Mercedes lay on a blanket near the trout stream. Sunshine peeked through the canopy of leaves above her and dappled her face with light. She closed her eyes then rested her forearm over them for good measure. Beyond her she could hear the twins splashing in the water as they bedeviled Colin. He wasn't likely to catch any fish this afternoon, and he didn't seem to particularly care. If his silence was any indication—and she knew it was—the captain was getting ready to pounce.

Poor Britton and Brendan. They were so unsuspecting.

Mercedes bolted upright as water splashed her face and the bodice of her gown. She squinted against the light, expecting to see the twins standing over her. Their giggles were still far off, and it was Colin flicking water at her. He dropped beside her, tossing the rod aside as she made a face at him.

"You're not allowed to use the twins as a diversion," she said.

"Is that a rule?"

"It should be."

He stretched, leaning back on his elbows, and watched Britton and Brendan teeter across the stream on slippery, moss-covered rocks. In a few weeks they would be going off to school. It was hard to believe the summer days were growing shorter, but the evidence was everywhere.

The crops required less tending and the farmers were preparing for harvest. Although the days were clear, mornings and evenings were cool. Smoke was more often visible from the manor's chimneys as fires were laid in the occupied rooms. Blooms that faded in the garden were not so quick to replenish themselves.

It had been five weeks since the earl's funeral, a month since the wedding. Three days ago Aubrey Jones had returned. Colin's glance shifted to Mercedes. She was still watching the boys, the corners of her mouth pulled faintly upward in a contented smile. That smile had been a rare pleasure these last few days. Its disappearance had coincided with Aubrey's arrival. Whenever Colin brought up the purpose of his visit, Mercedes skillfully changed the subject.

Her hair was plaited. The curling tip reached more than halfway down her back. Colin pulled on it lightly. She glanced over her shoulder, and for an unguarded moment he was graced with the sweet purity of her smile. He watched it fade. He let her hair go.

"We have to talk about it sometime," he said.

Mercedes shrugged. "There's nothing for me to say. Whether you stay or go has to be your decision. I know Mr. Jones expects you to take the
Mystic
on a run to China."

"How do you know that?"

"Sylvia told me. You can imagine how she learned of it."

"I can make it to Hong Kong and back in under two hundred days."

She nodded and turned around to watch the boys. "And I won't ask you not to try."

Colin let it go for now. This time together was too important to him to be spent arguing.

"I thought I would pay a visit to Mr. Patterson," she said casually.

"Why?" His posture was less relaxed now. "Have you heard something about Marcus?"

She shook her head. "I don't look for him to return any time soon." At least, she thought, not while Colin remained at Weybourne Park. She was not so certain of Severn's absence once he learned she was alone. It was not a fear she intended to share with her husband. It wasn't that she would have felt foolish for expressing it, but that it would have been tantamount to asking him to stay.

Days after her marriage to Colin, Marcus Severn had abruptly decided to tour the Continent. Mercedes couldn't remember that he had ever expressed a penchant for traveling. His quick exit seemed to have more to do with the sheriff wanting to ask him questions.

"His departure made him look guilty," Colin said, thinking aloud. "He should have stayed and explained himself. Mr. Patterson doesn't seriously believe Marcus killed the earl." He tugged on Mercedes's braid again. "If it's not because of Severn, then why—"

"Ponty Pine," she told him.

"The pickpocket?"

"The same. Really, Colin, you can't expect that there would be two Ponty Pines in all the world."

He pulled the braid harder and brought her tumbling backward. He could taste laughter on her lips when he kissed her. Later he tasted hunger. For the first time since coming to Weybourne Park, Colin regretted the twins' presence. It was hard to forget they were around with them crashing through the water to come to Mercedes's aid. Did they think he was wrestling her?

Colin found himself laughing. Yes, they probably thought just that.

Ponty Pine was forgotten in the melee that followed. Colin took Britton by the elbows as the boy dived and flipped him over his head. Mercedes scrambled out of the way but managed to get a foot out to trip up Brendan. He sprawled across Colin and was tickled mercilessly.

Mercedes looked on, her gray eyes clear, her smile gentle. Unconsciously her right hand rested on her abdomen as she thought of Colin with his own children. They had never talked about it, but sometimes after he made love to her he would lay his hand over her flat belly and stroke her lightly. She didn't think he was even aware of the motion or that she was calmed by it.

If she wasn't carrying his child already it wasn't because they hadn't been doing the right things. At Colin's insistence they moved to another suite of rooms in the south wing. Now Mercedes had a bedchamber to herself, but she had never slept there. She had never even tried.

She counted lying beside Colin at night as one of her greatest pleasures. He slept soundly in her arms and his light, steady breathing was as soothing as water slipping over rocks. She slept deeply too. Cradled. Comforted. Mercedes no longer lay alert in response to every creak and crack she heard in the hallway, tense with fear that the earl was approaching.

Sometimes in the early morning hours, when the first faint suggestions of light slipped into their room, Mercedes would wake and find herself engaged in making love to her husband. She never knew who initiated the caresses and kisses that led to their joining, but she liked the idea that their need transcended conscious yearnings and that in the aftermath there was the sense of profound peace.

That same sense of peace came to her now as she watched Colin wrestle the twins into laughing, squealing surrender. The power of the moment brought a familiar ache to her throat. This time she didn't force herself to swallow it or blink back the tears that accompanied it. Her heart swelled, pushing all the evidence of her emotion to the crystalline purity of her gray eyes.

Mercedes was unaware that the clearing had quieted or that she was now the one being watched.

Brendan was the first one to reach her. "I say, Mercedes, are you feeling quite the thing?"

Britton dropped to his knees beside his brother. He put his small hand on Mercedes's forearm. "We were playing," he told her. "See, we're not hurt. It wasn't like that."

The boys looked at each other, then at Colin, alarmed as Mercedes's tears flowed with more force. They backed away when Colin put his hand on their shoulders.

Colin reached for Mercedes. Her hand went into his, gripping it hard, and he drew her to her feet. She buried her face against his shoulder and hung on, her fingers clutching his shirt like a lifeline. Over her shoulder Colin addressed the twins. "She's fine, boys. In fact, she's very happy."

Britton and Brendan exchanged confused, uncertain looks.

"Trust me," Colin said.

And they did. Without waiting to be told, they trotted away like frisky, obedient puppies toward the manor.

Colin's mouth lay close to Mercedes's ear. "You are happy, aren't you?" he whispered.

She nodded. Her watery smile was pressed against his shirt. A handkerchief was thrust into her hand as Mercedes sniffed inelegantly. "I wasn't going to use your shirt," she said.

He ignored that. "Blow."

Dutifully she did. Her eyelashes were spiked with tears. When she blinked they dropped over her cheeks.

Colin took the handkerchief, folded it, and wiped her face gently. He kissed her eyelids, her damp mouth. "Mercedes," he said. There was reverence in his voice, adoration.

Her heart swelled again. Tears threatened. For a moment she couldn't speak. "Love me," she whispered.

He did. The rushing water covered her soft cries and the urgency in his husky voice. They stripped away some of their clothes and all of their hearts. She matched his need and answered his hunger. He held her close and gave himself.

Their hands clasped. Mouths met. Held. His palm hovered just above her breast. The air warmed between them. The pleasure of anticipation separated them.

Her tongue flicked across his shoulder. Salty and sour. Bittersweet. The texture of all the tastes was there. She moved lower and felt the retraction of his skin, heard the catch in his breathing. She took him in her mouth, and his fingers threaded in her hair. He closed his eyes. Surrounded by the moist heat of her lips and tongue, by the suck of her mouth, he surrendered and gave them each what they wanted.