“But I will
not
marry you!” she exclaimed.
“You will eventually, my stubborn little adventuress. You will marry me when you realize that I will accept no alternative.” He did not add his conviction that the more uncomfortable she found the arrangement, the sooner she would capitulate. “You are being obstinate about this simply for the sake of itâ”
“How dare you say that!” Merrie interrupted furiously. “You who categorically refuse even to consider another point of view. You have set your heart on one thing and cannot bear to be deniedâ”
“And you, Merrie Trelawney, having once made up your mind to something, are too damn proud to admit that you were wrong,” he broke in, planting his hands firmly on his hips and fervently hoping that they would stay there. In this highly charged atmosphere, he could not vouch for the consequences if they did not.
Meredith was wrestling with her own problems of self-control and began pacing around the room, the embroidered flounce of the blue crape evening gown swishing around her celestial satin slippers. “If that is true of me, my lord, it is most certainly true of you,” she said finally in a stifled voice. “I cannot imagine your ever admitting that you were in the wrong. You have spent too many years believing yourself to be infallible and having that belief strengthened by all those obedient souls under your command. How many years has it been since anyone dared to gainsay you?”
“You try me too far, Meredith,” he said in a dangerously low voice. “My patience, believe it or not, is not inexhaustible.”
“So now you must resort to threats,” she taunted, scornfully and unwisely. “It is not unusual when the truth is too unpalatable to be faced.”
“Why youâ!” Speechless with fury, Damian advanced on her. Meredith backed away, whipping her hands behind her as he stalked her with grim purpose. She stopped when the bed at her back prevented a further retreat and looked at him with defiant bravery, determined that she would not apologize, would not back down from a statement that was only the truth.
“You are a termagant,” Damian declared, “and you know how to go too far. Now, you are going to learn what happens when you do.” Putting a flat palm against her shoulder, he pushed her. It seemed gentle enough, but Merrie landed flat on her back on the bed.
“What do you think you're doing?” she gasped, outraged, struggling to sit up.
“I am going to teach you a lesson that I had thought you had learned long ago.” Catching her wrists in one large hand, he jerked them above her head. Merrie felt a stab of real fear as she realized for the first time how puny her own strength was beside the soldier's whipcord body. When they had wrestled before in play, she had known he had held back, known that her victories had been given to her, but that intellectual knowledge was nothing compared with the reality of her helplessness now. His legs scissored hers into stillness, and his mouth came down in a kiss, punishing in its demand for response. She wriggled, squirming to get leverage with her hips, and he dropped the full weight of his body on hers without releasing her mouth. In the crimson-shot blackness behind her tightly closed eyes, the fear left her as the familiar scent of his skin filled her nostrils, the body pinioning hers assumed familiar contours, and her struggles ceased. However angry he was, Damian would never hurt her.
As she became still, Damian released her mouth, raising his head to look down at her. “You are going to ruin my gown,” she murmured. “And it was monstrous expensive.”
“You may count yourself fortunate I don't rip it from your back,” he growled, still holding her with his weight. Meredith kept still and waited, but that inevitable excitement began stirring in her belly. It must have shown in her eyes because a small gleam of triumph appeared in the gray ones examining her. Very deliberately, he rolled away from her and stood up, still maintaining his grip on her wrists. Leaning over her supine body, he pushed up the skirts of her gown very slowly with his free hand. Meredith quivered, her tongue running over her swollen lips. The hand slid inside the waist of her pantalettes, flattened over her belly, the fingers reaching down. When she tugged at her imprisoned wrists, his grip tightened and the other hand moved in intimate exploration.
“Unfair, my lord,” she accused weakly, trying to resist the inexorable honeyed flow created by those skillful, knowing fingers. Smiling, he shook his head in wordless denial, watching her face as he continued his devastating work. It was a losing battle she fought; her body was too well accustomed to taking its pleasure for her resistant mind to hold sway. And when she lay mindless with the glory of aftermath and her body opened, needing now to share that glory, he stripped them both of only those garments absolutely necessary before driving into her in fierce possession, all the while continuing to hold her wrists.
“When will you learn that I love you, Merrie Trelawney?” he demanded, pausing on the edge of her body as she hovered on the precipice of extinction.
“I do know it,” she whispered, unable at this extremity of ecstasy to separate the strands that said that that was not the point at issue.
“Do you love me?” The gray eyes burned.
Her head moved in weak affirmative. “You know I do.” But that isn't the point came the silent cry that was instantly lost in the maelstrom where protest and differences could never gain a foothold.
Chapter Twenty
It was an overcast November morning when Meredith, reluctantly but in the full knowledge that she had no choice, took the first step in her plan to compel Damian to agree to her solution. The idea of Lady Blake driving her phaeton unaccompanied through the city streets had deeply shocked the groom assigned to her on hearing that he was to remain behind in Cavendish Square, but it was not his place to question orders, and he had returned to the mews, there to express his horrified dismay.
The streets were busy, requiring all Meredith's concentration to negotiate a path between mail coaches and wagons, to avoid running down careless pedestrians darting through the traffic. The occupants of several barouches and landaulets cast frankly astonished looks at Lady Blake's very familiar equippage, looks that she returned with a small, but very definite bow. At the top of Piccadilly, she turned the horses onto St. James's Street.
Her courage almost foundered as she saw the length of this, the one street where no respectable female dared be seen. Merrie lifted her chin determinedly, set the horses to a brisk trot, and began the journey. Since it was her object to be seen and recognized, she looked around her, acknowledging the stares of ogling bucks and town saunterers, examining the windows of the various clubs lining this male preserve, looking for the famous Bow Window of White's.
Lord Rutherford, having passed an energetic hour in Jackson's Saloon which he intended to follow with a little relaxation amongst congenial company in his club, was standing on the steps of White's, engaged in conversation with Colonel Armitage and Sir Charles Stanton, when Merrie's bombshell appeared at the head of the street. “Damme, Rutherford, if that ain't Lady Blake's set-up,” Stanton exclaimed, raising his glass. “Know those horses anywhere.”
Rutherford turned. His first reaction was shock, followed instantly by fury at himself as well as at Meredith. He should have known that that last scene in Highgate hadn't ended the matter. His abominable little adventuress was never one to give up easily, but she was
not
going to succeed in whatever devilish scheme lay behind this piece of mischief. “They must have got away with her,” he said with swift improvisation.
“Looks like she has 'em well in hand,” the colonel contradicted.
“Noâno, Rutherford's right,” Stanton said hastily. “Stands to reason. No groom with her. Must have dashed off before he had time to get up behind.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Unhurriedly, Damian strolled into the path of the oncoming phaeton, where he stood idly slapping the palm of his hand with his gloves. Merrie felt a slight quiver of dismay as she saw the obstacle in her path. His face was quite impassive, but there was something about the way he was standing, apparently at ease but radiating determination that set off all her alarm bells. She was obliged to check her horses to avoid running him down although she did not bring them to a halt. Rutherford, with enviable agility, swung onto the high seat that hung precariously over the front axle.
“Hand me the reins, please,” he requested pleasantly. Meredith was too startled to do anything but comply. He took the whip also and drove the bays down the street, swinging them round into Pall Mall.
“Am I to guess the reason for that? Or will you be so kind as to furnish me with an explanation?” he inquired, in the same pleasant tone.
“I was realizing a long-held ambition,” she replied in similar accents. “You should know that I think it quite absurd to have a street exclusively for men. It is not as if there was a female equivalent.”
“Indubitably unfair,” he concurred. “But such inequities are frequently to be found in society.”
“Then it seems to me that I have a duty to redress them,” Meredith responded.
“Ah.” Rutherford pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well, I am grateful for the warning, Merrie Trelawney. It is to be hoped you will not regret it.”
They turned into Cavendish Square and the carriage drew to a halt before the door. “I must ask you to alight unassisted,” he said politely. “I cannot leave the horses.”
“If you are taking them to the mews yourself, then I will accompany you.”
“I am taking them to my stables,” he replied with gentle emphasis. “Buying them was a grave error of judgment. I had not realized that they would be too strong for you, but few people will be surprised to hear that you could not hold them.”
Protest would simply be undignified, so Meredith alighted from the carriage without a further word. Rutherford waited to see her admitted to the house, then drove off, angry, although he would not give Meredith the satisfaction of seeing it, and not a little concerned. She had most definitely thrown down the glove, and he had equally definitely picked it up. The inevitable conflict would do nothing to advance his cause, but neither could he ignore it. He could not allow her to ruin herself as she so clearly intended doing. It would not suit his pride, quite apart from upsetting his plans. Perhaps he should yield the fight, allow her to retire to Highgate, accept what she would freely give, and no longer ask for what she believed so fervently she could not give. No, he would win this battle because he must, for both of them. Meredith was wrong about herself and about him. If he could not have that proud, obstinate Cornishwoman to wife, then he would have no one, and the years stretched emptily ahead.
Meredith, in the privacy of her boudoir, paced from window to door and back again, furious with herself for having been so easily outmaneuvered. Rutherford's presence in St. James's Street had been the most unfortunate occurrence. Now she would be an object of pity rather than censure, with not a few people deriving malicious satisfaction from her downfall. It would be said that Lord Rutherford had come opportunely to her rescue and, as incontrovertible proof, Lady Blake's perch phaeton would no longer be seen in Hyde Park. Perhaps she should give up the fight, return to Cornwall where she belonged, where the years stretched emptily ahead. Lifting a hand to her cheek to dash away a recalcitrant teardrop, Meredith decided that she would not be defeated, not just yet. Damian
must
acknowledge the truth eventually.
Over the next two days, it became clear that Meredith had correctly guessed society's reaction to her escapade. She was obliged to sit, a smile frozen on her lips, throughout an interminable flood of fellow sympathy from Lady Margaret Pickering. “So humiliating, Lady Blake, when one's horses bolt with one. It hasn't happened to me for quite some years, of course, and never so publicly, but I do assure you I know just how you feel.”
“Well, it will not be happening again,” the Duchess of Keighley pronounced. “Rutherford should have known better than to have procured such strong horses for you, my dear, but I understand he is intending to replace them with a pair more suitable for a lady to drive.” The duchess spoke to Meredith in public, now, with all the familiarity she would have used to her daughter-in-law. Merrie bit back the childish retort that, if she couldn't have the bays back, she wanted no horses at all and maintained a steadfast silence.
“Lady Blake, I am sent to beg you will join the lottery table in the other salon.” Gerald Devereux came to her rescue, his smile clearly expressing his sympathy for her mortification.
“With pleasure, Mr. Devereux,” she responded, rising with alacrity. Damian had made absolutely no attempt to intervene on her side, and, while justice told her he was entitled to be punitive, the recognition did little to lessen her resentment.
“How very unpleasant this must be for you,” Devereux said quietly, escorting her from the room. “But it will be a nine days' wonder, I assure you. This time next week, no one will think of it.”
“That would not be the case if I had done such a thing deliberately,” Meredith said wryly.
“No, indeed not,” he agreed. “It was certainly fortunate that Lord Rutherford was there to halt the runaways.”
“Quite so,” she agreed with a tight smile. “May we talk of something else, Mr. Devereux? I am heartily sick of the subject.”
He turned the conversation deftly and kept her well amused throughout the game. Devereux appeared to have taken her rejection of his suit in good part and, since that evening, had behaved impeccably so that Meredith felt quite at ease in his company. Indeed, she saw no reason to keep at arm's length such an entertaining and cultivated companion, whose careful attentions never went beyond the line of what was pleasing and provided only gratification. If he was prepared to be satisfied with the friendship she was willing to offer, then there could be no possible danger.
Damian, hearing that rich chuckle, seeing the ravishing smile she bestowed on Devereux, began to wonder if she were deliberately ignoring the warning he had given her. There was nothing in the behavior of the two to give rise to malicious gossip, but Devereux's interest in the widow was very clear as his mother had just informed him in no uncertain terms. The duchess, of course, had simply urged her son to fix his own interest without delay, but Damian was hardly in a position to explain the truth to his fond and anxious parent. Deciding that the moment had come to bring an end to the present constraint, he waited until Merrie rose from the lottery table and went over to her.
“May I have a word, Cousin Meredith?” he asked politely, smiling at Devereux in clear dismissal.
“Mr. Devereux was about to procure me a glass of lemonade,” Meredith said, not removing her hand from her escort's arm.
“Then we will wait here for him,” Rutherford said smoothly. Devereux bowed, accepting gracefully the neat maneuver that ensured his departure.
“Well?” Meredith demanded ungraciously.
Rutherford's lips twitched. “Do not sulk,” he advised in his usual fashion. “You have only yourself to blame for this unpleasantness. Let us cry peace, now. Do you care to drive with me in the park tomorrow? Your
own
horses,” he added.
“Why should I?” She knitted her brow in puzzlement.
“To put an end to all this talk,” he explained patiently. “The minute you are seen driving again, the story will lose its savor.”
“I have promised to ride with Mr. Devereux in the morning,” Meredith said. “Will the afternoon be convenient for you, sir?”
“Perfectly,” he responded with the same formality. “You will not, I trust, object if I join you on your ride?”
“Not at all. Why should I?” The sloe eyes were as candid as the voice, and Damian dismissed the suspicion that she was playing with him. Maybe Devereux had no ulterior motive in his attentions. Merrie was hardly a naive chit in her first Season, and, if she saw no harm in his companionship, then why should anyone else?
The following morning, Meredith and her two cavaliers proceeded in orderly fashion and at a sedate pace in the direction of Hyde Park. It was a pleasant day, crisp and sunny, and the park was thronged with pedestrians, riders, and carriages. Merrie's chestnut gelding lifted his head and sniffed the wind, the muscles rippling in the sinewy neck. “Is it a gallop you want?” Merrie leant forward, patting the long neck.
“Meredith, not in the park!” Rutherford said sharply.
“Oh, pshaw!” she scoffed. “You may tell everyone he ran away with me.” With that she was off, leaning low over the saddle as the chestnut thundered down the tan.
Gerald Devereux, after an astonished second, gave a shout of laughter and set his own mount in pursuit. Rutherford, having no option if he was not to lose sight of her altogether, followed on the instant. It was a good ten minutes before Meredith eventually drew rein and turned her pink-cheeked, laughing face toward Rutherford. “I know it was outrageous, but it was quite irresistible,” she said.
“By God, you can ride, ma'am,” Devereux declared, making no attempt to hide his admiration. “It was as much as I could do to keep up with you.”
“I have an excellent mount,” Merrie laughed. “Besides, Trelawneys are taught to ride before they can walk. Where I come from, you should know, horseback is the only reliable form of transport.”
“Damnation!” Rutherford muttered suddenly. “There is my mother.”
“Where?” Meredith followed his gaze and gulped. The Duchess of Keighley was signaling to them imperatively from her smart barouche drawn up beside the track. “Oh, dear,” she said apologetically. “She looks most dreadfully vexed.”
“Well, I refuse to bear the blame alone,” Damian announced. “Come.” He turned his horse toward the carriage road. Meredith gave Devereux a small shrug, totally expressive of resignation, and followed. Devereux watched them go, a small frown knitting his brows. Since it was fairly clear that his presence was entirely superfluous, he continued on his way, leaving the errant pair to face an irate duchess.
The duchess spoke for nearly five minutes without pause. Her son was the chief recipient of the tongue-lashing since the only explanation his mother could come up with for their extraordinary behavior was that he had been negligent in warning Meredith of the rules pertaining in the park. Damian nobly bore his mama's strictures in meek silence, and Meredith murmured convincing apologies and promises that it would never happen again. The barouche moved off, and Damian, without a word, turned his horse toward the Stanhope Gate and home.
He looked so ludicrously chastened that Merrie's shoulders began to shake. “I can see where your own eloquence comes from, my lord,” she chuckled.
“You dare laugh, Merrie, and I'll make certain you don't sit that horse for a week!” he exclaimed. “I haven't been on the receiving end of my mother's tongue for ten years, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to defend myself without blaming you.”