next morning Merry woke without him. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, to find a quilt laid across her and pug soundly sleeping in the space where Varian had been. She touched the floor. It still held his warmth. It had not been long since he’d left her.
There was something very intriguing about the night that had just passed, about slumbering against the firm flesh of a man, feelings his arms holding her, and listening to the pattern of his breath moving in concert with her own. Her quickening pulse warned she had already followed him too far into the web he was spinning. Still, Merry could not stop herself from pushing pug aside, to lean into the pillow and find the whisper of his scent there.
There bloomed a hungry ache deep within her that never freed her of her yearning for him. Yet oddly, without her knowing how it had come to be, the trapped feeling of loving Varian had vanished with the night. She felt a change in her body, a wild giddy weightlessness, since she knew it was not only possible to feed her hunger, but her want to feed it was shared by him as well.
Knowing it was possible to surrender to her desire for Varian—that he wanted her to—was a dangerous thing. She resolved to avoid him and stay busy this day.
She worked with the sisters on recipe books, neatly trimming the handwritten sheets and pasting them onto the pages. She took a morning walk with them in the fields and continued her lessons on tobacco planting. By midmorning, she could not count the number of times she carefully peeked to see if Varian had returned from wherever he went each morning.
Last night he had told her he adored her and held her through the night. This morning he had left her before she woke. The question—what drew him away every morning—changed after the darkness spent in his arms. What drew him away from her? That made it a mystery Merry was more than a little anxious to solve.
After they finished their walk in the fields, the women found a morning tea awaiting them in the front garden. The garden was shaded of vine climbing trellises and magnolia trees in purple bloom. The flower beds were brilliant of color with opening buds of roses, pansies and wildflowers.
The sisters went eagerly to the benches.
Merry glanced at the meticulously raked walkway. “Where does the Captain go each day?”
Aline, busy with teapot in her grubby fingers, nodded with her head toward the east. “Up that small rise to the top of the hill. It’s a long walk. You would do better to be patient and wait for his return.”
Patient, Merry was not.
She soon found herself climbing the gradual incline of the path that disappeared beyond the carefully tended grounds of Winderly. The landscape was lush and natural, though even here, far from the main house, the walkway was expertly tended. It seemed to go endlessly into the forest, and she more than half suspected Aline had been right, it would have been better not to have started this.
Perspiration beaded Merry’s upper lip, and she wished she’d taken Aline’s worn straw hat since the sun high in the sky was blistering today. She’d been walking over an hour before it occurred to her she had no idea what she’d find, and that it was definitely not among her wisest moves to give into her impulse to discover the cause of Varian’s mysterious absence each day. After the night she had passed in his arms, she did not trust her heart not to behave foolishly.
She was about to turn back when she spotted a stone bench on a patch of green grass surrounded by bushes of yellow roses. Then not far beyond it, beneath the arching branches of trees, was a small chapel. There was just such a chapel at Merrick Hall, where her Grandmamma went every morning to pray in faithful devotion to her grandfather.
Merry felt her emotions commence to frantically churn again. This she understood without effort, though finding the chapel was no more a comfort than what she had expected to find here.
It was
There was something very intriguing about the night that had just passed, about slumbering against the firm flesh of a man, feelings his arms holding her, and listening to the pattern of his breath moving in concert with her own. Her quickening pulse warned she had already followed him too far into the web he was spinning. Still, Merry could not stop herself from pushing pug aside, to lean into the pillow and find the whisper of his scent there.
There bloomed a hungry ache deep within her that never freed her of her yearning for him. Yet oddly, without her knowing how it had come to be, the trapped feeling of loving Varian had vanished with the night. She felt a change in her body, a wild giddy weightlessness, since she knew it was not only possible to feed her hunger, but her want to feed it was shared by him as well.
Knowing it was possible to surrender to her desire for Varian—that he wanted her to—was a dangerous thing. She resolved to avoid him and stay busy this day.
She worked with the sisters on recipe books, neatly trimming the handwritten sheets and pasting them onto the pages. She took a morning walk with them in the fields and continued her lessons on tobacco planting. By midmorning, she could not count the number of times she carefully peeked to see if Varian had returned from wherever he went each morning.
Last night he had told her he adored her and held her through the night. This morning he had left her before she woke. The question—what drew him away every morning—changed after the darkness spent in his arms. What drew him away from her? That made it a mystery Merry was more than a little anxious to solve.
After they finished their walk in the fields, the women found a morning tea awaiting them in the front garden. The garden was shaded of vine climbing trellises and magnolia trees in purple bloom. The flower beds were brilliant of color with opening buds of roses, pansies and wildflowers.
The sisters went eagerly to the benches.
Merry glanced at the meticulously raked walkway. “Where does the Captain go each day?”
Aline, busy with teapot in her grubby fingers, nodded with her head toward the east. “Up that small rise to the top of the hill. It’s a long walk. You would do better to be patient and wait for his return.”
Patient, Merry was not.
She soon found herself climbing the gradual incline of the path that disappeared beyond the carefully tended grounds of Winderly. The landscape was lush and natural, though even here, far from the main house, the walkway was expertly tended. It seemed to go endlessly into the forest, and she more than half suspected Aline had been right, it would have been better not to have started this.
Perspiration beaded Merry’s upper lip, and she wished she’d taken Aline’s worn straw hat since the sun high in the sky was blistering today. She’d been walking over an hour before it occurred to her she had no idea what she’d find, and that it was definitely not among her wisest moves to give into her impulse to discover the cause of Varian’s mysterious absence each day. After the night she had passed in his arms, she did not trust her heart not to behave foolishly.
She was about to turn back when she spotted a stone bench on a patch of green grass surrounded by bushes of yellow roses. Then not far beyond it, beneath the arching branches of trees, was a small chapel. There was just such a chapel at Merrick Hall, where her Grandmamma went every morning to pray in faithful devotion to her grandfather.
Merry felt her emotions commence to frantically churn again. This she understood without effort, though finding the chapel was no more a comfort than what she had expected to find here.
It was
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