LITMIR.BIZ

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manage it. He was utterly undone, aching, desperate, yet the need to treat her gently even in the center of this maelstrom of desire had him exercising a fierce restraint.

      He felt Merryn stiffen slightly at the first touch of his body against hers, as though she had suddenly realized how vulnerable she was in this position. He opened her gently, pushed upward, and felt her body start to yield to him.

      “Open your eyes,” he whispered.

      He saw the precise moment that Merryn caught their reflection in the mirror, the dark, erotic image of herself seated on the edge of the table, thighs pale, widespread, skirts about her hips, breasts bare, her golden hair falling about them both like a silken curtain. She gave a keening cry and he slid deep inside her and felt her body sheathe him so tightly he almost came. He held still for a moment and felt her ripple and clench about him and the bliss was so intense he thought he might fall. He grasped after control against the barrage of sensation that assaulted him, withdrawing from her a little. He stroked her again and felt her whole body tighten in response. She grabbed his hips and pulled him into her, and Garrick could resist no longer. He claimed her, sinking deep, pulling out, driving them both fiercely onward. Possessiveness flared in him, the need to claim her surrender and to know she was irrefutably his. Yet alongside his triumph was a vulnerability that terrified him. She could bring him to his knees. She had already done so. He was lost.

      It was his last thought. Merryn’s body clenched and released him again, sending shards of exquisite pleasure tumbling through him. It tore a harsh groan from his throat as he finally relinquished control and emptied himself into her. The pleasure flowered through him, a flood tide of passion that swept him to madness, a sweet delight he had never imagined. He drew her close and held her to his heart for a timeless interval.

      Finally he released her. He was still breathing so hard he could not speak. Merryn lay back on the table, the books and papers scattered about her like petals in a storm, the candlelight shifting and shimmering over her body in bars of light and shadow. She made no effort to move or to cover herself and seeing her lying there so abandoned, so beautifully decadent, made Garrick want her all over again with a hard, fierce need that drove him to despair.

      So it had not been enough. He had almost lost his mind. He had been driven to the edge by the force of his release. He had taken Merryn, mastered her body again, claimed her undeniably as his, and yet … And yet something was missing. It prowled along the edge of his consciousness, taunted him from beyond his understanding.

      He wanted more. This was not enough.

      Merryn shifted. As he watched her, his cock twitched and the lust tightened in his gut. This time he ignored them. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her across to the nearest chair, sitting down with her on his lap, pushing the tangled hair away from her face.

      “Was that what you wanted?” he demanded.

      She turned her head and a slow smile played across her lips. “Not precisely, your grace. Though …” she gave a languorous little wriggle that made Garrick grit his teeth against the new onslaught of temptation “… it was very, very nice.” She sat up a little. Her hair fell like a rich golden curtain about her face, hiding her expression.

      “I had planned to stop at a crucial moment and ask you some questions,” she said.

      Garrick gave a snort of laughter. “You planned to stop?”

      She cast him a sideways look. “I see that I miscalculated.”

      “You did,” Garrick said. “That was never going to work.”

      “I realize that now. In my inexperience I misjudged the situation.” She stood up, moving away from him in a tangle of swirling hair and pale limbs. She lifted the cloak and swung it about her shoulders. It enveloped her. Her fingers were steady as she secured each little fastening. Only when the entire garment was sealed up to her neck did she look up and meet Garrick’s eyes. It felt odd to see her distance herself from him so deliberately. He wanted to take her upstairs to his bed, to hold her in the darkness of the night as both protection and protector, to make love to her again, to keep her with him all night and for as many of the following days and nights as he could. Merryn, on the other hand, looked as though she wanted to leave. Something cold and hard settled in Garrick’s stomach. Fear crept down his spine.

      “I was going to ask you,” Merryn said slowly, “if it was Kitty who killed Stephen. I think she did. I think there must have been a terrible accident and that you took the blame.”

      The shock slammed into Garrick with physical force. Lost in the welter of his feelings for her he had almost forgotten her quest to seduce the truth from him. But Merryn, of course, would never forget. Merryn was completely single-minded. And she was so close to the truth now—so close and yet so utterly wrong.

      The silence stretched so taut that the ticking of the grandfather clock seemed almost to split his eardrums.

      “You are mistaken,” he said hoarsely, when he could speak. “Kitty did not kill Stephen.”

      “I don’t believe you,” Merryn said. She was holding the material of the cloak tight about her neck now, like a shield. What he saw in her eyes now was different from all the other times she had confronted him. There was no anger anymore, no frustration. There was nothing but shining hope, so pure and confident, and—he shuddered to see it—love. Garrick could not bear for her to love him, not with what he had done. Not when he was so undeserving. Not when he was about to smash her hope and her faith once and for all. He could taste bitterness in his mouth.

      “I have been looking at things the wrong way around,” Merryn said. “You are good and noble, Garrick. You have always done your duty—”

      Garrick knew he had to stop this now, before Merryn stumbled onto the truth. He felt as though his heart was snapping in two. “I am neither of those things,” he said gruffly. “You are deluded, Merryn. I am neither good nor noble and I thought I had just proved that to you.”

      She shrugged an indifferent shoulder. “I have no complaints that you could not resist me,” she said. She took a step closer to him and placed a hand on his arm. “I love you,” she said softly. “It is that simple. And I could not love you if you were the cold-blooded murderer you claim to be.”

       I love you …

      Garrick flinched. “No,” he said. He shook. This was too much; he could not accept it. Once he would have given so much for the love of a woman like Merryn Fenner, before Kitty’s betrayal, before Stephen’s murder. Now it was too late. He had killed a man and destroyed too many lives to deserve such generosity of spirit, especially from Merryn. The images danced before him, vicious memories. Kitty screaming, Stephen dying, lives changed in a second, hideous consequences stretching over the years. Those could never be wiped out by Merryn Fenner’s love. It was impossible. He looked into her face, saw her determination and the clear, pure love in her eyes and felt his heart snap.

      “No,” he said again. “Merryn …” He cleared his throat. “You think that you are in love with me,” he said, “so you want me to be all that is good and heroic. The truth is that I am not. I never was and I can never be.”

      She shook her head. “I cannot believe that—”

      “Believe it,” Garrick said harshly. “Because I killed your brother and in the end that is the only thing that matters and it will always come between us.”

      She shook her head. “No—”

      Garrick thought savagely of the letter. There was only one way to end this, he thought. He had to tell her what he had done, what Stephen had done, but keep Kitty’s secrets.

      “Merryn,” he said. He knew he was going to break her heart and shatter her illusions, but there was no other way. “Please listen to me,” he said. He tried to make his voice as gentle as he could even as he knew there was no gentle way of telling her. “I did kill Stephen,” he said. “There was no duel. You were right about that all along. I found Kitty and Stephen together. There was an argument. Stephen tried to

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