Page 47 of The Dravenhearst Brides
Perhaps…she thought, her gaze tracing his face.Perhaps there could be something here worth staying for after all.
It was a beautiful morning for a turn outside. The flowerbeds and hedges were chaotic in the way of an unkept English garden, filled with wildflowers, vines, and an overflowing abundance of color. But the closer Margot looked, the more she realized just how intentional Evangeline had been with each placement—the tall fragrant lavender beside the low-lying dusty miller, the English rose bushes in irregular patches but always at the edge where they’d receive direct sun. Yarrow was mixed in with sweet peas. Hollyhocks climbed skyward on trellises.
Merrick didn’t speak as he guided her deeper into the garden. The gravel path crunched softly beneath their feet. They came upon a stone bench amidst peonies, a creeping vine curling its tresses around the base.
Merrick gestured toward the seat. “I’d like to have a very honest conversation with you.”
“All right.” Her voice was breathy and false, very much unlike her own. As she settled on the bench, her pulse fluttered in her throat. Margot could feel it, just beneath the skin of her neck, thudding as fast as the feet of a rabbit in flight.
Merrick sat beside her. “It occurred to me last night that I haven’t been fair to you. I’m not used to coexisting with someone, clearing my schedule with anyone, making plans to include another…I’ve been on my own for quite a long time.
“And where I’ve perhaps been most unfair,” he continued, leaning forward with his hands clasped, “is leaving you to your own devices in my home. Without addressing the, er—perhaps we can call them idiosyncrasies?—the idiosyncrasies of my life and estate. And my family. I gather from your words last night, you’ve spoken to others about it?”
“Well, Ruth mentioned a few things about Babette…about your mother,” she corrected. “And Xander said something about…a curse? The Dravenhearst suicide brides, he called it.”
“Xanderdid?” He raised his eyebrows. “You must’ve caught him in a good moment.”
Margot didn’t particularly want to tell him the “good moment” came after an episode of her sleepwalking through the manor at midnight. What Merrick didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
“What I don’t understand though,” he said, turning to look directly at her, “is why you didn’t come straight to me and ask.”
Margot blinked in surprise. “What?”
“If you had questions about things going on in my—ourhome, questions about my family, why didn’t you just ask me?”
She was disarmed by the question, perfectly valid though it was. Whyhadn’tshe simply gone straight to him and asked?
“B-because…I wasn’t entirely sure what you would say. And honestly”—she flicked her gaze over him—“I wasn’t certain you would tell me the truth. You’ve hardly given me a plethora of reasons to trust you.” She cast her eyes down, thinking of his midnight jaunts in the roadster. She didn’t dare bring those up. She couldn’t. “And you haven’t been around much.”
“I’m here now. What do you want to know?”
“Is it true?” Her voice cracked. “Did both your mother and your grandmother kill themselves? In that rickhouse?”
“Yes.”
“In their wedding gowns?” It sounded too sensational to be real, surely this part, at least, was—
“Yes.”
She leaned back, eyes wide.
Merrick chose his words with care. “There has been a great deal of sadness in this house, particularly for the women who have lived here. I can’t pretend to fully understand it, but Evangeline will no longer come inside, and Ruth hardly ever does. They feel something in the manor I don’t. Have you felt it?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
He sighed, his fingers flexing. “I don’t believe in curses. People have a choice in their fate, and my motherchoseto kill herself. Saying a curse made her do it is providing her an excuse she doesn’t deserve. But even I must admit a preternatural sadness hangs heavy in this house. It’s something I never intended to bring a bride of my own into. You asked if my house is haunted?” He rubbed his thumb in tight, small circles on his opposite wrist. “I think it’s possible. Cursed? No. Haunted?” He licked his lips. “Possibly. It seemed unfair to expose another woman to that, suspecting what I did.”
“And yet, here I am.”
“Yes, here you are.” His eyes were sad. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…I never thought I would—”
She reached out to grip his wrist. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I understand.”
“Do you, though?” He searched her gaze, his amber eyes piercing.
“Desperate times make people do desperate things. You needed money, and I needed a husband. You asked, I accepted. You said everyone has a choice in their fate? I choseyou. I didn’t have to, but I did.”
“You didn’t have all the information.”
