Page 26 of The Dravenhearst Brides

Dearest Pa,

I understand the rumors of which you speak, and there is history in this house, true. But I find myself growing rather attached. It has not always been a happy home, but I’m no stranger to sorrow. Perhaps there is common ground to be found here.

I think of you often. How do you fare?

Forever yours,

Margaret

“So I’ve been thinking…about last night.” Merrick lifted his napkin and dabbed his mouth as he finished dessert.

Margot placed her spoon down. She’d barely stopped thinking about it herself. Wondering all day on endless loop, When can we do that again?

“Which part?”

He smirked, leaning back in his chair. “Don’t know. Which part have you been thinking about?”

She blushed and looked down.

Merrick chuckled. “I was thinking about the horses, how you said you used to ride.”

“Oh.” Disappointment flooded her. Horses? That was the part of the evening he’d fixated on?

“I was wondering…” His gaze met hers. “Did you enjoy it? When you used to ride?”

“Of course.”

She and Eli had both loved it. Sometimes when she dreamed at night, in the moment just before the dream turned into nightmare, she could feel the wind ripping through her hair.

The sun on her cheeks, the bouncing rhythm of her body, attuned to her mount.

And in those fleeting moments, there was joy.

Which made the ensuing sorrow ache all the more.

Merrick nodded, the set of his jaw tight. “I think you should try again. With me.”

“No.”

He lifted a hand. “Hear me out.”

“No.” She pushed back her chair. This wasn’t up for discussion. Her fears, her trauma, weren’t up for negotiation. She’d lived with this for years, knew exactly how to cope.

“Margot, please.” He moved quickly, crossing the room to take her arm. “I’m only trying to help.”

“Yes. You and every cockamamie physician east of the Mississippi.” She reared back, yanking her arm free.

“I—what?” He blinked rapidly, confused.

Margot’s eyes hardened. She lowered her voice to a near hiss. “You think I haven’t tried? You think I haven’t been poked and prodded and evaluated and judged by a million different men with a million different ideas on how to sort out what’s ‘wrong’ with me?”

His mouth gaped.

“I’m done being someone’s science experiment. I know what I need. You don’t.”

“I never said I did.” His response was quiet but strong.

The sound of Margot’s laborious breaths filled the room, echoing between them like cannon fire.

“You’re protective of it because it hurts.

” His words came out slow and punctuated.

“You clutch it close, like a wounded limb…because it hurts less if you don’t use it, right?

Avoidance consumes you. I’m not telling you what to do or how to feel, Margot.

I’m speaking from personal experience. I know a thing or two about grief and trauma myself.

I was the one who found my mother, hanging from the rickhouse racks in her wedding gown. I was eleven years old.”

Margot’s jaw slackened. He was the one who found Babette? At a younger age than she when she’d lost Elijah?

So much sorrow here, she thought, a wave crashing over her from head to foot. So much unfathomable loss and pain.

Merrick squared his shoulders. “I know how this works. I know about loss, about horror so great, you can never forget. You cannot shed it. You cannot leave it behind. You can only carry it with you. Forward.”

She kept her voice soft, wanting to be kind, but she was unwilling to overlook his hypocrisy. Not whilst he challenged her on her own. “By sealing the rickhouse, never to return?”

“Yes, one of them, for a myriad of reasons. But I work in the other rickhouses every day. I push barrels down those racks every day. I walk under the rafters. Because one experience does not get to define who I am, where I live my life, or what I love. I will not give fear any more power than it already has.”

“It’s different,” she insisted, shaking her head.

“It’s not. I’m not asking you to ride the horse that killed your brother. I’m just asking you to walk into the goddamn stables and stand on your own two feet. Because you can.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. I can help you. Come with me in the mornings. Sit in the grass and read a book while I ride. Just be there. When you avoid something, it festers. It causes greater pain. I don’t like to see you hurting—when you hurt, I hurt.”

Margot’s lip trembled. Her voice, when it came, was small. “I don’t want to.”

He moved, crossing the chasm between them with a single step. When his arms encircled her, they were all-consuming. Warm and secure.

“Don’t want to do it, or don’t want to hurt?”

“Both,” she whispered.

“Okay.” He ran his fingers through her hair, down her spine. His palm splayed flat across her lower back. Steady and solid. “You’re not ready now, but you will be. I hope you think about it. I hope you feel safe enough to try. Not strong enough—it’s not a matter of strength. Safe enough. With me.”

Her shoulders collapsed forward, yielding to him. “I will think about it,” she promised, surprised to find she actually meant it.

Safe enough, not strong enough.

The distinction was quite revolutionary.

The vast majority of Margot’s life had been spent locked inside her head. And it didn’t often feel like a safe space. Maybe she did want to change. Maybe she could.

“Are you tired?” he asked, lips gently pressing into the crown of her hair.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go to bed.”

When he lifted her off the ground, when he tucked her into his arms and carried her up the winding stairs, she didn’t feel weak. She felt cherished.

When he kicked open his door, when he laid her across his bed, she felt chosen.

And when he stepped back, shucked off his shirt and trousers, and dressed for bed directly in front of her—holding her eyes the entire time—she was aflame.

He disappeared for only a moment, passing through the adjoining door to retrieve a white nightdress.

He undid the buttons on her back, kissing her bare shoulder.

The nightgown went overhead, the day dress and chemise pushed to her feet.

He pulled them off, his roughened fingertips just barely brushing the skin of her ankle.

When he pulled back the covers, when he curled his body around hers, wrapped his bare arm snug around her middle, she felt protected.

“Will you keep the ghosts away?” she whispered, her muscles growing loose, eyelids heavy.

“Yes, I promise. I will always keep you safe.”