Page 41 of The Dravenhearst Brides

Darling,

Meet me in the rickhouse. I won’t tell a soul.

Yours,

Ruth

Margot shivered in the morning chill. Inside the pasture, Fox and Omaha trotted side by side, Merrick and Julian astride. The horses nickered, breath crystallizing in the air before their long snouts.

Ruth sidled up on her right. “Perhaps you’ll come inside the fence this time?”

Margot didn’t even glance over. She was riveted by Merrick, legs spread wide, thighs strong and tight around his mount.

Ruth fiddled with the latch, then swung the gate open.

Reluctantly, Margot dragged her gaze from her husband. She took a deep breath and entered the pasture.

“Come on.” Ruth waved her hand and stepped forward. “Let’s race them.”

“Race?” Margot’s voice shook. “I don’t think—”

“Merrick!” Ruth flagged him over.

He brought the horse around in a slow trot. Ruth lined up the two stallions, side by side. She counted down.

When her hand dropped, Merrick’s heels tapped Fox’s side, urging him ahead in a sprint. Omaha remained still, ears pricking. Julian lowered his posture, bending forward. Just before his horse took off, he slid his eyes to Margot, warm with an easy smile.

“Go!” Ruth shouted, smacking the horse’s rear.

And he was off, giving chase.

The hoofbeats were thunderous. Frozen dirt kicked up under horseshoes. Long stride after long stride, muscles of the beasts rippling…

Margot reminded herself to breathe. A tinge of lightheadedness crept in.

“He’s gaining,” Ruth said, smiling.

The words sharpened Margot’s focus, honing her attention and keeping the dizziness at bay.

They were gaining, Omaha and Julian.

“Wow,” Margot breathed, watching the horse close distance with every stride.

“We must always run him from behind,” Ruth murmured. “Just like his father.”

“Why?”

“It’s in the blood,” Ruth replied, shaking her head. “Fox was the same when he was young. Inordinately fast, but they lack focus, this bloodline. They’re made to chase, to pursue.”

Merrick doubled down on Fox, urging him ahead, but Julian pushed. Omaha tore up the ground, sneaking into the inside position as they rounded the final bend of the pasture.

“This is where he’ll take him,” Ruth said.

As the horses completed the turn, Omaha pulled ahead. Merrick laughed as he gave chase. The sound tugged at Margot’s gut from all the way across the field.

Fear crept back in as the horses neared.

Margot swore the ground shook underfoot with the vigor of their pounding hooves.

Julian pulled Omaha up short, slowing him to an ambling gallop, then a trot.

He thumped the horse’s neck affectionately.

Ruth strode over to meet the pair, rubbing and nuzzling Omaha’s snout, offering praise.

Behind the victors, Merrick slid to the ground.

He pulled Fox by the reins toward Margot.

Instinctively, she stepped away and shook her head.

No closer.

Merrick stopped. Fox bumped his nose against Merrick’s cheek, snuffling his ear. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sizable sugar cube, offering it to his horse.

The move jarred a memory, the feel of Cerberus’s soft lips against Margot’s palm, nibbling gently at a treat. The velvet brush of his snout hit next, smooth and warm.

Something unexpected rushed in with the memory—love.

It hadn’t all been bad. She’d always known it, but the final, horrific memory so easily eclipsed all those that came before. She bit her lip, wishing…

Wishing, wishing, wishing. She closed her eyes.

A breeze stirred the ends of her hair.

“Margot, we’re flying!”

She almost smiled. Almost.

When she opened her eyes, Merrick was watching her. Under his gaze, she wanted to be worth more than her memories, to stand taller than them. His care, his love, did that to her. It made her feel brave.

This time, when the impulse to smile came, she gave into it.

“You lost,” she called.

He smiled, unabashed. “I’m meant to lose. Fox is retired.”

“Too many sugar cubes, huh?”

He laughed, then reached into his pocket and produced another. The horse snatched it with incredible speed. She giggled.

Merrick’s eyes brightened, still watching her. He licked his lips, tilting his head.

“Would you like me to bring him over? To meet you properly?”

She shook her head. “Not today.”

He nodded, and she saw the effort he took to maintain the cheer on his face. For her.

Her lips twitched again as she realized the words felt true in her gut before she released them into the world.

“Not today,” she repeated. “But soon, I think.”

It was so much harder to be hopeful inside the manor.

So much harder to believe in something…anything.

The future. In this house, everywhere she looked, Margot saw only the past. The stained-glass violets above the door.

The candlesticks on the wall. Wailing centaurs trapped in the coffers.

Dust-laden drapes over windows, blocking sunlight.

Misery settled overhead like a blanket, stifling and heavy.

Tight around her neck. Tight like a…like a…

“Noose, dearie?”

Margot startled, spilling a slosh of orange juice across the breakfast table. Eleanor stepped out of the shadows of the dining room, offering a thick coil of rope. Margot gasped, eyes darting from the apparition to Merrick, who raised his gaze from the morning newspaper.

“Everything okay?” he asked, waving Xander forward to assist.

“Y-y-yes,” Margot stammered. Did he see? She was still there, Eleanor. Offering the noose. Margot couldn’t look away, though her words were directed to Merrick. “Just an accident. Silly of me.”

“That’s what they said about me too.” Eleanor nodded, tweaking the noose. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Just an accident. Silly woman.”

Margot’s hand flew to her throat.

“Are you quite well?” Merrick asked, his brows lowering with concern. “You’ve gone pale. Perhaps you should eat?”

Did he really not see her? Hear her? Feel the insidious cold overtaking the room?

Margot tilted her head, chest rising in a muted pant. She licked her lips.

He stared back, waiting. So handsome. So innocent. So sane.

While she…

“I’m fine,” she fibbed.

Lies, lies, lies.

Eleanor nodded again, sympathetically this time. “Best not say anything. Very tricky business, seeing things.”

Merrick ruffled his newspaper. “Three more in the last week.”

Margot swallowed. “Three more what?”

“States. Idaho, Maryland, and Virginia have all ratified the Twenty-First Amendment.”

Eleanor stepped closer. Too close.

Leave me alone, Margot wailed, recoiling.

“It’s all in your head, dearie. Only you can stop it. I’ll save the rope for you, shall I?”

“No!” Margot snapped, thumping an arm down on the table.

Xander jumped beside her, where he was mopping up her spill.

Merrick lowered his newspaper again. “Margot?”

Heckin’ hells. Now she’d gone and done it. Both men stared at her, expectant.

“No, uh, no thank you,” she said, lowering her voice and her lashes. “Xander asked if I wanted a fresh cup of juice.” Lies, lies, lies. “I don’t.”

To his credit, Xander didn’t contradict her, merely inclined his head and resumed clearing the mess. But his lips puckered, and unease wafted off him in waves. Margot could taste it in the air; his fear was sour. Palpable.

He thinks I’m mad. She raised a hand to her forehead, eyes lifting skyward. Overhead, the centaurs silently screamed. Perhaps I am…going mad like my mother. Is it truly the house? Or is it just me?

It was, quite simply, the most terrifying thought yet.

By midday, Margot had taken to her bed. She could manage nothing more.

She needed to write to her father. It seemed pressing to tell him about the baby. If he was ailing, she wanted him to know. But the thought of lifting the pen, writing the words, feigning optimism…it was suddenly too much.

Her head throbbed. Her heart stuttered, heavy with exhaustion.

It had happened this way before, in the Louisville townhouse.

When the weight of living was simply too much to bear.

When it was easier to reach for unconsciousness.

To live there, safe in the in-between, where nothing was expected of her.

The balance was tipping, dragging her to a dark place. The dead outnumbered the living. She could feel them closing in.

Babette.

Eleanor.

Elijah.

Her mother.

She couldn’t…

She simply couldn’t.

Margot dragged the blankets up to her chin, late October chill seeping into the room. She needed to tell Merrick to turn up the heat in this frigid house. Winter was coming.

A floorboard creaked in the corridor beyond her bedroom.

Margot’s head jerked up. She knew fear now, true fear. Knew enough to realize she should have felt it all along.

A whisper of skirts slithered outside her door, paused.

Margot tightened her grip on the blankets.

The knob turned in silence. Slow, teasingly slow.

The door cracked open. One by one, four translucent fingers gripped the edge.

No. Margot shrank back in bed. She didn’t want them to find her, but they slipped into the room anyway, Babette and Eleanor.

They said nothing, only watched. Watched her shiver beneath the blankets.

Watched her bury her head in the pillow, exhausted, defenseless.

Watched her eyes flick to the bedside table.

It was right there—the laudanum, dusty with disuse. She hadn’t needed it in months, hadn’t wanted it. For so long, she’d wanted only Merrick. This life with him.

This cold, haunted life.

Had she chosen wrong?

The chimes of the grandfather clock tolled. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Downstairs, the centaurs screamed.

The bottle on her nightstand twinkled. Slightly blue, such a beautiful boozy blue. Margot knew precisely what it would taste like on her tongue. What it promised.

It whispered sweet nothings. Painted a portrait of velveteen oblivion. Of bitter sacred relief.

It whispered. Whispered, whispered, whispered.

And God help her—God forgive her mortal, weak, fractured soul—she listened.

Margot reached.

And she drank.

She didn’t wake until twilight. Merrick roused her, shaking her shoulder.

“Margot, love?”

Bleary, she opened her eyes, blinking away the drug-induced slumber. Her limbs were torpid. Merrick’s edges blurred.

Even hazy around the edges, he made her heart squeeze. She smiled. “Hi.”

“Hello.” He smiled back. The grin was indulgent. Irresistible. “Having a bit of a lie-in, are we?”

“Just a bit.” She chuckled, feeling lighter simply for his nearness. “My…my head hurt, and the house is so very cold. Might we turn up the heat? We’re on the heels of winter.”

Merrick winced and bit his lip. “It’s a large house, hopelessly drafty.”

Margot frowned, not understanding.

“It’s only…” Merrick swallowed. “It’s very expensive to heat.”

Ah. There it is.

“We’ll get more blankets for your bed. And sweaters. I usually wear layers in the winter,” he explained. “It helps.”

Margot didn’t want to wear layers. She just wanted the house to be properly warm, his pinchpenny ways be damned!

But she was too weary to argue. She yawned.

“Still tired?” he asked.

“It was only a short nap, not nearly enough.” Half the day was short, no?

His hand slid down the blankets, warming through them to her stomach. “It’s normal, I hear, in your condition. And you don’t sleep well at night. Perfectly normal.”

Normal. He thought her normal. Oh, she could kiss him for that.

So she did.

His lips were hot and soft. She sighed against them, wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged. She opened her eyes as he tumbled into bed with her.

Then she saw them.

Eleanor and Babette. Still there, in the corner by her vanity.

Watching.

Not real, she told herself. She blinked hard, hoping they’d vanish when she reopened her lids.

They didn’t.

Merrick’s lips found hers again. “Xander prepared dinner, but suppose we just…” His hand slid between her legs, wordlessly finishing his sentence.

She tipped her head back against the pillow, slack-jawed.

The room had been so cold all day, but he lent her his warmth. It seeped into her pores, lit a fire in her heart. An inferno crackled to life within her, brighter than the darkness in her mind.

She was normal, perfectly normal, and he wanted her. As his lips worked their way down her jaw, onto her neck, she opened her eyes again. Darted her gaze to the corner.

Still there.

His thumb grazed her nipple, tweaking gently through her nightdress.

“Merrick…” She was all sensation and very little thought, turning to putty beneath his hands.

He rucked up her skirt and lowered his head between her thighs, the breadth of his strong shoulders spreading her wide. His stubble scraped her sensitive skin, rough with promise. She liked him that way, just on the edge of rough, the promise of love lurking underneath his devastating power.

His possessive grip dented into her thigh. “Your fucking curves drive me wild, Margot.”

She shivered and cried out when the warmth and surety of Merrick’s tongue lapped her center.

“I want you,” he breathed against her. Another slow, savoring lick. “I need you.”

“Have me. Have me then. I’m yours.”

A snort from the corner. Babette, not impressed.

Margot closed her eyes one final time, beyond caring.

Let them see, she decided. Let them see—if nothing else—she still had this. Him. They could take away everything else, but never him.

How truly cursed it was to be a Dravenhearst bride. And yet…

How truly blessed she was to be his.