Page 56 of The Dravenhearst Brides

Babette, ma petite amour,

But, darling, please—stay away from guillotines while wearing House of Worth. That’s hardly the publicity we’re after!

Your humble servant,

Jean-Phillipe

Margot plotted as she dressed for sleep. She made her selections with care, looking for lace and sheer silk. Merrick shared her bed every night now, but he didn’t touch her the way she wanted. Not since the miscarriage.

A slip, she decided, in lieu of the long woolen nightgowns she typically wore in December. She would be cold—Merrick still refused to properly heat the house—but long johns would hardly do for the task at hand.

The blue silk slipped over her head with a whisper, clinging to her chest. She went to the vanity and unpinned her long hair.

Extended her legs to pull on thigh-high stockings.

The mirror shimmered slightly when she gazed into its depths.

A shiver walked up Margot’s spine, fluttering ice-cold kisses.

“Look how you’ve learned, fledgling,” Babette cooed, reaching out to run phantom fingers through Margot’s hair. “Tell me, what is it you want from him?”

“You’ll catch your death,” Eleanor shrieked, walking through the wall. “Gracious, cover yourself up, Margot, or we’ll be putting you in the ground alongside the babies.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall. All three women turned to stare.

“He’s coming,” Babette murmured.

Margot rose to her feet. “Leave.”

Eleanor vanished.

“Shy, fledgling?” Babette asked, reaching for Margot’s cheek.

She stepped back, not wanting to be touched. Not by her.

“If I get what I want tonight, you’ll get what you want. Isn’t that right?”

Babette tilted her head and sighed with pleasure. “Oh, yes, you’ve come along nicely indeed.”

A shimmer in the air, and she was gone.

Two soft knocks on her door, then Merrick slipped inside. She was pleased when his eyes lingered, drinking in the shape of her curves. His throat bobbed hard on his swallow.

“Ready for bed?” she asked, drifting toward him.

The tiniest bite to his lip, so quick she almost missed it. She smiled and reached for the buttons at the top of his shirt. He’d already undone two. She brushed her fingers over the exposed skin of his neck, lazed down, slipping one button loose. Then the next.

“Uh-oh,” he murmured, the sound a deep rumble in his chest. “What’re you after, love?”

“Hmm?” she raised her eyes to his. Wide. The portrait of innocence.

He chuckled. “You want something?”

Yes. She caught her breath.

There was an ulterior motive here, of course. One he’d clearly seen straight through. But standing here with his fingers gripping hers, his soft eyes pouring into her own…

Margot wanted. Oh, how she simply wanted. It had come so easily once, easier than breathing, being with him. A magic captured, now lost. The miscarriage had taken more than the baby from them.

Margot’s eyes searched his. “You don’t touch me anymore.”

He stared back. “I hold you every night.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.” Merrick’s gaze traced her body, his longing evident but firmly leashed.

She moved her fingers to the next button. His hands met her there, gently halting.

“What do you want from me?” His eyes burned with the question. “You know I’ll give it to you. You know I’ll give you anything you want. Just ask.”

She froze. She’d intended to ask about the rickhouse after. When he was love-drunk and satiated. Unguarded.

But suddenly, looking into the earnest lines of his face, the move felt cheap. She didn’t want to beguile him that way. She looked down at her clinging slip, her silk stockings.

She wasn’t Babette. She never wanted her husband to be a piece in her game.

Merrick sensed her hesitation. “I don’t want secrets between us this time around, Margot. Just tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you. And then I’ll take you to bed with me. Properly, if it’s what you truly want.” He eyed her stockings and smiled. Devious and promising.

Her stomach curled.

“Well?”

“I want to open Rickhouse One.”

He barely missed a beat, didn’t blink. “Why?”

She swallowed. “Because there’s bourbon in there. Good bourbon. Twenty years old.”

His slow exhalation was telling. His lips twitched, and the realization struck—this was not a novel idea to him. She hadn’t shattered his world by asking.

Margot swelled with hope. “You’re already considering it?”

“I am,” he admitted, sitting on the bed.

“But…?”

“But I’m scared,” he whispered. “Scared of what it might do. To you, to us.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Maybe you should be.”

“I’m not.” She sank onto his lap, straddling him.

He sighed, wrapping his arms around her. “At what cost, Margot?”

“What do you mean?”

“My distillery, my family name, my livelihood, my dreams…at what cost?” He leaned his forehead against hers. “There are days I think I would give anything, do anything…what were all those years of struggle for if I give up now?”

“So we don’t give up.”

“I know why I’m tempted to open the rickhouse, but why are you? Truly?”

“Because…” She sniffed, her eyes filling with tears. “Because the only way I can stay here with you is if I figure out what happened to the women who came before me. There’s no room for me here, not while they haunt these halls.”

“Then we’ll go,” he said firmly. “We’ll leave.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. You’ll regret it. You’ll resent me. The ghosts will live on. They’ll drive a wedge between us, whether or not we’re living here with them.”

“I don’t think—”

She placed a finger over his lips to silence him. “There’s a way for us to have it all. We have to try. I’ll regret it forever if we don’t try. I think you will too.”

Merrick’s hands slid down her bare arms. He pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles. Over her wedding ring. He held there for a moment, breathing against her skin. “You make me want to be brave. Very foolish or very brave, it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.”

“The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

He smiled.

“We’ll do it together. You don’t have to face it alone,” she said, raising a hand to his cheek, reveling in the rough feel of his evening stubble. She pressed her lips there, dragging them along his jawline, scraping.

He inhaled softly. His fingers curled into her hips.

“The thing that hurts the most, Merrick,” she whispered, “the place where the pain lives? That’s also the place where healing begins.”

He shuddered at her words, his jaw tremoring.

She kissed him there again. And again. And again.

His hand moved to her cheek, turning her head. He captured her mouth with his own. She could taste the need on his lips, the desire. His length grew hard between her legs. She rocked into him, tipping her head back with a groan.

“Before we go further,” he rasped, “I need to hear you say it.”

“Say what?” she cried, breathless.

“That you’re ready. I haven’t touched you because I haven’t known, not because I haven’t wanted to.”

“You could have asked.”

“I’m asking now.” His eyes were twin fires, golden embers.

She swallowed. “I don’t want to carry a child again,” she admitted. “Not yet.”

“You don’t have to ever again if you don’t want to. I don’t need a baby from you, Margot. I never have.”

She held her breath, scarcely daring to believe him. All men wanted sons. All men wanted—

“I’ll pull out,” he continued, closely watching her face. “I don’t need a baby. I only need you.”

Unable to trust her voice, she nodded. Slowly.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

His hands hitched her slip upward, lips closing over hers. His fingers grazed the top of her stockings, then slid under her bottom, cupping her mere inches from where she wanted him most. She ground down on him, seeking pressure. He groaned, lifting his hips.

“More,” she begged.

He undressed her, sliding her sheer slip over her head. “I want you to wear this to bed every night.”

She grinned wickedly. “Only if you promise to turn up the heat.”

Merrick gave a tortured moan, grazing his nose over her peaked nipple. “You know exactly how and when to gouge me, don’t you?”

She was breathless. Could barely form words. “Consider it an investment.”

“Meaning I’ll see returns?”

“You will.”

He smiled and gently nipped her skin. “Deal.”

Even though Margot was positively aching for him, Merrick took his time. Refused to be hurried. He was slow and thorough, taking immense care.

It was a stunning way to be loved, really. Her world narrowed to only him, everything else blurring away at the edges.

Only him, only her.

His hand between her legs.

Her head collapsing back on the pillows.

His fingers inside of her.

Her panting, gasping exhalations.

His tongue, sweeping her entrance, tasting her, wetting her.

Her incoherent mewls, his name on her lips.

His hard tip, just barely pressing in. Spreading her.

Her nails raking his back. Hardly able to stand it.

“Merrick, please.”

He pressed deeper, deeper and deeper still. He buried himself to the hilt with a guttural groan. So big, so full…she could barely take all of him. When Merrick began to move, Margot was lost. Consumed by his slow, heavy thrusts.

He was the most ruinous flavor of madness. The kind she longed to drown in. Forever.

“Tell me what you need,” he murmured, whispering kisses over her neck. “I’ll give it to you.”

“You,” she breathed. “I have only ever needed you.”

The house creaked in the night, resting on tenterhooks. Poised at the edge of a precipice. Wind rattled the windows. Mahogany floors groaned underfoot. Two marriages had come and gone under this roof. The brides still ghosted the halls.

There was always a penultimate night. The one before everything changed.

The wind blew.

Down the hill, the rickhouse waited.

Margot Dravenhearst slept on.