He really did not want to have to face her again this afternoon. He would far rather join the others and let her find her own way back. But the rain was not going to stop. The others would be wanting to return to the house and it might take her a time to make up her mind to come back again. She might even be lost. Farther back from the lake the trees became quite dense and one could quite easily lose one's sense of direction. Not that one could be lost for long, but it could be long enough to be an annoyance to the rest of the party waiting on the bank. Merrick considered the idea of going back to tell them to leave, but he did not do so. Surely they had enough common sense not to wait. Jack, at least, thought enough of his own comfort to persuade the others to go back to the house. He took one sighing breath and headed into the woods.
Had he really treated her as badly as she had suggested through her sarcasm earlier? He knew he had. But it was so easy to excuse one's own actions, to find justification for behavior that would appall one in someone else. He had felt so bitter ever since his marriage about the way he had been forced into it and about his own weakness in not merely laughing in the face of that straitlaced brother of hers. Every day of his life since, even though he had resumed his former manner of life in London, he had been aware of the constraint on his freedom, aware that at some time he would have to do something about Anne and his marriage. And always there had been guilt about his shabby treatment of her.
Until he had been confronted so unexpectedly by her little more than a week before, he had always managed somehow to convince himself that one day he would make everything right with her. He had remembered her as a very plain, dull mouse of a woman who would probably be happy enough with her present way of life anyway. All he would have to do, he had sometimes told himself, was take her a few gifts, perhaps increase her allowance, and give her a child to fill her days with activity and at the same time to solve the problem of his own succession. As the heir to a dukedom it was his duty to perpetuate his line.
Merrick stopped and listened, but it was hopeless. All he could hear was the swishing of leaves and the gusting of the wind. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called her name several times, but there was no answer. He plodded on, looking constantly from left to right in the hope of catching sight of her. She could not possibly have returned to the others without his seeing her, could she?
His feeling of guilt had multiplied since his arrival more than a week before. She was a part of his family. There had been no reasonable argument for refusing to allow her to come. She had a right to be here, and if she was to remain his wife and was to give birth to his heir at some time in the future, it was even desirable that she meet his relatives. She would, after all, be the Duchess of Portland one day, the wife of the head of the family.
Because he had felt guilty, he had treated her unfairly. And because he now found her attractive and wanted her, he treated her in an abrupt and domineering fashion. He felt ashamed of his own desires, bewildered by his own feelings, and consequently he had turned his contempt for himself against her. But until an hour before, he had never seen himself in quite the unfavorable light she had described. Was he arrogant? Selfish, yes. He would admit he had been that. But arrogant? Did he think himself vastly superior to her? Would he have treated her the way he had if he had not considered her unworthy of him?
Where was she? The canopy of leaves over his head no longer protected Merrick from the rain, which was now sheeting down and dripping from his hair down his neck. He wore no hat. He did not know whether to plunge on into the wood, which became thicker and more tangled with undergrowth ahead of him, or whether to walk parallel to the lake in the hope that she had stayed in the area of more open trees. He gambled on the belief that she would have chosen the latter course, and walked on after calling her name yet again in vain.
She had claimed that she would not wish to live with him even if he would allow it. She could never love or respect a man such as he, she had said. The idea was totally new to him and uncomfortably humbling. He had always thought that his chief cruelty to her had been keeping her away from his presence. And now that he put the thought into words in his mind, it did seem quite insufferably arrogant. Did he think he was the answer to any maiden's prayer? Why would she want to live with him? Had he ever spoken a word of kindness to her since the day he had proposed to her and lied about his true motives for making her an offer? Think as he could, he could not remember one word.
She liked his lovemaking, though, did she not? There could be no mistaking the eagerness of her response each night over the past week and more. He had never, in fact, known a woman who so openly enjoyed a sexual encounter. But did that alter any of the facts? He enjoyed her too, but that fact had made no difference to his resentment of her and his desire to hurt her. Perhaps they were just two people who were unusually compatible sexually but who had no other point of contact.
Merrick almost missed her. She was standing quietly against a tree trunk, her hands clasping her shawl across her breasts, her hair plastered to her forehead and neck. She was looking silently at him. He would have walked on by if her dress had not been pink and a noticeable contrast to the colors around her.
"Did you not hear me call?" he asked. "Why did you not answer?"
"Yes, I heard you," she said, "but I did not wish for your company."
Merrick strode toward her, his face setting into hard lines. "What did you plan to do?" he asked. "Stand here and commune with nature all night?"
"I will shelter here until the rain passes and then walk home," she said calmly.
"You are soaked," he said, "and this rain is like to last all night and all tomorrow too. There is no point in standing here. Come, let's go."
Anne bit her lip. He was obviously right. She had been telling herself for all of five minutes that she should move, but she had heard him calling and she did not want to be seen. But now it seemed childish to argue, to explain to him that she wished to be left to find her own way home. She stepped away from the tree, tried to pull her shawl even more closely around her, and began to walk in the direction from which he had come.
Merrick shrugged out of his jacket. He wore only a silk shirt beneath it. "Here," he said, "take off your shawl. It is saturated, I see, and will bring you no warmth. My coat is still dry on the inside. Put it on."
"Don't be foolish," Anne said, hurrying on and refusing to relinquish her hold on her shawl. "There is no reason why you should make yourself uncomfortable for me. Put your coat back on."
Merrick grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to a halt. "By God, Anne," he said, "I do not know what has got into you today, but I have no patience left. Take your shawl off immediately and put on my coat. I will take no more of your nonsense."
"I am sorry," she said, removing her shawl. "I did not know you were giving an order, my lord." She took his coat and put it around her shoulders, but she did not put her arms inside the sleeves. She walked on.
Merrick ground his teeth. It was just as if he acted a part when he was with her. She made him into a tyrant. He had meant for once in their relationship to do her a kindness. He followed her and placed an arm firmly around her shoulders so that he could guide her along the shortest route back to the picnic site. She did not try to disengage herself from his touch.
The place was deserted, of course. Merrick had not expected that anyone would have waited for them. But there was a two-mile walk back to the house and they were already shivering from the cold and wet. They would go into the boathouse for a while. It was unlikely that they would find there anything more than a temporary respite from the wind and rain, and there was no way he could build a fire, but even the thought of temporary shelter was welcome at the moment. His shirt was clinging to his body like a second, unwelcome skin, and he could see Anne's hair dripping down into her face and down her neck inside the collar of his coat.