Sins and Scandals Collection. Nicola Cornick
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could breathe. He ached all over but miraculously he appeared to have broken no bones. In his arms, Merryn was still breathing, too. Garrick felt relief, huge and overwhelming, and gratitude, and another emotion that he did not want to define but that grabbed his heart and squeezed it tight like a giant fist. He had reached Merryn in time. He had been able to save her. Thank God. He pressed his lips to her hair for one heartfelt moment and breathed in the scent of her, long and deep. Her softness, her sweetness, steadied him. He felt an enormous, primitive need to protect and defend her, to hold her and keep her safe.
Very cautiously he shifted his grip on her so that she was settled more comfortably in his lap, her head in the crook of his shoulder. Merryn instinctively nestled closer to him, seeking the warmth and comfort of his arms, murmuring something he could not hear. She was not heavy but for a small woman she was no lightweight, either, and Garrick had suffered untold cuts and bruises when the house fell. His head, in particular, felt like a ball that had sustained a prolonged kicking. He tightened his arms about her, drawing her closer. The movement jarred him but he gritted his teeth against the pain.
Merryn moved again. Groaned. She was waking up.
“Where am I?” she said. She sounded frightened. There was nothing but darkness around them and the weight of rubble pressing down on them and the taste of dust in the air.
“It’s all right,” Garrick said. “You’re safe.” His throat felt thick with the dirt and dust. He coughed, started again. “There was an accident, a flood—”
“You?” She had recognized his voice and she did not sound pleased. There was an edge to her tone that suggested anxiety and relief together, an odd mixture. Waking in the dark, Garrick thought, in a stranger’s arms would be terrifying. Waking to discover that she was trapped with him only marginally less disturbing.
He felt Merryn try to move again, levering herself upright, a maneuver that only served to press her rounded buttocks into his groin all the more firmly. She winced. So did Garrick, but for different reasons. For a second the unwelcome stab of arousal was almost enough to distract him from the pain in his head.
“What are you doing here?” Merryn demanded. “Were you following me again?”
“Yes,” Garrick said. He was not going to pretend. They were trapped alone together in the darkness. Any pretense between them now was impossible. “You were going the wrong way to get to Tavistock Street,” he said. “You were upset and I was worried about you. I thought you might lose yourself in a rookery and get into trouble. Which you did,” he added, “though not quite as I had imagined.”
There was silence. Then, “You were worried about me?” Merryn repeated. There was an odd note in her voice.
“Yes,” Garrick said. “Croft’s words distressed you. I am sorry for that.” He had seen the stricken look in her eyes as Croft had made his malicious remarks. Merryn did not deserve such cruelty. For a moment he felt a wave of utter fury wash through him again. He clenched his fists and wished he had planted the young peer a facer. That would have given the ton something else to gossip about.
“It is of no consequence.” Merryn sounded prickly, her tone warning him to keep his distance. Garrick knew she was trying to protect herself, that she did not want him to see the depth of her hurt. He suspected that for anyone to imply that she had been bought off in the matter of her brother’s death would be intolerable for her.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “It is of consequence.”
This time she did not deny it. She was quiet again for a moment. “You said that there had been a flood,” she said. “I remember now. There was a wave of dirty water …” She still sounded dazed. She put out a cautious hand and touched Garrick’s thigh, recoiling as though burned when her fingers brushed the soaking material of his pantaloons. Garrick grinned to himself as she rolled off his knee with more haste than finesse. There was a splash as she landed in the beer again.
“Why are we sitting in a pool of water?” she demanded.
“It’s beer,” Garrick said. “The buildings are flooded with beer.”
“Beer!” She sounded startled. Then her voice changed. “That smell! I wondered what it was.”
“I think the vat on top of the brewery in Tottenham Court Road must have burst,” Garrick said. “I’ve seen it happen before when a liquid ferments and puts pressure on the vat. The hoops snap and the beer pours out in a flood.”
“There was a sound like thunder, or cannon.” Merryn’s voice was still ruffled, a sign of her distress. “I am not describing it well,” she added, “but I have never heard an explosion before.”
Garrick smiled, there in the dark. How many women, he wondered, would be concerned at their lack of eloquence in a situation like this? Only Merryn Fenner would need the right word for the right occasion. Most other women he had known would be having the vapors or swooning. Not Merryn. She was more concerned with her vocabulary. He felt another rush of emotion, swift and sharp, admiration for her and something more, something deeper.
He sensed her shift toward him in the darkness although she was careful not to make physical contact again. Garrick could not see her because the gloom was stifling, like a blanket. It felt thick and heavy and it was starting to feel hot as well, as though they were inside a fermenting vat. The air seemed weighed down with the smell of the malt. Garrick could hear Merryn breathing in quick, light pants, and knew she was afraid. She was very close and he sensed she was facing him now. If he lifted a hand he thought it would touch the curve of her cheek. He wanted to touch her very much, and not just to reassure her. There was something knowing about the dark, something intimate that stripped away all layers of pretense and all formality.
“I assume that we are trapped?” Merryn asked. “Or we would not still be sitting here.”
“I’m afraid we are,” Garrick said. “The house came down on top of us. We are on the ground floor but there is no way out.” He could see no point in lying to her. She was an intelligent woman. She would soon work it all out for herself.
“I remember the walls falling.” She sounded a little more composed now but with all his senses alert Garrick could feel other emotions in her. There was the fear she was trying very hard to repress and also to hide from him, as though she was afraid it was a sign of weakness. There was anger, too. He could understand that. He was surely the last man on earth that she would want to be trapped with here in the intimate dark.
“Is there really no way out?” she said. There was a tiny catch in her voice. “I … I do not care for enclosed spaces.”
“I don’t know,” Garrick said. “We won’t be able to tell until daylight returns.”
He had already been thinking about their chances of escape. With all the chaos and destruction from the explosion it was possible that it might take rescuers days to sift through all the rubble but at least the daylight might show up little cracks and gaps in the fallen masonry, a weakness or a way out. There was air in their prison, so he knew it was not totally sealed off from the outside world. In the morning he would start searching for a way to escape. Until then though the two of them were captive.
“It is night now?” This time the quiver in Merryn’s voice was much clearer. Enclosed spaces combined with the long dark reaches of the winter night … Garrick could almost feel her shudder.
“Yes,” he said. “It must be some time near midnight now. You were unconscious for quite a long time.” He put out a hand to her. “I should have asked you before—are you injured?”
“No!” She spoke very quickly, moving a little away from him, rejecting his comfort. Garrick let his hand fall. “I don’t know why I fainted,” she said. She sounded defensive.
“Shock, perhaps,” Garrick said. “Fear.”
“That makes me seem dreadfully feeble.” Now she sounded uncomfortable, as though there was more than a ring of truth in his words.
“Don’t