Slaughtaverty, 1745

The fragrance of the ink dripping from her quill when she pulls it from the inkwell enchants Mairead Doyle. Her heart flutters as she feels the feather between her fingertips and listens to the satisfying sounds of the tip scratching the paper, leaving behind carefully formed letters.

She still struggles to create perfect letters. She loves the freedom of sketching so much more. When the duke noticed her love of art, he supplied her with everything an aspiring artist could possibly need and encouraged her to test her talent.

At first, she'd been too afraid to make a mark on the perfect paper or the linen canvasses, but he'd gently coaxed her to try. Under the mentorship of his mother, a very good artist, Merry soon discovered the satisfaction of blending colours to create images of the things around her.

Her talent comes as a pleasant surprise, and the joy her creations bring herself and others is a new blessing that fills Merry's heart with contentment. She still has a lot to learn, and her fingers and nails are always stained, which is a testimony to her dedication.

Right now, she is wholly focused on her other, overwhelming passion as she painstakingly transfers the contents of her heart to a sheet of paper, carefully spacing her letters, blotting and sanding the ink.

From the day the duke's man brought them to the study, this room became the centre of the Doyle children's lives. Their benefactor taught them to read, write and do calculations. Sometimes, Merry's head feels overly full of information on so many things that used to exist only outside of her range of experience.

She has come to love the duke.

He is a stern, distant man until he smiles and shows her and Uilliam more interesting things they'd never heard about before. Merry has never met anybody as patient as he is. Of course, they have tutors who come to the mansion to teach the heir. These tutors were instructed to teach the two new children as well. They never question the Doyles' presence. They calmly accepted it when the children were introduced as the duke's wards without any explanation of how that came to be.

Everybody seems to assume that Uilliam and Mairead are the children of distant relatives living abroad, despite the fact that they are given elocution lessons to teach them to speak like Slatherties and not Slaughtaverty peasants. Merry knows that they need to excel in all their lessons if they want to blend into society and not raise any suspicions about their true identities.

They've been working hard and enjoying every minute of it.

Uilliam has taken to reading like a fish to water. The little boy's thirst for knowledge is impossible to quench. He can be found in a broad window seat covered in a mountain of books he can barely decipher whenever he disappears.

Currently, he is in the kitchen taking care of a sick cat and her litter of kittens, which a gardener has discovered inside a hedge.

Uilliam enjoys everything biological and is constantly begging to be allowed to attend gory medical procedures at the sick house. One day, when he's older and unrecognisable, he will be allowed to do so. For now, he has to be content with observing and assisting in caring for mildly injured staff members working within the walls enclosing the mansion's grounds.

Lifting her eyes from her work, Merry smiles as she gazes at the object of her affection seated at one of the desks. The duke's son is lying back in his chair, with his feet propped on the desk's surface while he reads from a book carelessly held in one hand. The sunlight filtering into the room from behind him draws silver lights sparkling over his long, flowing ash-brown hair while he noisily munches on an apple.

During the few months she'd been here in the mansion, Merry saw him grow stronger and healthier virtually every day. Sometimes, the power he exudes scares her, but a hefty dose of mischief generally tempers the intensity.

He has never tried to harm her or Uilliam.

The boy who'd grabbed her in the graveyard and bit into her neck, nearly bleeding her to death, is a fast-fading memory. He is vastly removed from the young man constantly teasing her when he is not playing games with her brother, making the little boy squeal with mirth.

Merry carefully folds the sheet she'd written on and slowly rises from her seat, trying very hard to act like a true lady. She smoothes her dress's beautiful, soft green material, smiling as her fingers enjoy the texture. She still finds it hard to believe that she is wearing gowns that are this exquisite. When the nurse, Mrs McKenna, presented her with five outfits, telling her they were made for her, she'd been shocked and too scared to wear them.

The material is gentle against her skin and moves with her when she moves. It is very comfortable. Merry feels pretty with her mass of red curls washed, brushed and braided, forming a pleasing contrast with the tones of the dress. She could easily imagine that she is a princess in one of the many stories the duke and his son have read to her.

Taking a deep breath, she lifts the folded letter from her desk and, practising walking with the perfect grace she'd been taught, crosses the floor to stop at the edge of the heir's desk. Arching her brows, she gives his boots a displeased look, but she doesn't say anything about it. She'd learned that the boy, as well-educated and beautiful as he is, is rather uncouth and loves riling her up.

He lifts his eyes from the page he's reading and lowers the apple he is about to bite into. His captivating eyes are the shiny grey that always seems to be illuminated from the inside. It's disconcerting as he appears to be looking right into her mind. She is never sure which of her thoughts he can hear.

Sometimes, she'll look up to see him watching her from under lowered lashes, and his eyes will be as black as night, not a speck of silver in them. On those occasions, Merry feels like a hunted deer, her heart beating nervously while her skin puckers in response to the vibrations in the air. She knows it is her blood he desires, but he never takes it by force.

He often refuses even when she offers it to him.

Smiling a little nervously, she holds the letter out to him, earnestly clutching the folded paper with both hands. As expected, the boy smirks, ready to torment her again. Still, Merry hopes that they can have a serious talk today, and he will, for once, not tease her. Putting down his apple, he leans over his propped-up legs to slip the letter from her fingers.

He unfolds the paper obnoxiously slowly, causing Merry to pinch her lips in annoyance. This boy is the only person she has ever met who causes her to lose her patience and to experience emotions such as anger and irritation. He is also the only person she cannot stand to be away from for longer than a couple of hours at a time.

She starts missing him the moment he leaves the room.

"Dear Ransford Slatherty, the third," he reads, biting his lip so as not to laugh. He lifts his eyes to give her one of those arrogant looks that could potentially cause Merry to fly into a rage. She hasn't yet, but she does often feel that she might be capable of becoming enraged when he looks at her like that. "I'm the fifth," he informs her casually. "Not the third."

"Goodness, is that so, Your Grace?!" Mairead exclaims, giggling when Ransford narrows his eyes in warning. She might just inspire rage in him as well.

"I've told you many times that I am not a grace, a lord or anything. If you need to call me anything, call me Ransford."

"Indeed, you did tell me that, Your Grace, when I called you out on your lie."

"Ah, when you screeched at me like a shrew, demanding to know why I told you the duke was my uncle."

"Yes," Merry nods her head enthusiastically, though that was not what happened at all. She merely asked him why the duke called him his son and not his nephew. He'd explained that the duke and his brother were born within minutes of each other. Their nursemaids often confused them for each other when the ribbons marking them became undone. At any given moment, either and both of them were the heir to the title, and since they are extremely close, they both often play the role of duke as required.

Currently, nobody is the duke since Ransford's father gave up the title when the boy's mother passed away. Merry does not know all the details. Though her bond with the Slatherties is making her privy to a lot of information she shouldn't simply know, a lot is still blocked from her. Other details are simply beyond her comprehension.

The death of Sadhbh Slatherty is one of the painful subjects Merry cannot find any knowledge of when she tries to concentrate on it to see what she knows. There is only pain there. She does not think the woman's death was natural.

The truth is, there was currently no duke, and calling Ransford's father Your Grace was not correct. Yet, he has an air of nobility about him, preventing Merry from calling him anything else. Most of the servants still refer to him as His Grace. 

Merry insists on calling Ransford by titles simply because he doesn't like it... and he knows that. It is payback for all his teasing.

"To answer your question, wench-"

"Oh, I'm a wench now, am I," Merry interrupts, her blue eyes shining like polished gemstones, her cheeky grin causing Ransford's pulse to leap alarmingly. He hastily looks away, feeling the boiling hunger stirring in his blood again. "A second ago, I was a shrew."

"You do seem to cover virtually all varieties of females," Ransford laughs, looking up at her again once he has control of his impulses. "Careful, or you'll be called a witch next. We do know other boy names, Merry. We've had many Alarics and Deaglans and Fee..."

Merry feels the sharp stab of pain when Ransford's voice breaks on the word, and he hurries to lift the letter, swallowing convulsively.

Fiachra Slatherty. The man who killed Sadhbh!

She can tell by the discomfort on Ransford's face that he'd heard that thought and knows that she now at least partially knows the truth. He doesn't acknowledge it or provide her with more information; instead, he clears his throat and continues to read. Merry can see the tension in the fingers gripping the paper, giving away his distress.

"I luv yoh," he reads, arching his brows and looking up at her with yet another mocking grin.

"Yes," Merry says, peeved that he pronounced it all wrong and is clearly not receiving her heartfelt message. "I love you," she says, her cheeks flaring up in a bright competition with her sunrise hair.

"Oh," Ransford says, his smile turning sad just before he averts his eyes. "It's not l u v and y o h, it's l o v e and y o u. Here," he says, pulling his quill from his inkwell and after tapping off the excess ink, he writes under her words with a fast flourish. Merry wonders when she will be able to handle a quill that deftly. "At least your name is correct," he teases, handing her the sheet so she can look at his writing.

"Did you try to draw the ocean, Your Grace," she asks, lifting her chin defiantly, making Ransford chuckle. "Honestly, I have no idea what you tried to write here, but if I added a couple of lines here," she says, taking the quill from his fingers, not caring that she is leaving drops of ink on her letter. With a flourish of her own, she draws a wide V above Ransford's sentence, shaping it a little to look more or less like a bird in flight. "We have a seagull swooping over the water, and we shouldn't forget about the cliffs," she huffs, adding lines bracketing his words between what could, with enough imagination, be seen as cliffs.

"I liked you more when you were a scared little mouse," Ransford lies, watching her from under his lashes.

"It's simply because you felt safer then, Your Grace," Merry snaps, narrowing her eyes. She is once again at that edge of annoyance, where she doesn't know whether she wants to laugh or slap the boy... or do something completely different.

Merry would never slap anybody.

"Ye're supposed to focus on me message, not me spelling!" she complains, reverting back to the speech patterns she grew up with. Mairead's speech is coming along nicely, and she can generally keep up with the noble pronunciation of words for long periods, but whenever she becomes flustered, emotional or tired, she reverts to her known dialect and the speech she's most comfortable with.

"I did focus on your message, Merr," Ransford assures her, his eyes growing dark, the silvery glint disappearing into black. "You cannot love me. It is not something you should feel. It can never be. Just forget about it."

Searching his face, Merry cannot find the true meaning behind his words. She knows that he means what he says, but she doesn't understand why. Feeling a wave of sorrow rising in her throat, she turns away and flees from the study. She runs down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door. She doesn't stop running until she steps into her favourite garden.

Her eyes are stinging with tears, and her heart is beating roughly with the pain of rejection. She barely hears the twittering birds or sees the pretty fountain. 

What was she thinking? 

She's a peasant! He is the son of the duke! Whether he has the title of duke or not, his father is still the ruler of Peace Haven. She was being presumptuous, thinking that Ransford could feel anything for her that isn't the same as what he feels for all his father's other adopted children.

The duke has collected many through the years; they are all adults now. He loves them; she knows that much. Mairead and Uilliam are just two more children filling the void in the man's life. He is a good man. He tries to help others. In the last weeks, she'd come to understand just how pure his heart is, despite the darkness constantly trying to find a way into all the places where it hurts.

She looks down at her ink-stained hand still holding onto Ransford's quill. He wrote I love you. She'd lied; she could read it perfectly. She knew he was just trying to correct her spelling and didn't mean the words, but it still pierced her heart with many hot arrows.

Looking at her dirty fingers, in such a harsh contrast with the luxurious material of her lovely dress, Merry realises that she does not fit in here. Living in all this luxury and splendour, she'd forgotten who she was. She'd allowed herself to dream hopeless dreams. She will always be the dirty daughter of the drunken sheep farmer. An ugly nobody.

Impossible to love, just like her father said.

"Oh, my soul, Mairead Doyle! You are so good at jumping to the wrong conclusions."

Startled, Merry turns around to see Ransford leaning against a decorative stone arch covered in flowering ivy. She had to run and run to get here. Her breath leaves her lungs in puffs due to her exertion, and Ransford is here without any effort.

How is he just here?

He stands there, with his hair not even dishevelled. He is even obscenely nibbling on his apple again. Yes, he was even able to pause and pick it up. Obviously, hearing her frustrated thoughts again, he makes a scoffing sound.

"You forget who I am, girl," he says, pushing himself away from the arch to stroll towards her until he is close enough to force her to look up at him. "My mother was the daughter of my father's most loyal man. If we are going to care about things like lineage, I'm only a little more noble than you are. Besides, you're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen, and you're not the one who is impossible to love. That would be me."

"No!"

"You know what I am, what I'm capable of," he hisses between clenched teeth.

"I know that you suffer, and I know that I love you," Merry assures him. "That is enough for me."

"You're bound to me," he grunts. "To the Slatherties, but especially to me. That is not love."

"I know what I feel!"

"You are a child, Mairead Doyle," he growls, glaring at her in near desperation. "You cannot possibly know what you feel and what is forced on you through the bond."

"I am not a child, Your Grace!" Merry exclaims angrily. The beauty of the lush garden with its huge, green trees and copious amounts of colourful flowers, for once, is lost on her as her frustration and heartache continue to grow. "I am 14 years old; I had my birthday one and a half weeks ago; I'm not even quite two years younger than you."

"I never said I wasn't a child too," he shrugs, his infuriating ice-grey eyes flitting over Merry's face, making it hard for her to breathe. "I know you had your birthday. I gave you that doll, and you were cooing and giggling over it as if you were a child."

It's true. He'd given her the most beautiful doll of wax, wood and cloth. Merry has never owned anything like it. Not even the ribbon her grandmother had once given her came close to it. She'd been ecstatic with joy when she'd found the doll on her bed with a note wishing her a happy birthday in the handwriting she had come to know so well and love.

His name was scrawled at the bottom next to a tiny heart.

Merry named the doll Caoimhe - pronounced Kwee-va - because she's beautiful. She spends many hours holding and talking to it. The fact that Ransford gave her the doll makes it all the more precious to her.

"Of course I did, Your Grace," Merry huffs, lifting her chin in the cheeky way that always makes Ransford's heart flutter like a trapped bird. Suddenly nervous, he takes a big bite of his apple. "It's because I knew you gave her to me to practice on for all the babies we'll have one day."

Hearing her words, Ransford chokes, spitting the chewed apple pieces onto the top of Merry's head.

"Sorry," he coughs, brushing the fragments from her hair, laughing softly. "Very well, Mairead Doyle, " he says when he's sure he'd cleaned her properly and is no longer in danger of coughing up more pieces. He chuckles, seeing Merry watching him with a face scrunched up in annoyance. He wonders if she has any idea how adorable she is when she's mad. It's like a tiny puppy growling at a big dog.

"If you're so confident that this all-consuming love is not just due to the bond, there is one sure way to confirm it. Are you brave enough to try it?"

"Of course I am," Merry sniffs, but her eyes struggle to meet his. She is not certain she wants her beautiful love for this impossible boy to be disproven and taken away from her. She loves the way she feels when she sees him, hears his voice or catches a whiff of his enticing fragrance.

"It's all in a kiss," he says, lowering his lashes in a disturbing way that causes Merry's stomach to clench.

"A kiss?" She'd never been kissed before and is not entirely sure she knows how to do that.

"Yes," he assures her, thinking about all the stories he'd heard about the bond. "A kiss will tell you what is really in your heart."

"True love's kiss?" Merry asks, giving him a suspicious look. "Like the ones in fairy tales?"

Ransford thinks it over, his mind running over all the fables he knows. "Yes, that might be where the story idea comes from."

"Very well," Merry says, feeling anything but confident. She is unsure how a mere kiss could tell them if their undeniable yearning for each other is due only to the bond or not. She is fairly certain that Ransford is making it up. "Go ahead, Your Grace," she dares him.

"Honestly, Merr," he growls. "I am going to put you over my lap and spank you if you don't stop calling me that."

"To be sure, to be sure," she shrugs. "Just kiss me first, Yer Grace."

Chuckling, Ransford reaches out, grabbing hold of one of her long braids to pull her closer, and when Merry gasps in surprise, he bends over to touch his lips to hers in a kiss so light and gentle, it feels like the sweetest whisper. The touch, though slight, flirts in her blood, sending butterfly vibrations thrumming through her entire body.

Startled, Ransford pulls away, his eyes black holes sucking Merry into their depths. "Oh, bollocks," he grunts.

For a second, neither can breathe; they just stare into each other's eyes for an eternity. The truth the kiss revealed stands between them, almost touchable. It's as tangible as the words they'd written to each other in the letter clutched tightly in Merry's trembling hand.

Taking a long, shaky breath, she blinks, and when her eyes open, Ransford is gone.

~~~

Note:- @K_Blackwood, did you see? I got to use your Grammarly autocorrect genius contribution with stuff flirting in people's blood. Thank you! ♥♥