The Windflower (26 page)

"Sugar . . ." he said. "Everywhere, you're incredibly sweet. What were you trying to do, turn into a marzipan?"

She tried to answer him, but her tongue was thick in her throat. "Dev— Let me go." It was a very faint whisper.

"Hush, little flower. Bloom under me. Bloom for me. Merry. How did you ever grow to be so sweet? Would you like me to lick you clean? I know where I'd like to begin. ..."

His words made her arms cling to him as she found herself straining weakly toward his seeking mouth as it found her breast. Fever spread through her, delicious and fruity: sweet cherry juice, apple wine, rosehips, and honey. She could see nothing through her swirling vision, feel nothing but his warm hands and closeness and the clean delight of his touch. He lifted her hair in one hand, letting it fall in a tangled mass over her shoulders, and caressed the back of her neck. Moving his hands down to cup her shoulders, he brought his mouth to hers once again.

"Some for you," he whispered, and she tasted the transferred nectar of her own sugar, a sensuous offering from his lips. Somehow her hands had begun to stroke the firm, supple muscles on his back and shoulders; and his pulse beats ran like surf under the unsure motion of her innocent fingers.

"Magic," he said, his voice a husky erotic whisper. "Sleight of hand. See how easy it is? You have it, too, little flower . . . you have it too. No, Merry. Don't stop. Here. Let me help you. Like this. Yes. Slowly. Merry. Merry. Kiss me."

Carried beyond herself, she touched him with her lips, moving whisper soft, uncaring whether it was his mouth she kissed, or his hair, his cheek, the smooth line of his brow. Pressing forward against his hands and body, whimpering distractedly, she whispered, "Please. Go away ... I want to go home. I think I'm going to be sick. I feel faint. Let me go."

"You have strange love talk, Merry-gold. Marigold, that's another."

"Another what?"

"Merry name. Merry-go-round, marigold, God rest ye Merry . . . How good you taste, love," he said, his lips to her throat.

Her hand sloppily found his cheek and lay there, a tremulous supplicant. "Devon, I can't. What words can I say that will . . . cause you not to force me?"

His face came hazily into focus before her, the soft eyes shining. He kissed her once on her lips and then drew back, looking down at her.

"Do you know . . ."he said, gazing at the soot marks transferred from her discarded shirt and spread by his fingertips over her flushing skin. "Do you know that we look like coupling leopards? Do you really want me to let you go? I don't know if I can. Why do you want to stop?"

She couldn't answer him, only shook her head as though the blood pounding hard in her brain had driven away all the good reasons for chastity.

Given her physical response, another man might have laughed at her use of the word
force
and dismissed her protests as a routine and harmless hypocrisy. Devon knew better. He was an artist at making people do as he wanted, and if ruthless seduction could wring acquiescence from her unwilling body—what of it? He could have taken the girl in screaming resistance, and there was not a soul on the
Joke
who would have stopped him. Poor blue-eyed creature, she was his for the taking. And it was hardly the bit of whimsy he would have cared to cultivate in his character that now, when he wanted her most, was the moment he least wanted to take her against her will. All her fragility and sweetness were flowing into him, and whatever his more familiar inclinations were demanding, there was kindness there as well. The part of him that desired her was the part that also didn't want to force her. Whatever she wanted physically, and he was sure he wasn't mistaken about it, she wasn't prepared emotionally, and God knew what kind of wreckage there would be in the aftermath. Soot still powdered her foolish little nose, and he wasn't sure why that should decide him, but somehow it did. Holding her for a moment, stroking her shining hair, he heard with gratitude Cat's fluent footsteps in the corridor.

"Cat?" he called.

Cat pushed open the door with the heel of his hand, walked in, and froze like a pillar, the skin stretching tight over his sharp cheekbones.

"I beg your pardon," Devon said. "Your wench is attacking me."

Not making any attempt to repudiate his ownership of Merry, Cat replied, none too warmly, "You wanted an audience?"

"No. I want you to pry her off me. I don't think she knows what's happening." Finally, impatiently,
"Take
her, will you? Or you can rest assured that I will."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Under the hazy sunlight of an overcast heaven Merry stood in Morgan's spacious cabin the next afternoon watching Raven sitting in the open doorway rubbing sun-proofing ointment into Dennis the pig.

"It's nice for me to realize," she said cheerfully, "how much Cat thinks of me, Do you know that Cat uses what must be the same-— yes, I'm
sure
it's the same cream on my face. Can pigs really sunburn?"

"Ah, well, sure they can, bless their small horny trotters. On land they've mud to protect them." He finished, wiped his fingers, and stood up, glancing toward the door as though he were about to leave.

"Well, that'll do it for the time being, unless," he said, grinning, "you need some stroked into your back too?"

"No, thank you. Besides, it's too cloudy for ointment."

"Days like this are the worst. Reflection or something, y'know, Saunders could explain it to you." Turning to look at her, lifting one shapely black eyebrow, he said, "You're solemn, lovey."

Merry couldn't help the faint color that began to stain her cheeks. Since yesterday in the afternoon, when Cat wrapped her in his own shirt and removed her bodily from Devon's arms, she had not seen Devon. Where had he slept last night? From certain tentatively tactful glances she had received from Raven, it was obvious that he knew, and why it should be just as embarrassing for her when Devon was known
not
to sleep with her as when he was known
to
sleep with her was a vexing question that she didn't bother to unravel. Possibly it was because she had the strong idea that Raven thought she and Devon had been fighting, and since the opposite of that was true . . .

Yesterday had shown Devon to her in a startling new light. She had spent the night trying to reconstruct the shattered picture of his character and to search through the debris for some kind of familiar consistency.

Not moving, she said to Raven, "Could you stay for a moment or two?"

"Surely, milady," he said gently. He waited for her to speak, and when she did not, he went to the table, sat in one of the heavily ornate chairs, and pulling the card deck from his pocket, began to play solitaire. He was concentrating discreetly on the game before Merry said, "I've been told often enough not to ask too many questions about Devon, but ... Raven, do you think you might give me a little information?"

Looking up, he said, "Lovey, I'd give you the star belt from Orion. But information you're better getting from Cat."

"Cat's a clam."

"Ah. And Devon?" —

"I can't ask him questions. I don't know him well enough to know what would be safe to ask. Raven, I've got to know more about him, or my life's going to evaporate. Does it look to you as though I'm in trouble?"

"Yes," he said seriously, not removing his gaze from hers.

"It's worse than you think. Much worse. Raven, please—who is Devon? Why can he come and go as he pleases?"

Stretching his legs before him, playing another card, he thought it over carefully before he said, "Devon is Morgan's half brother."

Inhaling quickly in surprise, Merry put a hand behind her and lowered herself onto the window bench, barely noticing as Dennis shuffled over her bare toes and laid his damp snout on her foot. At length she said, "They don't look anything alike."

"It happens that way sometimes. They say
my
father was a Dutch Jew and blond. Devon and Morgan were both got by the same father. Of course, Devon was born in England with a silver spoon in his mouth more than fourteen years after Morgan slipped into the world with a silver cutlass in his. Born in Saint-Dominique, Morgan was, on the wrong side of the blanket. His mother was the daughter of a plantation owner. Twenty years old and had never been with a man, so they say, but she gave herself to Devon's father like a wild thing on a forest floor and was too proud to tell him before he sailed back to England that he'd got her with child. She died when Morgan was ten, and her family cast Morgan off, because all he'd ever been was a shame to them. And the father never knew about the first son . . ."

Her eyes were held so open and still that the lids began to ache. She closed them slowly. "And this silver spoon of Devon's?"

" 'Nough of one to choke a man who didn't know how to use it. He must be
someone
because every man on the
Joke
has a pardon from the British crown, and we carry an English letter of marque. In a way, see, we're legal. Privateers, not pirates."

The puzzle pieces locked with a jolt. Fine hairs began to prickle on the back of Merry's neck, and in a voice that didn't sound right, she said, "Devon works for the British government."

"He works for the British government," Raven agreed. "Mind you, when we're in open water and Devon's not aboard, Morgan sometimes has a lapse or two of memory. Hence the British sloop you saw us take last week." Brushing a soft black curl from his forehead, Raven redealt his deck. "Devon, in his turn, ignores Morgan's lapses and gets the cabin which he pays for, the right to privacy in it, and the right to be put ashore when it's convenient, and sometimes when it ain't convenient. He also has the right to keep a prisoner, no questions asked. 1 guess this time around, that's you, lovey. I'm sorry if this ain't good news for you, milady. You don't look so great."

Consciously she loosened the hands that she had tightly clasped at her stomach. "No. It's just that— You see, last night Devon was— well, he did me an act of kindness that led me to believe that 1 should perhaps tell him the truth about . . . But that's impossible. Quite impossible if he's British—and a ... a spy. No, don't get up. Please. I'm all right. I'm glad you told me. You don't know how glad. You may have saved my life. But—Raven, what would they do to you if they knew you'd told me?"

"Nothing. Nothing much, anyway. It's not so serious as it would be if I tried to help you escape."

"Would you do that?" she asked, with a rearranged heart rhythm.

He smiled suddenly. "Y'know, darlin', I might. If I thought I could get away with it."

The words had barely left him when angry footsteps rang on the stairs. Cook came into the room with Will Saunders, and in a furious undertone the younger boy snarled at Raven, "For God's sweet sake, you poor-witted nizy. Will and 1 were on the deck above with Shay, and we heard every word you said like it was rung from a clapper, though Shay pretended not to catch it, bless him! What if it had been Reade with us, eh? Every stupid syllable would have gone straight to Morgan. At least sport oak"—Cook slammed the door behind him—"if you're up to talking like a simpleton."

Turning in his chair, Raven said, "I can't be down here in a closed room with her. Y'know Cat wouldn't like it. Sorry if I scared you."

'"Sorry if I scared you!" Cook mimicked and, digging his hands into the red cotton front of Raven's shirt, dragged him violently from his seat. The chair toppled with a crack, the cards flew from the table, and Merry flew from the bench, causing Dennis to squeal indignantly. Inserting herself quickly against Raven's chest, crying out "No!" she barely missed taking the fist Cook had aimed at Raven's chin.

Twisting his fingers around Merry's arms, Saunders pulled her away from Raven. "Who are you-—Pocahontas?" he said tartly.

Merry slapped his hand off her arm, glaring into Saunders's shrewd gaze. "Did I say you could grab me?"

He was out of temper with her, but even so, he felt a grin nag at his mouth. She was getting damned saucy for such a pygmy. He remembered, seeing her like this, that she had once fired a crossbow at Devon. Killing the grin, he said, "Listen to me, Miss Merry. None of us want to see you suffer, but if you talk Raven into helping you sneak off, he's going to wind up on the looped end of a line hanging from a yardarm. He's going to get scragged. Hanged. Do you understand?"

"Absolutely!" Merry said. "The next time I jump into the ocean and swim for the mainland, you have my word on it that I won't so much as ask Raven to point which way."

"Fishes go to Glory!'' Cook said. "You can barely recognize it. Will, but do you think the girl's trying to be sarcastic?"

"Good for her! What with you jackals yipping into the room. Like to give old Dennis an apoplexy." Raven favored Cook with a happy-go-lucky smile. "Mind, you can grab me again any time you choose. The lady here has a way of throwing herself on me that 1 could get used to quick."

Cook shoved Raven's chest. "Like a rope dancer's pole, ain't ya? Lead at both ends. I've seen veal calves with more in their brain box than you! Think again if you think they won't hang you because you're a favorite. This ain't a whale boat, boy. It's a son-of-a-bitchin' pirate ship. Pirates. You know—
-p-y-r
— Ah, never mind." Turning to Merry, he said grimly, "As for you, missy—"