by Susan Ward
“No. In my experience it makes a woman look better to be bedded well. Believe me, Merry, Morgan beds them all well. You could fill London with the pleasure-moaning remains of his discarded lovers. The Wythford woman cried buckets down my shirtfront when I rowed her back to shore. It was bloody annoying.”
Merry stared at him in flashing disbelief. “You are such a poor liar. It’s pointless of you to try to make me less worried and less angry with you. Everyone knows he kidnapped Christina Wythford, using her brutally. He only returned her to her husband after he paid a ransom of twenty-five thousand pounds. It was in the Times.”
“You’ve been with Morgan nearly a week and you still haven’t realized, nothing is as it seems with him.” He met her round eyes and said, “She is his lover, Merry, and has been for nearly two years. She was never his hostage. She comes to him willingly. It breaks her heart each time he sends her away. He kept her so long the last time, he could not return her to her husband without the ruse of ransoming her. He sends them all away. It’s best you keep your emotions tight, Merry. Whatever he says to you, strain it through a sifter. No woman ever comes to mean anything to Morgan.”
“Your warning is unnecessary. I absolutely despise Morgan. And while I don’t know what Morgan plans to do with me, it’s not…” blushing hotly, “…that. He has absolutely no interest in me as a woman.”
The minute she spoke the words, she felt sharp bites in her stomach. The last thing a sane girl should want was Morgan to have an interest in her. Her discomfort was extremely illogical.
Then, the image of his handsome face softened by smiles and laughter in the caress of candlelight as they played cards came to her. She remembered the gentle glide of his touch on her flesh. To her own horror, reluctantly she was forced to admit to herself that she had liked it.
How did he manage that prickling liveliness that shuddered all through her, whenever he touched her? She had never felt it before and didn’t want it. It was even more galling, since all the touching had been a meaningless gesture that had accompanied his words for effect, and not motivated by any emotion for her, in any way.
He had stopped the caresses in a blink, as quickly as he’d started them, and had been decidedly unaffected by his love-play with her.
“I imagine he can have any woman he wants,” she said, feeling instantly pathetic for having said that.
Her small head took on an alert tilt. Her very bright blue eyes were sharp on Indy’s face, searching as she waited for her answer.
“Can and does,” he said, with tight irritation.
Merry’s face stiffened in response to that. “I thought so. I imagine that’s why he doesn’t bother me that way. Why then, do you suppose Morgan keeps me?”
Indy abandoned the effort to keep his voice polite. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“I would better trust an answer from you. The man confuses and unsettles me too much. I want to go home. How can I get him to release me?”
“Try to pay attention this time. Take him to bed, damn it.”
“I would rather die. I fail to see how you would think that would accomplish getting me my freedom. Regardless, I won’t do it.”
“If he beds you, he won’t harm you, Merry, not ever. He is strangely gentlemanly, that way. It’s the fastest way off this ship for you, since he never wants the flowers around to disturb him once he’s pollinated their buds.”
Her eyes were flashing daggers at him.
“If you don’t like my advice, don’t ask for it.”
Pollinate, indeed. Indy’s words made her blush in fury. A week with the boy had proven no topic was beyond his blunt exploration, even these matters. While she may have surrendered to the expanding scope of the conversations she was forced to suffer out of necessity, it did nothing to free her from modesty while having to endure such discussions. Every cell in her body was stinging in mortification.
She pressed her face up to his like an angry weasel. “Clearly, it must be obvious to you your plan is flawed. Why won’t you help me? Couldn’t you ask Morgan to release me? Especially, since he is not inclined at all...” she pleased herself with the ability of her bravado by saying into that worldly face, “... to pollinate me.”
The air between them crackled with tension.
Cursing under his breath, Indy snapped, “Damn it, Merry, don’t look at me like that. I can’t help you. I don’t know how. That is the only plan that has occurred to me. Pollination. If I could free you, I would.”
A hush fell as Merry digested his words. The boy’s eyes were widened, in a way she’d never seen them before, catching and shimmering with a light within them. They were usually shed of emotion, but his gaze answered her with something almost like regret. The boy wasn’t happy he had brought her here, and he didn’t know how to help her. Merry took some comfort from that.
She sank down until her face rested on his thigh, and surprised herself when she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t snap at you. You are the only friend I have here. You were right earlier. I have no one to blame but myself for being here. I should never have gone to Grave’s End. This is my just punishment for being so willful and foolish. But now that I am here, I haven’t a clue how to fix it. I have never met a man like Morgan before. I don’t know what he wants from me. I don’t know how to deal with him.”
“What did you expect? You’re not in London, Merry. He’s no dandy, remember that. However you deal with him, be careful,” he said.
The warning was sincerely given. There was no point in being cross with the boy over this. She felt Indy’s hard knit muscles slowly relax. Picking up his braid, she wound it around her arm, brushing the tip against her lips.
“I suspect you are right. You are younger than I am, yet you are the one always right. Though it should surprise me, not at all. You are very knowledgeable in these matters and I am not. I suppose being on a pirate ship gives a broader education in many areas. How old are you, anyway?”
“Seventeen.”
Indy’s muscle tightened irrationally, as Merry began to brush the tip of his braid against her cheeks. He forced down the unexpected rise of desire, with all the reminders of why it was inappropriate.
Against his better judgment, he asked, “So what were you doing in here all day?”
She let Indy’s braid slip from her arm and ran her cheek on his thigh. “We played cards. He told me why he hates Rensdale.”
“Oh,” he said, wishing Merry would move away. He found himself lightly stroking her hair. “What did he tell you?”
“That Rensdale killed his wife.”
The truth. Indy had never expected that. Morgan must have accomplished something by the use of it, if he’d been willing to part with it.
Frowning, Merry began to rub her cheek against the material covering Indy’s thigh.
“It is hard to imagine,” she began softly, faltering a bit. “That a man such as Morgan had a wife, as though he were just some ordinary man, like a butcher, or a farmer. Did you know her, Indy? Did he love her very much?”
“Yes, I knew her, Merry. I knew her well,” he said in a voice carefully stripped of emotion.
Indy’s fingers slipped through Merry’s hair and he watched the curls float downward.
“I miss my family so much,” she whispered. “My mother must be worried ill, by now. I want to go home. If I told Morgan the truth, do you think he’d let me go? He said if I answered his questions, I could go home.”
“I don’t know, since you’ve never bothered to tell me the truth. It depends if the truth can harm you. If you have no connection to Morgan, nothing about you with meaning to him, he would free you, if you answered him all he wants to know. But, if there is anything in the truth you are afraid of, you must never tell him, Merry.”
He put his fingers on her chin and lifted her face toward him.
“You must promise me, Merry. Not to tell him if you have something that needs to stay hiding.”
The look of trust Merry gave ma
de him look away.
He said, “Are you tired? Is that why you decided today to use my leg as a pillow? Do you want to eat or would you like me to put you on the window bench?”
Yawning, she lifted her cheek from his thigh. “The window bench. I want to sleep. Don’t leave me. I am so tired of being alone in this cabin. Will you stay with me until I nod off?”
Saying nothing, Indy placed her on the bench and retrieved an extra quilt for her. He noticed those round blue eyes on him, as he tucked the covers up around her chin. Swearing under his breath, he sank down beside her.
“What a strange girl you are, Merry,” he said, lightly stroking her hair with a scarred hand.
She was the first woman he had ever known that did not fear the touch of his hands and did not ease back, whenever they moved forward.
“I am the one who brought you here. How could you think of me as your friend? Why do trust me so much?”
Merry shook her head. She didn’t know. It was a feeling. How does one explain that which by its existence should be unexplainable. She closed her eyes.
“I have always hated Rensdale,” she mumbled, on a tired, little voice. “I hate him more now than I imagined possible.”
Indy’s eyes fixed out the window. “Go to sleep, Merry. Go to sleep.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The single candle had burned low, casting only a hint of glow in the cabin. Indy sat on the rug, one well-muscled leg bent, elbow on knee, scarred face with closed eyes resting in palm, half hidden by the long black waves that touched the floor. His other hand moved through the girl’s ebony curls with an infinite gentleness that could almost be tasted.
Morgan hung back in the doorway absorbing the scene. Yet undisturbed, he had not been particularly quiet and made no effort not to have his presence noted.
Weariness, and it seemed to him, some sort of deep thoughtful conflict had brought a touch of animation to the usually lifeless angles of Indy’s face. Morgan wasn’t sure which it was, exhaustion or thought, that had failed the boy in being aware of him now. That Indy didn’t stir was as shocking as the unexpected picture he made.
He sensed it wasn’t worth making comment on either to the boy, not yet. Not until he had a better sense of what was going on between Indy and the girl. Clearly, there was something. To dive into the conflicting image the boy was making now, to those long burned in Morgan’s memory of the lad with other girls, would only bring another argument to the surface, partly the result of the boy now almost being a man.
Deciding to leave both issues unexplored, he crossed the cabin in an easy stride and poured a goblet of wine.
“There’s no need to continue. She’s asleep,” Morgan observed in a quiet voice.
He smiled thoughtfully as the boy lifted his head, meeting directly the dark gaze on him, the younger as always unwavering and unrevealing.
“You don’t have to rush off. I am going to drink, for awhile, and most probably smoke, before I can rest myself. Join me. We haven’t had so much as a civil word between us since Falmouth.”
Indy rose with the effortless grace of a small mountain lion, his hand the last thing to move, leaving Merry’s gossamer black curls, to rest at his side in a pleasant, careless gesture. Without comment, the boy went toward the door.
“Running again?” said Morgan suddenly.
The boy halted halfway across the room.
“I have not touched her, if you’ve changed your mind about leaving her here. Is that why you’ve worked yourself into a frenzy avoiding me on this ship? Regrets over the girl? You might as well say what’s on your mind, lad. Especially, since I have a feeling it would do both our souls so much good.”
For that he earned a sharp disapproving look from Indy. Betraying emotion, a uniquely new occurrence in their arguments. He artfully altered his own gaze to fix on his glass.
In a steady voice, Indy said, “She’s better off where she is or I would move her to my cabin. And if we’re pretending to be truthful, you wouldn’t let me take back Merry, even if I wanted to. I see the way you watch her. I know you’ve convinced yourself what you’re doing is a kindness, making the inescapable result of your desire for her a less repulsive conclusion for her, if you buffet her emotions enough that she comes to you willingly. Has it occurred to you that the clever raping of one’s heart is crueler than the forced raping of the body? A kind man would satisfy his body of her and let her go. If you were in the mood to feed your bloody vanity, why feed it with her in the only way that will cause her lasting harm?”
The silence between them was lengthy. The wind was a pleasant rhythm against the glass.
Morgan studied the disgruntled youth, finally saying, “My, we did have a lot on our mind, didn’t we? If you’re in the mood to tally our hypocrisies, you might want to start with your own. You put her in my bed, knowing damn well, I would desire her, when you could have released her at the beach and saved her... what was it you called it?...” Those black eyes were glittering, “... ‘the clever raping of her heart?’ It’s odd, when you gave her to me, wanting me to seduce her for some illogical pubescent revenge against Rensdale, you had no moral conflict with this. Odder still, when I have decided not to seduce her, to provide her only proximity and familiarity to decide her fate, you are wrapped in self-mutilating disapproval. You are not as far from me as you think, boy. We both hurt others to escape those unpleasant realities of ourselves. I have left her untouched and will let her make her way on her own, until I decide what should be done with her. ”
Indy snapped out, “Every road ends the same. With your insane vanity and your absolutely fanatical need to recreate others, as you wish them to be, and the decisions yours. When Merry has no will of her own left, when you’ve proved some point to your ego by owning her heart and soul, you’ll send her back like the others. Just as you’ve held me here, by your cruel manipulations of my feelings for you. You play with people’s emotions for your grim need and vanity. You think that makes you not brutal. Consider that hypocrisy tonight, while you sit there wanting her, denying her freedom, and denying yourself the relief of her body.”
Morgan’s eyes were glittering like fire embers. “Are we talking about Merry or you now?” said Morgan evenly.
“Does it matter? You give us all the same in the end. Captivity and misery and freedom only when you decide we can have it. Because you refuse to admit, that at the bottom of it all, you are someone other than who you pretend to be.”
Anger flashed in Morgan’s eyes and was quickly concealed.
The boy gave a short laugh and lifted a brow. “Has it ever occurred to you that you may well trap yourself in all this? That this girl might come to have more meaning to you than even you expect? That you might be brought, face to face, with so many truths about yourself that you can’t manipulate them away any longer?”
“The girl won’t get you what you want, boy.”
Morgan drained his glass. He reached for his pipe, stuffing the loose green leaves into it before setting it aflame. Inhaling deeply, he held the pungent smoke, and then let it roll slowly from his lips in a gently swirling cloud.
The cold air topside had not cleared his body of the taste of the girl. He had come to the cabin, knowing the only thing that might possibly leave her chaste on the window bench this night, was the numbing effect of this seemingly innocuous small leaf plant. He had run across it in South America, in his early days of searching for the boy. He knew the dulling of the smoke, too well, not for him to accept the soothing of it now.
Another drag. Morgan felt a slight heaviness of his lids.
“You can’t manipulate truth of yourself, at all. You can only learn to live within it. You won’t have peace until you’re willing to do that, regardless of what you think ridding yourself of me will accomplish,” said Morgan grimly.
The boy’s laugh came harshly this time.
“As you have peace? You surround yourself with reminders of everything you’ve lost. Feeding the suffering, o
nly enough, so you can tolerate being here with me and the obligation you feel you can’t let go of. You’ve made even the girl a part of your need to escape the realities of your existence. Would you be denying yourself and playing this game with her, if she were not young, not innocent, and not of noble birth? You are as much a prisoner of this ship as you’ve made me a prisoner, of my failure.”
Morgan looked at Merry, taking a long drag of smoke, letting it sooth the needs of his body as he had never expected to need help in soothing. Thirty-nine and drugging his body into submission over a nineteen year old girl, like a pubescent boy unable to control his urges and erections. If it wasn’t all so grim, he would laugh.
Morgan opened one eye and gave a thorough assessment of Indy, without ever letting the boy see him do it. It was clear this exercise was a product of their own never-ending struggle.
It occurred to Morgan the girl was closer to Indy’s age than his own. He could end this now by putting her in the boy’s cabin, letting him make the choice of her fate, remembering how Indy had looked lightly stroking her hair. In those few moments, it was as if none of what had happened had left any gruesome residue on him.
His veiled gaze settled back on Merry’s figure, sleeping soundly on the bench. Morgan wanted her with an edge he found surprising, since she was the very kind of woman he avoided as a rule.
Was that the point of this? She was an inescapable reminder of his past, linked to the unavoidable demands of the male body no man under eighty could escape with her.
Indy had come to know him well these past five years, but the boy was in for another failure, if Indy thought Morgan’s fascination with the girl would get him what he wanted.
Wherever Indy’s plotting took him, it would not dissolve his ties to the boy. They were ties that could never been dissolved, nature’s unrelenting rule, not a product of his vanity, regardless of what the boy thought.
“You were right earlier,” Morgan said, letting the pause develop artfully, before opening his eyes to cut off the boy’s flash of surprise. “She is looking pale. She needs a touch of sun in her cheeks. Take her topside tomorrow.”