by Susan Ward
“I miss my family. I want to go home.”
She didn’t look up as Morgan rose from the table. It was humiliating to sit here, crying before him. She felt him run the slope of her cheek with a thumb.
On a whispering soft voice, he said, “I am sorry. I know how you feel, Little One. I miss home, too.”
The cabin door clicked closed. Merry could tell by the emptiness of the air around her that Morgan was gone.
He stayed away from the cabin all day. She began to wonder if she were wearing down his refusals. It was late in the night when Morgan’s returning presence and a pungent smoke, unlike any pipe tobacco scent she’d smelled before, stirred her from sleep. Her drowsy eyes searched and found him in his chair.
On a tired whisper, hopelessly curious about each detail of this man, she studied his pipe and asked, “That is an odd smell. What kind of tobacco are you smoking?”
Merry had startled him. She could tell by the flashes in Morgan’s black eyes. However, the smile that surfaced was wicked and lazy.
On a melting whisper, he said, “Go back to sleep, Little One. I am smoking your innocence.”
Merry’s eyes rounded in fear and confusion. Morgan laughed softly.
“Go to sleep, Merry. You need to help me sometimes. My conscience is a weak creature. We shouldn’t trust it.”
CHAPTER NINE
Merry sat on the top step of the hatchway, in a pale pink gown formerly owned by Christina Wythford. Indy had taken all his clothes back, in an effort to discourage her troublesome conduct.
She was watching Shay polish a sword beneath the hazy sunlight of an overcast sky. He was in good spirits. They were preparing to drop anchor in Ireland, just south of Galway Bay in a cove along its rocky shore.
Everything seemed to have sipped a wild spirit. The sea roiled in riotous swirls of crashing, white tipped waves against the rocks. The air capered through the canvas laden of heady flavors as it made the sails flap.
She had stood at the rail for hours, staring in fascination at her first glimpse of Ireland. It seemed an untamed land, a vast sweeping expanse, haunted and magical.
Earlier, Morgan had ordered her below, but seeing her face fall, he’d relented and surprised her by allowing her to stay on the steps of the hatchway.
Across the deck from her, Morgan stood with Tom Craven doing an alert assessment of the wind, followed by the graceful gestures of his arms as he made some comment about the sails.
His dancer smooth strides carried him to the mizzen where he immediately went into discussion with Mr. Seton. Shay had informed her he was the sailing master and the twenty-five year old youngest son of a cotton planter from a place called, Georgia, in America.
Apparently Mr. Seton possessed a genius mind that hid behind the carelessly foppish mannerism of a dandy. He was an uncommonly handsome man, long golden waves framing a face of boyish good looks and bright amber eyes. Whenever he saw Merry, he sent her his dazzling smile. He had gone to sea with Morgan four years past.
Morgan’s crew, though in possession of its share of the rough lot, was not always the scourge of the sea, as Merry had expected them to be.
They were, if one were inclined to study them, an interesting and fascinating assembly of men. Morgan not excluded.
Merry’s eyes strayed to him again, following the flutter of his dark hair being caressed by the wind. She had stared at him too long.
Beside him, Mr. Seton, facing toward her, had begun to grin in earnest. Thankfully, Morgan’s back was to her, or she would have felt completely pathetic. Studying the man was a dangerous compulsion, better to stop.
Shay gave the lass a guarded look, realizing she had stopped talking some minutes past, and then saw the cause standing by the mizzen.
“Sit farther back out of the sun, lass. Ye’ve got enough burn from yesterday. Did you put that salve on I gave ye?”
Merry nodded, eased back against the polished wood wall and managed a slight smile. “How did you come to be with Morgan? You are such a kind-hearted boy. I would have never expected you and piracy to have made a pact.”
Shay looked up in his work then, surprised and pleased by her question. He loved to tell a tale and Merry could tell that clearly this one was going to be a big one.
“It weren’t exactly a chosen profession for me, Merry lass, I happened upon it with no choice,” he began, his voice fluid and full of humor. “I was thirteen. A foolish, mischievous boy. Me da had left Ireland for America, one step in front of the hangman. I was left behind with his rebel band.” He bent her a meaningful look. “They weren’t exactly pleased to have me, if ye can believe that. Wasn’t good fer much but making people laugh and playing ridiculous games with the other lads. I could invent some wild games, Merry. I was sit’n on hills, like I always did when the men rode out, watching and playing with the children some ridiculous game with rocks and pebbles. There I am, huddled over the dirt, when all around turns quiet. Round eyed, I look up. There was Himself.”
Merry was shocked. “Morgan?”
Shay nodded in satisfaction. “Aye. Weren’t no ordinary mon, even I could tell that. Spoke like landlord, so of course I feared we were done fer. Just standing there, he was, all in black like the devil, with those black eyes of his a’ fixed on me. I was supposed to protect the children, mind ye, and here we had let Himself catch us.”
Shay paused to make a few swipes with the rag on his sword as Merry stared at him in frustration. The boy loved to drag out a story at times, and she was intrigued in spite of herself.
Why on earth would Morgan go to the Irish countryside and snatch a boy? An idiotic boy playing with rocks, at that.
“Are you going to go on and tell me the rest, or am I going to have to hit you?”
A wave of pleasant mirth came with the upward tilt of his face. “Ye’re not patient at all. I am Irish, so let me be telling me tale me way.” Frowning, he grumbled, “Now ye made me forget where I was in the telling.”
Frustrated, Merry reminded, “You were only on the hills playing with rocks.”
“Ah.” He sat back with a lopsided smile. “He gave us all a once over, fixed his gaze on me, and out thin air, says he, ‘Are ye Ian Shay?’ I almost died, right there, I did. Here was the devil out of nowhere calling me by me name, no less.”
Shay’s eyes closed then, and he gave a gentle shake of his blond head.
“I thought fer sure it was the hangman coming fer me, instead of me da. But, there’s something in those eyes that would need a stronger heart than mine to lie and before I knew it said aye, ‘I, be him.’ Without a word he picked me up by the edge of me ragged collar and drug me aboard this ship. When I saw the ship I knew who Himself was. Terrified was I, Merry lass. To have Morgan in Ireland knowing me by name was worse than the hangman.”
“But what did he want with you?” The tale made no sense at all.
“I be getting to that if ye be let ’n me. Brought me to his cabin, he did, and worried was I. Ye hear frightful stories about Englishmen and pirates, as a child in Ireland. Morgan was both. I was sit’n there, quivering and crying. It’s then me fixed on a boy sitting on the bench scowling at me. Weren’t yer normal boy, Merry lass, I can tell ye that. Himself was frightening enough, but the boy and them scars, ye just don’t know what fear is until ye’ve suffered the emptiness of the eyes cutting into ye.”
Knowing, excited, being pulled along in the tale, Merry said, “Was it Indy?”
“Indy, himself. Whatever they wanted, I wanted no part of it. Would have left the cabin, if Himself hadn’t been blocking door. Then, polite as can be, with those smooth manners, after dragging me here by me neck, says he to me, ‘Ye may sail on my ship and when ye reach yer maturity, ye will share in every prize we take. Ye will die a wealthy mon.’ Almost fainted, I did. But I wasn’t so fixed on run’n then. Then Himself, he adds, ‘Ye will have duties, and so long as ye obey my command, ye will have a place in my crew, as long as ye desire one. Until ye are older, ye will have on
e duty. Ye will share a cabin with the boy, be his companion, and teach him to play.’ And he walks from the cabin as though it were decided, leave’n me alone with that fearsome creature.”
“Play?” She began to laugh and slapped him in the leg. “I should have known this was going to be blarney from you. How funny it must be for you to daggle me along with that.”
“No, no, Merry lass, it’s the truth of it,” Shay said forcefully. “Aye, I thought it bizarre then meself. Later I understood the madness of it. He wanted the boy to be a boy, and the boy was not. He was a fierce, snarling gruesome thing, that used to spend half his day beating me up and the other half locking me from me cabin. Ye wouldn’t know how he was then, by how he is now, lass. Five years has brought a more powerful change than ye’d know. Ye think him terrifying now, but we’re almost friends, we are. I thought it chance Morgan came for me. Himself be born with a silver cutlass in one hand, and crystal ball in the other, so I never bothered much about Himself showing up in Ireland knowing me by name. But it weren’t chance. Himself come looking for me. Years passed before Himself told me that he owed me da a debt. I stayed on when Himself told me I could go, and got me bunk and quite a bit of money now. It’s happy I am that he came for me.”
It was mysterious. “Who is Indy to Morgan that he should do such a thing?”
“Nothing at all, that’s the strangest part. The old timers say he just some wild ruin Morgan found, by chance, chained on a ship one day. That mon has uncommon decency. Look what Himself has done fer me. Longer yer here, ye will come to know the decency part.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Merry whispered, looking at her knit fingers.
Shay shrugged lazily. “Neither do I, Merry lass, but that’s the mon. Nothing ever makes sense. It’s not supposed to. He wants it that way. Look at how he treats ye, lass.”
That brought the memory of being kissed by Morgan, and a wash of color on her cheeks.
Indignantly, she said, “He doesn’t treat me, any way, at all.”
With unexpectedly sharp eyes, he said, “That’s the point of it, lass. Ye would have been ruined on any other ship the first night. Raped by the captain then tossed to the crew, what was left of ye left fer dead. But, there Himself has ye. Treats ye like a gentleman, he does. Leaves ye alone because ye not be want’n it, when he doesn’t have to do anything that he doesn’t want to do. Does that make sense to ye, lass?”
She said nothing and gave a simple shrug. She needed no more things to add to her foolhardy fascination of Morgan.
She settled her chin in hands, focused on the sword, and fought a familiar battle to push him from her mind.
A sudden, flapping chorus from the sails broke her train of thought and caused her to look up. Merry’s excited face was tilted skyward, her eyes darting with the trek of a huge cluster of birds soaring low through the sails.
“It’s a North American Plover,” Morgan said.
She found the captain standing above her, having noiselessly crossed the deck. He was smiling as he waited for her attention.
Skittishness settled in, its ever-present whim from head to toe at the sight of Morgan. She strove for something to say to him that wouldn’t come out either clumsy or childish. It was the first time Morgan had ever sought her out on deck. She wondered why he was doing so now.
That made Merry tense.
“I have never seen a plover. At least if I have, I never noticed it,” she said, after an embarrassingly long pause.
“That tells me you’ve not been in Ireland before.” Morgan sank down until they were at eye level. “They come across the Atlantic from America.”
There was a carelessly charming smile on Morgan’s handsome face, but above it, his black eyes had focused on her and were alertly probing.
“Perhaps I have been to Ireland and have just not noticed the birds,” Merry retorted, proud with herself that she’d managed it, since the liveliness of her flesh usually catapulted her brain into malfunctioning stupidity.
Her words made him grin. “Somehow I doubt that, Little One. You are a girl who would notice the birds.”
Morgan’s unexpectedly approving tone Merry found flattering, strangely enough, though she suspected he was not the kind of man who found women who noticed birds appealing.
Against all force of her will, the blush came as quickly as the power of speech deserted her.
“The decks are going to be crowded with men and activity once we drop anchor. I have ordered Indy to put a bath in my cabin. Run along, Little One. Don’t make a ruin of my sheets,” he said softly. Then, he left them.
Not one ounce of that exchange did Merry’s internal arrangements any good, nor did it please her that she obeyed him without pause.
She allowed herself a leisurely bath in the cabin, since Morgan’s words let her know he’d be well occupied on deck for hours. She dressed in the change of clothes Indy had left for her.
They were odd clothes, common. A gray skirt, a billowy white peasant style blouse, and crudely made leather sandals. They were not a lady’s garments. She wondered where they had come from, and why the boy had left them for her.
Merry settled on the window bench, combing the knots from her curls, and watched as the ship dropped anchor. An hour later, as the sun was dipping, she caught sight of Morgan’s, impossible to miss, towering figure in a boat loaded with men going to shore. He was laughing in evident amusement over something Mr. Craven was saying. He was a heartlessly appealing man when laughter softened his imposing face. She followed him with her eyes until he disappeared from view.
Their location seemed a strange place to drop anchor, since she knew Morgan was meeting the Earl of Camden here. She had expected a seaport of some kind, but they had gone ashore on a dramatic, uninhabited stretch of the Irish coast. Not a village or a port within sight.
As the hours passed, she understood why they’d dropped anchor here. The lush greenery had gone through a startling metamorphosis with the passing day. Bon fires, made high with wood, blazed from the earth, dotting the expanse of land before her, the glaring flames setting aglow a scene of wild gaiety that she could taste even from here.
With the arrival of darkness came hundreds of men to the hills, the majority of the crew mixed with what looked to be Irish locals. Among the revelers, to her annoyance, there were women.
Her eyes scanned the riotous gathering, watching as bottles were raised, seeing instruments being played, though she could not hear them. The wild zeal and vigor of their dancing, their talking, and their shouting was not diminished by distance or the soundless confines of the cabin. Watching it brought a slow hungry burn to her soul.
Indy had locked the cabin door after clearing away her bath, something he hadn’t done in over a week. It was clear Morgan would not return tonight. He didn’t trust her not to try to escape.
She pushed back her curls, cursed herself a fool, and tried to pick out his figure amid the crowd. Staring out the window, the hour deep in the night, she fell asleep, as she was, cheek against glass, insides anxiously churning.
She came awake, sometime later, with the feel of something warm in the palm of her hand, and a whispering voice cutting through the cabin silence, “If I have ever seen a face in need of fun, it is yours, Little One.”
Merry instantly jerked back her hand. Her eyes flew open to find Morgan crouched beside her at the window bench. She hadn’t expected Morgan to come back tonight. Not with the party on the hills. Not when there were women there.
Feeling her pulse escalate, all at once, Merry became aware of a difference in him. Morgan cut a powerfully striking figure tonight.
Studying him, she saw that there was that same aura of energetic boldness, an aura of flamboyance to the manly presentation she had not seen since Grave’s End.
He was purposely, dramatically, turned out in a cardinal red shirt, parted three buttons at his iron chest, dark breeches topped by high polished wine colored boots, midnight hair, and midnight eyes
. He seemed to hold the star-points from the night in the even white teeth of his smile, and the dancing light in the blackness of his gaze. He carried with him the sweet essence of wine on his breath and the scent of heather grass whispering on his flesh. Perhaps it was the wine, the revelry, or whatever he’d been doing ashore, but there was an added vibrancy to his presence.
As much as she hated him, she couldn’t escape what her own eyes could see, or the affect it had on her.
Searching his face, she tried to figure out what he was up to. Morgan was clearly in a good mood. She stared into those enigmatic eyes, wondering what he had meant by fun.
Wariness and anger rose inside of her, a bulwark against whatever Morgan’s game with her tonight. She snapped back, “I don’t wish to have fun. Go back to shore and leave me alone.”
“I am taking you to shore tonight, Little One,” he said, his tone like a caress. “You are a very wild girl and you should be, at least once, where all things are wild.”
“I don’t wish to go anywhere with you,” she said trying not to meet the alluring darkness of his eyes. “I wish to sleep.”
Morgan’s answering smile cut through the armor around her heart like a steel spar.
“Would you come with me, Merry?” he asked slowly. “I can see that you want to. I would like to share what’s left of this night with you on the Irish coast.”
The urge to go with him surged upward out of nowhere and was nearly overwhelming. It would do her no good to fight him in this, but his invitation was melting her resistance, and the temptation was almost beyond her power to resist.
Merry was proud of herself that she was able to maintain her dignity, not jump to accept, and said instead, “Aren’t you afraid I will try to escape?”
His grin told her he wasn’t.
He said in a melting whisper, “Come with me, Merry. Let me watch you drink of Ireland.”
Let me watch you drink of Ireland. Morgan’s whispering voice made her shiver.
The man could be appealing to a fault when he wanted to be. Merry hated the fact that every part of her wanted to go with him. Wanted to feel that wildness on the hills that she could taste through the window glass. What a pitiful girl she’d become.