by Susan Ward
He went to his desk and began to rummage through the disorganized stack of logs books, set into his chair, and went into work of an entry. The minutes passed in agonizing slowness with Morgan saying nothing.
Unable to endure the silence a moment longer, Merry spoke: “I demand that you release me from this cabin, Captain.”
The neat moves of quill continued. He finished his entry before he leaned back in his chair and set his black stare upon her. “You know, Little One, you may call me Varian. We do share a cabin, after all. Captain seems a touch formal given the situation, don’t you think?”
“Nevertheless…”
He didn’t let her finish. He rose to his full height above her and said, “Why is it with women there is always a ‘nevertheless’. Never more. Never less—” His eyes began to glow wickedly. “—never, never, never.”
For so brief of statement it had a remarkable number of half messages. Miserably, Merry fought each one that rose in her thoughts. After a short hesitation of her trying to figure out something safe to say in return, he said in an offhand way, “Demand denied, unless you’d like to try again. Perhaps addressing me as Varian. That might do it. But, I don’t think so. Not today. I prefer you where you are.”
By late afternoon, watching the sky swirl and changing color through the stern windows, Merry understood why she’d been locked below all day in the cabin. She’d forgotten the blood red sky that had greeted at waking and the warning: Red sky at night sailors’ delight, red sky at morning, sailors’ warning.
A storm. Heavy seas shook the ship with tall waves, and both the decks and passageways would have been unmanageable for Merry. While she was slowly gaining a sailor’s footing, she was still far from Morgan and Indy’s steadfast strides through any disturbance. Curled in the chair, it took effort to maintain her perch as the ship launched back and forth, side to side.
The evening meal came and went without Morgan. Something about Morgan’s absence put Merry’s nerves on edge. She could set a clock by Morgan’s routine. He was not a man who ever deviated in habit or ritual.
Watching Indy clear away the meal, she asked the boy, “Are we going to sink?”
Startled, Indy stopped in the collections of dishes and fixed a harsh stare on her. “Sink? It’s hardly even a storm, Merry. The worst of it’s done. We should see smoother sailing by midnight. You should see the storms off Cape Horn. Now those are storms.” He continued in his task.
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
Impatient with her, he snapped, “Yes, I would lie to you, but no I’m not lying.”
“Then why was Morgan from the cabin all day, if the storm is not worrisome?”
The first question was a foolish one. The second one, merely irritating. Indy’s expression was sardonic. “Perhaps he’s had enough dealing with your vexing presence. Morgan has been playing cards in Craven’s cabin all day.” Picking up the tray, the boy went for the cabin door.
“And you best be asleep when Morgan returns. He always drinks, far too much, when he plays cards with Craven. He’s not going to have the patience to deal with your nonsense.”
Morgan drunk. An entirely new danger. That sent Merry quickly to curl on the window bench, hoping to fall asleep before the captain returned.
In the middle of the night, she was pulled from sleep to find Morgan in his bed and a growing discomfort in her abdomen. She’d started her flux. It was late in coming and she was always irregular. It seemed, at last, she was not going to be spared her curse on ship. Staring out the stern windows at the star cluttered sky, fighting against the icy quiver of her leg muscles and the sharp pains in her abdomen, she pulled her blankets more tightly around her, determined to wait it out until she was alone in the cabin.
She’d rather die than have to explain this to Morgan. Thinking of Netta, her gruff old maid, she felt tears sting in her eyes. There were times when a woman just wanted a woman. This was one of those times. An hour passed before she realized the futility in making an attempt to wait until morning. Her flux having come late, came in full force.
Carefully turning on the pillows, she cursed what she was sure was a male God for permitting it to start at night, cursed Morgan for his slumbering presence, and quietly climbed from the window bench with the quilt pulled tightly around her. Fumbling in the darkness at the knob on the door, she did not find the key in the latch where the captain always left it. After several frantic, rattling attempts to open it, she found Morgan sitting up in his bed watching her.
“If you are finished making that racket, go back to sleep.”
Merry tensed. There was something to his voice and something to his face, not familiar at all.
Still, necessity was proving of late to be the mother of courage. “I want out of the cabin. Please, open the door.”
Morgan ran a hand through his tousled waves, favored her with an annoyed scowl, and said in a voice of straining tolerance, “You’re not leaving this cabin at night alone.”
Feeling her shirt stick to her legs beneath the careful drape of the quilt, she took a rallying breath and lifted her eyes to his.
“Please. You must open the door. Please.”
Clearly, Morgan thought not. He eased back into his pillows, rolled onto his side and tugged up his blankets.
“Whatever it is, it can wait until morning.”
She made no move from the door.
Morgan lit a candle, studied her face, and then asked, “What’s wrong?”
There were no words that wouldn’t humiliate her to explain this.
“I need Indy.”
That made Morgan rise from his bed. He took a step toward her, thankfully clad in a nightshirt, and she quickly lowered her face.
“Why?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to answer your questions and just have you open the door. Please.”
Her cheeks began to warm.
“Why do you want the boy?” When Merry didn’t answer his black eyes sharpened on her face. “I won’t open the door unless you explain yourself.”
Achy, trapped, and humiliated, Merry’s temper exploded.
“Hang it, Varian, open the damn door!” she screamed.
The touch of Morgan’s eyes turned into a burn, and it cost her a fiery blush, but Merry managed to hold his surprised stare with a determined stare of her own.
She never called him by his Christian name, couldn’t imagine why she did it now, when this was an awkward moment at best to test it, and she wasn’t at all sure his reaction to it.
She heard a soft laugh above her and felt the mocking touch of his fingers on her cheek.
“Well, well, it must be a crisis. You should practice at saying my name without clenching your teeth, though I must admit the breathless quality gives it a certain je ne sais qui.”
He followed the insult by putting the light touch of his lips on the tip of her nose.
Tensing, Merry’s senses were flooded with the faint aroma of whiskey. She realized his strange manner was because of drink. His face was more relaxed, less intimating, and though Indy had warned her to stay clear of him tonight, if he were drunk, it seemed to make him only more tame and manageable.
“Open the door, Varian,” she repeated firmly.
That made him grin. Softly pinching her lower lips, he said, “My, you are a fast learner at times, quick and clever. Thou are in true, a woman.”
That insult, sharp and unintentionally too accurate, made the color darken on Merry’s cheeks. She resettled her spine in a more noble posture, jutted her chin, and was surprised when Morgan opened the door without further argument.
Quickly she raced down to Indy’s cabin. She could feel the captain watching as she frantically knocked. The door opened to present Merry with the drowsy faced boy. It wasn’t until Indy’s biting eyes clearly focused on her that it occurred to her it was no easier to discuss the nature of her distress with boy, than man.
Without a word she pushed passed him into
his cabin, and quickly fled under the blankets on his bed. It took twenty minutes for Indy to get the issue from Merry and another twenty to get her to stop crying. By the time she was comfortably tucked into his bunk, glass of brandy in her fingers, and cabin door locked behind him, Merry noted the boy was very practical and matter-of-fact about everything. Much better than it would have been if she had to rely on Kate. She rolled over in his bed and went quickly to sleep.
Morgan was sitting comfortably established in a chair reading when the boy entered the cabin. Indy set the bundle he carried on the carpet, poured himself rum, and sank to the floor, his silk robe puffing up around him. He unwound his braid slowly, shaking out the dark waves to fall across his lithe body to the floor. “She’s locked in my cabin. I’ll bring her back in the morning,” he said.
Morgan watched as he pulled a brush through his long waves. After several minutes, the boy explained, “At least the tears stopped, though I can hardly call her mood pleasant.”
“Ah,” was Morgan’s response to that. He favored the boy with a dark smile. “If you ever leave this ship, your future will be secure. You will be able to find employment as a lady’s maid.”
For that, Morgan got a cold black stare. Turning course, the captain added thoughtfully, “It has been a long time since you’ve spent a night in my cabin.”
Short. Uncivil. “Shay snores.”
From the bundle sitting beside him, Indy pulled free a sketchbook and pencils. Morgan’s black eyes sharpened with disapproval. “I thought we had agreed you wouldn’t do that on ship. There are more than a few who would garrote you if they knew of your proclivity to scribble everything you see.”
“You agreed. And I’ve not sketched for a long time. I needed a new subject. I don’t think any of the crew would mind what I sketch now.”
Morgan watched in silence as the boy moved the charcoal pencil in graceful strokes across the blank canvas. “Have you asked her to pose for you?” Morgan asked.
“No. I remember her body by memory, rather well.” That earned Indy a burning stare. He continued with the lines of charcoal.
Morgan tossed his book on a small table. “Do you plan to do that all night?”
“Just until I’m ready to sleep.”
Climbing into his bed, with a disquieting grin, Morgan said, “If you sketch her nude, you won’t sleep at all tonight.”
Indy had been expecting exactly that response. He tipped back his head, drained his rum, lifted from his portfolio a finished portrait of Merry, and dropped it on the captain’s stomach.
“Sleep with it,” he bit off, before he went to the window bench.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Considering the situation of being trapped on a pirate ship of men, there were little kindnesses by Morgan, here and there, that made Merry’s world tolerable. Morgan’s treatment of her set the terms of her confinement. Not violated or harmed by their captain, the crew would not dare either. She was permitted association with Mr. Seton, who proved pleasant in company. He was gentlemanly of manner and always ready with a fascinating tale or two.
Away from the strict rules of society, there was nothing Merry couldn’t ask, nothing Merry couldn’t learn, and nothing Merry could not endeavor, if she so wished to. What limits there were, were the limits Morgan placed on her. While being his hostage was an infuriating circumstance, it walked hand in hand with the first real freedom and lack of censure she’d ever known.
There was a certain irony to that if one had the interest to note it.
Somehow, the boy had worked from the captain, permission to allow Merry to stay in his cabin while her flux ran its course. Exactly how he had managed that, Merry didn’t want to know, but she refused to allow herself to believe he had done it with the true cause of her distress. It was bad enough she’d been forced to discuss this issue with Indy. The notion that her biological predicament might somehow have entered a discourse between the boy and Morgan was a humiliation she would have felt for a century.
Indy’s cabin was Spartan and without personality. His bunk, while comfortable and warm of blankets, did not hold the plushness or the pleasant scent of Morgan’s bed. Subtle luxury and comfort ran floor to beam in the captain’s cabin. In Indy’s cabin there was cleanliness, order, and uncluttered precision.
Everything in Indy’s cabin was locked up tighter than a bank vault. Still, it did not stop Merry from passing her days alone in his cabin trying to break into the vaults, which she hoped held clues to the mystery of this boy. Spending her days trying to spring latches and locks proved a pointless endeavor, but on the third day, by chance, she spied in surprise a dark leather ledger peeking from beneath the edge of his mattress. Wondering how she could have missed it, Merry snatched it from its hiding place and began to thumb through the pages anxiously.
The writing inside seemed to be a code of some kind. There were dates on the top of the pages that went back many years. She was sitting cross-legged on Indy’s bunk, rushing through pages in growing frustration, when she happened upon a page with a simple sketch upon it. The color drained from Merry’s face and her heart stopped.
There was not a lot of detail to the drawing, but oh, there didn’t have to be. She was effortlessly able to make out the figures in the mocking-like caricature. Frantic and frightened, she recalled the expression on Indy’s face when his eyes had clearly fixed upon her on the beach in Cornwall. Surprise and displeasure. She’d sensed then that this strange boy knew more than he revealed, but the sketch drawn in his ledger confirmed it.
She tried to make reason of when he might have drawn this—she was walking in Hyde Park. And this was not just any picture of her. She did not need anyone to tell her the flamboyant, foppish buffoon strolling beside her was Rensdale, Morgan’s archenemy.
The boy had known all along she had a connection with Rensdale, had saved her life, and brought her here anyway. She didn’t know what to make of that or how to calculate and prepare for the danger of this. Fearfully, she wondered what else he knew.
Trembling with panic and feeling betrayed, for betrayed she felt, since she’d grown to trust the boy and thought kindly of him. She jumped when the cabin door opened and Indy entered carrying her dinner tray. Without thought, she hurled the book at him and sprang to her feet, as the content of her meal scattered across the spotless wooden floor.
She shouted, “You lied to me. You know I have a connection to Rensdale. And you brought me to Morgan knowing all that. How could you do it, Indy? How could you lie to me?”
Calmly, Indy leaned back against his closed cabin door and crossed his arms. “Of course I lied to you. What did you expect? Thomas Becket?”
How could he so callously admit it to her? Struggling for composure, she asked, “Why haven’t you told Morgan the truth?”
Merry watched him as he slowly lowered to the floor and began to collect the splattered food and dishes at his feet. After another equally long, painful pause, he said carelessly, “I have my reasons, Merry.”
She darted across the room and shoved her face into his, forcing him to look at her. “Has it occurred to you that Morgan might kill me if he learns the truth? I thought you cared for me in some small way.”
Angry at the parts that were incorrect and angrier at the parts that were correct, Indy flung brutally, “Take him to bed, dammit. Perhaps, you’ll listen to me now. Save your life and take him to bed. If you want to get back to Falmouth living, the only way to do that is through Morgan’s sheets.”
“Never. It is not possible to save yourself by destroying yourself. You don’t understand what that would mean to me, or else you wouldn’t think it such a trivial thing.”
“Perhaps not, but I do know one survives only if one is willing to survive,” Indy said, his voice severe.
Merry was staring at him like an angry roaster. The air between them hissed with her fury. He made a slow movement to rise. “I’ve kept your secret thus far, Merry. And I’ve kept you alive. What worry have you that I won’
t continue to do both?”
A hush fell. Feeling the pangs from the conscience he thought long dormant, Indy cursed under his breath. “A smart girl would spend her time with what’s she learned, and reason the wise move with it.”
“A smart girl wouldn’t be here at all,” Merry said, a touch brokenly.
“No, I don’t imagine she would. I know it’s not a comfort to you, and you certainly have little reason to believe me, but it will all work about for the best, if you let it. Try to remember, things are not always what they seem. It’s not as desperate as you think.”
He gathered the tray and caught a glimpse as Merry knuckled her eyes, in that way she had when she was going to cry, and didn’t want to.
“Christ, Merry, there’s no need to enact a tragedy. Coupling is a perfectly normal part of human existence.”
That made her cheeks burn and her eyes flash again.
“No woman has ever died from going to a man’s bed,” he said, in a feeble attempt at reassurance.
Startled out of her tears and back into fury, she snapped, “That’s something only a man would say.”
“Perhaps.” Indy’s smile was uncharacteristically sympathetic. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
~~~
Morgan closed the door to his cabin and slowly began to undress. He took off his shirt, dropped it over the back of a chair, and gazed at the empty window bench. He strolled across the room, poured a hearty brandy, and then stretched out atop his bed. For five days the boy had kept Merry locked in his cabin, ostensibly in consideration of the rigors of menstruation. Morgan more suspected it was to provoke a conflict, though what kind of conflict, Morgan didn’t know for certain.
Morgan gazed out the stern windows at the starless night, his thoughts were claimed by a vision of Merry at sleep. He thought of her silken flesh caressed by moonlight and her dark curling hair flowing across the pillow as she clutched the pug against her. A smile rose to his face, as he recalled how her small white teeth were always nibbling on his shirt cuffs.