by Susan Ward
The young pirate stared at her. She asked this often. It was getting harder each time to hold his tongue. Her blue eyes were like church glass, she lay still as an idol, and there was a disarming desperation to her expression that was new. She looked like a small trapped animal, suffering, and confused.
Somehow he managed to say, “I don’t know, Merry.”
“I won’t stay here with him,” she said in an angry little voice.
That statement was full of double-edge meanings. On the surface it was foolish. She had no choice in the matter. Her words had nothing to do with her captivity, and everything to do with her anger at the man. The girl was more emotionally entangled than she was willing to admit.
In an oddly uneven voice she asked, “Why does he keep me?”
The boy pretended to give it thought for a moment.
“I don’t know. God knows, you haven’t the temperament to be a whore of Morgan’s.”
After an aching moment of silence, she asked, “What makes you think that?”
“You’re not in his bed. If he wanted you there, you would be there.” His eyes were hard and full of meaning. Pity roughened his voice. “As things stand, your circumstance is better than you could have hoped for.”
She rolled onto her side, her face on the pillow with her nose only an inch from his.
Brokenly, she said, “I have to get off this ship. As much as I try to deny it, I am starting to have feelings for him.”
“This really has been brutal for you, hasn’t it?”
She was brushing at tears again. “If affection for a man is this painful, I can’t imagine the way love feels. How do people survive it?”
Indy felt heartsick for her, brutally caught in a web of his creation. The events he’d set in motion had become little more than a bottomless morass for Merry.
It had started such a simple plan, but he’d never once considered what would happen if it veered off course, or even what it would mean to her if it succeeded. It had been the logical thing to do back on the beach in Cornwall, a means to spare Merry’s life, and a possible way to free himself from Morgan.
For the first time in a life of emotion-free logic, Indy was learning regret. He found it a harsh lesson. His motives, so simple in the beginning, he had never explored with honesty. His feelings for Merry, he had never anticipated. Reluctantly, he admitted, his feelings for Morgan had been there all along, in spite of his denial of their existence.
He forced himself to look at her clearly, the delicate lines of her face, the fragile finely boned structure of her, and the beauty of her. There was no possible way for this to end without harming Merry. He had not considered that at the start.
Even in the lingering warmth of the cabin, his fingers had become icy cold. This was his fault. He could think of only one way to protect her from where this was going. Only one way to make Morgan no longer desire her.
He couldn’t look into her eyes anymore. He buried his face in her hair, letting it pass over his face in a sigh. He whispered, “We’re in Bermuda. I can put you on a ship bound for England before Morgan returns.”
She gave him a round-eyed look that would haunt him in the months ahead. Eagerness and suspicion fought on her face. Into her indecision, he whispered, “But I want to make sure you are free of him, completely. As things stand, he will bring you back, Merry. We don’t want that, do we?”
His fingers whispered over her face, slowly caressing the nerve points, knowing how, and yet, still reluctant because her trust of him didn’t warn her of his actions. Her skin heated beneath his touch. Her eyes grew enormous, and he could feel her reaction to him. He was shock by the instant reaction in his own flesh. He could end this now, if he took her to his bed. If he made love to her, Morgan’s game with her would be over.
One hand came lightly to rest on her neck and the other to cup the gentle slope of her cheek. Her sweet face drowned out the world around him. Desire rose rapidly within him.
“Merry,” he breathed into her hair, “you do want away from Morgan, don’t you?”
He placed soft kisses where his fingers had been on her jaw. She didn’t pull back, but he could sense the confusion within her. He kissed the creamy flesh of her neck, then touched the sweetness of her skin with his tongue. The taste of her ran straight to his loins.
In a movement more abrupt than he wanted, he had her pinned beneath him. He pushed his flesh forward to let his hardness touch her. Merry jerked, and began to struggle beneath him.
Shocked and angry, her tiny hands pummeled his chest. “Stop that.” Dodging his lips, she screamed, “How could you think I’d consent to such a dastardly trade? I would rather drown in the Atlantic than be made a whore by any man.”
He eased back and tossed her away from him. He found himself saying, in a nasty voice, “I’m trying to help you, damn it. Do you think I want this? If you share my bed, Morgan will no longer want you.”
“And if I share your bed, I will never be free to go home. There must be another way to gain my freedom. Can you not see that your kindness is no kindness at all?”
Indy sat back on his heels, above her. Fighting to reign in the urgent demands of his body, his eyes widened as he dissected the emotions on her face, slowly digesting her final words. What he saw on Merry’s face warned him that it was, perhaps, kinder to them both that she had misunderstood his feelings for her.
The air between them hissed from the sound of him furiously pulling oxygen into his lungs. Fiercely, he asked, “Do you love him?”
Merry lowered her gaze and didn’t answer him.
Ruthlessly he jerked her face back to him.
In biting tones, he hissed, “They all love him, you stupid girl. His vanity demands it, but he will never love you.”
~~~
Merry was sitting in the center of Morgan’s bed when the knob on the door turned. Assuming it was Indy, she didn’t bother to pull up the blankets or toss the pug to the floor. She regretted both when she saw it was Mr. Craven, carrying in her breakfast tray.
His good brow rose sharply above his austere face. “Don’t stare at me all cutty-eyes, girl. If I had a mind to rape you, you’d be raped by now.”
His words were hardly a comfort as he set the tray on the table.
“You best get that dog off Morgan’s bed. If he sees it there he’s apt to give you the back of his hand, and toss it over the rail.”
She made a face at Craven, though she didn’t feel at all bold. “Morgan would never hit me. He only plays at being evil. He’s not an evil man, at all.”
Craven gave her a hard stare. Merry climbed from the bed, dropped the dog, and went to the table.
Fiercely, he sneered, “If it suited him, he’d slit you throat to ear. Don’t forget that, girl.”
He said the warning with such force, Merry should have accepted it as truth, without pause. It no longer surprised Merry that she didn’t.
Instead, she asked, “Why are you here? Where is Indy?”
“I sent the boy ashore.”
Her eyes rounded as she digested that. “But, Morgan expressly ordered that he stay on ship to take care of me.”
Craven grabbed her arm in a harsh hold. “I do as I please, girl, you best remember that. And don’t try my patience today. I’m not pleased, beyond half, to be forced to be wet-nurse to the likes of you.”
Merry tried her best not to wince facially, while his fingers dug into her brutally.
Lifting her chin, she fixed her wide blue eyes on Craven, and asked, “Then why did you send the boy ashore, if I’m such a nuisance?”
To her surprise Craven released her. He turned away from the table to collect the pug.
“I sent the boy ashore for your protection,” Mr. Craven said ominously, fighting to catch hold of the darting dog.
Merry called for the dog, picked him up, and then held him out for Craven. The gruff old man snatched him from her hands in a manner that made the dog whimper.
“My protection? Wha
t protection could I possibly need from Indy? The boy would never harm me.”
Alertly, she searched Mr. Craven’s face. Craven cursed under his breath.
Not answering her, Craven crossed to the door. “I’ll be back with the dog. See that you are dressed.”
She didn’t know what to make of that last order, but Merry chomped down her breakfast in record time. She was sitting in a lambskin chair, clad in the garments from Ireland, when Craven returned with the dog. He dropped the pug, turned a chair at the table, and settled on it with his arms spread across the top of the back. He gave her a thorough once over, with his dull, deep set eyes.
After a long while, he finally said, “Tell me who you are. I will settle a sum on you and send you on your way.”
Of all the things she had expected upon Mr. Craven’s return, it had not been this. Merry wanted desperately to jump on the offer, but the truth of her identity meant it was hardly likely Craven would see the bargain through. That is, if she could even trust him.
Carefully, she asked, “Why would you do that?”
“If I know who you are I know where to find you if you open those pretty lips of yours,” Craven continued in a cruel voice, “and I will find you, do not doubt me, Merry.”
Merry swallowed, uncertain if Craven spoke the truth or if this were a trick. It seemed impossible that Mr. Craven would defy Morgan and free her. She sank her teeth into her lower lip.
“I’m not going to sit around and play games with you, girl. This is likely to be the only offer for your freedom you’ll ever get. I need only to hear the truth from you. If you don’t want to answer me, then your fate becomes your doing.”
He started to rise from his chair.
Anxiously, she crossed the cabin toward him. “Why would you help me?”
The expression on his face had never been crueler. “I’m not trying to help you. I don’t give a damn about you.”
Merry wasn’t sure what to make of that and cautioned herself to remain silent.
He was at the door before he said over his shoulder: “Fine, hold your silence, see where it gets you. If you tell Morgan of this, I will lie, he will believe me, and then I will kill you.”
Mr. Craven said not a single word later that day when he brought her noon meal. He set it on the table and left without ceremony. When he came to retrieve her plate, strangely enough, he was carrying a small sewing box and a sampler.
He set it on Morgan’s bed with a harsh warning, “You’re going to be alone the rest of the night. I don’t want any trouble out of you.”
He took her plate, then the dog and left her.
The hours did not pass particularly pleasant for Merry. She hated sewing, had never mastered the skill, but as the embroidery was her only distraction, other than the books, she started to work on it anyway.
Late that night she heard Mr. Craven’s acidic voice in the passageway outside her door.
“Damn it, boy, go to your bunk and sleep this off. If you make any more trouble, I’ll chain you in the brig until Morgan returns.”
“I’ll see that he doesn’t,” the voice belonged to Shay.
“You best make sure of that. Keep him locked in his cabin until he sobers. My temper can’t support another one of his fits of weeping.”
The closing of Indy’s cabin door ended the trail of Mr. Craven’s words before she could understand the argument. Only minutes passed before she heard Mr. Craven’s firm tread moving toward his cabin.
She was sitting in Morgan’s chair, clumsily jerking needle through cloth and making a mess of the sampler, when she smelled Mr. Seton’s pipe smoke from the hallway. She tossed the tambour on the window bench and anxiously crossed to the door.
“Mr. Seton,” she hissed through the red oak.
She heard a husky laugh then the sound of a body, none too steady, sliding down the wood to sit on the floor.
“Flower, what are you doing awake? Wish I could find a way to pass through the sentinel to visit for awhile.”
“Sentinel?”
Brandon Seton laughed drunkenly. “Mr. Craven. You, Flower, are persona non grata today. You best watch your head when Craven’s around. At least until Morgan is back.”
“But why? What did I do? I heard Indy and Craven arguing in the hallway. What were they arguing about?”
After much probing, reluctantly, Mr. Seton admitted that yes, it had been about her, and that she best keep her oar out of it. She continued to press, then heard Mr. Seton’s labored rise to his feet.
“Damn it, Flower, the lad has been ordered to stay clear of you. And that’s all I can tell you because that’s all I know. I’m drunk as a sailor, Merry, or I wouldn’t have talked to you at all.”
Chidingly, Merry pointed out, “You are a sailor.” Then, “Why shouldn’t you talk to me?”
She heard what she thought was his forehead landing heavily against the door. A loud sigh.
“Craven is in hell’s own mood. I don’t know what you did, but you’re lucky to be alive. Morgan may be the devil, but Craven is his wrath. Be careful.”
Merry laid back against the red oak door listening to Mr. Seton leave. Morgan wasn’t the devil, at all. Why was she the only one on ship who could see it?
There was only one evil man on the Corinthian. Craven was the devil, and Merry didn’t doubt all things evil in-between.
~~~
It was the dead of night when Morgan returned to ship to find Merry curled in his bed. Even if he’d been inclined to join her, she hadn’t left him any space.
She was on her side, lying crossway on his bed, his shirt twisted tautly around the line of her hip, her legs bare, and blankets in a heap at the foot. There was just enough moonlight to illuminate the creamy flesh of her face. The vision she made would have been perfect, if her rose petal lips hadn’t been slightly apart and her airy breaths ones of light snoring. The gasps were not dainty, at all.
He watched her for a moment. Lightly, he touched her palm to feel that her skin was slightly cool and gently pulled up the blankets.
Quietly, he placed the bundles he’d carried in on his table, and found, laying open, a book on ship design. Amused, he lifted it and settled in his chair. Merry was almost through it. He opened it to a page with the corner folded back, tilting it toward the moonlight, and noting it was a section dedicated to the design of his own type of ship.
Nothing, it seemed, passed the girl’s notice. Two months at sea and she was already deep into analyzing the differences in the vessels she’d seen. Whimsical she may seem on the surface, but her youth hid a mind that would have been termed gifted, if she had been born male. Through her virgin panic it didn’t always show clearly, he knew that when she was more seasoned, more composed than youthful, her nimble intelligence would prove as compelling as her beauty to any man wise enough to appreciate it.
She was still little more than an uncut diamond, even at nineteen, but fully cut, she would sparkle magnificently.
A sound from the pug drew his attention to the window bench. Crossing the cabin, he grabbed the mutt, and pulled free from its teeth the edge of a sampler. He couldn’t imagine which one of the crew gave Merry this. This was not something Indy would have thought of for her, and definitely not the sewing box with its polished marquetry cap.
Tambour in one hand, he tossed the dog from the cabin. He examined Merry’s efforts and saw that embroidery was not one of her talents. It surprised him, since needlework was usually the first accomplished tasks of any well-bred English girl. The stitches were uneven, impatient in their appearance, and even he could tell they weren’t done correctly.
Careful not to wake her, Varian undressed. Noting it was nearly morning, he pulled on attire appropriate for ship. He settled into his chair and found himself watching Merry again.
She was a beautiful woman, young and spirited. He reluctantly admitted his fascination with her went deeper than the fact she was young, beautiful, and new. He felt the return of desire, as sharp and insist
ent as it had been before he’d left the ship. What would she do if he joined her in bed? Would she melt in his arms, or would she fight him?
He had no idea. He only knew that whatever it was that kept him from taking her was dwindling fast.
Wondering what he should do with her, strangely, it was an image of Ann that floated upward through his musings. The sudden picture of Ann, a frequent haunting of late, made the women he’d been with on shore seem vile and jaded.
It surprised him how often he thought of Ann these days. Stranger still, how his thoughts of her were tangled with his thoughts of Merry. Every day it was more Merry, than Ann, that surfaced from this tangled web of his memories and the present.
He spent the remainder of the night in his chair staring at the girl. Shortly before dawn, he left her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Corinthian was back at sea. Curled in Morgan’s chair, Merry glared at the dresses laid neatly on the captain’s bed, pulling the needle in and out with angry jerks through the thin sampler. The gowns had coincided with the unexpected loss of Indy’s garments.
Whatever the purpose of Morgan’s gift, she did not want it. She wanted only her freedom and return to Falmouth.
The cabin door opened and she started. It was Morgan.
The pug sprang from the window bench and trotted to him, whining for attention he would never receive.
Taking no notice of her glare, Morgan said, “We are out of range of the islands. Get dressed. You may go topside if you wish to.”
Merry made another jerky move with the needle. “I can’t dress. I need clothes from Indy.”
“No.”
“Then I prefer to stay here. I will not wear those garments.”
Morgan settled at his desk and instantly turned his focus to work.
“Then I will take back my shirts. I have the advantage in this, Little One. Eventually, I win. I always do.”
A knock on the door proceeded Mr. Craven’s entry to the cabin. There was a sullen look on his face and a breakfast tray in hand.
Morgan said, “I don’t wish to be disturbed the rest of the morning.”
Mr. Craven promptly left the cabin.