by Laura London
“Would you come with me, Merry?” Devon said slowly to her. “Who knows what the pair of us will be able to catch?”
It took a little while to talk Merry into an assent because his invitation had been reluctant and because she was certain it did her no good to indulge her need to be with him, but in the end the temptation was beyond her power to resist.
When she had run into the villa to fetch a bonnet and Devon had gone to the front entrance to wait for her, Morgan walked to Cat, who had been silent after his one comment. Annie slept on, but Cook, Saunders, and Raven watched incredulously as Morgan caught Cat’s jaw in the bite of one wide hand. Black eyes burned into pale-blue frost.
“Keep it under control, babe,” Morgan said softly. And left them.
A shocked silence ensued as the three tried to digest and interpret the extraordinary thing that had happened. Morgan, against all precedent of custom and courtesy, had disciplined Cat in public. Reviewing the preceding minutes in their minds, not one of them could understand why it had happened.
At last Raven hazarded, “Is it—is it Merry, Cat? Surely she’s safe with Devon. He’d put his whole hand in boiling rice water before he’d hurt her.”
Not answering, Cat stared at Raven as though he couldn’t see him. He turned, walking and then running lightly, in the direction Morgan had taken. Behind him Saunders stared at the half-strung mandolin lying deserted on the gray stone wall.
“I wonder,” he said, “if we’ll ever know what that was about.”
Running slowly, Cat caught up with Morgan much farther down the slope, beside the villa vegetable plots where Morgan’s sable hair stood out against the brilliant light-green leaves of the young plantains. Cabbages and carrots bumped from the earth in squat lateral rows, and above them were small weedless tracts of parsley, sage, thyme, and the succulent jade shoots of ginger and arrowroot. Morgan, Cat saw, had stopped and was awaiting him beside a castor oil plant. So be it.
As Cat approached, Morgan gave him an extravagant smile and stretched an arm to the side, as though offering that space, that embrace, to Cat’s shoulders.
“Come with me, my dear,” he said. “I have an appointment in the village.”
Cat froze where he was.
“If I’d known we were going to have theatricals,” said the boy, “I would have brought my face paint.”
Morgan dropped his arm in an easy movement and let his smile take on an edge. “What are you so worried about? I’ve kept her alive this far, haven’t I?”
Livid with frustration, Cat snapped out, “You unseemly arrogant son of a whore—you’ve tried to kill her. I’ve kept her alive.”
“Allow me to rephrase,” said Morgan evenly. “I should have said, I’ve provided to keep her alive.”
“Then why the devil won’t you let me do that? She’s too weak yet. If he puts his bastard in her—”
“Babe, you’ve already told him that. He knows.”
“He’ll forget. You’ve arranged things so he’ll forget. Merry doesn’t understand what she does to him.”
Morgan’s eyes glittered with laughter and shone, lusciously cloying like black cherries. “Doesn’t she? Then you ought to have explained it to her.”
“Am I her dry nurse?”
“Aren’t you? I thought you volunteered long ago. And I thought Devon was supposed to cure himself on her body. Didn’t you tell him that? Or does she fluctuate in and out of a state of being rapeable? Since none of you has the faintest idea what you want, then you are all going to get what I want you to have, which—”
“Is misery?”
“Which for you is the opportunity to discover how it feels when you can’t protect something you love.”
Cat recoiled like an animal from a flame thrust. He stood, digesting the words by slow degrees, the delicately toned eyes filled with startled distaste. “Rand…” For the first time he heard something akin to fear in his own voice. “Don’t use her to teach me pain. Anyone. But not her.”
“I can’t stop it now for your sake, child. There are many more involved than you.” The black cherry eyes had become much gentler. “You’re one of the lives in my world; but you’re not the center of it.”
It had come—the careful loving rebuff Cat had known would come one day. For years, on Morgan’s warning, Cat had been preparing himself for it, and now that it was here, Cat was surprised by his own readiness to receive it. He was well aware, in the long run, what Rand Morgan expected him to do.
“I’ve never asked,” Cat said, “to be the center of anyone’s life. I don’t think I could stand it. This is bad enough already.” And as Morgan cracked the tension with purling laughter Cat added, “Look, once she as good as told me that she does have some kind of secret that might make Devon harm her. Is that true? Do you know about it?”
“Of course I know about it. Do you think I’d grapple in blind space? Yes, she has a little secret, and she’s hung on to it with extraordinary tenacity. I was sure she would break down and tell him, or you at least, a long time ago. Her overdeveloped sense of honor has made this more difficult than even I would have prescribed, but I have to admit I wouldn’t have her be other than she is.” A second time Morgan raised his arm in an offered embrace, and with a sigh Cat stepped into it and received the heavy weight of Morgan’s arm across his shoulders. They walked side by side through the plantains. Cat watched the leaves tossing restlessly under the greedy wind-fingers that shredded the tender greens along their transverse veins.
Presently he remarked, “I suppose you have this so elaborately worked out that if I interfere, the chain of reaction would tip the continents and drown us—”
“Like all the dogs on Atlantis. Something like that. Remember it later, please.” Morgan smiled at the sky. “My hens don’t lay square eggs.”
Chapter 20
Merry ran ahead of Devon on the green pasture that dipped toward the beach. The scent of guinea grass filled her skirts. Tiny pink-winged moths fluttered before her in a giddy mist, and her uncovered hair billowed in sun-gilt clouds around her face. The borrowed bonnet hanging upon wide ribbons from the crook of her arm had become a flower basket overflowing with the colors of St. Elise. She—or Devon for her—had freely plucked from the island blossoms: sprays of sapphire starflowers, regal scarlet trumpets, milky roselike buds, velvet blooms of cadmium yellow.
Things had been easier during her illness, when that septic lethargy had dulled her to his masculinity. Now, when he touched her, even in the innocent act of handing her a flower, Merry felt like she’d swallowed the whole flotilla of pink moths. She was aware of the pleasure-promise within the sensual curl of his lip. She remembered the lazy worship of his lovemaking, when he had held all of her in the caress of his mind and body. Few other men had charm that came as easily or ran as deep.
The meadow entered the tranquil shadows of an all-spice grove. Merry slowed, letting her senses feast on the hauntingly aromatic perfumes issuing from leaves and bark. As Devon came to her side his nearness tickled the front length of her body even though he made no move to touch her. His expression was pleasant but abstracted. Probably he was thinking about fishing. It made sense. In her dreams she was writhing under the clever drift of his hands; in his dreams the writhing object was likely to be a trout. Romance was so complicated that it must take a genius to work it out. Aunt April should have told her. But then, Aunt April could never have predicted Devon. No one could have predicted Devon.
Drawing a red blossom from the hat, she began to lace its stem to another that was apple-flower white.
“Unless you were born on a moss bed fully formed like a pixie on the day I met you,” Devon said, “you must have had some sort of a life.”
Her head snapped around quickly under his amber gaze. So he hadn’t been thinking about fish. Much she knew about men. It was somewhat lowering to reflect she couldn’t tell from looking at him whether she was on his mind, or lines, hooks, and bait; but there was nothing she could do about
that either.
“I suppose I did,” she said, threading a plum-colored flower into her chain.
“What kind of a little girl were you?” he asked.
“Mousy. Always daydreaming. I wanted to please”—she said it lamely—“everyone.”
It seemed as though her very soul was melting under the compassion in his eyes. His smile was an endearment. What did this mean?
“How did your hair look?” he said.
“Also mousy.” She concentrated on her fingers, weaving another blossom to the first ones. “Little pieces slid out of the ribbons and fell on my face. And I had a skinny neck. People spelled when they talked about me.”
“Spelled?”
“Yes. The wives of my father’s friends used to say, ‘Such a well-mannered child. What a pity she’s so h-o-m-e-l-y.’ ” How aggravating it was that after so many years she couldn’t tell the story without a slight constriction in her throat. “My aunt said that I must learn to say, ‘I may be h-o-m-e-l-y, but at least I’m s-m-a-r-t.’ ”
She had thought to amuse him and was surprised, glancing sideways, to find that his sculptured lips had no smile. A hand on her shoulder stopped her, and she was turned gently toward him. They were separated by only a thin air cushion as his palms found and raised her chin.
“What you are and have always been,” he murmured, “is lovely.” His mouth came, a slow glowing pressure on hers, withdrawn before she could press back and show him the fevered urgency in her heart.
And so with much constriction of the throat, thousands of moths in the esophagus, and very wobbly ankles, she resumed her stroll with Devon toward the beach. They had gone about five steps when he said, “Do you know, there are times I find you so entrancing that I have to remind myself that you’re a living woman and not the supernatural expression of my fantasies. We have ascertained, haven’t we, that you aren’t a pixie?”
Since it was the most unordinary thing anyone had ever said to her, Merry didn’t immediately regain her voice. Her nerves were in numb shock, as if she’d hit her head on a cupboard. She swallowed convulsively and worked two red blossoms in a row into her chain of flowers. She had no idea whether he was sincere or whether this was merely an elaborate style of flirtation. It sounded sincere, but if that was so, why hadn’t he wanted her to come with him today? Why hadn’t he spent more time with her lately? She ought to have gulped down her pride and gleaned what she could from Cat. The only safe course now was a light response.
“Absolutely, I’m not a pixie,” Merry said. “The sad truth of the matter is that I’m a jellyfish changed by a wicked witch into a girl, and that’s why you can see through me on clear mornings.”
“I’m ready to see the inside of you,” he said softly, smiling down at her, “time of day notwithstanding.”
As beginnings went, it was promising. Devon invented fantastic cures to break the spell. Some of them were winsomely bawdy and sounded like things she’d like to try. (Heavens! She wouldn’t admit it though.) Stirred and uncomfortable about it, she halfheartedly uttered a laughing protest and got back a smile from him that turned her bones to clotted cream.
Simulating innocence, he said, “I beg your pardon. But you could hardly expect me not to become intrigued by a fascinating project like finding new ways to turn you into a—”
“Jellyfish,” she finished for him. “Don’t worry. No one has more of an aptitude for that than you do.” But the tone of her voice was faintly dejected.
Acute as he was, Devon caught her unspoken distress and neatly altered the subject. Because it happened so quickly, Merry didn’t have time to decide whether his motive was boredom, pity, or something more complex.
Ebb tide had left a playful rubble on the white coral sand. Piles of seaweed dried under the sun-oven baked beside sponges and wave-torn chunks of fan coral. Dainty violet crabs ran to and fro among the fresh-hued tidal litter, making what meal they could of stranded codfish. Palms swayed to the sea’s unending water carol.
Devon’s canoe was secured among the leathery foliage of the seaside grape trees, and a good many of those crimson-veined leaves and red berries had dropped into the canoe’s bilge along with yesterday afternoon’s rain puddle. Together he and Merry cleaned it out.
On the water, once they were beyond the churning surf, the canoe rode like a chamois cloth over oiled glass. Clear sea quivered behind them into a whispering wake; beyond the short, easy strokes of Devon’s paddle the bay was quiet. Heat blossomed in waving tails as the canoe passed light as a floating feather through a bobbing flock of man-o’-war birds. Feeding pelicans dropped on flagging wingbeats toward the disappearing diamonds that lit the placid water.
On the day before, Devon had set a fish pot. The light wood marker made a dancing speck in the glossy distance, and they approached it slowly over a pristine underwater landscape of honeycombed limestone caverns that were carpeted in undulating marine grasses. Starfish clung by prehensile arms to hidden niches, and fantastically colored fish schooled and swirled in the deeply drifting sunbeams.
Morgan’s German cook had packed them a small lunch, and Merry’s rummage through that basket turned up a long piece of sugarcane shed already of its green outer layer. She settled back against the bow, abandoning herself to the lapping movement of the canoe beneath her body, and to the warm penetration of sunlight through the cloth over her breasts and legs. She had made the colorful chain of flowers into a wreath, settling it timidly upon her apricot curls, where it tipped seductively forward as she bent her head to the sugarcane. Bringing the thick stalk to her lips, she nibbled the cane fibers to release the sweetly flowing juices and sucked gently on the tip. Tepid sugar water dripped into her throat, and she drank in a softly rippling swallow. Escaping drops pearled her pink lips, and she caught them in an arcing sweep of her tongue.
Across from her and watching, Devon had drawn a single breath that was out of rhythm with the others and that focused her attention on him. His eyes were hooded fires, a forgotten smile lingering on the surface of his mouth. With no very accurate idea of what he had on his mind, Merry smiled back, sat forward with the flower wreath dropping endearingly over one eyebrow, and said genially, “Would you like to share?”
“Another time, lady bright,” he said, not taking his gaze from her face.
The fish “pot” was a woven canework box with narrowing jaws, a trap for unwary sea creatures. Devon pulled it up by the attached rope, and as the trap broke from the sea, shrimp flooded through the lattice with cascades of aerated saltwater. Inside the pot were four fish. Devon identified them for her—a white hind splashed with scarlet spots, a pink goatfish, and two snappers with golden bellies and yellow fins. Merry couldn’t help noticing they didn’t like being pulled from the water any more than she had ever liked being thrown into it.
“I suppose,” she suggested carefully, “that now that you’ve had the fun of catching those beautiful fish, you’ll be letting them go?”
His grin assumed she was joking. Working the rope into a damp coil, he said, “They taste as good as they look.”
Merry studied the effective movements of his well-formed hands as he untangled a small and disgruntled squid from the trap’s interior and tossed it back into the sleeping bay.
“I don’t think I could enjoy the taste of a fish I’d met face-to-face,” she said reflectively, putting her hand outside the canoe and stirring the water with sticky fingertips.
Devon’s eyes traveled to her wet fingers and followed the line of that graceful arm from her rounded shoulder to the deliciously pretty face under the lopsided flower crown, dusky lashes innocently lowered against the creamy cheekbones—and that ridiculous little nose. Her face was a delight in color and in form, but it was not the face of a woman he would ever have anticipated would wield this kind of power over him.
“Merry!” he said in mock reproach, remembering suddenly the scenes so similar to this one that had led him at the age of ten to stop letting his sister come fishing
with him. The thought produced the smile he was trying to hide. “I can’t believe you want me to let them go. Why, that snapper is more than two feet long!”
The too-small nose took on a mischievous tilt. “Pooh. It’s only a foot and a half.”
“Damn it, it’s two feet if it’s an inch.”
“One foot nine inches,” she said, “and that’s my last offer.”
Her manner was still oh, so playful, but some abstract sense told him that for her this was no game. She meant to test him. It was like her suddenly to see the fish as a symbol of her own captivity. He had never met anyone with her amazing sentimentality. More amazing still was how that delicacy of mind had survived those weeks on the Joke and contact with men like Erik Shay and Max Reade… and of course himself. He carried that thought to his fingers as he opened the box’s latched back and sent the trap again into the calm waters. One by one the fish went their ways, tails twitching.
In the meantime Merry was resisting the urge to toss her arms around his neck and shower his blond hair with kisses. Among other deterrents she’d probably upset the canoe. From her brother, Carl, and her cousin, Jason, she knew it was usually useless to ask men and boys not to shoot squirrels or catch fish. Devon had understood her. She knew her uncontrolled smile was silly and a little tremulous.
Devon’s grin had equal elements in it of affection and amused exasperation. Shaking his head slowly, he began to laugh, and she laughed with him until the floral wreath made its final slip and plopped down over her eyes.
The canoe moved idly for a long time near a hilly shoreline heavy with groves of coconut palm and straggling beds of prickly pear with their profuse baubles of flower and fruit. Staring in a happy daze at the scenery, Merry was recalled to her surroundings by Devon’s voice with the prosaic reminder that even though the heat was unseasonably mild, she had better cover her arms and face because God only knew what Cat would do to the pair of them if Devon brought her home with a sunburn. Merry struggled into a straw bonnet and shawl as she watched Devon relax against the stern, trailing a line baited with enough sprat to sink the wire hook of its own weight.