by Laura London
“If something bites,” he said, holding her in a lazy gaze, stretching his long, handsomely proportioned legs out before him, “can I keep it if it’s u-g-l-y?”
To cover the soggy wash of love she was feeling for him, Merry answered his teasing with a face. “Man’s work, isn’t it—fishing?”
“You ought to go with Raven. He ties the line around his toe and falls asleep. Once he caught a turbot, and a shark ate that and dragged Raven through fifty feet of water.” Then, “You realize, of course, if one of those fish had been served to you at dinner, you would have eaten it without a qualm.”
She rested her chin on her fist. “I know I haven’t always been philosophically consistent. I’m to work on it,” she said, thinking about certain lectures from Cat. Shifting her body, she dug in the picnic basket and discovered her sketch pad. “Sometimes I think I should be eschewing animal flesh altogether.”
“Doubtless, mine included. Good Lord, what are you doing? Are you going to draw a picture of me?” he said.
“Why, yes, but only as part of the scenery. Imagine yourself as being a rock or a tree.”
“Stones have been known to move and trees to speak.” Devon spoke the quote with a half smile. “What would you like me to do? Must I not talk? Or shall I be amusing? Would you like to hear about this canoe?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Merry, making a rough outline of his hair, which shone in the tropical sun like late-summer wheat.
“The canoe,” he said, “was a silk-cotton tree, hollowed by axes and by burning. Cat and I made it a few years ago—a very wholesome project, mind you. Morgan was beside himself to see us so constructively engaged. Do you know—you have a unique ability to sit for a long time on your heels. Love, stretch your legs out.”
Her eyes of horizon blue became very wide. Steadying herself on the sides of the canoe, Merry shyly unbent her knees until her feet alternated with his in the white sunlight that leached color from the canoe’s bottom. She had taken off her shoes, as he had, and his clean, tanned skin heated hers. The sharp classical cut of his bones was evidenced even in his feet, which were as charming in their appearance as it was possible for that under-valued, ill-regarded body member to be. It must be love, Merry thought. I adore his feet.
“Tell me more about the silk-cotton tree,” she said with a gulp.
“It has a sensitive soul, you know. It’s widely believed that if you throw a stick at it, you’ll be visited with misfortune.”
“If the silk-cotton doesn’t like sticks thrown at it, how on earth did it react to axes and fire?” she asked, working with her pencil on the humorously arrogant tilt of his upper lip.
“Very well, because we’d taken the precaution of pouring libations of rum at its roots. The best superstitions always have an antidote.” Drawing back his leg, he used the top of his foot to gently rub the plush inner curve that stretched to her toes. As soon as she saw what he was going to do, she expected it to tickle. The surprise was that the ticklish feelings occurred neither in the manner she had anticipated nor in the places. A blush began, spreading in from her cheekbones toward her nose, and to cover it, Merry picked up her sketch pad, as though she had to study her drawing from a closer vantage. Safely hidden, she was able to say, “Devon, why does Morgan live here?”
“Instead of, perhaps, in a tent on the coast of Spanish Florida? Because he’s a rich man, my dear.”
“Don’t the other island families mind that Morgan’s a pirate?” she asked, secretly fanning her blush.
“If they do, they don’t say so to his face,” Devon answered good-humoredly. “St. Elise is so isolated that I don’t think they realize what the name Rand Morgan means in other places.”
Willing the blood from her cheeks, Merry took the bold step of lowering the sketchbook to her knees again. She could only hope for the sake of her self-respect that he didn’t know the full extent of the things he did to her. Casually she said, “How did Morgan come to own the island?”
There was a slight hesitation which made her look up at him, but she could discover nothing unusual in his face.
He said, “Rand bought it from the St. Cyrs.”
“As in the Duke of?” asked Merry, astonished by the eerie coincidence of it, remembering that the Dowager Duchess of St. Cyr had been the catalyst for the disastrous chain of events which had brought her here. Merry reminded herself that she must not appear to know more about the famous St. Cyr family than the average well-read person might. Her ability to anticipate him was improving, because the next question Devon asked was, “You know the family?”
There was a keen edge to the question that Devon took no trouble to conceal, and that made her uneasy. Or perhaps it was his soft exploration of the base of her toes that she found disturbing.
“Who doesn’t know of the St. Cyrs?” she said. “The current duke is highly regarded in the United States, you know, for his opposition to the Orders in Council that permitted the British Navy to blockade American ports.” She waited to give him the opportunity to defend his country’s hateful atrocities. Either he was in no mood to argue, or he had no strong feelings on the subject, because he made no comment.
The other item of note about the St. Cyr family was that the father of the present duke had been the world-renowned botanical painter. His wonderful volume of nature drawings was one of her favorite possessions; it was in her trunk with Aunt April.
Shading the shapely hollows beneath his Attic cheekbones, she ventured, “I can’t imagine how the distinguished St. Cyrs could have an association with Rand Morgan.”
“Ah—the St. Cyrs are a loose family, my dear. Did you know that the late duke married the daughter of his head gardener? The dowager duchess wore mourning for a year after the wedding and sent her son and new daughter-in-law a wagon of vegetable marrows on their first anniversary.” Fitting his sole to hers, he continued. “The St. Cyrs had this island ceded to them by Charles II on the condition that they pay ‘unto His Majesty yearly and every year one fat sheep if demanded.’ As Morgan says, there’s quite a tale behind the sheep.…”
It was a good day for talking. The kindly fates, after separating Devon and Merry in experience and temperament, had looked back with regretful sighs and cast camellia garlands of warm conversation to the ill-omened pair. The young man who was a spy and the girl who was a spy-of-sorts had earned this fate-given opportunity, he for the sacrifice he had made for her, though that meant he must accept her honesty on faith alone, which was not an easy thing for a man who had never learned to trust his lovers. And if he was deserving for his sacrifice, she won her laurels for its opposite, for the meager, unheralded act of heroism of withholding from him the secret that was not hers to reveal.
So, when anyone would think that they wouldn’t have much to talk about, neutral subjects arrived for them the way shells appear on the newly strewn seashore with each flooding tide. Devon had the kind of natural charisma that would have made a crowd of two thousand listen with bated breath as he discussed the digging of a drainage ditch. At age eighteen Merry Wilding was not so talented. Most men would have been happy to stare at her by the hour; only the kind ones would be equally content to listen to her talk; that would come later in her life. And though not one of his myriad discarded mistresses, however fond, would have called him kind, Devon delighted even in the most naïve of Merry’s minutiae. There was little he had not seen on the battlefield or in the bedroom, but he could still find drama in her story about the time she had seen lightning strike a windmill and ignite the canvas covering on the vanes to dancing flames. When little fish nibbled the bait from Devon’s line, he laughed and didn’t put it out again.
Later he rowed them to a cove he knew where the beach skipped inward between two dormant volcanic peaks. Primitive forests brightened the twin cones and reflected with them in the shimmering film of water that iced the ivory sands as the waves withdrew.
Together Devon and Merry beached the canoe beside a pile of driftwood and wandere
d along the wave line. He casually held out his hand, and she took it, letting the dangerously unresolved problems between them ride out with the tide.
The sand was heated gossamer, deep enough to cover their ankles. He made her pause before a great conch shell that lay half-buried in the glittering silt. A large butterfly perched atop the shell, its translucent yellow wings parting and closing in soft, gentle beats. He picked up the shell and held it to her, and as she reached for it, feeling its hardness and satiny texture beneath her fingertips, the butterfly took wing. His hands spread under hers, supporting them, taking the conch’s weight as she gazed into its swelling folds. The pure colors dazzled her, pearly white along the rim deepening first to pink and then to a brighter scarlet hue, until in the inner mysteries where the light could not reach, the shell became a lovely mixture of dusky purple and hazy deep red. Their joined hands carried the shell to her ear, and the silver-toned roar wept into her senses. Sunlight stung her shoulders, sea moisture found her lips. The bright golden hairs on his chest lifted at the casual affectionate touch of the ocean breeze, and she longed to rub her cheek against their softness. Smiling at him, she raised her head, and they walked again. He carried the shell, with his fingers curled into its open lip, and slipped his other arm around her waist. Her head rested on his shoulder, and her hair, blown by the trade winds, streamed across his chest and throat like fine gold dust.
Eden.
They found a brook that fed the aqua bay with spring water. Two pelicans had landed among the black rocks there and preened their feathers and tossed water over their wings as Merry and Devon strolled by them, following the freshet inland. The foliage of the giant mahoganies met overhead in a natural arbor that allowed sunlight to seep through in pale-green bands. The freshet fed a stream, and that a cascade of rapids widening at the base into a secluded pool. An aged frame of limestone swept along the far side of the pool. Masses of wall marigolds exploded between the broken stones along with heavy blossom bundles in red and violet.
Mincing like a fawn over the sharp little rocks at the pool’s edge, Merry walked into the shallows as Devon set down the shell and followed her with more assured steps.
The pool was fed by a warm underground spring which she could feel rushing over her feet, and as they waded they found to their delight that it was quite deep, and she leaned back luxuriantly into his arms as the warm, relaxing fluid lapped about her thighs. A mound of swollen scarlet flowers dripped from the limestone outcropping overlooking the pool, and the musky scent tickled at her nostrils. She sighed with joy at the wash of sensations. The sunlight, falling down through the arch of trees above them, probed at her, awakening her, playing across the freckled cheeks, the tiny nose, the huge heavy-lidded eyes. Her thick hair tumbled over her breasts like the cascade that spilled down the rocks behind them, and he could feel her breathe beneath his wrists as he encircled her from behind; it was such a pleasing picture to him, one of lovely skin tugging at thin fabric, wet and diaphanous where the water had done its work—it seemed like she was a new creature, half human, half flower, her gown swirling about her like petals.
He turned her to him, and she leaned back against the soft fall of flowers, lifting her chin, letting the sun touch the most delicate and unreachable softness of her throat, her back arching gracefully, bending under the warmth of his hands on her sides. Their bodies touched, his hard and muscle-knit, hers soft and yielding, holding each other in a soul-spinning embrace, his desire and her response as innocent and as rich and as floral as the bud plumes lying splendidly against her cheek. Her lips parted slightly as she breathed the perfumed, nectarlike air.
He studied the young face, remembering the dark hours when death had laid its coldly beckoning hands on her, and his kiss, when it came to her, was chaste and urgent. But the free-flowing fire between them began to soften and shape their mouths, and the pressure of his lips increased.… He pulled back then, pleasuring in the sight of her, learning the full curve of her cheek with the caress of his finger.
She tilted her head under his touch, inadvertently brushing her own lips against his; and drew back, startled by the heat rising within her. Suspended in tenderness, she held the impression of his willing male flesh upon her mouth, the form of the alien lips, which were firm and winning. Her lashes danced open, and her eyes met his subtly tempting gaze.
He murmured, “Kiss me again.” And then, softly, “Please.”
Initiating their contact was awkward for her, perhaps partly because he was infinitely more skilled than she. “Please,” he had said, and stood courteously silent. He touched her lower lip, gently rubbing back and forth there as it distended under his thumb. The water touched warmly at her thighs with innocent provocation; the sun was constant upon them, a halo. Finally she put up her chin, gazing into his eyes for a moment before she closed hers, and pressed her mouth to his in a full, open kiss. When she broke from him, she was trembling so that he had to support her with his hands, and her cheeks were hotly flushed.
As though she believed she were making a confession that would surprise him, she said, “I’m never sure if I’m doing it the right way.”
Laughing huskily, he collected her body and dragged her close. “Then you’ll be reassured when you see I’m too overcome to paddle us home.”
“That wasn’t really an answer,” she said.
Stroking back her hair with his palm, he said, “Oh, my dear, I’m sorry.” He smoothed his lips into her rosy curls. “I didn’t know you wanted a real answer.” His fingertips thrilled in light strokes over the quivering skin on her neckline. “There aren’t ways that are right or wrong. Please yourself. That’s all you need to do with me, Merry. Watching as you touch clouds takes me there with you.”
With a graceful movement he plucked her from the water, nurturing her in his arms, and carried her with her legs dripping to the flat ocher shelf of a boulder. He set her on the rock, standing in front of her as she stretched back on her hands, losing herself in the sudden penetrating sensation of hot, hard stone beneath her thighs. But her gown was heavy with spring water and clung like gauze to her hips, and driplets melted from the fabric and explored the inside of her thighs in an oddly dulcet manner. She plucked at her wet skirts and began to wring them out, trying without success to avoid baring her legs.
“I should take you home,” he said. “You’re”—his gaze traveled the length of her, taking in her slim, shapely body, and below, the pale skin of her legs, the dainty swelling muscles of her calves, the way her legs were slightly parted on the rock—“wet.”
She dropped the tangled hem, lifting her shadowed, delicately veined lids to stare at him wide-eyed, and tried to say something intelligent about being taken home, but her voice faltered, and the words that came out were, “Yes—take me…” And suddenly she was inside his embrace, with his kiss dissolving her living will into his. Her mouth was a full pink bud, widespread to him, open to the heavy stroke of his tongue. An ancient, primitive force controlled her hands as she encircled him, one palm flat on his back, the other seeking his neck, twisting into his silken hair, fighting to heighten their contact. She swallowed his kisses like honeyed broth, each one both sating her and increasing her thirst until she was as helpless as a drifting poppy.
She lost pace with her breath. Her body became a foreign thing to her, her blood spinning through veins that seemed delighted to swell and pump; her nerves were shocked and burning under her hard-running desire. Scattering hot, open kisses, his lips coursed over hers, into her ear, into the softness of her throat beneath the sensitive curve of her jaw; and she pressed herself against him in an agony of erotic tenderness. His hands were a murmur against her body as he cupped a palm beneath her, catching her closer, spreading her legs with his other hand, sweeping her aching warmth into the narcotic hardness of his hips. She gasped at the bright flare of sensation, and he caught her head as it fell weakly back, cradling her, nibbling at the whiteness of her exposed throat, feeling her swallow beneath hi
s lips, stroking the light tattoo of blood so close to her skin, feeling the vibration of the soft moan that escaped through her parted lips.
As their mouths searched for and found each other she gave herself deeply to him, twining closer, and his breath became quietly arrhythmic.
“Merry—sweet Merry… I didn’t bring you here for this.”
“Th-this?”
“To love you. I didn’t bring you here to make love to you.”
“No? Devon?” she said in a husky little voice. “If you were going to make love to me, what would you do next?”
He kissed her, lovingly and long, with a caressing intensity that left her limp everywhere, and said, “If I was going to make love to you”—his hands moved in a slow pattern at the back of her gown—“I would want to be closer to you…” Laying his forehead softly against hers, he brought one of his hands to her cheek and massaged it with the back of his fingers. Then he separated himself from her slightly and with his fingertip tugged at the line of fabric that hid her collarbone, and the muslin fell an inch, revealing the milky fairness of flesh never gilded by sunlight. He kissed its creamy softness, and his heart caught at the beauty of her shyly blooming sensuality as she closed her dusky eyelids and leaned into the curve of his arm.
It was time to stop, and he knew it, but before will and common sense could coalesce, his palm slipped along her collar and curled over her shoulder, and that gentle act freed her gown so that it drifted by gravity into a sighing pillow around her hips. A startled exclamation sprang from her lips, and against the heady sylvan hues of the tropical pool her smooth skin and pink colors seemed sharply human in nakedness. Unaffected embarrassment made her move instinctively to cover her breasts, but he caught her wrists, one in each of his hands, and murmured, “No, love. Don’t.”