Chapter 8 #2
She hadn’t been close to him before in good light.
For the first time she saw that his eyes were hazel, a rare mosaic of shining sparks that appeared almost golden.
They were delivering a message of sympathy tidily packed in sensual glamour.
If he’s to be trusted, she thought, I’ll eat Aunt April’s swansdown muff.
Merry destroyed the tiny voice in her brain that dissented with a savage mental kick.
“If you take one step closer,” she told him, “I’m going to kill you.”
The golden eyes studied her kindly. “You look tired. You sit down; I’ll sit down; and we’ll talk about it.”
After some suspicious thought she decided that it might be a good idea to have him sitting. She wouldn’t dare do so herself because the chances favored her not being able to get up afterward. Details, Merry Patricia, apply your mind to the details.
“Where’s the key to the door?” asked Merry Patricia, trying to straighten her shoulders.
“Do you want to lock us in here together? I’m game, if a little shocked.”
The man was enjoying himself too much. She was forced to repeat, this time more crisply, “Where’s the key?”
“Outside. I’ll be happy to get it if you—”
“No! Wedge that chair under the door handle. And then sit on the desk. Slowly.”
Looking amused, he obeyed her. “For the charming lady with the harpoon, anything.” He poised himself, as ordered, on the edge of the desk.
“Here I sit, ready on the second to be skewered like a bottle-fly on a hatpin. When you think of it, I’ll be a pretty unappealing corpse.
” Easing his elbows onto the shelf behind him, Devon grinned.
“Now that I’m your prisoner, what do you intend to do with me?
Or, if you haven’t figured that out yet, would you be open to suggestions? ”
She had figured it out in the long, feverish wait when she had achingly mated bolt and crossbow. “I wish to leave alone and unmolested in the small boat that I was brought here in.”
“Can you sail it?”
“Yes,” she lied—not that it was any of his concern.
She knew it wouldn’t be easy just because Cat had made it look that way, but then, it hadn’t been easy to prime the bow either.
It was all academic, anyway, because she had no other choice.
Her gaze dropped and accidentally fixed on his elegant hand resting loose in the small flower of lamplight, and as she watched, it seemed to recede from her and return; the opium reminding her that it was still active in her system.
“We’ve been bearing east under full sail for three hours,” he said. “How are you at navigation in the open sea?”
The hostage hours had blurred into one another, anonymous as a line of smashed pumpkins.
Reorienting her scrambled senses, Merry decided that yes, the ship could be moving; but was the beautiful man before her lying through his straight white teeth about the ship’s direction and how long she’d been on course?
Some time ago she’d had an impression of nightfall.
If it was night, then one could use the stars for direction, couldn’t one?
Unless there was fog. And today, at least, there had been fog.
And if the night was clear, what could she do?
Distinguish, if she could, the North Star, turn left, and pray that she’d eventually run into the Atlantic seaboard.
She began to think of sharks and giant squid and whales and sea serpents and giant whirlpools.
You couldn’t believe everything you heard; much of it was probably tall tales, though, of course, there really were sharks.
And squid. And whales. And other pirates.
Through fading hope and clouding vision she said, “Then they’ll have to turn this ship around and bring it back toward shore.”
His amusement was a thing felt, not seen.
“My dear child, if you want to ask Morgan to turn the ship around, then I’ll happily hold open the door for you.
But if you think he’s going to do it, you’re dreaming.
I don’t blame you for trying; I’d do the same myself.
The effort was fine. It’s just not going to work. ”
“The more I think about it,” she said with flaming blue eyes, “the more convinced I am that I ought to shoot you.”
“Aim carefully then. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was the only crossbow arrow between here and Europe.”
Her arms were beginning to shiver from the bow’s tearing weight.
The point sagged toward the floor and was swiftly righted.
It was only a matter of time before her brawnless muscles failed altogether.
She estimated that she had less than five minutes to convince him that she really would do it.
“By the time anyone on board discovered your death, they might have missed me on the Guinevere. They might be following us right now, to rescue me!”
“Probably you aren’t familiar with the Mactervish Book About the Sea for Boys.
Lesson Roman numeral one: Ship at sail leaves no trail.
” He lifted his hands and resettled them, heels down and fingers bent, on the desk’s oak edge.
Whatever he was planning to do to her was hidden from Merry behind the sugared surface of his gaze and the little smile, so warm and subtle that you could have made comfits from it and fed every widow in St. Anne’s parish.
“Mary—that is your name, isn’t it? Mary, put it down. I don’t want to hurt you.”
It was clearly a threat, however courteously posed. The best she could do with it was to respond as though she hadn’t understood and smother her surprise that he had captured her name and retained it through the months.
“You don’t want to—? I don’t believe it!” she said. “If it suited you, you’d crush me in a minute. I might be a—a codfish, for all you care.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. A nautical metaphor! By next week Tuesday you’ll probably have learned how to stay on your feet during a ground swell. There’s one coming, my dear. One learns to feel these things.”
For a moment she thought it was a trick to throw her off guard. There was a long creaking pause, the sense of being suspended, and then the floor dove suddenly to the right as the ship plunged, nimble and swooping, down the side of the wave into the trough.
The bow slipped from her hands and discharged the bolt, sending it humming across the room like a flushed pigeon, to end with a cracking explosion as it ripped through a five-inch beam of solid hardwood, the shaft whipping noisily to and fro before its motion died in a dull vibration.
No doubt the noise was heard from poop to fo’c’sle.
Ears tuned to the murmurings of the ship would trace the sound to its source, and Devon had to grin a little thinking of the ribald speculation it would probably cause in the crew’s quarters.
It was the kindest way it could have happened, but he could hardly expect the girl to realize that.
She was staring at him, infuriated and frightened.
Without moving Devon said calmly, “It’s just as well.
If you had killed me, I’m afraid Morgan would have tossed you on deck for the crew, and after they were done with you, there wouldn’t have been enough left to feed the fish. ”
Below her lacerated wrists, Merry’s hands tightened into fists. “I don’t care what you say! I have the right to defend my virtue.”
“I don’t think Morgan would think that was a very good excuse. An unaccountable difference in attitude. You may have noticed,” he said dryly, “that Morgan isn’t particularly enamored with virtue. But I’m curious. Did you learn all these high-minded sentiments in Granville’s arms?”
After everything, she had to repeat the name before she remembered. “Granville?” Things were coming too thick and fast for her half-sleeping brain.
“I hear you made an unwise choice in your sleeping arrangements last night,” said Devon, letting himself slowly off the desk. “I’m sure Michael is crisp and cozy in bed, but who was looking after the puppets?”
Merry’s white cheeks turned scarlet. “I wasn’t in bed with Sir Michael. I was in Sir Michael’s bed.”
“I believe we could make a nursery rhyme out of that. It has a certain cadence.… I didn’t mean to start a quibble.”
A tremor of exhaustion shook her, and a lock of red-gold hair fell forward, gleaming across her cheek.
“I’ve been beaten, drugged, thrown in the ocean, stripped at knife point, and trussed like a Thanksgiving goose.
You had better think again if you think I’m going to stand here and listen to your litany of insults! ”
“Poor child,” he said. “Let’s end it then. Go back to bed, and I’ll get you something to eat. The rest can wait until tomorrow morning.” It was unfortunate that she was too distraught to realize that the flash of compassion in his eyes was genuine.
“I haven’t an arrow anymore,” she said, “but if you touch me, I swear I’ll scratch your eyes out.”
He stood very still, gazing at her through the gemmed eyes. “What do you expect me to do, let you jump over the side? Not yet. I’m not finished with you.”
“I’ll die first!”
“You,” said Devon, “must have execrable taste in literature. So we’re back to your holy virtue, are we?
I see. You think my hot blood can’t support ten minutes alone with you.
You’re passing fair, my conceited love, but what makes you so certain I have the ambition to lie with every pretty wench I kiss when I’m drunk?
” From one of Michael Granville’s creatures it was what he would expect, the obligatory show of reluctance that would vanish later as she gave herself to him like a supplicant with all those hideously pretty body tricks that Michael’s ladies were expert in.
Michael Granville, with Satan sleeping behind the thoughtful green-gray eyes; Michael had sent him women before.