Chapter 13
Under the hazy sunlight of an overcast heaven Merry stood in Morgan’s spacious cabin the next afternoon watching Raven sitting in the open doorway rubbing sun-proofing ointment into Dennis the pig.
“It’s nice for me to realize,” she said cheerfully, “how much Cat thinks of me. Do you know that Cat uses what must be the same—yes, I’m sure it’s the same cream on my face. Can pigs really sunburn?”
“Ah, well, sure they can, bless their small horny trotters. On land they’ve mud to protect them.” He finished, wiped his fingers, and stood up, glancing toward the door as though he were about to leave.
“Well, that’ll do it for the time being, unless,” he said, grinning, “you need some stroked into your back too?”
“No, thank you. Besides, it’s too cloudy for ointment.”
“Days like this are the worst. Reflection or something, y’know. Saunders could explain it to you.” Turning to look at her, lifting one shapely black eyebrow, he said, “You’re solemn, lovey.”
Merry couldn’t help the faint color that began to stain her cheeks.
Since yesterday in the afternoon, when Cat wrapped her in his own shirt and removed her bodily from Devon’s arms, she had not seen Devon.
Where had he slept last night? From certain tentatively tactful glances she had received from Raven, it was obvious that he knew, and why it should be just as embarrassing for her when Devon was known not to sleep with her as when he was known to sleep with her was a vexing question that she didn’t bother to unravel.
Possibly it was because she had the strong idea that Raven thought she and Devon had been fighting, and since the opposite of that was true…
Yesterday had shown Devon to her in a startling new light. She had spent the night trying to reconstruct the shattered picture of his character and to search through the debris for some kind of familiar consistency.
Not moving, she said to Raven, “Could you stay for a moment or two?”
“Surely, milady,” he said gently. He waited for her to speak, and when she did not, he went to the table, sat in one of the heavily ornate chairs, and pulling the card deck from his pocket, began to play solitaire.
He was concentrating discreetly on the game before Merry said, “I’ve been told often enough not to ask too many questions about Devon, but…
Raven, do you think you might give me a little information? ”
Looking up, he said, “Lovey, I’d give you the star belt from Orion. But information you’re better getting from Cat.”
“Cat’s a clam.”
“Ah. And Devon?”
“I can’t ask him questions. I don’t know him well enough to know what would be safe to ask. Raven, I’ve got to know more about him, or my life’s going to evaporate. Does it look to you as though I’m in trouble?”
“Yes,” he said seriously, not removing his gaze from hers.
“It’s worse than you think. Much worse. Raven, please—who is Devon? Why can he come and go as he pleases?”
Stretching his legs before him, playing another card, he thought it over carefully before he said, “Devon is Morgan’s half brother.”
Inhaling quickly in surprise, Merry put a hand behind her and lowered herself onto the window bench, barely noticing as Dennis shuffled over her bare toes and laid his damp snout on her foot. At length she said, “They don’t look anything alike.”
“It happens that way sometimes. They say my father was a Dutch Jew and blond. Devon and Morgan were both got by the same father. Of course, Devon was born in England with a silver spoon in his mouth more than fourteen years after Morgan slipped into the world with a silver cutlass in his. Born in Saint-Dominique, Morgan was, on the wrong side of the blanket. His mother was the daughter of a plantation owner. Twenty years old and had never been with a man, so they say, but she gave herself to Devon’s father like a wild thing on a forest floor and was too proud to tell him before he sailed back to England that he’d got her with child.
She died when Morgan was ten, and her family cast Morgan off, because all he’d ever been was a shame to them.
And the father never knew about the first son… ”
Her eyes were held so open and still that the lids began to ache. She closed them slowly. “And this silver spoon of Devon’s?”
“ ’Nough of one to choke a man who didn’t know how to use it. He must be someone because every man on the Joke has a pardon from the British crown, and we carry an English letter of marque. In a way, see, we’re legal. Privateers, not pirates.”
The puzzle pieces locked with a jolt. Fine hairs began to prickle on the back of Merry’s neck, and in a voice that didn’t sound right, she said, “Devon works for the British government.”
“He works for the British government,” Raven agreed.
“Mind you, when we’re in open water and Devon’s not aboard, Morgan sometimes has a lapse or two of memory.
Hence the British sloop you saw us take last week.
” Brushing a soft black curl from his forehead, Raven redealt his deck.
“Devon, in his turn, ignores Morgan’s lapses and gets the cabin which he pays for, the right to privacy in it, and the right to be put ashore when it’s convenient, and sometimes when it ain’t convenient.
He also has the right to keep a prisoner, no questions asked.
I guess this time around, that’s you, lovey.
I’m sorry if this ain’t good news for you, milady. You don’t look so great.”
Consciously she loosened the hands that she had tightly clasped at her stomach.
“No. It’s just that—You see, last night Devon was—well, he did me an act of kindness that led me to believe that I should perhaps tell him the truth about…
But that’s impossible. Quite impossible if he’s British—and a…
a spy. No, don’t get up. Please. I’m all right.
I’m glad you told me. You don’t know how glad.
You may have saved my life. But—Raven, what would they do to you if they knew you’d told me? ”
“Nothing. Nothing much, anyway. It’s not so serious as it would be if I tried to help you escape.”
“Would you do that?” she asked, with a rearranged heart rhythm.
He smiled suddenly. “Y’know, darlin’, I might. If I thought I could get away with it.”
The words had barely left him when angry footsteps rang on the stairs.
Cook came into the room with Will Saunders, and in a furious undertone the younger boy snarled at Raven, “For God’s sweet sake, you poor-witted nizy.
Will and I were on the deck above with Shay, and we heard every word you said like it was rung from a clapper, though Shay pretended not to catch it, bless him!
What if it had been Reade with us, eh? Every stupid syllable would have gone straight to Morgan.
At least sport oak”—Cook slammed the door behind him—“if you’re up to talking like a simpleton. ”
Turning in his chair, Raven said, “I can’t be down here in a closed room with her. Y’know Cat wouldn’t like it. Sorry if I scared you.”
“Sorry if I scared you!” Cook mimicked and, digging his hands into the red cotton front of Raven’s shirt, dragged him violently from his seat.
The chair toppled with a crack, the cards flew from the table, and Merry flew from the bench, causing Dennis to squeal indignantly.
Inserting herself quickly against Raven’s chest, crying out “No!” she barely missed taking the fist Cook had aimed at Raven’s chin.
Twisting his fingers around Merry’s arms, Saunders pulled her away from Raven. “Who are you—Pocahontas?” he said tartly.
Merry slapped his hand off her arm, glaring into Saunders’s shrewd gaze. “Did I say you could grab me?”
He was out of temper with her, but even so, he felt a grin nag at his mouth.
She was getting damned saucy for such a pygmy.
He remembered, seeing her like this, that she had once fired a crossbow at Devon.
Killing the grin, he said, “Listen to me, Miss Merry. None of us want to see you suffer, but if you talk Raven into helping you sneak off, he’s going to wind up on the looped end of a line hanging from a yardarm.
He’s going to get scragged. Hanged. Do you understand? ”
“Absolutely!” Merry said. “The next time I jump into the ocean and swim for the mainland, you have my word on it that I won’t so much as ask Raven to point which way.”
“Fishes go to Glory!” Cook said. “You can barely recognize it, Will, but do you think the girl’s trying to be sarcastic?”
“Good for her! What with you jackals yipping into the room. Like to give old Dennis an apoplexy.” Raven favored Cook with a happy-go-lucky smile. “Mind, you can grab me again any time you choose. The lady here has a way of throwing herself on me that I could get used to quick.”
Cook shoved Raven’s chest. “Like a rope dancer’s pole, ain’t ya?
Lead at both ends. I’ve seen veal calves with more in their brain box than you!
Think again if you think they won’t hang you because you’re a favorite.
This ain’t a whale boat, boy. It’s a son-of-a-bitchin’ pirate ship.
Pirates. You know—p-y-r—Ah, never mind.” Turning to Merry, he said grimly, “As for you, missy—”
“Wait!” said Saunders, going quickly to the door. “There’s someone coming! All they need is to find us down here fighting, and ask why.”
Moving rapidly, Raven righted the chair and sat in it, and Cook sped into the seat beside him. Merry found herself put back onto the window bench by Saunders’s left hand as he scooped up Dennis with the other.
“Now, listen, you,” he said to her in a tense whisper.
“This time we’ll keep your guilty secret, but don’t try leading Raven astray again here, or I’ll go to Devon and tell him you’ve been scheming to make sail on the sly.
You’ll end your days on this ship locked up so tight you won’t be able to make your eyelashes flutter. ”