Chapter 19
The unicorn hadn’t abandoned her after all, it seemed.
Merry found it in a dream of sharp colors that stretched at the edges like a projected globe from where she stood, a tiny figure clothed in pearly cotton under the sky-distant curve of an arched window.
Her heart pounded gently with longing as she saw the dream creature canter across a shimmering horizon.
There was a moment when it disappeared, and she was weak with fear, but it returned, circling and striking its hooves in the red dirt, and then rearing, its knotted ivory horn standing in the air as a glistening spiral.
It paused and then galloped straight toward her, growing larger, its nostrils softly dilated, its mane streaming.
Great hooves, unclad in iron, threw a debris of grit and pebbles behind as it raced forward until it stopped ten feet from her and stood, quivering nervously.
Shyness and an inexplicable dread made her approach it slowly, though the love and joy inside her was so strong that the earth melted like April snow under her bare feet; and the unicorn seemed to quiet as it watched her come closer.
It nickered softly to her, an invitation, though its muscles were taut in repose, as if being still were an effort, as if it were not easy to restrain its power, and this was a deference not to be long accorded.
With trepidation and wonder she put her fingers into its mane and buried her face there also and learned with surprise that the hair wasn’t coarse or odorous like the fibrous stuffing of Aunt April’s drawing room wing chairs back in Fairfield, but was thick and soft like heavy silk, and fresh scented as a mown pasture.
The unicorn was tall, and her arms were imbued with unnatural strength as she pulled herself upward to its back, her breasts drifting over the rippling neck muscles, her legs lifting apart to receive the broad thrust of its body as she straddled it.
The creature’s life beat came to her, a caressing pulse below her cradling thighs, and then the great muscles stretched as it began to canter, and they moved together in long rocking strides.
The sparkling green earth and the heavens caroled love hymns to them, and the sun dusted their united bodies with powdered light.
Life fluids coursed through her surrendered body, and all parts of her had become healthy and distended with rich golden blood.
Her fingers roamed under the unicorn’s mane, embracing the warm hidden curves of its muscles.
Rushing air burned her throat as she pressed herself deeply into its back, and her exhaled breaths came forth in many colors and blended with its own to bathe the sky in rainbow fluid.
On it went, the exquisite paradise that filled her until she was too exhausted to hold herself on the white back any longer, and sensing it, the great animal slowed to a trot, and then to a walk, and brought her to peace under the densely bunched head of a pear tree in blossom.
She let herself slide to the ground, uncurling her heavy limbs slowly, and lay on a mossy bed beneath while white-touched pink petals rained over her in perfumed silence.
Through eyes that could only open halfway, she gazed at the unicorn as it stood poised above her.
But then, in one splendidly beating moment, the dove-whisper of the wind murmured to watch the unicorn because she was on the edge of a great discovery. … To watch…
The wind-command faded. Merry opened her eyes to Cat, bending over her with another of those eternal damp cloths he insisted on slopping on her skin every spare second he wasn’t pouring his vile medicines down her.
She observed fretfully that his braid, usually so perfect, had hair tendrils straggling out as if he’d slept on it; the cloth being applied tenderly to her brow made her feel sticky.
And he had woken her from the unicorn. Merry lifted her hand and pushed at him.
“No!” she said crossly.
She saw him drop the cloth, which made a clammy water ring on the bedclothes, and look at her face with what seemed to her like totally unwarranted amazement.
Before she had a chance to comment on that, he had snatched up her hand and was pressing it to his mouth with his eyes tightly shut.
And then, to her chagrin, he was bending his head over her tightly clasped hand, and droplets of something wet were running into the center dip of her palm and from there down her wrist. Where was the water coming from?
“You’re not coming down sick too, are you?” she asked him irritably.
He had turned his face away. “No. No, I’m hale. Merry…” His voice sounded strange. “Merry. You’re going to get well.”
“So you’re always telling me. I’ve yet to see any evidence of it,” she said with the natural peevishness of a convalescent invalid. “Where’s Devon? Why is it so dark in here? I’m thirsty. And you made my hand wet.”
In a state of bliss that was higher than anything he’d known in his life, Cat ran to satisfy her complaints; opening the jalousies, patting her hand dry, raising her head to give her water and nourishment.
He had paused at a mirror to make a brief curious study of his eyes, which had unexpectedly produced tears for the first time since his infancy.
Finally, when he was certain he had this surprising new ability under control, he went to tell the others that Merry would live.
Merry had never been told that she was close to death.
In consequence she couldn’t understand why her visitors were jubilant.
And if anyone knew why it was three days before Devon came to visit her, they didn’t see fit to reveal the reason to her.
It would be a long time before she learned that Devon had spent those lost days fighting the heavy throes of arsenic intoxification.
St. Elise was a verdant saucer of land that belled upward in plump prosperity from the foaming tropical surf.
Coffee and cocoa for export grew in a sheltered central valley, and here and there parcels of cleared earth held plantings of indigo that supported in plenty the nearly fifty families who made the island their home.
Beyond the happy traces of civilization were magnificent unspoiled forests where butterflies flickered on blue iridescent wings and spring-fed brooks gurgled, tumbling bright pebbles beneath their warm crystal water.
Recuperation for Merry on St. Elise was a time of long afternoon naps and excellent meals from Morgan’s chef, a young German who had apprenticed in Napoleon’s kitchens at Malmaison.
The villa itself was not a large one for its type, but it was beautifully made after the Spanish style and furnished with a discreet elegance that would have camouflaged to even a perceptive visitor that its owner was a pirate.
Trying to find a clue from looking around here to Morgan’s personality, or to Devon’s, was more confusing than it was enlightening.
The only unpleasant surprise had been Merry’s discovery that in her heart she had begun to hope Devon’s tender care of her had been prompted by an emotion more profound than an active sense of guilt.
Foolish beyond permission was the only way to describe that yearning, the more so because Devon had not tried to be alone with her since they had come to the island.
If anything, it seemed he had made an effort to do the opposite.
By now she must surely have learned how dangerous it was to care too much what Devon felt for her; how many times would she need to have that painful lesson repeated?
What she must do was remake her feelings into a wary friendship and not agonize over things that were not likely to be.
There was some comfort in knowing if it ever became more than she was able to control, she could discuss it with Cat—comfort, but not a cure.
The Black Joke had sailed, Tom Valentine in command. Rand Morgan had remained at the villa with a small number of the crew, including Raven, which meant there was a steady parade to her door of dripping buckets filled with sea creatures, of shells and starfish and snails as big as punch cups.
Quiet moments were spent with Annie, speaking in gestures and smiles.
Not the least fascinating thing about Annie was that she was married to Cook, six years her junior, and if they shared a single trait, Merry was not able to discern what it was.
In spite of that they appeared to love each other, which had a special interest for Merry because she had observed few such relationships in her life.
It was not hard to understand how anyone, man or woman, could love Annie, with her easy dignity and intelligence; it was a little harder to imagine what Cook could offer her until Merry remembered that on the Joke the kitchens had been a retreat for her.
There was an iron will and a kind of canny astringency about Annie’s tough young husband that could be sustaining.