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.