Chapter 31
The rain came at dusk in lively drops that gave a mossy scent to the ivy outside the inn window. Inside, sea coal glowed in the grate. A moist warmth crept through the light chintz hangings to the bed where Devon was sleeping and where Merry sat barefoot and cross-legged waiting for him to wake up.
It would have been reasonable to suppose that any young man as popular as Devon was with Morgan’s crew would receive a great deal of sympathy for a bullet wound instead of having it treated as a very good joke.
One would further have thought that his gently reared and loving spouse would take exception to such heartless revelry.
Instead Merry was reassured because it told her more powerfully than condolences would have done that Devon’s condition wasn’t serious, though she was far from agreeing that a wound requiring the extraction of a bullet from one’s shoulder deserved to be pretty generally referred to as “just a scratch, by all that’s holy.
” It seemed like half of Morgan’s crew had managed to stuff itself into the cozy bedroom as Devon was put to bed, brought by the jocular intelligence that Devon had put himself in front of someone’s pistol, and then damned if he hadn’t fainted like a girl.
Merry’s indignant protest that having suffered such a series of mental and physical shocks was enough to make anyone faint drew fresh guffaws.
Devon had been conscious during Cat’s minor surgery and fully able to bandy words with his grinning audience.
Erik Shay had drawn roars of merriment by demonstrating Devon’s faint in a manner of greatly exaggerated daintiness.
Joe Griffith spoke with unctuous sympathy about procuring supporting broths and burnt feathers to wave under Devon’s nose in case he popped off again.
And Will Saunders composed a wickedly clever and bawdy verse to this new delicacy of Devon’s constitution (attributable, he contended, to Devon’s newly married state).
Finally Cat had ejected everyone but Merry from the room, saying dryly that he’d be damned if he’d let Devon chortle himself into a fever.
Then he had fed Devon a mildly sedative draught and bore Merry off to a private parlor for some refreshment, and after he had eaten with her and escorted her back to Devon, who had fallen asleep, Cat had left to look in on her brother.
With the adroitness for which he was famous, Rand Morgan had acquired a covered cart to take Carl to the Black Joke, where he could be cared for in secrecy and later returned to the United States.
To avoid suspicion on the part of the watchful (but fortunately frequently persuadable) port authorities, Carl would be one of Morgan’s crew, who, having imbibed more blue ruin than he could hold, had taken a chill after spending a night in the kennel.
Earlier, watching the cart with her brother rumble through the excited confusion of the warehouse yard, Merry had turned to the sound of Rand Morgan’s voice.
He said, “Sails and Tom Valentine will take care of him, and you can visit him in the morning. Once they’ve warmed him up, he’ll throw off the chill fast enough.
” His hand touched and released one of her curls.
“You know, nestling, you might have come to me. I wouldn’t have let Devon do anything foolish.
And I wouldn’t do less for your brother than I would for you. ”
The too casual admission of Morgan’s strange involvement in her life made her gaze up frankly into the snapping black eyes. “That’s what had me worried.”
He answered her with an enigmatic smile.
Merry stretched out her feet in front of her and spread and studied her toes, and then her husband.
He was beautiful in the slight dishevelment of sleep, with a soft flush pinking the skin below his lashes; but it was not his striking male beauty so much as his undefended posture that moved her.
Scene by scene she reviewed their relationship, and scene by scene forgave him or herself for every act of temper or quick judgment, and when she had done with those, her memory began to drift to warmer moments between them.
After about ten minutes of this her cheeks were as warm as her thoughts, and she began to wish earnestly that he would wake up, although her conscience warned her against doing anything to achieve that end.
For heaven’s sake, the man had just had a bullet dug out of him.
There is a school of thought that holds that if one stares with enough intensity at a sleeper, the sleeper will waken, but after practicing this patiently for what seemed like forever Merry decided there wasn’t a word of truth in it.
Beginning at his ankle, she walked her fingers gently up his leg, hopping over the kneecap, trodding a little heavily on his thigh and his ribs, and collapsing her fingers on his good shoulder.
Nothing. She leaned from the waist to exhale lightly on his hand.
She might as well have saved her breath.
“All right, then,” she whispered, lifting his hand to her lips.
Peeling back his shirt cuff, she worked little nipping kisses down his thumb and then slow ones over his inner wrist. He didn’t move.
Cat must have given him a stronger dose of laudanum than she had at first suspected.
Sighing, she held his relaxed fingers to her cheek and then let them slip to her lap, where they created an interesting sensation against her thigh.
“How can I wake you up, you ridiculous man?” she asked softly and almost jumped out of her silk gauze day dress when he answered, “Not by playing with my unconscious body. That’s more likely to make me pretend sleep indefinitely.”
She began to laugh. “How dare you, sir!”
He gazed back at her from under sweetly drowsy lids. “I’m wicked past redemption, I suppose.”
“Not past redemption, I think.” Delighted to have him wake at last, she rested her chin on her fists and held him in a calm study.
“I’ve put my mind to considering things, and I’ve decided that you’re not much of a rake after all.
All those months of opportunity and not a thing came of it until we had benefit of clergy. ”
His smile was light. “The last thing I would have taken pleasure in forcing on you would be an act of love.” He caught a strand of her hair and began to wind it around his forefinger. “Poor Windflower, have you been sitting here watching me snore?”
“I have, but you don’t snore. Everyone else has gone off to some horrible place—the One-eyed Dog. I suppose it’s a brothel.”
He grinned. “No. A gaming hell.”
“Oh! Are you a frequenter, then?” Her cheek was close to his wrist, and she rubbed herself against him there.
“Can you hear how quiet it is? Raven said that was because when the crew of the Joke signed into the inn, the other patrons signed out. If you feel well enough to talk for a bit, I have something very exciting I’d like to tell you about. ”
He was caressing the wound curl with his thumb. “Every minute I see you, I feel better. Tell me about your something exciting.”
“Well, with everything that happened today, I completely forgot to send a message to Teasel Hill, and so Aunt April arrived here with your mother! What do you think of that!” She had to laugh at his grimace.
“You don’t have to worry about your mother, because Lord Cathcart was outside and was able to reassure her about our safety, so she wouldn’t have to come in and run a gauntlet of pirates, but Aunt April forced her way inside.
Game as a pebble, Saunders said, and came straight into the parlor where I was dining with Raven—and half the crew almost. She swept me up in an embrace and said, ‘My dear, you can’t know!
Aline and I have been in the greatest affliction.
To leave without a word—and His Grace having ridden off after you, hell for leather, as the stableboy would say, though of course he shouldn’t have, at least not in front of us.
Every feeling of trepidation from those terrible months returned!
We went first to Lord Cathcart’s, which I only hope may not have damaged Aline’s reputation, because for myself I don’t care, but we were in an open carriage, so Aline says perhaps it will be all right.
’ ” She paused to resettle her knees. “Raven was so funny about it afterward, because he misunderstood her completely, and he said it seemed like a devilish lot of trouble to go to to complain about a little cursing from a stable lad. You’ll never guess what happened then! ”
“Your aunt glanced around at the company and fell into a swoon?” he suggested innocently.
“A swoon! As though Aunt April would do anything so paltry! Oh! Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean—” Laughter overwhelmed her, and she could see the smile lurking in his bright eyes as he pulled her close with his good arm and played her laughter against his mouth, swallowing the thrills of sound, feeling the vibrations in her chest and lips.
His kiss became more thorough, the trace of his tongue inside her mouth much deeper.
But then the hand that had brought her to his kiss gently released her.
“Before I stop thinking about it,” he said, “you’d better tell me what happened to your aunt.”
Merry had been inclined to linger over the kiss, but she sat up anyway and was able with some enthusiasm to say, “Henry Cork! And he turned out to be Raven’s ‘curst rum touch.’ Morgan had him follow us, you see, because Raven wouldn’t have known who Henry was, because he’s only just got to London, though he’s been in Ireland visiting his sister and her husband.
He was traveling with false papers, which shows that the world is in a sad state with more dishonest officials than anyone would suspect, though Morgan may call them ‘flexible.’ ”
“He would. Does your aunt still hold Cork to blame for the ants in your luggage?”