“I met Sir Michael on theGuineverethe night she was to sail.”
“All right,” Devon said. “We’ll suppose, for a minute, that’s true. Then what were you doing in the Musket and Muskrat in August? Don’t waste my time trying to convince me you were there only to help with a puppet show. I saw the woman and two men you were in company with. Having you along was an invitation to trouble; they wouldn’t have brought you if it hadn’t been important. Your presence was instrumental to something. I’d like to know what that was.”
Overset by the knife-edged accuracy of his perception, she denied it too quickly, and too sharply, with an incoherent paragraph of stuttered denials. Cold-eyed, he heard her out as she impaled herself on her own incoherence.
“Your delivery seems to be getting a little garbled,” Devon said, “so if you don’t mind, I’ll help you. You say you’re the wife of a poor puppeteer. Very well. How much money does he earn in an average performance? So much? I’m impressed. Where were you born? The name of the county? How long have you been married? And you’re how old? The year you were married in? What was the last city you lived in? Howmany shows would you estimate your husband has given since you’ve been married? Multiply it, sweetheart. That makes the man a millionaire.”
He was right. Merry buried her face in the shaking cup of her palms. Devon’s voice, as beautiful and merciless as the rest of him, came gently to her burning ears.
“Whatever you may think, I’m not enjoying this either. Are you ready to tell me who was with you at the Muskrat?”
If she began to weep now, the explosion of fluid would drain every cell in her body. Head spinning, Merry loosened her tangling fingers with effort, laid her hands in her lap, and straightened her curling shoulders. Somewhere she found the strength to look into the profligate golden eyes.
“At the tavern, with the puppets. That was my husband—”
“His name?” asked Devon.
Not Smith,she thought. “Jones.”
“Ah. Bill Jones? Bob Jones? Ebenezer Jones?”
Merry passed her tongue tiredly over her lips and said the first thing that pranced into her brain. “Jeremiah Jones.”
“That was going to be my next guess,” Devon said. “Biblicalandalliterative.”
Lord help her, ithadsounded even more ridiculous said aloud than in her mind. Behind Devon she could see Cat shake his head at her in a pained way and pass his finger over his throat, in a gesture forecasting doom.
Devon crossed his arm over the chair rail. “I’ll say this for you, flower, you fail with flair. Listen, my child, I’ve been gentle with you so far, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that will go on forever. When you leave theJoke,it will be one segment at a time if you don’t either begin telling me the truth or begin bringing a little more panache to your lies. Satisfy me, and I’ll put you in the longboat as soon as we come near shore and have you delivered, unharmed, to the nearest coaching inn with enough money in your pocket to take youwherever you wish.” He paused, searched her face, and continued patiently. “At the Muskrat you were sitting with one of Granville’s men—”
“No! No! What are you saying? Who can you mean?”
“The innkeeper. If it’s a coincidence, you had better explain to me how it comes about, because that connects you twice with Granville and his minions. You have two alternatives, Merry. You can be innocent, and I’ll let you go; you can be useful, and I’ll let you go. My suggestion is that you commit yourself to one course or the other before my temper wears out.”
With his words she saw and understood, for the first time, the magnitude of her predicament. Had she really thought, minutes ago, that Devon’s feelings for Granville were “unfriendly”? What blindness! What infantile blindness! Devon was no ruffian with an excess of spleen, no overzealous Yankee patriot. With those she might have had a chance. What Devon was, it seemed, was a deliberate, highly intelligent, ruthless man, and a word likeunfriendlymight patch a single square inch of the cosmos of Devon’s hatred for Michael Granville. Michael Granville. What was he besides a pair of opaque green-gray eyes and well-bred condescension that had made him Devon’s enemy? And—minions? She had been ready for a little innocent adventure to help her country at the Musket and Muskrat, not to land in the cross fire between the sacred and the profane, although it was a pretty good guess that in this war both the parties were on the side of the profane. It wasn’t merely important that she disassociate herself immediately from Granville, it was a matter of survival. And there was almost no way that she could do it.
Apparently having decided she’d had enough time to ponder her fate, Devon said softly, “So, Mrs. Jeremiah Jones. Does your husband mind when you sleep with Granville?”
Last night, she remembered, the same insinuation had made her angry. Anger would have been heaven to the unhealthy exhaustion she felt now. There was a sharp ache starting behind her eyebrows, and she put her finger pads on it and rubbed hard.
“Now, see here,” she said, staring down into her scraped wrists. “IknowI might have been in Granville’s cabin, but he was never in it with me. Doesn’t it mean anything that he wasn’t in the room with me when I was kidnapped?”
“He wasn’t with you because he was on deck—but he’d only been there for a matter of minutes. Before that—”
“He might have been in the captain’s cabin!” Pride was less important now than convincing him. “Or the hold? Or—or the powder room!”
Morgan’s gaze shifted from the window, focused, and began to sparkle. “The powder room?”
“She means,” said Devon dryly, “the powder magazine.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake,” she sputtered helplessly, “Idon’t know the names of places on ships. How do I know where he was? I hardly knew him! Doesn’t it make sense if I don’t know him I wouldn’t know where he was? I was only a passenger on the same vessel.”
It was a good point, she thought, and she had about a third of a second to be proud of it before he said, “Fine. You don’t know Michael Granville. Then where did you get permission to sail on theGuinevere? Who do you know in British Court circles? What, no answer? Where was your husband?”
Feebly: “He—he planned to come later.”
“For a royal command performance? I didn’t see the show, but I heard the content. Seditious and antimonarchical. The swell gentlemen in London and Washington are having a war, my sweet. Do you know how many peaceful ships there are going between the United States and England? Unless he meant to float through the blockade on a buoy.”
“Regardless of where my husband was,” said Merry with desperation, “and how I got permission to sail on theGuinevere,I still have no connection with Granville.”
