“Magic,” he said, his voice a husky erotic whisper. “Sleight of hand. See how easy it is? You have it, too, little flower… you have it too. No, Merry. Don’t stop. Here. Let me help you. Like this. Yes. Slowly. Merry. Merry. Kiss me.”
Carried beyond herself, she touched him with her lips, moving whisper soft, uncaring whether it was his mouth she kissed, or his hair, his cheek, the smooth line of his brow. Pressing forward against his hands and body, whimpering distractedly, she whispered, “Please. Go away… I want to go home. I think I’m going to be sick. I feel faint. Let me go.”
“You have strange love talk, Merry-gold. Marigold, that’s another.”
“Another what?”
“Merry name. Merry-go-round, marigold, God rest ye Merry… How good you taste, love,” he said, his lips to her throat.
Her hand sloppily found his cheek and lay there, a tremulous supplicant. “Devon, I can’t. What words can I say that will… cause you not to force me?”
His face came hazily into focus before her, the soft eyes shining. He kissed her once on her lips and then drew back, looking down at her.
“Do you know…” he said, gazing at the soot marks transferred from her discarded shirt and spread by his fingertips over her flushing skin. “Do you know that we look like coupling leopards? Do you really want me to let you go? I don’t know if I can. Why do you want to stop?”
She couldn’t answer him, only shook her head as though the blood pounding hard in her brain had driven away all the good reasons for chastity.
Given her physical response, another man might have laughed at her use of the wordforceand dismissed her protests as a routine and harmless hypocrisy. Devon knew better. He was an artist at making people do as he wanted, and if ruthless seduction could wring acquiescence from her unwilling body—what of it? He could have taken the girl in screaming resistance, and there was not a soul on theJokewho would have stopped him. Poor blue-eyed creature, she was his for the taking. And it was hardly the bit of whimsy he would have cared to cultivate in his character that now, when he wanted her most, was the moment he least wanted to take her against her will. All her fragility and sweetness were flowing into him, and whatever his more familiar inclinations were demanding, there was kindness there as well. The partof him that desired her was the part that also didn’t want to force her. Whatever she wanted physically, and he was sure he wasn’t mistaken about it, she wasn’t prepared emotionally, and God knew what kind of wreckage there would be in the aftermath. Soot still powdered her foolish little nose, and he wasn’t sure why that should decide him, but somehow it did. Holding her for a moment, stroking her shining hair, he heard with gratitude Cat’s fluent footsteps in the corridor.
“Cat?” he called.
Cat pushed open the door with the heel of his hand, walked in, and froze like a pillar, the skin stretching tight over his sharp cheekbones.
“I beg your pardon,” Devon said. “Your wench is attacking me.”
Not making any attempt to repudiate his ownership of Merry, Cat replied, none too warmly, “You wanted an audience?”
“No. I want you to pry her off me. I don’t think she knows what’s happening.” Finally, impatiently, “Takeher, will you? Or you can rest assured that I will.”
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’msureit’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 knownnotto sleep with her as when he was knowntosleep 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 tospeak, 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?”
