“Yes,” he said seriously, not removing his gaze from hers.
“It’s worse than you think. Much worse. Raven, please—who is Devon? Why can he come and go as he pleases?”
Stretching his legs before him, playing another card, he thought it over carefully before he said, “Devon is Morgan’s half brother.”
Inhaling quickly in surprise, Merry put a hand behind her and lowered herself onto the window bench, barely noticing as Dennis shuffled over her bare toes and laid his damp snout on her foot. At length she said, “They don’t look anything alike.”
“It happens that way sometimes. They saymyfather was a Dutch Jew and blond. Devon and Morgan were both got by the same father. Of course, Devon was born in England with a silver spoon in his mouth more than fourteen years after Morgan slipped into the world with a silver cutlass in his. Born in Saint-Dominique, Morgan was, on the wrong side of the blanket. His mother was the daughter of a plantation owner. Twenty years old and had never been with a man, so they say, but she gave herself to Devon’s father likea wild thing on a forest floor and was too proud to tell him before he sailed back to England that he’d got her with child. She died when Morgan was ten, and her family cast Morgan off, because all he’d ever been was a shame to them. And the father never knew about the first son…”
Her eyes were held so open and still that the lids began to ache. She closed them slowly. “And this silver spoon of Devon’s?”
“ ’Nough of one to choke a man who didn’t know how to use it. He must besomeonebecause every man on theJokehas a pardon from the British crown, and we carry an English letter of marque. In a way, see, we’re legal. Privateers, not pirates.”
The puzzle pieces locked with a jolt. Fine hairs began to prickle on the back of Merry’s neck, and in a voice that didn’t sound right, she said, “Devon works for the British government.”
“He works for the British government,” Raven agreed. “Mind you, when we’re in open water and Devon’s not aboard, Morgan sometimes has a lapse or two of memory. Hence the British sloop you saw us take last week.” Brushing a soft black curl from his forehead, Raven redealt his deck. “Devon, in his turn, ignores Morgan’s lapses and gets the cabin which he pays for, the right to privacy in it, and the right to be put ashore when it’s convenient, and sometimes when it ain’t convenient. He also has the right to keep a prisoner, no questions asked. I guess this time around, that’s you, lovey. I’m sorry if this ain’t good news for you, milady. You don’t look so great.”
Consciously she loosened the hands that she had tightly clasped at her stomach. “No. It’s just that—You see, last night Devon was—well, he did me an act of kindness that led me to believe that I should perhaps tell him the truth about… But that’s impossible. Quite impossible if he’s British—and a… a spy. No, don’t get up. Please. I’m all right. I’m glad you toldme. You don’t know how glad. You may have saved my life. But—Raven, what would they do to you if they knew you’d told me?”
“Nothing. Nothing much, anyway. It’s not so serious as it would be if I tried to help you escape.”
“Would you do that?” she asked, with a rearranged heart rhythm.
He smiled suddenly. “Y’know, darlin’, I might. If I thought I could get away with it.”
The words had barely left him when angry footsteps rang on the stairs. Cook came into the room with Will Saunders, and in a furious undertone the younger boy snarled at Raven, “For God’s sweet sake, you poor-witted nizy. Will and I were on the deck above with Shay, and we heard every word you said like it was rung from a clapper, though Shay pretended not to catch it, bless him! What if it had been Reade with us, eh? Every stupid syllable would have gone straight to Morgan. At least sport oak”—Cook slammed the door behind him—“if you’re up to talking like a simpleton.”
Turning in his chair, Raven said, “I can’t be down here in a closed room with her. Y’know Cat wouldn’t like it. Sorry if I scared you.”
“Sorry if I scared you!” Cook mimicked and, digging his hands into the red cotton front of Raven’s shirt, dragged him violently from his seat. The chair toppled with a crack, the cards flew from the table, and Merry flew from the bench, causing Dennis to squeal indignantly. Inserting herself quickly against Raven’s chest, crying out “No!” she barely missed taking the fist Cook had aimed at Raven’s chin.
Twisting his fingers around Merry’s arms, Saunders pulled her away from Raven. “Who are you—Pocahontas?” he said tartly.
Merry slapped his hand off her arm, glaring into Saunders’s shrewd gaze. “Did I say you could grab me?”
He was out of temper with her, but even so, he felt a grin nag at his mouth. She was getting damned saucy for such a pygmy. He remembered, seeing her like this, that she had once fired a crossbow at Devon. Killing the grin, he said, “Listen to me, Miss Merry. None of us want to see you suffer, but if you talk Raven into helping you sneak off, he’s going to wind up on the looped end of a line hanging from a yardarm. He’s going to get scragged. Hanged. Do you understand?”
“Absolutely!” Merry said. “The next time I jump into the ocean and swim for the mainland, you have my word on it that I won’t so much as ask Raven to point which way.”
“Fishes go to Glory!” Cook said. “You can barely recognize it, Will, but do you think the girl’s trying to be sarcastic?”
“Good for her! What with you jackals yipping into the room. Like to give old Dennis an apoplexy.” Raven favored Cook with a happy-go-lucky smile. “Mind, you can grab me again any time you choose. The lady here has a way of throwing herself on me that I could get used to quick.”
Cook shoved Raven’s chest. “Like a rope dancer’s pole, ain’t ya? Lead at both ends. I’ve seen veal calves with more in their brain box than you! Think again if you think they won’t hang you because you’re a favorite. This ain’t a whale boat, boy. It’s a son-of-a-bitchin’ pirate ship. Pirates. You know—p-y-r—Ah, never mind.” Turning to Merry, he said grimly, “As for you, missy—”
“Wait!” said Saunders, going quickly to the door. “There’s someone coming! All they need is to find us down here fighting, and ask why.”
Moving rapidly, Raven righted the chair and sat in it, and Cook sped into the seat beside him. Merry found herself put back onto the window bench by Saunders’s left hand as he scooped up Dennis with the other.
“Now, listen, you,” he said to her in a tense whisper.“This time we’ll keep your guilty secret, but don’t try leading Raven astray again here, or I’ll go to Devon and tell him you’ve been scheming to make sail on the sly. You’ll end your days on this ship locked up so tight you won’t be able to make your eyelashes flutter.”
Saunders had meant to frighten her. Subjecting his effect on her to a quick study, he saw that he had been too effective. She was trying to appear defiant, but her lips were drawn and beginning to lose their color. Was it the threat to her or the threat to Raven that he had made too strong? He could have as easily said the same thing more gently from the looks of it, and now there was no time to correct the damage. Later he would seek her out and explain to her with more patience why it would be foolish for her to think about escaping theJoke. Or had the worried eyes and the white lips been there when he had come into the cabin? Raven could have said something to her—Raven, who was too well-meaning and honest to understand that sometimes keeping your mouth shut would help everybody prosper. Trying to soften the effect of his lecture, Saunders smiled at Merry, but the soft expression was too inconsistent with the cruelty of his earlier words. She gave him a glance full of blue needles and stared at the floor as Devon pushed open the door and strolled into the room.
At the table Raven and Cook were trying against all nautical odds to build a card house with a verve and jubilation that couldn’t have been bettered by a work crew on the Taj Mahal. The glances they turned on Devon were blisteringly innocent, and Raven was overplaying it so badly that it was little wonder that Devon walked over to him and smilingly lifted the jagged tear Cook had just made in Raven’s shirt.
Merry tried not to cower on the window bench as Devon glanced her way, assessed her idly, and said, “Children, children… Have you been fighting?”
“Devil a bit,” Cook said. “Raven and I had words over ahand of cards. ’Twasn’t nothing. You’ve played cards with me; you know how I get when I ain’t winning. But you see how peaceable we are now. Building a—a—” He doubtfully regarded the tottering structures on the table.
