In a steady voice Cat said, “I know about the boat. I asked Griffith who told him to leave it there. He told me that you did. She could see that boat from her cabin, and you knew it.”
This time the silence was lengthy. The rain was a pretty hiss on the window. The wind purred. Finally Morgan said, “Aha.”
“Which means?”
“Ahais an ejaculation, babe. It doesn’tmeananything. You looked as though you were expecting some kind of an ejaculation, and so I”—that smile—“seem to have ejaculated prematurely. Pardon me.” Another frigid silence from Cat. At last, relenting, Morgan said blandly, “Young people have got to try new things.”
“Yes,” Cat said. “But if one of the new things they try is drowning, it puts an end to any more experiments.”
“The girl has been on theJokelong enough to have inspired someone to pull her out of the water when she falls in. Do you think I wasn’t watching? If Devon hadn’t left theShepherdwhen he did, I would have sent a boat. Anyway, I thought you, in particular, would be pleased. You were so concerned about her virtue. Well? That’s likely to stay intact now.”
“You know that Devon’s letters—Granville’s letters—were destroyed?”
“So I hear,” Morgan said. “It’s a pity she didn’t choose to take the maps instead, but one can’t have everything. I rather admired the desk break-in. It showed initiative.”
“Oh? Was that part of it too?” Cat asked, low tones ofanger filtering into his voice. “An opportunity for her to display untapped abilities? He’ll never forgive her. For everything else, perhaps. But not for the letters.”
With a disquieting grin Morgan said, “My dear! What a naïve thing to have said! How refreshing of you.” Studying the blond youth, he added in a moment, “Don’t take it all to heart. She’ll do. I promise. One must suffer a little adversity if one wants to be interesting.”
“Hurray”—Cat lifted his glass in a toast—“for adversity. There must be someone we can petition to bring back the Inquisition, the Black Plague, the Roman persecutions. Damn it, Rand. Does shehaveto be interesting?”
“Why not? I like interesting people.”
Cat had been expecting exactly that response. He tipped back his head and drained the rum. Crow-black and shining, lamb’s wool framed the Nordic purity of his features as he leaned into the chair and closed his eyes. “How far are you going to let this go? When will you put an end to it?”
Delicate surprise augmented the sparkle in Morgan’s black eyes. “Why would I want to, when it’s doing both of them so much good?”
“Absolutely,” Cat said dryly. “Merry and Devon. They’re as happy as a couple of toads croaking in a quagmire. You bastard. I suppose you think this is doing me good too. What if shedoestry to escape again? Would you let him flog her?”
“But of course. Naturally.” Morgan laughed suddenly. “I’d love to see him lay a single strip on her white back. It would be the most potent lesson either of them ever got. The sheer heat of the self-discovery would burn the topgallant right off the mainmast. Why? Are you worried Devon will kill her in a fit of pique?”
“No. Devon wouldn’t.” Cat’s eyes opened, and he turned them on Morgan and gave him an even look. “Is she your daughter?”
Surprise flashed in Morgan’s eyes and was quickly concealed. There was a short laugh; a lifted eyebrow. “Shrewd. Oh, very shrewd, considering how little you’ve had to go on. My daughter. That would make her—what?—Devon’s niece. My theology is a little scanty, but that would make any relationship between them incestuous, wouldn’t it? Why, in particular, my daughter?”
“Because in the two weeks that Devon was gone, she was sleeping one door away from you, and you didn’t—” Cat used the crudest word he knew for it.
“Interesting,” Morgan said in a civil way. “You think I don’t embrace incest for myself but promote it between my daughter and young legitimate brother? Don’t work so hard, babe. Merry’s not my daughter.” He smiled at the window. “We have no relationship. Except that once, long ago, I loved her mother.” In a long easy movement he stood, crossed to Cat, and removed the empty glass from the boy’s lax fingers. His smile was lazy and potent. “Go to bed. Your new conscience is hotter than a fresh-laid goose yolk. We wouldn’t want to wear it out.”
Chapter 14
The ship’s drying sails breathed scent into the morning air, a sharp fragrance, distinct as geranium. Gull odor, in wet plucked feathers and smeared droppings, was everywhere, and the damp jute stank.
Merry woke to pungent smells and pungent memories.Dennis was gone, and cold biscuits were on the table with a clean, folded towel that had a note in it from Cat. Climbing back into the eternally rocking bunk, Merry read the note aloud to the cabin. It began without preamble: “You’ve slept late because I drugged you last night. Call me Borgia. I did it for your ownetc. Interesting young women need long slumbers after a day of initiative and adversity.”
Her hands dropped to the coverlet with the paper in them. Raising a fist covered with angry rust-colored scratches, she rubbed her heavy eyes and wondered if the last sentence was a quote that she was supposed to recognize. The prose style didn’t seem like Cat’s; an obscure literary reference? A common literary reference unknown to her and betokening some embarrassing inadequacy in her education? Probably the latter. Giving it up, she lifted the paper and began again to read.
“Wear your hair up. We’re going to execute you at noon. (I jest.) I can’t come down for a while. They’re putting Raven on trial, and I have to be there. Explanations later. I’ve seen Devon in better moods. Be careful. Yours, Cat. D.T.C.”
Which also was a jest. It meant Destroy This Communication and had become a national joke this year, ever since an enterprising newspaper editor in New England had discovered it imprinted on a pitifully innocuous dispatch from the secretary of war to Andrew Jackson.
Bracing herself, she stood up on the bunk amid a crackle of stiff joints. It hurt to bring up her arm enough to put her hand out the window with the paper in it. Her fingers relaxed, and she watched the paper flutter away in the wind, a bold white streak in the sunlight that rode a slanting air current into the ocean.
Then she washed, took clothing from the sea chest, soaked her hardtack, and worried. She had seen them last night working on Raven, but all Cat would tell her about it was that Raven had tried to swim after her, and that the cold water had madehim ill. He would be fine by morning. Why were they putting him on trial?Why? Explanations later.
Taking a bite of hardtack, she pulled up her white pantaloons, their flared hem sliding over her ankles as she held the waist with one hand and nervously tucked in her white shirttail with the other. With shaking hands she pinned up her hair for Cat.
When it was all done, the washing, the dressing, the eating, the straightening of the bunk, then there was nothing left but the worry, which had gnawed itself into something more malevolent. What trial?What trial?
