“Hey! Watch it! You’ll tip us. And I could have had the gun off you too,” he added morosely. “Don’t you forget, if Devon should happen to catch us, it was all against my will—you had the pistol on me the whole time.”
“I’ll tell him anything you like, but hewon’tfind us if you’d put a little Norwegian steam into your rowing.”
“Humph.” Meadows picked up the oar, and the boat began to move forward again. “Darn female. Likes to see a man work himself to death. And only a fancy-thinking fellow like Devon would have a woman that’d insist on running away with a squid in a bucket. There’s the aristocracy for you.”
There were times when it was particularly trying to listen to one of the men on theJokeplace Devon on an exaggeratedly high pedestal. Ready to argue with Michael Meadows, ready to do anything but think about the insanely desperate thing she was doing, Merry said, “Aristocracy?” She tried, as an experiment, to sneer. “He’s well-favored, educated, and bossy. That doesn’t make him an aristocrat.”
“Lot you know about it. He’s got bloody aristocratic ways about him, and anyway, Sails says he is, and Sails’s been with Morgan since he got his first ship.”
Sails and the mermaid. Sails and the wind-seller. Sails and the ghost ship off Nova Scotia. Wonderful stories Sails told, but not true ones. “I’m sure titled British gentlemen frequently sail with pirates?”
“Beats walkin’.” Meadows gave a short guffaw. “Course, not by much. Didn’t know, did ya, that Morgan and Devon are half brothers?”
“Yes, I did,” she said. “And that Devon is legitimate, and Morgan is not. I find it hard to believe that if Devon’s family was as influential as you are implying, they would have allowed Devon to meet Rand Morgan.”
“Well, a course they wouldn’t,” he said contemptuously. “Morgan met his fine little brother by accident.”
There was a certain look in Meadows’s eyes that warned Merry the tale was hardly likely to uplift her. Arguing with Meadows, it seemed, might be more taxing than she had bargained for. She had an intense and active curiosity abouteverything connected with Devon, but hard experience had taught her that there were things to be learned about Devon that one had better be in a well-rested state to hear. And she was tired, frightened, and in no mood to be teased—which was clearly what Michael Meadows had in mind. Turning her head, Merry stared at the fresh, paling horizon with a laboriously manufactured expression of indifference. She could feel Meadows’s rheumy gaze study her. Then he said, “You in love with the fellow?”
A long pause. Finally, with a sigh, “What fellow?”
“Devon. You in love with him or what?”
“What,” she answered emphatically.
“Yep. You love him. I can tell. Heh, heh.”
“Mr. Meadows,” she said, “if you want to think that, I’m not going to quarrel with you about it. I’m only going to say this once: I’mnotin love with Devon.”
As though she hadn’t spoken, he said, “Yep. I can tell. Know what it takes to make a man like that fall in love with you?”
A miracle. “Obviously I don’t, because he’s not in love with me.”
“Heh, heh. Know how to keep a man like that?” Meadows tipped his head down until he could tap with one finger on the part of his temple exposed by his russet stocking cap. “To keep a man like that takes brains.”
As advice went, it was a little too general to be of any use. Anyway, some of the things you don’t do if you want a man like that to fall in love with you are to run away, steal his letters, and refuse to tell him the facts he needs to acquit you of any connection with his worst enemy. That aside, Merry hoped, and feared, that she would never have to see the man again. Lifting with some difficulty the arm that had been bruised by Morgan’s door, Merry began to rub the aching stiffness at the back of her neck.
“That Devon,” Meadows went on. “The boy was a properhellion in his teens, so they say. To give themselves a rest, his people sent him to look over some property in the Indies, and happens he was on a three master that Morgan took. Prettiest boy you ever saw, they say. The crew was dicing over who was to have their way with him, and Morgan, they tell, saved the lad from a fate worse than death.”
“Pray don’t continue!” Merry exclaimed, going rigid.
Highly encouraged, Meadows went on gleefully, “O’ course, depending on who’s telling the story, Morgan was after keeping Devon for himself. Hey!” Meadows protested, finding that he was gazing down the barrel of Merry’s sea service pistol. Hastily, “Take your finger off that trigger there, missy. I was funnin’. Here, now, if you shoot me, you’ll be rowin’ the measure of the way yerself.”
“I’dratherrow than listen to any more disgusting nonsense. How far are we from where you intend to land us?”
“Oh, that be quite a distance yet, quite a distance. We can’t stop too close, or they’ll find us sure as supper. Not, mind you, that supper tonight is so sure. Heh, heh.” Meadows watched her lower the gun discouragedly. “What’s the matter now? Wishin’ you hadn’t run off so hasty-like?” He chuckled. “Morgan catches me, and it’s a quick swing from the yardarm, but you—ho! Devon threatened to beat you if you tried to pull up anchor on him again, didn’t he? Everyone heard him say it too, so he’d have to go through with it or lose face. Never been whipped, have you? Ask your friend Raven about it. Ask Cat. Brung up in a bawdy house, he was, on Ile de la Tortue. He come to Morgan with so many stripes on his back that Morgan should’ve got a discount on the price.” Meadows observed warily that the gun barrel had righted itself again. “Watch it, there! That thing’s cocked!”
“I know it is,” Merry said grimly, “and you’re making me very nervous. When I grow nervous, my fingers twitch uncontrollably.”
This time he could see she meant it. Staring at the loaded pistol, he asked uneasily, “What could I do to make you less nervous?”
“Row,” she said. And this time Meadows put his back into it. Neither spoke, and the only sounds were the rhythmically splashing oars and the sucking lap of the ocean as it moved beneath them. The battle sounds had faded to silence. The first searching tendrils of sun warmth fell softly on Merry’s cheeks, the breeze made a gentle massage on her weary shoulders, and the sea whispered a rich melody to the new day. Shifting the bucket to her lap, Merry tucked the pistol between her knees, crossed her arms on the bucket, and rested her cheek on her forearm. She meant only to close her eyes for a moment. In that moment she fell deeply asleep.
Merry woke with a sick knot in her stomach and powerful light stinging her scratchy eyelids. Her muscles burned as though someone had stitched nettles in them, and her face, nestled against the bucket’s rough unfinished surface, felt as though it had been rubbed down with sand. The stench of rum, pine, and sour sweat howled into her dry throat. Fabric covered her head. Overwhelmed by the feeling that she was about to suffocate, Merry grabbed wildly at it and emerged into blank white sunshine.
“Threw one of me shirts over you,” she heard Meadows say. Blinking against the heavy light, she couldn’t see him at first. “Shoulda been one of yourn,” he said, “but as you didn’t see fit to bring nothing wi’ you ’cept a no-good nothing of a squid—Here, have some of this.”
A horn cup was pressed into her hands. The water inside was hot and metallic to the taste. Merry drank three cupfuls of it before saying, “Thank you. I’ve had enough.” Shading her eyes and squinting, she was able to stand the light.
