“Tell me more about the silk-cotton tree,” she said with a gulp.
“It has a sensitive soul, you know. It’s widely believed that if you throw a stick at it, you’ll be visited with misfortune.”
“If the silk-cotton doesn’t like sticks thrown at it, how on earth did it react to axes and fire?” she asked, working with her pencil on the humorously arrogant tilt of his upper lip.
“Very well, because we’d taken the precaution of pouring libations of rum at its roots. The best superstitions always have an antidote.” Drawing back his leg, he used the top of his foot to gently rub the plush inner curve that stretched to her toes. As soon as she saw what he was going to do, she expected it to tickle. The surprise was that the ticklish feelings occurred neither in the manner she had anticipated nor in the places. A blush began, spreading in from her cheekbones toward her nose, and to cover it, Merry picked up her sketch pad, as though she had to study her drawing from a closer vantage. Safely hidden, she was able to say, “Devon, why does Morgan live here?”
“Instead of, perhaps, in a tent on the coast of Spanish Florida? Because he’s a rich man, my dear.”
“Don’t the other island families mind that Morgan’s a pirate?” she asked, secretly fanning her blush.
“If they do, they don’t say so to his face,” Devon answered good-humoredly. “St. Elise is so isolated that I don’t think they realize what the name Rand Morgan means in other places.”
Willing the blood from her cheeks, Merry took the bold step of lowering the sketchbook to her knees again. She could only hope for the sake of her self-respect that he didn’t know the full extent of the things he did to her. Casually she said, “How did Morgan come to own the island?”
There was a slight hesitation which made her look up at him, but she could discover nothing unusual in his face.
He said, “Rand bought it from the St. Cyrs.”
“As in the Duke of?” asked Merry, astonished by the eerie coincidence of it, remembering that the Dowager Duchess of St. Cyr had been the catalyst for the disastrous chain of events which had brought her here. Merry reminded herself that she must not appear to know more about the famous St. Cyr family than the average well-read person might. Her ability to anticipate him was improving, because the next question Devon asked was, “You know the family?”
There was a keen edge to the question that Devon took no trouble to conceal, and that made her uneasy. Or perhaps it was his soft exploration of the base of her toes that she found disturbing.
“Who doesn’t know of the St. Cyrs?” she said. “The current duke is highly regarded in the United States, you know, for his opposition to the Orders in Council that permitted the British Navy to blockade American ports.” She waited to give him the opportunity to defend his country’s hateful atrocities. Either he was in no mood to argue, or he had no strong feelings on the subject, because he made no comment.
The other item of note about the St. Cyr family was that the father of the present duke had been the world-renowned botanical painter. His wonderful volume of nature drawings was one of her favorite possessions; it was in her trunk with Aunt April.
Shading the shapely hollows beneath his Attic cheekbones, she ventured, “I can’t imagine how the distinguished St. Cyrs could have an association with Rand Morgan.”
“Ah—the St. Cyrs are a loose family, my dear. Did you know that the late duke married the daughter of his head gardener? The dowager duchess wore mourning for a year after the wedding and sent her son and new daughter-in-law a wagon of vegetable marrows on their first anniversary.” Fitting his sole to hers, he continued. “The St. Cyrs had this island ceded to them by Charles II on the condition that they pay ‘unto His Majesty yearly and every year one fat sheep if demanded.’ As Morgan says, there’s quite a tale behind the sheep.…”
It was a good day for talking. The kindly fates, after separating Devon and Merry in experience and temperament, had looked back with regretful sighs and cast camellia garlands of warm conversation to the ill-omened pair. The young man who was a spy and the girl who was a spy-of-sorts had earned this fate-given opportunity, he for the sacrifice he had made for her, though that meant he must accept her honesty on faith alone, which was not an easy thing for a man who had never learned to trust his lovers. And if he was deserving for his sacrifice, she won her laurels for its opposite, for the meager, unheralded act of heroism of withholding from him the secret that was not hers to reveal.
So, when anyone would think that they wouldn’t have much to talk about, neutral subjects arrived for them the way shells appear on the newly strewn seashore with each flooding tide. Devon had the kind of natural charisma thatwould have made a crowd of two thousand listen with bated breath as he discussed the digging of a drainage ditch. At age eighteen Merry Wilding was not so talented. Most men would have been happy to stare at her by the hour; only the kind ones would be equally content to listen to her talk; that would come later in her life. And though not one of his myriad discarded mistresses, however fond, would have called himkind,Devon delighted even in the most naïve of Merry’s minutiae. There was little he had not seen on the battlefield or in the bedroom, but he could still find drama in her story about the time she had seen lightning strike a windmill and ignite the canvas covering on the vanes to dancing flames. When little fish nibbled the bait from Devon’s line, he laughed and didn’t put it out again.
Later he rowed them to a cove he knew where the beach skipped inward between two dormant volcanic peaks. Primitive forests brightened the twin cones and reflected with them in the shimmering film of water that iced the ivory sands as the waves withdrew.
Together Devon and Merry beached the canoe beside a pile of driftwood and wandered along the wave line. He casually held out his hand, and she took it, letting the dangerously unresolved problems between them ride out with the tide.
The sand was heated gossamer, deep enough to cover their ankles. He made her pause before a great conch shell that lay half-buried in the glittering silt. A large butterfly perched atop the shell, its translucent yellow wings parting and closing in soft, gentle beats. He picked up the shell and held it to her, and as she reached for it, feeling its hardness and satiny texture beneath her fingertips, the butterfly took wing. His hands spread under hers, supporting them, taking the conch’s weight as she gazed into its swelling folds. The pure colors dazzled her, pearly white along the rim deepening first to pink and then to a brighter scarlet hue, until inthe inner mysteries where the light could not reach, the shell became a lovely mixture of dusky purple and hazy deep red. Their joined hands carried the shell to her ear, and the silver-toned roar wept into her senses. Sunlight stung her shoulders, sea moisture found her lips. The bright golden hairs on his chest lifted at the casual affectionate touch of the ocean breeze, and she longed to rub her cheek against their softness. Smiling at him, she raised her head, and they walked again. He carried the shell, with his fingers curled into its open lip, and slipped his other arm around her waist. Her head rested on his shoulder, and her hair, blown by the trade winds, streamed across his chest and throat like fine gold dust.
Eden.
They found a brook that fed the aqua bay with spring water. Two pelicans had landed among the black rocks there and preened their feathers and tossed water over their wings as Merry and Devon strolled by them, following the freshet inland. The foliage of the giant mahoganies met overhead in a natural arbor that allowed sunlight to seep through in pale-green bands. The freshet fed a stream, and that a cascade of rapids widening at the base into a secluded pool. An aged frame of limestone swept along the far side of the pool. Masses of wall marigolds exploded between the broken stones along with heavy blossom bundles in red and violet.
Mincing like a fawn over the sharp little rocks at the pool’s edge, Merry walked into the shallows as Devon set down the shell and followed her with more assured steps.
The pool was fed by a warm underground spring which she could feel rushing over her feet, and as they waded they found to their delight that it was quite deep, and she leaned back luxuriantly into his arms as the warm, relaxing fluid lapped about her thighs. A mound of swollen scarlet flowers dripped from the limestone outcropping overlooking the pool, and the musky scent tickled at her nostrils. She sighedwith joy at the wash of sensations. The sunlight, falling down through the arch of trees above them, probed at her, awakening her, playing across the freckled cheeks, the tiny nose, the huge heavy-lidded eyes. Her thick hair tumbled over her breasts like the cascade that spilled down the rocks behind them, and he could feel her breathe beneath his wrists as he encircled her from behind; it was such a pleasing picture to him, one of lovely skin tugging at thin fabric, wet and diaphanous where the water had done its work—it seemed like she was a new creature, half human, half flower, her gown swirling about her like petals.
He turned her to him, and she leaned back against the soft fall of flowers, lifting her chin, letting the sun touch the most delicate and unreachable softness of her throat, her back arching gracefully, bending under the warmth of his hands on her sides. Their bodies touched, his hard and muscle-knit, hers soft and yielding, holding each other in a soul-spinning embrace, his desire and her response as innocent and as rich and as floral as the bud plumes lying splendidly against her cheek. Her lips parted slightly as she breathed the perfumed, nectarlike air.
He studied the young face, remembering the dark hours when death had laid its coldly beckoning hands on her, and his kiss, when it came to her, was chaste and urgent. But the free-flowing fire between them began to soften and shape their mouths, and the pressure of his lips increased.… He pulled back then, pleasuring in the sight of her, learning the full curve of her cheek with the caress of his finger.
She tilted her head under his touch, inadvertently brushing her own lips against his; and drew back, startled by the heat rising within her. Suspended in tenderness, she held the impression of his willing male flesh upon her mouth, the form of the alien lips, which were firm and winning. Her lashes danced open, and her eyes met his subtly tempting gaze.
He murmured, “Kiss me again.” And then, softly, “Please.”
Initiating their contact was awkward for her, perhaps partly because he was infinitely more skilled than she. “Please,” he had said, and stood courteously silent. He touched her lower lip, gently rubbing back and forth there as it distended under his thumb. The water touched warmly at her thighs with innocent provocation; the sun was constant upon them, a halo. Finally she put up her chin, gazing into his eyes for a moment before she closed hers, and pressed her mouth to his in a full, open kiss. When she broke from him, she was trembling so that he had to support her with his hands, and her cheeks were hotly flushed.
