The Windflower

by Laura London

  “Jeez, you disgusting porker,” Cook was saying. “It’s a bloody cannibal you are. This could be kin of yours, for all you know. Jeez!” He grabbed up the rum bottle that Dennis had overturned and started to guzzle. “Someone ought to make you into a Christian.”

  Merry saw Devon on a firm grassy rise, reclining with the golden grace of a demigod, his perfectly cut shoulders against a log. A crystal goblet from Morgan’s fine set, half-filled with wine, rested on the ground by his hip. With a softly creased smile he was talking to two British Marine officers. The scarlet military coats stood out like cardinals in a winter garden and drew Merry’s attention to the men who wore them. One man, sprawled comfortably upon a dark boulder, had a wide clownish mouth set between waggling jowls. His tall crowned hat was askew, and he had unfastened his belt to give free rein to his girth. The other man appeared to be painfully ill at ease in this piratical company; he looked as though he would rather be anywhere else in the world as he sat ramrod straight on a rock, occasionally running a thin hand nervously through his sandy hair.

  Higher on the shore a mammoth silk-cotton tree dripped lianas like many ropes from its wide branches. The boy beneath was three-quarters turned from Merry, but there was no disguising the long ivory braid or the gleam of a gold hoop on his hollowed cheek. A young woman straddled the thigh he had braced against the tree behind her, and with her eyes closed and her brunette hair streaming over her naked shoulders, she rode him with her hips, straining into the palm that was skillfully handling her breast, tilting her head to permit his slow caress of her throat.

  Some of the men had begun to notice Merry. Erik Shay saw her and followed the direction of her shamed gaze. Cursing under his breath, he stomped over to Cat, and as Merry watched, Shay cuffed Cat on the shoulder, speaking gruffly in a distant pantomime. Cat swung immediately. Briefly he met the urgent appeal in her eyes and then transferred his gaze to Morgan, and the boy’s expression deepened to pure anger.

  But Dennis had spotted Merry and with porcine enthusiasm began trying to scrabble up her legs and into her arms, depositing gritty hock prints on her borrowed gown. Others began to turn, to salute Morgan with huzzahs and raised bottles, to call bleary affectionate greetings to Merry. Many had not seen her since her illness, and she was quickly drawn into a loose circle to be teased and petted and admired. She began automatically to respond; trying to find comfort in a fondness that she knew would never lead them to protect her from Rand Morgan or from Devon.

  Annie, who had taken less to drink than the others, saw the trouble in Merry’s face and tried with friendly anxiety to find out what the matter was. Realizing that Merry’s sign language was too limited for a clear explanation and frustrated by her inability to communicate with Merry, Annie tugged on Cook’s sleeve and signed to him that Merry was not happy. Inebriated and amorous, the last thing that Cook wanted was to be presented with one of Merry’s insoluble problems. Annie had to pick his hands out of her bodice three times before, with an irritable groan, Cook asked Will Saunders to find Raven and see if he couldn’t bring up a smile on Merry. Saunders, in a kindly mood, left off his drinking to fetch Raven, who was trying to bury himself in the sand with a young woman wearing four strands of pearls around her waist. Saunders dragged the protesting boy over, knocking the sand off him as he came. When Raven saw whom he had been summoned to entertain, he enveloped her in a hug and made her the focus of his sweet besotted attentions until the young woman with the pearls removed one of the strands and tossed it over Raven’s shoulders before she ran off toward the sea, laughing, calling Raven’s name in soft invitation, flinging away her clothes as her bare feet flew over the damp sand.

  With an amiable grin Raven ran after her, making the parting comment that with as much rum as that girl had in her, he had better go along and see that something didn’t happen to her.

  “You mean,” Saunders called to him, “to make sure something does happen to her.” Shifting his gaze back to Merry, Will Saunders bent slightly at the knees, laid his hands flat on his long muscled thighs, and leaned forward to look into her face. “Tell me about it, Merry lamb. What’s made you so cast down? Has Devon been blowing hot and cold on you again?”

  “Will, Morgan told me that something—”

  “Hey!” Cook said, wiping his mouth on the wad of his discarded shirt. “Devon’s right up there talking to that Captain Airmouth—”

  “Eremuth. Captain Eremuth,” Saunders corrected.

  “Aye, well, and isn’t that what I said? Christsake. Why don’t you play cupid, Will?”

  Will Saunders caught Merry before she had time to understand what he intended, and as he hefted her over his shoulder he said laughingly, “Up with you, sweetheart. And struggle a little, because we don’t want him thinking you’re too eager for him. We’ll put you where you want to be.”

  “Will! Are you taking me to Devon? Will, no! No!”

  “Why, darlin’, you’re almost an actress,” Saunders said. And in a moment he murmured something to Devon, dropped her at his side, and quickly left.

  Merry felt Devon enfold her in his arms, the clasp light, protective, calming. He must have been able to feel the coldness of her limbs, the trembling tension in her muscles. She sought his eyes, and in their wine-hazed golden depths she sensed the inquiring frown that wasn’t showing on his face. Why have you come, Merry? Why are you afraid?

  Nothing had changed. Whatever Morgan thought was going to happen had not occurred yet, or she would surely have been able to feel the difference in Devon. She couldn’t even tell that he was angry, though he must be, for all that he was disguising it. Morgan, with an urbane mask covering his saturnine features, was sitting on the other side of Devon and by now would have had ample time to imply to Devon that she had come here of her free will in defiance of Devon’s express orders. So Devon must have been angry, though his gaze was only plowing her steadily, as though to unearth the roots of her distrust. Behind her the fat British officer began to chuckle.

  “Ah, Devon, Devon,” said the man. “Never without the amenities. By Jove, what a queenly creature! No wonder you missed your meeting last month in Bermuda. Couldn’t pull yourself off the saddle, eh? She’s a highflier. I never have seen such hair.”

  On the Joke being Devon’s supposed mistress gave her an elevated status. With men from Devon’s own class the case was otherwise. Clearly this was what Devon had wished to spare her when he had forbidden her presence. Of course she should have known that her association, even involuntary, with the Black Joke would bring her virtue into disrepute among men and women of convention, and yet in the disordered course of things she had not quite realized until this moment how lowly that would be or what feelings of anguish and humiliation it would cause her. To deny that she was what these arrogant Britons thought would, of course, be stupid. Only danger could come from prompting these men to look into her past.

  Merry saw Cat appear from the shadows to join Erik Shay and Joe Griffith, who were dicing just within earshot. Looking clean and pale in the firelight, Cat dropped lightly to his knees beside Shay, speaking to him in a quiet voice that did not carry beyond, and in a moment began to dice with them. The light-blue eyes never turned toward Merry where she sat huddled wretchedly by Devon, feeling branded and debased, the greater part of her awareness tied to Devon’s hands, their slow movement dispensing compassion and understanding at her back.

  “I believe, Prufrock,” said Morgan, addressing himself to the fat officer, “that before the interruption we were about to delve into this great invasion fleet that England is sending to trounce her rebellious former colonies in the United States?”

  The shock that passed through her body was severe. She knew that Devon, close as he was to her, must have felt it before she was able to control it.

  Prufrock took a noisy swallow of wine. “And about time too! We’ve a mind to teach those American rapscallions that war is not to be declared against Great Britain with impunity. They’re going to get the
drubbing they’ve been asking for since June of 1812. Now that we’ve got Bonaparte out of the way, we can afford to put more of our eggs in the American basket. By the time the fleet arrives from Bordeaux to join the Marines and the naval units we have based in Bermuda, we’ll have twenty thousand troops ready to launch an attack on New York.”

  “New York, is it now?” said Devon. “The last I heard, you had your hopes pinned on beginning in the Chesapeake Bay. Who told you there would be twenty thousand troops? Our enshrined commander Vice Admiral Cochrane? He’ll never get twenty thousand, and you can tell him I said so. They’ll need most of the Army in France to keep order and men in Flanders besides; and Prevost has been begging London to reinforce his position in Canada. They won’t be able to put him off any longer. You’ll be lucky if you see four thousand men from Europe.”

  “Pessimist!” Prufrock said good-naturedly. “Do you forget the light artillery?”

  “No,” Devon said, “but you should. Wellington will never let it leave Europe.”

  Eremuth, who had taken no part in the conversation, leaned suddenly forward and addressed himself earnestly to Devon. “If you would only come back with us to Bermuda. I know you won’t take a commission, but if you would stay there and organize the intelligence as Cochrane wants you to… instead of merely reporting to him. Devon, Cochrane listens to you.”

  “Not well enough,” Devon said, casually pressing his wineglass to Merry’s frigid, trembling lips. He waited until she had choked down the swallow of amber fluid, watching her intently before he looked back toward Eremuth and said, “Now that General Ross has been appointed to head the troops, Cochrane can listen to Ross. Together they can march the Invincibles through the trackless wastes of America dropping from heat and disease until someone at Whitehall has the mettle to sign a peace treaty.”

  “My boy, you don’t know the mood back home,” said Prufrock. “Chastise the savages! says the Times.…”

  Merry, staring fixedly at the longboat approaching the shore from the British frigate, was finally able to block out the voices around her. Invasion! Invasion… The word roared again and again in her mind with the force of exploding rock. This might have been a scene from the fantasy heroics of her childhood: Merry Patricia Wilding Overhears a Most Dangerous Plot to Attack Her Nation and Swiftly Warns Washington! How fertilely her imagination would have overcome all obstacles, contriving the message in a bottle that would float to the Potomac and be washed up miraculously at President Madison’s feet, or her black-of-the-night escape from St. Elise, desperately paddling in Devon’s canoe. Anger about these British plans would have been mixed with bold excitement if life had not already taught the hard lesson that it was nearly impossible to escape from a ruthless and experienced man when one was eighteen years old, with few survival skills, no money, and an open ocean to cross. Devon had planned to let her go. Could he with what she knew now?

  A sympathetic finger gently tilted her chin. Again she met Devon’s questing gaze. Inches separated their faces; his head was slightly to one side, so that only a bare movement from either would have brought their lips together. Foolishly she felt a hollow, aching need for him rise within her, as though her femininity were a painfully opening bud thirsting for his flowing sunlight. Cat had not been so poetic. When you love a man, he had said, you’ll want him to be inside you, Merry. Naturally she had denied it hotly, but later, alone in her bedroom, staring without seeing at the calfskin cover of English Hermit, she had said aloud, “It’s true, it’s true.” To see Devon’s long-boned hand curved upon the goblet, his thumb rubbing unthinkingly over the smooth glass, was to long for that light caress to be transferred to the taut skin of her neck. Studying the firm sensual curl of his mouth made her burn to thread her fingers into his golden hair and pull his head slowly to her breasts, to lie under him until his lips and tongue drove her to red, writhing madness. Desire, Merry had discovered, was a strange spirit; compelling, apt to appear at inconvenient moments, and not particularly responsive to common sense. And though she was warmed by Devon’s obvious support of a peace between the United States and Great Britain, there was no doubt he played an important role in the British military, for all that it was difficult to tell exactly what that might be: as spy, writer of reports, or advisor to that man so hated in her country, Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. That was power. How could he possibly release her after the things she had just heard?

  Prufrock spoke. Devon turned to answer. On the shoreline Merry could see the British longboat land and put out a boy who carried a leather document pouch. The gilt buttons and excessive gold lace on his red coat marked him as a rich man’s son; straight-shouldered and immaculate in his carefully pressed uniform, the boy sighted the British officers beside Devon on the rise and began to make his way toward them through the drunken pirates, with a certain terrified bravado that was mixed with large parts of awe and envy. When he had come close enough, Merry saw him stare with the worship due a hero at Devon before he saluted and handed the leather pouch to Eremuth and then stood at a respectful distance with his eyes forward, his hands behind his back.

  “I mentioned earlier that I had something I needed to show you,” Eremuth commented, opening the pouch’s thong bindings.

  “Bills advertising for my capture, didn’t you say?” Morgan asked blandly.

  In front of Merry’s eyes the world froze, remained that way for a silent moment, and then leaped into a wild somersault. Morgan’s black gaze whipped her face and then returned with an interested smile to Eremuth, who was speaking.

  “… we decided that it would be best if you saw them yourself, Devon. What makes these bills different is not only that they are illustrated, but that they are done so with enormous skill. Furthermore, there are likenesses of others on the Black Joke as well as of Rand Morgan. And of three of our most effective agents in the Washington area. Yes! You may well look surprised. In fact, we were astonished. But, frankly, what disturbed us most was to find your portrait in the group, Devon. I can hardly convey the degree of alarm we felt when we realized that you were operating in the United States with such a risk of exposure! If you had been seen by anyone familiar with the poster, they would have hanged you and asked questions later. Well, that’s neither here nor there,” he said, handing the sheaf of papers to Morgan. “It was only good fortune that we were able to put our hands on them. A loyalist assistant in the printer’s office notified our people, and the bills were ultimately smuggled into Canada.… Well, Captain Morgan, what do you think?”

  “But they’re charming,” Morgan said. “Here’s one I find particularly taking.” He read, “Pirate known as Cat. Wanted for piracy, brigandage, kidnapping, rapine, and mayhem. Fifty dollars reward.”

  Merry’s insides were a house of cards, falling, falling as Cat got up and strolled toward Morgan.

  Malevolently grinning, Morgan read on, “Age seventeen, eighteen, or thereabouts. Tall. Slender build. Very pale. Well-favored.” Morgan handed the sheet to Cat. “They certainly want a lot for fifty dollars.”

  It was impossible to guess what Cat was thinking as he studied the paper, gave it back to Morgan, and said, “It’s nice to be wanted.”

  “Have you noted the style of the artist? Highly distinctive, wouldn’t you say? One would know it immediately if one ever saw it on another occasion.” Eremuth transferred the pages to Devon, saying, “What do you think?”

  Perhaps there had been some clue for Devon in Morgan’s grin or in Cat’s expressionless assessment. Perhaps as Devon withdrew his hands from her and slowly sat up he knew already. The long shapely hands received the drawings. Golden eyes skimmed over the pictures as he quickly studied one after another, taking no greater interest in his own portrait than in the others. They were distinctive, as the British officer had said. Trapped between Devon’s fingers as alike and yet as individual as a row of apples were face after face from Merry’s unmistakable hand. There, minimally altered by the careful printing process, Merry saw her ow
n firm varied pencil strokes, her distinctive cross-hatching, her reed pen detailing. They might well have carried her signature. The only surprise for Merry, seeing the pictures after so long an interval, was how childish and inaccurate had been her insights. She had made Morgan humorlessly satanic, devoid of the more suave menaces. Cat’s sketch was of a youthful Norse raider who was incapable of conceding to his softer impulses. And Devon—she couldn’t then, nor could she now capture that natural wealth of perfect male contours and radiant flesh hues that hid a unique and complex character.

  Merry’s heart had begun a double-headed beat, an intense ba-bang, ba-bang that reverberated through her lungs. Though her skin surfaces were numb, she knew that she must have lost color. She felt Cat’s gaze as a firm and sustaining grip as she heard Prufrock say, “Our artist is obviously an older man. Extensive training, I should guess, probably in Italy. Talented fellow. Pity. We’ve orders to short-cut his career.”

  “Kill him, do we mean?” questioned Morgan in an emotionless tone.

  “Regrettably,” Eremuth assented unhappily. “If the artist was less talented, if the subjects were chosen with less discretion, then we could afford to be merciful.” Addressing himself to Devon, he said, “As you’ve pointed out so aptly in your reports, our intelligence network is poor. You, I believe, used a stronger word. Since so many on the Black Joke were subjects, we had hopes that you would have some idea who might have done them. Could you put your hands on the artist?”

  A warm wind sucked the cold sweat beads on her palms and licked at her bodice, cupping the fabric into her breasts and midriff. Wisps of hair irritated her temples. Acid fluids ate the surface of her eyes. Time moved heavily, the seconds rising to collapse awkwardly, like a warped cartwheel. Her self-control was stretched to its ultimate limit before Devon stood in an even flood of motion.