by Laura London
“At five of the clock tomorrow evening there will be a black coach with the wheels picked out in red waiting at the southeastern corner of Finsbury Square. How you manage to get there is your own affair, but I imagine a chit of your ingenuity will think of something; but if you aren’t in that coach by one minute past the hour, it will leave without you, and I promise you, my pretty, you won’t have a second chance. Be there if you want to see your brother. Otherwise, he will cease abruptly to be of any use to me, and I’ll let him die. You might, of course, choose to carry this story to one of your masculine protectors, which would also end his usefulness to me. It would be something of a relief to be able to dispose of him.”
“And of me,” she said, her gaze resting bleakly on her hands, where the watch lay softly gleaming like a golden egg.
Granville’s boot leather made a faint crinkling sound on the sandy flagstones as he joined her on the bench. The back of his hand rested on her cheek, turning her face toward him, though she flinched from his touch. Some of the fierce animosity had fled from the gray-green eyes, and in their depths was the dim mirage of an emotion that might once have been compassion.
“Why do you think I told you in New York that your aunt planned to take you to England? I had hopes you’d run home to your patriotic father and stay out of my net. Much as I regret it, poppet, I can’t afford to care about your hurt. I’m not sure whether this will comfort you, but it wouldn’t suit me to end your life. What I need now is to negotiate some sort of peace with Devon, and without having you whole and hale and in my power, I’d find myself very thin of bargaining capital.” He stood. “Tomorrow evening at five. Finsbury Square,” he said and strode quickly away, vanishing like a ghoul into the night’s black serum.
In another moment Raven’s hands closed on her wrists, holding them in a sustaining grip. She was standing, though she couldn’t remember having moved.
“You heard?” she murmured tensely.
“Every word. M’love, I want to stay with you now, but I can’t. I have to follow him.”
“Why? What purpose will it serve if—” Interpreting the grim set of his mouth, she cried, “Raven, you can’t kill him!”
“No? All right, lambkin. Don’t fret. I’ll only kill him a little.”
“Raven, you can’t! Didn’t you understand? He has my brother!”
Raven was a gentle man, both by nature and by disposition, but he had been reared in a hard school, and his affection did not transfer readily from Merry to her brother. Nor did he have much faith in either the authenticity of the watch or the likelihood that Merry’s brother would still be alive if he had put himself in Granville’s orbit. And even if the whole unlikely story were true, Raven would have unhesitatingly sacrificed the unknown brother for Merry. But he was not proof against her sterling, honest gaze.
“As you wish it, m’dear, but I can’t stand here argufying about it, or I’ll lose him.” He cast an impatient glance over his shoulder. “I’ll just discover where he goes and then take the matter to Morgan—”
“No!”
“Well, then,” he said, releasing her hands, starting to move across the clearing, “Devon.”
“No! Raven, I don’t think so. You have to allow me time to think.”
“Hell and the devil, there’s no time for thinking! I have to go.”
She ran after him, dragging up her heavy, bouncing skirts. “Promise me that you won’t tell anyone. Promise. We’ll meet tomorrow morning and decide what to do.”
“Fine! Good-bye!”
The impenetrable vegetation stopped her, and she had to call after him, “Where?”
He returned swiftly. “Hush! Noon at St. Mary Abchurch. It’s near the Royal Exchange. And I hope to God that by then you’ll have decided to see sense.”
Chapter 29
Outside Merry’s window the sky had the dark luster of a ripe brambleberry. She had surrendered to a yawning abigail the formidable pile of arrayment she had worn to the ball: the heavy silk gown, the long gloves, the petticoats, the light stays, the silk stockings; and then sent the weary girl to bed. She had meant to remove her jewels and change the sheer chemisette for a nightgown, but exhaustion had overwhelmed her suddenly, and the burdens she had disguised under a smile and a slightly nervous vivacity came slipping back with a battering strength.
Devon had retired to his own dressing room, and she was grateful that for this moment at least she didn’t have to pretend. Part of her wanted to crawl beneath the bed linen and give her mind to the nothingness of sleep, except that the hairpins that supported her classical hair design had been placed for effect, not comfort, and they were likely to keep her awake all night if she didn’t remove them now. She dropped tiredly onto the stool before her dressing table and sat with her head drooping before she lifted her hands to her hair. Searching through her curls, she began to discover and withdraw hairpins, making each a might be for things that could come to pass if she told Devon about Granville’s visit. Devon might kill Granville and be charged with his murder. Granville might kill Devon. Granville might kill her brother. Devon might rescue her brother and yet feel obliged to deliver him to the British authorities. Devon might rescue her brother, try to protect him from the authorities, and then be charged himself with treason.…
So deeply did she enter the world of her own thoughts that she didn’t hear Devon come into the room, though he had made no particular effort to do it quietly. He came to the threshold, meaning to make some casual remark to her. The words never left his mouth. Instead he put one hand on the bedpost, watching her reflection in the mirror.
Weariness and, it seemed to him, some sort of soul-deep dejection had robbed her face of animation and hence a certain amount of its beauty, and he was reminded of the days when she was at the peak of her illness, when the ravages of disease had made her so plain that Cat had quietly removed all mirrors from her presence. It had been in those days that Devon had begun in some unconscious way to face the fact that he loved her, when the “fondness” he felt toward her had shone on undimmed, strengthening, and he had been forced to acknowledge that her physical self had little to do with the power she exerted over his heart. An errant memory came to him of holding her cold and shaking fingers under his as he dragged a rope around her wrists. Fear whispered through him like a white flame, and then its attendants, which he had recently learned to expect—nausea, remorse, self-hatred. Was it some past base act of his that brought this sad look to her face? Meeting her aunt had made him comprehend wholly what kind of life Merry had lived before his own advent into it, and he understood almost more than he could bear about how frightened she must have been by what she had experienced on the Black Joke. A lingering haunted quality dwelt in her remote gaze, and while her sadnesses had always touched him, since their first full coming together, her emotions affected him even more potently. It was as though the membrane of some strange fruit had ruptured within him, spilling and spreading its seed through every chamber of his body. Seeing her thus, his impulse was to drop to his knees at her side and weep into her palms.
Her head moved slightly, lightening the shadows on her face. A cluster of candles on the dressing stand cast mock suns into the deep coils of her hair. Her eyes were very blue against the gold of her skin and the lush coral of her cheeks. The St. Cyr rubies winked in solemn splendor on her breast and on the delicate rise of her shoulders. There was an exotic quality to the famous jewels. The droop of the necklet seemed to describe the swell of her breasts; a gold-and-ruby cuff rested three inches above her right elbow; each of her lovely ankles—one stretched in a firm line before her, the other tucked up and under the ivory curve of her buttocks, barely revealed beneath her sheer undergarment—carried a dainty ankle bracelet of glinting gold links and small rubies. He had glimpsed them earlier, when some turn of the dance or other movement of hers had carried up her skirts enough to reveal the radiant gems and flesh.
A flicker of distress seemed to pass over her features. Her ey
es focused, and she gazed into the looking glass and saw him. Her smile was brilliant, unthinkingly arousing; but it came too quickly, too defensively, and he felt a painful, swift stab of desire.
Long-standing habit had made it second nature to him to control his features. His face revealed the nuances of his feelings only when he made a conscious attempt to express them or when his emotions were beyond thought. And so to Merry his eyes seemed only thoughtful and alarmingly probing. As he had guessed, her smile had been a defense, but seeing him suddenly brought back the terror-subdued recollection that even on the Joke, when he believed the worst of her character, he had still loved her, and had told Raven so. Her smile dwindled; her throat grew tight; her pulse began softly pounding. Nor could she forbear to notice the picture he made, leaning with rakish ease on an upraised arm that rested against the bedpost. His other hand lay relaxed at his thigh, the long fingers negligently clasping a forgotten glass of white wine, and his unbuttoned shirt fell apart enough to give her a glimpse of the tough, inviting musculature of his chest and his stomach. Slippery candlelight smoothed like ointment over his hips where they shaped his breeches. She caught a breath as he spoke.
“What troubles you, my dear love?”
Their eyes met through the chill medium of the mirror. She said nothing. The faint shake of her head, which displaced the thick curls on her shoulders, was perhaps a denial of her mood.
He came to her at an unhurried pace, standing behind her, holding her gaze. His hand, slowly lifted, came to her cheek to chart its structure with the careful tracing of a finger.
“Dear heart, can’t you tell me what it is?” he asked quietly. She answered him with silence, her eyes drenched with startlingly bright color and apprehension, and he recalled that she had spent time in the garden talking with Cat and, according to Cat, with Raven also. Probably she had shared what was in her mind with them, and the idea that they might be more in her confidence than he was hurt him. But he was perversely grateful for the wound. Suffering seemed the only way he had of paying for the unearned joy that loving her brought him. He had said as much yesterday to Morgan, who had merely opened his dark eyes rather wide and murmured, “What an interesting fancy, child. I hardly know whether to mix you a physic or congratulate myself on how much the year’s done to improve your character.”
Touching his fingertips along the rise of her cheek, he felt her flesh heat under his skin.
“If I could give you anything, what would it be, Merry?”
She sat curiously still, staring back at his reflection. Then a wry little smile curved her lips. “A moment or two without having to think.”
Softly he said, “Love, I can give you that.”
His face had taken on an intent drowsy look she could feel in the lower part of her body. Her pulse skipped a pair of beats, and the tightness of her throat spread to her breasts. She swallowed uncomfortably as the experienced fingers slipped downward, stroking lightly the taut sinews of her throat. The heat of his body came to her from behind, his hips pressing into her back just beneath her shoulders. His knee slid up to the cushioned seat, bracing his leg, the motion cradling her against his thighs.
“Drink,” he whispered, bringing the wineglass around her shoulder, touching the rim to her lower lip. His other hand, cupping her throat, felt the rippling convulsions as she drank. A delicate massage of the soft underside of her chin tilted her head, and he bent, bringing his mouth down on hers. He drank the wine from her lips, tasting her flesh with his open mouth. Gently supporting her chin on his wrist, he slanted the wineglass to take some of the pale liquid on his finger and trailed it in a lazy path along the inner surface of her lips, following it with the tip of his tongue. The wine left a faint erotic glow where his light caresses applied it to the dove’s-wing softness of her lower lip, the moisture aiding his mouth’s exploration. Her eyelids fell shut, her lips swollen and slightly parted, her breath deliciously uneasy.
She abandoned herself to his touch, to the growing pressure within her body, losing herself in the melody of his murmured love words. His fingers were warm, slightly heating the sparkling wine before bringing it to the ripe nerves behind her ear, to her temples, to the thickly beating pulse in her throat. The heady fluid played beguiling tricks as the air cooled and dried it, leaving a hot, penetrating residue that saturated deeply into her fluttery senses. She turned her head weakly to the side, skimming her lips along his forearm, and then, as he offered it, his wrist, the rise of his palm, its warm hollow. And as his hands sank downward to lift and caress her breasts she heard a softly pleading sound escape her throat, and she said his name in anguished desire.
His quiet laughter flickered against her shoulder. “No, little flower. Softly, love. I need you too, but we have to give your body more time to be ready for love.” His mouth, covering hers, caught her pleasure cry as his thumbs found her nipples, stroking them through fabric. Gliding over the moist surfaces of her lips, he whispered, “Tonight I want to pull the soul out of your body, Merry, and bring it together with my own.”
She said something—a husky little utterance that sounded like “Yipes”—and he was laughing again as he slid his fingers under the narrow ribbons of her chemisette and drew it over her shoulders and down the smooth trembling flesh of her arms. Letting the fabric spill in a shimmer like new snow around her hips, he brought his hands back to stroke tenderly over the length of her hair, lifting it in a mass to his face, inhaling its hypnotic fragrance.
Peeking shakily upward, she watched the reflected image of her hair, a reddish tumbling cascade, as it mingled with his wild honey fairness. Her eyes had a liquid radiance, her mouth shone wetly, passion-flushes tinged her cheeks and neck. She stared at the puzzle of herself for a quick-breathing moment, until his hands found their way back to her breasts and she closed her eyes, gasping against the sweetness of his flesh pressing into hers. Her body pushed backward into the coaxing warmth of his thighs and bare stomach. Blindly searching, she brought an arm up to touch his face and to rub the back of his neck. And it was his turn to gasp as the motion arched her breasts into his fingers. Burying himself in the splendor of her curls, his palms pressed her overtender flesh, gently distorting the soft shape of her breast with their pressure. His thumbs, dewed in wine, slightly lifted her aching nipples. For a long time he held her thus against his body while his hands played luxuriantly over her bewildered flesh until she was hot and sweat-damped and shivering, and as he drew her to the bed she pulled at his clothing, undressing him with clumsy, shaking fingers as he laid her crosswise on the bed.
“Devon—I love you… love you,” she whispered thickly. “Love me… love me…”
“I will, little flower.” But instead he brought his mouth down to rock gently over her panting lips. His hand began a light kneading motion on the skin below her navel that traveled slowly to her lean thigh muscle and then, more slowly yet, to her inner thigh. She was in a restless delirium of pleasure and need before he dipped his fingertips in the wine and slipped them into her. The fluid lubricated her to the love-nuzzle of his fingers, and his gently careful touch had brought her almost to rapture when he withdrew them.
Her bliss-numbed eyes flew open, and he kissed away the gathering tears of confusion. His own eyes were warm and blurred as he murmured, “It can be even stronger… higher, Merry. Trust me…” And this time when he brought his mouth to hers, she met him with an open burning passion that exploded through his blood.
Holding her face in wet, unsteady fingers, he whispered, “Shall I—Yes, sweet flower, touch me… yes, again. Love, shall I make you fly? I’ll show you.”
He kissed every part of her. The lingering wine smears, heated and incensed by her flesh, were severely intoxicating. He could taste her from his throat to his loins. Her supple moist skin was like an expensive and subtle spirit: the fermented sepals of orchids, powdered silk, flecked gold and myrrh. He picked up the soft weight of her hair and rubbed it over her and himself, over her cheeks, her breasts
, her mouth, his mouth. And his clever tongue, more articulate than it was even in speech, dragged her spirit to some high drifting heaven where her body shimmered like mist, in separate shining cells. She knew nothing beyond wet hot ecstasy, could not divide sensation into its parts; she could hardly follow the path of his hair brushing a rhythm on her skin or recognize that the shoulders and heels pressing so urgently into the bedclothes were her own. And then she saw him smiling lovingly, dreamily down at her as he entered her, spreading a smooth, exquisite voluptuousness through her, catching her writhing hips in a gentle grip and saying, “Slowly, love… slowly.”
She had an unearthly beauty to her, her eyes with a ravished angel luster, her body answering his motions, quivering with exalted anticipation and then releasing a deep-rooted shudder each time he thrust himself slowly into her. As from a distance, he heard himself repeating her name, asking her in a shivering whisper to hold him, helping her to wrap her beautiful legs in their ankle bracelets around his body; and taking her face in his palms, he gazed into her feverish eyes and murmured, “I love you, I love you, I love you” until at last, under the worship of his body, she touched the heights he had brought her toward, in love, and his adoring hands caressed the tremors of her surrender.
Her fluctuating senses, battered by the potency of her release, led her to weep afterward, and he held and cherished her, curving her body to his in the way two bodies will curve together after love. When he could, which was not soon, he rose and brought another glass of wine, and sitting up, he pulled her body, limp as a heavy sheepskin, onto his lap and into his arms. He fed her a little wine, and when he saw she could hardly swallow, he kissed the excess from her lips. To his delight she said in a cross little voice, “If that was the glass you’ve been sticking your fingers into…”
