The man was Wiley Falk, Clay’s first mate, and he’d been overseeing “repairs” to the sloop for the past two weeks. When Lily asked innocently what kind of repairs, Clay only winked. Devon made a pained face and answered for him: “They had to do with the little matter of a false bottom and a thirty-foot bowsprit. It was thought that potential buyers might find such amenities a trifle odd. Not to mention illegal.”
During the tour that ensued, Lily learned about the Spider’s size (fifty-two feet long, twenty-two wide), top speed (nine and a half knots), tonnage (sixty, empty of contraband), and artillery (twenty eight-pound carriage guns, twenty swivels, and a carronade). She also got surprisingly tired in a short time. It was Devon who noticed it, almost before she did, and insisted that she lie down for a while in Clay’s cabin.
She wondered how long she’d been sleeping. She felt wonderful. But what time was it? Through the single tiny porthole high in the wall—the bulkhead? the partition?—the sky was a soft, cloudless pink. She stretched—carefully; her ribs were still tender, and sudden movements could still cause searing pain—and sat up. What a comfortable bed, not at all what she’d have expected on such a trim, businesslike boat. The though crossed her mind that in all likelihood the Spider’s captain entertained ladies in his cabin, and in his bunk, from time to time. There was a soft knock at the door—the hatch? the companionway? Maybe it was just the “door.” Her nap seemed to have scrambled all her new nautical terminology. “Come in!”
It was Devon. Although she still wore everything but her shoes, something made her pull the soft muslin sheet up to her shoulders and comb a self-conscious hand through her tousled hair. At the same time, a deep, stirring gladness welled up at the sight of him, and she sent him a sweet, welcoming smile. He was dressed casually today, in blue broadcloth coat and buckskin breeches, and she thought she had never seen him so handsome. He had to duck his head to clear the threshold, and once inside, the breadth of his powerful body made the cabin seem even smaller. He was holding a bulky, paper-wrapped package under one arm. “Hello,” she said with a touch of shyness because of the way he was looking at her. “I just woke up.”
“So I see. Did you sleep well?”
“Wonderfully well, thank you. What time is it?”
“Around six, I should think.”
“Six! Heavens, you and Clay must have wanted to go home long before now. Why didn’t you wake me?”
“There was no need; we’ve decided to stay.”
“Stay?”
“Overnight, and leave in the morning. Clay’s got a farewell supper planned for this evening—on deck. You don’t mind, do you? We thought the ride back might tire you out again.”
“Oh no, really, I’m—”
“And besides, he wants to stay. He says it’s his last night on the Spider and he wants to have his friends with him.”
“Oh.” That Clay might consider her a friend moved her in an unexpected way. “Then I’d love to stay.”
“Good.” He came closer. “This is something for you, Lily. For tonight.” He laid the package beside her on the bunk.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
He looked mysterious, and quite pleased with himself. Lily fingered the string bow on top of the bundle and smiled up at him. He’d never given her a present before. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. There are candles here on the desk if you need more light.” He went to the door. “Mr. Falk has managed somehow—we don’t ask how—to supply us with a picnic. Everything’s ready. Clay says to tell you to hurry up because he’s starving.”
Lily laughed. “I’ll be with you in two minutes.”
The mysterious look returned. “A little longer than that, maybe.” Then he was through the door and gone.
“Did she like it?”
“I don’t know, I left before she opened it.”
Clay handed his brother a mug of rum and lemon juice and leaned back against the mainmast to watch the sunset. “To smuggled rum toddies and French silk,” he toasted with a grin.
Devon eyed him narrowly. “To the last of smuggled rum and French silk. That’s what you meant to say, I’m sure.”
“Of course,” Clay assured him, eyes twinkling. They drank.
It was low tide; oyster-catchers swooped down in a flash of black and white to feed in the mudbanks along the shore. Farther out a heron stalked, then stopped to brood, head buried in its feathers. Gazing inland toward the gently wooded slopes, Devon saw none of them. He was waiting for only one thing, the sight of Lily in a pale rose-colored gown made of the richest silk, low-cut and long-sleeved, with delicate Brussels lace on all the layers of the graceful full skirts. Would she wear her hair down? If she did, it would put the paltry red sunset to shame. He wished he could have given her shoes tonight too, fragile French slippers with little round heels. And jewelry. Jade and amethyst, sapphires and emeralds and aquamarine. She would look beautiful in diamonds too, at her throat and on her slender wrists. He saw her with gold loops in her ears and silver rings on her long, strong fingers. And pearls, wound into the softly curling strands of her beautiful hair.
He heard her footsteps on the ladder. He turned his back on Clay in the middle of a sentence and went forward to offer his hand. Her head and shoulders appeared above the companionway. His smile of anticipation wavered and disappeared; he stopped in his tracks halfway to her. She had on her plain gray dimity frock. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at her without speaking.
He was angry, she could tell from his eyes. But he was trying not to show it. Clay sidled around him; she took his outstretched hand gratefully and stepped up on the deck. She gave soft, meaningless responses to his too-animated chatter and sipped from the glass of Madeira wine he gave her, watching Devon all the while. After a few minutes the tension began to leave his shoulders and he made a few formal attempts to join in their conversation. Boldly, she moved closer to him. Clay was saying something about his ship. Devon looked at her directly for the first time, and she took the opportunity to send him a smile of apology, hoping he would understand. His flinty blue gaze softened while she watched, and her feather-light heart beat erratically. She resisted the urge to reach for his hand or brush her fingers across the hard line of his cheekbone. But over the rim of her glass, she sent him a fervent look that said Thank you.
The river was calm, the air soft. The sun threw a last, theatrical shaft of light on the water and disappeared behind a low bank of clouds. The sky turned from gilt to rust; an owl called from the pine trees across the glassy inlet. Clay lit a lantern. Then, with a flourish, he set out their supper of sausage pies and violet pudding on the upended flat bottom of a dinghy. They ate it sitting on line boxes.
The conversation was animated and eclectic. It began with Clay’s provocative—and, Lily guessed from Devon’s expression, rather shopworn—declaration that “free-trading,” as he insisted on calling it, sprang from a fundamental human instinct to thwart the law, and that even an honest man felt a tingle of excitement when he succeeded. That led to a heated argument over the moral and economic implications of the smuggling trade. Clay claimed that as long as the damned government declared more than a thousand articles of imported merchandise dutiable, citizens would continue, without a qualm of conscience, to smuggle tea, salt, brandy, silk—even playing cards!—into the country at every opportunity. Devon argued just as passionately that smuggling was devastating the economy; the cure, he agreed, was to lower the tariffs on liquor and soap and all the rest. In the meantime, responsible men would do well to deal within the framework of the constitution—which, incidentally, provided them with more personal freedoms than any other government in the world—and work in legal ways to dismantle an archaic system of duties and excises and taxes.
At the gentlemen’s feet was a half-anker of Marmande cognac whose origin no one was tactless enough to mention. The vehemence of Clay’s convictions rose in direct proportion to his access to the cogna
c. The government Devon defended became the butt of his ridicule. He derided the popular wisdom that the poor ought to save more, that it was their own fault if they couldn’t live within their means. Fat, gouty old men in Parliament had the hypocrisy to suggest that the problem was profligacy, not poverty. And they wanted to reform the poor through education—especially Sunday school, he noted with a sneer, so as not to interfere with their productivity on the other six days. Devon shot back that Clay was perfectly right, but that the way to change things was to give jobs to the poor—in copper mines, for example—not charitable handouts derived from the illegal profits of free-trading.
Lily listened, captivated. She’d never heard politics argued by men who were actually in a position to change things, to influence affairs of state. Her father had been a nominal Whig, but only because he’d distrusted Tories even more. She sat quietly, contributing little, and yet for some reason she didn’t feel neglected. She had an idea that both men were aware of her, no matter how warm the discussion became. She also sensed that they were much closer to agreement than they pretended, and chose opposite sides of every issue mostly for the fun of arguing.
Her back ached a little. When the conversation shifted to the physical, moral, and mental shortcomings of the royal family, she murmured an excuse and got up to watch the moon and stars on the river from above the bowsprit. Across the water, beyond the sloping gorse cliffs along the shore, she heard a nightjar call, its cry a rhythmic rise and fall, faintly disturbing.
Nodding at something Clay was saying, Devon watched her. She stood at the edge of the flickering ring or yellow lantern light, gazing up at the star-strewn sky. Even in her shabby gray dress, she was beautiful. He had known that, of course, known it since the first moment he’d seen her. But he hadn’t let her loveliness affect him in any way but physically; if anything, he’d held it against her. What had changed? He knew her now. Against his will—and hers too, he didn’t doubt—he’d begun to understand her. Besides a beautiful face, he knew that she had a gentle and generous heart. She could no longer be neatly labeled as a woman who couldn’t be trusted. Too many times she’d proven to him the opposite. If he continued to resist her, it would only be because of cowardice. Besides, it wasn’t as if he meant to marry her. And regardless of the consequences of an affair between them, he could not lose everything. That only happened to a man once. Because it had already happened to him, he was safe. And she was irresistible.
“Well,” said Clay rather loudly, “time I was on my way.”
Lily turned around in surprise. “Where are you going?”
“I told Wiley we’d celebrate tonight.”
“But—”
“In Lostwithiel. There’s a kiddlywink there where my crew and I have spent many a happy hour.”
“A what?”
“An owler’s inn,” Devon explained.
“Oh.” At least she knew now that an owler was a smuggler. But Clay’s leaving startled her. “Do you really have to go?”
He shot Devon a sly look. “Oh, indeed yes, it’s been arranged for weeks. The captain and his mate, you know, enjoying their last night as carefree sailors together.” He walked to the port side and threw his legs over in an agile leap, landing on the rope ladder. “Good night to you both. The evening’s been a great pleasure, and I thank you for sharing it with me. See you in the morning.” His head disappeared. A moment later they heard the creak of oarlocks and the splash of water, then silence.
He was deliberately leaving them alone; that fact was as clear to Lily as if he’d shouted it. And Devon knew it too. She leaned back against the gunwale, resting her forearms along the top, and watched him come slowly toward her.
He came so close she could see the turquoise in his eyes even in the pale moonlight. “Do you think he’ll really be able to leave all this?” she asked in a stalling, not-quite-steady voice, with a gesture that included the Spider, the river, and the sky.
But Devon had no intention of talking about Clay. “I don’t know. Why didn’t you wear the dress, Lily?”
She searched his face for a hint of anger, but there was none now. “Why did you give it to me?” she countered softly.
“To make you smile.”
She smiled now. “No other reason?”
He understood the question perfectly, and answered it with the truth. “I want to take care of you.”
“Do you? Why? A few weeks ago you wanted to be done with me. You offered me money. You didn’t want to see me again.”
He wondered if the words hurt her as much as they hurt him. But she wasn’t accusing him; her tone was gentle and sad, not bitter. Again he answered honestly. “I don’t know what’s changed.”
But Lily though she knew. She’d called his new feelings for her “a nice mixture of gratitude and guilt.” Now she knew what had happened to him, and she was not so devastated by his distrust. But it still hurt. “Are you asking me to be your mistress?”
Her directness startled, then relieved him. “Yes.”
“I refuse. I will never give you my body in return for money. Or pretty dresses, or a place to live.” Trying not to tremble, she looked him in the eye. One hand stole to the sleeve of his coat, for courage. Her voice started out strong but ended in a whisper. “I will give it to you for nothing.”
She hadn’t planned to say it, hadn’t even known she was thinking it. But she loved him. The knowledge made her ache, for with it came the certainty that he would hurt her. It didn’t matter now. She had loved him for a long time, and she believed she always would.
He didn’t move or speak. She brought his motionless hand to her lips and kissed his fingers. He was wrestling with disbelief, and Lily knew an instant of loathing for the woman who had made him this way. “Dev,” she murmured. “My love. It’s so simple.” She put her arms around him and kissed his lips.
He embraced her automatically, but he was still incredulous. He drew back to see her, and the solemn sweetness glowing in her silvery eyes assured him it was true, all of it. The breeze caught a wisp of her hair and blew it across his cheek, a tantalizing caress. Desire rose in him, painful and pitiless, but he kissed her gently. Her lips, like damp silk, softened and opened for him; when he touched the tip of his tongue to hers, a wave of shivering seized her. “Are you cold, sweetheart?”
She smiled with her eyes closed. “No, no, I feel so …” Rather than search for the word, she hummed her satisfaction in a throaty purr, heartfelt, artlessly sensual.
His hand at her waist tightened. He traced the outline of her mouth with his forefinger, enchanted by her soft, fearless smile. Resting his forehead against hers, their noses touching, he murmured, “I want you so much, Lily. Everything hurts.”
The shaking recommenced. She held his shoulders, pressing against him, feeling the leaping rhythm of her pulse—or maybe it was his. His hands, sliding up her hips and along her sides, pulled her arms up until she wound them around his neck. They kissed again. And inhaled sharply together, muscles tensing, mouths open, ravenous. “Let’s go downstairs,” she said in a tight whisper.
“Below,” he corrected hoarsely. Holding hands, they walked toward the ladder.
It was pitch dark in Clay’s cabin. “Stay here,” Devon said, leaving her at the door. Lily heard a sharp thump and a pained exhalation; she expected a curse next, but instead a laugh came from out of the blackness. The sound of it warmed her to her bones. She heard the scratch of flint and steel; a moment later he lit a candle. He set it in the stationary holder on Clay’s desk, lit another from it, and carried the second to the cabinet beside the bed.
Nerves quivered through her when he came to her. He took her hands clasped at her waist and kissed them, first the backs, then the palms. His thumb caressed the sensitive pad of each fingertip; the sensation was so startling that her breathing changed, began to come quickly.
“Did you like the gown?” he whispered, touching his tongue to the pulse point in her wrist.
She glanced past hi
m and saw it lying on the bed where she’d left it, neatly rewrapped. “Oh, Dev, it’s beautiful.”
“It was part of Clay’s last booty. I told him I wanted something for you, and he sent Mr. Falk to one of their hiding places for it. But do you know, I was wrong to think of it—”
“Oh, no—”
“—because you don’t need it. It doesn’t matter what you wear. In this dress or any other, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
She wanted to weep. She brought her hands up to touch his face, thinking that he was the beautiful one. She ran the backs of her fingers under his chin, along his jaw, his strong throat. The desire in his flushed face made him look vulnerable, for once, and filled her with an unbearable tenderness. She felt him untying her hair in back, and in a moment it fell to her shoulders. Knowing that she would not stop him, that she would give him everything, made her feel weak and uncoordinated. They kissed again; she pressed her body against him, slipping her hands inside his coat to touch his back, his wide shoulders. He shifted the angle of his mouth and kissed her until her knees shook uncontrollably and she could feel her own seduction, the slow dissolution of her common sense.
“On the other hand,” he murmured, then kissed her again.
She must have missed something; what had been on the first hand? She said, “Hmm?” and then opened her mouth so that he could go back to nibbling on her tongue.
Another lengthy silence. “On the other hand,” he tried again. “You’re more beautiful with no clothes on at all. Speaking from experience.”
She sighed and pulled away. Smiling tensely, she held still while he unlaced her dress in front and eased it down over her shoulders. Her shift came next, and soon her breasts were bare. The sweep of his gaze was as efficient as a caress; she felt her nipples stiffen and pucker before he could touch her. Then he touched her. The electric thrill rushed downward and the trembling in her knees started over again. “You, too,” she whispered, unbuttoning his shirt. “Speaking from experience.”