Free The Windflower by Laura London Page A

Horrible. Put the whole thing right out of your mind."
    But bright in Merry's mind was Morgan, black-eyed, the emerald glowing on his chest, and Cat with the long hair and cruel hands . . . and Devon . Had Devon taken one of the women and held her delicately, talking in a gentle, quiet voice as he had with Merry, hypnotizing her with his comforting, and then plundering her defenseless mouth with his lips? It was the kind of thing that an editor might prefer not to mention. Merry watched her aunt go to her lap desk and lock away the stationery sheet. When her aunt had turned back to her, Merry asked her, "Aunt April, why wouldn't the newspaper say what happened to the women?"
    She could have sworn her aunt blushed. "I think they said too much as it was! I can't think that your father would want you to read things about pirates and women."
    "Why not?" Seven months ago Merry would have hardly been able to frame the question to herself, much less ask it of her aunt. It was an unbearable thing, this being desperate to know. She looked everywhere in the room but at her aunt. "What do pirates do to women?"
    As it happened, Aunt April was as embarrassed as Merry. She went to peer miserably out the window, as if she was afraid someone was hiding outside listening, and swallowed with difficulty, as though she had an infected throat. "One would suppose—that is—" Another swallow. "One imagines that the pirates had their way with them."
    Before she lost her nerve, Merry asked, "Which way is that?"
    "A perfectly normal question for a young lady at your stage in life," said Aunt April with the nervous certainty of one trying to remain calm in the face of all hell breaking loose. She made a great play of arranging the new window curtains, the color running high over her cheekbones.
    A wayward and rather poignant thought occurred to Merry. "Don't you know either?"
    "I was never married, Merry Patricia, and my mother died before she had ever an occasion to tell me. ..."
    It came to Merry suddenly where she had learned that meekly apologetic voice that had so amused the pirate. She felt her lips twitch upward into a grin. "But you must have gathered some idea."
    "Some idea perhaps, but it's hardly anything that I'd care to ..."
    A giggle sprang from Merry's grin, and she shook an accusing finger. "If you think I'm to be put off with stalling, Aunt April, then ..."
    "Oh, very well. If you will hear it. I warn you, though, it's only the merest scrap that I chanced to overhear my mother telling my sister. I daresay this is going to sound quite peculiar but"—April stared fixedly at one of the low shrubs in front of the house—"it seems that a man—climbs on top of a woman—"
    Surprise brought Merry to her feet. "On top of?"

"There! There, you see? I've made a poor job of it." The window curtains crumpled under Aunt April's fretting fingers. "You'd probably have been better off if I'd said nothing! That's all I know. First they like to kiss, and then climb on."
    Merry sat down again and concentrated her gaze on the wall covering's vanilla dots. When she could control the quivering of her lips, she said, "It doesn't make sense."
    "I quite agree with you, dearest. But how many of the things that men do make sense? Take fox hunting, or prizefights, or making war, for that matter." She added dismally, "Men have drives."
    "Do women have them too?"
    "I doubt that it could be the same. Can you imagine a group of women turning outlaw, attacking ships, and forcing their will on men? Do you know what I think? A lady would do best to marry a rich man who could afford to keep a mistress and so would have less energy left for his wife."
    "Oh, Aunt!" Merry laughed, launching herself from her chair to take her aunt's hands from the curtains and plant a cheerful kiss on each one. "Then from this day forth I will take special care to encourage only my wealthy beaux." Striking a coquettish pose, Merry fluttered her lashes at an invisible gentleman, placed,