“He must be handsome,” said Charity. “And very wealthy—I have expensive tastes.”
He threw back his head and laughed, ignoring some raised eyebrows around the room at the burst of merriment from the floor.
“And he should be well educated, a master of languages.”
“I suppose you speak several?”
“Three,” said Charity composedly. “And a little Dutch.”
He greeted this statement with some respect.
“And he should be . . . amiable. And . . . fervent. He should love me passionately, of course.”
“And with all of this, he should also possess great stamina,” he suggested mockingly.
She ignored him. “And reputation,” she added dreamily. “He must be a man of great reputation.”
“Reputation,” he mused. “Reputation, Mistress, has a way of recoiling on one. It is a two-edged blade. I would seek it not.”
“Nevertheless,” she said stubbornly. “He should be a man of reputation. For sternness. For valor.”
He looked down on her with amusement. “Faith, I haven’t heard such a refreshing bit of nonsense in a deal of a time. Mynheer van Daarken is lucky to own you his cousin.”
She stiffened ever so slightly. The words “own you” had for a moment echoed in a sinister manner through her head.
When the music ended he led her gravely back toward the wall, but bypassed it suddenly and directed her adroitly out through the dancers to a hall where several groups of people stood talking. A servant offered champagne from a tray and they both accepted a glass.
Suddenly he looked down at her, smiling.
“You have not spoken for the space of five minutes,” he said. “Surely that is unusual for a woman, Mistress Woodstock.”
“I am an unusual woman,” quipped Charity. “We were not introduced. How is it that you know my name?”
“I can well believe it,” said he. “And I know your name because I inquired. My own is Roger Derwent.”
She considered Roger Derwent through her lashes. She was still nagged by something hauntingly familiar about his voice. Deep and sardonic . . . stirring . . . she tried to remember where she had heard it.
When she made no comment, he said, “You have told me that you are the patroon’s cousin, but your voice speaks of Devon.”
“Torquay,” she said, surprised. “Do you know it?”
“I have sailed to it many times,” he said, and his eyes were shadowed as he looked out into the distance. “And I have made merry hell in its taverns.”
“I would not know about those,” she said carefully.
“No, I did not imagine so,” he said.
“I was educated in Bath,” she added, lamely presenting the one aristocratic credential she had to offer.
“I have been there,” he said morosely.
“You are from that part of England then?”
He seemed to rouse himself. “No longer. But I remember my childhood days in Devon . . . they were pleasant times.”
“Mine also,” she said pensively.
Together they strolled back into the ballroom, where the forceful and attractive Mr. Derwent continued to monopolize Charity’s attention, whirling her about the floor in dance after dance. Ryn glowered; Charity tossed her blonde curls and ignored him. It amused her that Cordelia van der Doonck stared at her with vindictive jealousy, as if to say first Pieter and now this new man everybody wants!
Cordelia’s glares brought out the devil in Charity. She redoubled her efforts to charm the gentleman who studied her so intently. She laughed coquettishly, and it irritated her when Mr. Derwent’s gaze roved past her twice to the clock in the hall. But he turned back from the clock with a shrug. Charity swung round and curtsyed as the dance required, her great skirts sweeping out, the top of her round white breasts bare in her low-cut dress as she bent deeply before him, her pale gold curls spilling forward in a shimmering rain.
Neither Roger Derwent nor Charity noticed—or cared—that significant glances were being passed about at the remarkable devotion this strange gentleman showed to a young lady who common gossip said had been entirely monopolized heretofore by the patroon’s son. The women’s eyes behind their filagreed mirrored fans said plainly, Out of sight, out of mind. For did not the patroon’s son lie upstairs ill, poor thing?
Heartlessly, Charity had forgotten Pieter, she so enjoyed swinging about in the arms of this tall lean stranger.
But once again Derwent’s gray eyes strayed to the clock. And this time they also met the eyes of the patroon, who had also checked the clock—nervously. Roger Derwent frowned and regretfully relinquished Charity with a bow; she was claimed for a dance by one of the fat Vermeer brothers who had recently bought a small manor downriver.
Her new partner was most attentive, and tried to capture her attention with all the wit he could muster. But Charity’s gaze roamed impatiently over his shoulder, to follow Roger Derwent. He spoke to the patroon and nodded in Charity’s direction and the patroon’s eyes moved incredulously to Charity; then he laughed and said something in an offhand manner. Whereupon Mr. Derwent’s head in its black periwig swung sharply round to look at Charity. Although his face did not register shock, there was a change in it— it had hardened perceptibly and his light gray eyes were more steely than ever.
He claimed her for the next dance, and this time, smiling at her in a more exuberant manner, danced her breathlessly right out the front door and continued for a few wild steps on the lawn. He looked very jaunty as he said, “Shall we take a turn about the lawn?” And gallantly offered her his arm.
Charity nodded blithely and took the proffered arm. With a light proud step, she walked along beside him toward a great tree on the lawn. “But you must promise to behave yourself,” she said severely.
“I promise,” he said, “that I will do nothing you would not expect of me.”
Though the phrase had a sinister ring to it, she gave it no thought. She was thinking how very pleasant it was to be a lady, as they moved into the deeper shadows beneath the tree’s overhanging branches.
He leaned back against the bole of the tree, and the hand on which his ring flashed lightly toyed with one of her curls, touched her ear with experimental fingers.
“I believe,” he murmured, “we had some discussion as to whether I was worthy of a woman’s attention. I am prepared to give proof.”
Charity, warned now, turned to run, but he reached out and caught her wrist and spun her around and brought her flush against his velvet coat. Wrapped in his steely embrace, she opened her mouth to protest and his mouth covered hers with a kiss. The kiss did not ask, or suggest, it demanded. His lips moved deftly, expertly, over hers, and his tongue probed caressingly. Charity felt her head swim a bit and her senses come alive. She tried to move, to shrug him off, but he held her firm, and she could feel the strong resonant throb of his heart as her soft breasts were crushed against his chest.
For a moment she weakened, responding tremulously to that kiss, and he sensed it. His grip relaxed slightly, and one hand gently held her chin as his lips caressed hers, then that hand wandered tinglingly down the smooth skin of her throat, lingered a moment on her neck and moved gently across the white flesh of her bosom, leaving a trail of fire wherever he touched.
Charity felt her blood leap and her breath come fast. She seemed to hear a low chuckle as his questing fingers found the top of her low-cut velvet dress, toyed there idly, while she tried to control the sensations that were flashing through her like miniature lightning bolts.
She stiffened suddenly. He had somehow managed to undo the hooks at the top of her velvet bodice and had slipped his hand inside and was stroking her breast! He had no right! She had given him no such license! She tried desperately to jerk away, but still he held her firm, his lips so holding hers that breath was almost denied her and she seemed to beat in his arms like a frightened bird.
Now he had liberated her other breast from its velvet prison and
was softly massaging it. She felt herself trembling, her own desire furiously awakened by his touch. She gasped and shivered and tried to wriggle free of those strong dexterous hands.
Worse, he knew she was trembling! He could sense the wild passions he was arousing. Panic rose in her along with small soft explosions of the senses, nerves that tingled and grew taut seemed to snap softly, like a satin garter against the skin, so that she quivered more violently.
He had taken her quivering response to him as consent! The thought went through her like a groan. His other hand was now slipping up under the folds of her velvet skirt and petticoats and her stomach muscles contracted violently as his hand moved deliberately, exploringly, across the smooth bare skin of her stomach, sending ripples of fire wherever it touched. Her knees seemed to be melting and she sagged against him.
But though her body had weakened, her mind had not.
As her body sagged against him, almost fainting in his arms, his mouth left hers and he buried his face in the column of her soft white throat. She gasped as his lips moved swiftly down to her breasts and nuzzled them. She felt her nipples grow hard and taut under his lips. When her eyes fluttered open, she commanded herself to speak—gaspingly, but with all the authority she could muster.
“If you do not release me at once, I will scream!” she cried.
He paused just long enough to plant a kiss on her quivering pink nipple, which flinched under this new assault. Then he rose to his full height, and as he towered above her, his voice was quite level and courteous but had an undertone of irony.
“Oh, and is that what you usually do on these occasions?”
The full weight of the insult bore in on her with stinging force, giving strength to her weakened limbs, and making her trembling backbone stiff again.
“You beast!” she cried in a low furious voice, and swinging back her slender arm brought it forward to strike his face with all her force.
He did not appear to have noticed. His head did not snap back as she had somehow expected. His slight, mocking smile did not waver. He stood quite impassively, and his hard gray eyes had in them something indefinable, something that might have been admiration.
She was never to know what it was, for in that moment a servant’s voice she identified as Gerda’s, called plaintively, “Mistress Charity! Mynheer Pieter is calling for you. He’s sicker than he was. Mistress Charity, are you out here?”
“I believe you will find her here,” Roger Derwent replied with a touch of contempt in his voice. “By all means, get you to Mynheer Pieter, who awaits your ministrations, Mistress Charity!”
Charity was so angry she would have struck him again, but her hands were occupied with trying to rehook her bodice before Gerda arrived. As she hurried away from the shadows of the big tree, she hoped Gerda had not seen who she was with, and so would not report her lapse to the servants and make her the subject of gossip in the kitchen.
She left Roger Derwent standing in the darkness, leaning against the boll of the great tree and, lifting her skirts against the dampness of the grass fled across the lawn. Her blood still tingled angrily in her ears as she remembered his fiery touch—and her equally fiery response.
She was still thinking about Derwent when she arrived, breathless after a run up the back stairs, at Pieter’s side. He did not look so bad, but his cheeks were flushed. He looked, if anything, resentful.
“So you went to the ball?” Pieter said bitterly. Without me, his tone implied.
She looked at him, dismayed, hoping he would not notice her dishevelement. “Your father told me I might go, Pieter.”
His shrewd small blue eyes, so like the patroon’s, took in her tumbled coiffure.
“I’ve been dancing,” she said hastily. “It grew very warm.”
“And running,” he observed dryly. “You’re gasping for breath.”
“Yes, I ran all the way. I thought you were worse.”
He appeared somewhat mollified, and hunched himself up, half sitting, half lying there almost covered by the enveloping featherbed.
“I should be down there dancing with you!” he said in a voice that accused doctors, fathers and the world in general with equal fury.
“No, you shouldn’t,” remonstrated Charity. “The doctor said you could develop pneumonia. You have a deep cold and fever.”
As if to give proof to her remark, he sneezed and then began to cough. She waited sympathetically until the paroxysm had passed, and then handed him a white linen kerchief from a sack of the kerchiefs, each one embroidered with the crest of his mother’s family, that lay upon a small rosewood bedside table.
“I’m supposed to sleep,” he said fretfully. “But how can I be expected to sleep when there’s ail that music and laughter downstairs? All I can think of is that I should jump up out of bed and join them!”
“Why don’t we close the door and play this music box instead?” she suggested.
He watched her glumly as she closed the door. Then a new thought occurred to him. “Why don’t you lie here beside me?” he asked eagerly. “I think I might go to sleep then.”
Charity stiffened and her voice was somewhat colder than it would have been before tonight’s galling experience. “I will not lie down beside you, and if you persist in asking me, I will leave you here alone.”
He accepted this rebuke and said in a subdued, rather bored tone, “Play the music box then.”
Charity wound up the little music box, and as she listened to its delicate tinkle her mind kept slipping back to Roger Derwent, who had been so polite and then so inexplicably audacious—insulting even. What had happened to change him?
“Your color is very high tonight,” commented Pieter sulkily, and added loudly, “Charity, I am speaking to you!”
Startled, Charity felt herself flush all over. She had been thinking of Roger Derwent’s hands, as they had caressed first her breasts and then her stomach, and of Roger Derwent’s lips, assaulting first her mouth and then her throat and breasts. She could still feel the tingling path of his lips as they moved smoothly down her throat and across her bosom and over the white mound of her breast to their final goal—the delicate sensitive skin of her pink nipple. An involuntary shiver went through her as she remembered that final kiss he had planted there.
“I was thinking of the tune on the music box,” she faltered. “I—I remember it from my schooldays in Bath.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to go back to the ball?”
The tumult in her had worn down now, and the fire that had burned so bright had left gray ashes behind it. What she remembered now was the fact that Roger Derwent, who had begun by treating her with the respect due an elegant young lady of fashion, had ended by treating her as a woman to be had for the asking. And yet she could not fault her own behavior for it; she had said nothing, done nothing, surely.
“No, Pieter,” she said in a low tired voice. “I don’t want to go back to the ball. I’d rather stay here with you.”
And she sat there beside him, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, until he fell asleep, trying to forget that her first ball had not been a glorious success.
CHAPTER 16
Roger Derwent had departed when Charity came down the next morning, apparently having melted away the way he had come. Which was a pity because she had risen early, hoping to confront him before breakfast, eager for him to feel the sting of her tongue. For she had spent most of a sleepless night phrasing biting things to say to the insolent Mr. Derwent.
But the flyboat in which he had arrived was gone. Perhaps he had not come to spend the night, but to dance only a few dances. She inquired of the servants who were up and about, but no one seemed to remember the boat. That was natural enough, she told herself, with all the excitement of large parties and boats coming and going. Still it was a terrible disappointment and she felt quite let down.
She walked along the river bank, hoping forlornly for a last sight of it as it drifted downstream. But the river fl
owed by peacefully, an empty expanse of water, glistening in the morning sun.
She turned, cutting a diagonal path back to the house, and saw that the blockhouse to her left now sported a heavy chain on its door. She walked toward it curiously. Yesterday afternoon she had strolled down here on her way to watch some of the men playing at bowles on the lawn, and the blockhouse had been full of beaver pelts. Illegal? The door had been closed but not locked.
Yet today it was locked.
No one was about, so she strolled toward the blockhouse and peered in through the loopholes—those slender openings through which a musket could be thrust to snipe at the enemy. At first she could see nothing, and then through the weak light that filtered down through chinks in the roof, she saw that the beaver pelts were gone, and in their place was a small mountain of cloth. It appeared to be damasks, woolens, laces. And also some small kegs and barrels, and other objects whose shapes loomed up tantalizingly in the dimness.
And with the sight, like a rolling thunderclap down the Catskills, she remembered where she had heard Roger Derwent’s voice. His was the voice that had so stirred her that first night on the patroon’s sloop in New York!
Roger Derwent was the smuggler. He had come upriver to deliver his contraband in person and in darkness, and gone away with beaver pelts and no doubt gold in payment. Slipped away as he had come—silently like a thief. No wonder he had kept looking at the clock. He had been timing the unloading of the goods. And no wonder the patroon, too, had looked at the clock—nervously. He had been eager for his dangerous guest to be gone.
By now the smuggler was far downriver, perhaps keeping some other clandestine rendezvous before the weather closed down and the river froze again.
Charity’s eyes narrowed as she stopped back from her surveillance of the interior of the blockhouse.
So Roger Derwent was the smuggler of whom Killian van Daarken had said, Did you mark his rapier, Jan? It is said he has spitted more men with it than anyone since. . . . and later, He is a man of honor, Jan. But for his politics, he would be a force in his own country. But because of those politics, he cannot return home. So he makes his living as he can. Such men are to be pitied—and used.
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