As she reached the bottom step she saw Killian van Daarken and hesitated. Had Pieter told him yet? Could she expect an explosion or a reluctant welcome as Pieter’s betrothed? Would the elder van Daarken insist that Pieter take this trip alone before he married her? If they reached an impasse, she had no doubt Pieter would postpone his trip and that would give them time to talk about it, to work out something.
The man at the end of the hall stood patiently as if waiting for her.
She took a deep breath. She was no coward. If he wanted to try to talk her out of this marriage, she would face him now.
Briskly now, she walked down the hall and greeted him.
He gave her the smallest bow of acknowledgment, his tiny blue eyes alert. She wondered suddenly if Pieter would grow to look like that when he was old—heavy-jowled, gross. The thought repelled her.
The patroon made a slight gesture toward the library and with a little trepidation she preceded him into the room. After he closed the door, he stood looking at her, a faint smile upon his lips.
“May I sit down” she asked in a voice that was wooden with embarrassment.
“Please do.” He indicated a chair and sat down himself, studying her in leisurely fashion.
“I—I suppose Pieter has told you,” she said defensively, for she saw it-in his eyes, a kind of knowledge of her as if Pieter had rushed to his father and blurted out everything.
“Yes.” He did not elaborate.
She waited, growing desperate, her hands gripping the mahogany chair, tension building in her.
“Where—where is Pieter?” she asked at last.
“Pieter?” He raised his eyebrows. “But you knew he was leaving. Pieter is gone. By now he is far downriver—on his way to Holland.”
Her breath left her. The world around her held very still. Only her senses reeled. Charity sat stiffly to absorb this shock.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, lifting her head. “Pieter wouldn’t have left without telling me goodbye.”
“Ah, but I thought he did,” he said softly. “Last night. At least he told me he bade you a very fond goodbye. Very fond, indeed.”
Charity stiffened at this further blow.
“Your face is a thundercloud,” he remarked almost derisively. “It would seem you are not pleased with Pieter.”
“How would you expect me to react” she asked hoarsely. “He lied to me, deceived me.”
“Ah, I see.” His fingers came together pontifically and he looked down his large nose at her, still in faint derision. “But you need not feel bereft. You are not alone.”
Charity stared at him.
“I am here,” he elaborated.
She felt something cold inside, a twist of a cold-bladed knife. His meaning could not have been more clear—or more sinister. She had been right about him when first she had looked into his eyes on the sloop coming upriver. He had desired her then—and now he meant to have her.
“I have had enough of the van Daarken men,” she said in a voice that shook with anger.
“But it is wrong to feel so,” he said, still speaking gently, as if to a recalcitrant child. “Pieter did no more than I expected him to do. I will not hold you lower in my esteem because my son held you in his arms before I did.”
The bastard! Did he think she was something to be passed around like a warming pan to warm their beds for them? Her breath came faster, angrily.
“You will forget Pieter.” His voice had acquired a steely edge. “You will not mourn him, or grieve for him.”
“Grieve for him?” Her contemptuous laugh was a mockery. “A man who says he loves me and does not even say goodbye?”
“But he told you goodbye rather thoroughly—he gave me an excellent account of it.”
Charity writhed inwardly, but was too stunned to say anything further.
“Pieter did entreat me to let him take you with him as far as New York—it seems you have set a fire in his blood.” His eyes dwelt thoughtfully on her rapidly rising and falling breasts beneath her mended bodice. “I advised against it, of course. Is it possible Pieter neglected to mention that he goes to Amsterdam to marry Margret van der Pol? She has a great dowry. He will return to us with his bride in one year’s time.”
Charity stared at him. Her world, which had been rocking, settled down and sank into bottomless depths.
“Since Pieter is irretrievably lost to you, had you not best set your face in the only direction possible?”
She hardly heard him. The landscape before her, stretching out endlessly in her mind, was a wasteland, empty and bleak.
The patroon’s son, that golden boy, had used and flung away another toy.
A sob caught in her throat. And the landscape that she saw in her mind changed, and grew aslant. She seemed to be moving ever downward toward the edge of an abyss.
The patroon was speaking. Her attention came back to him slowly.
“No, I see from the set of your jaw that you are intractable,” said he, “so I wish you to understand my reasoning in this matter.”
Charity sat stonily, regarding him. Distant thunder grumbled in the hills.
His voice hardened. “As I have told you, I am a self-made man. My son will enter doors that have never been open to me. His future in the world at large will be dependent upon the good regard of men and women. To the end that he may have the regard of men, I have taught him to shoot and to hunt, to play games well and to stand up for his rights. To the end that he may have the regard of women—and therefore not only the delights that brings, but also their cunning assistance with their husbands (here Charity stared at him in surprise), I wished him to learn the gentle art of seduction, and of disarming guile. He must be able to tell bald-faced lies to women that have the ring of truth. No, do not look so surprised. If he moves in court circles, as I fully intend that he should, it will be of great assistance to him if he can cozen his way into the beds of duchesses and countesses. But he could not seduce the daughters of my friends along the river. Another patroon would surely force him to marry any daughter he would seduce. So, his efforts thus far had been confined to scullery maids, with whom he has been quite successful.”
Charity forbore saying, “And Annjanette.” Perhaps the patroon did not know about that.
He continued. “It was in my mind that under my tutelage he should pursue some aristocratic young woman with whom he sat at table; a lady in satins and laces who would fend him off with pretty speeches and artfully evade him. I see your eyes widen in comprehension. That is well. You happened along at a time when I needed you, to fulfill this goal. You were destitute and hunted and willing to accept my largess. No need to redden. It is the truth and we both know it. I set you at my table, told all you were my cousin, bade them accept you as such, dressed you accordingly.”
“And dangled me before him,” choked Charity.
His voice was cool, his eyes even colder. “And made Pieter a wager that he could not seduce you before he embarked for Holland.”
“A . . . wager?” she faltered.
“A wager. I wagered five hundred florins that Pieter could not bed you before he left for Holland.” “And mind you,” he added, “the rules were to be those of good breeding and polite society. Pieter was neither to take you by force nor to promise you marriage but to win you by wiles or lies—anything but force or betrothal.”
“Then he cheated you,” she said grimly. “For he not only repeatedly promised me marriage but used force to persuade me.”
“The young puppy!” cried van Daarken. “I’ll have his hide for that! He has my five hundred florins! And yet—” he sighed and cast a lingering eye over Charity’s full round breasts—“I can understand the boy’s being overcome, being maddened by your refusal after so long a siege. Yes, it is understandable. Nor did you shout to the world that he had ill-used you, so there must have been some measure of acquiescence, eh?”
“Some measure?” said Charity bitterly. “He had promised me honorable
marriage and wept disconsolately over this year of separation. It seems I had more feeling for him than he had for me.”
“Tears,” murmured the patroon. “I would not have thought of that. Perhaps Pieter will have a talent for these matters after all.”
Charity was sickened. She rose to leave.
“No, stay,” he ordered. “This is not what I called you to hear.”
She sank back down, hating him.
“I have long desired you, and it was only in deference to my son’s education that I have held off so long. As you know, there is a small dressing room that lies between my room and my wife’s.”
Charity frowned. “That room is occupied by your Cousin Annjanette,” she pointed out.
“True. Ostensibly she occupies it so that she may be near and answer any call of my wife’s to assist her in any way. Actually that is not the case. There is a latch on the door between my wife’s room and the dressing room, which Annjanette may close—but none which she may close toward me.”
“So Annjanette is no more a cousin than I am,” said Charity bitterly.
“Precisely,” he said. “I have ordered your things transferred to the dressing room. You are trading rooms with Annjanette.”
“And what makes you think I will do this?” she demanded.
He sighed. “I had hoped you would be more tractable, but since you are not, I will tell you in no uncertain terms. My wife does not find me pleasing, nor do I find her pleasing. Annjanette is a pretty child, but she no longer amuses me. I find her dull. Beside my bed I keep a small bell—you will have observed it perhaps?”
“I have never been in your room, mynheer.”
“No? Then I will tell you that it is there. At night you will keep the door latched between your small dressing room and my wife’s bedroom.”
“But what if she requires me?” she demanded ironically.
“She will not require you. It is I who will require you. If you hear one tinkle of the bell, you are to come into my room and see what it is that I desire. If you hear two tinkles of the bell, you are to disrobe and let your hair down—I prefer a woman’s hair to hang loose about her naked body—and walk barefoot into my room and join me in my bed. My needs are—varied. I will perhaps have Annjanette instruct you in my preferences.”
“And will not this interesting arrangement become known?” asked Charity sarcastically. “And so become a scandal?”
“No, because when I have finished with you, you will return quietly to your own room and behave as if you have passed the entire night there in your own bed.”
“So I am to replace Annjanette,” Charity said coldly, as if she were speaking of some third party and not of herself. “And what is to happen to her, pray?”
“Annjanette will continue in the household,” he said smoothly. “She will have her uses.”
Charity stared at him. “And what may they be?”
His voice sharpened. “They are no concern of yours, but since you are so curious, I occasionally have guests who come from a distance to spend the night.”
“Like Mr. Derwent,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said shortly. “Like Mr. Derwent. And these guests from a distance have often traveled far without female companionship and would like their beds warmed for them. I will instruct Annjanette on these occasions to blunder prettily into their rooms as if she had lost her way, and allow herself to be seduced. In the morning my guest will discover that he has “ruined” my cousin. But I will not press any charge or demand satisfaction—I will indeed be most kindly disposed toward my alarmed guest who sees a great scandal brewing up around him. I will explain that I am a reasonable man and—my affairs should prosper, for under such circumstances a man will not quibble over who gets the better of a business deal.”
A long roll of thunder almost drowned his words. Charity quivered at the sound, her very soul rocking with misery.
She gazed at the man before her, hating him. A light mist of cold perspiration lay on her forehead, but her hands were steady now in her lap, and her voice was strong and clear.
“Mynheer van Daarken,” she said evenly, “you are not only a despoiler of trusting young women, you are a blackmailer.”
Angry lights flickered in his eyes. He said coldly, as if to punish her for that, “In the future your presence will not be required at table. The servants will bring trays to your room or if you do not care for that, a place will be made for you in the kitchen.” He smiled thinly. “Your presence at the table upsets my wife.”
All her senses tingling under this last insult, Charity now rose to her full height and faced her tormentor with at least an outward calm. A terrible maturity had come to her in these last bitter moments. She felt her very soul had been hardened, melted and reshaped by the raging fires that had singed her spirit.
“You have been very frank with me, mynheer,” she said, and though she trembled inwardly with rage, her voice was calm. “And now I will be as frank with you. I have no intention of staying here to become your mistress, and you may ring your bells in hell for all I care. The van Rensselaer sloop is due downriver this afternoon and I intend to be on it. I would rather walk the streets as a drab than wear silks as your trollop.”
He laughed shortly. “The choice is not yours to make, but mine. You will remain here.”
Charity paled a little.
“Do not think that I have not learned much while I have been here,” she warned darkly. “Or that I will hesitate to expose you.”
“Oh? And what have you learned?”
She took in a deep breath. “I heard your arrangements that night in New York with Mr. Derwent—that same Mr. Derwent who came upriver ostensibly for a ball, but who actually came to transact his smuggling business with you, mynheer—an offense against the laws of this Colony. He brought with him silks and other goods and departed with beaver skins.” He watched her as she lifted her chin and added, “And if you try to prevent me from leaving in any way, I will tell the authorities what I know.”
He laughed wryly. “And you think that I will be upset by this childish threat? On the contrary, it will enliven my reputation, which has been a bit dull of late. Not that you can prove anything. Derwent is gone back to—God knows where. No, you will have to do better than that.”
Charity glowered at him. “Then I will tell all who will listen of your disreputable sleeping arrangements—of Annjanette, of your loathsome proposals to me, of your base wager and your son’s treachery!”
His eyes narrowed and there was anger in them, but his voice remained cool. “Such threats will not dissuade me in my purpose. If you carry them out, they will bring only punishment. You will find your nice new clothes taken away; you will labor as a scullery maid instead of being served as a member of the family. But—the sleeping arrangements will remain ‘disreputable’ as you call them.”
Charity threw back her head confidently and took a deep breath. Now she would play her trump card.
“I have nothing to fear from you,” she stated with a courage she did not entirely feel, and to his lifted eyebrows, “You would do well to let me get downriver as fast as possible. For I will reveal that you murdered your wife’s first-born, Maria, who was lost overboard so fortuitously on her way to America.”
“That is a ridiculous accusation,” he cried scornfully. “You cannot prove I killed Maria.”
“I have seen a letter that will prove she was not your daughter but conceived before your marriage—your bigamous marriage. That, mynheer, gives you a motive and makes Pieter a bastard.”
His heavy face suffused with color. He leaned forward. “You a convicted witch, dare to confront me thus? Sentence has already been passed upon you! I have but to return you to Massachusetts whence you came for it to be carried out.”
“We will hang together,” said Charity with a calm she was far from feeling.
He ripped out an oath and his voice rose to a roar. “By God, you will not dictate to me here in my own house!�
�� He looked into her blazing topaz eyes. “You will find the tongue torn from your mouth if you but utter a word about Maria or ‘bigamous’ marriages.” Too late Charity realized her error. She had pushed him too far; she could not now escape his vengeance.
“You can buy my silence by letting me go,” she cried in a last desperate effort. “What are matters at Daarkenwyck to me if I am far away?”
He sneered and her heart sank. “You have become dangerous to me.” Outside the thunder rolled again, but to her it seemed scarcely louder than his thunderous voice as he roared, “Jan! Jochem! Come to me!”
Charity heard heavy footsteps and turned to run. She rushed from the library into the hall, out the back door and fled from the house. She had run a hundred paces across the lawn before they caught her—Big Jan and Jochem, coming from opposite directions—and dragged her back to the house.
“Do not think that you will bed me, Mynheer van Daarken!” cried Charity, struggling in their arms. “For that you will never do!”
“The rats may bed you for all I care,” he growled, his whole expression lowering. “Take her to the blockhouse—there.” He indicated the one to the left of the landing. “Chain her to the wall and leave her.”
Charity’s eyes widened in horror. Those deserted blockhouses—they harbored spiders and vermin and rats and—possibly snakes. “No,” she screamed, “you would not do that!”
“There you will stay until you have come to your senses,” he sneered. “And if you grovel on your knees to me, it may be that I will reconsider your case. If not, consider that you will live the remainder of your life chained in a dark room. Take her away, Jan!”
CHAPTER 21
Charity found herself being dragged roughly along, across the spongy spring grass, by expressionless captors who thrust her summarily into the log blockhouse. It was dark inside. The only light came from the slits for sniping and chinks in the roof which needed repair.
“We have no leg irons,” muttered Jochem, holding onto Charity with one hand while his other ran down her back and crept along her buttocks. “How should we secure her?”
This Loving Torment Page 21