“Come to the cabin,” he said. “I have something to show you.”
She followed him, past speech.
In the cabin he unlocked a little box and took from it a packet. He seemed to be loath to give it to her. “I had hoped we would have a few more days of bliss before all this came out.” There was an underlying sadness in his voice. He reached out and touched her hair wistfully. She felt almost that he was leaving her.
“Georgiana,” he said in a low voice, “do not let this make a difference between us.”
Anna stared down at the packet, without touching it.
“What is in the packet?” she asked in a troubled voice as he pressed it into her hand. She was almost afraid to open it.
“Read it for yourself. I have not opened it. It was given to me in Bermuda by the minister who married us, who in turn had it from his predecessor. Elise Meggs—whom you knew as Eliza Smith— gave it to him on her deathbed with instructions that you be given this packet on your wedding day. This is your true wedding day, Georgiana, for today you were married before the eyes of the world under your real name.” His voice was gentle. “I will leave you to read it alone and after you have done, I will answer any questions you care to ask me.”
He left her and Anna broke the wax seal and slowly took out a parchment.
I, Elise Meggs, who for some time now have gone by the name Eliza Smith, she read in the minister’s precise handwriting, being fully aware that I am near to death, do wish to say that I was born in the Scilly Isles at the south of England and there was nurse and later maidservant to young Mistress Imogene Wells, who had lost her parents. I loved Imogene like my own daughter. There was trouble for her in England, for the man Imogene loved killed her betrothed and Imogene’s guardian sent her to Amsterdam to save her life. I went along. While there, she heard her lover was dead and she married the Dutch patroon, Verhulst van Rappard. She was seventeen when he took her to America, to his great estate of Wey Gat.
Wey Gat—Windgate! Anna read avidly on.
But the patroon could have no children—indeed, he came not to my lady’s bed, and so when the child Georgiana was born, he knew it was not his. But for a time he seemed to accept her, and my lady was content. Then he grew cruel and threatened to send the child away to Holland. It was then my lady learned that her lover—little Georgiana’s father—was still alive. His name was Stephen Linnington and he wrote to her when he learned of her trouble, and did try to save her.
It was all there in the letter: how Stephen Linnington had come for Imogene in an iceboat, and Verhulst, who had discovered the plot, had shot him. How Stephen and Imogene had both died in New Amsterdam, while Elise had taken little Georgiana and escaped aboard the Wilhelmina, a Jamaica-bound ship, fleeing Verhulst van Rappard’s vengeance.
But aboard the Wilhelmina, as luck would have it, there was a Dutch woman who remembered seeing me at Wey Gat. She told the captain and I knew he would never let us land at Jamaica, but would take us back to New Netherland, where the patroon would pay him a handsome reward for our return. I feared he would kill us both. So when the ship made an unscheduled stop at Bermuda to take on fresh water, since the water casks taken on in New Amsterdam were of green wood and the water was fouled, I arranged with a fellow passenger, one Claes Hulft—here Anna gave a start—to smuggle me ashore for the price of a valuable necklace of pink freshwater Scottish pearls with heavy silver links. I had a few coins and at this time did not know my lady was dead, so I put up at an inn and kept asking the news of ships' officers who docked at Bermuda. I learned that it was a lucky thing we had left the ship when we did, for word soon reached us that the Wilhelmina had been attacked by a Spanish warship and sunk with all hands. When I heard that a stone had been erected at Wey Gat to my lady, I knew that she was dead. I feared to try to contact anyone for aid, for the patroon was a dangerous man—I always thought him mad. So I bound myself to the owner of Mirabelle Plantation and later the new owners, the Jamisons, who bought up my Articles of Indenture along with the plantation, took a fancy to little Georgiana, whom I had told everyone was my niece Anna Smith, and now I see that she will be treated well here and so I am not afraid to die. I have told little Georgiana nothing of this, for I am still afraid of the patroon's vengeance—I do not know what he would do to her if he found her. But when she marries, Georgiana will have a husband to protect her from the patroon—on that day she will read this and understand why I feared to tell her this lest it wreck her future.
It was witnessed by the minister and sworn to, and signed with a scraggly X and below it, in the minister’s firm hand, “Elise Meggs/Eliza Smith.”
The other object in the packet, Anna saw, was a small journal written in a hurried scrawl that grew more cramped as she turned the pages. As she opened it she saw the words. Since I do not expect to survive the winter if Verhulst has his way, now that he has found out that Georgiana’s real father is still alive, though I had thought him dead—so her mother had kept a diary! There were tears on Anna’s lashes as she put it down. She would read it later. But now—now there were questions to be answered.
She went on deck and joined Brett at the rail. Like the curtain wall of a frowning stone castle, the ramparts of the Hudson’s towering Palisades were flying by on her right as the sloop skimmed upriver. She gave them not even a glance.
“Brett,” she said, eyeing the crew uneasily, “does anyone else on board speak English?”
He gave his head a somber shake. “No. I realize there is much you will want to ask me, Georgiana.”
She winced. It was going to take time for her to get used to that name. Not Anna—Georgiana.
“And perhaps I was wrong,” he mused, “not to tell you from the first that you were Verhulst van Rappard’s daughter—”
Anna’s mouth opened—and closed again.
“And therefore, now that he is dead, the heiress to Windgate.” So Brett did not know that she was not really Verhulst van Rappard’s daughter? Only Elise Meggs had known that! Anna shivered, realizing suddenly the value of the packet Brett had given her unopened.
“My mother—ran away from him,” she said woodenly.
“He was a difficult man,” said Brett in a moody voice. “Nobody understood him, it seems.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“No. I was far away and occupied with other matters at the time. But there is a portrait of him at Windgate, which I am told is a perfect likeness—as well as a portrait of your mother, Imogene. She is very beautiful.”
Anna felt a burst of pride that her mother had been beautiful. But beauty, she reminded herself, had not brought Imogene happiness “They had—quarreled?” she asked, wondering how much the world knew.
Brett sighed. “I had hoped you would have learnt that from the packet Elise Meggs left you.”
“I learnt why Elise fled New Amsterdam. She was afraid the patroon would take vengeance on her—and me.”
“I doubt he would have harmed you,” said Brett. “But I do not know what he would have done to Elise, for she had helped your mother to run away with her English lover.”
“Is that what she did?” asked Anna steadily.
“Yes, Georgiana. The patroon shot the lover as he picked up Imogene in an iceboat. She was badly hurt because the iceboat had crashed into her as she ran from the patroon. The patroon and his men pursued them downriver. They believed the iceboat had sunk and all on board had drowned. Van Rappard held a funeral for Imogene such as had not been seen on the river and erected tombstones to all of you—even her lover. And killed himself—so the story goes.”
Wide-eyed, Anna was drinking this in.
“Van Rappard had left a strange will instructing that the manor house be completed and his possessions kept intact until it was done. His only relations were in Holland and none could be found. In the meantime, matters at Wey Gat fell into a sorry state, the place was ruinously in debt, the English had taken over the colony from the Dutch, New Netherland had become New
York—I bought Wey Gat when the house was completed and paid off the debts. It took all that I had and more—I had to borrow. I am still heavily in debt to moneylenders in London, but I have got my mill erected and by next year, God willing, the property should pay a handsome profit.”
“How did you find me?” asked Anna in a small troubled voice. “Why did you look for me, Brett?”
He gave her an almost sorrowing look, as if he knew he had to hurt her. “After I bought Windgate, a claimant showed up who says he is the nephew and only living heir of Verhulst van Rappard. You saw him on the dock.” The golden Dutchman! she thought. “Shortly after that, Erica Hulft, the fox-haired woman you saw on the dock with Nicolas, came to me with a story that you were alive, that you had survived the tragedy and were living in Bermuda. At the time I brushed the information aside, for, although Nicolas van Rappard was still pressing his claim, I felt the English courts would see my side of it. Then word reached us that Charles II was turning his back on his Dutch allies, that he had made a secret deal with the French. I realized that I was in a colony basically Dutch and one that could be Dutch again if the war heated up. When my worst fears were realized, and the Dutch fleet sailed in and took the colony by force, I knew that I would now be under Dutch law and that Nicolas van Rappard had not only made friends in the colony, he was one of them. A Hollander like themselves. Thinking I might need more than a bill of sale to stand against Nicolas in court, I sent Erica to Bermuda to find you and tell me what you were like. She came back and told me she could find no trace of you.” His lip curled. “I should have known better than to trust her!”
Anna gasped. A mix-up indeed! But why had the fox-haired woman lied?
“You will understand,” he said slowly, “my choice of messengers was poor. It seemed the lady herself intended to be mistress of Windgate.”
So she had been right. That woman—that vixen who had given her that predatory stare outside the gates of Mirabelle had meant to ride her down, to keep her buried in Bermuda and ignorant of her heritage on the Hudson.
“I had thought I could trust Erica but something happened to make me less sure.”
“What? What happened?”
“I found her in Nicolas van Rappard’s arms,” he said grimly.
“Oh,” said Anna in a small voice. It sounded inadequate.
“It occurred to me then that she might have tricked me. I reasoned that since Erica had never been in Bermuda before, but her brother Claes had, she had had her information from him. I contacted Claes, who was then staggering out his life in drunkenness, and for the price of a few drinks he led me to this ring, which he had sold to a tavernkeeper, and I bought it from him. Claes told me that Elise Meggs had become a bond servant in Bermuda although he did not know to whom she was indentured or precisely where. He said he had seen you as a child and had no reason to believe you were not still alive. I was in haste now, for I realized that Erica and Nicolas were plotting against me, and Erica’s plots have been known to bear fruit. So I sent a man I trusted to Bermuda—Alexander Timmons Timmons could not write so I gave him a brass button in an envelope addressed to me and told him to send it to me when he had located you. When I received the button, I set out for Bermuda on board the Haarlemmer, which cast anchor, rechristened as the Dame Fortune, in St. George’s harbor. But when I reached Timmons, I found him in bad case—shot and dying. He could gasp out only the name you went by—Anna Smith—and the name of Mirabelle Plantation, to which he claimed you were the heiress.” Heiress to Mirabelle, thought Anna. Brett had told her in Bermuda that he had come to marry the heiress to Mirabelle—and later he had said he came to marry her. He had believed Anna Smith to be the heiress to Mirabelle! “I stayed with Timmons until he died,” Brett added morosely, “and gave the doctor money for his burial. On my way back to the inn in St. George that night I found you being abducted.”
“And so you had no idea who I was?”
“No. Timmons was too far gone to give me a description. He gasped out that you were the heiress to Mirabelle Plantation and I suppose he would have told me more but death overtook him. I did not learn who you were until I called at Mirabelle and saw your portrait on the wall. The woman there told me that was a portrait of Anna Smith and for a few pounds gave me written permission to marry you.”
“She cheated you,” said Anna wryly. “For she thought me gone, run away. Arthur had told her so earlier that morning.”
Brett nodded, giving her a sober look. He seemed to be waiting. She sensed the tension in him.
And now it must be asked, the great question.
Anna took a deep ragged breath. The wind blew against her hot cheeks. “As a man of honor, Brett, I ask you this.” Her steady gaze held his. “Having met me, having spent the night with me, if the van Rappard heiress had turned out to be not myself but one of Bernice’s daughters, would you have asked for her hand in marriage?”
The tall man before her squared his shoulders and stood straighter. There was agony in his face.
“The truth!” she cried.
“Yes,” he said in a strangled voice. “I would have asked for her. That is the truth.”
Anna felt those words crash in on her, like heavy stones falling. She felt them strike her, one by one.
I would have asked for her.... She had it from his own lips. For a moment she felt that her heart would break. She turned blindly and fled from him, slammed the cabin door, latched it with trembling fingers and threw herself upon the bed.
She was not first with him, as in her lovesick state she had believed. She had never been first. She had deluded herself. She was but second in his life—a house, a piece of land named Windgate came first! And to keep his grip on that piece of land, he would have wed another woman—even after spending a moonlit night in her arms.
Georgiana bent her head and wept.
On the Hudson River,
1673
Chapter 6
Hours had passed. Hours in which Georgiana had sat silent as stone, staring at nothing. The first heartbroken weeping had passed and her eyes were dry and empty. All the need she had to be loved—all the need she had always had—was clawing at her unmercifully. She wanted to get up and run out and hurl herself overboard, lose herself in this terrible river where the world believed her mother had died.
“Georgiana.” Brett was knocking on the cabin door. "Georgiana, it’s late. Let me in.”
“Go away,” she said tonelessly.
“Georgiana.” His voice grew more level; instinctively she knew that from him that sound was dangerous. “If you force me to break down this door, there will be talk. It will be surmised that perhaps I forced you into this marriage.”
“And that might endanger your chances of holding on to Windgate?” she said with heavy irony. “How unfortunate!”
His answer was cool. “It would also be a lie. Say to me, if you can, that you did not wish to marry me—that I forced you.”
Georgiana’s hands clenched. “You know that I cannot say that!” she choked.
“Then stop acting the fool and open the door. What is done is done!”
He was right. What was done was done. Moving as heavily as an old woman, Georgiana rose and started for the door. Suddenly her gaze fell upon the parchment and the journal, which still lay where she had left them when she had gone to join Brett on deck. They were incriminating documents involving her mother, they could bring shame to her and death to Brett’s hopes! Acting purely from instinct—although she told herself she cared nothing for his hopes, he could lose Windgate for all she cared!—she snatched them both up, replaced them in the packet, and stuffed them deep into the chest Brett had given her to hold her belongings—and closed the lid. She would not let him see them!
“Georgiana!” He was becoming impatient.
“I am coming.”
Silently she threw open the door.
“I am glad you have come to your senses,” he sighed, closing the door behind him. “My crewmen are loya
l but they have eyes and ears, they talk—and they are not above repeating a juicy bit of scandal like a wedding trip where the bride locks out the groom!”
Georgiana went over and picked up a shawl. The face she turned to the man in gray satin was a stony one. “I will not lock you out, Brett. Indeed, I will do better—I will give you the whole cabin to enjoy alone. It is my intention to spend the night on deck beneath the stars. With Floss.”
“No, by God, that you will not do!” He reached out and his detaining hand closed over her wrist like a vise. “My crew could understand many things—but not a bride who prefers to spend her wedding night sleeping beside a tethered horse on deck rather than in bed with her lawful bridegroom!”
She gave her arm a jerk that caused her silk shawl to slide from her shoulders to the floor, but Brett did not stoop to pick it up. He kept his hold on her.
“Brett, let me go!” Her turquoise eyes flashed and her voice held a warning. But she was alarmed too for she knew that when she had threatened to sleep on deck she had touched his honor. He would not be made a fool of before his men!
He studied her mutinous face intently and a crooked smile crossed his dark countenance. Still gripping her wrist, he moved toward the door. “Since you yearn to spend the night outdoors beneath the stars, we will put in to shore and you shall have your chance! My men will doubtless consider the notion romantic!” He gave a mirthless laugh.
Georgiana gazed up at him, affronted and alarmed. Through the cabin window, across a ribbon of water, she could see a strange wild shore gliding by in the darkness. Heavily forested and with never a light or a house, it looked dark and furtive and unfriendly.
“Come,” he taunted when she hesitated. “We will test your courage.”
Georgiana pulled back. She felt panic mounting in her. “I said I would sleep on deck with Floss. I do not wish to go ashore.”
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