Rich Radiant Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “You sound as if you know Katrina very well.” It was his turn to jest. “And her mother too. Yet I could swear that you had met them but once!”

  Georgiana realized she must be careful, for her knowledge of Rychie ten Haer had been gleaned from her mother’s journal. “I have my sources,” she said airily. Let him think it was all servants' gossip!

  “Still,” he said softly, leaning forward, “your own husband stood ready once to chance the dangers of Rychie ten Haer as a mother-in-law!”

  That barb went home. Georgiana caught her breath. “I am sure he never seriously considered marrying Katrina.”

  Nicolas cocked a knowing eye at her. “You think not? Not to hear Katrina tell it!”

  “Oh, I am sure she maintains he asked for her hand on bended knee—repeatedly!” scoffed Georgiana.

  “No, she maintains he asked her but once. Very clearly. She regards herself as having been jilted—although her father prefers to glaze it over for the sake of peace on the river.”

  Georgiana tossed her head and her golden curls bounced. “Then no doubt Katrina won’t care to attend my masquerade ball!”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” laughed Nicolas. “I am sure nothing would keep her away!”

  Or Erica either, that merry glance told her. She felt suddenly angry with Nicolas, who felt he could predict her future.

  “Will you be there?” she shot at him.

  “Of course—if only to watch you,” he grinned. “I am sure all your rivals will be skating about en masque at your ball. By the way, do you skate?”

  “No,” said Georgiana airily. “But by then I will have learned. The edge of the pond is beginning to ice up and Linnet tells me it will soon freeze over and be strong enough to support us.”

  “By then you will have learned?” he echoed, and she caught a shade of laughter in his voice, hastily covered up. “I must tell you, Georgiana, that both Katrina and Erica have skated all their lives and are superior skaters—especially Erica, who is the soul of grace. As you glide out among your guests, tottering on your shaking ankles, you must remember that I warned you.”

  “I have said I will learn," said Georgiana, nettled.

  “So you did,” he chuckled. “And has Danforth assured you that skating is an art you can master in a day or two?”

  “We have not discussed it.” Georgiana dismissed the matter as trivial. “In any event, you will be there to gloat if I fall on my face!”

  “More likely I’d catch you and keep you wavering but erect!” he corrected humorously. “By the way, where is the lord of the manor? Away on his rounds? I always seem to miss him.”

  “Brett is spending the day in the forest, supervising the felling of great trees. We are building a new stable and it seems the span of the roof will require enormous beams,”

  “I am glad to hear he is making improvements,” said Nicolas urbanely. “ ’Tis good of him to keep the place up.” For me, was the wickedly unspoken implication.

  Georgiana stiffened. “You must stay to sup with us,” she said coldly. "Brett would not wish me to let you go without offering you a meal.”

  “Would be not?” murmured Nicolas, amused. “But I am afraid I must decline, for the sloop awaits me and her captain is eager to push on downriver to Haerwyck.” He rose and gave her a roguish look. "His eagerness leads me to believe there must be a willing bedfellow waiting for him there among the servants.”

  "Or perhaps he aims a bit higher?” suggested Georgiana sweetly. Nicolas laughed aloud. “He may aim but I doubt if he’d land, for he’s a dour fellow pushing sixty—a bit old for either Rychie’s or Katrina's taste!”

  “And was your trip to Rensselaerwyck successful?” she asked as she accompanied him down the slope toward the sloop.

  Nicholas shrugged. “Van Rensselaer says neither yes nor no. He takes it under advisement.” They had reached the pier now and he leaned down, watching her. “And that bothers you, Georgiana, for you had hoped with all your heart that I would succeed.”

  Georgiana missed a step. “And why would I do that?” she demanded breathlessly. “Since you are well aware that Brett plans to construct a mill at almost precisely the same place?”

  “But you wish him no luck with the venture!” laughed Nicolas. “For that would bring him into partnership with Govert Steendam and you do not want him mixed up with Erica!”

  Georgiana glared up at him. “I never said so!”

  “You did not need to.” The tail Dutchman gave her a caressing look. “You are a jealous woman, Georgiana—and Danforth will give you cause, never doubt it.” He paused thoughtfully. "Are you sure your husband will be back tonight?

  “Of course I’m sure!”

  “Too bad,” he said regretfully. “You could have sworn the servants to secrecy and I could have spent the night here—and ridden off south in the morning with none the wiser.” His hot gaze rested on her with bright speculation; she felt restive under that gaze. “You will come to that sort of thing eventually, Georgiana.” His voice was cool, even, hypnotic. “Your own pride will drive you to it. If only to get revenge.”

  “Oh, be off!” she cried impatiently, stamping her foot. “You are insufferable!”

  Suddenly his arm encircled her waist and his fiery lips brushed her own. Almost before she could sort out her wits enough to struggle, he let her go—and she guessed it was in deference to a shout from near the house. His golden head lifted and he gazed intently at the speaker, who was only calling something to the sloop’s captain, who bellowed a reply.

  “Faith, I thought it was your husband,” Nicolas muttered.

  “Thank God it was not,” gasped Georgiana, falling away from him. “What came over you, Nicolas? Do you desire to die young?”

  The tall Dutchman gave her a crooked grin. “I might risk it,” he murmured. “In the right cause. Till we meet again, Georgiana. Oh—my regards to Danforth.” He left her, laughing, swaggering down the pier toward the sloop.

  Georgiana watched the sloop depart with mixed feelings. Her heart was still beating fast as she retraced her steps to the house.

  On her way to the kitchen she ran into Linnet, who was surreptitiously stuffing a hot olykoek into her mouth.

  “Well, Linnet, the gold snuffbox has been returned, and Mynheer van Rappard sends you his thanks for finding it.” Georgiana tried to sound blithe.

  Linnet’s expression was ludicrous. Almost without volition, her teeth closed on the olykoek. “Has he gone?” she asked indistinctly.

  “Yes, the sloop has left,” sighed Georgiana. “And this time I followed Mynheer van Rappard to the pier to make sure he didn't drop anything that would require his return!”

  Linnet tried to swallow. She choked and went into a fit of coughing.

  Alarmed, Georgiana slapped her on the back and when that didn’t work, she ran to get a tankard of water. When she came back with the water. Linnet’s face was purple and large tears had formed in her eyes and were spilling down her cheeks. At last she managed to swallow and Georgiana, worn out between Nicolas’s exhortations and Linnet's unexpected behavior, thrust the glass of water impatiently at Linnet, advised, "Don’t take such large mouthfuls!” and swept on to the kitchen to see cook about supper.

  She would have been astonished had she seen what Linnet did when she was gone. With no one about, Linnet threw herself face down upon the sofa Nicolas had so recently quitted and sobbed silently and beat upon the cushions with her fists. Her wild anger brought on another fit of coughing that made her sit up again, gasping for air.

  Nicolas had been here—again! And again she had missed him! Oh, if only she had not found those two black wampum beads and slipped up the back stairs to add them to her attic store! Twice he had been here and both times she had been unavailable. So dejected was she that she pleaded a headache and went upstairs without supper, she did not want to face anyone just now. Wakeful and distraught, she lay in her bed and prayed in a whisper to a God she believed in absolutely to ma
ke Nicolas come back again to Windgate.

  Downstairs. Georgiana was having her own problems.

  Brett had come in tired and frowning. He had spoken hardly two words to her and now he watched her narrowly over their repast of stewed sweet turnips served with fish, fresh pork with carrots, and shellfish turnovers dripping with sweet sauce. For them it was a simple meal, so decreed by Georgiana because she knew how exhausted the kitchen help was from the butchering. She had begun to wonder if it was perhaps too simple a meal when Brett remained frowningly silent throughout.

  “I had a letter from Bermuda today,” she volunteered. “Sue is getting married.”

  “Who brought the letter? I didn’t see a sloop at the landing.”

  “Oh, it didn’t stay.”

  “What sloop was it?”

  “The ten Haers’” said Georgiana hurriedly, and then to distract him: “I told cook my best friend was getting married and she asked me if I’d be going to Bermuda to attend the ceremony. I told her no, it was too far away. It seems strange to realize I might never see See again.” She sounded pensive, for she was thinking wistfully of Sue and her lost girlhood. Both seemed impossibly far away. It was as if years had passed in the short time since the Dame Fortune had cleared St. George’s harbor.

  But Brett was not to be distracted. “Did Huygens bring the letter?”

  “No, it was Nicolas. He just stopped by to deliver it on his way back downriver. The letter had been brought to Haerwyck and entrusted to him—but he had forgotten it on the way up.”

  Brett snorted. “Forgot!” he scoffed. “Like he ‘forgot’ his snuffbox.”

  “Well, he’s a forgetful man,” she said reasonably, busying herself with her shellfish turnover.

  “I don’t doubt it.” The servants had gone now and Georgiana looked up to see that Brett was eyeing her ruthlessly across the table as he sipped his wine. His gray eyes were very cold. “I’m told you saw him to the sloop.”

  “As far as the pier, yes,” said Georgiana nervously, for she guessed where this was leading.

  “Teunis stepped out of the kitchen to call a message to the sloop’s captain as he left.”

  “Yes. I saw him.”

  “He reported that you kissed Nicolas good-bye.”

  “I’ll remember that Teunis carries tales!” she flashed.

  “Is it true?” he asked inexorably.

  “No—although I’ll admit it may have looked so,” she said with as frank a look as she could manage. “A sudden gust near took his hat and we collided as we tried to keep it from going into the river.”

  “Collided,” murmured Brett. He sounded amazed at her inventiveness.

  Georgiana colored. “I most certainly did not kiss Nicolas!” she told him stormily. And she hadn’t, she told herself. Of course she had not been able to stop him from kissing her but there was a very large difference—she had not responded to his kiss. What might have happened if he had held her a few moments more she refused to think about. She could feel her heart pounding in alarm.

  Across the table her husband was studying her thoughtfully. She could not read his expression but he looked grim. “See less of Nicolas,” he advised bluntly.

  Georgiana’s breast rose and fell rapidly. It was a delightful sight but at the moment it did not seem to tempt her husband. “I only offered him the most ordinary hospitality!” she protested. “I told him you would wish him to stay and sup and he declined!”

  “Wise of him,” grated Brett. “I’d have been tempted to slap his teeth for him.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Georgiana found she was shaking. “I was very cold to him and I followed him down to the pier lest he conveniently lose something else and use it as an excuse to rush back!”

  “Next time, find reason not to receive him. Say you are indisposed.”

  “You must learn to trust me!” said Georgiana sharply.

  “Oh, I trust you,” said Brett. “It is Nicolas I do not trust.”

  “Well, I can’t see—”

  “Nevertheless, whether you see or not, you will oblige me in this.” His tone was inexorable. “I will not have you spending time alone with Nicolas van Rappard.”

  Resentment at this cavalier treatment washed over her. “And am I to understand that you will spend no time alone with Erica Hulft?” she countered.

  “You are to understand so, yes.”

  “Except perhaps at night when you think I am asleep?” she said bitterly.

  Across the table Brett stared at her. “So you heard... that night?” he said softly.

  “Yes! I heard everything! I heard her tell you nothing had changed between you, that she would enchant the ‘child bride’, that she—”

  He sat back, his eyes hooded. “Then you must also have heard what I told her,” he interrupted impatiently, “that it is over between us.”

  “Erica didn’t think it was over!”

  “She will come round to thinking it!”

  “And meantime you twit me about Nicolas!”

  “I only said, see less of him.”

  She lifted her chin. “You must learn to trust me, Brett. There are many attractive men in the world!”

  “But only one Nicolas van Rappard. Stay away from him.”

  Georgiana’s delicate jaw was set. Her face was flushed and stormy. “Yet we will continue to receive Erica, I take it, while denying Nicolas common courtesy?”

  Her husband gave her a weary look. “I said nothing about common courtesy. I said do not be alone with him. And Erica is to marry Govert Steendam. It will make her a force on the river. Of course we will receive her.”

  Nicolas had been right, Georgiana thought bitterly. He had said Brett’s arguments would be logical, his reasoning overpowering. He had said—

  Sudden fury overcame her and she half rose from the table.

  “So I am asked to trust you with Erica, yet we all know what you have been to each other—what you still may be!"

  She had not meant to say that, and having said it she would have given much to unsay it—but pride would not let her take it back.

  Brett’s broad shoulders had hunched and his face had gone white with anger. He rose from the table, knocking over his chair, and stomped out.

  Nicolas was right that she was a jealous woman—and she felt that, as Nicolas had surmised, Brett had given her cause. Confused and filled with guilt laced with indignation—for surely her behavior with Nicolas had not been enough to warrant Brett’s edict not to see him again—she went upstairs to bed. And found Brett’s door solidly closed against her.

  Too proud to ask his forgiveness, Georgiana slept alone. And wept alone.

  It was the beginning of a rift between them.

  BOOK V

  The Seducer

  Promises made in the light of the moon

  May wither in light of day

  And the words that he said as he lured you to bed

  Vanish fast away!

  Part One

  The Innocent

  The heart is a dreamer, it loves to take flight

  But dreams are soon gone, like a thief in the night

  And the promises whispered all through the long night

  Are gone with the morning, are lost with the light...

  New Orange, New Netherland,

  1673

  Chapter 23

  The ball at Haerwyck, and the revelations it had brought him about himself and his feelings for Brett Danforth’s beautiful bride—and now her obvious indifference on his last two brief visits—had made Nicolas van Rappard restive. Hardly had the ten Haers’ sloop carried him back to Haerwyck before Nicolas was again on the move. Irritated by Rychie’s and Katrina’s incessant discussion of the Danforths and by Katrina’s furious outbursts when he failed to agree with her passionate denouncement of Georgiana, Nicolas took passage aboard the first river sloop to dock at Haerwyck and was carried downstream to New Orange.

  His freshly clipped pointy Van Dyke beard was just as gold
en, his elegant clothes and saffron-plumed hat just as handsome, but his usually cheerful expression was gloomy, his step less jaunty than usual as he strode past a collection of the step-gabled yellow brick houses with their divided Dutch doors and scrupulously clean low front stoops. Several wide-breeched Dutchmen bowed to him affably, for Nicolas van Rappard was known to be a contender for the vast patroonship of Windgate and if he won, he would become a power in the community. But Nicolas was too downhearted to more than nod in reply. He went past a tobacconist’s shop and at the doorway almost collided with a pink-cheeked boy carrying a basket, who cried “Pypen en tabac?” Nicolas was low on tobacco but he was even lower on funds. He shook his head at the boy grimly and marched on, dodging a waddling country woman in a lace cap who was carrying a brace of ducks, and a group of lean buckskin-fringed woodsmen who padded by on Indian moccasins, carrying long muskets.

  He might have called on Erica Hulft—and created some excitement if Govert Steendam happened to be there—but his heart was not in it. He passed a saddlemaker’s, an apothecary, a candlemaker’s and a tinsmith’s, and turned into the familiar Green Lion. He was a bit too late for tiffin but he had had a snack on the sloop just before docking. In his present mood he was more interested in serious drinking, so he swung wide the door and prepared to join a gathering of tall-hatted, pipe-smoking gentlemen in the common room.

  But his progress was abruptly arrested by a dandified young gentleman in green satin who dashed from the common room, intent on the door to the street just as Nicolas was entering—and collided, cursing, with Nicolas, ricocheted off the Dutchman’s sturdy form, and barked his shin painfully against a nearby bench.

  “Damme, ye were in the way!” cried the stranger, hopping around on one polished boot and clasping a shinbone resplendent in green silk stockings. His handsome young face reflected both rage and pain.