Rich Radiant Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  To his surprise, Mattie was all too willing to describe her beautiful rival. “Anna is very kind and very generous,” she admitted with the honesty that was characteristic of her. “She gave Sue a beautiful blue gown—and Lance fell in love with her in it. In case you have not seen Anna,” Mattie rushed on, “you will have no difficulty in recognizing her. For she has a face people turn in the street to look at and a smile that makes strong men weak. And as if that were not enough, she has a stunning figure and a great sense of style and masses of shining fair hair. And beautiful turquoise eyes that—that sort of challenge you.”

  Too well Nicolas remembered the challenge in those haunting turquoise eyes, but he was amazed that Mattie, who he presumed to be competing with Georgiana for Arthur’s affections, should render such an unbiased assessment of her rival. He gave a slight start as Mattie finished dismally, “I haven’t a chance beside her.”

  “Of course you have,” he was astonished to hear himself say.

  “What?” Mattie was looking at him, startled. “What—did you say?” she faltered.

  “I said you have every chance. You are young and lovely and desirable,” he rushed on recklessly. “Your eyes are like brown velvet and you have skin that would do credit to a peach.” Such flattery came easily to Nicolas. Words of love rolled off his rakish tongue as readily. He checked himself suddenly and felt ashamed.

  The object of his attentions was sitting up straight and looking at him with round astonished eyes in which adoration was just beginning to appear. Her lips were softly parted and her breast rose and fell with sudden rapidity.

  Nicolas told himself he was a bastard. This frightened child was not for him.

  “I have been less than honest with you, mevrouw,” he said slowly. “I am well acquainted with Anna Smith.”

  “Then if you know her,” cried Mattie, “you must get word to her. Tell her she must go away—anywhere, that Arthur is looking for her and I do not know what trick he will try!”

  Nicolas gave her a pitying look. “I will convey your message, of course, mevrouw,” he said smoothly, never once intending to do it. “But you need have no fear for the lady. She came to these shores saying she bore the great name of Georgiana van Rappard and she is the wife of the English patroon.”

  “English patroon?” faltered Mattie.

  “Yes. An Englishman who bought up my patrimony, a place called Windgate. We have some litigation about it.”

  Mattie’s puzzled face told him she knew nothing of these intrigues. “Georgiana is the talk of the river,” he told her, leaning back and fondling his glass. “I am told there is quite a story to her early life. Perhaps you will apprise me of it?”

  “Arthur will be getting back,” said Mattie uneasily.

  “Oh, your husband won’t be back for some time,” he laughed. And at Mattie’s questioning look, “You’ve married a suspicious fellow, Mathilde. He’ll want to do some checking up on me, I don’t doubt. And since I am Dutch and he is not, he’ll be suspicious of a Dutch town backing me up, so he’ll go from place to place asking questions. It will take time.”

  Mattie didn’t understand what he was talking about, or why Arthur should go about asking questions about a chance acquaintance, but suddenly she didn’t care. The Dutchman’s rich caressing voice was lulling her and his golden hair seemed to halo a wickedly enticing face. She relaxed and lost herself in the vivid blue of his eyes, smiling at her across the rim of his glass. And under the pressure of that smiling hypnotic gaze that made her feel that she was every inch desirable and made for love, Mattie told Nicolas breathlessly what she knew of Georgiana’s life in Bermuda, ending ingenuously with, “And so all of us, even Anna, believed she was the heiress to Mirabelle. That is, until Bernice turned her out.”

  “So that was the way it happened,” murmured Nicolas thoughtfully. “Strange... it would seem from what you tell me that Anna Smith never knew of her heritage as Georgiana van Rappard. You say she never spoke of it. Then, am I to assume that she was not aware of her great expectations until she married Brett Danforth?”

  Mattie felt called upon to protest the sardonic irony of his tone. “I think the only inheritance Anna ever expected was Mirabelle," she said uncertainly. “And of course, Bernice got that away from her."

  “And so she merely moved over and took someone else’s inheritance.” Nicolas smiled lazily. “As soon as someone pointed it out to her.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t believe Anna would do anything wrong,” Mattie interjected hastily. “You should have seen the way she attacked Arthur for trying to burn up Mamma’s saddle horse! I mean”—her cheeks burned—“she accused him of doing it.”

  Tried to set a horse alight, had he? Nicolas felt distaste for his newfound accomplice rising in him with every revelation. “And did he accomplish his goal?” He tried to sound casual.

  “Oh, no, Anna stopped him—I mean, she said she did. Mamma didn’t believe Anna’s story, of course.”

  “But you believe it, don’t you, mevrouw?” asked Nicolas quietly. Mattie’s suddenly ducked head and the uneasy way she plucked at her skirt was answer enough.

  Nicolas bethought him of the time. Arthur should have worn himself out asking questions by now!

  He set down his glass and rose to his full height in a single fluid gesture. Mattie looked up and the sight of him standing there in his tawny velvets smiling down at her was so splendid that it made her dizzy. “Mathilde,” he said gently. “You have a husband who’ll come limping in any minute now in new boots and it might be best for both of us if he didn’t know we’d had this conversation. Come, I’ll escort you back to your room—he’ll never know you left it.” Mattie’s deep sigh of relief and sudden look of brimming gratitude made him feel suddenly abashed. He refused to admit even to himself that it had been her story about Arthur trying to set the horse alight that had made him suddenly so careful of this frail child before him.

  In silence he escorted an enchanted Mattie back to her room.

  Chapter 25

  “Will we see you at dinner?’’ Mattie asked Nicolas wistfully as they reached her door.

  “Perhaps.” He bent low and brushed her hand with his lips. Mattie shut the door behind her and leaned against it with her eyes closed. A soft ragged sigh escaped her lips. She wondered if she would ever see the golden Dutchman again.

  She did. At supper. He came in late and smiling and joined them at their table in a corner of the common room. Arthur had had an earful of gossip about Nicolas van Rappard’s prospects this afternoon and looked at Nicolas with vastly more respect. And to think, he had thought him but a common adventurer!

  Mattie felt this change in the atmosphere and reveled in it. She was (she considered) most fetchingly gowned in the beruffled blush coral taffeta creation in which she had left Bermuda. Its enormous sleeves fairly dwarfed her newly slender arms and in desperation she had tied a rosy riband around the waist in an attempt to make it fit better—but all to no avail. With her sparkling eyes and hairdo that would not stay quite neat, she looked like a mischievous little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes and Nicolas’s hard blue eyes softened as he looked at her.

  “You look very elegant tonight, mevrouw,” he said gravely, and caused Mattie to blush to the roots of her less than elegantly got-up brown hair.

  To cover that guilty blush, Nicolas turned smoothly to Arthur. “Did you try the bootmaker I recommended?”

  “Aye,” sighed Arthur. “And the new boots are well made, as you said they would be. But as to the fit, my heel is so raw from wearing the others that I can’t tell whether these will rub or not.”

  Nicolas, smiling benignly on him, remembered the tale Mattie had told him about the horse and fervently hoped that the new boots rubbed Arthur till he bled.

  “I have bought us a bottle of fine Canary, brought up from the Caribbean by the buccaneers,” he said, producing it

  “Will the innkeeper allow you to bring in your own wine and drink it here in his
common room?” marveled Arthur.

  Klaus will let me do anything I like,” replied Nicolas easily, but his lazy smile was for Mattie. She could feel her very flesh prickle under the warmth of that smile.

  In point of fact Nicolas had not five minutes ago bought the bottle from Klaus, although he wished Arthur to think he had come by it elsewhere. Now he signaled the innkeeper for fresh glasses, and poured it himself, bending over it with great ceremony and handing Mattie and Arthur their glasses with a flourish.

  “To the venture,” he said, looking Arthur straight in the eye.

  “To the venture.” Arthur drained his glass.

  Their words, their toasts, went by Mattie in a dream. She lifted her glass to her lips and drank some but she never really tasted it. Although he sat beside her at the table, Arthur and his moods were temporarily forgotten, for she saw but one person at the table: Nicolas. And when that tawny velvet arm reached out to fill her glass again, Mattie, who never drank anything stronger than cider, dreamily allowed it to be refilled and tossed it down as if she had been drinking deep all her life.

  Nicolas, watching her, gave an inward chuckle. Arthur, he thought contemptuously, was a fool and worse.

  From across the room Klaus the innkeeper watched the trio curiously, for he had had an interesting conversation with Nicolas just before Nicolas had joined Arthur and his bride. Nicolas, he told himself, was up to his usual tricks.

  For Mattie it was a wonderful evening and all too short. But it was ended rapidly, for Arthur, his speech thickened with drink, lurched to his feet and told her to come along, that he was for bed.

  Mattie scrambled up before Nicolas could pull out her chair, but she walked on air all the way up the stairs beside a wavering Arthur and turned on the landing to give a last lingering look to their dinner companion. She would have blown him a kiss, had she dared.

  Arthur went to sleep that night so suddenly that Mattie was amazed. He had stumbled around taking off his clothes and had scarce got undressed and into bed before he was fast asleep. Mattie lay beside him listening to his heavy even breathing and was wondering if she dared to fall asleep herself—or would Arthur rouse suddenly and pummel her—-when there was a soft knock on the door.

  Thinking it must be a servant girl sent to stir up the fire or bringing another long brass bed warmer, Mattie padded to the door, hastily donning her flowered dressing gown over her white night rail as she went.

  She opened the door a crack and found herself looking into the golden Dutchman’s smiling face.

  “What—what are you doing here?” she gasped. “Arthur is asleep. If we wake him—”

  “Oh, no chance of that,” he said easily. “I put something in his wine.”

  “Why?” faltered Mattie.

  “So you would get a good night’s sleep for a change. I was right that you do not get those too often, was I not?” he guessed shrewdly.

  “Thank you,” whispered Mattie. There were tears in her soft brown eyes.

  "And I came also to ask a favor. Your husband preempted the innkeeper’s last two rooms. I find myself without a bed.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” said Mattie in consternation. “I’m sure Arthur wouldn’t mind your sleeping in the other one. You can enter it from the hall.”

  “No, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” agreed Nicolas, not stirring from the doorway. “But the night has grown colder than I thought it would and the maids are all busy downstairs—I don’t like to disturb them to build me a fire.”

  “Oh, if you want to borrow some fire from our hearth, there are plenty of hot coals,” said Mattie eagerly.

  “Good,” said Nicolas. “If I might just step in and get some?” Mattie saw that he had brought with him a small hearth shovel for the purpose, and swung wide the door. She gave the sleeping Arthur a frightened look, but his even breathing continued without a break.

  “And now if you would just follow along and make sure that I do not strew sparks on the floor and set the inn alight?” suggested Nicolas, and Mattie stole along beside him and watched while he made a fire in the second bedchamber. White moonlight, streaming in through the small-paned window, made it almost as light as day. Mattie felt awkward and exposed standing there in her dressing gown and thin night rail.

  “Well, I suppose you are all right now,” she said rather helplessly as the fire flamed up, for even though the room was still cold, it was somehow warmer than the room she had just left. “I’ll be going back.”

  “Oh, it may be a bit chilly yet before morning.” Nicolas, kneeling by the fire, flung over his shoulder. “Would you mind bringing me that extra quilt you got, for there's none on this bed?”

  “Of course I will.” Mattie hurried back to get the quilt and returned to find Nicolas standing up and pouring out two goblets of wine from a bottle that had miraculously appeared.

  “To warm you,” he said engagingly and held one out for her.

  Mattie knew she should go back. Her every woman’s instinct warned her she should leave at once, go back to her own room and latch the door. Against this tall compelling stranger. Against her own wildly beating heart. Against these wild feelings and hot desires that were drifting through her as she looked into his kindling eyes in the moonlight.

  Instead she held out a steady hand and took the goblet Nicolas preferred, took an experimental sip. It was delicious. It seemed to her that it had an extra flavor, something exhilarating that she had never tasted before. Her hand began to shake a little now, for she thought she saw something unexpected in the intent gaze of the man before her: rescue. Rescue from this awful life with Arthur.

  In a sudden wave of revulsion against the strength of her own feelings, she pulled her robe tightly around her and looked about for a place to sit down.

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to sit on the bed,” said Nicolas cheerfully, spreading out the red comforter Mattie had brought, with a careless hand. “This is a small room and the only chair seems to be occupied with a large heavy box that looks as if it ought not be disturbed.”

  Mattie giggled. The box was her own and it was full of delightful romances by her favorite authors. She had managed to smuggle it on board while Arthur was not looking. And now all those elegant heroines could envy her, for she was having an adventure as exciting and clandestine as any of theirs! But—she was nervous. She sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, knees pressed tightly together.

  Nicolas took that giggle as a good sign. “Drink up,” he advised, holding the bottle in readiness. “ ’Tis still chilly in here and we don’t want you catching cold.”

  The unaccustomed wine, on top of what she had already drunk at dinner, was warming Mattie’s whole body. Indeed she felt slightly dizzy. She finished her glass and silently held it out to be refilled. What did she care if she got drunk? She was in better company than she had ever been before in her life!

  But Nicolas quietly took the empty glass from her.

  “No, Mathilde." he said softly. “You have drunk enough wine. It is time you drank deep of other wine—the wine of life.”

  Cymbals seemed to clash in Mattie’s head, a wild jumble of music, all of it sweet. Nicolas had caught hold of her wrist but she hung back, too shy to look at him.

  “Come.” he coaxed. “Look at me. For in me you have found a friend. That bruise beneath your left eye, how did you come by it?”

  “I—I bumped into something aboard ship,” she mumbled.

  “Your husband’s fist, no doubt?”

  Mattie swallowed and nodded.

  “And it is not the first time?”

  She shook her head miserably.

  Nicolas was studying her bowed head keenly. He could not imagine why he, a man who had always pursued women more than able to take care of themselves, should feel such a rush of sympathy for this forlorn waif before him. “Why?” he wondered. “Why does he beat you?”

  “He didn't want to marry me,” Mattie blurted. All of a sudden, under the influence of the wine and Nicola
s’s sympathetic manner, words came gushing out. “It was all a misunderstanding but my father made him marry me, and he blames Anna for it, and he swears he will get even. Oh”—tears of self-pity spilled over her lashes—“My life is so awful. I am afraid to sleep, afraid to wake!”

  Nicolas let his big warm hand drop over her small clenched one, lazily caressed her arm beneath her big enveloping sleeve. He was rewarded with a tremor as she looked up, startled, through her tears. “And is this husband who was thrust upon you so forcibly successful as a lover?” he murmured. His fingers were fondling her elbow now, creeping up toward her shoulder.

  Mattie swallowed. To this newfound friend who was so gently caressing her, she could not bring herself to lie. “Arthur is successful,” she got out in a quavering voice ‘but I—I am very deficient, to hear him tell it.” Her face was woebegone. “He goads me, he instructs me, he pushes me about this way and that, but he says that I am as stiff as a post and like one frozen—and I fear it is true because I am frozen with fear of him. I know not what he will do next and he hurts me so often that I—I cannot enjoy being married to him or yet be enjoyed,” she finished lamely, her voice fading away even as the flush on her face deepened.

  Nicolas, whose fingers were delicately toying with her bare shoulder now, under cover of the big enveloping sleeve, traced the column of her throat with his other hand and studied her. Poor child, she had known only bestial treatment! He yearned to get Kincaid on the toe of his boot—he’d boot him right out of the colony! No, he remembered abruptly why he couldn’t do that, there was too much at stake. But there was something he could do about Kincaid’s unhappy young wife.

  “Mathilde,” he said gently, holding Mattie’s pulsing throat in a gentle hand and bending down just a kiss away from her parted lips, “what say you we latch this door? For there’s time and to spare to teach you the difference here and now between a man and a brute.”

  “But Arthur,” said Mattie shakily. “Arthur is in the next room!”