The daylight hours passed pleasantly enough, for Mattie wandered about the narrow streets and picked over the merchandise that was offered for sale in the shops. She bought nothing, for Arthur kept strict control of the purse, but her smiling face was welcome in the shops, and smiles came her way when she strolled across the Heere Graft, or around the fort, looking up at the belfry of St. Nicolas Church, the top of which could be seen rising above the walls of the fort. Sometimes she studied with awe the great windmill, which seemed to be the town’s main feature. And once or twice when she ate sizzling rolliches, savoring the delicious fried diced beef, or snacked on tasty olykoeks, or watched some smiling Dutch matron shooing her towheaded children from the immaculate stoop through the divided Dutch doors into one of the cheerful yellow brick step-gabled houses, she found herself wishing New Orange was New York again, and that she had come here under British rule and without Arthur, but with some better man, someone like—Nicolas, for she felt she could have been happy in this busy, friendly city.
Nicolas had sent her no word, she had not seen him again—nor did she now expect to. And that too would be a blessing, she told herself bleakly, because naught could come of such an affair.
Just when she had given up hope, she again ran into Flan, swaggering toward her inn. “I’ve news,” he hailed her. “There’s a ship, the Gudrun, that will be leaving soon for Curaçao and her captain has promised that he will drop ye ashore somewhere in the Bermudas, no questions asked!”
“Oh, thank God,” said Mattie fervently, for she had had a particularly difficult bout with Arthur last night. She had protested something he did and he had literally kicked her out of bed. Her bottom was still painful to sit upon and she had eaten her breakfast standing up.
“So if ye’ll just give me the money. I’ll pay for your passage.” Smiling, Flan named a staggering sum; he was quite offhand about it, for was not Arthur known to be well-to-do? Flan assumed that Mattie would pay in gold, or at least that her jewels and pin money would fetch the price of passage.
Mattie recoiled at the price. “I’ll—have it for you later,” she told him hurriedly.
“Well, don’t wait too long,” he cautioned. “For although the Gudrun's captain means what he says, he’ll hold his ship in port no longer than he has to, to get unloaded and take on a new cargo.”
“I won’t,” promised Mattie, feeling panic steal over her.
She went back to the inn with her feet dragging. It was going to be terribly difficult to get the key to Arthur’s strongbox away from him. He slept with it around his neck and she was always afraid to touch him, for any touch merited a cuff and a full awakening meant she would be subjected again to his brutal carnal passions.
She need not have worried about it, for she was not destined to give Flan the contents of Arthur’s strongbox.
When she returned to the Green Lion, Arthur was waiting. And with him—her heart nearly lurched from her chest at sight of him and her face paled—Nicolas. A tawny-suited Nicolas who gave her a bland smile and a low courtly bow and said, “How soon can you be ready, mevrouw?”
“Ready for what?” faltered Mattie.
“Van Rappard here has come to fetch us upriver,” explained Arthur tersely. “We are leaving within the hour.”
Mattie turned with a look of frightened appeal to Nicolas.
“I have a sloop waiting for us,” he told her, smiling. “We go upriver. There is no need to worry, mevrouw, it will be but a short voyage.”
And so Mattie lost her chance to escape. But now that Nicolas was here she was not so sure she wanted to escape.
Windgate on the Hudson,
Winter 1673
Chapter 31
At Windgate the masquerade ball that would open the winter season along the river—and truly it would be the event of the year, for Windgate was a glamorous place that would inevitably be gossiped about and no parties had been held there for a long time—was in full swing.
The guests were wearing masks now, those who had arrived earlier and changed into their costumes in the spacious upstairs rooms (the ladies with the help of their maids, who were excited by this great event), as well as those late-arriving guests who were disembarking steadily from the fast river sloops that the Dutch settlers boasted were the fastest river transportation in the world. A variety of costumes greeted Georgiana’s eyes and, beside her, as they stood to welcome their guests, Brett murmured to her the names of those he recognized.
That black bear there, limping slightly as he leaned upon his cane, was Dr. Pos—he would come in handy if any of the guests ate or drank too much. That elegantly dressed pair in black velvet were the Van Rensselaers—the Dutch patroon had asked him if he didn’t think he looked a fool in that outmoded ruff his wife had forced on him, insisting that if she could cope with an enormous wheel farthingale, he could cope with a ruff! He had congratulated Brett on his good sense in declining to wear a costume, saying that as host he had no need to. Georgiana, at odds with him of late, had not protested, and he looked dignified and forceful in the same clothes he had worn to the ten Haers’ ball.
A late-arriving foursome swept in from their sloop. Georgiana had no need to have them identified for her; they were undeniably the ten Haers and with them Nicolas. Rychie and Huygens were resplendent in red satin trimmed in wide black velvet scallops. Both of them sported wide black hats laden with scarlet plumes and scarlet masks—but their identity was given away by the distinctive color of Rychie’s heavy sweep of saffron hair. The same held true of Katrina, whose saffron hair was heavily adorned with brilliants and who was even more violently attired in saffron satin and black velvet stitched into a domino design, her black mask bejeweled and her huge sweeping hat laden with saffron plumes.
Nicolas lounged in beside Katrina. He was wearing—surprisingly—not the tawny velvets and saffron plumes he usually affected but a plain black suit above his wide spurred boots. Indeed he was hardly in costume at all. But he had tied a black silk scarf across the lower part of his face and stuck a brace of pistols in his belt, which gave him the look of a brigand—which she supposed he was emulating. His short black cloak was worn rakishly over one shoulder but he hardly stood out in a gathering where wreathed heads and Roman togas rubbed elbows with pirate captains sporting a single gold earring and a brace of cutlasses—there was even one fairly good replica of the French king in pink and coral satins.
Even had not his merry blue eyes and the obsessive proximity of Katrina ten Haer given him away, Georgiana would still have recognized Nicolas instantly from his distinctive swagger and from the golden hair that cascaded down to his shoulders from beneath his plain black hat. He was having some kind of argument with Katrina as they approached and her saffron head was turned, the better to castigate him. From snatches of the argument that reached her, Georgiana gathered that Nicolas must have arrived on some other sloop (probably chasing some pretty girl, she guessed in amusement) and that Katrina had feared she would have no escort. Katrina’s flow of invective ceased abruptly when she thought she had come within earshot of her hostess and she closed her mouth with a snap.
Greeting them, Georgiana had an urge to ask Nicolas what had quenched his spirits that he should be so soberly garbed among the resplendent guests, but she did not. Brett was watching her closely and she was certain he would not approve of such levity on her part with a man who was bent on taking the very roof from over their heads.
But if Katrina ten Haer hoped to outshine the other guests, she would have difficulty, thought Georgiana. For most of the ladies had chosen to wear their best and add only a mask to complete their costumes—the rooms were filled with satin and damask and rich velvets and laces and the scent of musk and lavender. And there was a scattering of wildly overdressed imitation gypsy lasses, a flamenco dancer or two, and even one Far Eastern costume complete with turban and multicolored veils.
She saw Katrina start, saw her deep brown eyes widen, and turned to see Erica Hulft trailing down th
e wide stairway.
Erica was elegantly gowned in tangerine velvet trimmed with clusters of ermine tails and brilliants at the shoulders of her big puffed virago sleeves. A spiderweb of delicate black lace spilled from the cleavage of her breathlessly low décolletage. She entirely eclipsed poor Govert Steendam, who followed her meekly down the stairs looking—for all his gray hair and dignity—like an elderly lackey who might have gained his stooped shoulders and stiff walk in her family’s service. Georgiana wondered if Erica had deliberately contrived this effect, for she had added a dull maroon doublet to Govert’s rich black velvets and the effect was strangely like livery. Erica herself was wearing the smallest mask in the room—a black lace mask so tiny that no one could fail to know that this elegant lady was Erica Hulft. She had powdered her fox-brush hair in imitation of the ladies of the French court and added a black court plaster beauty spot to one peachbloom cheek. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and her amber eyes sparkled. The effect might have been achieved by rouging with Spanish paper, but however she had achieved it, she looked wonderful. Georgiana hated her.
She herself might have stood elegantly gowned beside her tall husband to receive her guests, but instead Georgiana had chosen—she who had stood out from all the others as a woman of gold the colorful ball at Haerwyck—to wear the simplest gown in the room.
She was dressed as a shepherdess—a slightly unreal shepherdess with voluminous skirts of heavenly blue silk, a breathtaking décolletage that just skirted her nipples with taut folds of delicate white cambric barely managing to conceal her round breasts. Her big white puffed virago sleeves were caught at the elbows with sky blue silk ribands and spilled a foam of white ruffles at the elbows that cascaded down over her slender forearms. A dark blue V-shaped “corselet” was laced in front to further emphasize her slender waist and delightful figure, and her wide blue skirts were gathered up into matched panniers at each side to reveal full white ruffled petticoats shorter than anybody’s in the room, that displayed her sheer blue silk-stockinged ankles and dainty slippers. Her burnished gold hair was caught up artfully with sky blue silk ribands and she carried a long shepherd’s crook with a large blue silk bow tied onto it.
“All you need now is a sheep,” said Katrina ten Haer spitefully as she greeted her hostess.
Georgiana laughed indulgently, as if Katrina had paid her a compliment. She was delighted at Katrina’s chagrin and felt she had done the right thing, for once again her shepherdess costume was the most outstanding in the room—at the ten Haers’ her gown had stood out for its color, this time it stood out for its graceful simplicity.
“Perhaps Nicolas will play woolly lamb to my shepherdess and let me guide him around the floor with my shepherd’s crook?” she suggested lazily to annoy Katrina.
Nicolas laughed and Georgiana could hear Katrina berating him as they were swept away from her by newly arriving guests, this time a pair of green-clad foresters accompanied by a blue-eyed young girl wearing a beaded white buckskin Indian bridal costume, and dangling necklaces of wampum.
But the new arrivals were dwindling away now; Brett had entered into deep discussion with Huygens ten Haer some distance away. Nicolas (escaping from Katrina’s tongue-lashing, Georgiana thought in amusement) had made his way back to her.
“Did you know your shepherdess costume is a favorite of Nell Gwyn’s?” he murmured. “And I’ve heard ’tis King Charles’s favorite to see her wear—next to dressing her as a boy in doublet and hose and showing her pretty legs to the hips. Tell me, will you be wearing something like that at the next masquerade ball you give? For I will be sure to attend!”
“You do get around, Nicolas,” laughed Georgiana, glad of this respite from meeting strangers—and those who only looked like strangers in their outlandish costumes. “First the French court and now the English! And you are so conversant with kings’ mistresses that you even know their favorite gowns! No, I will not be wearing doublet and hose to any parties—Brett would disown me and every lady in the place would turn their backs on me as a loose woman!"
“A pity." He gave her a wicked smile—she could tell from the way his blue eyes crinkled even though she could not see his mouth with that black silk kerchief obscuring his face. “ ’Tis my belief your legs would outshine Nellie’s.”
“You’re not apt to find out,” she told him merrily. “And you’d best stop this discussion of my legs before Brett turns from talking to Huygens and hears you! I think he’d take it amiss—especially after walking in unannounced and finding you draping me in diamonds! By the way, I notice Katrina isn’t wearing her necklace. Are you two at outs again? I heard her snarling at you as you arrived.”
“Katrina has misplaced the necklace—or lost it altogether,” he told her blandly. “She strews things about as badly as her mother.”
“She must be brokenhearted, since ’twas you that gave it to her,” Georgiana rallied him. “Perhaps she was urging you to replace it and that was the nature of your argument?” she teased.
“She was angry because I have been sojourning downriver in New Orange and chose to catch a ride in another sloop rather than accompany Katrina and her family here.”
“But you came in with them,” objected Georgiana.
“I waited on the pier till they arrived,” he admitted. “Else Katrina might have seized one of these pistols which mainly constitute my costume and shot me dead with it!”
They both laughed.
“If you could resist answering my sallies in kind and manage not to be amused when I suggest your role as woolly lamb to my shepherdess, Katrina might be kinder to you!”
Nicolas gave a deep theatrical sigh. “My heart is in the right place," he insisted with mock melancholy. “’Tis only my devil’s tongue that's out of order sometimes.”
“I can well believe it,” she said, her eyes dancing. “You’re so somber tonight, Nicolas,” she teased, “with those black clothes. Surely you must have borrowed them, for they certainly aren’t your usual style and give far too sober an effect to suit your disposition! Or can it be you’ve suffered some tragedy of which we haven’t been apprised? A devoted mistress has left you for another, perhaps?”
Brett, having finished his discussion with Huygens, caught the tail end of Georgiana's outrageous remark and gave her a warning look. He was faultlessly dressed in dove gray velvet and looked every inch the patroon he was, Georgiana thought with a pang. But she was still very angry with him, for nothing had been resolved about Erica Hulft. Indeed Erica might get rid of Govert on some pretext and remain as their guest until the river—or hell—froze over, for all she knew. She gave Brett an airy look and turned to smile fondly at Nicholas, hoping that would make him jealous.
It did. With a black frown, Brett turned to answer a question put to him by Dr. Pos, perspiring in his bearskins.
"You’d best get lost among the crowd,” Georgiana whispered.
“I do agree.” Nicolas’s blue eyes crinkled and she knew that he was giving her a sunny smile, flashing below his black kerchief. In point of fact he had worn this black garb so he would be less visible in the dark-—he would sink into the shadow of trees, for instance, without notice. Georgiana would not have been smiling had she known the real reason behind Nicolas’s somber costume.
The music struck up. It was provided by the smiling daughter of one of the downriver Dutch burghers, who was proficient on the spinet, and the wailing strings of one of the house servants who had practiced by night in the attic servants’ quarters on the viola. Brett claimed Georgiana to lead out the dancers and Nicolas went off to look for Linnet.
She was not hard to find. She was lurking in the hall watching for him.
“Did you succeed in making the arrangements I asked you to make?” he asked her.
Big-eyed, Linnet nodded. She wondered what would happen if she were to walk into that drawing room the moment the music stopped, step out onto the floor and dramatically announce her betrothal to Nicolas. She put the thought awa
y. Nicolas had asked her for secrecy and she would keep their secret.
“Good. And do you have the packet for me?”
Linnet nodded again and gulped. The diamond pendant around her throat, well hidden by her chemise and collar, felt suddenly cold against her skin. She did not know why she should feel so but she felt bought. She pushed the thought away from her. Nicolas was her betrothed, even though the world did not yet know it; she owed him unswerving loyalty—even against her better judgment, even against her conscience.
“I have it,” she whispered, stiffening as a couple dressed as dominos danced out into the hall. “Here.” She leaned against the wall and managed to slip him the packet with a quick flirt of her skirt to hide the gesture. Instantly his swift fingers slid the packet inside his doublet. He would read its contents later.
“You have done well,” he murmured, “but the most important part is yet to come. Meet me in the upstairs hall in five minutes and explain exactly what you and Georgiana have arranged.”
Linnet was upstairs in four minutes. In five more she had told him all she knew.
Nicolas was content. He could not have bettered Georgiana’s plan himself.
“What—what do you intend to do?” Linnet asked timidly, for she did not like the wolfish gleam in his blue eyes.
“That is not for you to know,” he said sternly. “Just remember this: whatever happens, you must keep a close mouth about it, do not involve me in anything. Remember, our future depends upon it!”
Linnet gave him back an unhappy look. She yearned to insist upon an answer but she did not dare. Nicolas was gentry and affianced bride or no, she found it hard to step over the barrier between master and servant. He gave orders, she followed them. So it had been all her life. And tonight—even though curiosity and guilt both ate at her—was no exception. She subsided.
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