Rich Radiant Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  Erica, weak with relief, almost collapsed against Govert.

  “I asked you, how badly is she hurt?” Brett turned again to Dr. Pos.

  “I cannot tell,” sighed the doctor. “She may have cracked her skull. Her heart seems to be beating regularly enough.” He winced suddenly. “What’s this?” In trying to listen to Linnet’s heartbeat, he had hastily torn aside her bodice and chemise—and caught his ear on the necklace. He grasped the thing that was tugging at his ear and the delicate gold chain came out glittering into the light, showy in the torchlight, with its teardrop diamond pendant winking at them.

  “Why—why, she’s wearing my necklace!” cried Katrina, springing forward to get a better look. “The one Nicolas gave me! However did she get it?”

  Brett fingered the necklace and a muscle in his jaw jerked as he recognized the pendant and chain he had wrenched from his bride’s throat all too recently.

  “Are you saying the wench stole this necklace?” the doctor demanded.

  “It matters not at the moment how she came by it,” growled Brett. “The important thing is to bring her inside so that when she comes to she may speak to us and tell us what cursed folly led her into this.”

  Fear was beginning to gnaw at him—fear for Georgiana. She must have been watching this performance—faith, she could hardly have resisted watching! Why had she not rushed forward the moment she saw Linnet was hurt? Why was she not even now trying to save her maid’s reputation by volunteering some reasonable explanation as to how Linnet had got the necklace? Where war she?

  Katrina would have rushed up and snatched the necklace from the unconscious girl’s neck, but her mother held her back. “Let Nicolas explain it,” Rychie muttered. “Where is Nicolas?” She turned her head alertly to look about her.

  “I don’t see him,” said Katrina sullenly. She had torn off her glittering black mask and her expression boded ill for Nicolas when she did find him.

  Huygens ten Haer shouldered his way through the crowd. “What are the girl’s chances?” he asked the doctor bluntly. As a magistrate he was aware that he might have to try this woman for theft; he was wondering if she’d make it to the trial.

  Dr. Pos shook his head. “I cannot tell yet,” he insisted. “But she should be wrapped well in blankets and kept warm and fed hot broth and her wound sponged. And”—he brightened—“if she does not come round soon, I have a new nostrum, a remedy, that I think may work!” Indeed, he had been eager to try this latest creation on someone—and here a golden opportunity had been presented, an unconscious victim who could not protest the concoction’s foul smell or bitter taste.

  Modern medicine would have feared his “remedy” more than the bone-cracking blow the girl had taken!

  By now the servants had arrived, out of breath and slipping in the snow, for none had taken time to put on boots or pattens.

  “Carry the wench in,” Brett ordered tersely, “and do for her as the doctor tells you. I must look for Georgiana. Have any of you seen her?”

  Open mouths gaped back at him; it was answer enough.

  But a search of the vast rooms and echoing corridors of the entire house, even though it took a long while for it was thorough, did not discover the English patroon’s missing bride.

  It did turn up something else.

  Lying on the blue and white coverlet of the big square featherbed in Georgiana’s bedchamber, with one of Georgiana’s white satin dancing slippers anchoring it down, was a scrawled note addressed to Brett

  A tremor went through Brett’s big frame as he read the note. He crumpled it in one big hand and threw it at the fireplace as he stormed out

  The guests, who had crowded along to help search for the missing bride, parted to let him past—shrank back indeed, for the black scowl on his face seemed to spell doom for anyone fool enough to stand in his way.

  He had hardly swept through the door before Katrina ten Haer, who had been following Brett about, as curiously as the other guests, ran forward. Almost igniting the lace ruffles that spilled from her black and saffron domino sleeves in her haste, she pounced upon the crumpled paper lying a hair’s breath from the hot coals. She smoothed it out, scanned it and turned to her mother with a wail.

  “Oh, why am I so unlucky? Georgiana has taken Nicolas away from me now!”

  As alarmed as her daughter, Rychie snatched the note and gasped as she read it.

  I am running away with Nicolas, the note read. Windgate will not see me again. It was signed with a flourish Anna.

  But even as Rychie was exhibiting the note to those who crowded around, Brett was racing to the servants’ quarters where Dr. Pos was ministering to Linnet in her rag doll costume. He brushed past the bearskin-clad doctor and seized the girl by the shoulders. Linnet had just opened her eyes and now she quailed to find herself looking up into the dark and furious face of her employer.

  “Linnet,” Brett growled, his fingers tightening meaningfully on her shoulders, “you will tell me now all that you know of this charade—and quickly before I decide to crack your head like an egg, injured or no!”

  “Awr-r-r-r!” Linnet gave a choked wail that caused the bearskin-clad doctor to leap forward, expostulating with Brett.

  Impatiently Brett pushed him aside. “This is between Linnet and me,” he said coldly. “There’s a note on my wife’s bed saying she’s run away with Nicolas van Rappard. Where has he taken her, Linnet? Where!"

  Before him Linnet’s young face seemed to break up and regroup into a mask of pain. She gave a low keening cry that pierced their eardrums, then shuddered away into a moan. “ ’Twas her he wanted,” she lamented. “ 'Twas her all the time and not me. Oh, I should have known—the moment I saw him in that red cloak, I should have known!"

  Reminding himself sternly that she’d been hurt, Brett fought back an urge to shake the truth from her. “Where, Linnet?” he demanded harshly.

  But the girl seemed not to hear him. She was wrestling with her own private grief. “He told me he wanted to marry me,” she mourned. “And that I’d be mistress of Windgate.” Her voice broke. “I’d have been glad just to marry him and forget Windgate, I would.” She came back to the present and her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve done a terrible thing, I have—helping him,” she whispered. "I don’t doubt ye’ll have me whipped for it and ’tis right that you should but—oh, sir, I'll tell you everything, and if she’s gone, I know where he’s taken her!”

  Chapter 33

  For a long time, after Nicolas and Arthur had gone, Mattie sat apprehensively on a bench near the hearth across the room from Jack Belter, who lounged on his cotlike bed smoking a long clay pipe. At first she was so cold from her long river journey that she just sat and shivered; then as she got warm she relaxed. She looked around the room with its big stone hearth and roaring fire. Against that stone fireplace leaned a poker. If that big black-bearded creature who never spoke, just watched her silently from those evil slits of eyes, tried to rape her, she told herself she would pick up that poker and try to give a good account of herself.

  Mattie need not have worried. She was not Belter’s type. Although he was looking in her direction, he barely saw her. In his mind he was already spending the gold Nicolas had given him, spending it in a Dutch brothel in New Orange on a girl with big legs and a high shrieking laugh who had last time told him scornfully he "wasn't man enough for her.” “I’ll learn her,” he was muttering to himself. Mattie heard and edged a little nearer the poker.

  She seemed to spend hours like that, sitting cramped and frightened. and she was concentrating so desperately on Jack Belter’s mumbled words that when the door of the cottage did at last swing open, she jumped up with a shriek that brought Belter to his feet with a curse.

  Arthur came in glaring at her and dumped what looked to be a large black bundle with striped legs and black felt boots sticking out, into a chair. A moment later he snatched off the dark cloak he had thrown over Georgiana’s head. With it came the silken mask and t
he long yellow braids and mobcap—and Georgiana’s own burnished gold hair, shaken loose from its pins, spilled out over the shoulders of her rag doll costume.

  “Mattie!” she cried, as the gag was pulled out of her mouth. “What are you doing here?”

  But Mattie, when she saw what Arthur had brought back with him, had staggered back a step. She looked about to faint.

  The worst moment of the evening for Georgiana had come when she had realized that it was Arthur Kincaid who had her. At first it had seemed a wild nightmare from which she soon must wake-—a man garbed as an executioner had seized her, gagged her, and was carrying her off. But the freezing truth that this particular nightmare was all too real had filtered in to her shatteringly through the thickness of the wool cloak that covered her head, for the voice that reached her, muffled by the wool, was that of Arthur Kincaid. Jolting along on his horse, Arthur had kept up a running one-sided conversation with her—sneering, contemptuous, triumphant. He had punctuated his remarks by taking unpleasant liberties with her body that had made her writhe in fury—pinching or cuddling her breasts or thighs, suddenly giving her a rough hug that took her breath—even shaking her so that she bounced on the saddle before him. How she wished she could have answered his tirade! What an earful she would have given him this night! It was as well that she hadn’t been able to, for he might have responded by doing her an injury.

  Now her gaze fled past pale, speechless Mattie to dour Jack Belter, standing impassively by and handing Arthur another rope to tie her to the chair she had been dumped upon.

  “You, Jack,” she said warningly, “are in real trouble, for Brett will not forgive any injury to me.”

  “We won’t injure you,” smirked Arthur. “I am but taking you back—my escaped bond servant!”

  “I’m not your bond servant!” snapped Georgiana and turned with a last wild appeal to the big black-bearded man. “Jack, turn back from this mad venture before it’s too late. Throw this man from your house and take me back to my husband and I promise you a rich reward.”

  “No use talking to Belter here,” snickered Arthur. “He’s already bought and paid for, aren’t you Jack? Don’t bother to deny it—I know to the guilder what van Rappard paid you, for ’twas my gold that financed this venture, the sloop, your services, everything.” When Belter’s expression did not change, Arthur’s voice grew grim. “And well you know the kind of reward you’d get from Danforth for your part in this night’s work—a length of steel, if he didn’t have you hanged!”

  “That’s not true,” cried Georgiana heatedly. “You know my husband for an honorable man, Jack Belter. Whatever Nicolas has paid you. Brett will pay more! I promise it, and my husband will honor my promises!”

  For a moment Jack Belter’s dark eyes gleamed and Georgiana thought she had him. She held her breath, waiting.

  Arthur too thought Belter might be wavering.

  “We’ll put the woman aboard the sloop,” he decided.

  Jack Belter shook his big head. He looked uneasy. “We’ll wait for Mr. van Rappard,” he said tonelessly.

  “Who did you say? whispered Georgiana, her turquoise eyes dilating.

  Across from her, Mattie found her voice. “It’s true,” she said miserably. “They’re waiting for Nicolas.”

  If Arthur Kincaid noticed his wife’s surprising use of the golden Dutchman’s first name, that fact assumed a secondary importance in his mind. Of first importance was getting Georgiana away from Jack Belter’s sphere of influence before the black-bearded devil could change his mind and take her back to Danforth and claim a reward!

  “Mattie.” Arthur seemed not to have heard Belter. He spoke with a voice of authority. “Take this rope, Mattie, and tie it around Georgiana’s waist and tie the other end around your own, so that I may keep track of you both.” He turned again to Belter. “You may stay here if you like, but van Rappard may arrive on the run with muskets firing at his heels and I had best get the women aboard now.”

  Without putting down his long clay pipe. Jack Belter moved over and eased his tall figure in front of the cottage’s only door, “We wait,” he said laconically.

  “Very well.” Arthur shrugged. “Could I have a pipe of tobacco while we wait?”

  “Over there.” Jack nodded toward the broken-hinged cupboard.

  “I don’t see it,” Arthur said when he opened the cupboard door.

  “In the cupboard,” directed Jack.

  Arthur rummaged about futilely. A pewter tankard came tumbling out, rolled along the floor. “I can’t find it. Jack.”

  With a grunt, Belter moved toward the cupboard, bent over to get the tobacco. With a catlike quickness, Arthur moved. He seized the poker Mattie had considered using and brought it down with all his force on the back of Jack Belter’s neck. Belter fell face forward with his head in the cupboard. They could hear his chin crash against the wood. Then his body seemed to relax and he slid down the front of the cupboard and ended up lying against it on the floor.

  “You’ve killed him,” breathed Georgiana, staring in fascination at the crazy angle of the fallen man’s neck, as Mattie covered up her eyes. Her gaze turned accusingly to Arthur. “Now you’ve done murder!”

  “Here maybe—but not in Boston.” Arthur gave a short mirthless laugh. He nudged Belter with his foot to make sure he was dead, gave him a sharp kick in the groin that would have been sure to elicit a groan.

  Georgiana could not bear the sight; she turned her face away.

  “On your feet,” commanded Arthur.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m tied to this chair.”

  “Then I’ll untie you.” He swaggered toward her, confident now that he had the situation under control. Jack Belter had been a powerful antagonist, but these two women—he could herd them along, they would be afraid to stand against him.

  “They’ll hunt you down,” she panted, looking up at him with hatred. “Wherever you go, they’ll find you. No place will be safe for you ever again.’

  The malice in his laugh licked at her, as did the mockery in his voice. “They will not be looking for me, Anna. ’Tis Nicolas van Rappard they will be looking for. When Nicolas told me his plan—for me to seize you whilst he stayed on at the ball so that he would not be implicated, I penned a note and signed your name to it. And ’tis a fair copy of your handwriting if I do say so, for your signature from the Articles of Indenture which you signed was burned into my brain.”

  Georgiana was afraid to ask. Somehow she kept her voice steady. “And what did you say in this note, Arthur?”

  He stood over her, gloating, making no move to untie her. “That you were running away with Nicolas. You will be gone by tomorrow, Nicolas will be blamed, we will get away scot-free.”

  “And what makes you think I will go with you, Arthur?” she asked steadily. "You have not got Floss to hold over my head this time! You cannot threaten to burn her alive, for she is safe with Brett!”

  Arthur’s countenance took on an expression so diabolical, so gleeful, that she flinched back instinctively.

  “I have something better than Floss,” he said softly. “I have Mattie."

  Georgiana felt her throat go dry. “You would not,” she whispered. “She is your wife!”

  Standing there like a waxen doll, Mattie heard her husband say, “Would I not? You will come with me, Georgiana. We will be far away downriver while your husband scours these hills for you and Nicolas van Rappard. But he will not find van Rappard, for I will be waiting here to kill him. When van Rappard opens that door, he will be met with a musket ball. I will drag his body to the river—but you will not see that; you will already be aboard the sloop that is even now waiting for us at the riverside.”

  “I will tell them what you have done!” cried Georgiana through clenched teeth.

  Arthur's smile was terrible. “You will have no chance, for you will be once again bound and gagged with Mattie to guard you. She will know better than to defy me. The crew of the sloop is
bought and paid for—they will take my word that van Rappard took a bullet from the pursuing patroon and cast off. Down the river you will go, unseen inside my cabin. In New Orange you will be carried on shipboard bound and gagged in a trunk as part of my ‘luggage.’ Don’t worry, I will not let you smother!” Arthur was obviously enjoying this, swaggering before her, letting her see what a great man he was, driving in the hard fact that she was in his power. “And once in Boston, these Articles of Indenture—” he patted his doublet where the papers resided—“will bind you to me. I will spread the word that you suffered an accident when you fell in front of a carriage wheel in Philadelphia and that your mind wanders; nothing you say will be believed. You will live in my house, do my bidding. If you run away, I will find you and bring you back and strip Mattie naked and whip her with a cat-o’-nine-tails until she bleeds.” He was smiling fiercely into Georgiana's eyes, ignoring Mattie’s little horrified cry. “And you will come to my bed, Anna—willingly with smiles, or fainting from the sight of Mattie's pain, it matters not to me. For I have sworn that I will break you.” He seized her suddenly by her thick burnished gold hair and bent her head back so far that she gasped from pain. “And break you, I will!’’

  Gazing raptly at Georgiana’s beautiful white face as he outlined his terrible plans, one by one, Arthur had given no thought at all to his young wife. He considered her cowed, spiritless, to be kicked out of the way like a piece of furniture.

  But Mattie had been gazing, dazed, from Georgiana’s shrinking bound body to the dead man who lay sprawled on the floor. She was unaware that she was whimpering like a hurt animal caught in a trap from which there was no escape. Screaming nightmares that hurtled at her from a hellish future galloped wildly through her brain. And prime among them was a vision of Georgiana, silently stripping that Arthur might bear her to his bed—and casting a last despairing glance at Mattie, who sagged to her knees, held upright only by a rope suspended from the ceiling dangling her by wrists bound cruelly tight. She could feel blood drip down her naked body, running along her back and buttocks, from the welts of the lash—welts Arthur would inflict.