Huygens sat back. But Nicolas was not so easily satisfied.
“How did you come by the ring you wear?” he asked tauntingly. “The sapphire ring set in gold that bears the inscription ‘To Imogene, my golden bird of Amsterdam. Verhulst.’ ”
Georgiana turned and stared him directly in the face. “It was given to me by my husband, Brett Danforth.”
A subdued murmur went through the courtroom.
“And where did Danforth get it?” wondered Huygens.
“He had it from Erica Hulft’s brother, who blackmailed Elise Meggs out of it in Bermuda, threatening to make her presence known to Verhulst van Rappard if she did not give him money or something of value—poor Elise had no way of knowing Verhulst van Rappard was already dead! I was present when Claes Hulft made his demands, and I remember Elise hurried away that night with the ring, to meet him, and came back without it. She told me it had belonged to my dead mother.”
The watching lady in amber velvet passed a hand over her face. There were tears in her delft blue eyes. All this had happened and she had not known, she had not known. Dear God, she had thought them all dead and they had been but an ocean sail away. How much blue water she had seen in her life and great waves breaking green across the deck! Why could not the winds of chance have carried her to Bermuda?
Georgiana was speaking again. “I claim Windgate as the acknowledged daughter of Verhulst van Rappard—christened as such.”
“May I question this witness?” Nicolas rose.
Huygens nodded.
“Georgiana—or should I call you Anna? You have been very fortunate in your life, have you not?”
“I should not call it fortunate, losing one’s parents and being brought up in poverty!”
“Ah, but it was not always poverty, for I understand that you are now possessed of another fair plantation—Mirabelle in Bermuda. And there was some trouble over your inheritance there also? Another claimant, I believe.”
“Tobias Jamison named me as his heir. His second wife sought to take all, but the will naming me was found and brought to Bermuda by Tobias Jamison’s London agent—and I inherited.”
“Papers in London.” Nicolas’s tone made the word “London” sound suspicious. “Strange papers from far away places delivered after the fact have been very fortunate for you, it would seem! Well, here are some papers that will not be so fortunate—indeed they will prove to be your undoing!” He reached into his doublet and drew out a packet.
Georgiana started. She had not expected things to happen this way. She had thought that Nicolas would question her and after she left the witness stand, produce his written evidence. Instead a grinning Nicolas was bringing out the packet!
“I feel faint,” she cried. “I request a recess!” And blundered toward Nicolas.
Surprised, the golden Dutchman caught her as she sagged toward him. Her face had fallen onto his shoulder and now he felt from somewhere the hard muzzle of a gun pressed against his side.
“This is a pistol,” Georgiana murmured. “If you do not leave with me, I will shoot you now!”
Always wary of excitable women bearing firearms, Nicolas found his voice. “This lady is ill! I will carry her outside where she can get some air.” Forgetful of his sling, he scooped up Georgiana and turned to carry her away. His sudden wince as he felt the pistol jab him even more forcefully in the side was proof to the astonished audience that his injured arm and leg—which he was so gallantly using in support of this lady who was wed to his rival—were paining him.
“Hurry!” muttered Georgiana. “Your life depends on it!”
But Brett had already vaulted over the table at which he sat and was shoving his way through to her.
“You’ll take her nowhere!” he cried, and reaching out with his long arm, he seized Nicolas by the shoulder.
Nicolas, caught between the devil and the deep, froze.
“In the name of God, Danforth!” sputtered Huygens from the judges’ table. “He is but helping your wife to some air!”
“He may help anyone he pleases—save my wife,” said Brett grimly. “She belongs to me!”
“Your life, Nicolas,” whispered Georgiana, with closed eyes. She could feel his heart thudding in his chest. She did not know how he would get her out of here but she had the feeling he would manage it somehow. And once outside, once alone, she could put her proposition, and at gunpoint he would be glad to accept it.
It would be an offer he would not care to refuse.
Nicolas surged backward and stumbled. Georgiana, whose finger was not actually on the trigger, almost dropped the pistol. As Nicolas released his grip on her, Brett reached forward to catch her but Nicolas, going down, managed to grasp her wrist and bring it up away from him
And in her slender hand attached to that wrist was a dueling pistol.
The crowd gasped and fell away from them. Brett was thunderstruck as he set Georgiana, now totally recovered, on her feet.
“Have you some explanation for this?” thundered Huygens ten Haer. “What did you hope to gain by this piece of bravado?”
In silence, Georgiana handed Brett the pistol and he stuck it in his belt. Their eyes met and his were very angry.
She had lost. And in panic she knew that she might have cost him Windgate.
“Answer me!” cried Huygens. “Why were you holding a pistol on Nicolas?”
“I think,” said Nicolas, regaining his feet with a push from several onlookers, “the answer is to be found in this packet.”
He drew the packet out and held it up for the court to see. With deliberate slowness he drew out a parchment and a journal.
Imogene, who had stood transfixed with the rest of them, watching this little drama play itself out, paled as she recognized the journal—her journal. Elise must have taken it with her the night they fled Wey Gat.
“Those are stolen papers!” roared Brett.
Nicolas’s wicked grin flashed. “Indeed! Stolen from your wife’s bedchamber at Windgate.” He swaggered forward to slap them down on the massive oaken table before the judges, and then turned back to Brett. “Don’t you want to know how I came by them?” he asked innocently.
It took all Brett’s restraint to keep from drawing his sword and slashing blood into that smile. “I know how you came by them. You seduced my wife’s personal maid and the poor girl stole them for you. Huygens,” he turned forcefully to the man who sat in center place at the judges’ table, “I demand the return of my wife’s stolen papers.”
Events were going too fast for Huygens. He sat a minute chewing his lip.
Into that momentary void, Nicolas spoke. His voice was cool, deadly. “Before they are returned, I would have them read before this court and this company. For the letter is a deathbed affidavit of Elise Meggs and the journal is the secret journal of the late Imogene van Rappard, and both documents prove beyond doubt that the lady here who claims to be Georgiana van Rappard is in truth—”
From the door came the report of a pistol and all heads turned to look at a wild-eyed man who stood with a smoking gun in the entrance. For a moment all voices were stilled.
Into that silence, the man—a burgher whom all recognized—spoke.
“I bring news that will change all our lives,” he cried. “The war is over! There has been a peace treaty signed at Westminster. Under this treaty New Netherland has been given over to the English! This land is no longer Dutch!”
Chapter 42
The courtroom erupted into a scene of confusion. Brett, who had leaped forward and snatched up the letter and the journal from the table, was looking at Georgiana.
English again—not New Netherland, this land was once again New York, this city was no longer New Orange—it was New York City! How could he tell Georgiana how he felt about it? That someday there would be neither Dutch nor English here, but only Americans. He might not live to see it, but his children’s children—ah, yes, they would unite this land and set it free from European claims. Somed
ay, someday....
“An English court will decide it now,” said Brett, pressing Georgiana to him. “Good God, Georgiana, what madness came over you to threaten Nicolas with a pistol in this courtroom?”
“I meant to force him to hand over the documents, even if I had to trade him Mirabelle for them!”
He looked down at her tenderly. She was so fine, so open hearted, so loyal and so headfirst in everything she did ... he knew he would never cease to love her.
At the head table Huygens was pounding and shouting for order. At last he had it—a semblance of order at least.
“This court”—-he said it sadly—“will no longer have jurisdiction in this matter. In any event, we could only have submitted our findings to the New Netherland Company in Holland for final disposition. But now that we are back under English rule—”
The lady in amber velvet had been pushing her way through the crowd. Now her clear voice rang out, interrupting Huygen’s last words.
“A Dutch court will do as well as an English one for what I have to say. Nor will there be need to submit any documents. I wrote that journal.”
All heads swung toward the lady, who now ripped off her scarf and let her golden curls break free. Her fearless gaze was fixed on Huygens.
“I am Imogene van Rappard. I demand to be heard.”
The courtroom was suddenly deathly silent, so still a fly could be heard buzzing angrily among the rafters. Imogene, back from the dead?
Nicolas, ever impressed by feminine beauty, drew in his breath in a silent whistle. This glorious creature standing before them—so like and yet so unlike the young girl whose turquoise eyes had challenged him along with her pistol—was the legendary Imogene, Verhulst’s “golden bird of Amsterdam”!
Imogene stepped forward and the light from the rafter chinks where the sky could be seen seemed to gather about her and make her coloring the more brilliant.
“I did not die on the iceboat,” she said quietly. “Although for a long time I suffered amnesia. When I recovered, I was told Elise and my child had gone down aboard the Wilhelmina, that my lover and Verhulst were both dead. I saw no point in returning—and I never did. But when I heard there was a claimant to Windgate and a girl who claimed to be my daughter, I determined to return and tell my story that justice might be done.”
“How do we know you are in truth Imogene van Rappard? Can you prove it?” Nicolas was recovering fast from his initial shock.
Imogene laughed. “You have only to look at Huygen’s face—he remembers me from the time he was turned away at Wey Gat by Verhulst on the grounds that I was ‘too ill’ to receive company—and I dashed downstairs in the midst of the conversation and asked if he could take me on his sloop as far as Haerwyck! And Rychie—ah, Rychie remembers me, I can see that from the consternation on her face. But in case she is still uncertain”—she jerked the silk scarf from around her throat and revealed a white blaze that brought gasps from the crowd—“she will surely remember the van Rappard diamonds, and others will remember this necklace too, for it was the finest necklace seen in New Amsterdam up to that time, and I wore it to Governor Stuyvesant’s ball—along with that dress, my wedding gown, which my daughter Georgiana has found somewhere! And Vrouw Berghem”—she turned and her voice softened—“you remember me too. I can see it from your look of shock. You will remember how I went out that night and returned in the dawn to tell you no duel would be fought? That Captain van Ryker had sailed away? And Verhulst came downstairs and we all ate Indian porridge at your table?”
“Ah, it’s true, it’s true!” cried Vrouw Berghem. “It is Imogene herself, returned from the dead!”
Georgiana was stunned by the dazzling radiance of her mother’s beauty. She seemed to glow in that crowded room and everyone was watching her with a taut breathlessness. Just looking at her had an effect on the men in the audience—their eyes of a sudden gleamed or dreamed, according to their temperament. And the women looked at her—as they always had—with a kind of inner fear; she was too beautiful—such beauty was disruptive, a menace.
“Then if you now admit my identity, you must also admit that I am the woman Verhulst named in his will. Those ‘documents’ that have been produced may refute my daughter’s claim but never mine! I am sole heiress to Windgate.”
Huygens bent his head to confer briefly with the other judges. He rose.
“We are of one mind,” he said heavily. “We have all read the will and you are indeed named as sole legatee. We find you the heiress to Windgate—but we also find Brett Danforth purchased the property in good faith. We can only submit your claim to—”
“That will not be necessary,” cut in Imogene. “I publicly abandon my claim in favor of my daughter Georgiana, in the hope that she may sometimes remember and think kindly of a mother who missed her young years and has found her perhaps too late ever to claim her affection.”
Georgiana stood up. “And I abandon my claim in favor of my husband, Brett Danforth, who bought and paid for Windgate. As for my mother”—she turned a radiant face toward Imogene—“my wonderful newly discovered mother—it could never be too late for her to claim me!” She ran forward and impulsively threw herself into Imogene’s arms.
Huygens turned to Brett and made him a slightly ironic bow, but his heavy features remained unmoved.
“Then it is the judgment of this court—in the light of all these abandonments—that Windgate belongs to”—he smiled upon his neighbor, whom he had always liked—“the English patroon!”
Brett acknowledged Huygen’s friendly look with a warm answering smile of his own. He stood up and would have spoken but that from outside came the sudden boom of heavy cannon.
A breathless hush descended on the room, as men sprang to their feet. Those guns—they were not the familiar guns of the fort, they had not the sound of them. In the instant during which that unhappy knowledge sank in, women gasped, some cried out or pressed kerchiefs to mouths gone suddenly pale, and men bethought them of their wives and families and loosened their swords in their scabbards.
“Gentlemen!” Another voice rang out, a voice of pure authority that turned all heads once again.
A tall man stood blocking the entrance—and their exit. Broad of shoulder, he cut a splendid figure in dove gray velvet shot with silver. More importantly, he had a brace of pistols, both drawn and pointed at the crowd. And behind him were some twenty men, armed with cutlasses and pistols.
“I heard a pistol shot and have come to see to the safety of my wife,” said the tall man coolly. His gaze flicked over the assembly.
“I am here, van Ryker,” said Imogene, and her glorious eyes were wet with tears. “Here—with my daughter.”
“’Tis Captain van Ryker!” cried Vrouw Berghem ecstatically. “And we all thought him dead as well for he never came back!” She drew in her breath. “His wife . . . he has married Imogene!”
A little of the thrill she felt went through the assemblage. All the old stories were true, then. Scandalous Imogene had run away with one lover and married another! And this one the notorious Captain van Ryker, who had been perhaps the most popular buccaneer ever to visit New Amsterdam!
Huygens ten Haer, who had leaped up at the first sound of heavy bombardment, found his voice. “But the cannon, man? My God, if there’s a treaty, the English surely aren’t attacking the town?”
Van Ryker’s white teeth flashed. “No, that was a salute from the Sea Rover’s guns. I’m standing once again on English soil and —since I’m an Englishman—I thought to salute the change of ownership!”
There were indrawn breaths, for up to now, all had thought van Ryker to be Dutch.
“And since there may be some lawlessness tonight because of this change of ownership,” van Ryker was saying dryly, “I will collect you now, Imogene. You will come with me and bring your daughter and whoever else belongs to her.”
“I belong to her,” said Brett, stepping out where he could be seen. “Georgiana is mine and I ca
n well protect her without any help from you.”
“Be that as it may,” was the calm reply, “my help you shall have if you need it. Since we’re English again, I realize that the decision of this court—sensible as it was—may have no validity. Having already been challenged under Dutch law, the title to Windgate could now be challenged again under English law. So I leave you with a warning”—his formidable gaze turned to Nicolas—“whatever flag flies above the fort: By right of my wife, I have this day been presented with a son-in-law.” He nodded at Brett, who gave him back a stunned look. “My son-in-law’s holdings will no longer be at issue in the courts of this colony. Should his title again be challenged, a ship of forty guns will back his claim.”
Nearby, numerous eyes widened, for it was well known that a couple of broadsides from a ship like the Sea Rover could reduce the town’s tottering old fort to rubble.
Van Ryker leaned toward Nicolas. His gaze was very cold. “Do I make myself clear, van Rappard?”
“Very clear,” said Nicolas hastily. Never having lacked for wit, he knew when he was beaten. “Indeed, I accept the will of the court”—he gave this dangerous buccaneer a winsome smile—“and herewith renounce all claim to Windgate.”
“Before witnesses,” added van Ryker dryly.
“Yes! Before all these good folk who have witnessed my renunciation!” He was unfastening the silk scarf that had served him as a sling for his “wounded” arm as he spoke. He would no longer need it! Now he stretched that arm and straightened up, moving toward the door with no sign of a limp.
“Van Ryker.” Imogene had reached her husband and was smiling brilliantly through her tears. “You have made me notorious again!”
“You have spoiled that martyred effect for your audience, Nicolas,” jibed Georgiana as his path led him by her.
“My thorny little rose,” he laughed. “I regret I must tell you good-bye.”
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