She couldn’t say anything for a minute. The suggestion had come as a complete surprise to her. “I’m very flattered, Gerrit,” she murmured. “But I’d have to think about it!”
“Of course, and please don’t be flattered, my dear. I’m the one to be grateful if you agree, and I don’t pretend that I wouldn’t be getting all the benefit from such a partnership!”
Not all, Annette had thought as they drove back to Amsterdam from the tulip fields. There would be the bonus for her of living and working in Pieter’s city, of seeing him often, though how much of a bonus such a situation might be if he was married to Helga was very uncertain. No, she couldn’t seriously consider Gerrit’s offer, but neither could she entirely dismiss it from her mind. It was tempting, as her heart was very firmly in Amsterdam now...
“Annette? You haven’t heard a thing I’ve been saying, have you?” She suddenly became aware of Elena’s laughing voice, and the little scene with Gerrit flew from her mind as she realized she sat dreaming with her sketchbook on her lap while Elena outlined the color schemes she preferred for the various floral arrangements. “You must be in love or something!”
“Or something,” Annette echoed woodenly. At Elena’s sudden intent look she said hurriedly that they’d better get down to business. With so much to arrange, they worked steadily for a couple of hours.
“So much for my reading tonight,” Elena said. “But this has been much more fun. I’m very impressed by your style, Annette.”
“Oh, I’m good at my job,” she said lightly. “Other people’s weddings are my forte!”
Elena frowned. “Are you all right? That sounded pretty cynical for you. You’re not piqued that you haven’t seen much of Pieter lately, are you?”
“Why should I be? He has a life of his own, and I’m sure he wouldn’t want it disrupted by an English visitor.”
“Oh, Annette, you’re much more than that, and you know it! And I know he’d be spending far more time here if it weren’t for the Easter boost at the hotel. He’s always very busy at this time, with tourists coming for the holiday and using Amsterdam as a base to visit the tulip fields.”
There was no reason for the small feeling of relief at hearing this, but Annette knew it was there all the same. Then her heart gave a leap at Elena’s next words.
“Anyway, we’ll be seeing him soon. He phoned while you were upstairs to say he’ll be back for dinner tonight. I was going to keep it as a surprise, but now you know. I’m glad he’s having a break from the hotel – and from Helga.”
“You can hardly blame him for wanting to see her,” Annette said unwillingly. It was perfectly natural under the circumstances.
“I don’t want him to see her,” Elena admitted. “I know I’ve no right to interfere in his life, and he’s quite capable of telling me to mind my own business. Who wants to be told how to run his life at thirty-seven years old! But I care enough about him not to want him marrying the wrong girl.”
She might have said more, but the sound of Pieter’s car outside the house stopped her. Annette felt the tension rising in her as they spoke of other things, yet it seemed an age before Pieter appeared. He’d obviously gone straight upstairs, for he’d changed from his formal hotel suit into a casual blue sweater and slacks. He greeted them both, his eyes lingering on Annette’s flushed face. She’d almost forgotten the intensity of his gray eyes, the way his mouth lifted at the comers when he smiled, and the way his face came to life when he spoke in that rich deep voice.
“Who’s been sleeping in my bed, then, or has Luykey become careless in her old age?” he asked teasingly, and Annette’s color deepened at once. Oh, God, had she forgotten to tidy the silk cover she’d smoothed so sensuously, imagining it was Pieter’s skin she touched? It had to be that, when she’d turned and fled from the room.
“I’m sorry, I fetched a book for Elena and dropped it on the bed,” she said lamely. “I didn’t realize I’d messed up the covers.”
His eyes told her he didn’t believe her explanation for a second. He knew exactly her reaction at finding herself alone in his room, the way she’d stood still to absorb everything, and given in to an irresistible urge to move to the bed and remember, because what had happened between them was too overwhelming to forget. He knew, she thought desperately. And how he’d crow, thinking he’d mastered her reserve, despite her words to the contrary.
She felt doubly humiliated throughout the evening, though Elena appeared not to notice the tension between them. When Elena made her obvious tactful disappearance to phone Nels later in the evening, Annette could have wept, wanting to call her back.
“No referee now, dear Mrs. Granger,” Pieter said gently, just as if he could read her mind. “Have you missed me lately?”
“About as much as you’ve been missing me,” she threw back at him. “I’ve been much too busy working to notice you haven’t been around.”
“Really? I find that hard to believe. Just as hard as believing that any book made the indentations in my bed. I’d say they came from those very caressing fingers of yours.”
“Stop it, Pieter.” Her voice was thick and tense. She was half-afraid that Elena might come back and overhear, and in despair because his words conjured up pictures she was trying vainly to forget. “All right, so I may have been admiring the silk cover–”
His laugh stopped her inane words.
“Now I’ve heard everything! Can you honestly deny, my darling, that you were thinking of us? The way I’ve thought of you ever since that magical night?”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said tightly. “It’s something I want to forget.”
Pieter was across the room in seconds, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. Her mind was a jumble of emotions as his face came close to hers, her senses filled with his presence and the tingling seduction of his aftershave as his cheek touched hers.
“But you can’t forget, can you, Annette? Any more than I can, or wish to. Are you still pushing love out of your life?”
Everything in her wanted to cry out to him that it was his love she wanted, his exclusive love. She was more than ready to submit to his desires, knowing they matched her own so joyously. But his desire for her didn’t exclude the fact that Helga also claimed his heart, and that was one thing Annette was unable to forget.
“I’m pushing you out of my life,” she said deliberately, refusing to be affected by the way his hands roamed over the curve of her spine. Refusing to respond to the touch of his lips on her cheek, trailing downward until they found her mouth. Remaining perfectly motionless as he kissed her, in the way that had snubbed other men since Tony. And at last he appeared to accept her indifference.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a fool, Annette,” he said at last. “But any woman who runs from her own destiny is a fool in my opinion. And so is a beautiful woman who allows bitterness to mar her beauty. You can’t run forever, Annette.”
As Elena gave a discreet cough outside the door, he released her. She was shaken by the contact between them and the chilling knowledge that he was right. Although she could run from him – she could go home – she knew she couldn’t leave until after Elena’s wedding. Apart from all the preparations which would take up all her time, what possible explanation could she give to Elena? She had no choice but to stay on until the wedding was over. And then... But she wouldn’t think that far ahead.
“Nels is coming over this evening,” Elena announced when she came into the room. “He has a clear day tomorrow, so he’ll stay overnight, and suggests the four of us go out on the town, since Pieter’s here. I didn’t think you two would object!”
Annette could hardly object, though from Pieter’s tight expression she didn’t think he was any happier with the idea of a foursome than she was. Everything was spoiled between them, and there didn’t seem any way or restoring the easy relationship she’d have wished for.
The Hague was less than forty miles from Amsterdam and Nels arrived in time for dinner
. He and Elena were so happy together that the other two made an unspoken agreement to appear friendly and relaxed as they went to a show and later to a quiet little hotel for a drink. But afterward, when they were back at the house and had parted for the night, Annette was more restless than she’d been for days, picturing Pieter in the room along the corridor, the room with the cream silk furnishings and the sand-colored carpet.
She shivered suddenly, clasping her arms around her body in her own bed and trying to ignore the longings that flooded her senses, trying to ignore the fact that it was Pieter she wished was holding her close.
The more prosaic business preparations for the wedding took precedence over all else. Presents were arriving daily at the house, and Annette helped Elena arrange them in a display for the guests to view. This custom was just like an English wedding, but Elena’s wish for some of the old-country customs to be incorporated in her wedding made it vastly different. The carriage in which Elena would go to her wedding, drawn by two white horses bedecked with flowers, would itself be decorated with ribbons and flowers. Beside the bride and the man who would give her away, in this case Pieter, would be a wooden spinning wheel and a polished milking stool, to show the world that the bride went to her wedding with a dowry. In the past, a true country wedding would have had baskets of cackling chickens tied to one side of the wedding cart and a beribboned cow attached to the other side to lead the procession, but Elena had drawn the line at that.
It was so different, yet in essence it was the same. One man and one woman pledging themselves to love and cherish one another all the days of their lives, surrounded by all the traditions and love tokens that survived the centuries. And from Annette’s skillful fingers would come the outward and symbolic language of love: the incomparable red roses for love; the delicate purity of lilies of the valley with their heady perfume, meaning doubly dear; white heather for good luck; myrtle for unforgotten joys. Annette had never used that exact combination in a wedding bouquet since her own. Always there had been another flower substituted or added, but for Elena she would create perfection such as she herself had known, the flowers complemented by the fern for sincerity.
Annette and the little-girl attendants would complement the bride, but never upstage her. Gerda and Lise would carry the pretty flower balls of pink-mauve lilacs, starred with the tiny white daisies that Lise had requested. They would wear tiny headbands in which real flowers were attached. For herself, Annette had chosen to wear a small cluster of daisies pinned in her hair, and to carry only a white prayer book so her hands were free to hold Elena’s bouquet. Everything had to be perfect.
“If we took the old customs to extremes, I’d be wearing a stiff black silk wedding dress and Nels would wear a top hat and smoke a long porcelain pipe decorated with ribbons,” Elena said with a laugh. “It would probably finish him off before the end of the day!”
“And we’d all escort you to the bedchamber and leave you there while we danced till dawn,” Pieter added cheekily.
“Thank you very much, but I think we’ll leave tradition there and go off on our honeymoon as soon as the reception’s over,” Elena told him smartly.
Annette joined in their laughter, though she didn’t want to think about honeymoons. As the wedding grew nearer, she knew that in itself was going to be enough of a strain, remembering how she and Tony had slipped away from the celebrations as soon as possible, wanting to be alone, needing only each other. She was so involved in Elena’s wedding, she would need a few days afterward to relax, and Luykey had said unashamedly that she was looking forward to some cozy chats about England when the house was empty except for the two of them.
But would it be just the two of them? It was Pieter’s home too, and if he decided to come home every night instead of staying at his hotel, there wasn’t a thing Annette could do about it. She looked across the room at his relaxed, laughing face, seeing the little laughter lines and the wide curve of his mouth, and knowing that she could no more stop herself loving him than stop the tide ebbing and flowing. Some things were inevitable.
Chapter Twelve
The last few days before Elena’s wedding were very busy ones for Annette. With the help of Gerrit and his staff, the various floral arrangements were created and positioned in the Van Ness home, the elegant old church and the Van Ness Hotel. Finally the bridal carriage was decorated as Elena wished, and all the bouquets were ready.
Pieter was busy too, preparing the hotel staff for the most important wedding reception the Van Ness had ever staged. Annette hardly saw him during that last week, and in the last frenetic hours of preparation early in the morning of the first Saturday in May, the little girls twittered with excitement while Elena tried to preserve an air of calm.
Then, quite suddenly it seemed, they were all ready. Annette and the little girls’ mother, Rita, had dressed them and instructed them on their behavior, and Annette herself was ready. She took a final look in the long mirror in her room before going down the curved staircase to await Elena and Pieter.
The soft lilac color suited Annette, making her eyes large and violet. Her dark brown hair curled softly on her neck, the topknot of tiny white daisies highlighting it, its ribbons trailing over the back of her head. The white prayer book had a similar cluster of white daisies attached, looped with ribbon to hang on her arm when she took Elena’s flowers in the church. She felt a thickening in her throat, remembering the small bridesmaid who had taken her own bouquet, so long ago. For a second her eyes blurred, and when she blinked them clear, she saw that Pieter was hovering in her doorway. He looked magnificent in dark gray formal clothes, with a flamboyant gray silk cravat at his neck, reminding her of an old Dutch master painting. She stayed where she was as he came across the room to stand beside her.
“What a beautiful couple,” he said softly, his eyes on her reflection. “They go together perfectly, don’t you think, my lovely Annette?”
She knew he’d detect the love she needed to hide if he gazed steadily at her for much longer. She forced a short laugh to her lips, hoping they wouldn’t tremble the way she trembled all over as Pieter’s arm slid around her silk-covered shoulder.
“Weddings always make people overemotional, don’t they, Pieter? Even you, I see! But if you dare to kiss me and mess up my makeup, I shall scream!”
She knew she sounded flippant, but this day was going to be emotional enough with all the memories it evoked for her, without Pieter’s added complications. He still looked at her in the mirror, as if he would see right into her soul, and then he took his arm from her and picked up her hand. He raised it to his lips in the continental fashion and kissed her fingertips.
“Then I shall have to be content with this for the time being.” His voice was husky. “But I find it a poor substitute for your lips, darling.”
He suddenly turned her hand over and pressed his mouth against her palm, running his lips across the soft skin of her hand and then along the length of her fingers. Charged with emotion as she was, Annette found the sensations highly erotic, and gave a small shiver as she felt the tips of her breasts respond to his attentions.
“Pieter, we must go downstairs,” she heard herself whisper. Why did he always have this effect on her? she thought desperately. He could reduce her hard-won resolve to nothing. Even the fact that she had seen so little of him lately only made him doubly dear when he did appear.
“So we must,” he agreed. “Though were it not that this is the most important day of my sister’s life, I can think of far more enjoyable ways to spend the next few hours, but it will keep. Come, let’s go down and await the bride.”
The formal little phrase allayed the sudden alarm Annette felt, and the clamoring of the children at the door for Annette to come downstairs made her move quickly away from the mirror where she and Pieter were framed so gracefully. She was glad to break the image of the two of them together, but she couldn’t quite forget it.
They waited at the foot of the stairs for Elena to
descend, and Luykey was unashamedly dabbing her eyes. In her bridal white Elena was beautiful, tall and willowy, and perfectly complemented by the heart-shaped bouquet Annette had created so lovingly for her. Seeing it in Elena’s hands now, the replica of her own flowers, with the happiness radiating from her friend, the last small ghost of sadness drifted away from Annette.
Then it was time to leave for the church. Elena and Pieter in the flower-strewn horse-drawn carriage, with the open cars following behind – one with Annette and the little attendants, the second one with the girls’ parents and Luykey – a small procession almost akin to royalty, Annette thought with amusement as they waved and smiled to well-wishers and tourists who stopped to enjoy the spectacle.
Inside the church it was cool and fragrant with the arrangements of lilac and gypsophila Annette had created. She followed the progress of Elena and Pieter to the altar, where Nels awaited them, immaculate in attire similar to Pieter’s, and having eyes for no one but Elena. Annette took the bouquet from Elena’s hand, and the service began. It was poignant, but not as poignant as Annette might have expected, because these were her friends and she wished them all the happiness in the world.
By the time the joyous music of the wedding march rang out and the newly married couple were ready to walk triumphantly back down the aisle, she found her arm firmly tucked in Pieter’s. Normally he would have been escorting the bridegroom’s mother, but Nels’s parents were both dead, so the order of things was changed. Annette seemed to float, dreamlike, down the long, long aisle of the church, Pieter’s hand warm over hers, the faces of the wedding guests seeming to blur in a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. Only the two of them existed – herself and Pieter – proceeding behind the two fair heads in front of them, Nels and his bride, a vision in a cloud of white tulle.
The Language of Love Page 14