Esthonie’s shoulders twitched irritably. “Only if they are unsuccessful," she said on a chiding note.
And that, thought Imogene, was the key to Esthonie’s character. She could approve of anyone—even lustful Veronique—if they were successful at what they did. She made a deep internal vow that Veronique would chalk up one failure at least—she would not be successful with van Ryker!
“I am probably late,” declared Esthonie, “because that wretched lantern clock—which is the best we can afford—is always wrong. Ah, if only I had a wonderful long-case clock like yours!”
Imogene thought wryly that Esthonie always desired everything she had. Last week it had been a length of silk as sheer as cobwebs that she had instantly desired, as soon as she saw Imogene wearing a gossamer overdress made of it. Imogene had given Esthonie a length of the gossamer fabric, but her marquetry standing clock was something else.
“I believe there are several to be found on the quay, Esthonie,” she said composedly, determined not to be talked out of her marquetry long-case clock.
Esthonie’s black eyes flashed her a look almost of hatred. As wife to Tortuga’s French governor, she was always managing to dip her eager fingers into a pocket here, a pocket there. She was insatiable, and now as she realized Imogene was not going to surrender the clock to her whim, she was overcome with inner rage.
“Why do you think Veronique chose to ride by your house?” she demanded in a voice rich with innuendo.
“If you mean she hoped to hail van Ryker, he’d have had no time for her!” laughed Imogene.
“You are wrong!” corrected Esthonie on a note of triumph. “He spends a great deal of time with her.”
Virginie gave her mother a surprised look—and sat back, realizing that while she was locked in anything could have been happening downstairs.
Imogene regarded her tormentor very steadily, tapping the fingers of her gray silk gloves. If the carriage had not already been in motion, she would have been tempted to hop out.
Esthonie squirmed under that level look. But now that the lie was out and spoken, she felt a need to defend it. “I shall not say more,” she said impressively, “for you are still a bride. But I must warn you to look out, Imogene, or she will take him from you!”
“Nonsense!”
Georgette, who had a mind to gain a pearl necklace, recklessly supported her mother. “Who should know better?” she demanded. “After all, she is our guest. We see what is going on.”
Imogene gave her an uneasy look. Georgette was young and she did not as yet have Esthonie’s subtlety. What did the girl know? She decided it was beneath her dignity to inquire—and, besides, she trusted van Ryker. Or did she... where Veronique was concerned?
“Georgette, hold your tongue,” said her mother sternly. But her crushing look held more fear that her daughter would overstep and they would be caught up in their false accusations than anything else. That look was not lost on Georgette, who sat back serenely and turned her bland gaze to the blue skies above Tortuga.
The carriage, drawn by its pair of matched grays, had reached the quay. It was a breathtaking sight. Cutlassed buccaneers, many of them scarred and sporting braces of pistols, swaggered about piles of captured goods stacked up and offered for sale to buyers from half a dozen nations. Overdressed harlots and waterfront drabs vied for their favors. Behind and above them rose the imposing stone pile of the Mountain Fort, its guns pointed menacingly out to sea. And beyond the market, the forest of masts that made up the shipping, anchored in the shimmering turquoise waters of Cayona Bay.
As the carriage drew to a halt, Esthonie half rose and pointed her fat, black-gloved hand dramatically. “There!” she cried on a note of triumph. “You can see the situation for yourself!”
Imogene felt a little chill go up her spine. Slowly she turned and forced herself to look where Esthonie was pointing. There on the quay was Veronique. She had dismounted and was standing, leaning back against her horse, gazing up at a tall buccaneer who lounged before her. Van Ryker.
“ ’Tis easy to see your husband did not expect you at the quay this day!” sniffed Esthonie.
“Hold your peace, Esthonie,” said Imogene quietly, but her mouth had tightened and her breath had shortened. For a while she sat at gaze, watching them contemplatively.
“They make a pretty picture, do they not?” said Esthonie tartly.
Imogene thought regretfully that that was so. Van Ryker, tall and tigerish and relaxed with the sun gleaming on his dark hair. Veronique, in her thin black taffeta riding habit that fit her taut slender figure so tightly through the torso and then billowed out dramatically into great skirts, was an arresting sight. How showy was that unique hairstyle she affected—upswept to a crown in front, thick curls cascading shoulder length about the ears and long long curls down the back—would any man not desire to run his hands through that springy hair and pull this dynamic woman toward him? From the froth of white lace at her throat to the expressive black-gloved hands that even now were gesturing as she spoke animatedly with van Ryker she was intense, almost over-poweringly female. The very heat of the climate brought an attractive flush to her cheeks and doubtless added to the sparkle of those predatory amber eyes that even now were studying van Ryker through a forest of thick dark lashes.
Even her birthmark was seductive! It was a tiny red heart placed strategically on her left forearm. Imogene couldn’t see it from here, but she was sure van Ryker could as Veronique made an expressive gesture and brought her black-gloved arm up so that the cascading lace at her elbows spilled back to show it. She felt a shaft of jealousy knife through her.
“Well?” Esthonie had dug a fan out of her velvet reticule and now she tapped Imogene smartly with it. “Aren’t you going to go and drag him away from that woman?”
Imogene fought back a feline desire to do exactly that. “Of course not,” she said lightly. “ ’Tis but a chance meeting.” She was determined not to give Esthonie the satisfaction of knowing she was jealous!
Unwanted thoughts crowded in around her. This is a climate that rots men’s souls, Dr. Argyll had sighed at Esthonie’s last party when the weather had been miserable. And eats into their minds, making them forget the tie that binds, Esthonie had rhymed tartly, with a look at Imogene.
What had that fourteen-year-old Irish girl said when she was rescued and feared she was pregnant? I do not think the Spanish captain would have taken me to bed by force save that he had been so long at sea. Memory of that conversation nagged at her. Van Ryker had been long at sea when he met Veronique. And Veronique with her hot amber gaze and swaying hips and peculiar floating walk was exotic—and enticing.
Suddenly Esthonie’s gaze was riveted in another direction. “Virginie,” she snapped. “Your eyes are better than mine. Isn’t that your father over there? There beside all those kegs and bottles of wine?”
Virginie, who had been simpering at a young buccaneer who was standing with his arms folded, regarding her admiringly, turned hastily. “I think so,” she said uncertainly.
“Who is that woman in purple with him?” wondered Georgette.
Imogene turned to hide her sudden amusement. Esthonie had been so intent on showing her van Ryker, when all the time Gauthier Touraille had been deep in conversation with one of the local madams, who, even as they watched, pinched his cheek familiarly and turned away with a laugh, blowing him a kiss from beneath the mountain of pink feathers on her hat.
“She’s nobody we know,” said her mother coldly. Her back was very stiff. “Virginie.” She prodded her elder daughter’s knee with her fan. “Go over there and tell your father he isn’t to buy all that wine. We have a cellar stocked full—there’ll be no place to put it!”
Imogene gave the governor’s lady a droll look. It had occurred to her that Gauthier might not be purchasing the wine, for which he seemed even now to be counting out gold coins, for home consumption but for the woman in purple satin and pink plumes who was swiveling her ample hips
sinuously through the crowd. Gauthier would have a lot to explain if that same thought occurred to Esthonie!
Seeking to divert Esthonie, her gaze fell on the sails of a recent arrival in Cayona’s harbor, La Belle France, a merchantman on her way from Martinique to Paris. La Belle France had collided with a derelict one foggy night and her captain had of necessity put into Tortuga for repairs.
“Isn’t La Belle France a French ship?” she asked Esthonie idly, and when Esthonie nodded, “I am surprised you have not shown more interest in those aboard her.”
“Oh, we have.” Georgette stuck her head up. “The governor of Martinique’s sister is aboard and Mamma called on her, but she came back very angry.”
Esthonie pursed her lips and gave Georgette a quelling look. That call had been a disaster and she was still smarting from it. That wretched woman with her well-bred distant manner had shown no interest at all in the wife of Tortuga’s French governor. One would have thought from her manner that she and her brother were a cut above the Tourailles. And she had firmly declined Esthonie’s offer to dine, insisting— although she was at the time fully dressed, indeed elegantly gowned, that she was too ill to leave the ship. Esthonie had departed in confusion. And all her further invitations, sent by way of servants, had also been declined.
“La Belle France's passengers are of no interest,” she said with a frown at Georgette. “They are all tradesmen—except for one woman who is too ill to leave her cabin.” The passengers fled from her mind as her frown played over Gauthier, who seemed about to vanish into the crowd.
Imogene wanted him to vanish. She had no intention of becoming involved in Esthonie’s family squabbles here on the quay. Again she attempted a diversion.
“I thought you were going to buy Georgette some ribands,” she said briskly.
“I’d rather have pearls,” said Georgette distinctly.
Esthonie turned on Georgette. “See that display of ribands?” she told her daughter in a voice of controlled fury. “Go at once and select some. And stay there until I get back!”
“I may buy a trinket or two myself,” Imogene murmured and dropped lightly from the carriage without assistance.
Esthonie, in her bronze silks, the bodice jingling with jet, had to be helped down. Panting with the exertion, she billowed through the dazzling sunlight in the wake of those wide sweeping gray taffeta skirts, calling out to Imogene to wait, for Imogene was heading ruthlessly away from both the governor and van Ryker.
Taking pity on Esthonie at last—for anyone with stays as tight as Esthonie’s must suffer to exercise in such heat— Imogene stopped to inspect a display of clocks. Clocks fascinated her—perhaps, she told herself ruefully, because time was so fleeting. There were clocks of all kinds in her house here in Cayona: clocks from France and Germany and England, ornate gilt-brass clocks with silver dials, fat vaselike table clocks, clocks decorated with figures of centaurs and spires and minarets. In her bedroom was a fine English lantern clock with an alarm, and for traveling, a dainty French traveling clock. And in the main hall downstairs was her favorite of all, one of the fashionable new tall standing clocks with a handsome floral marquetry design—the one Esthonie so coveted.
Displayed on a barrel top like the rest of the clocks was one that caught her eye. It was a circular gilt drum clock, with its face turned upward like a sundial and etched upon that face a map of the Caribbean. Imogene picked it up in one silk-gloved hand and studied that map. There on that shiny brass face were the West Indies—and there north of Hispaniola a tiny dot indicated the island of Tortuga. Imogene sighed. She was thinking that someday all she would have of Tortuga would be memories, and wondering if she might not like to have this tangible remembrance of the island with its small shining face turned forever hopefully upward.
Esthonie was breathing hard as she caught up with her.
“I should think you would not leave your husband to that woman!” she scolded.
Imogene set the drum table clock she had just been inspecting back down rather hard. “Don’t you worry about having so devastating a creature in close contact with your daughters, Esthonie?” she mocked.
Esthonie’s plump shoulders quivered in an expressive Gallic shrug that set her jet jingling. “Georgette is young and innocent yet,” she intoned in a low voice. “She will hardly catch the drift of Veronique’s sallies—although she may parrot them. And, as for Virginie, she is fifteen and of marriageable age and it is time for her to observe such women as Veronique who can twist men about their fingers.”
Imogene quirked an eyebrow. “You mean perhaps Virginie will learn something?”
Esthonie hesitated. Then, “Perhaps,” she agreed frankly. “Nothing—indiscreet, of course. But Virginie must learn to cope with such women. For if she marries my young kinsman, Jean Claude Dumaine, whose father has written to me in hopes of arranging the match, and goes to live in Paris—heavenly city!—she will meet many such women.”
A city abounding with predatory Veroniques, gliding like elegant black panthers through the streets, was hardly Imogene’s idea of heaven. Personally, she found much to criticize in Veronique: all that restless moving about—even though one must admit she did glide, her skirts moving across the floor as if she had no feet at all. All that redundant tossing of her head just to make her heavy black curls dance! And that coiffure, while unique, was scarcely fashionable. In a day of short curls hanging in ringlets called “heartbreakers” about one’s ears with a fringe across the forehead, Veronique wore her hair swept up dramatically away from her high forehead, piled up on her head and then, probably because it was so thick, she allowed big fat curls to tumble down gleaming onto her shoulders and cascade down her back—she had almost as much hair as King Charles himself, only his was an enormous black periwig and who knew how many heads had been cropped to assemble it! Imogene supposed she could not fault Veronique for that, since she had been known to sport unusual hairstyles herself, her own shimmering hair being so long and thick and golden. But the way Veronique rode her horse—for all that her back was knife-straight—was barely short of a swagger! And her gaze was far too aggressive. Veronique had a way of turning that imperious head of hers and staring directly into a man’s eyes in exactly the same way—in Imogene’s opinion—as the harlots of Cayona.
She dragged her thoughts from Veronique and bent over the clock.
“This is lovely,” she murmured. “I would really like to buy it—but we already have so many things that must all be moved from Tortuga.”
“Do you really think you’ll be leaving?”
“Of course.” Imogene straightened up in surprise. “You should certainly be aware of it. Your husband is negotiating to buy our house!”
“It will not happen.” Esthonie shook her head decisively.
“And why not?” demanded Imogene.
“Because van Ryker will never change. Buccaneering is in his blood. Even if he leaves the sea, he’ll come back to it.”
“We will prove you wrong,” said Imogene quietly.
Again Esthonie shook her head—this time with great finality. “You do not know men as well as I do. He’ll never change now—he’s in too deep.”
Something cold seemed to filter down into Imogene’s consciousness, for there was merit in Esthonie’s remarks. Few buccaneers ever changed. Buccaneering was—truly—in their blood. The lure of the sea. Spanish treasure galleons sailing by temptingly. And women like Veronique to be rescued. ... She tried to shake off this cold feeling that had gripped her.
“You are wrong about van Ryker, Esthonie.”
“We will see.” Esthonie’s gaze had shifted. It was now fixed somewhere else. She had assumed what Imogene privately called her “hunting stance,” for her dark head was cocked forward and her somewhat prominent nose pointed, quivering, straight ahead of her. “Do you see that woman?” she hissed.
“Where?” Imogene set down the clock.
“Over there, holding up that length of abominable green
and orange striped taffeta. Oh, what awful stuff!”
“I still don’t see—” Imogene stood on tiptoe to peer over the crowd.
“No, don’t look now—she’s looking at us!” cried Esthonie in distress. “Are you really interested in that clock, Imogene? You have three almost like it!”
“No, this one is different from those I have.” At Esthonie’s warning, Imogene had turned back to her consideration of the gilt table clock, but not before she observed that Esthonie had been speaking of the woman in purple, with whom Gauthier Touraille had been in such deep conversation a few moments before. “And yes, I am interested in it.”
“You have too many clocks already,” said Esthonie rudely. She lowered her voice. “I am told that woman wears red garters. And black lace on her chemise!”
“What woman?” asked Imogene carelessly—as if she didn’t know!
“That woman in purple, of course, that Madam Josie. Who else?”
“Well, I really don’t know who else, Esthonie.” Imogene managed to keep a grave face.
Esthonie cast a look at the clock seller, who had stepped away to show a lantern clock to a swarthy Irishman busy loading his merchantman with goods purchased cheap in Tortuga. She lowered her voice. “I can tell you there’s no one else. It’s always that woman, that Madam Josie! Every time I turn around! I don’t know what Gauthier sees in her. Her hips are as wide as—as—” She groped for a suitable word.
As yours, Esthonie! Imogene was dying to say, but prudence made her hold her tongue.
Esthonie snatched up a small lantern clock, studied it wrathfully. “Georgette needs one of these for her room,” she muttered in a harassed voice. “She’s so difficult to wake up. The only thing that wakes her is a piercing scream right in her ear! Oh, I’m too upset to decide on anything—and, anyway, this one looks to have been damaged in shipment.” She set it back down regretfully and pursed her lips. She was pondering.
“Do you really think men count such things as important?” she asked presently.
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