"Not until we come to an understanding,” said Virginie fiercely.
Jean Claude blinked. It had been a long time in truth since he had bedded a virgin but he did not think they could have changed this much. “‘An understanding’—about what?” he managed manfully, half expecting her to demand the whole thing be put off until tomorrow. Or perhaps she only wanted to demand a particular side of the bed. He waited.
“I will not be overcome-—I mean overwhelmed,” cried Virginie, her words getting tangled up in her excitement. “I mean dominated!”
Jean Claude was getting a new view of femininity. He stood stock-still in amazement and blinked at his bride. “Have I—tried to dominate you?” he hiccuped.
“No, but you will!” accused Virginie. She was warming to her subject. After all, she had had a harpy for a model. “First you will try to dominate me in bed,” she declared vindictively. “Mamma says so! And then you will try to take over my life! Because I am a woman!”
Jean Claude gave her a slightly woozy look. “Well, that is the way things are,” he said pleasantly.
“Not in my house!” Virginie stamped her bridal slipper on the floor. Its soft sole made almost no sound but the imperious toss of her dark head gave sufficient emphasis to her words.
“You mean my house, don’t you?” corrected Jean Claude haughtily. “When we are settled in Paris, it will be my house that I take you to.” All this defiance was beginning to sober him.
“Any house where I am mistress is mine,” said Virginie so impressively that he burst out laughing.
“I don’t know where you got your ideas but you will soon lose them in Paris,” he assured her. “Here on Tortuga you may be allowed to run about wild, but there my mother will take you in hand. And ’tis plain you need it.”
“No, I refuse to live with your family. I have thought about it and we must have our own apartment.”
“Oh, very well.” Jean Claude supposed that Virginie’s father would foot the bill for this extravagance since his daughter was so set upon it.
Virginie looked at her bridegroom in some surprise. She had set out to quarrel with him and was amazed that he should give up so easily. Even papa had some spirit! Look at the way he continued to buy shipments of wine against Mamma’s orders. It occurred to her suddenly that if she handled this right, she could end up lording it over Jean Claude. Her eyes gleamed.
“I intend to assert my rights,” she told him airily.
“What rights?” This was beginning to wear thin with Jean Claude. To his mind a wife had no rights.
“Why, my rights as your wife, of course!”
“Good. Then begin now. Undress.”
Virginie stood her ground. Without her clothes she would have no dignity at all—and, anyhow, she was afraid to take them off.
“I will have you know,” she cried, suddenly veering to Georgette’s way of thinking, “that I am no green girl you can order about! I am an experienced woman!”
Jean Claude’s jaw dropped. “And what does that mean?” he inquired irritably.
“That I am—that I am—” Virginie sought for another word and did not find it. “Experienced. I am no timid virgin that you can order about!” she finished haughtily.
She had meant to emphasize the word “timid” but had choked on it. Jean Claude had caught only “virgin.” I am no virgin—and the wench was bragging of it, facing him down across the bridal bed.
When he said nothing—although she should have been warned by his excessive quiet—she went a step further. Her last words had seemingly made no impression on him, for he was standing stolidly before her with a blank expression on his face. She would penetrate that thick skull of his, she would get the whip hand! “I have had many lovers,” she bragged. “So do not think you can order me about.”
By” lovers” Virginie meant “suitors,” but to Jean Claude, fresh from Paris, who had leaped out of many a boudoir window when the husband arrived home too early, the word had an entirely different connotation. So she was bragging of her exploits, was she?
“Undress!” he commanded in a shaking voice. Although why life should see fit to hand him a virgin at this point in his checkered career he did not know, still he had been led to believe by one and all that Virginie’s maidenhead was still intact. At that moment he was damning his father who had made the match, Esthonie who had catapulted him into the ceremony ahead of time, and his dark-eyed angry-looking bride who seemed to be standing there daring him to prove himself a better lover than his predecessors.
“Undress!” he cried harshly again. And when Virginie only sniffed and stuck up her nose, he strode over to her and attacked the gown she was wearing. Entirely sober now, he snatched away her veil, ripped away hooks, tore at ribands, entirely ignoring Virginie’s angry cries as she slapped at his hands and twisted and turned to escape him.
When he had fought his way down to her chemise, he pushed her unceremoniously onto the bed and leaped upon her. In the heat of the moment he had quite forgotten that he was still wearing his trousers. And when he scrambled up to rid himself of them, struggling because they were indeed abominably tight, Virginie bounced up indignantly.
Jean Claude, now completely naked, gave his bride a fiercely lowering look. He had enough energy now to subdue a brace of virgins.
“Come back to bed,” he growled.
But Virginie stood riveted, staring at him in dismay. She had never seen a naked man before and she found the view disconcerting. She stood there with her arms wrapped around her breasts. Surely he wasn’t going to—to—
Her shivering reverie was interrupted as Jean Claude seized her by the forearm and hurled her to the bed. Thus propelled, Virginie landed on her back, sinking into the soft yielding feather bed like a stone in water. A moment later Jean Claude’s long form had descended on her and he was asserting his marital rights.
Bragging she wasn’t a virgin, was she? Well, he’d let her know what it was to be made love to by a real man! (For Jean Claude had endless—and misplaced—confidence in his prowess.)
Thoroughly aroused now, he thrust within her strongly—and was rewarded by a sharp scream from the squirming Virginie. In bewilderment he drew back—the tricky wench had lied to him! She was a virgin after all.
While Jean Claude considered this amazing new factor, Virginie, feeling herself the victim of this frontal assault, clawed at his chest and tried to push away from him.
“You’re not doing it right!” she accused—for she remembered seeing the cats, and Esthonie had absentmindedly agreed with her that yes, that was the way it was done. It couldn’t be right—it hurt too much!
Downstairs, Esthonie and Gauthier, who had not yet gone to bed and who were still sitting with Dr. Argyll as they plied him with coffee, had heard sounds of minor warfare from upstairs. Now they heard Virginie’s wild, “You’re not doing it right!” and froze into stillness.
They looked at each other in dismay as Dr. Argyll muttered pleasantly, “Who’s not doing what right?” and without waiting for an answer began to topple from his chair.
The governor forgot his “bereaved” friend. He forgot the coffee cup in his hand, which went crashing to the floor. He leaped up and was making for the stairs when Esthonie pulled him back.
“Gauthier, Gauthier,” she cried. “It is their wedding night, you mustn’t interfere!”
The little governor fell back panting and both husband and wife looked at each other in fear as Virginie shrieked again, “You're not doing it right!”
“How would you know, you damned virgin?” came a roar from Jean Claude.
And then a loud crack as if a hand had slapped a face. This was followed by a yowl, a scuffling sound, and a crash as if a heavy piece of furniture had been tipped over.
Gauthier’s face was white. He had visions of his little girl up there, lying unconscious on the floor while that savage young Jean Claude (he had up to this point considered Jean Claude mild to the point of being a milquetoast sort
of person) raped her! He gave Esthonie a wild look.
“I’m going up there. God knows what is going on!”
“Mon Dieu, you must not!” Esthonie clutched at his arm and he charged forward, dragging his ample wife. They skirmished at the base of the stairs and Esthonie lost several gold tissue ruffles from her dress during the battle. Unmindful of the gold brilliants that were showering from her dress at this rough treatment, she clenched her fingers firmly in her husband’s trouser top and managed to drag them entirely from his bottom as he charged upstairs. Halted by her weight and by the uneasy feeling that his trousers were departing his body, Gauthier turned and expostulated with his wife.
“No, no,” she was hissing. “You mustn’t go up there. All marriages have their little adjustments, Gauthier!”
“Adjustments?” cried the governor, incensed. “He is killing her!”
Together, floundering, they surged up the remaining steps and crashed together into the door at the top. It was of heavy oak, hewn by sweating Spanish captives working out their ransom time on Tortuga, and it stood placidly firm against the impetuous assault of the governor and his lady.
Even at this noisy heralding of their approach, there was no sound from the other side of the door.
Both Gauthier and Esthonie held their breath.
“Are you going to ask, or shall I?” growled Gauthier in her ear.
“Virginie!” trilled Esthonie nervously. “Are you all right, ma chère! We thought we heard something fall over.”
There was no answer.
“Dead, I tell you!” Gauthier gave the door a violent kick with his boot. “Answer me, Virginie!”
“Yes, papa?” came a dreamy voice from within. “Did somebody say something?”
Gauthier’s shoulders slumped down in relief. At least if someone was dead in there, it was not his daughter. Let Esthonie’s relations bury Jean Claude if Virginie had found it necessary to slay him on their wedding night and then gone mad as a result!
“Virginie, dear, are you all right?” Esthonie’s more insistent chirp rose beside him.
“Why, of course, Mamma!” And then a low giggle and a sound as if a pair of bodies might have fallen off the bed and another giggle and—
“Come along, Gauthier,” said Esthonie firmly, seizing her husband by his satin-clad arm. “I think Virginie can handle the rest of the evening by herself.” Well, not quite by herself, she thought with a twinkle. Doubtless Virginie had been sensibly putting Jean Claude in his place, just as she had instructed her. She did hope he was not too bruised—it would make a scandal if he went about sporting a black eye or a bandaged nose. Of course, she reflected, any wounds would have plenty of time to heal before he and Virginie sailed away to France.
Together, looking a little the worse for wear, for the governor’s trousers were torn and Esthonie was trailing some defeated-looking ruffles that had been ripped from the gold tissue overlay of her brocade gown, the Tourailles returned to their drawing room, where Dr. Argyll, roused by the racket upstairs, had tottered to his feet.
“Can I be of some assistance?” he asked with enormous drunken dignity.
“No, I think we are past the need,” Esthonie assured him. and under her breath suggested to Gauthier that they order out a wheelbarrow to cart the doctor home.
But all the excitement prevented either of the elder Tourailles from noticing that both Veronique and Georgette were conspicuously absent.
PART TWO
The Spanish Vengeance
What would he give to get her back?
All that he has, and more
And now his vengeance is at hand. . . .
Death settles every score!
The Caribbean,
1661
CHAPTER 17
Van Ryker would have been stunned to know that La Belle France had been taken by Spaniards her first day out from Tortuga.
Diego Navarro was equally stunned. It seemed to him as he stared at the approaching galleon, coming in majestically out of the dusk, that ill fortune had dogged his efforts from the first in this venture. He had found Veronique in Cartagena without difficulty of course and had persuaded her to accompany him on the flota's return voyage to Spain only because the captain of the Delgado was a cousin of his, and a romantic, and when Diego had presented his impassioned plea of love for a lady to his cousin, the cousin had agreed to take Veronique on board in the role of a French captive, who would be allowed fortuitously to “escape” when the ship reached Spain.
But the cousin and the ship had died together in a hurricane that swept over the Antilles.
And then there had been what seemed an enormous stroke of luck when, to Diego’s astonishment, the buccaneer van Ryker had offered to help them, and had indeed arranged this voyage to France at no little expense to himself.
But that escape had lasted but a day.
Diego felt at that moment that God was against him. He cast a baleful look at the sky—and then came down to earth, if he was to save this woman who meant everything to him, he was going to have to do it without divine intervention.
He was thinking fast.
Was it best to continue to pose as Monsieur and Madame de Jonquil, he asked himself, and become prisoners of the Spanish and transported to Spain for ransom and there attempt to arrange an escape? Or to admit their real identities at once and chance on an escape of opportunity when they reached Spain? He decided on the latter, for their position as French prisoners with no hope of ransom would be untenable, and if either he or Veronique were recognized in such a deception—as he felt was bound to happen—there would be hell to pay.
No, he would tell the captain of the Maravilloso who they were at once and brazen it out. Who knew, if the captain turned out to be a good fellow and inclined to bend the rules—and perhaps he would also be impoverished as such good rule-bending fellows were prone to be—Diego might try a little bribery. There would be plenty of time on the voyage to ingratiate himself. He bethought him of his handsome estates in Valencia—estates he would be glad to sign away to the Maravilloso's captain, if only he would allow Veronique to fake a suicide, or arrange some likely “accident” that would allow the lovers to escape.
He would have to play it by ear, he knew, but his was a stout heart, and now in this desperate case the courage that van Ryker had admired in him came to the fore and made him put a brave face on things. He would get his woman through this yet!
When Veronique had said with fear in her voice, “They will take us—to Spain,” Diego had gripped her arm to give her courage.
“Perhaps not,” he said with a lightness he did not feel “We do not know yet where the Maravilloso is going. She may be headed for some Spanish port in the New World. I have friends in Cartagena—if she takes us there, we will escape. If she carries us to Panama, we will escape if we have to cross the Isthmus on horseback!”
Veronique gave him a smile that lit the dusk like a candle—but it was a heartbreaking smile to Diego, for he knew that although she loved him, she had no faith in what he was saying. The chains she had so lately managed to shrug off had come back to shackle her again.
“We will say nothing at first while I size up the situation," he muttered. “And I will later explain my silence by saying that for all I knew, we were being taken by pirates disguised as Spaniards. Such things are done. I’m told! Trust me querida.”
“I trust you, Diego,” said Veronique steadily, but her gaze was distant, removed from him.
If Diego died of this venture—as well he might—she did not intend to survive him.
The transfer of the passengers from the fat merchantman to the haughty galleon was marked by only one tragedy, for the captain of La Belle France, outgunned and outmanned, when faced with this formidable Spanish man-of-war, had given up without a fight. But one of the passengers had chosen not to accompany them on board the Maravilloso.
Mademoiselle Pernaud, sister of the French governor of Martinique, had no intention of spend
ing the last days of her life in a Spanish prison. She walked with stately grace to the rail—but instead of allowing herself to be handed into the waiting boat, she suddenly threw herself over the side into the sea.
To their credit, the Spanish officers made a gallant effort to rescue her. They were not so rash as to leap into what were well known to be shark-infested waters, but they threw her a line and shouted to her in broken French to seize it, they would pull her to safety.
Mademoiselle Pernaud, afloat only by reason of the bulk of her billowing skirts, for she was making no effort to save herself, ignored the line they had thrown her. She ignored the cries of the Spanish officers and the passengers alike, as they called to her urgently to take the line and save her life. She looked out upon a dark and shadowy sea and felt the tug of her heavy skirts as they became wet and saturated with seawater. But a moment more and she would be dragged down and down by their very weight.
Mademoiselle Pernaud looked her last upon a world that had not been kind to her—that had given her the gift of beauty and position, yet kept her from achieving her one desire. Drifting there, just before the dark waters closed over her head, she whispered but half a dozen words—and those spoken to a lover dead these dozen years past.
“Andre,” she whispered. “I am coming, mon amour."
And let the sea claim her.
Veronique felt a lump rise in her throat as she saw the fragile Frenchwoman sink below the sea’s dark surface. It was a lesson in courage, she told herself. Mademoiselle Pernaud was showing her the way.
But Mademoiselle Pernaud’s untimely death had struck terror into the huddled passengers. Colette was openly sobbing. Only Diego and Veronique stood apart, cool and watchful. Veronique meant to follow his lead as she had promised and give Diego’s plan, however slight its chances, every chance to work.
Wild Willful Love Page 23