Wild Willful Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “But you did give Captain Bagtry my note?”

  “Put it in his hand,” affirmed Arne.

  Arne was reliable. So why then did van Ryker feel this nagging stir of alarm? As if somehow he was communicating with Imogene, and felt wild rage and passion flaring toward him from those white sails far away....

  His frown changed suddenly into determination. He would satisfy his fears for her once and for all; he would catch up with the Goodspeed and send Barnaby over. And Barnaby would bring back word that all was well.

  He was about to give the order to put on more canvas when there was a shout from above. In the distance another sail had been sighted—no, there was a pair of them, just looming over the distant horizon.

  Intently van Ryker studied those fast-approaching ships through his glass. Spaniards! One a sleek galleon, “racedecked,” or rasa as the Spanish would call her, for she was all on one level, lacking a raised forecastle and having but a relatively low poop deck and aftercastle. But she was fast and weatherly and he counted fifteen gunports down her side—a ship of thirty guns, a worthy adversary.

  But the other ship—van Ryker drew in his breath and his strong fingers tightened on the glass in his hand. That castle of the sea moved toward him ponderously, like a juggernaut—and he knew her by description. Stories high her lofty castles at bow and stern rose above the water. Yes! She was the Alforza—the Scar! And now he squinted his eyes and leaned forward, trying to make out that flag, and when he finally identified it he put aside the glass and a cold smile lit his ice gray eyes.

  That flag was her admiral’s personal banner. Fortune had smiled on him this day. Don Luis Alvarez was aboard the Alforza—and bearing down upon him.

  Now he turned his glass toward the Goodspeed, noted with satisfaction that she was slipping away, her sails fast disappearing to the east.

  All was activity aboard the buccaneer vessel now as more canvas was piled on and the Sea Rover, like the lean wolf she was, raced forward to intercept the Spanish warships.

  Van Ryker gave swift orders, for he meant to engage, but he cast a last look at the Goodspeed's white sails before she disappeared from view over the horizon.

  He had been right, he told himself grimly, and gave thanks in his soul that he had not yielded to temptation and let his lovely lady accompany him aboard as she had so wanted to do. It was always chancy, taking on two such warships, for one was a vessel of thirty guns and highly maneuverable, and the other a leviathan of men and guns deemed almost unsinkable—with fifty-two brass cannons to his forty. And in the case of the Alforza, Don Luis bore the Sea Rover and her captain a special grudge, and those aboard her could expect no quarter if the battle went against them. And what would it avail him to vanquish these two stout ships, if some chance musket ball or shot killed or wounded Imogene? He told himself that his scheme had been justified, his lustrous lady would forgive him for his deception, and turned to argue with de Rochemont.

  “What madness is this?” The French doctor’s face was red with conviction. “We are all of us rich now. Why should we do battle with two such monsters? And shorthanded as we are? Let us be prudent for once and show them our heels!”

  Many aboard the buccaneer vessel agreed with de Rochemont. They were rich men now, their plunder safely stowed aboard, and they had no particular quarrel with these two Spaniards. The Sea Rover was one of the fastest ships afloat, she could easily outsail that big Levanter, the Scar. And if the Maravilloso chose to give chase—and with her racier lines she might be able to catch up—well, so much the worse for her, they’d blow her out of the water! Do as de Rochemont suggested, show the Spaniards their heels, they counseled. But van Ryker, well aware that the fat wallowing Goodspeed could not outsail the Spaniards, and with a burning desire at last to confront his hated adversary face to face, held firm.

  They would engage.

  But first—since all battles were unpredictable—he would lead the oncoming vessels away from the Goodspeed, back toward Tortuga and prowling coveys of buccaneer ships that might finish off the Spaniards even if he failed. Moving under a mountain of canvas, while Barnaby and the crew fretted and de Rochemont swore a torrent of French oaths, van Ryker led the Spaniards on a tantalizing chase ever deeper into Caribbean waters, and at last—just when Captain Garcia had decided scornfully that this particular buccaneer did not choose to fight—turned suddenly on the pursuing Maravilloso with a burst of fire from his culverins that shot away her masts.

  With the element of surprise on his side, and with the Alforza firing ineffectively from too great a range, van Ryker followed up his advantage with a close-in broadside that near shattered the facing side of the Maravilloso, came about and repeated the maneuver. The Maravilloso seemed to stagger.

  She was shrouded in smoke—and suddenly a great explosion ripped her. Van Ryker had got in a lucky shot. He had breached her powder magazine, and her supply of fine-corned powder blew up, making a great surge of fire over the water.

  With the Alforza coming into range, van Ryker left the Maravilloso in confusion and afire, turned gracefully away and contented himself with long-range fire with his culverins. The Alforza came up to her sister ship to give assistance. From the poop deck of the Sea Rover van Ryker watched grimly. He had had time to observe the Alforza being handled as he sailed and although she was a solidly built Levanter of seven hundred tons and fifty-two guns, he knew her now for an awkward, ungainly sailer, clumsy and hard to handle—and she had obviously been long at sea and was barnacled and in need of careening and tallowing. Now he took advantage of that knowledge gained by observation. Sailing up swiftly in his fast-running Sea Rover, he panicked the gunners of the Alforza into firing on him while he was still out of range, ran swiftly in abreast of them and gave the lofty castle-ship a rending broadside with his heavier, ship-smashing guns, and was gone before they could reload. Their fire ripped the water twenty yards from his stern.

  In the sudden confusion, the great ship fouled her rudder and drifted aimlessly. Van Ryker fired his culverins at will and raked the decks with shot. The Alforza was hard put to avoid the fiery holocaust of the Maravilloso drifting toward her like a fireship, and he got in broadside after broadside with his ship-smashers. Staggering broadsides that—although she still roared her defiance from her fifty-two cannons, some of which overheated and exploded—were bringing the mighty Alforza to her knees. She was entirely out of control now. and van Ryker at his pleasure could glide abreast to rake her with a broadside, come about and give her another, and while Barnaby and an excited de Rochemont cheered, he crossed her stern to pepper her with half-musket shot. On board the Alforza, when Don Luis was knocked to the deck by a falling spar, a frightened second-in-command seized that opportunity to strike her colors.

  Van Ryker himself led the boarding party. De Rochemont thought that he had never seen him look so determined—or so dangerous. He wondered what the Captain had in mind.

  He had not long to wait to find out.

  Van Ryker ignored all aboard save three. He gave a slight start as he saw that Veronique and Diego were on deck and facing him. Triumph shone in Veronique’s amber eyes.

  But it was on Don Luis that the buccaneer’s implacable gaze was focused.

  Don Luis, his face gone pale from the blow the spar had dealt him and the added blow of the loss of the battle, was standing on his feet when the boarding party set foot on the Alforza's deck. As he stepped forward, an elegant figure in velvets still, despite a smudge of black powder on one high cheekbone, the tall buccaneer came to a halt.

  “You are Don Luis, duke of Sedalia-Catalonia?’’ he inquired almost pleasantly.

  “I am he.” The old grandee spoke fearlessly. It irritated van Ryker to see how old he was. He had hoped for a younger man.. .. “And you are—?”

  “Van Ryker.”

  The old grandee studied him haughtily from top to toe. “I had hoped to meet you—under other circumstances,” he murmured.

  “I don’t doubt
it,” said van Ryker ironically. “Preferably in chains?”

  “Preferably,” was the cold reply. Flint-hard, Don Luis’s harsh countenance returned van Ryker’s cold surveillance. “What are you going to do with me?” he demanded of van Ryker. The question was asked proudly but it was met by a savage smile.

  “I have not yet decided,” said the buccaneer with the wintry eyes. “Perhaps I will be able to find suitable housing for you on shore in Tortuga—a dungeon such as the one in which you kept my father, suitably furnished with rats.”

  Don Luis’s elegant shoulders gave a slight start. “Your... father? You say he was in my dungeon?”

  “Hauled off his own ship, which was peacefully plying the seas. Stowed in your dungeon, and ransom demanded. That ransom was paid but the man you returned to us was dying of starvation and maltreatment. For that, Don Luis,” van Ryker said silkily—and he was loosening his sword in its scabbard as he spoke—“I hold you personally accountable.”

  Comprehension was dawning over the Spaniard’s olive features. “Then you seized El Cruzado because she was mine?” he cried. “And not because she was Spanish? Your war is with me, Señor, and not with Spain! I am an accomplished swordsman and will be glad to grant you a meeting!”

  Van Ryker thought of his father—dying a cruel death, of his mother wasting away of a broken heart. He cast a look at Veronique standing silent and proud in her wine red velvet dress.

  “Do not press for such an engagement, Don Luis,” he said in a low savage tone. “For I would be tempted to castrate you!” Before the Spaniard could reply, van Ryker turned to Veronique. “Duquesa, is it your desire to speak to this man alone before I make you a widow?”

  Veronique nodded silently. Her eyes were very bright. Diego made an abortive movement but she pushed him away.

  Van Ryker personally escorted them to the great cabin, flung open the door and made Don Luis a mocking bow.

  “Allow me to restore you to your wife,” he said ironically. “In this extremity she asks nothing more than to be by your side.” He reached down and dexterously removed the handsome dress sword Don Luis wore at his side, tossed it to de Rochemont, who caught it with a grin. “Put a guard on the door, Raoul,” he said, and strode away to survey the damage.

  Inside that handsomely appointed cabin, which had now changed ownership, Don Luis flung himself into a tall carved chair and groaned.

  “You are pale,” observed Veronique. “Have some wine.” She went over and poured wine from a big decanter into an ornate silver goblet studded with emeralds—a goblet, she thought wryly, that would be in buccaneer hands ere nightfall.

  She watched him as he drank it. Her manner was most composed.

  “Now that Diego is not with us and we can speak freely,” she asked lazily, “do you not wish to know what I have been doing while I have been gone?”

  Don Luis looked up sharply. He was very pale about the lips.

  “Did you see that buccaneer up there?” Her smile was sweet. “I have been his mistress! Ah, yes, the stories you no doubt heard about me were true. His mistress—and a dozen others. Think on that, Don Luis, locker-up of women!”

  The duke staggered to his feet. He took a step toward her but now he halted. It was unthinkable—could it be true? “Swear that you are lying,” he cried in a trembling voice, for he was thinking of his sullied honor. “Swear!”

  “I swear that I am telling you the truth!." she flashed. “I have made up in this short time for the months and years you took from me!”

  Don Luis tottered back. He believed her—as he had not believed the stories that had filtered to him from Tortuga. “I will cut this dishonor from your body!” he cried hoarsely. He reached for his sword—and found it not.

  “No, you will not,” she cried. “Not even if you find a sword to do it. For even now you are dying. I have given you a slow poison in your wine. Did you not taste the manzanillo in your wine? Or was it too cloaked, too diluted? No matter, it is honey-colored and deadly and available on Tortuga. And this particular manzanillo I have kept for you for a long time.”

  She pulled from her sleeve a small vinaigrette and waved it at him, noted with satisfaction his expression of spreading horror, as he stared down at his empty goblet.

  “And if you are still alive tonight,” she promised sweetly, “you will have yet another treat in store. For you will see me dance for these buccaneers, tossing off articles of my clothing as I dance. You will see me take off my clothes and dance naked before them all, Don Luis, my husband—it is a sight I would have you see before you die. My vengeance will be complete when, completely nude and with men all about me cheering, I make my final bow and sweep the floor with my long hair and then invite—who knows which one?—but one of them to bed with me!”

  Don Luis’s lips had gone ashen. His face was working. He fell backward, clutched at his throat and made pawing motions in the air. He looked as if he were drowning. His lips formed words but no sound came out.

  Veronique glided toward him with that gait peculiar to the women of the Spanish court—she seemed to float on air, her wine red velvet skirts swirling.

  “You will die unshriven,” she said softly as she bent over him, her luminous amber gaze fixed upon his ashen face. “This is my parting gift to you—the gift of hell.”

  She thought—or was it only that she hoped—that she read terror in the old grandee’s eyes before they closed for the last time.

  When she was very sure he was dead, she left him and went out into the corridor, stood pensively for a moment. Van Ryker was striding toward her. With great composure she took a little of the perfume from the vinaigrette she carried— for it had never held anything deadlier than perfume—and dabbed it behind her ears.

  “There is an emerald-studded goblet in there that you might like to have as a souvenir, a memento of your triumph,” she told van Ryker. “For it is the last thing Don Luis touched in life.”

  Van Ryker stared at her. Conflicting emotions warred within him. She had robbed him of his revenge—a revenge he had waited for for all these years. Still—he was not sure he would have been able to bring himself to kill the proud old man. His very age was an armor.

  “You and Diego will come with me,” he said brusquely. “All the rest will remain here.”

  He would take them as near to Havana as he dared. There he would put them in a longboat and bid them row ashore. He would watch to make sure they made it.

  For Veronique and Diego it was over. There would be a period of mourning—and van Ryker guessed it would be brief. And then Don Luis’s striking widow would marry Don Diego and go to live on his lovely neighboring estate.

  They would win through to their orange groves after all. The Alforza was taking on water from a gaping hole in her hull. To everyone’s surprise, van Ryker made no effort to repair her. Instead he was towing her fast toward Cayona Bay.

  He was about to leave the ship when a thin wild scream deterred him. A shame-faced young Spanish officer came forward—and with him, her face white and grimy and her eyes dark spots of terror, for she had been certain she would be killed in the battle, was Georgette.

  Van Ryker could not have looked more amazed.

  “How,” he demanded, “did you get here?”

  “I was seized in the garden at home after you brought me back to the house,” cried Georgette, aggrieved. “And a gag was stuffed in my mouth and I was brought here by force! Oh, Captain van Ryker, it is all your fault because they thought I was Veronique!”

  Van Ryker was taken aback. He had not realized Don Luis had actually sent a shore party to Cayona. So the old sea wolf had come for his erring wife—and got a half-grown French pepperpot instead.

  “I am sure you disabused them of the notion,” he said ironically.

  “But not till after I was aboard,” wailed Georgette, for with the resilience of youth, her good spirits were returning to her. She was saved! “They were going to take me to Spain”—her imagination danced ahe
ad of her—“to be martyred.”

  A slight smile played around the corners of van Ryker’s stern mouth. “Ransomed more like,” he said.

  “You should have kept your rendezvous with me in the town instead of at your house,” she whispered conspiratorially. “I could have stayed out till morning and then I would not have been kidnapped and you would not have to save me now!”

  “You deserve a spanking,” said van Ryker. “I am torn between giving it to you now—or feeding you some supper. Since I have time for neither, I will leave you aboard.”

  Georgette gave him a reproachful look. “But I really do need to lose my virginity. Captain van Ryker!” she complained. “Else how will I ever gain experience and flair like—like Veronique?”

  “Veronique was born with flair,” said van Ryker, his lips quirking in amusement. “You have something else. I’m not quite sure what it is. At the moment I think I would call it impudence. When you are older it may turn into something else. I wouldn’t want to meet you then," he muttered under his breath.

  Georgette’s keen ears caught that last. “You are right,” she declared happily. “I will be quite fatal, will I not?” She began to look alarmed as she saw he was leaving. “You—you aren’t going to leave me here on a Spanish vessel?” she quavered.

  Van Ryker’s smile became a broad grin. “That lad hovering in the background, is he a friend?”

  Georgette blushed. “He hid me when the fighting started,” she admitted with a provocative smile at the worried-looking young Spanish officer. “He promised to protect me with the last drop of his blood!” she declared dramatically.

  Van Ryker guessed that Georgette was making up that rather melodramatic statement but that the young officer had indeed gallantly tried to put himself between a child-woman and harm.

  “Soon we will reach Cayona Bay,” he told her. “And all there know who you are. The buccaneers will not harm you. You will be sent ashore on one of the Alforza's longboats, and your young Spaniard may choose his own crew to take you there. When you arrive, tell the governor how he aided you during the battle and you may yet find yourself a suitor. Georgette!”