Wild Willful Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” exclaimed lmogene, remembering how stuffy Ambrose had enjoyed dancing.

  “ ’Tis mending,” said Bess. “Soon he will be walking as well as ever. Here, have some more of the West Indian drink.” She proffered lmogene more hot chocolate. “I wanted the family to see what we drank in the West Indies,” she laughed, indicating the specially made covered cups in which it was served. “So I brought not only a supply of chocolate but my cups as well.”

  “I haven’t seen food like this since I left Tortuga, Bess!”

  “It’s just some leftovers from dinner. Except for the chocolate, which Maysie was already making for me.”

  “Then Ambrose could still pursue his military career when his leg mends.”

  “Ah, but in between he met this girl from Sussex! And she abominates everything military—mainly, I expect, because she was practically left at the church by a major who couldn’t raise the settlement, either. Ambrose caught her on the rebound when she came to the Isles to ‘recover’ from that event. She was visiting her aunt. Lady Moxley, and Ambrose lost his heart at once, wrote me twelve ridiculous pages describing her myriad virtues!” Bess’s laughter pealed again. “He’s in Sussex now—although I do expect him home soon. I’ve warned him that he must learn his trade as an innkeeper before he embarks on married life and a cloud of joy! No, this is the answer for Ambrose, I’m convinced. He’s a natural-born innkeeper. He has the right manner for it—courteous but not too ingratiating. And a liking for people that should eventually help him fill the common room. I think he’ll make a first-rate living here.” Seeing lmogene had finished her meal, Bess tossed a chemise and a gray voile dress over her arm. lmogene noted that beneath it was a white petticoat embroidered in a design of black lacy vines. “ ’Twill fit well enough,” Bess promised, “and we can make any needed alterations tomorrow.”

  “Those clothes do have a Paris look to them,” said lmogene. “I can’t believe you had them made up in Barbados.”

  Bess nodded, pleased. “They are my own designs,” she said complacently.

  “Bess, you surprise me. You never showed this flair when we were girls together!”

  “I never had a penny to spare,” sighed Bess “I used to think if only—well, you know how things were with us.”

  lmogene knew. Bess had risen steadily to the heights, like a solid hearth log catching fire, beginning to glow and then burning long and steadily. While her own fortunes had flamed like a candle, flaring up, flickering, burning brilliantly—and now guttering out and choking her with the smoke....

  “I’ll bring you some shoes tomorrow,” Bess promised. “Do you think you can keep those floppy slippers on your feet? My shoes are all a size too large but somewhere I have a pair that’s too small—I’ll look for them tomorrow.”

  “You’ve done far too much for me already, Bess.”

  “Nonsense! You’re the best friend I ever had.”

  “And I took your man from you,” sighed lmogene.

  “But you didn’t know then that I cared for him,” pointed out Bess reasonably.

  “No, I didn’t know that.” But would it have made a difference? lmogene asked herself bitterly. She had thrown herself into Stephen’s arms with all the impetuosity of first love. Would she even have considered Bess?

  Bess seemed to divine what she was thinking. “It’s over now,” she said in a sensible voice. “And it all worked out fine for me. I’m sorry it didn’t for you. Come, I’ll light you to your room.” She picked up a dishlike silver candleholder and moved ahead.

  “I could sleep on a cot here, Bess,” lmogene demurred. “No need to trouble you to make up a room for me.”

  “No, there’s a room already made up. For Lady Moxley’s coming over tomorrow afternoon to call on Mother—as she does weekly, now that Ambrose is to marry her niece! And since on both of her last visits she had the vapors and had to be put to bed complaining vastly of her liver and her joints and all else, I thought this time to be prepared! And a good thing I did,” she twinkled, “for now ’tis ready for you.” She smiled at lmogene as she led her down the long corridor in the flickering candlelight, their long shadows wavering on the plastered walls. “But I am sorry she’s coming, for I know you can’t abide her!’’

  “ ’Tis Lady Moxley could never abide me,” remembered lmogene with a faint smile. “She never could forgive me for appearing in public without my whisk!”

  “I know.” Bess laughed. “Although you used to remind her airily that was the way court ladies dressed!”

  “I did give everybody a hard time,” sighed lmogene. “Elise said I’d be the death of her, and Lord Elston ...” Her voice drifted off.

  “I know how you must miss them,” said Bess sympathetically. She threw open the door of another big square room, which she had freshened with rose hangings and a rose coverlet.

  “Is this one of the rooms you’ve fixed up for guests?” wondered lmogene, noting the richness of the room. “If so, ’twill be a noble inn, indeed!”

  “No, this is still the family wing,” said Bess. “I couldn’t ask Mother to have strangers walking down her corridor. It would have been too much for her, even to get Ambrose settled! But if you notice the place is a bit sprucer, lmogene, that’s because I’ve hired a cook and a brace of chambermaids.” lmogene looked up sharply at the complacency in Bess’s voice, and realized that Bess was having the time of her life in her role of Lady Bountiful at Ennor. “But there’s something we must speak about before morning when most like one of the maids will wake you up and ask questions. How came you here, lmogene? Don’t you know it’s dangerous for you to be here where the Averys can have at you? They’ll never forgive you for spurning their son, you know.”

  “It isn’t spurning Giles they hate me for,” sighed Imogene. “They believe I killed him—or aided in it.”

  “At least I know you didn’t. Stephen told me all about it.” Imogene’s face was sad. “But who would have believed us, Bess?”

  And it was that fact that had driven Stephen from the Scillies and Imogene to Amsterdam and other arms. Darkhaired Bess was well aware that her legacy of love was hard come by.

  “Who will believe you now?” asked practical Bess. “Still...” She grew thoughtful. “Why face it?”

  Imogene gave her a blank look.

  “I mean, who’s to know you’re here? The servants are new. Mother keeps to her room. When Ambrose gets back. I’ll explain to him and he’ll be no bother, either. You can take some new name—”

  “But then there’s always Lady Moxley,” said Imogene dryly.

  “That’s right. I’d forgotten her.”

  “I could keep to my room till she’s gone?”

  “Oh, no need for that,” said Bess quickly. “You’ll be perfectly safe for breakfast—there’s no chance she’ll come till afternoon. If you just disappeared for the afternoon, you’d be safe to come down to dinner—Lady Moxley always takes dinner with Mother. And then she’ll have the vapors, which is really just indigestion, so we’ll put her to bed and she won’t stir until the following morning. And since she’s up early and takes only tea in her room before leaving, there’s scant chance you’d meet.”

  Imogene felt as if her eyes were closing. She nodded tired agreement, but Bess was going busily on with her plans.

  “You can take some new name—Imogene whatever-you-like. I think we’d best keep your first name intact because I for one am sure to slip and call you by it. Unless”—Bess frowned—“you’ve already been seen and the story is already out. Who brought you here?”

  “A stranger dropped me off here. I told him a wild tale about living in Helston and being betrothed to a magistrate in Truro.”

  “What—really happened?” asked Bess hesitantly. Imogene thought of the wreckers, of her promise to Clara. “I can’t tell you, Bess, because there’s someone who will suffer if I do. Could you just trust me?” Her gaze on her friend was wistful.

  “Of course I can
!” Bess’s maternal instinct was aroused. “It’s Helston, then.” She hesitated. “This stranger, did you give him a name?”

  “Yes, I told him I was Imogene North.”

  “Then that’s established,” laughed Bess. She picked up the silver candleholder. “Sleep well, Mistress North.”

  “Bess, there’s no one like you,” murmured Imogene. She could feel sleep stealing over her even as Bess softly closed the door behind her.

  Dazed with fatigue, she climbed into the big square bed. The moon showered its sliver light upon her, just as outside it silvered the old lichened stones of Ennor. But, tired as she was, memories were crowding in on her tonight, and when sleep came it brought with it disturbing dreams.

  She was fifteen again and back on St. Agnes Isle, looking up at those tall standing stones men called Adam and Eve, asking them breathlessly to send her a lover. In her dream the answer was immediate—they sent her a copper-haired lover. But—because the Fates never give you everything—they snatched him away again. Restless, she tossed in dreams in a fragile sailboat over great dark seas. The sails of her fragile craft were ablaze in blood red sunsets, blown day after day over an endless ocean, while the thrashing waters turned wine red. Her nights were beset by demons through which, endlessly distant, she seemed to hear mermaids singing of bright isles far away. Then—still in her dream—she woke to a brilliant unreal morning when even the air seemed to glisten. Every breath was soft and fresh and the sea strummed beautiful music. Before her lay an enchanted shore—no, it was Ennor Castle, but somehow the old standing stones men called Adam and Eve had become displaced and wandered down to Ennor. They stood frowning down at her before its entrance and she hesitated to walk between them, for something told her that if she entered she would be forever lost.

  In her dream, she lifted her head, threw off her tremulous mood, and went inside. She was wearing something gossamer that seemed made of moonlight and that glittered with golden points of light. Her hair streamed down behind her like a skein of golden silk and her bare ankles wore delicate anklets of gold. The old stones rang with the sound of boots, and hearing them, she tried to walk faster, but each step was harder to take. She looked down and saw that attached to her anklets was the heavy golden money chain that van Ryker had packed inside her trunk aboard the Goodspeed. Something seemed to be tugging at that chain, pulling her back.

  In panic—for she feared to look behind her—she tried to run, and the links of the delicate anklets snapped. The money chain slithered away and she burst into the great hall of Ennor—a transformed great hall all hung with red sails and roaring with the wind from the sea. And standing before her, laughing, was Harry, her friend of the night who had rescued her from the sea and stolen a kiss. With his reckless boyish face, he stood before her—laughing.

  She ran toward him and then she saw that standing behind him was somebody else. A pair of eyes looked at her over his shoulder, endlessly evil, and she saw a knife raised.

  She woke with a short sharp scream and sat up, looking about her in fright to see that the sun was streaming in through the windows.

  And then she remembered. She was back at Ennor Castle and the sun was shining and downstairs Bess was busy transforming the place into an inn.

  She got up, shaking the sleep from her eyes. But the dream, so vivid had it been, was still with her. That something that had glided behind the man with the laughing face, the cold malevolence of the pair of eyes that had regarded her over his shoulder.... Even now, wide awake, she recoiled from that memory in horror.

  It was to prove a strangely prophetic dream.

  CHAPTER 25

  “Mistress North.” Imogene woke to a servant’s voice calling. “If ye be wantin’ breakfast, my lady says ye’d best come down.”

  Bess’s way of telling her she’d best eat now if she didn’t want to run into Lady Moxley! Imogene stumbled out of bed with her eyes shut and felt around for her clothes. She yawned and stretched, then opened her eyes and smiled as she saw the pair of gray satin slippers that had been left just inside the door. She must have been asleep when those were left. It was a relief to slip into an entire chemise, instead of the ruinous remnant she had worn for days. A relief to feel the delicate lawn fabric slip down around her body caressingly, to don the stiff white petticoat with its handsome embroidery of black silk and slip on the light gray voile overdress with its band after band of black braid outlining the hem of her voluminous skirt and the big flaring sleeves through which her chemise ruffles cascaded about her elbows.

  Chuckling, she arranged the modest white lawn whisk Bess had provided and slipped her feet into the gray satin slippers.

  The slippers fit remarkably well.

  Realizing full well they might be waiting breakfast for her, she hurried out and down the hall. Hardly had she set her foot upon the top step of the lovely carved Jacobean stairway when she faltered.

  There was someone standing in the hall below. She could not quite make him out in the dimness, but as he turned, hearing her step above, a shaft of light came from a high window behind him and made his hair flame and his broad shoulders assume an impossible width.

  Still under the influence of her turbulent dream, she caught her breath. For in that dream she had asked the great standing stones to send her a lover—and for the space of a single heartbeat she thought it was van Ryker standing there below. Then she realized that while this man was tall and dark, he was certainly not van Ryker.

  But here below her was indeed a tall fellow, his booted feet planted firmly on the old stone flooring, devouring her with hot blue eyes.

  It was Harry, the man who had rescued her last night. His thick dark hair was combed this morning, whereas last night it had been tumbled by the wind. And instead of being clad merely in breeches and boots, he was dressed like a coxcomb. Natty sky blue satin breeches molded his long lean legs, and his matching doublet sported gold satin revers and a profusion of gold buttons. A dandy was Harry, and he had a jaunty stance. Somehow she guessed he had been waiting for her.

  The man who gazed up at Imogene so appreciatively had had a lifetime love affair with a succession of golden blondes. As a child he had associated them with angels—his mother, who had died when Harry was six, had been always gentle and loving and sublimely fair. In his early teens he had associated blondes with mermaids and with Circe-like temptresses who lured men to their death. His first stormy joining had been with a yellow-haired scullery maid who had teased him into following her out behind the great stone stables and giggled as she took his virginity. His first mistress had been a taffy-haired schoolgirl—and his downfall had been a strawberry blonde who had firmly intended to marry him. Faced with her angry father and her three gigantic brothers, Harry had run away. Afraid to return to his disapproving family, he had sunk to the depths in London: thief, cutpurse, pickpocket—Harry had tried them all.

  And then he had met Moll and she had changed his life.

  Moll was self-assured, bold, a product of the London streets. Her father had been a tough, flaxen-haired thief, her mother a red-headed dockside whore. Born in a bawdy house, Moll had been an accomplished pickpocket from the time she was six, a prostitute at eleven, mistress at thirteen of a famous highwayman who was hanged at Charing Cross. She had gone on to become a celebrated fence and the acknowledged queen of London’s crime—but that was after she met Harry. It was the golden mane of her hair that had first called Moll to his attention.

  When she met Harry, Moll had fancied him—and Harry, with his acknowledged weakness for beautiful blondes, had felt himself really in love. Earnestly he had set out to change Moll into a creature more to his liking—and his opening gambit had been to rename her “Melisande.” Harry worked hard to knock the edges off his rough diamond, to refine her—and though in the end it was Harry who was changed the most, Melisande had been quick to realize the advantages of polish, for she was nobody’s fool. She had streetwise ways and big melting brown eyes and a face that men turned in
the street to look at; if she could also pass for a duchess at will, to what might she not aspire?

  Patiently Harry had schooled her, patiently tried to give her the outward veneer of the aristocrat. Inwardly he had never been able to change her, for Melisande had an inborn toughness and street logic that Harry was never able to share.

  Her friends distressed Harry—and secretly terrified him. A fellow called Taz Wheats, built like a Boston bull, had nearly strangled him one fine night in Soho in a quarrel over Melisande. Melisande had settled the issue herself by slipping a dagger into Wheats’s ribs and claiming Harry did it.

  It had given Harry stature among the rough men with whom she rubbed elbows.

  Next, Melisande had engineered a clever robbery and claimed Harry had thought it out. That had given Harry stature of another sort. A good man to know, was Harry, muttered the bully boys. Had ideas—some of them good.

  Although it grieved Harry to have some of Soho’s bulllike, barrel-chested brutes refer to him contemptuously as “Spindle Shanks’’ (for leanness was a trait that ran in his family), Melisande shrugged.

  “Ye’re better than all o’ ’em, Harry,” she’d say with a friendly cuff to his shoulder.

  “Better than ‘all of them,’ ” he’d correct her absently.

  “As ye like,” grinned Melisande. “I can’t be a duchess all the time, Harry—not even for you!” She edged against him so that her supple hip rubbed against his groin. “And you be the best lover o’ the lot, Harry, my lad!”

  Despite his careful, bookish upbringing in Oxford, which tended to make him shrink from such as Melisande, Harry could not but feel a glow of pride. Melisande was beautiful and strong, like some prowling lioness—and she was his.

  And he was hers. Somehow Harry had not quite counted on that, being a possession. He had always run from commitments, but with Melisande the task had become harder. Impossible, perhaps.

  And now they were guests at Ennor Castle.