Wild Willful Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  ‘‘Who told you all this?”

  ‘‘My mother. Long ago.”

  “I wonder why I wasn’t told?”

  ‘‘I suppose everyone thought you knew.”

  Imogene frowned out the window. So it wasn't just the whisk, Lady Moxley was nursing an old enmity.... Somehow that put a different light on things.

  “I really think you should leave here,” said Bess frankly. “Escape while you have the chance. There’s no telling what the Averys will do when they hear you’re back.”

  “But they won’t know until Lady Moxley leaves, will they?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Unless she sends her driver to them with a message?”

  “Oh, she won’t do that,” Bess assured her. “She has a positive dread of being left without a servant. The poor fellow hardly dares stray out of earshot—didn’t you see him hovering about the halls wondering if he was wanted?”

  “No, I didn’t, but then my mind was on other things. So you think I’m safe here until Lady Moxley leaves?”

  “Not safe,” said Bess reluctantly. “But safer.” She gave her friend a tormented look. “Oh, you know how much I’d like you to stay,” she burst out. “It’s like old times having you here. I feel like a girl again. But I could let you have some money and I’m sure Harry Hogue would be glad to sail you to the mainland.”

  “I’m sure he would,” sighed Imogene. “Indifferent sailor that he is.. .Why didn’t she leave? she asked herself honestly. When to stay was so dangerous? Was it because the hull of the Goodspeed might still be clinging to the rocks and that would tell van Ryker when he passed this way to look for her here? For she’d little doubt but that he’d keep to his intention to sail to Amsterdam, if only to put his treasure in trusty Dutch banks. It would be so easy to go away and let him believe her dead.. . and then he could go in good conscience with Veronique, she thought, her face twisting. No, she would not make it that easy for him! She would stay right here and face him down when he came this way at last! “I will leave if you want me to, Bess,” she said quietly.

  “No, no—that isn’t what I want. It’s just that that woman’s up there with Mother, raving on about you. I could wring her neck! And Ambrose’s too sometimes.”

  Bess was thinking of what Ambrose had said yesterday. He had caught her on her way to her room and blocked her way. His face had been red and earnest. “Lady Moxley says you should be more careful about who you take in, Bess. She says that woman with Hogue is not his sister, couldn’t be. She says—”

  “Ambrose,” Bess had cut in, in a dangerous voice. “I have been listening all day to what Lady Moxley says—first from Mother, and then from the lady herself. I will not listen to her second-hand from you! You would do well to realize that you are soon to become an innkeeper and your very livelihood will depend upon your getting along well with the public. It is not for you to decide who is moral and who is immoral, who is just and who is unjust! It is for you to feed them, house them, and be pleasant to them. Can you take that in, or is it too much for your feeble brain to digest?”

  Ambrose looked nonplussed. Gentle Bess had never spoken to him so in the old days. Barbados had certainly changed her—no, it was Imogene’s influence. Resentment flooded through him.

  ‘‘You aren’t the same since Imogene is back,” he accused. ‘‘You’ve taken her side of things. She was always a wanton and if you take up her ways—”

  “Ambrose, read me no sermons!” Bess’s voice rose. “I have been to great trouble and considerable expense to set you up in business and—”

  “Don’t throw that at me!” cried Ambrose, in a passion. “Nobody asked you to do it! I could have taken a turn at the military, as well you know!”

  “And how would that have suited your intended?” asked Bess sweetly, “since you tell me she is so set against all things military. Do you think she would have married you then?”

  Ambrose had dug the pit himself and now as he fell in, he tried manfully to claw his way out. “Ah, Bess,” he said placatingly, “let us not quarrel. I miss Marcy and it makes my temper short. And Lady Moxley plagues me with all manner of things she says Marcy would take exception to!”

  In spite of herself, Bess had begun to feel sympathy for her crestfallen brother. “I’m sure she does, Ambrose,” she sighed. “But remember that after you’re married, it isn’t Lady Moxley who’ll be meeting your bills, but you yourself. And if Marcy is as spirited as I remember her, she’ll probably have a falling out with her aunt, Lady Moxley, the first week she’s here. So you’d do well to master the art of innkeeping, for there’ll be no help for you from Star Castle.”

  Bess felt somehow trapped between them all, all these warring factions. She realized again how glad she’d be to get home to Barbados—and Stephen!

  Meantime, here she was and she must make the best of it. She took Imogene’s arm companionably. “Come down to the dining room and help me arrange a centerpiece.”

  On the way downstairs they ran into Ambrose, who was airily waving a letter that had just come. “Finest vellum,” he reported with pride. “Marcy is used only to the best. She pomades her hair with—”

  “Indeed?” cut in Bess tartly, who didn’t want to hear what Marcy pomaded her hair with. She could pomade it with crushed pearls for all Bess cared. “I had not imagined Marcy’s family to be so wealthy. I remember when she visited as a child at Star Castle and was forever tearing her petticoats, little tomboy that she was! Lady Moxley told me then that she was having to finance a new petticoat herself, for Marcy’s family wouldn’t be up to it!”

  A slow flush spread over Ambrose’s face. Barbados had been a coarsening influence on Bess, he reflected gloomily. She would never have said that in the old days—and before Imogene!

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Ambrose.” Bess saw his dismay and her natural kindliness rose to curb her tongue. “But ’tis a bit thick, is it not, that Sir Launceford should claim such a high price for her?”

  “Not a ‘price,’ Bess—a settlement!” Ambrose’s protest overrode her voice.

  “Very well then, a settlement.” Bess sighed. “But it seems to me that it is very like selling sheep, this selling of daughters.”

  “You’d not have thought so had it been a dowry I’d been receiving!” he said hotly.

  “Wrong.” Her voice was firm. “I think as badly of dowries as I do of marriage settlements. Marriages should be for love and not for gain!”

  Ambrose’s flush deepened. He jammed on his hat. He was barely able to control his voice as he muttered, “I’ll be taking my supper at the Thaxtons. Indeed, I may stay the night with them.” He limped out angrily.

  Bess watched him go. She seemed to wilt. “I shouldn’t have said those things,” she sighed.

  “Why not?” said Imogene. “They’re true.”

  “I know, but people don’t like to hear the truth. Especially Ambrose. And”—she smiled wistfully—“I am fond of him, you know. For he’s got many good traits underneath all that stuffiness.”

  “Of course he has,” said Imogene, who was in a mood to be generous—even with priggish Ambrose. “That little tomboy will make a man of him!”

  “If she doesn’t ruin him first.” Bess’s rueful glance through the window followed Ambrose, stomping through the gorse on his way to pour out his troubles to the Thaxtons—as he had been doing ever since Hal left. “I hear she’s most extravagant. Like her father. ’Tis said the reason he’s selling his youngest daughter—instead of giving her a dowry as he should by rights—is because he built a new wing to the hall. And that in the face of bad crops and illness among his tenants!” She shook her head at such bad management.

  ‘‘You’ll straighten her out,” predicted Imogene indulgently.

  ‘‘I won’t be here to do it. I’m back to Stephen and Barbados as soon as I can straighten things out here. I miss them now.” Bess gave her a homesick look.

  Imogene chuckled. ‘‘Don’t let your mother see you moping.
She’ll connive with Lady Moxley to find you a suitor!”

  “That,” agreed Bess cheerfully, “would be the worst. Can you imagine my having to sit through the attentions of some pompous lad or senile gentleman they dredged up?”

  They both laughed—and forgot Ambrose and his vexations as they moved on toward the dining room.

  It was a mistake they would both come to regret.

  It was quiet and pleasant in the big familiar dining room, and Bess found herself falling into a mellow mood and humming “Greensleeves” as she strolled about its long cavernous length, setting things to rights here and there that the serving girls had missed.

  But Imogene grew silent and sad as she helped Bess arrange big bunches of yellow flowers. Somehow they reminded her of the Cups of Gold that had bloomed so prolifically on Tortuga—those flowers had been the opening gun in the barrage that had shattered her world.

  “You’re mourning Captain van Ryker, aren’t you?” asked Bess softly. She gave Imogene a slanted look through her lashes. “You know, I think Harry Hogue is interested in you.”

  Imogene gave a strangled laugh. “I’ve no doubt he is!”

  Bess looked puzzled. “Captain van Ryker may come looking for you,” she said tentatively.

  “But do I want him back?” Imogene gave Bess a tormented look. “Oh, Bess, are all men no good?”

  “Of course not! You mustn’t think that!” Bess looked shocked and then her face went dreamy.

  She is thinking of Stephen, guessed Imogene. Yet he was false to me too!

  They both swung around as Lady Moxley entered the room. Lady Moxley ignored Imogene as if she wasn’t present. She spoke to Bess exclusively—looking down her nose. “Your mother and I,” she said heavily, with a significant look at Imogene, “feel that you need a chaperon.”

  “Lady Moxley,” said Bess in a somewhat shaken voice, for she yearned to tell Lady Moxley she was a married woman, “I am well able to chaperon myself, I assure you.” Lady Moxley sniffed. “That is your opinion. We do not agree.”

  Bess faced her tormentor with a very level gaze. “If you intend to follow me about, I will tell you now that you will find it tiring in the extreme. I am now going to the ‘inn wing’ to give the carpenters further instructions. After which I may do a bit of weeding in the garden.”

  “Yourself?” gasped Lady Moxley.

  “Certainly, myself,” said Bess grimly. “If you want a thing done well—” She did not finish because Lady Moxley cut in with “I shall certainly not follow you around, no matter how unladylike your pursuits. I but came to tell you that I will be taking my suppers in the dining room.”

  “Will Mother not miss your charming company?” demanded Bess. Imogene was amazed at the irony in her voice; the sweet yielding Bess she had known so long ago was certainly changed.

  Lady Moxley’s shoulders jerked. “You will put yourself beyond respectability if you spend too much time with certain people,” she warned. “And then none of us will be able to find you a husband.”

  “I might prefer that side of respectability to this,” said Bess irrepressibly. “And I do not need you, Lady Moxley, to find me a husband!”

  Lady Moxley wheeled away from them, a gigantic lavender figure moving ponderously, every riband atremble with wrath.

  “She will report to Mother,” said Bess in a shaking voice, “that I am no longer the sweet child everyone loved, so biddable, so yielding. She will say that I am being unsuitably influenced. And Mother will tell me for half an hour that I was wrong to plague her! And Ambrose will agree!”

  “Perhaps I should leave,” said Imogene quietly. “I’m causing you so much trouble.”

  “No, I won’t have you driven out! I won’t let that terrible old woman rule my life! If only—oh, why did you say all those things at breakfast? It was madness!”

  Imogene’s head was bent, “I think I was striking back at van Ryker,” she said in a muffled voice. “For deserting me.” Then she lifted her chin, and her bright hair, which she still wore defiantly unloosed, fell back like a long twisting scarf down her back. “Oh, God, Bess, why must I always think of him?”

  “You love him,” said Bess gently.

  “Sometimes love isn’t enough,” choked Imogene. “There’s pride too.”

  Bess sighed. She had to admit she had felt the same way once.

  “But I can tell you this, Bess.” Imogene dashed the tears from her lashes. “If van Ryker comes this way—and oh, he will, Bess, he will!—I’m going to wait for him and see him and ask him why. I have to know.” Her voice broke. “You see that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, I see that.” Bess’s gentle arms went round her and she comforted her friend. The world, thought Bess, was a strange paradoxical place. Her gaze caught sight of a dark head through the window. “Oh, there’s Harry,” she said. “He’s strolling about alone. Why don’t you go out and join him, Imogene? He’s sure to cheer you up.”

  “I think I will,” said Imogene, for she was feeling rebellious. Van Ryker had Veronique, why should she not have Harry? She went outside and saw that he was looking very dashing in amber silks that must have been tailored in London. His smile flashed at sight of her.

  “I am fortunate indeed,” he said warmly, waving a gold snuffbox. “Will you walk? Or would you rather sit with me on yonder stone bench?”

  “I’ll sit with you awhile, Harry.” She smiled, as she settled her blue velvet skirts. “And we can stare up at the castle and conjure up its ghosts.”

  “Are there so many of them?”

  “There must be, for Ennor Castle was the main residence of the constable of the Isles, Bess tells me, back in 1300. I imagine it was a bit more formidable then.”

  Harry gazed up at the old lichened walls appreciatively. “Amazing that it’s still standing if ’tis as old as that!”

  “Oh, now that Bess has taken it in hand, it will rise from the ashes,” laughed Imogene. “She improves everything she touches.”

  “As you enchant everything you touch.” He was looking into her eyes as he spoke and his voice had a mellow ring. Around them the breeze blew softly, filled with the fragrance of flowers.

  “Ever a seducer,” she said lightly. “Doubtless you’ve left broken hearts from here to—the Humber?”

  “The Thames.” Harry fell in with her mood. It had been a long time since he had entered into lighthearted dalliance with a lady of quality; the woman and the beauty of the day were not to be resisted. He leaned back lazily on the stone bench, long slender fingers clasped about one amber silk knee and considered her rakishly.

  She looked back in amusement. “Harry, you’re a mountebank! The stage should have been your calling! I’ll warrant,” she added wickedly, “that it was because of a woman you fled Oxford!”

  “A strawberry blonde with kisses sweet as honey,” he said ruefully. “Determined-to-be-married kisses.”

  “We each have our cross to bear,” she teased him, leaning back and letting the breeze ruffle her hair. “And have you forgotten her or will you”—she placed one hand dramatically over her heart—“carry her memory with you to the grave?”

  “I almost did,” grinned Harry. “Her brother took a shot at me.”

  They both laughed. It was the most companionable moment Imogene had known since she had left Tortuga. And then they fell silent, a pensive pause in which they considered each other.

  Something might have come of that, for Imogene felt a stirring of her heartstrings—something about this smiling rake reached her, moved her. But Melisande chose that moment to stride blithely through the garden, overdressed as usual in brilliant pink satin larded with black braid. She was humming as she sailed by them and to Harry’s chagrin, the hum became words:

  "Oh, Harry Hogue was a merry rogue

  And all the girls adored him,

  But it was Flo, Queen of Soho,

  Who was the first to floor him!’'

  Harry’s face had turned livid but Imogene murmured afte
r Melisande had passed them with a careless nod, “What was she singing? Something about a rogue?”

  “ ’Twas naught,” said Harry in a strangled voice. “Melisande picks up street ditties and affixes other names to them. ’Tis a trying habit of hers and tests my patience.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it does.” Those delft blue eyes whose regard he sought so ardently were gazing at him in amusement. “Perhaps she will favor us with some of her verses after supper? Bess could accompany her on the harpsichord.”

  Harry felt smothered. Damn Melisande! She’d be the death of them both. “Perhaps,” he said vaguely. “But they’re not songs for a lady’s ears.”

  “Oh, that’s to their benefit,” Imogene assured him. “For there’s a vast want of entertainment here.” She was thinking of how Lady Moxley would take such a song and the thought brought an impish grin to her face, but Harry felt she was making fun of him.

  He rose stiffly. “Excuse me, I must speak to Melisande.” Harry caught up with Melisande around the corner of one of the gray stone walls. With a ripped-out oath, he spun her around. He was trembling with anger. “Why d’you mock me?” he demanded.

  “By singing, you mean?” she mocked. “Ye should not have friends who are poets, Harry, if ye don’t wish to be sung about! Roge must have made up a thousand verses about you in London and you didn’t mind it then!”

  Harry gave her an angry shake that bade her forget drunken Roge and his rhymes. “Have ye lost your mind, Melisande? Do ye want these gentry to know who we are? What we are? Why d’ye tempt fate like this?”

  She shrugged, but her smile was contemptuous. “Because you’re making a fool of yourself, Harry. Over that woman. You’re falling in love with her, Harry, and I warn you—I won’t have it!"