Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  When he answered, it was in a rich, low voice. “The answer would have been easy, Imogene. I have never left a woman I loved.”

  The question seemed dragged from her; it left her lips reluctantly. “Then you have not loved at all?”

  Those wide velvet shoulders moved in an indifferent shrug. “I have held women in my arms and thought for a season that I loved them.”

  “But—” Why was it so important to know? “You were wrong?”

  “Yes.” He chose his words carefully. “I was waiting for something, someone. And now that I have found her—” his cool gaze raked her and she could almost feel it, like a touch, sliding along her arms, her bodice, savoring her lips—, “I shall not let her go.”

  “Captain van Ryker!” gasped Imogene. “I would have you remember that I am a married woman!”

  “That bothers you?” he mocked, and she caught a gleam from his white teeth in the moonlight. “Faith, ’tis a condition I can rectify.” Casually he touched his sword hilt. “You are easily widowed.”

  “Do not joke about such things,” said Imogene crossly. “In spite of what you may think, I take my vows seriously.”

  “Then what are you doing on the deck of a buccaneer ship with me?”

  “You are right,” she flared, turning away. “I do not belong here. I will take my leave at once!”

  “Ah, but wait.” He caught her wrist in a strong grip, detained her while he stared down into her lovely, vulnerable face. “I would not take you with a broadside and you know it. Come now, admit it,” he wheedled. “You feel the same as I do.”

  Imogene, with her veins still aflame with the wild longing that had been awakened by his touch, gave him a sulky look. “Suppose I do?” she challenged. “What would that matter?

  “It would matter a deal—to me.” His voice was soft, caressing, but he still held her firm.

  “Very well,” she said tartly. “I admit it. You have had your victory. And now we can both forget it as I return to my husband and you return to your various loves.”

  “A spitfire!” He laughed. “You remind me of a kitten that once found its way aboard and into my cabin. She spat at me and flexed her little claws every time I tried to pick her up, but after I had stroked her fur for a while she came to trust me and she began to purr.”

  “And you think I will purr for you? You are mistaken, Captain van Ryker!”

  “Stranger things have happened.” She could not fathom the look in his eyes.

  “What—what happened to the kitten?” she asked, because she could not meet the frank desire in his gaze.

  “I took her ashore and gave her to a little blond girl in New Amsterdam. On my next call there, the little girl ran to the dock to inform me that kitty is the mother of half a dozen kittens herself now—in assorted colors, for she fancied several toms.”

  What is happening to me? Imogene asked herself wildly. Why am I having this ridiculous conversation with this man?

  “Captain van Ryker,” she said in a steely voice. “I command you to let me go at once.”

  “And if I do not?”

  “Then I will scream for my husband and if you hurt him, I promise I will never speak to you again!”

  His fingers relaxed their grip and she stroked her half-numbed wrist. “You are devilish strong,” she complained. “I don’t doubt you’ve left marks on my wrist!”

  “ ’Tis not marks on your wrist I’d be leaving, but marks on your heart!”

  She would have flung away then but—she must make clear to him her true situation, and why she had married Verhulst. Why it should be so important for this buccaneer to know her reasons she did not ask herself, but it was.

  “Captain van Ryker,” she began earnestly, “whatever you may think of my husband, he saved me from a very unfortunate situation. I could not have gone back to England, for—for there was another man and I was implicated in a murder there. I would have been questioned, perhaps tortured, perhaps—hanged.”

  He flashed her a keen look. “And did you kill him?”

  “No. My lover did. It was an accident. My lover fled—and now he is dead.” It was a relief, telling him these things that she had kept locked up inside her. She had thought never to tell anyone; it was a surprise to hear her own voice saying them.

  “And then you met van Rappard?”

  She nodded.

  “And told him all this?”

  He had trapped her! “No,” she admitted in a strangled voice. “Verhulst would never understand. Of course I did not tell him.”

  “Then why,” he wondered silkily, “are you telling me?”

  “Because—because you are a man beyond the law and are not likely to turn me over to the authorities. And being what you are, you can understand.”

  His dark brows lifted. “Beyond the law .. . and being what I am... I see. ” His voice roughened. “And this story is not for van Rappard’s tender ears?”

  She gave a helpless gesture. “It would only hurt him, and Verhulst is in love with me—I think.”

  “You do not know?”

  She turned her head away. She was certainly not going to discuss her sleeping arrangements with this sardonic pirate!

  “I see you don’t wish to discuss it?” he prodded.

  “No,” she said, muffled. “But no one can be sure of love.”

  “A profound statement from one so young,” he mocked, and Imogene, grateful for his change of mood and reluctant to return to the great cabin and the patroon, her husband, lingered yet another moment by the rail.

  “How,” she asked curiously, “did you become a pirate?”

  “Correction—a buccaneer. And it is too long a story to tell you now.”

  “Your ship’s doctor is French, your ship’s master English—and you, Captain, speak English far too well!”

  He met her challenging gaze with a smile. “I see that I have met my match in you,” he sighed. “And you make me wish for other days, better days. Tomorrow night I will arrange a ball in your honor.”

  A ball! On a pirate ship in mid-ocean? Imogene was laughing at this fantasy as she swept back into the Sea Rover's great cabin, where a flushed and concentrating Verhulst had just triumphed over Barnaby Swift at chess.

  CHAPTER 11

  Imogene’s color was high. “Captain van Ryker has promised to arrange a ball in my honor—here on the Sea Rover tomorrow night,” she told them merrily as she swept in, turning slightly to let her wide yellow satin skirts ease through the cabin door.

  Amazement looked back at her from four pairs of eyes, but van Ryker was unperturbed. “There are other ladies aboard your ship,” he told Captain Verbloom in an unruffled voice. “Perhaps you would be good enough to invite three of them—one each for Barnaby and Raoul and myself to dance with—and one for yourself, of course.”

  “They are all married, save for the Widow Poltzer and her daughter, and I do not know if they dance.”

  Imogene remembered the Dutch lady with the marriageable daughter who had been so anxious to accompany her on board the Sea Rover. “Oh, I am sure they both dance,” she put in hastily, her blue eyes asparkle with merriment.

  “But even so,” protested Captain Verbloom, who greatly mistrusted this “buccaneers’ ball,” “we would still be lacking two ladies!”

  “Two of the ladies on board the Hilletje have husbands too seasick to leave their cabins,” pointed out Imogene with an innocent look at Captain Verbloom.

  “Good. Invite their husbands as well,” said van Ryker with a careless gesture.

  “But the ladies cannot go dancing without their husbands,” protested Captain Verbloom.

  “They would of course be heavily chaperoned,” put in Imogene, managing to keep a straight face. “By the rest of us.”

  Verbloom felt the situation was getting out of hand. He only growled as Captain van Ryker gave Imogene a benign look. “We will see who shows up,” the buccaneer told her. “For if the weather remains fair, we will have dancing on deck
tomorrow night.”

  Verhulst was speechless. He fairly tottered from the Sea Rover. But he found his voice once they had returned to the Hilletje and discovered they were expected to dine on board the Sea Rover as well.

  “Did you incite van Ryker to this?” he demanded of Imogene. “ ’Tis bad enough that he spirits you away every time I sit down to the chessboard, but now we must needs eat all our meals with him and he is even giving balls in your honor!”

  “Not really in my honor,” protested Imogene airily. “ ’Tis more a diversion in his rough life at sea. Anyway, why do you care? The food on his ship is far better than ours and he and his officers are good company.”

  “Why do I care? Why would I not care? I do not wish to be forced to dine with anybody.”

  Imogene forbore telling him that van Ryker would undoubtedly be delighted if he stayed home and let her go alone....

  Verhulst must have guessed what she was thinking. His exasperated voice followed her as she moved away. “And do not imagine that I do not know why this ‘ball’ is being given, Imogene! It is so that Captain van Ryker can find an excuse for holding you in his arms.”

  His untouched bride gave him back an uncompromising look. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that Captain van Ryker had already done that, but she forbore. “Do you think I should wear my flame satin or my green silk, Verhulst? I would like to outshine the other ladies—as becomes our position.”

  She was mocking him! “Wear what you like!” Verhulst stormed out of the cabin.

  He was still sulking next day as Imogene dressed for dinner on board the Sea Rover.

  “I told you,” warned Elise, who had noticed the angry glances the patroon was directing at his bride, “that you are driving him too far.”

  Imogene, who had already decided to wear the flame satin—it was cut lower—gave a reckless laugh. “We are sailing across an empty ocean toward a strange new land where I will never see my buccaneer again, Elise. Do not begrudge me an evening of frivolity! Besides,” she added, “balls call for music and musicians are not that easy come by in mid-ocean. I am curious to see how van Ryker will contrive it!” She turned to Elise with narrowed eyes. “You are a single woman. Would you like to attend the ball tonight?”

  Elise looked so taken aback that Imogene laughed. “Why not?” she prodded. “Come, ’tis your chance to dance with a buccaneer and wave a fan with the best of them!”

  “I could not,” protested Elise. “The patroon would dismiss me from his service!”

  “He will not,” said Imogene sturdily. “And you can wear one of my dresses.”

  “They are all too short for me.”

  “So you will be very daring and show a bit of ankle! We will make up for that by giving you a very heavy whisk!”

  “I do not know how to dance.”

  “These buccaneers will teach you! Hurry, we will let out the hem of my green velvet. The material is soft, no one will be able to tell it was let down. We will touch a bit of Spanish paper to your lips and cheeks to make them red and a touch of ceruse to your nose to make it whiter. I will sweep up your hair and garnish it with green satin ribands—you will be an elegant lady, Elise, as elegant as any there.”

  Elise looked quite dazzled. She had never attended a ball, never danced a measure. Imogene made it all seem quite within her reach.

  “First we must get you gowned,” she said huskily, opening one of the trunks that held Imogene’s ball gowns. Her gaze on Imogene was soft. She begrudged Imogene nothing—certainly not an innocent flirtation with a handsome buccaneer—but only feared for her. Now she smiled and shook her head and dressed this young girl she so loved in her most stunning costume yet.

  Imogene’s gown was of gold-encrusted flame-colored satin, cut so low that even the Dutch dressmaker who had stitched it had been scandalized, and it had wide gold-encrusted oversleeves that reached almost to her elbows, from whence spilled out the delicate ruffles of her chemise sleeves. Steadying her feet on the lightly swaying floor, Imogene turned before a mirror Elise held up, saw how the flame of the dress brought out rich coral highlights in her fair hair. She stuck out an embroidered satin slipper, pirouetted, and laughed. A duchess could not have looked more elegant, she told herself contentedly, and turned her attention to Elise’s outfitting.

  Once that was accomplished to her satisfaction, she told Elise to follow her in a minute or two and went up on deck to find Verhulst.

  She found him in loud-voiced conversation with the Hilletje's captain, asking him why the devil should this round of unwanted entertainment be allowed to go on and on?

  “Mynheer,” that gentleman was telling the young patroon earnestly as Imogene approached, “we are fortunate indeed to have the protection of the Sea Rover. Captain van Ryker is a buccaneer—not a pirate; he will not attack any ship save the ships of Spain—”

  “Ha, that is not the impression you gave when you cajoled us aboard her in the first place!”

  “Captain van Ryker is a man first and a buccaneer second, and a man may strike back if he is offended.”

  “So it is his forty guns that move us after all!”

  “I am saying that there are plenty of pirates who ply the sea who are not so nice as van Ryker,” explained Captain Verbloom patiently. “They would fire on a Dutch ship as quickly as on a Spaniard. Surely it is a little thing that Captain van Ryker has asked of you—your company for dinner and at some sort of impromptu ‘ball’ that he has arranged. All of the passengers are very grateful for the added protection of his escort, and this will be a diversion, an outing for the ladies. I see that several of them are on deck already dressed for the occasion.”

  Verhulst’s gaze swung to the little knot of passengers containing several bright-colored gowns, who were buzzing some distance away. The Widow Poltzer and her marriageable daughter were there, stiff with finery in shrieking shades of pink, and one other pensive lady in red and gray taffeta who looked as if she might take flight at any moment.

  “And here is your wife,” added Captain Verbloom, blinking at the opulence of her flame satin gown.

  Verhulst cast a bitter look at Imogene’s gorgeous garb. “I would have a word with my wife. Captain,” he said testily. “If you will excuse us?”

  Captain Verbloom bowed to lmogene and went to join the other passengers.

  Verhulst, left alone with lmogene, gave her whisk—through which her bare bosom and peeking pink-tipped nipples were plainly visible—a bitter look.

  “Do you not have a whisk less sheer?” he asked her impatiently. “This one is less than nothing.”

  lmogene, who had searched through all her whisks to find the sheerest, shrugged. “What, would you have me wear a linen table napkin? I have nothing else, Verhulst. If you do not like it, I can leave it off.”

  “Oh, no, ye’ll not do that!”

  “Indeed, and why not? ’Tis all the fashion at Court.”

  “This is not the Court,” he grated, “but a pirate’s ship we go to, lmogene. These are desperate men. Do not inflame their passions!”

  Desperate men... lmogene thought fleetingly of that lean sardonic face, those searching gray eyes, the courtliness of this captain whom the world called a pirate.

  “I feel I will be safe aboard the Sea Rover,’’ she stated. “And to make doubly sure, I have made certain arrangements.”

  He stared. “What arrangements?”

  “You will see.” lmogene looked around for Elise, but did not see her yet.

  “In any case,” he warned her testily, “see that this time ye do not lose your whisk, for I was not there to anchor it on ye!”

  “Have no fear, Verhulst,” said lmogene coolly, with a snubbing look. “I assure you I will not lose it, for this is my best whisk!”

  She turned and strolled back toward the captain with Verhulst in his somber black clothes fuming in her wake. “I see we have one lady whose husband is too seasick to accompany her, Captain Verbloom, but where is the other?”
<
br />   “The other refused to come,” said Captain Verbloom shortly.

  “Ah, I feared as much.” lmogene pictured the portly lady of whom they spoke—she would as soon swim to the Sea Rover as dance aboard her! “But I have found us a substitute.” She turned with a dramatic gesture. “Here she comes now: my maidservant and good friend—Mistress Elise Meggs.”

  Both the captain and the patroon were silenced by the sight of Elise, striding toward them down the deck. She was of a formidable height and she moved like a battleship, bearing down on them stiff as a ramrod in her finery and wearing a self-conscious frown that might give any man pause. She was sumptuously dressed in Imogene’s green velvet gown, the deep hem of which had been let down and hurriedly stitched—it would hold for this one night. That gown now swished above a petticoat of heavy weighted gold taffeta that rustled alarmingly as she walked. The shoes that peeked out from beneath the petticoat’s hem were her own best yellow leather ones, for Imogene’s dancing slippers were all too small, and the wide ruffles of her sleeves—her arms being longer than Imogene’s—were a trifle too short for the current mode, but her fashionably low-cut bodice was filled in with a whisk so heavy it could have served as table linen. Its modest folds managed completely to obscure any inch of Elise’s bosom that might have been exposed to public view. Feeling that even this might not be enough to ward off the lascivious eyes of pirates, Elise had added one other touch after Imogene had left the cabin—and it was this addition that held Imogene in spellbound fascination and caused her to choke back her laughter.

  Elise was wearing a wide stiff ruff around her long thin neck. It was terribly out of fashion, for no one wore ruffs any more except old ladies; it was yellow-starched and looked as if it had seen better days, but Elise had dragged it out of her own trunk and was wearing it triumphantly. Her blue eyes flashed as she approached and curtseyed to the patroon and the captain.