Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  His strong hand tightened on hers. “Ah, you will be aboard, Imogene. And bring with you your valuables—for I plan to carry you away with me when next we meet.”

  Imogene’s heart lurched to a wild racing rhythm and she missed a step. Deep inside she had always known what he intended, but now he had spoken of it in words and she was faced with a decision. No longer could she play at misunderstanding him or indulge in wild fantasies. He was asking her to make a choice between him and Verhulst and her heart and her head were not of one mind on that.

  Time—she must play for time.

  “Do you always take all your castles by storm?” she asked coolly, as she had asked once before in England of another man.

  There was a controlled violence in van Ryker tonight and it came through in his voice, like a surging tide. “Never have I seen a fortress so worth storming—nor one I so desired to storm.”

  “And have you no thought of my reputation, sir?”

  He cast a wry meaningful look down at her almost transparent whisk. “Do you value your reputation so much, then, Imogene?”

  She could not meet his direct challenging gaze. Her heart was thumping in her chest. Verhulst had never spent a night in her bed since their wedding night—and then he had not touched her. It was becoming clear to her that he did not intend to. Hers was an empty marriage, hers were empty arms, and this dark, intense buccaneer was offering her a life of romantic adventure that appealed to her reckless heart. She could feel the pull of his masculine virility, the pressure of his hot gaze, which even the sea breeze, which had freshened in the last hour, did not dispel.

  “Of course I value it,” she whispered.

  His arm tightened about her. “Remember what I have said,” he warned. “For the next time we meet I will press my suit more forcibly.”

  Half frightened, half fascinated, Imogene stared up at him. “You—you have naught to offer a woman!” she protested.

  “If you mean I have no home but the sea or a buccaneer’s lair, you are right. But that can be rectified. For you, Imogene, I would change many things... my whole life.”

  His words tore at her, tumbling her emotions into tumult. The spell of the moonlight and of muted buccaneer voices lifted in song and the haunting strains of the viola da gamba were upon her. She felt hypnotized by it all, swept along by a tide that was too strong for her.

  “May I interrupt?” It was Verhulst’s harsh voice. “Captain Verbloom feels we must be going. He says a gale may be coming up.”

  Van Ryker lifted his head and sniffed the air. “He may be right,” he said, and reluctantly let the woman in flame-colored satin slip from his arms.

  “Until tomorrow,” he told her, and Verhulst gave him a smoldering look.

  “I would like to challenge him,” he muttered as they climbed into the longboat.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” murmured Imogene. “He’s said to be a notable blade—I think you told me that.”

  “Nevertheless,” growled Verhulst.

  “He has asked us to dine with him again tomorrow. Would you slaughter your host?”

  Captain Verbloom heard that and turned on Verhulst a look of blank astonishment. Did the young patroon fancy his swordplay to be in a class with van Ryker’s? Faith, a thrust or two would disabuse him—before he died on the point of van Ryker’s blade, of course. Verbloom shuddered. “Perhaps we will not be dining aboard that Sea Rover tomorrow night,” he said with a pointed look at Verhulst.

  “I can’t imagine why we would not,” said Imogene. “Unless a gale blows up in the night.”

  But a gale did blow up in the night. Imogene woke in darkness, jarred almost from her bed by the lurching progress of the ship, and listened to the wind whistling through the shrouds. By morning the squall was well upon them and Captain Verbloom looked out at the gray sky, and dashed stinging rain from his eyes.

  “Your lady need not feign illness after all,” he told Verhulst with some satisfaction, “for there’s no question of dining aboard the Sea Rover tonight. Faith, ’tis the first time I’ve ever been glad to see rough weather!”

  Imogene, too, felt a sense of relief. The storm had pushed off the time when she must make a decision. Tension had been building in her ever since van Ryker had kissed her. It had made her realize with sharp physical force how very much she wanted him. Although she had kept a stern grip on herself—that reckless self that wanted to throw itself into his arms whatever the cost—she had been unable to stay away from him, flying ever nearer to disaster as a moth to the flame. And after van Ryker had told her calmly that he meant to carry her away with him, her battered nerves had almost reached the breaking point. Carry her away... she was not ready for that. She felt a strong physical attraction for him certainly, an almost overpowering attraction; she found him a fascinating man whose depths she had not plumbed but—she had made a bargain in good faith with Verhulst and she meant to keep it.

  She was almost glad that tall seas kept the ships apart all the way to New Amsterdam’s harbor. Verhulst was jubilant.

  But Imogene landed with fear-shadowed eyes—and not because of a lean buccaneer with taking ways. For the morning after the ball she had waked and been sick. Every morning that week she suffered from a black nausea—she who had ridden out the stormiest seas in the Scillies and never felt even a touch of seasickness.

  “I don’t know what can be the matter with me, Elise,” she gasped, when the morning before they were to dock in New Amsterdam’s harbor the blackness struck her again.

  “I do,” Elise said grimly. ‘‘Ye are pregnant.”

  Imogene, never very regular, had neglected to consider this possibility. Now the two women stared at each other in mounting horror.

  “Pregnant since before ye left England, I don’t doubt,” declared Elise in a gloomy voice. “Pregnant by a lover who’s dead, and with a husband who comes not to your bed. What will ye do now?”

  “I don’t know,” said Imogene. She was very pale but her voice was steady. Only the whitened knuckles that gripped the side of the bunk betrayed how trapped she felt. She gave Elise a compassionate look—poor Elise, caught up in her troubles. “I will make my decision on shore.”

  BOOK III

  The River Bride

  A toast to the bride of the river!

  Her feelings, her love she must hide

  Forever and ever and ever. ...

  A toast to the river bride!

  PART ONE

  The Patroon’s Lady

  A toast to our reckless lady,

  She who must finish the game,

  Who stares at the stars through pride’s rusted bars

  From a life of glamour—and shame ...

  New Amsterdam,

  New Netherlands 1657

  CHAPTER 12

  When the tempest blew itself out and land was at last sighted across the still rough seas, Imogene, so depressed during the voyage, found her spirits rising. For disembarking she dressed herself with care in a tailored French gray broadcloth, wide-skirted, narrow-waisted, heavily trimmed in black braid— save for its opulent virago sleeves, which spilled forth an enticing billow of white lawn and lace, it made her look more like an expensive matron and less like an expensive wanton, she told herself grimly—and topped off her costume with a rakish wide-brimmed gray hat aflutter with white plumes. She arranged the froth of white lace at her throat that spilled out over her fitted bodice, gave her wide-tiered gray broadcloth oversleeves a last shake and pulled on delicate gray leather gloves.

  “How do I look, Elise?” she demanded. “Would I do credit to a patroon?”

  “Ye would do a duke credit,” sighed Elise, straightening out a heavy broadcloth fold in Imogene’s skirt. “Ye look like a woman with a future,” she mourned, “when indeed ye have none!”

  “Take heart,” said Imogene cheerfully. “All is not lost—at least not yet. Come out on deck. Let us view this new capital of the western world!”

  But Elise was not to be caj
oled by Imogene’s blithe flippancy. “I can see no reason to be light of heart,” she muttered. “Ye should be crying. Had ye already told him, he’d abandon us on the dock but—what happens to us when we reach Wey Gat?”

  Imogene, turning down the cuffs of her leather gloves to show their intricate beading, flashed her a confident smile. The morning sickness had left her, the air was fresh and clean, a whole new life awaited her. And if it did not—well, time enough to worry about that when it happened. At least she would know today. For although she would not tell Elise, who was half mad with anxiety already, Imogene did not intend to wait until they reached far Wey Gat to tell Verhulst he was to become the “father” of a child not his own. She meant to tell him right here in New Amsterdam. Now, today!

  Buoyed up by the excitement that decision always brought her, Imogene tripped lightly forth upon the deck to find the passengers milling about expectantly, waving and pointing at the town, although it would be some time before they landed.

  She made her way through a heated argument between two guests who had attended the buccaneer’s ball on board the Sea Rover.

  “How can ye say poor Barnaby Swift drinks too much?” the Widow Poltzer was demanding passionately of the lady who had that night been drenched in wine and who now stood stiff and disapproving. “When ye’ve seen the lad but once? Why, your own husband wasn’t seasick on this voyage—he was drunk! He’s nothing but a tosspot!”

  “Ye’ll not say that of my Amos!” came the furious reply. “Throwing your daughter at those—those cutthroats! ’Tis a marvel we weren’t all raped!”

  Imogene pushed her way between the antagonists, who moved back, like spitting cats, to let the patroon’s elegant lady pass. The buccaneer’s ball would not soon be forgotten, she thought with a pang, although the Widow Poltzer might be overvaluing her homely daughter’s charms if she thought she’d already captured Barnaby Swift—New Amsterdam must abound with pretty Dutch girls who’d catch a buccaneer’s eye.

  Along with the others, she stood by the rail. But unlike them, her gaze was not upon the town that lay ahead, but upon the rakish Sea Rover that had kept them in sight no matter how wild the tempest. Van Ryker... guarding her. She pushed the thought away.

  Verhulst shouldered up to join her. He looked very assured now that New Amsterdam was in sight. Rubies flashed from his thin fingers, a pigeon’s blood ruby winked from the lace at his throat—there was even a ruby pinning the gray ostrich plumes that floated above his wide black hat. Aside from his jewels and the heavy gold chain he habitually wore, those gray plumes and the Florentine lace at his throat and his white lace-point boothose, the young patroon was clad in unrelieved black: cut-velvet doublet, wide ribbanded breeches, shining black boots.

  “Ye should be wearing the sapphire pin and earbobs that I bought you in Amsterdam,” he said, giving Imogene a critical look.

  “I’ll get them,” she promised meekly and hurried back to her cabin to open her little chest of jewels. She must be prompt in fulfilling all Verhulst’s small requests, she thought with a sudden attack of nervousness, for she had such a large favor to ask of Verhulst—that he accept her child as his own. Was it too much to ask of a man? she wondered as she slipped on the sapphire earbobs.

  It had been done many times of course, she told herself firmly. Had not King Arthur’s father accepted his wife’s bastard child? But that of course was rape, not a lover.... ln the Scillies, a woman on Saint Mary’s had wed a Cornishman from the mainland when she was already large with child by another. He had accepted the child cheerfully as his own—but he'd been about to be carted off to debtors’ prison and his errant bride was an heiress. Imogene sighed ... she knew of no case exactly like her own.

  She went back on deck to join Verhulst, who gave her a look of proud approval now that she was wearing the earbobs.

  Tonight, she told herself. Tonight, she would tell him.

  Like a mother hen herding along a single chick, the mighty Sea Rover shepherded the fat wallowing Hilletje into port, but once assured of her safe arrival shot around her and docked first. When the slower Hilletje finally docked, the buccaneer captain and crew of the Sea Rover was nowhere to be seen; they had gone into the town.

  Verhulst was delighted with that. He seized lmogene’s hand in his own black-gloved one and—leaving Elise to cope with the baggage—hurried her ashore, muttering that this time they’d seen the last of that damned pirate!

  Imogene, almost running to keep up with her husband’s long stride, looked about her and got her first close view of this new land that was to be her home.

  What she saw was a Dutch town that almost—but not quite—might have been set in Holland, not America. It was dominated by a fort and a huge windmill. And there was a crowded jumble of little buildings side by each, made of yellow -and orange-colored brick, which raised their tall step gables in rows. Atop these houses were saucy weathervanes—roosters and stiff metal soldiers and little iron ships in full sail. Imogene was impressed with the enormous anchoring irons of the houses they passed—sometimes formed in the shape of the owner’s initials. And because these water-bred Dutchmen preferred to transport their goods via water rather than over land, there was a canal down the center of Broad Street, which Verhulst called the “Heere Graft.” They followed this street past a bridge that spanned the canal where a group of full-breeched Dutch burghers stood gossiping. Their talk ceased as they bowed to the patroon and his lady, but as they passed Imogene heard someone murmur, “Ach, he’s brought home a beauty!” and then someone else said something she could not hear and they all laughed. Imogene had learned just enough Dutch to understand that remark about her beauty and she turned to ask Verhulst what else had been said, but his face wore such a forbidding expression that she forbore.

  Between the first bridge and the second, which she could see up farther, Verhulst told her, was the home of Vrouw Berghem, a widow who had been in her youth a close friend of his mother’s.

  “I will leave you with Vrouw Berghem while I make arrangements to load the sloop for Wey Gat,” he told her.

  “But what will Elise do?” cried Imogene, stumbling over a cobblestone. “She will not know where to find us!”

  “Neither will Captain van Ryker,” said Verhulst grimly. “Imogene, watch where you are going! Elise will be waiting at dockside with our baggage. I have only to find the Danskammer— ”

  “The what?”

  “My sloop, the Danskammer. Her schipper, Schroon, is probably asleep in some grog shop. He must have been waiting for me these ten days past while we were held up in mid-ocean by—”

  “Captain van Ryker,” supplied Imogene resignedly.

  “Ah, I see you recall what caused our delay.” His voice was sarcastic and Imogene’s eyes flashed. Quickly she reminded herself that whatever Verhulst said to her, whatever he did, she had done far worse by him. If only he could find it in his heart to forgive her!

  “We will be gone from this place by tonight,” he promised her as they reached the front stoop of Vrouw Berghem's yellow brick residence. “The setting sun will find us sailing upriver toward Wey Gat.”

  But big, buxom Vrouw Berghem, who seized Verhulst unceremoniously in a bearhug that left him wincing, had other plans for them.

  “You’ll not be leaving before the Governor’s Ball?” she protested after she had embraced them both and Verhulst had tried to break away, explaining his haste to be gone. Seizing them both by the hand she ushered them into her voorhuis, that seldom-occupied front room filled Dutch fashion with her finest possessions. She spoke in English for Imogene’s benefit. “Why, ’tis being held tonight and Peter Stuyvesant will be very upset if you do not show him the courtesy of attending! All New Amsterdam knows that your sloop has been waiting for your return this past week or more, and only this morning I met Governor Stuyvesant on Pearl Street—” she called it “Perel Straat”—and he said ’twas a pity you had not yet returned, as the ball would make a fitting reception for your bride!
And within minutes your ship was sighted! Besides, you cannot take this poor girl upriver without letting her see something of our city first! Stay overnight with me and tomorrow we will all take the ferry to Breukelen, if we can get the ferryman to answer the blast on the horn! ’Tis a horn that hangs from a tree at the waterside,” she explained to Imogene, “and the ferryman will come and row us across the river unless the wind blows strong enough that the sails of the windmill—you saw it near the fort—be taken in; then he will not come until the wind dies down. But I think tomorrow will be a fair day, don’t you?”

  “I would love to see Breukelen,” said Imogene eagerly, who at all costs did not wish to leave for Wey Gat until she had come to some understanding with Verhulst. “And everything else New Amsterdam affords. I really think we should go to Governor Stuyvesant’s ball tonight, Verhulst. It would be foolish to offend him. And we are not in such a great hurry, surely, as all that. Wey Gat will wait for us.”

  “Of course it will wait,” coaxed Vrouw Berghem. “And what better opportunity to show off a new bride than a Governor’s Ball!”

  Verhulst’s dark eyes flickered for an instant and Vrouw Berghem beamed. The bride’s entreaties might fail but she knew her man. His eyes had lit up at the thought of parading his English beauty before the town; she had him now. “And I am sure your bride has brought lovely clothes that will be the envy of all,” she added slyly.

  “And jewels,” murmured Verhulst, considering. “There are pirates in the town,” he objected.

  “When are there not pirates in the town?” Vrouw Berghem was astonished. “But they will not harm us. They sell their wares and are gone—we remain.”