Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “And now,” said Imogene energetically, “I want you to sew my jewels into the sleeves of my heaviest green woolen dress—the one Verhulst thinks is so ugly. I will put coins in my shoes and carry a purse as well as a pouch of food.”

  “And a pistol, for the woods are full of wild animals.” And Indians, her frightened tone added.

  “And a pistol, but only the small one from Verhulst’s desk, for I will be held back if I try to carry too much weight.”

  By midnight their plans were well made and Imogene fell into a fitful sleep from which she was wakened by Elise shaking her. “Wake up, the sun is shining. The patroon left at dawn and I have ordered you up a tray.”

  Imogene rubbed her eyes. “You should have waked me earlier. I should have left right after Verhulst.”

  “Ah, but supposed he had forgotten something and come back and asked to speak to you?”

  That was true, Verhulst might have come back. It would be safer this way.

  Her breakfast eaten, and Elise sent away on an errand, Imogene slipped from the house with her bundle. She looked quickly about her, saw no one, and sped into the woods. Behind her the dogs howled mournfully. She cast up a little prayer that Groot would not use them to search for her.

  The forest closed in around her, great trees blown bare of leaves, heavy patches of undergrowth that tore at her green wool dress, and once, with thorny fingers, snatched the dark woolen shawl from her shoulders. Imogene tore it free and hurried on, following a narrow trail worn bare by countless moccasins. The hush of autumn was in the air, a breathless pause before the long winter set in. Over her head rose majestic hemlocks, chestnuts, hickories, and oaks. Beneath her hurrying feet crunched a thick carpet of leaves. The chipmunks were all snug in their winter quarters by now, but she saw an occasional squirrel, and once a raccoon, washing its food at a little rivulet, looked up and stared at her curiously before diving behind a bush. Imogene hoped there were no bears about. It was a beautiful, clear day. About her the air was cold and crisp and invigorating. Come night, it would be chill indeed. She was reminded of that by all the plants that had been killed by the frost. Hoping night would not catch her in the forest, she hurried along the narrow Indian trail. This was an unfamiliar path and to her alarm it seemed to be leading her inland and upward into the land of tamarack, spruce, and beech. She determined that she would take the first fork that led back southwest in the direction of the river.

  Once, she thought she heard someone behind her, but when she swung around to look there was nothing—only the sigh of the wind through the branches and a few birds whose chirping her passage had stilled.

  It was with relief that she heard the sound of falling water and stumbled into a little clearing where an ancient watercourse had cut through heavy slabs of rock, now black and lichen covered. At one end of the tiny clearing was a little tinkling waterfall and beneath it a crystal trout pool where silver fish darted. Imogene fell to her knees on the rustling leaves and bent her head and drank gratefully of the clear tangy mountain water. Then she sank down beneath the spreading branches of a big sycamore and prepared to eat her lunch.

  There was a crackle off to her right—some animal moving through the woods, she presumed. But she paused warily with the apple in her hand almost to her mouth, and waited. There. She gave a little sigh. It had stopped.

  She bit into the apple and almost choked.

  Verhulst had stepped silently out from behind a big rock.

  “Getting your exercise, I see,” he drawled.

  Imogene sprang up. The blood sang in her ears. For a moment she almost broke and ran but sanity returned to her in time. “You startled me,” she said lamely.

  “I’ve no doubt I did. You’ve been moving fast for a pregnant woman. I’ve been following you,” he added carelessly, “since you entered the woods.”

  So he had not gone to inspect the bouweries as he had said he would! He had tricked her into making this desperate move! Her flesh crawled at the thought that when she left the house he must have been watching, perhaps from the forest’s edge, that he had melted into the undergrowth, following her.

  “You might have made your presence known,” she said crossly. “You move through the woods as silently as an Indian!”

  “I grew up here, remember,” he told her. “And this is one of my favorite paths. I would have taken you to this waterfall myself, had you shown an interest.”

  Imogene cast a look about. Verhulst seemed to be alone. Perhaps she could still escape him.

  “I had meant to speak to you about it, ” she said, as calmly as she could.

  “Oh, I am sure you did!”

  He was baiting her! Imogene gave him a sunny smile.

  “Today seemed a good time to explore this path and see where it led. As you can see, I packed my lunch.”

  He peered down at her heavy bag of food, made from a knotted linen square. “Enough for an army, I’d say. Were you expecting guests?”

  “I thought I might be very hungry after such a long walk,” she defended. “Besides, I might have gotten lost and not made it back by suppertime.” She was moving toward the pistol, which lay on the ground beside the linen square.

  “Yes, there was always that possibility. And you have a pistol to defend yourself, I see.”

  Imogene bent and picked up the pistol. It was loaded. “I am told there are bears in these woods,” she said, taking a step away from him.

  “Then I marvel at your bravery to walk here alone. Would it not have been more prudent to bring one of the servants along?”

  “Perhaps—but then I have never been known for my prudence.” She brought the barrel of the pistol up. “I am leaving you, Verhulst.”

  Looking down that barrel, which loomed suddenly very large and ugly, Verhulst took an involuntary step backward and his face paled visibly. “You intend to kill me with my own pistol?” he demanded incredulously.

  “Only if you try to stop me.” Her eyes flashed. Actually she had no intention of firing on him, but she wanted him to believe she would.

  “Groot! Voorst! Janzoon! Show yourselves!”

  There was a heavy crunching of underbrush and around the clearing the men whose names he had called appeared and stood silent, staring stolidly at the patroon.

  “Give me the gun, Imogene.”

  “No.” She backed away from him. “Tell them to go away. Tell them or I will shoot you!”

  Verhulst had courage, too. He ignored her command. “Listen to me, Imogene. Whether you shoot me or not, night will surely fall and find you in these woods. This path leads nowhere; it dwindles out far up in the tamaracks. If you think to escape, you are wrong. Whether you shoot me or not, my men will follow you. Silently. Out of sight. And when you fall asleep—and sleep you must eventually—they will take you and bring you back to Wey Gat. Those are my orders, already given.”

  “Then rescind them!” She cocked the gun.

  “No.” He stepped sideways so that his body blocked the line of stepping-stones she must use to cross the stream and catch the path on the other side. “You had best shoot, for I intend to block your way!”

  Imogene stood trembling.

  Abruptly, she threw away the gun.

  Triumph suffused Verhulst’s face. He sprang forward and pounced on her, seizing her by the shoulders in a crushing grip that ground the jewels—sewn into her big, fashionably detachable sleeves—painfully into her flesh.

  “Well, what have we here?” His hot breath raked her face. “More pistols?”

  “Of course not. They are my jewels. I needed money to leave you, Verhulst. I would have sold them. Later, when I was able, I would have repaid you.”

  He laughed scornfully. “All this from a woman who was about to shoot me because I stood in her way?”

  “I would not have shot you, Verhulst,” said lmogene in a weary voice. “I have done you enough harm already. You can depend upon it—I would not have added murder to my other crimes.”

  “A
nother lie, doubtless,” he snarled, for the soft feel of her shoulders through the sleeves was enticing him, seducing him. He flung her away from him. “Did you think I was a fool? I knew you would leave—I anticipated your every move! Since dawn I have been waiting at the forest’s edge for you to appear. You have not been out of my sight since you left the house!”

  “How very clever of you.” She gave him a level look.

  He let go of her shoulders and seized her arm in a grip that hurt, jerked her almost off her feet. “You will not use that tone with me! And since you are so interested in exercise, we will oblige you by setting twice as fast a pace back to the house! And tonight we will continue at dinner the conversation we were having last night. Perhaps there will be more truth tonight!”

  “I will not have dinner with you tonight!” cried lmogene.

  “You will!” His grip tightened. “If you do not come down voluntarily I will drag you downstairs myself!” As if to illustrate that, he strode forward dragging her with him. It was an exhausted lmogene, stumbling, panting, who arrived at the stone mansion she had left so surreptitiously that morning.

  “Take charge of your mistress!” Verhulst flung her at a horrified Elise, who sprang forward to gather lmogene in her arms, help her stagger up the stairs to fall upon the bed.

  “The patroon has locked up all the guns in the house,” Elise reported later to lmogene.

  “Good,” mumbled lmogene, who still lay where she had fallen across the bed. “Perhaps, if he fears me enough, he will wish to be rid of me and let me go!” She turned over and sat up; with a little rest her flagging courage had returned. “Is it time to dress for dinner?”

  Elise gave a sorrowful nod.

  “Do not look so sad, Elise!” lmogene threw her legs over the side of the bed. “I must dress carefully to impress my husband!”

  “A yellow dress perhaps?” suggested Elise timorously. “The patroon likes you in yellow.”

  “No!” lmogene laughed harshly. “I will wear something he does not like! Why should I cater to his whims? Bring me that crimson velvet, Elise. Verhulst has decided he hates me in red.” Elise rolled her eyes. lmogene in this mood was a danger to all about her. In silence she brought the ruby slippers lmogene demanded and dressed Imogene’s hair fashionably, decorating it with crimson velvet rosettes. “Your whisk.” She began to put it around Imogene’s neck.

  lmogene tore off the whisk. “I will go without it,” she declared in a brittle voice. “Verhulst married a woman of fashion—let him take the consequences!” She strode down to dinner with her head high and the whole milky expanse of her throat and bosom and the pearly tops of her breasts down to the winking rosy crests of her nipples fashionably bare. At the entrance to the dining room she gave her neckline another violent yank downward. Her face was proud and cold. She might have been going to her execution.

  CHAPTER 19

  Imogene swept into the long dining room with a rustle of skirts. Verhulst was standing with his back to her, looking down at the fire. For the first time, his carefully pomaded wig irritated her. She would have preferred his own hair, scanty, mousy— whatever it was; at least it would have been his own!

  Her voice rang out. “I see that you have locked up all the guns.” Her mocking gesture included the muskets that normally decorated the mantel and the matched pair of dueling pistols now missing from the wall beside them.

  Verhulst turned an impassive face toward her. “It seemed prudent, since you seem of a mind to use them on me.”

  “Are you going to lock up the table knives as well?” She taunted. “Am I to expect that we will now rend the food with our fingers or attack our roast with spoons?”

  His dark eyes flashed but his voice was almost gentle. “I have no fear that you will attack me with the cutlery. For if you do, I promise you that I will break your lovely fingers—one by one.”

  Imogene sniffed scornfully, but she gave Verhulst a wary look, wondering what game he was playing.

  “That gown is not one of my favorites,” he commented with a frown.

  “That is why I wore it!” she snapped. “I desire you to wish to be rid of me.”

  He studied her silently for a moment, then pulled back a chair for her. Imogene sank into it impassively. She was still very tired although her short nap had refreshed her.

  “Are we to make small talk?” Her voice was tart. “Or shall we have the questions and the answers now?”

  Verhulst, she noted, was even more handsomely dressed than usual. He was wearing a black satin doublet shot with gold threads. Gold fringe edged his sleeves and trousers and a massive gold signet ring flashed conspicuously from the middle finger of his right hand. Now his thin face took on a cruel expression.

  “I think we will dine first,” he said carelessly. “Lest the truth should upset my appetite.”

  The truth could be guaranteed to upset his appetite, thought Imogene grimly, and began to eat the tasty pheasant he urged upon her. Indeed, her long walk and interrupted lunch had made her ravenously hungry. But she restrained her urge to shout the truth at him and let him do as he would with her and get it over with, and replied steadily to the small talk that he kept flowing in her direction.

  Save for the unusual elegance that marked the table and its appointments, they could have been any patroon on the river and his wife, chatting about estate affairs.

  After dinner he took her to the library, closed the door and beckoned her to be seated at the heavy oaken table where he poured over his account books night after night. “Now let us have a better story than we had last night,” he mocked her. “For surely you have had time during supper to invent one.”

  Her blue eyes flashed in anger and she shrugged off his offer of a chair. “Thank you, I prefer to stand.”

  “Very well.” He took a pinch of snuff from a golden snuffbox. “We will hear the truth standing and totter into our chairs afterward.”

  She could hardly believe the light bantering tone he was using.

  “Verhulst,” she said haltingly. “I did not know I was pregnant when I married you. You must believe that. I did not know.”

  “I knew this would be interesting,” he said. “And am I to believe we are to have a miracle? A virgin birth, say?”

  Imogene swallowed. “I realize that I well deserve your scorn,” she said in a steady voice. “For I have duped you and deceived you, although that was not my intent when I married you. I meant to be a good wife to you, Verhulst, all that a wife should be.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then, “Go on,” he said.

  “I did not realize then that you found me—personally unappealing,” she said in a strangled voice. “That you would not seek my cabin, that you would not claim your—marital rights.”

  For a moment the dark eyes boring into her face were young, miserable. “I do not find you personally unappealing, Imogene,” Verhulst said thickly. “Very much the reverse.”

  “As a painting perhaps,” she shrugged. “Not as a woman.”

  He made a gesture as if to brush something away from him. “And the father of this child you are to bear,” he said harshly. “Am I to assume it is Captain van Ryker?”

  She gave him a look of such pure astonishment that he believed her.

  “Of course not!” she cried. “How can you think it? Verhulst, I—I had a lover. In England. Between us, we killed a man. It was an accident but we knew no one would believe us. My lover fled, and I—I was sent to Amsterdam by my guardian.”

  “Fascinating.” A bitter smile played over his face. “And why would no one believe that this unfortunate man’s death was an accident?”

  “Because the dead man was my betrothed,” she said bluntly.

  “Better and better.” His tone was contemptuous. “It seems you deal not only in deception, but in murder! I was wise to lock up the firearms, it seems.”

  She took a step backward before the lash in his tone, and now his voice lost its urbanity and throbbed with fury.
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  “And how many other lovers have you had, Imogene? In England and in Holland? Tell me their names!”

  He strode toward her and seized her wrist. His face had turned into a devilish mask.

  Imogene stiffened. “I have had only one lover, Verhulst. One.”

  “And how did you mean to explain him, Imogene? What excuse did you plan to give me to explain your lack of virginity in your marriage bed? A riding accident, perhaps?”

  Color stained her white cheeks. “You are right,” she said miserably. “I meant to lie to you. But only in the hope that we might—” her voice caught in a sob—“that we might be happy together. But now I see that we never can be, and I ask you to let me go, Verhulst!”

  He flung her away from him with a force that brought her head up sickeningly against the wall. The collision with the wall sent such a burst of pain through her head that she was for a moment blinded. His voice broke over her like a wave.

  “I will never let you go,” he told her violently. “I have not yet decided what I will do with you, but I will never let you go, depend upon it!”

  Imogene pushed away from the wall and stood before him trying not to tremble, although her knees felt like jelly. “I am going to bed,” she said dully. “My head is aching.”

  “ ‘To bed,’ ” he mocked. “To dream of your lovers, no doubt!”

  Imogene gave him a cold look and would have pushed past him but he took her shoulders in a cruel grip and gave her such a hard shake that her aching head snapped back and she gasped.

  “Remember that you live here by my sufferance,” he growled. “And I have not yet decided what I will do with you.” She looked him full in the face, marveling.

  “And I had thought you good,” she murmured. “And kind, that you would accept me as I was.... I was wrong about you, Verhulst.” Something wavered in his eyes. His hands fell away from her and he stood back and let her pass.

  After that she was watched. There was always someone around: one of the menservants finding something to do in the hall and looking up sharply at every footstep, one of the big maidservants popping in and out, eyeing her speculatively.