Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “I have enough jewelry, Verhulst,” she said quietly, pushing the gems away from her. “The only jewel I would have from you is the jewel of freedom—freedom to walk about, to go where I wish, not to be spied upon, watched.”

  “Then I will give the necklace to someone who desires it more!” cried Verhulst. He snatched back the necklace and stomped from the room.

  It was not long before he convinced himself that Imogene was conspiring with her elderly Dutch-speaking tutor to escape and sent the bewildered old gentleman back to his home in Beverwyck.

  Verhulst could not understand Imogene. Alternately, he hated and adored her, but he never at any time understood her. Why did she not respond to his overtures, he asked himself petulantly. Was he not in every way a kindly husband? Indeed, was he not a noble husband, to. overlook her bearing another man’s child beneath the shelter of his name? That he had not done it with good grace, that he had bullied and frightened Imogene, he did not take into account. She was his and she should behave as if she enjoyed being his.

  He took to needling her with veiled insults in an attempt to make her betray at least some emotion toward him, but she was deadened to his anger, to his contempt. She was walking a narrow path, a desperately narrow path, in an attempt to keep her child, and while her proud nature would not let her smile at him, her iron control kept her from an open break with him. So she turned a deaf ear to his most barbed thrusts, sat woodenly at the table while he insulted her.

  Verhulst found this lack of animation maddening. For in his heart he wanted much more than a golden painting come to life—a trifle he had purchased for gold in Amsterdam; he wanted a woman, warm and willing and—although he would never have admitted this to himself—a woman who loved him.

  And Imogene was not that woman.

  She could not see behind the mask of indifference and mockery that he wore. She could not see the man—frightened, bitter, yearning behind the protective wall of his pride. If she could have understood him, she might have averted what came to pass, but she did not. A woman like Imogene would never understand such a man as Verhulst van Rappard.

  And still the golden days drifted by....

  One day in an excess of fury that he could not reach through the wall of her indifference, Verhulst sprang to his feet, knocked over the armchair in which he sat, and began to rail at her.

  Still she was silent, distant, letting his harsh words beat over her like raven’s wings.

  All of Verhulst’s venom toward her seemed to concentrate in one great burst. “I warned you against displeasing me!” he shouted. “And by your indifference you are indeed displeasing me!”

  Imogene turned toward him as if seeing him for the first time. “What is it you want, Verhulst?” she demanded wearily. “I thought it was acquiescence and, before God, I have not crossed you.”

  Rage was churning within him. “Your sins are those of omission!” he shouted. “It is what you have not done that displeases me.”

  Imogene looked down at her folded hands. “And what would you have me do?”

  “I would have you—by God, I will send the child away! Next spring, no later! Unless you mend your ways beforetimes!”

  He stalked away leaving Imogene staring after him with dull hatred in her lovely eyes. Acquiescence was not enough—now she must feign joy at his taunts!

  Once again she determined to escape him. This time she would leave Elise and take the baby. She would go downriver—and once in New Amsterdam, her jewels would buy her a hiding place! Getting aboard ship would be trickier, for Verhulst’s agents would doubtless be watching New Amsterdam’s docks. That was where Elise came in. She would weep over Imogene’s disappearance—and beg the patroon to let her return to her people in England. She would then take passage south on the first sloop. Verhulst, who would have lost her trail by now, would follow Elise, hoping to pick it up again. Elise would take passage on a ship bound for Barbados and somehow—somehow she would get the baby to Elise just before the ship sailed and, after that, make her own presence known among the Dutch burghers. Word would promptly reach Verhulst and she would play hide-and-seek with him through New Amsterdam’s winding streets—if necessary, she would play hide-and-seek with him through these hills. But she would lead him away from Elise and the baby, who would find a safe haven in Barbados with kindly Bess Duveen. And eventually,God willing, she would join them in Barbados. But if she did not, if Verhulst caught her, killed her—at least her baby would be safe!

  Fired by the thought, she watched her chance and over Elise’s protests, slipped down in the night and stole a rowboat, put little Georgiana in it and eased it into the dark waters unnoticed. Once on the river’s broad breast, she clutched her baby to her and prayed that the current, which was flowing swiftly south, would carry them safely to New Amsterdam.

  Wooded shores floated by in the moonlight and sometimes floating logs and once an Indian canoe. Imogene crouched down in terror lest they see her, but the canoe continued on about its own business. Perhaps the canoe’s occupants had not noticed, across a forest of floating logs and branches, a woman crouched in the rowboat.

  They would have been amazed at the sight of her, had the moon come out full from behind its bank of clouds. For under the dark woolen shawl that gave her the anonymity of other night things moving through the darkness was a woman of light and sun. Her usually bound-back hair streamed down long and golden and three jeweled necklaces sparkled around her slender neck. They flashed in sharp contrast to the cheap sprigged calico dress she wore, the cotton stockings—but under that dress was another dress of silk, and beneath that three silken petticoats, and beneath the cotton stockings another pair—of silk. For Imogene did not know what role she would have to play downriver—impoverished petitioner, traveling aristocrat—she was prepared for either.

  And cuddled sleeping in her arms was the reason for her desperate venture: little Georgiana, trustingly asleep in her mother’s arms as the broad North River swept them southward.

  Imogene had been tense and wakeful all the night before as she planned this venture, tense throughout the evening as she had managed to outwit Verhulst and the servant he had set to spy on her. Now at last her stamina was exhausted and in the bottom of the boat she fell asleep with her arm curled protectively around baby Georgiana.

  That nap was to cost her.

  Rushing down from the Adirondacks, the current did indeed sweep her along toward the south, but this was the river the Indians had long ago christened “The River that Flows Two Ways,” and as Imogene slept, the floodtide from the sea pushed mightily upriver. For the great river Henry Hudson had discovered was tidewater far north of Wey Gat, it was tidewater as far north as Beverwyck. And while she slept the flow reversed itself, the northbound tide overcame the southbound current, swept over it and carried Imogene’s boat inexorably back upriver.

  Imogene woke up at the sound of a shout. Stiff and bewildered as to where she was, she sat up with a jerk, one arm flung over the side of the boat. The sun was in her eyes and she blinked at the sight that met her gaze.

  The rowboat that had been carrying her so confidently south the night before was now drifting northward past Wey Gat. As Imogene’s startled gaze flew incredulously up the sloping bluff to the great stone house, whose windows sparkled mockingly in the morning sunlight, she saw men running down the slope toward her.

  She seized an oar but it was too late. Directed by Verhulst from the shore, they set out in boats and pulled her rowboat to shore with long hooks.

  It was a shaken Imogene who was escorted firmly back to the great house and breakfast.

  Verhulst could hardly conceal his triumph. He would not permit her to change her clothes but forced her to break her fast with him clad in her simple calico and her three sparkling necklaces.

  “Layer on layer of clothes,” he murmured. “And those—” he indicated the necklaces with some amusement—“were to buy you safe passage away from me, I suppose?”

  Cons
cious she was being mocked and too tired and disappointed to eat, Imogene refused to answer. She sat and gazed steadily back at her husband.

  “But you must eat to keep up your strength,” he pointed out blandly, “if you are to continue this folly. Here, will you not have some pancakes?” And when she shook her head and still refused to speak, he launched into a gloating explanation of the river’s tides and currents, which even an experienced navigator could run afoul of. He told her how sometimes when the river seemed to be flowing south, a boat would barely make way—for beneath the southward flowing surface waters, the ocean tide was making its inexorable way north and pulling the boat in that direction below the waterline.

  If Imogene understood him, she gave no sign, merely staring back at him with a blank expression. Finally this maddened Verhulst.

  “Don’t sit there like a statue!” he roared. “Speak! Admit I have bested you! Admit I will always win!”

  Tired and defiant, Imogene’s chin lifted, and even in her rumpled calico with her hair tangled and windblown, Verhulst could not help thinking that she looked a very queen. Her voice was colorless, exhausted—but it held no spirit of defeat.

  “Had I not fallen asleep, I would never have let the river carry me back north—and you would not be breakfasting with me now,” she said calmly.

  Verhulst looked taken aback. “Then you have not yet learned your lesson?” he murmured in surprise.

  Imogene fetched a deep sigh and looked past him out the window—to freedom. ‘‘I will find a way to escape you yet, Verhulst. You cannot hold me forever here at Wey Gat.”

  “Empty words,” he mocked her, glad to have at least this defiant cry from her. “Empty words, Imogene.”

  She gave him back such a look of pure contempt that he was lashed again to fury.

  “The next time you try to escape,” he warned her in a voice gone low and deadly, “I will kill you.”

  Then next time I must be more careful, her proud face promised him. But Imogene kept her silence. It would not do to provoke the patroon further; he might deny her even the companionship of her child.

  “I bid you think on it,” he warned her. “For you are becoming the talk of the river, with your wild attempts to escape me, and I will not have people laughing at me behind my back. Do you understand, Imogene?”

  Imogene’s throat was dry. “You bring it only on yourself, Verhulst,” she declared steadily. And then on a pleading note, “Oh, why can you not let me go? Why is it so important to keep me here?”

  “You are mine,” he said simply. “I have never given up anything that belonged to me.”

  She stared at him for a long time, drinking that in, realizing that it was the shape of her future.

  But that aborted escape attempt had made Imogene cautious. Verhulst might indeed keep his promise to kill her.

  Things worsened between them after that until their hostility reached a near fever pitch. Sometimes Verhulst, goaded by her contempt, talked about next spring when he would send Georgiana away. Once Imogene leaped up, white-faced.

  “If you send her away, I promise you, Verhulst, that I will kill myself!”

  He was taken aback by her desperation, but it made him thoughtful. His valiant lady had said she would escape him—and she had tried, how she had tried. In an effort to kill herself, she might well succeed.

  “There is no need to think on death,” he said uneasily. “It is a long time till spring. Perhaps I will change my mind about sending the child away.”

  But now Imogene knew she could not trust him. When spring came to New Netherland and the sea-lanes to Holland were crowded with wooden ships voyaging to and from America, Verhulst might any day on a whim rob her of Georgiana.

  She could not let it happen.

  Wiser now, she sat down and wrote a letter to Bess Deveen in Barbados and contrived so cleverly that the letter was taken downriver by a Dutch captain who promised to see that it was delivered.

  And where was Captain van Ryker tonight? she asked herself bitterly, pondering on the inconstant ways of men. For Vrouw Berghem had told her in New Amsterdam that the captain frequently sailed upriver with his captured Spanish goods to dispose of them at Beverwyck when the Dutch burghers of New Amsterdam did not offer a price high enough, but although Imogene had had Elise make casual inquiries, no one seemed to have seen or heard of him.

  Was he perhaps enamored of some wench in the Caribbean? she wondered, and was surprised and ashamed to find her nails biting into the flesh of her fingers at the thought.

  That the buccaneer captain was avoiding her because he did not want to spoil her perfect happiness would have shocked her—and made her choke with bitter laughter.

  In point of fact, at that moment Captain van Ryker, fresh from a successful voyage and in company with his ship’s master, Barnaby Swift, and his ship’s doctor, Raoul de Rochemont, was just sweeping into one of Tortuga’s better taverns. His entrance caused quite a stir, for van Ryker was not only a popular sea wolf, but was solemnly believed on Tortuga to be the best blade in the Caribbean—and on this night his left arm was in a sling.

  “Aye, ’twas a Spanish blade that pierced me,” he laughed in answer to a gust of eager questions. “But not the blade from the front—’twas the blade from the side and he’d have spitted me, too, had not Barnaby here cut the fellow down.”

  Young Barnaby flushed proudly and his chest expanded a bit. It was very pleasant to hear his captain give him credit for saving his life—although Barnaby was morally certain that had he not intervened van Ryker would have swung around and demolished both opponents in a series of lightning thrusts. Barnaby was very impressed by his captain’s prowess—he had reason to be: he’d seen van Ryker fight five men on the slippery deck of a Spanish caravel and come out almost unscathed. There was good reason for the lean buccaneer’s awesome reputation.

  The three newcomers seated themselves, calling careless answers to the grinning pleasantries that were tossed their way. From the back, through a forest of arms and tankards upraised in raucous greetings, a new tavern maid picked her way. She had a thick shock of long black hair that fell loose to her hips and a pair of jingling gold earrings—gift of a buccaneer who had already drunk himself under the table. Her gray linen apron was tied on carelessly over a red satin kirtle that had seen better days, and her shoe soles were nearly worn through, but she had a saucy smile and a swaying walk that made men notice her rippling bust and slender waist and the curving outthrust line of her hips and bottom. A curtain of black lashes shadowed her dark eyes as she rested her knuckles on her hips and asked the buccaneer captain in a sultry voice what he would have.

  “Faith, I'd have her," muttered Barnaby to the ship’s doctor.

  Raoul de Rochemont studied the girl’s challenging smile and lavish bustline—hardly fettered by the thin white cotton blouse she wore. “Ye’d be right, Barnaby,” he muttered, arching his head about. His eyes lit with admiration. “Mon Dieu, what a charming derrière!"

  But the black-haired barmaid’s attention was all riveted on the famous Captain van Ryker, who returned her scrutiny with a wary grin. He’d bedded barmaids in Tortuga before and had found them an adventurous lot. One of them—uncaring of his dangerous reputation—had even made off with his purse and watch! He’d not had the heart to pursue the wench, for it had been a splendid evening—not that he could have, for she’d promptly stowed away on a ship bound for God knew where.

  “Your best Spanish wine all around,” he told her. “I’ve acquired a liking for it from lifting so much of it from their vessels!”

  A hoot of general laughter greeted the captain’s remark and the dark barmaid sidled away with a sidewise glance at him. When she returned with a bottle of good Malaga, Barnaby edged down the bench and made room for her. He patted the bench. “Rest your feet a bit,” he suggested.

  “I don’t mind if I do.” Cheerfully, the black-haired girl swung a leg over the bench—being careful to display a long expanse of white le
g along with a swish of chemise. Sitting down by Barnaby had placed her next to van Ryker and now she moved a little closer to him, edging her leg against his lean thigh.

  “Have some wine,” said the captain equably.

  “There’s no glass for me,” She smiled up at him through her thick forest of lashes.

  “Here, ye can share mine,” offered Barnaby, quickly reaching around her with his glass so that she came within the circle of his arm. “What’s your name, lass? For I don’t remember seeing you here before.”

  The girl turned and gave Barnaby a faintly irritated look; it was the buccaneer captain she’d set her sights upon—not his young ship’s master. “Aye, I’m new here,” she agreed. “My name’s Kate.”

  “I’m surprised to find a likely lass like yourself in this rough place.” Barnaby was determined not to be outmaneuvered by his captain—who needed rest, he told himself solicitously. He was pleased to observe his captain launch into a conversation with de Rochemont, leaving him a clear field. “D’ye have no protector, then?” he wondered.

  Kate, who regarded her voluptuous charms as sufficient bait to attract any number of new “protectors” at will, gave Barnaby an astonished look. “I need no protector with a brother like mine. He’s laid up just now, recovering from a fever he took on shipboard after we fled England, but once he’s up and around I’d match him against any man.” Her voice rang out proudly. “Ye’ll no doubt have heard of my brother—Gentleman Johnnie’s his name.”

  Van Ryker heard that and his conversation with the doctor was arrested in mid-sentence. This was Stephen Linnington’s first wife—the black-haired highwayman’s sister! His dark head swung round in surprise to get a better look at her. The lustrous wench now had his full attention.

  “I see ye’ve heard of my brother. Captain van Ryker.” The sultry voice sounded pleased.

  “Aye, and I’ve heard of you, too—through a friend of mine. Stephen Linnington.”