Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  In his river-bluff castle, Verhulst van Rappard, patroon of vast Wey Gat, sat alone with the moon and considered his life. He was not very happy with what he saw. For he was guiltily aware that he was neglecting his estate’s affairs in an effort to subdue his young wife, to make her into the pliant female he wished her to be. By God, she was keeping him from his work!

  In his ever-present terror that she might escape him, Verhulst feared to leave the house without locking Imogene in her room lest he return to find her gone. Even today had brought him humiliation when a riverboat sloop, the Onrust, had called at Wey Gat. The sloop’s schipper had always been friendly with him and normally Verhulst would have invited the schipper to stay the night in the great house. Tonight, driven by his anxiety over lmogene’s imminent escape, Verhulst had locked Imogene in her bedroom and entertained the schipper at dinner, making the excuse that his wife was ill.

  All on the river, he was privately convinced, knew that Imogene was not ill, and he had been ruffled by the schipper's steady distant gaze when he spoke volubly of his wife’s frail health.

  Imogene was destroying everything for him!

  The riverboat schipper, who should have been staying in one of the guest bedrooms of Wey Gat, was sleeping aboard his sloop this night, Imogene was locked in her room, and he, Verhulst, lord of the manor, was sitting alone glaring at the moon.

  Why could he not control this frail slip of a girl he had married?

  But no man, Verhulst was coming reluctantly to realize, could permanently break Imogene’s rebellious spirit. For long periods he had locked her in her room, he had even denied her food until he was afraid he would damage her health—nothing worked with this desperate English beauty who held his heart in a vise. She seemed more frail of late, and her cheeks—being denied her usual outdoor diversions—had lost their bloom. But somehow her increasing fragility only made her the more appealing. Her pallor worried him, but it did nothing to diminish her enchanting loveliness.

  It was her lustrous beauty that held him in thrall, he told himself, shifting his booted legs restlessly upon the hearth-rail and morosely pouring himself another glass of Madeira, her damnable ethereal beauty. Just seeing her move sensuously from room to room, or watching her stand outside on the bluff—as he had not allowed her to of late—with her bright hair blowing like the bright fall leaves in the wind, caught at his heart. She was like a drug to his senses that he could not shake off, she was like an addiction—he told himself he despised her, wished to rid himself of her—and yet he could not do without her.

  By day he would watch her move about and was warmed by what he thought was his hatred for her. He had done everything for Imogene, he told himself, given her everything—a home, a name for her child, jewels, furs—what more could he have done? And yet he saw in her haunted delft blue eyes every time he looked at her a desire to run from him, to escape him!

  Convulsed by sudden anger, Verhulst almost choked on his wine. He set his glass down hard on the polished arm of his chair, thinking of the woman locked above him in her bedroom. Was she in bed now, one arm flung outward on her pillow like a child’s? Or was she still up, standing in some stage of undress, perhaps viewing herself in the big gilt mirror? Had she removed the silken stockings from those lustrous legs? Was one rosy nipple peeping from the top of a chemise whose neckline had fallen carelessly low? Pain twisted in his groin at the memories of her lovely flesh, glimpsed through the keyhole of his adjoining room. Well, now her room was down the hall from his, he could watch her no longer.

  He twisted about in his chair, trying not to envision lmogene’s naked loveliness. He had never loved her, he told himself roughly—and at that moment he honestly believed it to be the truth. Imogene was merely another lavish ornament he had bought for Wey Gat—bought with good Dutch guilders.

  Involuntarily his glance roved upward above the mantel to the likeness he had had painted of her in Amsterdam. Not a very large portrait, nor by a celebrated painter, and yet the artist had managed to capture Imogene’s roving spirit on canvas. The sparkling blue eyes flung a challenge, the mouth curved softly on the brink of laughter.

  There was a companion portrait, one of himself, but he had rejected it, saying that the chin appeared too weak, the mouth a trifle slack, the eyes shifty. Imogene, who liked the artist and did not wish to see him deprived of payment for his work, had cajoled Verhulst by insisting that the painter had exactly captured his coloring and had made him look very distinguished indeed. Mollified, Verhulst had paid the artist, but on arrival in America he had stuck the portrait away to gather dust. The portrait of Imogene was another matter. Looking up into that reckless laughing face he again fell under her spell.

  Verhulst passed a trembling hand across his line of vision and reminded himself that those lovely eyes had looked into another man’s face before him—with love and surrender. Those lovely lips had been tasted, enjoyed. That fair form he had thought so virginal, so untried—his thin hands clenched and a tremor went through him—that lovely “virginal” body had been held in naked carnal passion by another man. He rose giddily and his fist struck the wall so hard that blood spurted. He bellowed for his groom, ordered out his horse and rode the poor beast in the cold night until it was lathered and foaming with sweat. But even so he could not exorcise his devils. Imogene rode with him wherever he went: On the river, inspecting the bouweries, boarding the sloops of passing traders to inspect their goods, wherever he went he carried her picture engraved on his heart. A haunting, tempting vision would rise up before him—of a wanton! His face would empurple with rage.

  But in other, softer, moods he saw her as she had been in Holland, greeting the morning with a song. Pure, virginal, she had seemed, lovely as the dawn, a woman made for love.

  She was neither extreme, of course. Imogene was a woman with a woman’s frailties and a woman’s strengths. And on this late autumn night, as Verhulst glowered cursing belowstairs, she listened for Elise’s soft scratching at the door. Now she heard, even through the heavy panels, Verhulst’s bellow for his groom from below, and minutes later she went to the window and saw him riding across the pastures and into the woods as if pursued by devils.

  She heard, she saw him—but tonight she did not care. She was through with wondering how to come to terms with her jealous husband, through with giving lip service to the way of life he would force her to live.

  For Imogene, something wondrous had happened.

  Elise as usual had gone down to the sloop when it arrived, hoping forlornly for news of home—it was rare to hear much of England here but Elise was ever hopeful. Imogene of course had been promptly locked in by Verhulst himself and Verhulst had marched away bearing the key. She had been allowed to come down for a light lunch with her husband while the captain was rowed upriver to range among the bouweries with his trade goods—but told her presence would not be required at dinner.

  “Because you are entertaining the captain of that sloop out there?” she had demanded indignantly. “Verhulst, you are driving me mad! Am I never to speak to anyone except you?”

  “You will obey me,” he told her in a sulky voice, and as soon as she had finished her dessert he escorted her upstairs. But as they left the dining room Imogene collided with Elise, who was just walking down the hall. Verhulst reprimanded the woman but Imogene interrupted impatiently. “It is of no account, Verhulst—I blundered into her and not the other way around.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. Elise had set her course for Imogene and at the moment of collision had pressed into Imogene’s hand a folded letter, which Imogene had quickly concealed in the folds of her caught-up brocade overskirt. Her heart was beating rapidly as Verhulst saw her to her room and ceremoniously locked her in.

  Could Bess Duveen, heedless of her penned warning, have answered her cry for help? Could the letter be from Bess?

  Waiting only for Verhulst’s footsteps to recede down the hall, Imogene tore the letter open and held it close to the flickering c
andle by her bed. It was terse and to the point: Imogene, she read in Stephen’s scrawl, Bess has told me of your plight, and that you thought me dead. I am in New Amsterdam, ready to take you and the child away with me downriver and out of this colony. Let me know how and when. The bearer of this letter is to be trusted. I have instructed him to give the letter to Elise, who Bess tells me is with you. Ever your devoted servant. Stephen Linnington.

  Stephen! He was alive! Imogene staggered to the bed and almost knocked over the candle as she collapsed upon it. But how—? Why had he not written before? How could he be with Bess? Her confused thoughts spun round and round.

  Downriver... he would take her downriver, down that river that flowed by the other side of the house, the river she could not see, cooped up here with her windows staring out at the wooded hills. Ah, she had tried to escape down that river before, and found its currents treacherous. They had brought her back to Wey Gat—and Stephen was a stranger here. Good sailor though he was, he knew less of the river than she did.

  The river, she thought bitterly—that damnably beautiful river would be the end of her. For, like her heart, it flowed two ways... toward the heartbroken violent fool she had married and—treacherously—toward a handsome buccaneer captain who had spoken of love and sailed away never to return.

  Verhulst might have overcome her bright memories of the Scillies, of the Sea Rover, had he been less in love with her. But Imogene felt only dimly that he was in love with her. She knew for certain that she could not trust him. Still she might have settled for a safe haven for herself, a rich future for her child. But his all-consuming passion for her had made Verhulst vengeful—and cruel. And so he had lost her.

  So, although for a while her questing affections had flowed back and forth, like the strange and beautiful river that flowed by Wey Gat, at the end her soul had only one guiding star—Stephen.

  On long silent evenings she had wept for his loss.

  And now that she had learned he was not dead, it was like a resurrection.

  Stephen was alive, her copper-haired lover was coming for her!

  But if it was to work, if they were to get away, she must plan carefully. Through the night she lay thinking, remembering her own mistakes, how easily she had been caught and returned to Wey Gat. This time the fox must outwit the hunters!

  When dawn broke over the river, turning the rising mists to pink, Imogene had penned her message:

  I know not how you have come back to me. Indeed it seems a miracle, for I would not have married—I would have waited for you, Stephen—had Bess not written that you were dead, killed in a duel in Cornwall. Indeed I would not have married even then save that she wrote that I had been implicated in Giles's murder and could never return to my own country. I did not know where to turn and when Verhulst offered for my hand. I accepted his offer. It was a mistake.. .as I write this, I am locked in my room, watched every minute.

  Stephen, Wey Gat is not a castle you can storm. Verhulst is all-powerful here. He has men and dogs and guns, and swift horses and sleds, and the fastest sloop on the river—the Danskammer. We cannot count on the Indians to aid us, for they fight among themselves—and might as soon return us to Verhulst as they would scalp us for our clothing. We cannot escape by water or by land—but there is a way.

  Sail upriver to Beverwyck and there procure an iceboat, the fastest you can find. Verhulst had a boyhood accident with an iceboat in which he nearly lost his life. He hates them and will not allow his servants or tenants to sport with them. Be patient, for both our lives depend upon the outcome. Wait until the ice is sound and let me know when you are coming. Elise and the baby can meet you a short distance upriver by the huge blasted tree that was struck by lightning last year—it is a big sycamore, a landmark you cannot miss. But I am closer watched. Somehow I will contrive to steal the key to my room and will wait for you on the ice, crouched beneath the pier. Iceboats travel faster than anything Verhulst can muster. You can sweep me up and we will be away downriver!

  Have a care for your life, for Verhulst has a vengeful nature and I think he would not hesitate to kill us both if he knew I was writing this. Elise will entrust it to your messenger.

  Always your own,

  Imogene.

  In the dawn’s pale light, Imogene read over what she had written, folded the parchment and melted sealing wax upon it.

  Then she pressed an ardent kiss against the parchment, wishing that he who read it could feel the warm pressure of her lips.

  The miracle had happened. Her lost love had been returned to her. Somehow he had found out about her plight and he had come all this way to save her.

  Carefully she secreted the letters in the folds of her voluminous skirt and waited for Verhulst to unlock her bedroom door and escort her down to breakfast. She would find a way to slip the letter to Elise, who would be lurking nearby and then—!

  With brooding eyes she looked out upon the mists that cloaked the meadows and were just beginning to clear away from the base of the woods.

  If Verhulst intercepted that note, if he read it, he might do anything, anything.

  Imogene pressed her hot forehead to the cold glass of the windowpane and consigned her fate to God.

  Some days later, downriver in New Amsterdam, Stephen Linnington tore open Imogene’s letter, laconically handed to him by a member of the river sloop’s crew who had assumed this note entrusted to a servant concerned some minor smuggling operation and accepted his bribe almost carelessly.

  But Stephen, when he scanned what Imogene had written, felt his throat constrict at her simple heartfelt declaration: I would have waited for you, Stephen. It reminded him how he had loved this girl for a season and thought her the loveliest of all his conquests, it reminded him how knowing her had made him reflect on his wild ways and learn what it was to regret.

  And now Bess, his guiding star, the truest, most honest, most compassionate woman he had ever known was waiting for him on Barbados.

  He was torn between them.

  But for now he must rescue Imogene. Whatever happened later. He thought over her plan and decided it had a good chance of success. But in case it did not, he carried besides his sword a brace of pistols.

  He did not know, as he climbed aboard a river sloop headed for Beverwyck, that the crew member he had bribed had talked too much and that Jan Dermeer, one of the patroon’s men, had heard him. Seeking a reward, and knowing—as all at Wey Gat knew—that the patroon kept his young wife a virtual prisoner, Dermeer went back to Wey Gat and, shuffling his feet uneasily, told Verhulst van Rappard that an Englishman named Stephen Linnington had sent a message via river sloop to his wife.

  Stephen Linnington! The patroon’s face had lost so much color that Dermeer feared he would have a stroke. But in a moment Verhulst had regained control of himself and rewarded Dermeer generously, telling him to speak of this to no one. With an enormous effort he managed to hide his feelings from his young wife, and set a close watch on all comings and goings from the estate.

  When an Indian brought Elise a note to be delivered to Imogene, Verhulst intercepted it and read it—and then allowed it to be passed along to Elise. Stephen, ashamed of himself for near forgetting this woman who had borne his child, had written in warmer style, a style that made the blood pound in Verhulst’s temples.

  I will be waiting for you when the moon is high. I have done all that you asked. Come swiftly, my darling, and we will be away on the wings of the wind!

  Verhulst had throttled a desire to crumple the note and shred it. He wished the Indian who had brought it had not run away before he could be questioned. Ah, well, he was from one of the downriver tribes. Linnington would be coming upriver tonight—possibly on skates, for the temperature had dropped so in the last hour that it was a good bet that the river would freeze clear across its surface tonight.

  Verhulst’s gaze grew vindictive. Linnington would find someone else besides Imogene awaiting for him when the moon was high!

 
And downriver in New Amsterdam a dock worker looked up and sighted white sails billowing out to sea. He squinted his eyes and studied her lines—he could not know she’d sailed north in near record time before a gustily strong wind—but he recognized the ship by her size and her gunports and her rakish lines.

  “Look there!” he cried. “ ’Tis the Sea Rover! I wonder what brings Captain van Ryker here so late in the season when the river’s near sure to be iced up?”

  The North River,

  New Netherlands, 1658—1659

  CHAPTER 25

  The moon was high and Imogene was listening tensely at her bedroom door. Beneath her warm woolen dress and multiple petticoats sparkled an astonishing array of jewels and sewn in the hem of her wide skirts was all the gold she possessed. For Imogene well knew that Verhulst van Rappard was not likely to show mercy to a wife fleeing him with a lover. She shivered, sharply aware that tonight’s venture was a desperate one. Jewels and money could buy safety for a fleeing pair—and Stephen Linnington was not likely to have either.

  In her hand was a key. Elise had filched it from Verhulst’s pocket right after supper and slipped it under Imogene’s door. Neither of them dreamed that Stephen’s message had been intercepted. Nor did Imogene guess that Verhulst had followed Elise and seized her and thrust her into a tiny dressing room where even now Elise was clawing free of her bonds.

  As Imogene listened at the door, annoyed by a muttered conversation outside, Elise was slipping down the corridor. She stopped at sight of the two servants the patroon had set to guard his wife’s door. Desperate to warn lmogene that Verhulst knew of their plans, Elise drew back in the shadows to consider. lmogene obviously would not be allowed to leave the house but she, Elise, could slip out with the baby and keep the rendezvous as planned. Yes, that was exactly what lmogene would want her to do! Outside, the ice was freezing solid as cold crept in around the windows. The iceboat could fly past Wey Gat bearing little Georgiana to safety! And later Stephen could scheme to free lmogene—for Elise no longer believed the patroon would injure his young wife; he had refrained from doing so on too many occasions. About the baby she was not so sure, and without the child to worry about, lmogene might find her own way to escape.