Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “So?” said Raoul indifferently. This would not be the first time a servant had deserted her mistress in time of stress. It never occurred to him that “her” referred to Imogene—he assumed the baby was the maidservant’s.

  “So the Wilhemina has already departed, bound for Jamaica,” said Willem in a strangled voice.

  “No doubt the maidservant had her reasons,” said Raoul indifferently and hurried out to overtake the litter, hoping he could do so without breaking his neck. In the distance he could see his captain’s form disappearing in the direction of their vessel.

  With a song in his heart, the tall buccaneer strode along with Imogene limp in his arms. She was so bundled up that he appeared to be carrying a heap of blankets. He held her with great gentleness and so springy was his joyful step that she rode feather light—for now that he had found her he never doubted that she would soon be well again. Well again—and his! For he would win her from Linnington—he would win her from anyone! He walked in happy silence with his dreams of bright tomorrows, but prudence had not deserted him. He had three burly buccaneers bringing up the rear in case anyone should challenge him. For van Ryker was well aware that the woman in his arms was another man’s wife and he intended to surrender her to no one—least of all her husband.

  Many thoughts prowled his head. So Imogene had been desperate enough to run away—and he had thought her so happy.... He frowned, wondering why she had not contacted him. She must have known that he would have stormed northward and battered his way into Wey Gat and taken her downriver out of the colony though every gun of Fort Amsterdam blazed at him!

  Instead she had contacted Linnington. The lean buccaneer shook his head as if to clear away cobwebs and his jaw hardened. The little yellow brick houses were going by on both sides of him now but he gave them never a glance. Instead he faced the world with a new resolution, a new purpose in life. Whether Imogene had sent for Linnington or whether the copper-haired Englishman had gone to fetch her on his own account and found her willing made no difference now. For van Ryker felt—incredible as it seemed to him—that he had heard her calling him from far away, heard her calling all the way to Spanish Town, all the way to Carolina.

  Tenderly he cradled the limp burden that was the woman he loved more than he loved his life, tenderly he carried her— checking occasionally to make sure that the light blanket flung over her head so that the cold air might not sear her lungs neither suffocated her nor pressed upon her wound—through New Amsterdam’s snowy streets. Ignoring the stares of the curious and the greetings of friends alike, he strode on without stopping until he reached his vessel.

  For now he was a man with but one purpose, one resolve: He was going to make his lady well!

  The Sea Rover,

  1658-1659

  CHAPTER 27

  “Her husband will come for her, you know,” warned Raoul de Rochemont when at last he came aboard with two buccaneers following, loaded down with the fresh produce van Ryker had ordered. “This is no ordinary woman you have kidnapped—this is the wife of a patroon!”

  “So? Let him come!” Van Ryker was busy picking out the finest of the fruits to bring to Imogene when she waked.

  “He will not come as a lone gentleman to duel with you for possession of his wife,” said Raoul, vexed. “He will come with all the men of Wey Gat and half the colony of New Netherland streaming behind him, all demanding the return of this woman!”

  Van Ryker looked up. “D’ye think I would give her up, Raoul?” he asked softly.

  “I suppose not,” the doctor sighed.

  “Cheer up.” Van Ryker clapped him on the shoulder. “They will find us gone on the next tide. Tell me, was Culp happy to receive Linnington?”

  “Not happy—but willing.” The ship’s doctor massaged his chilled hands. “I gave him gold for Linnington’s keep and Culp’s wife informed me she had an Indian servant who was wise in ‘Indian medicine,’ whatever that is. Linnington looked worse when I left him—and no wonder, the bearers slipped on the ice and dropped the litter when we were halfway there! ’Twas a miracle it did not open the wound. Mon Dieu, but it’s cold out there!” He let van Ryker lead him to the great cabin where Imogene lay enthroned in the big bunk wrapped in the finest linens and blankets the ship possessed. “I find no change,” he said dryly, rising from his examination.

  “Then you are wrong,” van Ryker told him in a quiet voice. “For she has already opened her eyes and started to speak—and then lapsed back.”

  And then lapsed back into a coma. De Rochemont’s face was grim. “We must hope,” he said shortly. “I am now worried about the exposure she has suffered.” And then pettishly, “If only we were out of this insufferable climate!”

  “We will be out of this ‘insufferable’ climate tomorrow,” van Ryker assured him. “The burghers here in New Amsterdam were eager for our goods and all will be delivered—and paid for—by tonight. Barnaby is taking care of it. We have already taken on the fresh water—”

  “Ice,” corrected Raoul.

  “As you will.” Van Ryker shrugged. “We have near stripped the town of its available fruit and vegetables. The men have been alerted to spend the night aboard ship. We sail with the morning tide.”

  De Rochement gave him an irritable look. There was something inflexible about these buccaneers. No sailor himself, it chafed him to be controlled by tides and sea-politics that closed one port to a man even while it opened another. Sometimes he wished he had never left his father’s house in Rouen. Then the circumstances of that leave-taking came back to him and he sighed.

  “Keep her warm,’’ he advised.

  Van Ryker nodded soberly and went on deck to give instructions to his men.

  When he came back, Imogene’s eyes were wide open and she was sitting up with the covers thrown back, staring fearfully around her.

  “What is this place?” she cried. And then as van Ryker leaped forward, she shrank back. “And who are you?”

  He came to a frowning halt. “I am Ruprecht van Ryker, captain of this vessel,” he said gently. “And this is my cabin.”

  “But what am I doing here?” she cried. “Where is Elise? Where is Lord Elston? Surely he would not let me be taken aboard some strange vessel while I slept?”

  Lord Elston? “Where do you think you are?” asked van Ryker, puzzled.

  “Why, in the Scilly Isles, of course! If we are on a ship, you have only to look out those windows—” her accusing gaze flew to the wide bank of windows in the stern—“to establish that!”

  “Imogene,” he asked gently, “don’t you remember anything? Don’t you remember that we met, that I loved you?”

  “I don’t believe you!” she cried. “I never saw you before!”

  “It is cold in here,” he said sharply. “Let me wrap you up warmly.” It hurt him that she should flinch away from him as he pulled up her covers.

  Suddenly she gave a cry—something had gouged her. She pulled it out and looked at it wildly. “Where did I get this necklace?” she demanded in bewilderment. “And—” she clutched at her throat—“I am wearing others!” She began to snatch them off and they slid glittering into the covers. “Have I lost my mind, then,” she asked fearfully, “that I who am churchmouse poor am suddenly ablaze with jewels?”

  “I will bring the doctor,” promised van Ryker, pushing her back down into the bed. But when he found Raoul, he said, “You will tell her nothing, Raoul—only that you are the ship’s doctor who tended her when I brought her on board. I do not want her frightened by the circumstances of her leave-taking.”

  But when they returned, Imogene had lapsed back into unconsciousness.

  “The blow on the head has knocked out her recent memories,” the doctor explained. “She may wake again remembering everything or—” He hesitated.

  “Or?” pursued van Ryker.

  “Or she may remember only a part—or perhaps nothing at all. The past may come back to her in chunks, or in bits and pieces, loo
sely from time to time—a tantalizing word here, a name there.”

  His captain’s face was thoughtful, for van Ryker had seized upon a wild new thought: He could now start fresh with Imogene with no rivals at all! He could court her as a man courts an innocent maid—he could make her love him.

  But that night a new problem surfaced. Van Ryker returned to his cabin to find Imogene burning up with fever.

  “It is as I feared,” muttered the ship’s doctor when he was called. “She will throw off her covers and doubtless take a chill.”

  “No.” Grimly. “I will watch her. I will stay in the cabin and take care of her.”

  De Rochemont sighed. A buccaneer ship was not a suitable hospital. “She may alternate chills with fever,” he said. “And you will have to bundle her up.”

  “I will follow all of your instructions. Tomorrow while I catch a nap, you will relieve me.”

  De Rochemont nodded. In his heart he doubted if the woman would live.

  Van Ryker sat beside Imogene, sponging her hot forehead. Patiently he forced liquid down her throat. Suddenly she opened her eyes and looked at him. “I am still here?” she gasped. “But I asked you to return me to Lord Elston, my guardian!”

  “We could not do it,” lied van Ryker smoothly. “A gale has blown us off course and you have taken a fever.”

  “A fever?” She began to shake violently, “l am shivering with cold!”

  De Rochemont had warned him of chills. Van Ryker looked about him with a frown. It was cold in this damned cabin, there was no keeping it as warm as it should be. The heated stones wrapped in cloth at her feet were not enough.

  With sudden decision he rose and began stripping off his clothes.

  “What—what are you doing?” asked the woman on the bed through chattering teeth.

  “I am going to warm you—with my body,” he said quietly.

  “No, you are not!” Imogene tried dizzily to sit up but he strode toward her and pushed her back down. She struck at him weakly.

  “Save your strength,” he ordered. “I promise no impropriety but I am going to make you well.”

  “No im—” Imogene fought him as he swept back the covers and climbed in beside her, seizing her in a grip she could not break.

  “Lie still,” he commanded.

  Imogene screamed.

  Feet pounded to the cabin door. “Go away!” roared van Ryker, and cursed as she bit his hand. He got her back to him, circled her waist with arms that seemed to Imogene like bands of steel. Still she fought him, gasping and choking. He had pinioned her flailing arms by now, wrapped his lean bare legs around her own so that her back was against his chest and her buttocks pressed against his groin, and was holding her immobile. In spite of the chills that gripped her, Imogene began to feel warmer.

  The doctor’s voice came from outside the door—someone had obviously called him. “Are you all right in there?” he called.

  “No!” screamed Imogene, fury giving her strength. “This man is raping me!”

  “Captain,” began Raoul in an injured tone. “I tried to tell you that the lady is in no condition—” He was leaning against the door as he spoke. Unlatched, it gave way beneath his weight and swung open.

  Van Ryker looked up from the bed. His head rose from the pillow so quickly that his dark hair swung about and the gray eyes that bored into Raoul’s astonished dark ones were wickedly angry. Van Ryker’s shoulders came up out of the covers in a fluid gesture and he reached over the bunk and hurled a bottle at Raoul, which that gentleman barely managed to duck.

  “Get out!” bellowed van Ryker. “Nobody’s raping the lady—she’s had a chill and I’m trying to keep her warm!”

  “Mistress,” began the doctor in fright, “I assure you this gentleman has no intention—”

  “We don’t need your assurances!” roared his captain. “We don’t need a go-between! We can talk this out ourselves—we’re in bed together! Get out or I’ll shoot you in the leg and they can carry you out!”

  “Yes—of course. Mon Dieu, yes!” The Frenchman retreated in confusion and wiped his brow. Even his mustache was trembling. The man in the bed—frenzied with worry over that woman— had seemed mad enough to carry out his threat. Carefully, he closed the door and went back to his own cabin.

  Alone again with Imogene, van Ryker tried to comfort her but she had gone limp in his arms. Half-mad with worry, he massaged her hands and feet. If only he could give her his strength! As gently as he would have held a child, he cradled her against his broad chest. He breathed into her hair and when he inhaled he caught the faint scent of lemons he had noticed so long ago.

  Her body was warmer now, absorbing body heat from his. Tenderly he massaged her cold fingers, flexed and rubbed her toes, her instep, her ankles. He roused the circulation in her arms and legs. He held her close, as if to protect her from harm and prayed—he who was so unused to praying—for her recovery.

  God, in your mercy, let her live!

  There were unaccustomed tears shining on his lashes. Even through her clothes the touch of her body was a sweet torment, reminding him how much he wanted her. Her buttocks were cradled against his groin and he felt a wave of feeling every time she stirred restlessly. With iron will he held himself in check. Imogene needed all her strength—and all the care he could give her.

  Morning found him haggard and worried. The ship’s doctor, eager to make amends for his mistake of yesterday, tried to distract him. “Did you know Elise had a child?” he asked when van Ryker came on deck. “Willem told me he had put the maidservant and her child aboard the Wilhelmina bound for Jamaica.”

  A child! Van Ryker remembered sharply the deep rosy tint of Imogene’s nipples as he had gently unbound her tight bodice so that she might breathe more freely. And had not she announced her pregnancy that night at the Governor’s Ball?

  In consternation he seized Raoul’s arm. “That kindly old bag of bones has borne no child. The child is Imogene’s! When she wakes and remembers, she will call for her child—and we will not be able to produce it. Damme, Raoul, why did you not tell me this before? We passed the Wilhelmina beating south!”

  “Perhaps we can still find her,” cried de Rochemont, alarmed at this second blunder.

  They turned the ship around and tried to intercept the Wilhelmina, but it was useless and they turned south again. How could they know the Wilhelmina had fouled her rudder and been driven straight east by the strong winds?

  But van Ryker had not much time to contemplate Imogene’s newly discovered motherhood, for bringing her aboard had begun a long grueling time for him and for his ship’s doctor. Raoul had more than enough chance to restore himself to his captain’s graces as they labored. Imogene alternated between restless sleep, chills in which she shook so violently that van Ryker feared she would bruise herself against his ribcage, and wild delirium. As the ship beat steadily south, both van Ryker and the ship’s doctor lost weight.

  For the better part of two months Imogene was conscious only for short periods and even at those times her mind was confused: she thought herself back in the Scillies and called plaintively for Lord Elston and for Elise. During that time the Sea Rover had sailed to the Carolinas and her crew had finished making the Swallow seaworthy.

  They were off the Carolina coast heading for Tortuga before Imogene’s fever broke. By now she had become very gaunt and there were great hollows beneath her eyes. Her golden hair came out in handfuls when van Ryker tried awkwardly to comb it.

  But to him as he watched her lying there in exhausted peaceful sleep, no longer racked with chills or burning with fever, she was the most beautiful sight in the world. His Imogene would live! Stumbling with weariness, he staggered out on deck and breathed deep of the bracing winds that swept across the Outer Banks.

  The ship’s doctor came up to him. “Now that the fever’s broken her memory should return. D’ye wish me to be the one to tell her her husband is dead?”

  For by now passing ships had
given them bits of news—and that from Wey Gat had been startling indeed, for all New Netherland throbbed with gossip about the strange funeral, the empty coffins buried with such ceremony in the family plot—and then to cap it all, the patroon being found dead there in the January blizzard!

  “No, I’ll tell her,” said van Ryker wearily. “But in my own good time.”

  He would tell her something else first, he thought. For it had come to him that now that the patroon was dead, Imogene was free. If Linnington had only inhabited that “empty” coffin, he would have no rival at all.. ..

  So it was that after her long sleep, Imogene opened her eyes and found herself looking up into the smiling face of her “damned pirate.” She tried to sit up, sank back dizzily. “What—where am I?”

  “On board the Sea Rover.”

  Her blue eyes widened as they flew over the carved black oak table, the garnet velvet cushions, the heavy gold candlesticks, the gilt-trimmed paneled walls—all the familiar opulence that she remembered. It was as if she had gone back in time! But the man who smiled down at her was not dressed elegantly as he had been when she had seen him last. He wore a clean white shirt with flowing sleeves, open to the waist. A pair of leathern breeches like the boucan hunters wore adorned his legs and he was barefoot like the deckhands, his strong calf muscles as browned as theirs.

  But—she could not be aboard the Sea Rover! She was at Wey Gat and—!

  “Why am I here?” she cried in alarm. “Where is my baby, where is Elise? And Stephen, where is he?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “I saw him shot!”

  “A man named Willem brought you to New Amsterdam by iceboat and sought my aid,” explained van Ryker. “You and Linnington were both badly hurt—you from a blow on the head, he from a ball in the chest.”

  “Yes—oh, I remember! The dog was leaping for my throat and I saw Stephen standing up in the iceboat. He fired and brought the dog down, and Verhulst—Verhulst stepped forward and shot Stephen. The iceboat was coming at me, Elise was screaming and—and after that I don’t remember anything.”