Van Ryker, had he been able to observe her, could not have been happier to see lmogene’s plan put into effect.
He came back to find her exhausted from her first efforts at rejoining the world and he lay down beside her, careful not to wake her.
That night they sighted the island of Tortuga and van Ryker was on deck early. He came back to find his lady nibbling at an enormous breakfast.
“We will put into Tortuga shortly,” he told her. “We are just now entering Cayona Bay. Would you like to come on deck and view the quay and the Mountain Fort? They are a pretty sight from this distance.”
Imogene put down her spoon. “I care not for your pirate town or your pirate island! Stephen will take me away from both!”
“I doubt it,” he said indifferently. “Remember, he deserted you before!”
“He will come for me if he can find me!”
“Linnington knows I took you aboard the Sea Rover,'' he told her sternly. “Remember, we were face to face! And all know that I reside in Tortuga when not at sea. My house is well known. Come, I will point it out to you—it overlooks the bay. And Linnington—” his mouth twisted in a wry smile—“knows his way about the Indies, for it was in the Bahamas that I first met him.”
Van Ryker knew Stephen!
“Then if you know him,” she said steadily, “you know that he will find me and take me away with him. No, do not shake your head and laugh. Would you care to wager?”
A wager? This was a show of life indeed! “And what would you have to wager that would interest me?” he asked silkily.
“My jewels,” was her prompt reply.
He gave a short ruthless laugh. “You will have to do better than that, Imogene!”
“I could swear that—that if I lose, I would no longer try to escape.”
He studied her thoughtfully, standing balanced on the lightly rolling floor with his legs wide apart, the very picture of male vigor. “I will make you this wager, Imogene, for I do not believe Linnington will ever come for you: If you will preside over my house in Tortuga as a wife should, if you will entertain my friends and grace my table with your presence—do not look so surprised, I do have friends there. True, they are gentlemen fallen upon evil times like myself—although at times I also entertain the governor and his family. If you will do all this and make no effort to escape—then if Linnington comes and you still wish to go away with him, I promise that I will not stop you.”
“And you will make no further attempt to—to touch me in that way?” Her pale face reddened; it had a desperate look. “You will sleep in a separate room and stay away from my bed?”
“Yes, even that,” he agreed sadly.
“Swear it on your honor as a gentleman!”
A ghost of a smile played about his lips. “I thought you did not consider me a gentleman?”
She brushed that aside. “For this purpose I do. Swear, van Ryker!”
“I swear—but there must be a time limit. Two months will I wait for Linnington—no more.”
“And then?”
He shrugged. “And then you are free to try to escape me, and I to foil your attempts. We will be back on our old basis— daily confrontations between the sheets!”
Her eyes gleamed. “Your hand on it!”
He took her small white hand in his big bronzed one. It was delicate as a feather. He caressed it before she snatched it away.
“You have made love to me for the last time, van Ryker!” she exulted. “You will never humble me again!”
For a terrible wrenching moment, bathed in her victorious glance, he wanted to die. By an effort, he kept his face impassive. “We will see about that,” he said, and turned away. “We are about to make port,” he added tonelessly. “I will help you dress and carry you on deck.”
“I can dress myself!”
“This time I will help you. When you reach my home, you will have a maidservant to assist you.”
Just touching her, just sliding the light blue silk dress with its billowing skirts over her head, was balm to his aching heart. Every rustle of her skirts seemed a melody. Lightly—as if it were the last time—he carried her out and set her upon her feet. “I will walk by myself,” she said, pushing him away. There was a little color in her pale cheeks now, he thought fondly, watching her take her first halting steps along the deck. “Raoul.” He beckoned the ship’s doctor. “Would you take Imogene’s arm and assist her to walk around the deck? I am afraid she may fall.”
Raoul, who had been itching to do exactly that but too leery of the buccaneer captain’s wrath to do so, bounded forward promptly and offered the lady his arm with a gallant bow.
Imogene took his arm with a crushing look at van Ryker and a blinding smile for the ship’s doctor, who looked quite dazzled. As he supported her around the deck, she engaged him in lighthearted conversation—just to make van Ryker squirm.
She was drooping with fatigue when she finished her stroll but she had the satisfaction of seeing a frown bring van Ryker’s dark brows together. “I am practicing,” she told him, “on how to entertain your friends. I think I shall take the air every day!”
“An excellent idea,” he said shortly, and held himself back from helping her to the cabin, where he knew she would sink down from exhaustion—no, perhaps her hatred of him would carry her all the way to her bunk and she could collapse there.
He was leaning on the tafffail, gripping it so hard his knuckles whitened, when Raoul came back and joined him.
“I think she is improving,” Raoul told van Ryker. “Of course she is still very weak and undernourished but her eyes are brighter today and her voice is stronger. I think she has developed what she needed—a will to live.”
A will that he had given her!
“Oh, yes, her eyes are very bright, and her voice snaps with more authority,” agreed his captain wearily. “But the struggle is not over yet. She could slip back.” If word reaches her that Linnington is dead after all. . . .
“You are right,” agreed the doctor quickly. “She needs good food and much more exercise—and she will have them on shore. He hesitated, coughed delicately. “I could come and take her for daily walks in Tortuga, if you approve?”
“Oh, I approve—if you will not find that too great a sacrifice, Raoul,” said van Ryker ironically. “I am sure that Imogene would appreciate it—she prefers any arm to mine!”
The ship’s doctor watched him stride away, busy now for they would soon cast anchor. He knew for a fact that the buccaneer captain had cared for the golden-haired English beauty like a babe, that he had slept beside her, warmed her with his body as they cruised from the cold north to warmer waters. That van Ryker loved Imogene with all his heart, Raoul de Rochemont had no doubt. And yet, the woman would have none of him! Raoul shook his head in perplexity. A Frenchman, he told himself complacently, would have arranged things much better!
BOOK V
The Choice
A toast to the proud lovely woman
Who must seek her own heaven or hell—
Beyond riches or birth, she must judge a man's worth—
Who chooses—and chooses well!
Tortuga, 1659
CHAPTER 31
Two months had passed. On Tortuga, the swift, scented night of the tropics had fallen. Just back from a successful voyage, Captain van Ryker, with his basket-hilted sword swinging against his lean leg, strode impatiently through his iron-grilled front door. He had driven the Sea Rover hard to reach Cayona Bay by tonight. The men had grumbled at the pace he set them but the captain had his reasons. On arrival in Tortuga, he had left his loot from the recently captured Santa Dominica and gone striding toward his white-stuccoed house, ignoring the clamoring crowd on the quay.
For tonight his wager was up! Tonight he could claim his woman!
The captain’s step was springy as he entered the iron grillwork doors of his house, for his keen eyes had sighted a golden-haired woman just retreating through the French doors of her
balcony overhead at sight of him. lmogene—aware that tonight she had lost her wager!
As he moved into the cool, stone-floored hall, his yellowtoothed house servant, Arne, a buccaneer who had lost a leg in the raid on Maracaibo and had since become part of Captain van Ryker’s household, stomped forward on his wooden leg in the torchlight.
“I hadn’t locked the doors yet, Cap’n,” Arne grunted, “because I seen your ship cast anchor in the bay.” He peered past his employer. “Is there men following with chests?”
“Tomorrow, Ame,” was the careless answer. “We ran into a bit of luck so there’ll be several chests.”
Arne’s eyes gleamed. His “Cap’n” was always generous when he returned from these ventures—there’d be pieces of eight for him as well!
Van Ryker was unbuckling his sword as Arne locked the heavy iron grillwork doors and followed that by closing and locking another set of doors—this last pair constructed of thick oak and garnished with heavy nailheads. The house was built in the Spanish style, around a court. The stone-floored hallway where van Ryker stood led out onto an inner patio with a tinkling rose-colored stone fountain in the center. The doors of all the major downstairs rooms opened out onto this inner patio, a stone stairway led up from it to a covered gallery that encircled the patio and the bedroom doors opened onto it. It was a delightfully open plan and in the dusk the hallway entrance was lit by a torch stuck into an iron bracket set into the white-stuccoed wall. Beneath that coating of stucco was a wall two feet thick of stone. While inside, the house was pleasant and open and luxurious, outside it was like a fort, with heavy rooftiles, and sturdy wooden shutters that could be slammed shut across the iron grillwork. For Captain van Ryker was ever aware of the Spanish presence in the Caribbean—Spanish Hispaniola to the south of him, Cuba to the west, and all the Spanish Main to contend with. The Mountain Fort that rose above him, built by the buccaneers to defend their stronghold and commanding Cayona Bay, was considered impregnable. But if it was not—if some night an avenging armada swept down and stormed Cayona Bay, destroyed the Mountain Fort and caught van Ryker on land, he meant to sell his life dear.
Now he looked around him with satisfaction at the handsome furniture that graced the patio. To his left was a chart room where he kept his maps, and on the other side a large reception room where he entertained his guests. Imogene had been startled to meet his friends, he thought with amusement, for these days Tortuga was a flourishing international community. Aside from the ever-present buccaneers who made it their headquarters, it had its more or less permanent residents: doctors—there was always need for them in this brawling place; keen-eyed traders, buying and selling captured goods; go-betweens who arranged ransoms with families in Spain and brought back news of captives in Spanish prisons. Tortuga even sported a governor, sent from France, who sold letters of marque for a price—those pieces of paper that ostensibly made the bearer a certified privateer. Most Spanish officials disregarded these commissions and hanged their bearers anyway. Van Ryker had no doubt what his own fate would be if he were captured. Although he entertained the French governor frequently, he had never purchased any letters of marque.
“How have things been, Arne?’’ he asked. For although Imogene was technically mistress of the house, sturdy Arne was actually in charge when van Ryker was away. If the house was attacked, it was Arne who would muster a defense; if there were money problems, Arne had the keys to a small chest of gold and silver coins which would resolve it until van Ryker’s return.
Arne flashed his yellow teeth at him. “Things has been good, but we’ve missed ye, Cap’n.”
Could that “we” mean that Imogene had mentioned missing him? The thought was pleasant and van Ryker looked sharply at Arne, but the burly buccaneer’s broad face had gone impassive again. “I see ye’ve added more silver studdings to that leg, Arne,” he remarked cheerfully.
Arne favored his wooden leg with a smug look. “All the coins I win at cards, I pound into this here leg, Cap’n. ’Tis my bank, it is!”
“If you have another winning streak, you won’t be able to lift your leg to walk for the weight!” laughed van Ryker, and took a folded paper that grinning Arne handed him with a “This come just now, Cap’n.”
Another invitation from the governor, no doubt, thought van Ryker with amusement. The governor’s lady, who prided herself on her aristocratic upbringing, was all for formality. Even in a climate as hot as this, the poor governor was never allowed to peel down to his shirt in public, for fear the people would “look down on him.” Van Ryker tossed his sword aside and tore open the note as he walked past the torch toward the stairs—and came to a sudden abrupt halt.
The note was not to him, it was to Imogene—and it was from Stephen Linnington. Arne had given it to him no doubt because he was still mystified by Imogene’s status in this household—was she queen or captive? Now van Ryker shook his head irritably as he read that Elise and the baby had gone down with the Wilhelmina—this reminder of her loss could only sadden Imogene. But the ending brought him up short:
I am staying at the Green Lion. I should like to see you. Can you meet me there tomorrow?
So Linnington was in Tortuga!
Frowning, van Ryker crumpled the note. He told Arne to have cook send him a bit of cold meat into the chart room, he’d eat it there. Arne looked surprised, but went to do his bidding. Van Ryker lit a candle from the torch and took it into the chart room, pushed aside a pile of maps from the long oaken table, and sat staring into the flame. When cook lumbered in with a tray of cold meats and brown bread and a bottle of wine, he ate—mechanically, for he had had nothing to eat since morning. A month and more he had been at sea—for he had not been able to bear being so near to Imogene and unable by his very oath to touch her.
And he had come home to find his rival already there. . . .
Now van Ryker hesitated to see Imogene. What should he tell her? Anything? It would be easy enough to have his buccaneers pounce on Linnington and carry him aboard a ship bound for somewhere else, easy enough—his hawklike face darkened—to stride into the Green Lion this very night and challenge the copper-haired Englishman to a duel. They could push back the tables and chairs in the common room and settle the matter then and there.
Van Ryker sighed. He could not do that. If he killed Linnington, Imogene would never forgive him. He shifted his boots on the stone floor, pushed aside his suddenly tasteless food and sat listening to the merry tinkling of the fountain in the patio. He had so looked forward to this homecoming. But now old jealousies were gnawing at him, things he hoped he had put aside. Wearily he passed a hand over his face, pushed back the thick dark hair that fell carelessly over his ears and grazed his shoulders. He must come up with something better than a duel. He drummed his fingers on the table.
Linnington was back—and must be dealt with.
By the time he went up the stairs he had made up his mind. His features were taut but they relaxed into a tender smile as he opened the door and saw the woman lying in her delicate white night rail upon the bed. The windows to the balcony stood open and a scented breeze blew in and ruffled a tendril of her golden hair, spread out like a lustrous shawl in the moonlight. The skirt of her night rail had ridden up, displaying a pair of long gleaming legs, and the blue ribbon that held it around the neck was untied in the heat and the whole thing fell down over one white shoulder displaying in dazzling fashion the pearly tops of her rounded breasts.
Van Ryker stood a moment and gazed at her yearningly. She must have been wakened by the sound of the door opening, for now her blue eyes opened and she gave a start at sight of him. Quickly she pulled her night rail over herself to cover her.
“You are back!” she exclaimed. “Arne did not tell me!”
“He did not need to—you saw me enter the house.”
“Oh—was that you?” she asked lamely. “I saw your ship in the bay earlier, but I thought you would spend your first night home celebrating in the taverns and
dividing your loot.”
“You thought no such thing,” he said, studying her keenly. That untied drawstring at the top of her chemise, the careless exposure of one breast—could that have been artfully contrived? He abandoned the thought, strode toward her and sat down on the bed. She edged away from him nervously.
“We had a wager, Imogene.”
“Yes.”
“It is over today.”
“I know that, van Ryker.”
“You could have escaped at any time while I was gone,” he said quietly. “Why didn’t you?”
She lifted her chin haughtily. She looked very beautiful in the candlelight, exactly as when he had first seen her. “I am not so base! I honored my bargain.”
She was close, temptingly close. Her perfume, the tangy scent of lemons from her golden hair assailed his senses.
“Besides.” She tossed her head. “I was not sure whether the wager was over today or tomorrow!”
He smiled grimly. “You are looking well, lmogene. You seem to have accommodated yourself to the life here. I take it you are enjoying a pleasant social life here on Godforsaken Tortuga?”
She flushed, it was true she had been surprised at the intellectual level of his friends, surprised that she should have a staff of five servants to order about, surprised at the esteem in which her buccaneer was held by all the island.
“As much as any captive could,” she said with asperity.
Well, that was a straw in the wind! So she still considered herself a captive!
He reached out and pounced suddenly upon her wrist and drew her to him, sliding her toward him across the sheets. She could feel the linen rasp across her bare bottom and the underside of her thighs and she gathered herself together to fight him. She looked wondrously beautiful and wild.
Bold Breathless Love Page 44