Brett studied her with some amusement. “I think he would suit you admirably. He has a deep purse and no heirs and he is not young—you should outlive him.”
“Yes, I have thought of that,” said Erica frankly. “And of course that part appeals to me, but when one has known other, more desirable men....” She let her voice trail off significantly.
Down the table her hostess flushed and leaned forward. “But if those men are already taken’”—she tried to keep the anger out of her voice—“might you not be wise to make the best of what is left?”
“It is what I keep telling myself,” said Erica with another negligent gesture. “But, then, I am so hard to convince.” She batted her lashes at Brett again and he grinned widely.
At that moment Georgiana could cheerfully have killed them both. “Sometimes one marries and finds she has made a mistake—that there is a better man available,” she tossed recklessly into the conversation.
“Indeed?” Erica turned to consider her. “I find that very interesting. Could you be more specific?”
“Suitors come and suitors go,” shrugged Georgiana, glad to take this dig at Brett, whose brows had drawn together as he considered his rash young bride. “One is always curious what differences in one’s life a change could make.”
Erica’s delicate brows shot up. “Your bride has hidden depths,” she remarked to Brett. “Indeed, I might have made that comment but I am surprised indeed to hear it from Georgiana’s lips.”
“So” said Brett in a level voice, “am I. Perhaps you would care to be more specific, Georgiana?”
It was a direct challenge. They were both looking at her—Erica with lively curiosity, Brett with a lowering look. Georgiana, who had not meant to go this far, felt cornered—but she was still angry and she had no intention of backing down.
“No,” she said flippantly. “I would not. Old friends, new friends—I suppose one must find some way to while away the idle hours.”
Erica laughed behind her napkin, obviously amused by this interchange between Georgiana and Brett. “I see you have your hands full,” she told him in a low voice as Georgiana led them into the drawing room after supper. “Nicolas must have been here.”
Georgiana overheard that remark and turned around angrily with a swirl of yellow damask skirts. “Nicolas has indeed been here. I found him very charming.”
“Beware,” cautioned Erica. She waved a mocking finger. “He has broken many hearts, has Nicolas!”
“Oh? Is yours one of them?” demanded Georgiana rudely.
“Georgiana did not realize you were but jesting. Erica,” interposed Brett smoothly, and before Georgiana could interrupt to say indignantly, “Because she was not!” he turned to her and there was a note of warning in his tone. “Perhaps you will play a tune for us on the virginal. Georgiana?”
“Oh, yes, do,” cried Erica. “And I will sing for you.”
Brett had taken her hand firmly and was urging her toward the virginal, with Erica in her finery bringing up the rear. Unhappily, Georgiana sat down upon the round stool before the small legless gilt and rosewood spinet that had given her mother so little joy and found herself with unsteady fingers accompanying Erica in a love song, which Erica sang flirtatiously, with stage gestures. She ended by running over to Brett and making him a deep curtsy.
“There,” she cried, leaning over and ruffling his dark hair. “Just like the old days!”
“Not quite,” said Georgiana, rising from the virginal’s stool. “He has a wife now.”
“Oh, but of course I did not mean—” Erica’s voice was deprecating, but with her back to Brett her half-smile challenged Georgiana.
“I think we both know what you meant!” Georgiana stormed from the room.
Brett caught her halfway up the stairs. “Come back,” he said in a low voice. “Control that violent temper of yours. You are making much out of little. Erica meant nothing by what she said.”
“You may call it nothing,” flashed Georgiana, struggling to free her arm. “But I consider that your former mistress has come here to challenge me in my own house and that you are abetting her!”
Brett’s grasp on her arm tightened. “Control yourself.” His tone harshened. “She is listening from the hall. Do you want the whole river to know that you have made a fool of yourself?”
“I have already done that by marrying you!” cried Georgiana in fury. “Erica is your guest—you entertain her. I am going to bed!”
“Very well, you may go to bed.” Brett released her abruptly. “I will make your excuses to Erica, I will say that you are unwell—it may help to excuse your bad temper.”
“Don’t bother!” stormed Georgiana. “She is aware of how I feel about her!”
“But in the morning,” he went on, his manner inexorable, “I will expect to find you in better temper. If not, we had best cancel the masquerade ball.”
“Oh!” cried Georgiana on a wave of indignation. “You wouldn’t! Not after all this hard work by the whole household!”
“It might be best if you cannot control yourself. If you continue in this vein, even a mask will not conceal your feelings and you will indeed become an amusing story along the river.”
“I am already an amusing story along the river,” cried Georgiana. “I don't doubt wagers are being taken as to who will replace me in your bed—Katrina ten Haer or Erica Hulft!” She was trembling now. “I warn you, Brett, not to parade your mistress before me! If you do, I will leave you—there are other arms besides yours!”
From the hallway came faint mocking applause.
Brett looked upset. He reached out to Georgiana—perhaps a conciliatory gesture—and caught her wrist lightly. But for Georgiana it was all too much. She broke free with a sob and ran up the stairs away from him—to throw herself on the big square bed in her bedchamber and sob the night away.
Brett did not join her.
Sleepless, feeling feverish, she wondered if he was sleeping with Erica. By 2:00 a.m. she could stand it no longer and crept to the door of the adjoining room and peered in. The moonlight showed her his long masculine figure in bed—alone. And sound asleep.
With a deep shuddering sigh, she eased the door shut and went back to bed—and at last to sleep.
In the morning Erica apologized. With ease and grace. “I behaved very badly last night, Georgiana,” she said, coming forward gracefully to clasp Georgiana’s hand. “I do hope you will forgive me.”
Georgiana looked at her guest, elegantly gowned in amber velvet with row on row of burnt orange satin ribands flashing around the hem of her skirts and the deep ruffles of her voluminous sleeves as she moved. That gown eclipsed her own tailored blue gray woolen edged in black braid in which she intended to greet her guests, for she would change later into her shepherdess costume for the ball—but no matter, she told herself. One thing at least she had last night decided: she was not going to behave like a child, full of tempers and tantrums, egged on by a malicious Erica.
“Of course I forgive you,” she said distantly.
“My behavior is often outrageous.” Erica spread her hands and made a wide gesture that seemed to encompass the Hudson, indeed the whole world. “Few can find it in their hearts to forgive me.” She gave a deep, heartrending sigh.
“Georgiana has a kind heart,” said Brett, smiling at his wife. “I am sure she will.”
Georgiana gave him a mutinous look. This day and the masquerade ball must be got through somehow, but if he thought she was going to let this sort of thing go on and on—! “Shall we have breakfast?” she asked, cutting off the discussion.
They went in to breakfast on waffles sprinkled with sugared cinammon from the big silver ooma, and delicious little sausages, but Georgiana found she could hardly swallow. Her whole being was seething. She felt betrayed and angry with Brett.
He does not want to give her up, she thought, stabbing at the untasted food on her plate. He does not realize it, he thinks he is being gallant—but that
is not the real reason. She has been his for a long time—his whenever he wanted her And she will be his again whenever he wants her, she has made that abundantly clear. And he does not want to give her up.
The thought was galling. And painful.
Somehow the meal was got through. Georgiana was coldly civil to both Brett and Erica and she kept her eyes mainly upon her plate. She was paler than usual.
Linnet passed by the dining room door and gave her mistress a compassionate look. Forced to sit there like that with Erica Hulft! she thought on a note of rising indignation. No wonder she looks downcast!
But on the whole, Linnet had thought very little about Georgiana and her problems. For Linnet was holding in her heart a secret love and, like other forbidden pleasures, she took all the more joy in it because she could not speak of it openly.
Poor lady, she thought of Georgiana, when she thought of her at all. So soon to be dispossessed! For Linnet was every hour filled with more confidence in Nicolas and his destiny. She had walked casually by the dining room door to make sure they were all still at breakfast—it would give her a perfect opportunity to slip into Georgiana’s room and rummage about and find the packet Nicolas wanted. She felt she would be quite safe in doing that, for Georgiana, with a houseful of guests, would hardly take time out to read the journal and papers she had so carefully secreted. And before she looked for them again, Linnet would have returned them. But when Linnet stole into Georgiana’s room and took away the packet with its, to her, unreadable—for she was illiterate—journal and parchment, she felt a pang of guilt and made herself a promise: If Windgate is taken away from her, I will take her into my service and be kind to her—as she has been to me. Nicolas—Linnet caressed the thought of her golden Dutchman, her patroon—would want me to do that.
What she would do with Brett in such a case, she had no idea. Nor had she given thought to the unlikelihood that proud Georgiana would accept such a position. But fancies like those somehow comforted Linnet, who had never before done anything dishonest or disloyal.
Linnet’s wild dreams would have awakened scorn in Georgiana had she been able to divine them. Fortunately for Linnet she was not.
Yesterday they had gone through a last rehearsal of their plans.
“We are agreed how we will make the switch, then,” Georgiana had told Linnet. “I will come down the main stairway in my rag doll costume but without my mask. I will put on the mask and headdress in full view of whoever is there. And you will go down the back stairway and be waiting for me in the thickest part of that clump of trees out back.”
“I can go all the way to the pond under cover of the brush,” offered Linnet, “for the undergrowth is very thick there. Even though the leaves are all gone, the snow on the branches gives plenty of cover.”
“I will meet you halfway,” decided Georgiana. “You will be waiting behind that big bush where you showed me a stitching of mouse tracks across the snow. We will trade places there. People will have seen me, carrying ice skates, dressed as a rag doll, go into the bushes—they will see you, carrying ice skates, dressed as a rag doll, come out. I will wait there while everybody watches you dance upon the ice. After you have made your last spectacular leap—over the barrels, and do be careful—you will bow and wave to your audience and suddenly dash up the bank. When you reach the big bush, you will take off your skates—and we will trade places again. You will hide in the bushes until you can safely slip into the house and get rid of your costume—hide it well. Linnet. And I will come limping out, carrying my skates and claiming that I turned my ankle in my reckless dash up the snowy bank.”
“You could come out leaning upon Mynheer van Rappard’s arm.”
“No, we will not need Nicolas—and better perhaps that we don’t take him into our confidence. Let Erica Hulft puzzle forever how I learned to skate so well in Bermuda! She will never find out!”
“I think she is dangerous,” said Linnet soberly.
“How so?”
“I do not like the way she looks at you when you are not looking.”
Georgiana did not care how Erica looked at her. She did not like the way Erica looked at Brett. Or the tolerant smile of camaraderie in his eyes when he looked back at Erica. Georgiana was young and jealous. She did not realize that a man might tolerate much in a mistress that he would not brook in a wife.
“One more day to go,” Georgiana had sighed. “And then the party will be upon us, people will be arriving.” And the next day, hopefully Erica would go home! Now that Erica was here, Georgiana hoped fervently that the river would not freeze over—Erica might use that as an excuse to stay until the spring thaw if Brett let her! She wondered what Govert Steendam must think about Erica dashing off upriver to a ball without him. Erica had said vaguely that “pressing business matters” were keeping him in New Orange, but it would not have surprised Georgiana to learn that Erica had taken the sloop without Govert’s permission, lied to the schipper, a self-effacing man who had elected to stay aboard his sloop “the better to see that the crew does not get into mischief.” He might better have addressed himself to the mischief that Erica might get into! thought Georgiana.
But now the day of the ball was upon them and at any minute sloops carrying guests might start arriving.
Right after their silent breakfast Erica managed to find Georgiana alone.
“I think we must have a talk,” she said, smiling.
“And what have we to talk about?” wondered Georgiana, who was at the moment making a last count of the number of table napkins, which suddenly seemed to her in short supply.
“Your husband.” Erica, with her usual directness, came instantly to the point.
The large dining room with its massive furniture seemed suddenly very empty, the world of the river far away.
Georgiana put down the stack of linen napkins she was holding. The count number had departed her mind as Erica spoke. “I do not wish to discuss him with you,” she said bluntly.
“Ah, but it is important that we do discuss him, for we will see much of each other, you and I, if Govert and Brett go into business together.”
“If you’re speaking of the mill, that will be but a small part of Brett’s operations here.” Georgiana’s careless shrug was a rebuff in itself. “I don’t attach much importance to it.” As if to dismiss Erica, she began her count again.
“But it will be more than just a mill,” insisted Erica. “It will be—what is the word? A coalition, a joining of forces. Govert controls many ships, his warehouses are full of the world’s goods, or didn’t you know that? Brett longs for such a coalition, for it would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams.”
Georgiana lost count. Erica went on.
“You see, Georgiana, Brett is in an awkward position as an English patroon in Dutch-held territory. Govert is a powerful man in New Netherland. With Govert’s ships to carry his goods, Brett can enter into the fur trade in a large way. He might even open up the Mohawk Valley. He might—”
Georgiana set down the stack of napkins she was holding. She turned to stare her rival full in the face. “What are you trying to tell me, Erica? That I must tolerate any kind of behavior between you and my husband in order to advance him? Let me tell you now that I don’t intend to do it. Money just isn’t that important to me.”
“Ah, but it is to Brett,” purred Erica. “Windgate is an old dream of his, but it is part of a larger dream. Hasn’t he told you?” Her tone was mocking. “If he has not, you must ask him.”
Standing stiffly by the gleaming dining room table, Georgiana studied Erica. Suddenly she was seeing her as she must have been with Brett—once. When she had first met him. A slip of a girl. Winsome, willing, desirable—perhaps even with a kind of innocence. She was seeing Erica through Brett’s eyes, seeing that graceful small-boned figure free of its corset and stays, willowy, winning. Seeing Erica’s slanted-lashed smiling look as she slipped naked into Brett’s waiting arms.
Her cheeks grew hot at
her own thoughts.
“Come, Georgiana.” Erica had a damnable way of reading her mind. “You must not ponder on the past. Whatever Brett and I had is—over long ago.” There was a note of insincerity in her tone as she said that and it gave Georgiana hope—perhaps Erica had not been as successful with Brett this time as she had hoped to be, perhaps he was being more polite than loving.
“Erica,” she said bluntly. “Feeling as you do about Brett, I am surprised you did not marry him while you had the chance.”
To her surprise, the woman before her winced. “But I did not have the chance,” Erica smiled. “I was not heiress to Windgate. He was saving himself for you, Georgiana.”
Georgiana’s face went wooden. Any sympathy she might have felt for Erica went out the window with that remark. “It might surprise you to know,” she told Erica with heavy irony, “that Brett fell in love with me before he knew that I was heiress to Windgate.”
For a moment Erica looked taken aback, but her aplomb was restored immediately. She wore it jauntily, like a fashionable hat. “That would indeed surprise me,” she agreed airily. “For Windgate comes first with Brett—he loves this land like a woman. No, his love for Windgate is more than that—more like the love of a mortal for a goddess.”
Sadly, Georgiana acknowledged the truth of that statement. “Windgate,” Erica reminded her softly, “will always come first with Brett. Wife or mistress—they will always come second.”
“Exactly what is it you want me to do, Erica?” demanded Georgiana.
“Accept me,” supplied Erica promptly.
“Accept you?”
“Yes, accept me for what I am. When I marry Govert Steendam—and I have decided now that I will do it—I will become very important in Brett’s scheme of things, for I will be able to influence my husband for or against Brett’s interests.” At Georgiana’s indignant expression, she added with a wicked smile, “What is thought to have been gained by day is often lost in the bedroom by night—between different combatants. Govert Steendam is fiercely jealous of me. If I were so much as to murmur that Brett sought to reclaim me, it would ruin Brett in his eyes.”
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