“Yes,” she agreed mechanically. “That would be best.” She wondered if he would then say that he must needs journey down to Haerwyck to apprise the daughter there of her good luck.
“I will be gone two or three days,” he said. “For there are other matters that need my attention upriver.”
He left without kissing her good-bye, just turned and left without a word. It told her anew how deeply she had hurt him.
Georgiana went inside the house and sat for a long time in the empty drawing room with her head bowed. She was very pale when she reached her decision. Then she went upstairs, opened her little rosewood writing desk and penned a message, walked swiftly down the bluff and gave it to a whistling fellow in a small sailboat, whom she recognized as one of the grooms. “Say the message is urgent,” she said crisply, and went back up the grassy bluff.
At the front door she met Mattie, who had come out of the house. A pale, almost ethereal Mattie, who twisted her hands together and jumped at shadows and stared constantly down at her new and unbecoming widow’s weeds. “What is the matter?” she demanded anxiously. “I saw you come rushing out and go flying down to the pier and speak to that fellow who is sailing away!”
“Nothing is the matter,” said Georgiana, but her set face belied her words. "I have sent word to Erica Hulft at Haerwyck that I must speak to her.”
“But why?” cried Mattie, who now knew something of the problems at Windgate. “Why would you want to see her?”
“Never mind why now. Go and pack.”
“I have nothing to pack except my pink dress. All my luggage went back downriver on the sloop with Nicolas.”
“That’s right, I forgot,” said Georgiana wearily.
Mattie gave her a dazed look but Georgiana was in no mood for questions. Mattie sat down to await developments.
“When Erica comes, Mattie, I will want to speak to her alone. And now I will go up and pack myself—like you, I will be taking very little.”
She left a startled Mattie trying to understand what that meant. Could it be that Georgiana was actually going to escort her back to Bermuda? Arthur and his victim, Jack Belter, had both been buried without ceremony at Belter’s bouwerie where they had met their end. Mattie had pleaded that she was too upset to attend. In the end it was only the gravediggers and the carpenter who had made their rude coffins who had attended them. So Mattie felt she was free to go at any time. Her only regret would be leaving Nicolas.
Evening brought Erica. She was crouched low in the same small sailboat Georgiana had sent, wearing her fur-trimmed velvet cloak and looking about her nervously. She looked surprised when Georgiana hurried down to the pier to meet her.
“Welcome to Windgate,” she said with irony.
“I had not expected quite so much civility from you,” Erica said frankly, “after I ruined your skating party.”
Georgiana gave her a grim smile. “It was not you who ruined my skating party,” she said with finality. And, then, because she chose not to discuss that line, “Won’t you come in. Erica? I’ve had a bite of supper left out for us.”
Erica walked along beside her, looking about with some curiosity. “Where is Brett?”
“Off inspecting the bouweries. He’ll be gone overnight. We’ll have plenty of time for our discussion.”
Erica missed a step. “Our discussion? All alone? Should I have come armed?” Her manner was droll but her amber eyes were watchful, uneasy.
“No—although I have no doubt you are armed. Erica. Somewhere in the folds of that copper velvet gown there should be a small pistol or at least a dagger.”
“How right you are,” said Erica coolly. “A pistol. Nicolas urged it on me as I left. He told me I might find Windgate a dangerous place just now. I took it he meant that you were dangerous.”
“Oh, I am.” Georgiana's voice was rueful as she ushered her guest into the great hall. “But only to myself. Nicolas should have told you that also.”
“If you choose to speak in riddles, I suppose I must be content.” Erica let Georgiana take her cloak. “What, no servants about?”
“I did not want them to see you. The one who brought you I tipped well to keep his mouth shut. The others have been packed off on duties that would keep them well away from the front of the house.”
“I am almost afraid to eat,” Erica complained, her amber eyes gleaming as they reached the dining room where a handsome repast had been set out. “It would seem you have used all the silver at Windgate's command,” she murmured, studying the forest of silver that encrusted the long table and the big sideboard and cupboard.
“I wished to impress you with Windgate’s wealth,” said Georgiana crisply. “And all that might await you here.” With a graceful gesture she pulled out a chair for her guest and Erica and her velvets sank into it.
“And just what might await me here?” wondered Erica. “Except possibly some poisoned wine?”
“Do not judge me as you would yourself. I am well aware that you tried to kill me there on the ice. Linnet has told me everything.”
“I would Linnet had told me everything,” sighed Erica. “Else I would not have lost Govert! It seems he has sharp eyes too—he saw me throw the handkerchief. I think that is what made him ill. He confronted me with my ‘wicked mischief,’ as he called it on the sloop’s deck after we pulled away from the pier. It had begun to snow then and he stood there with the snow frosting his hair, berating me—it was then he began to cough.”
So Erica had lost Govert!
“Perhaps you can have him back,” she said. “Some cold meat? A glass of wine?”
“Both, if you please. I am expected back at Haerwyck—and they will marvel at my loss of appetite. But I am chilled to the marrow. It was freezing coming up here on that sailboat. Thank heaven for that fire.” She stamped her numbed feet softly on the Turkey carpet beneath her chair and watched as Georgiana lifted slices of cold meat onto her plate from the big silver charger.
“It is possible”—Georgiana took her time in offering her guest rolls and filling her goblet—“that you may have both Brett and Govert back.”
Erica’s eyes sparkled wickedly. “While you ran away with Nicolas, I suppose?”
Georgiana gave her a cold look. “That is what I want the world to think.”
With a roll poised halfway to her mouth. Erica sat considering her. “You are mad,” she said finally. “What could that bring you but ruin?”
Georgiana moistened her lips. Once she said what she had to say, the die would have been cast. If Erica did not agree to her terms, there would be another disastrous scandal on the river. “Everyone knows I left a note for Brett that I was running away with Nicolas.”
“Yes, and everyone knows the note was fraudulent and that Nicolas bears the scars of his folly! His leg is bandaged.”
“I hope he was not badly hurt?”
“Who can tell? He complains so! No, I do not think he is badly hurt else he would not be walking around.”
No, he wouldn’t be, thought Georgiana in a detached way. Nicolas had the devil’s own luck. The sword could as easily have pierced his chest.
“Could you persuade Nicolas to leave Haerwyck tonight on some pretext? Say, to meet you downriver?”
“Probably,” said Erica in a careless voice. “If I furnished him a sloop. But why would I do that?”
“You have access to Govert Steendam’s sloop. You could send him downriver in that.”
“Of course. I could tell Govert that I had forgotten something of great importance, something that must be brought to me instantly—but you have forgotten that he is at the outs with me.”
“Yes, but you are only temporarily out of favor with him—and well you know it.”
“Possibly.” Erica’s smile was complacent.
“So you could order out Steendam’s sloop yourself. The schipper would take your orders—indeed, he is used to taking your orders! And Nicolas could go downriver with a cabin door mysteriously locked.�
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Erica was beginning to look interested. “All this could happen, yes. But—”
“The note, you said, was fraudulent—but suppose the note was not fraudulent and that Nicolas and I really had run away together?”
“I don’t understand.”
Georgiana leaned forward, spacing her words. “Suppose I penned such a note now. Suppose I was seen to run away with Nicolas? Now—tonight?”
Erica bit into the roll thoughtfully. “Brett would come and take you back—as he did before.”
“Suppose he did not know where we had gone?”
“You interest me, but it is all moonbeams and smoke because Nicolas has no intention of disappearing—he means to have Windgate!”
“Yes, but suppose I was seen to leave with Nicolas and then I disappeared? Might it not be thought that he had done away with me?”
“I think Brett would manage to wring the truth out of him,” said Erica slowly. “At the point of a rapier! I have seen him fight.”
“But Nicolas could not tell him the truth if he did not know it.” A frown drew Erica’s fox-colored brows together. “What are you suggesting, Georgiana? Be specific.”
“I am suggesting that the whole world knows you are my sworn enemy. If you spread the word that you had seen me leave with Nicolas—of my own free will—and I was not found, then everyone would believe that Nicolas had lured me away from Brett and when he found that I would not further his claim, that he had killed me.”
“If I said that, I think they might drag the river for your body,” agreed Erica coolly. “But why would either of us do it?”
“Your enlightened self-interest will make you do what I ask, Erica.” Georgiana’s words were blunt; her voice had an edge to it. “You want Govert and you want Brett and you want Windgate. I am telling you that you can have all three—if you will only help me to escape.”
It was Erica’s tum to lean forward. “I am listening.”
“Mattie and I need a sloop to take us downriver.”
“Mattie? Oh, yes, Kincaid’s widow.”
"You will arrange for that sloop. You will be my witness that I left with Nicolas.”
“I would need two sloops for that,” objected Erica. “One to transport you and this Mattie person, and one to transport Nicolas.”
“I don’t doubt you can arrange that too.”
“Yes, there is a trader’s sloop presently tied up at Haerwyck. He goes downriver tomorrow. I don’t doubt a few guilders would persuade him to cast off tonight and keep his mouth shut about it later.”
“There, you see? I said you could arrange it.”
Erica was staring at her. “And tomorrow, when you change your mind? What will happen to poor little Erica Hulft then? They will hang her!”
Georgiana sounded tired. “I will not change my mind, Erica. Indeed, I cannot. I have thought it all out. Nicolas has—has certain information that can destroy me, destroy Brett. I—I cannot let this information be brought out in court. If word has it that I ran away with him and he disposed of me, public sentiment would go against him. Any evidence he brought would be suspect, thought possibly to be fraudulent. Men like Huygens ten Haer may object to my husband because he is English but they are not men who would stomach a wife being snatched from her husband’s arms and killed so that another man might profit!”
“I follow your line of reasoning,” said Erica. “You will destroy Nicolas’s reputation—whatever reputation he has left—but you will destroy yourself as well.”
“Unfortunately, the two deeds are indissoluble. To contrive the one, I must endure the other.”
Erica gave her hostess a keen look across her goblet. “And why would you do this, Georgiana?”
“That Brett may have Windgate, for I will not have him lose it through me.”
Those brilliant amber eyes studied her. “You realize of course that you may be consigning him to me?”
Georgiana nodded. She could not trust herself to speak just now. Her throat was dry, for she knew the truth of Erica’s words. What more likely than that Brett, abandoned, would return to his former mistress? Indeed, that was what she was offering Erica—another chance at Brett, without a wife in the way.
“You must love him very much, to do that,” murmured Erica, toying with her glass.
“With all my heart,” whispered Georgiana, clenching her hands till the knuckles were white, and managing to keep a sob from her voice.
“And this evidence must be very damning,” said Erica softly.
“Very.”
Erica looked disturbed. “There are different kinds of love,” she told Georgiana. “Mine is real enough but it is not so self-sacrificing. I love Brett too but—”
“But you would not give him up to save Windgate for him—even knowing how much it means to him?”
“No.”
“Then we are very different, you and I.”
“Yes.” Erica studied Georgiana’s lovely tormented face. “I can see that. I can see that I ought not to have called you the child bride—you are a woman grown, to have thought of this.” When Georgiana was silent, she got up and began to pace about the room, sipping her wine. “My feet are still frozen,” she complained. “If I were mistress of Windgate”—she turned to Georgiana with a mocking look—“when I am mistress of Windgate,” she corrected herself, “I will have the fires kept burning high.” Her laughter rippled. “That shakes you, doesn’t it? The thought of me here... with Brett, in the firelight. Come now, can you endure it?”
“I can endure it,” said Georgiana steadily. “For Brett’s sake.” For if I do not endure it, all that Brett has worked for for so long will be sacrificed, Nicolas will win and Brett will have nothing, nothing....
Erica paused and leaned on one hand on the long table. She was an appealing figure in her copper velvet, thought Georgiana bitterly. Brett would soon forgive her, and all would be as before at Windgate.
“I must admit I find your proposition fascinating.” Delicately, Erica spun her wine goblet around in her hand, but her thoughtful gaze was not on the goblet but fixed somewhere in the middle distance. Her beautiful face had taken on a wily, scheming expression. “And I am sure that you—because you are, after all, very young—at this moment are expecting me to be noble. You are expecting me to say, ‘Georgiana, I cannot accept this sacrifice on your part. I realize Brett loves you and so I will aid you in your magnificent charade until Windgate’s ownership is unchallenged—and then you may return to your husband’s waiting arms. Of course, you may care to toss me a few baubles, but the main prize will be yours.’ That is what you expect me to say, isn’t it, Georgiana?”
Georgiana shook her head. She was facing up to all that she would lose—lose forever. She could not trust herself to speak just now, her voice might break.
“Because if it is, put it from your mind. I play for keeps, Georgiana. If Brett’s fortune is to be saved—and I agree, this will save him because he will now become a tragic figure in everyone’s eyes, a valorous cuckholded husband fighting a foe who would stoop to anything, even to murdering Brett’s wife. No, Nicolas for all his jauntiness could not stand up to that, it would destroy him.”
“Will you do it?”
“Only if you will swear to me that you will not write to Brett or seek to get in touch with him or let him know where you are. And”—the amber eyes flashed—“if you cross me in this, I will know how to make at least part of the story come true, and you will indeed float beneath the Hudson down to the sea.”
A chill ripple went down Georgiana’s spine. Erica was cool—she would not hesitate to carry out her threat. But that very coolness was the reason Erica would make such a good witness to Nicolas’s “crime”—she would be believed.
“Actually, it would amuse me to see Nicolas tangled in his own web!” Erica’s laughter rippled maliciously. “I enjoy watching him struggle. The battle is always so intense—and so unorthodox!” She became businesslike again. “You and your friend Matti
e can sail back to Haerwyck with me tonight. You can be let off just north of Haerwyck. I just remembered—there is a sailboat; it is small and will not be missed right away, but you could handle it easily yourself and it would take you and your friend downriver in absolute secrecy to New Orange. Coming from Bermuda, I am sure you know how to sail a boat.”
“Yes, I know how to sail, but I have no mind that Mattie and I shall be set adrift in some leaky boat to perish,” said Georgiana evenly. “You will accompany us, Erica. You will see that we make shore in New Orange safely.”
“I see you do not trust me?” The amber eyes flashed gold. “Very well, then, we will take some other, larger boat—together.”
Again that chill feeling. Erica could well have intended to send both the sailboat and its occupants to the bottom of the river. Georgiana realized that she would have to stay awake, to watch Erica all the time.
“If I hear that you have tricked me,” she told Erica coldly, “I will come back and say that you and Nicolas together conspired my death but that I escaped you.”
Erica’s white teeth flashed in the candlelight.“I am beginning to admire you, Georgiana. But you see, my one desire is to get you gone. That has been my only desire from the beginning.”
“Yes, I remember—you did not tell Brett that you had seen me in Bermuda.”
“No, but I foolishly told my brother and he later sold the information to Brett. Claes was ever a fool—I would have paid him more to keep the news from Brett!”
“And perhaps poisoned his wine into the bargain,” suggested Georgiana morosely.
“Come now, don’t judge me so harshly. I never poisoned anyone!”
It was on the tip of Georgiana’s tongue to add harshly “Not yet!” but she needed Erica. Instead she said sweetly, “Would you like more wine, Erica?”
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