Upstairs, Mary helped Wynter dress with the dressmaker’s help. The wedding dress was made from white silk and trimmed with silver fringe. Small diamond buttons ran down the back of the gown. A diamond and pearl necklace was clasped around Wynter’s throat, and then she slipped her stockinged feet into white satin shoes. Mary pinned up her dark hair with diamond pins. When Wynter put on her white gloves, she nodded to Mary that she was ready.
“I’m so happy for you,” Mary said, and a tear came to her eye as she recalled her own wedding to Jan.
“I’m finally going to marry Cort,” Wynter told her and faced her with a dazzling smile. “My dream of becoming his wife is finally coming true.”
Two hours later Wynter became the wife of Cort Van Linden. The two-mile carriage ride to the church and the ceremony were mere blurs to her. Her happiness obliterated everything and everyone but Cort. When they returned as man and wife to Lindenwyck, the guests had already arrived and were helping themselves to meats and fruits high on silver platters and glasses of imported french wine. Wynter recognized many of the guests as people she had first met on St. Nicholas Eve. They greeted her kindly and wished the happy couple well. But for the most part, the day was taken up with merriment and happy talk. As Wynter sat upon her chair on the dais, she noticed Mikel. The child stood in a corner, and she saw tears running down his cheeks. She turned to Cort.
“Something is wrong with Mikel,” she told him.
Cort glanced towards the boy and made a motion for Mikel to come to him.
“Tell me what ails you, lad,” Cort said to Mikel when he stood in front of them.
Mikel glanced around the room in reluctance, and Wynter thought he was going to cry once more, but he took a deep breath.
“My mother was sobbing in her room earlier. I knocked and asked her what was wrong, but she told me to go away, that I couldn’t help her. I don’t like to see her sad.”
Katrina hadn’t attended the wedding, pleading ill health. Wynter suddenly realized that she wasn’t physically unwell, but sick at heart that Cort was lost to her.
“I’m certain she will be fine,” Wynter told Mikel, and Cort agreed.
“By tomorrow I feel she’ll be quite well,” Cort said to reassure Mikel.
Rolfe made his way through the crowd to reach the newly married couple. “Is Mikel bothering you?” he asked Cort and Wynter.
“Not at all.” Cort noticed the look of displeasure in Rolfe’s eyes and didn’t care for the stern tone he used. He sensed that Rolfe disliked the boy and that Katrina didn’t take the proper amount of time with him that a mother should. Suddenly Cort felt very protective of Mikel and seated the child on his black-velvet-clad legs. “I should like to become better acquainted with my little cousin.”
“As you wish,” Rolfe said to Cort but rested his gaze on Wynter. “May I say that I have never seen a more beautiful bride?”
Wynter inclined her head in acceptance of his compliment, but she felt uncomfortable by the flame she saw burning within the depths of his eyes for her.
Cort leaned close to Wynter. “The wedding feast is at an end. You’re supposed to go upstairs and ready yourself for your bridegroom.”
Wynter’s heart fluttered at his words. If Mikel hadn’t been sitting on Cort’s lap, and if the guests hadn’t watched them so keenly, she’d have given into the urge to kiss her husband. Lena appeared and told her to follow. Wynter dutifully made her way through the grinning throng, then up the stairs to her bedroom.
The dancing flames from the hearth were the only illumination in the bedroom. Wynter waited before the dressing table, arrayed in a nightrail of the sheerest white silk and pink lace. Her hair, which had been perfumed with rosewater by Mary and brushed by Lena, hung in long thick curls down her back. The barest hint of a smile claimed her lips as she walked towards the hearth and warmed her chilled hands.
She was Cort’s wife, his true wife. She still felt unable to believe that after all these months of trial, of despair, they were married. Everything had changed since the night she first saw Cort at her birthday ball. In fact, when the clock in the hall struck midnight, she realized that exactly one year had passed. Her eighteenth birthday had arrived.
With the turning of the knob on the door, she glanced up and her eyes drank in the handsome presence of her husband. Cort entered the room and quietly closed the door behind him. His powerful physique was barely hidden by a brown and gold robe, and Wynter realized he wore nothing beneath it. Her pulses quickened with expectation and a flicker of apprehension. At the moment she felt like a virgin bride.
Lifting her chin with a tanned index finger, he smiled down at her. “You are the most beautiful bride in the entire world, Wynter. After we’ve had our brood of children, I shall still praise your beauty and love you with my whole heart.”
“I love you, Cort. I never thought I could love anyone as much as you.”
“Then let’s begin our honeymoon,” he said eagerly and scooped her into his arms. Wynter laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing him with her when they fell upon the bed.
His lips touched hers in a whisper-soft kiss. A sigh escaped her, and she deepened the kiss of her own accord. Her breasts felt the beating of his heart when he lowered himself upon her, and she wished to be free of the confining nightrail. Suddenly she didn’t feel like a typical fearful bride on her wedding night, but a woman consumed with desire for the man she loved.
“Cort, we don’t have to pretend I’m a virgin bride. I realize you’re holding back, but it’s been so long since we loved one another—”
He broke off her words with another kiss. “I’m as eager for you, my love,” he said and pulled off the robe. With gentle hands, Cort undressed her. With each piece of clothing he peeled away, his hands managed to touch her breasts, her waist, her hips, her thighs. She trembled from anticipation. When she wrapped her legs around him in eagerness, he raised an eyebrow and grinned. “It appears that someone has taught you unladylike habits. I wonder who the bounder may have been.” He twirled a long curl around his finger, driving her wild with his self-control.
“You’re well aware that the ‘bounder’ was yourself, Cort Van Linden. And, yes, I do admit to unladylike habits, but only with you.” Her voice became a husky whisper. “Only with you.”
He groaned her name and slid inside of her. She didn’t care that he hadn’t aroused her further. Just his presence could awaken desire in her body and her heart, and to feel his manhood pulsating within her again, to know that Cort was now her husband drove her to the brink of ecstasy. Loving Cort was such a mind-drugging experience that she could barely recall making love to Fletch. In fact, the moments with Fletcher had dimmed and become lost in the fog of her memory. This wedding night consumed her totally, and after she and Cort cried their pleasure in unison, she wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that her flesh had been singed by Cort’s possession of her.
Minutes later, Wynter found herself falling asleep against Cort’s chest. She felt a nibbling on her shoulder, and when she opened her eyes, Cort was dangling a diamond-and-emerald-encrusted pendant above her head.
“For you, Wynter. A happy birthday to my wife.”
“You remembered my birthday.”
“Don’t sound so disbelieving. Of course I remembered it.” He leaned on his side and frowned. “If I recall, it was one year ago today that I met a very spoiled but beautiful young lady who slapped me soundly when I kissed her.”
“I apologize for slapping you.” Her fingers tenderly stroked his cheek.
“You should have slapped me. If you’d known what I was thinking at that moment, how I wanted to undress you and ravish your body there under the stairwell, you’d have been within your rights.”
She took the necklace and clutched it to her breasts, then she kissed him long and deep. “What you don’t know, Cort, is that I’d have let you,” she said when their lips parted.
“Vixen! “he growled.
�
��Lover,” she whispered.
Their lips and bodies met again. Though a snowstorm raged across the countryside and dropped snow on the roof of Lindenwyck until thin, pointed icicles formed and hung from the eaves, Cort and Wynter didn’t hear the wind or feel its cold sting. Burrowed beneath the heavy quilts and snug in each other’s arms, they slept, truly together at last.
CHAPTER
29
A month after their wedding, the ice started to break up in the North River. Soon Wynter noticed a number of sloops making their way to New Amsterdam. The weather, though still quite cold, was bearable when the sun warmed the landscape and colored it with its yellow hue.
Wynter began to love Lindenwyck, the warmth of their neighbors who paid unexpected calls, the kindness of Lindenwyck’s farmers. She also grew fond of Gerta. The woman was friendly, and Lyntje responded to her from the first minute Gerta held her in her arms. Sometimes Wynter caught Gerta watching Rolfe with eyes of love, and Wynter knew then that her first impression about Gerta had been correct. She loved Rolfe. How Rolfe felt about her, Wynter didn’t know. But she hoped that if Rolfe and Gerta were lovers, Rolfe found some happiness with the woman. Certainly he didn’t find any contentment with Katrina.
Wynter and Katrina had called an unspoken truce, or so it seemed. Katrina was never outwardly hostile to her. In fact, at the table she was quite pleasant. Though Katrina attempted to mask her feelings, Wynter realized that she still loved Cort, and she pitied her. She knew now that Cort didn’t love Katrina and would never return the emotion. However, Wynter was puzzled as to why Katrina suddenly seemed to take an interest in Mikel and bragged to Cort about how the boy’s governess exclaimed over his intelligence. At one point, Katrina even ordered Vrouw Tyssen into the room to tell Cort herself about Mikel’s progress in the classroom. At other times, she’d encourage Mikel to engage Cort in a game of nine pins or cards.
Wynter found this behavior baffling, and soon realized that whenever Cort held and played with Lyntje, Katrina and Mikel were near at hand.
One early March afternoon, a servant called Wynter from the nursery with the news that a visitor had arrived. “It must be Vrouw Andressen,” Wynter said to Gerta. “She told me last week at church that she might pay her respects this week.”
She hurried downstairs, her housewife’s keys clinking at her waist. The large smile on her face wilted when she beheld her guest, sitting primly in the sitting room. Though Lucy had on a cloak with hood, Wynter would have known her sister anywhere.
Lucy stood up when Wynter entered the room.
“Don’t look so horrified, Wynter. I’m really here.”
“I can’t believe it. What are you doing at Lindenwyck?”
“Begging.” Lucy pulled the hood from her head to reveal a few auburn tendrils which had escaped the tight knot of hair at the nape of her neck.
“Lucy, tell me what happened.”
Wynter sat next to her sister and listened to the news of Debra’s death, of how Adam had gambled everything away until the debts had to be paid with Somerset House and McChesney Manor. “There are still many debts that haven’t been paid,” Lucy told her. “I doubt if they will ever be, but I shall not stay married to him another minute. I intend to file for divorce, annulment … whatever I can get without a great deal of difficulty. Do you think you can let me stay here awhile, Wynter? I’d like to start life anew.”
Wynter felt touched that Lucy would confide in her. Of course, Lucy might be using her to escape an unpleasant situation at home, but Wynter sensed that Lucy had come to her because she cared about her. Wynter wouldn’t turn her out, no matter what had happened in the past.
“I’d be delighted for you to stay here. Cort will be glad to see you again.”
Lucy giggled. “Captain Van Linden is your husband. I can’t believe you married that man, but, Wynter, I think he is a good man, a better man than Lord Somerset could ever hope to be. Fate plays tricks on us sometimes.”
Wynter could attest to that sentiment. Though gladness to see Lucy again filled her, her eyes misted with tears. “McChesney manor is lost to us now.”
“Yes. Lost as if it never existed.”
“One more reason why I loathe Somerset.”
“Dear Wynter, I have a thousand reasons to detest the man!”
Their conversation was interrupted by Dirk, who appeared in the doorway.
“Sorry, vrouw,” he said and doffed his cap after Wynter introduced him to Lucy. “But I have finished the wooden rocking horse for Lyntje. It is in the vestibule.”
Wynter exclaimed over the superb craftsmanship after she and Lucy followed Dirk to examine the hand-crafted horse. “You do lovely work with your hands,” Lucy complimented him.
“He always has. Dirk makes many of the furnishings at Lindenwyck now,” Wynter told her. Seeing a servant, Wynter halted the woman and followed her up the stairs to help prepare a room for Lucy.
Lucy watched in fascination as Dirk’s hands moved over the smooth wood, stroking it like a lover. She found Dirk to be a rather unkempt-looking man. His hair was stringy and long, and most certainly his clothes needed mending. But when he looked up and smiled shyly at her, her heart melted.
“You have strong but gentle hands,” she said without thinking.
He appeared offended and stood up. Grabbing the wooden horse, he made a slight bow and scurried from the room like a frightened mouse.
Lucy didn’t see Dirk again for the next few days, but whenever she chanced to think about him, she imagined his hands moving across the wood … moving across her own body.
The sound of barking dogs roused Wynter from dreamy slumber. Turning onto her side to snuggle against Cort’s warmth, she found only the chill of the sheets.
She opened her eyes. The hearth fire had long since burned out and a damp chill permeated the room. She noticed that the bedroom door had been thrown open in apparent haste and that Cort’s wardrobe door was ajar. Getting out of bed, she pulled on her slippers and robe and went out into the dark hall.
All was silent except for relentless barking of the dogs. She shivered and found her way down the two flights of stairs to the vestibule. Lena stood with a candle by the front door and peered into the starless night.
“Has something happened?” Wynter asked in alarm when she noticed the flicker of torches streaming like comets across the grounds.
Lena nodded, her night cap bobbing slightly with the motion. “Someone sneaked into the smokehouse and stole a ham. One of the servants saw the man and reported the theft to Rolfe. Rolfe has called the dogs on the thief.” Lena clucked her tongue. Wynter felt that those were extreme measures for a ham. She inquired as to Cort’s whereabouts.
“On the lawn. He refuses to hunt down the man and is much upset by Rolfe’s tactics.” Lena raised her hands in a gesture of futility. “But Rolfe is the patroon and must be obeyed.”
Pulling her robe closer about her, Wynter rushed outside, oblivious to Lena’s call to stay inside the house. She noticed Cort immediately, and when he saw her, he frowned.
“You should not be outside. The night is cold, and you might catch a chill.”
“I wanted to see what was happening,” she told him.
He placed a protective, warm arm around her shoulders. “My cousin is protecting his domain, I fear, in the worst possible way. The dogs were used when my uncle was alive only to hunt down those who stole something of value, or to track down rebellious Indians. Never to kill a hungry man.”
“You must stop him,” Wynter urged.
“I tried, but Rolfe wouldn’t listen to me.”
They waited with arms around one another until the voices of men and growling dogs, heard in the distance, grew closer. Rolfe stalked ahead of a group of tenants who carried the prone figure of a man. She recognized two of the men who led the dogs on leashes as Larsen and Fredrik, the tenants who controlled the animals. In the gleam from the torches, Wynter saw a devilish spark of triumph in Rolfe’s eyes. But when he
realized she watched him in repugnance, he stopped still. The men placed the dead man on the cold ground before the patroon.
The picture of the bleeding man was more than Wynter could bear. She turned her head away from the gruesome sight but felt Rolfe’s hand on her arm. “I’m sorry you had to see such a scene, Wynter, but this man must be a lesson to all that no one steals from Lindenwyck.”
“The man may have been hungry, Rolfe. He might have needed to feed his family. There was no need to use such deplorable means to catch a thief.”
Rolfe’s face hardened. “I see you mimic your husband’s sentiments.”
“Wynter has a mind of her own,” Cort interjected, none too gently.
“I want to go inside.” Wynter laid her face against Cort’s chest.
Cort and Wynter turned to leave, but she heard Rolfe’s voice and trembled because his words sounded ominous, like a warning directed towards her and Cort. “No one steals anything which is mine and lives.”
“I fear Rolfe is slightly insane,” Cort told her after they were in bed and safe in each other’s arms.
Wynter thought that Rolfe was very sane and very heartless.
CHAPTER
30
“Do you think we have enough food?”
Wynter looked up from packing her picnic basket at Lena’s question and laughed. “I fear if we eat all we’ve packed, we shall turn into fat toads.”
Lena surveyed the many baskets containing poultry and pork and various vegetables, plucked fresh from Lindenwyck’s gardens. “Ja, but I hope there’s enough for everyone. Today is special to the tenants of Lindenwyck. Ever since that awful incident with the thief a few months ago, I fear some of our tenants hold the man’s death against Rolfe.”
Pirate's Golden Promise Page 28
