“Go both days,” suggested Georgette, taking a bite of mango.
“Will you come with us?” asked Esthonie, and when Imogene nodded, she called, “You must wear something modest, Virginie. High at the neck.”
“In this heat!" cried Virginie. And then hastily, “I am dressing, Mamma. Give Georgette the key so she can let me out.” Moments later she was downstairs, dimpling at Imogene. “What news do you bring us, Madame van Ryker? It would be good to hear, since I have been so long out of circulation!”
“Never mind asking,” chided her mother. “You overheard everything we said—don’t deny it. And stand straight and try not to sidle so you will look less like a cocotte!” She shooed her daughters into the carriage. They sat facing her, their big skirts billowing, spilling out. “Ramon,” Esthonie leaned forward to give the driver her orders, “I believe we will drive by the church first.”
When they reached the church, Esthonie leaned forward and peered at the grove of pimento trees behind the church where the road disappeared.
No one was in sight.
lmogene stared at that disappearing patch of road too. It wound into the pimento grove, she knew, and lost itself somewhere in a tangle of vines and sea grapes. It would have been very strange if van Ryker had taken Veronique into that grove.
In fact, she could think of only one reason for his doing so. Her cheeks turned rather pink and she turned in irritation to remark to Esthonie that the walls of the solid stone church looked dingy and needed lime-washing.
“It’s this terrible climate,” sighed Esthonie. “The salt air devours everything—even stone. What is that out there in the road? Ramon, stop! Georgette, jump out and see what it is.” Georgette obliged, leaping down from the carriage with a young girl’s agility. “What am I looking for, Mamma?”
“It looked like a gold ring with a stone in it. Pull over there in the shade of that tree, Ramon. We will give her time to look. Georgette, I think the carriage wheel struck it and knocked it away.”
And well it could be, thought lmogene. Gold coins were sometimes found in these streets, why not rings?
In shimmering heat, they waited while Georgette scrabbled about in the road. The trade winds blew softly, rustling the leaves of the big overarching live oak above their heads. Virginie resettled her flowered voile skirts and looked bored. Full twenty minutes must have passed before Esthonie called to Georgette, “I suppose you will not find it. The wheel must have knocked it over into the bushes. Come along.”
“Oh, look, Mamma,” exclaimed Georgette as she climbed nimbly back into the carriage.
Their eyes followed the direction in which she was looking.
Where the road disappeared behind the church, Veronique Fondage was riding out of the pimento grove. She was riding slowly, with a pensive preoccupied air. Her long black hair with its unusual coiffure was disheveled and her lips slightly parted, while her eyes seemed to glow dewily. Seeing them, she brought her horse to a sudden halt and an expression of consternation spread over her patrician face to be instantly replaced by one of lofty disdain. She nodded to them distantly.
“Veronique.” Imperiously, Esthonie beckoned with a gloved hand.
After a moment’s hesitation, Veronique rode over to them, straightening her hair surreptitiously as she did so.
“Esthonie, Madame van Ryker.” She gave a brief nod to the daughters, dismissing them as inconsequential. How smooth and lovely her skin was, thought lmogene. Like heavy silk. And her eyelids drooped languorously so that those amber eyes peered at you like a sleepy cat. Her body was narrow and thin as Georgette’s—if Veronique had a flaw, that was it, for her bustline was flat in the Spanish fashion. Somehow in Veronique’s case that did not detract. Her movements were languorous and eloquent and all attention was centered on her beautiful arresting face.
Esthonie asked her something in French and Veronique shrugged and poured forth a torrent of French in answer. Completely composed now, she flashed them all a dazzling smile, nodded again to Imogene and rode away toward the quay.
“Esthonie,” said Imogene, “you might have told us that you had stopped the carriage in hope of seeing your houseguest. It would have saved Georgette the fatiguing task of searching the road for a nonexistent ring for twenty minutes!” Esthonie gave an expressive Gallic shrug. “Some people cannot be told—they must be shown.”
“You have shown me nothing. Veronique comes riding out of the trees. Van Ryker is not with her, nor do I see him now.”
“Who knows who is in the pimento grove? Did you see her face as she came riding out? It was the face of a woman who has just been”— Esthonie was suddenly reminded of Georgette’s tender ears—“been trysting.”
“No doubt you asked her what she was doing there?” “She told me that she was exercising the horse. I refrained from asking her what else she was exercising.”
Once again Imogene had had too much. With a wrathful look at Esthonie she turned her attention on that lady’s eldest daughter. “Virginie,” she asked sweetly. “However did your mother come to lock you in your room?”
Esthonie gave a start. To her mind Imogene should be grateful to be warned—obviously she was not. So be it. “Poor Veronique,” she cut in before a confused Virginie could form an answer, “she is as flat as Georgette!”
Georgette gave her mother a huffy look, but Virginie, glad to find the subject changed, added, “And already taller than I am!”
“Veronique is the exact same height!” snapped Georgette. “And it’s fashionable to be flat! It’s you and Mamma who are out of fashion—not I!”
Virginie laughed, throwing back her shoulders the better to display her well-developed breasts. Her mother frowned and tapped her smartly with her fan. “You are fortunate, both of you, that I did not put iron stays in your bodices like the Spanish—or wooden stays like the English, to keep you flat. Annoy me and I still may do it!”
Suitably cowed by this threat, both girls sank back. Imogene realized grimly that Esthonie, by disparaging her flamboyant guest, was trying to make amends. She fell silent as they wound through the maze of crooked streets that made up the hodgepodge buccaneer town of Cayona.
“This is a terrible place to live.” Esthonie grimaced. “Do you realize there are no decent women on this island save you and me?”
Imogene yearned to contradict her for she was still irritated with Esthonie, but she remembered van Ryker saying much the same thing. Occasional mistresses wandered in with the flamboyant rakes who appeared from nowhere and went on, usually on a downward path. But there were none the wife of a French governor wished to introduce to her daughters.
“And Veronique, of course,” pointed out lmogene ironically.
Esthonie gave her a hard look. “Turn back, Ramon,” she called to the driver. “We will go home now.”
“But we haven’t driven by the quay!” wailed Virginie.
“We will do that tomorrow when we go shopping,” said Esthonie severely. “We have already driven by the houses of all the respectable people, so that they could see that you are still alive! I will not have you making eyes at these young pirates while the sun beats down on you, destroying your complexion!”
“Not pirates—buccaneers,” corrected lmogene. For there was a world of difference. Pirates attacked anyone; they were the scourge of the seas. But Tortuga was the home base of the buccaneers, the Brethren of the Coast, and their particular quarrel was with the Spanish who had driven them from their earlier settlement on Hispaniola, destroyed all the wild herds of cattle and hogs from which they made their living “boucaning”—drying the meat and selling it to passing ships. In desperation, the remnants who were left had attacked small Spanish sailing vessels from rowboats, rowing right in under the guns and taking the ships by small arms fire. From there they had gone on to larger things and now, in captured Spanish ships, it was the buccaneers who challenged the might of Spain, while giving what protection they could to the English, French, and Dutch shipping
that plied these waters and bought the goods the buccaneers wrested from the galleons.
“Yes, I should have said ‘buccaneers,’” agreed Esthonie in an altered voice. It had belatedly occurred to her that lmogene was the bride of Tortuga’s leading buccaneer, and that her own husband, the governor, was amassing a fortune by selling “letters of marque’’ (privateering licenses for France) to these same buccaneers.
“I’m sure our drive has bored our guest,’’ complained Virginie. “We haven’t seen anyone,” she added grumpily.
“If you mean that Notley fellow with the broken leg,” warned Esthonie with a crushing look, “you can forget him. He can barely hobble around in his splints!”
Virginie had indeed been thinking of James Notley. He had such lovely curly brown hair. She loved to run her hands through it and giggle as he took liberties that would have given her mother a stroke, had she known about it. She continued to pout.
“lmogene.” Esthonie turned with decision to her guest. “I do hope you will let me pick you up in the morning and take you shopping with us. These girls are too much for me to handle alone.”
lmogene was about to refuse when Georgette leaned forward impulsively. “Oh, please do! You always wear something new and I love to look at your clothes—they’re always so pretty!”
At this ingenuous outburst from worldly young Georgette, lmogene relented. “Very well, Esthonie—if you will refrain from keeping us sitting in the hot sun outside the church while we watch for Veronique.”
A little color stained Esthonie’s cheeks. “We will go directly to the quay,” she promised. “Ten o’clock, then?”
“Ten o’clock,” agreed lmogene.
Now in her bedchamber yesterday’s outing with Esthonie and her daughters faded from Imogene’s mind as she realized she must dress quickly or she would keep Esthonie waiting.
Half suffocated by having the shutters closed, she flung them open again. Veronique was gone, clattering down into the town to look for van Ryker, no doubt. Well, two could play at that game!
CHAPTER 3
Swiftly Imogene dressed, this time choosing a gown conservative enough that Esthonie could not help but approve. It was of tissue-thin French gray taffeta. The figure-hugging bodice was low cut, the deep square neckline outlined in black velvet ribands and edged in frosty white point lace. The big, fashionably detachable puffed sleeves were of the same delicate gray taffeta, but slashed to display glimpses of black velvet stitched with silver. From the elbows spilled a froth of white point lace that cascaded halfway down her forearms. Her petticoat was a miracle of heavy gunmetal satin, too warm of course, but shimmering with silver embroidery and edged in rows of black velvet ribands. Beneath it one could catch occasional glimpses of a black satin slipper or a sheer black silken ankle. She topped this off with a sweeping black wide-brimmed hat that spilled a fluttering mass of silver plumes caught by a single diamond that would flash in the sun.
Critically she studied her reflection. Perhaps—a single strand of pearls. Smiling, she clasped about her throat the short strand of big matched pearls van Ryker had given her the day she married him. If she ran across him on the quay, the pearls would be a reminder of that day....
Swiftly she seized a pair of gray silk gloves. Leather might have looked better but on such a hot day she could not face the struggle of easing them over her fingers, and she knew full well that if she wore none Esthonie would rail at her for “not keeping up appearances in this Godforsaken hole.”
A quick look out the window showed her that Esthonie’s carriage was just drawing up and—was that Veronique in the back seat? Those massed black curls, as startling as the big black periwigs men wore in imitation of Charles II—no, the black-haired wench was clad in white. It was Georgette with her thick black curls just done up with the curling iron.
Imogene breathed a sigh of relief and ran downstairs, her wide skirts swirling about her trim black silk ankles as she swished past the tinkling fountain, through the hall past the dining room and the chart room, and found the iron grillwork front doors being dutifully opened for her by big Arne. It was bad enough that Veronique was Esthonie’s houseguest but it would have been galling indeed to have to spend the day with her! Still, had not Esthonie taken Veronique in, van Ryker well might have asked Imogene to do it. She shuddered at the thought.
“Ma chère!” Esthonie cried effusively as Imogene greeted them. “But how divine you look!” The flash of envy that spread over her plump face on seeing Imogene’s beautiful gown gave sincerity to her slightly false intonation.
“Madame van Ryker always looks wonderful,” sighed Georgette, leaning forward in her delicate white dimity, elaborately stitched and tucked and trimmed in dainty point lace. Esthonie always insisted on dressing Georgette as a proper jeune fille as if she might be mincing down a Parisian boulevard and not winding through the streets of buccaneer Cayona, but for all her pains Georgette’s worldly expression was at odds with her childish garb, thought Imogene in amusement.
“You look very handsome yourself today, Esthonie,” she observed.
“La, you have seen me wear this dress all season,” objected Esthonie, but she bridled and looked pleased nonetheless as she gathered up her bronze silk skirts to make room for Imogene. The motion set the jet ornamentation of her ample bodice ajingle, and the bronze plumes on her wide-brimmed hat trembled.
“Good day, Virginie.” Imogene smiled at Esthonie’s older daughter as she climbed lightly into the carriage and settled her light gray taffeta skirts beside Esthonie. Virginie, her hourglass figure well displayed in pastel pink organdy and sporting a matching pink parasol, gave her a pensive greeting. Her mind was obviously far away—on some strapping young buccaneer, Imogene had no doubt.
“You look very grown-up today, Georgette.” Imogene smiled at the younger of the two girls seated across from her in the carriage.
“Pay her no compliments, I am furious with her,” said Esthonie. “She left her parasol behind and will be burned as black as a buccaneer before the day is out.”
Personally Imogene thought Georgette’s pale ivory complexion would be improved by a faint blush of sunburn on her cheeks, but to say so would only provoke an explosion from Esthonie, who would insist that ladies had complexions like creamy vellum and only peasant wenches let their skins tan nut brown. As a diversion, she said, “I was startled by the new way you are wearing your hair, Georgette. For a moment there I thought you were Veronique!”
Although now that she was closer, Imogene could see that Georgette’s hairdo was a much simplified copy of the governor’s houseguest’s, the very mention of Veronique’s name brought forth a burst of words from Georgette.
“I could look like Veronique if only I had the right clothes—and don’t tell me I’m too flat!” Georgette turned argumentatively to her mother. “Veronique’s riding habit wouldn’t look half so good if she weren’t slender as a rapier!”
Plump Esthonie rolled her eyes to heaven. “You should pray to God you get a figure as good as your sister’s!” she scolded. “Rapier thin, indeed!” And to Imogene, “I hear nothing all day but Veronique, Veronique, from Georgette! Veronique dances better, she wears clothes better, she talks better, she rides better than anyone else, to hear Georgette tell it!” She sniffed.
“She does have a good seat on a horse,” said Imogene in fairness to her rival. “I saw her ride past the house this morning with her back as straight as if she had swallowed a poker.”
“Captain van Ryker never should have lent her that horse,” said Esthonie darkly, with a frown for Georgette. “She is forever dashing about alone aboard him and she may be raped—or worse!”
“What is worse, Mamma?” Georgette was instantly alive with interest. “You told me rape was the very worst thing that could happen to a girl!”
“At your age, yes,” agreed her mother with a sigh, calling to the driver to proceed. “But at my age perhaps it is worse to lose one’s jewels.” She patted the diamon
d and jet lavaliere at her neck. “Don’t you think so, Imogene?”
“I would far rather lose my jewels!” Imogene shuddered.
Esthonie sniffed. “But then you have so many jewels,” she said tartly, and Imogene was again reminded that ever since van Ryker had seized the treasure fleet, Esthonie had been burning with envy. “Sit straight. Georgette! Perhaps we will purchase a new riband for your hair.”
“I’d rather have a pearl necklace,” muttered rebellious Georgette.
“No doubt!” sniffed her mother. “But you cannot have one.”
“Veronique says I should wear pearls,” said Georgette with a spiteful look at Imogene. “She says pearls are lost on blondes—they turn to dishwater. She says pearls glow on necks like ours—”
“Long and too thin,” supplied her sister in a calm voice. Georgette glared at her.
“Swanlike!” she corrected. “And against our clouds of dark hair.” She paused. “Mamma, can I wear my hair like Veronique’s? She has been teaching me. It is very complicated but I have almost mastered the style.”
“Certainly not. It is far too elaborate for your age.”
“Veronique says I would look years older if I wore black satin and pearls. She says I would be magnificent!”
Imogene frowned at this obvious courting of the governor’s younger daughter, but Esthonie burst out impatiently, “When you are older, perhaps you shall have pearls. Georgette.”
“I want them now,” insisted Georgette stubbornly.
“Well, we cannot afford them now, no matter what you want,” snapped her mother. “After all your father is but a poor government official and not a buccaneer!” Her tone was bitter.
Imogene gave her a glance of amusement. “But I thought you disapproved of buccaneers, Esthonie? You’ve said so often enough.”
Wild Willful Love Page 4
