“Which? Clocks or hips?” lmogene gave her friend a droll look.
“Red garters!”
“Oh—and black lace on the chemise. I see what you mean.” lmogene gave the subject the consideration she felt it deserved and let Esthonie have the benefit of her wisdom. “I wouldn’t think so. In my opinion, once they get that far they’re really in transit to—” Now she sought for a word.
“Their objective,” supplied Esthonie gloomily. “And you feel they’d be so hot to get on with it they’d hardly notice?”
“Exactly.”
Esthonie heaved a deep sigh and the bronze plumes on her hat quivered. She clenched her black-gloved fingers together, rolled her eyes heavenward and shook her head. If it wasn’t the red garters, she was plainly saying, what did Gauthier see in a frump like Madam Josie? Suddenly she gave a start and clutched lmogene. “I must get back to Georgette!” she cried indignantly. “Those men are studying the child’s décolletage! Join me when you’ve finished looking at the clocks.”
lmogene followed Esthonie’s gaze to the little knot of men now surrounding vivacious Georgette. Among them she recognized kindly Dr. Argyll, who would see that nothing untoward happened to the girl. She thought Esthonie would be better advised to see to Virginie, who had drifted away from her father and was now in rapt conversation with the sandy-haired young buccaneer who had stood admiring her.
She sighed. Of a sudden her desire for a permanent home away from buccaneer Tortuga focused on the drum clock..
“How much is it?” she asked the clock seller. And when he told her, “I’ll buy it,” she said impulsively. “Have it sent to my home. Do you know where that is?”
“Everyone knows Captain van Ryker’s house, my lady,” said the heavyset buccaneer genially. “ ’Tis the finest house on the island!”
lmogene flashed him a quick smile. “Arne, at the door, will pay for the clock,” she told him—for she had no intention of interrupting van Ryker’s conversation with Veronique even if they talked together in that conspicuous fashion all day. She would not let Esthonie Touraille have the satisfaction of knowing she was jealous!
Still, it was very irritating for the wildest lass in all of Cornwall to find herself eclipsed by a French-speaking hussy who seemed about to sweep her under the rug! That resentful feeling lingered with her as she strolled toward Esthonie and Georgette, stopping on her way to inspect some fresh green limes.
CHAPTER 4
“Madame van Ryker, could I have a word with you?” came a hoarse voice from behind her and Imogene turned and almost collided with the woman in purple satin, her wide hat dripping an immense quantity of pink plumes. She realized she was looking into the somewhat raddled but shrewd face of the celebrated Madam Josie.
“Of—of course,” she said, astounded.
“Over there behind those piles of barrels, where folks can’t see us.”
Bewildered, Imogene followed those voluminous purple satin skirts to a spot behind some barrels of sea salt, dried in the salt pans of the islands. Although they had never met, there was no point in pretending she didn’t know who this woman was. “What is it you wish of me. Madam Josie?” she asked politely but with a slight frown.
“You’re the right kind,” approved Madam Josie, who had been born Josie Dawes in Liverpool and had made it to Tortuga by way of a London sporting house. “Van Ryker said you was a lady and he was right.”
Imogene stiffened slightly and Josie caught that slight stiffening. She chuckled. “You needn’t worry about the likes of me,” she said with a wag of her hennaed head that set her pink plumes aflutter. “Your husband never had no dealings with me or any of my girls. Women was always mad about him—he had to fight ’em off every time he come to town. And when he built that big fine house and furnished it up so grand, everybody said it was to take a wife he was doing all that! And sure enough on his next voyage after it was finished, he brings you back with him.” Madam Josie’s broad smile said the town—and Josie Dawes—approved his choice. That smile also displayed a mouthful of teeth that were surprisingly white in view of the fact that Madam Josie was reputed to smoke a clay pipe with as much gusto as the male clients who frequented her establishment. She pushed back a straying lock of her abundant hennaed hair from her face, the complexion startlingly whitened with ceruse, or violet lead, cheeks and mouth made artfully pink by rubbing on Spanish paper. Her hazel eyes twinkled. “I know what you’re thinkin’.” She wagged her head again. “You’re thinkin’ decent women don’t be conversin’ on the quay with them as runs houses like mine, and that van Ryker wouldn’t like it—that’s why I’m talkin’ to you behind these barrels.”
“I’m very glad to converse with you, Madam Josie,” said Imogene gravely, for she had by now regained her composure. “But I really can’t imagine what it is you wish to see me about.”
“It’s about that woman you keep company with.”
“Keep company—?” Imogene was bewildered. “Oh, you must mean Esthonie Touraille?”
“That’s right, Gauthier’s wife.” Imogene was quick to note that Madam Josie used the governor’s first name with a familiarity that spoke of long practice; his name slipped easily off her tongue.
“She’s a bad one, is Esthonie.”
Imogene straightened up a little. She felt she must come to Esthonie’s defense, even though she was sometimes inclined to agree with Madam Josie’s assessment.
“No, don’t be lookin’ at me like that, Madame van Ryker. I know Esthonie Touraille is your friend and all that—leastways I know there ain’t nobody else van Ryker will let you associate with around here.”
“How do you know that?” asked Imogene sharply.
“Van Ryker told me so,” said Josie simply. “We’re old friends.”
Imogene gasped. But then she got hold of herself. Everybody knew Madam Josie had an easy camaraderie with the buccaneers. She’d even been known to finance a venture or two herself. Van Ryker would naturally be thrown with her on occasions when he met with friends in the taverns and grog shops of Cayona. Imogene’s face cleared.
“So you’re thrown with Estie a lot and—”
“Estie?”
“That’s Gauthier’s pet name for his wife,” explained Josie. “He’s fond of her, but she’s awful hard to live with, Madame van Ryker. You wouldn’t believe the things she—”
“Oh, yes, I would believe,” interrupted Imogene hastily. This conversation was beginning to make her uncomfortable. She certainly hoped Madam Josie wasn’t going to ask her to intercede for Gauthier in some way!
“I’m saying she tells lies” said Josie earnestly. She was staring into Imogene’s face as she spoke with an intensity that surprised the younger woman.
“And what lies is she supposed to be telling?”
“You know what lies I mean, Madama van Ryker.” Josie bobbed her head so her feathers shook. “Lies about your husband. Gauthier tells me what Estie’s been filling your head with! Tellin’ you your husband’s steppin’ out on you. I know ’cause she tells Gauthier that too! Ain’t no truth to it, Madame van Ryker. I never seen a man so stuck on a woman as van Ryker is on you! And that French—” Josie remembered abruptly that she was talking to a lady and that what she was about to call Esthonie wasn’t ladylike. “That French—” She cast about.
“ ‘Creature’ is the word I think you’re searching for,” murmured Imogene in amusement. She thought the whole situation very funny.
“Creature,” agreed Josie in relief. She told herself she must remember that word. In speaking to Gauthier, she had agreed Esthonie was a number of things that wouldn’t do for the ears of van Ryker’s bride. “So you just ignore everything she says about van Ryker,” she told Imogene solemnly.
“Madam Josie—” began Imogene.
“You can call me Josie,” said Madam Josie. “And don’t you worry, I won’t call you Imogene. I know my place, Madame van Ryker.”
“Josie, why are you doing this?”
“Warning you?” Josie looked surprised. “Why, I thought you knew. ’Twas your husband chased down Captain Flogg’s men the might they wrecked my place and made them pay to put things to rights! I don’t know what we’d do without him around here!”
Imogene gasped. “You mean the governor didn’t—”
Josie gave her a friendly smile. “Gauthier’s a sweet old thing,” she confided, “but he’s scared to death of Flogg and his sort. It isn’t as if Gauthier could call on constables or sheriffs or anything like that. He’s just governor in name—’tis van Ryker has the power. But”—she grinned—“van Ryker’s done me favors more than once and now I’m doin’ him one—although I’d be beholden to you if you don’t say I done it. I just wanted to warn you to pay Gauthier’s wife no mind.”
“I do thank you.” Imogene kept a straight face. Suddenly she could not resist asking. “Josie,” she said hesitantly, “do you mind if I ask you a very impudent question?”
“Ask me anything at all,” said Josie recklessly. “Ain’t nothin’ about men I don’t know. Is van Ryker givin’ you trouble in bed?” She leaned forward intently, ready to give instant advice on her favorite subject.
“Do you really wear red satin garters?”
Josie gave her an astonished look—and then she laughed. It was a throaty, rollicking, rumbling laugh rather like a cat’s purr. “Sure, I do! You want to see them?” With a sudden gesture she hiked up her purple satin skirts and revealed a pair of plump legs wearing lavender and white striped stockings that were held up by the most majestic pair of garters Imogene had ever seen. Asparkle with brilliants, trimmed with black and silver rosettes, they were gaudy creations of crimson satin.
“I see you do!” she cried.
Josie let her skirts fall back down. There was a twinkle in her knowing hazel eyes. “It’s Gauthier’s wife wants to know, isn’t it?” she guessed.
‘‘Oh, I think she already knows,” said Imogene demurely. ‘‘She’s been making inquiries about you.”
Josie slapped her large thigh and let out a hoot of laughter that made Imogene wince. “You can tell her I bought them off the old hunchback who sells trifles near the piles of bananas.” She gave Imogene an impish look. “No wonder van Ryker likes you,” she said. “You’re not just a pretty face, you’ve got style!”
“Why, thank you, Josie.” Imogene joined in Josie’s raucous purring laughter. “So do you!”
Josie was still laughing as she billowed away.
Imogene went in the other direction to rejoin Esthonie and Georgette. It was clear the governor’s wife hadn’t seen her with the notorious Madam Josie because she was deep in selecting hair ribands for Georgette and her voice was quite calm. She held up a handful for Imogene’s inspection. “Georgette wants this scarlet one but I think it’s too—”
“Oh, Mamma, I can’t wear white all the time!” Georgette’s young voice was tragic.
Esthonie turned on her daughter. “You’ll wear what I tell you to wear!” But at Georgette’s petulant pout, she relented.
“Oh, I suppose we could take the red one as well,” she sighed. “You can wear it to tie up your hair around the house but not in public or when we receive guests. Here, take these coins and pay the man.”
As Georgette left their side to pay the trifling cost of the ribands, Imogene leaned toward Esthonie. “I can tell you where Madam Josie gets her red garters,” she said airily. “She gets them from that old hunchback who sits by the bananas, selling odds and ends.”
Esthonie gave her a suspicious look. “How do you know?” Imogene’s brows elevated innocently. She kept in check the laughter that threatened to well up, and took Esthonie’s plump arm. “I have seen them! Come and look.”
“Come along, Georgette.” Esthonie moved forward to view the hunchback’s selection of garters.
Imogene watched brightly as Esthonie picked out a red pair almost identical with Madam Josie’s. She let Esthonie think she had found the display by accident. Esthonie would never know she had seen them on Madam Josie’s legs!
They strolled about the market desultorily, idly inspecting shoe buckles and lemons and snuffboxes and candlesnuffers. When next Imogene looked, she saw that Veronique had disappeared and van Ryker had his back to her and was talking to a group of men. Apparently he had not seen her. She was content to leave it that way. What Madam Josie had said to her was strangely comforting. Esthonie did tend to blow things out of all proportion, she told herself cheerfully—and, besides, Esthonie loved drama. What would entertain her more than to have Imogene and van Ryker at each other’s throats?
The white coral rock and shell of the street blazingly reflected the tropical sunlight as they rode home. Across from Imogene Georgette was studying her red hair riband, holding it up to admire it, while Virginie peered back expectantly toward the quay as if she expected her young buccaneer to be following the carriage.
“Mamma, can I have a pair of garters from the hunchback?” asked Georgette idly. “I’d like black ones trimmed in silver.”
“Certainly not,” sniffed Esthonie. “Most inappropriate for a young girl!”
“But they’d be under my petticoats,” argued Georgette. “Who could see them?”
“I’d like a yellow pair.” Virginie joined the conversation suddenly. “Trimmed in gold lace.”
Imogene was wearing at the moment a pair of black silk garters trimmed with silver rosettes and she had at home, among a host of others, a pair of soft Chinese gold satin ones trimmed with gold lace, but since she had no intention of surrendering either pair, she chose not to mention it, for Esthonie would undoubtedly beg them away from her. She gave a tranquil look around her at the little white houses, half covered with fast-growing vines, lazing in the sun, breathed deep of the warm breeze that ruffled the silver plumes of her wide-brimmed hat and tried to tell herself that she would not miss Tortuga. She didn’t quite succeed.
Eagle-eyed Esthonie leaned forward suddenly with a rustle of jet against bronze silk and interrupted her reverie. “There is that boy again!” she exclaimed. “I saw him lurking about on the quay. Wherever Georgette went, there he was! Who is he, Virginie?”
With a billow of pink organdy, Virginie turned and craned to see a slender taffy-haired lad who was just at that moment shyly disappearing behind one of the big live oaks under whose branches the horses were even now walking their carriage.
“I can’t quite see him,” she reported.
“It’s Andy Layton,” Georgette supplied in a bored tone. “He follows me everywhere.” She suppressed a worldly yawn with a slightly grubby hand.
“Andy Layton?” Her mother looked blank. “And who might he be?”
Virginie wrinkled her brows. Then she laughed. “Oh, it’s Cooper’s little brother,” she said derisively. “He can’t be fourteen yet!”
“Cooper? Oh, you mean Captain Layton’s younger son?” said Esthonie with mild interest. “You remember Captain Layton, Imogene? Tall, distinguished? When his merchantman was fully loaded and ready to sail back to Philadelphia, both his young sons came down with dysentery and Dr. Argyll counseled against their making the trip. He left them here with Dr. Argyll to recover and will pick them up on his next voyage. The older son, Cooper, was quite interested in Virginie for a time.” She frowned. “We haven’t seen him lately.”
Georgette suppressed a giggle and Virginie gave her a warning look. Lanky, seventeen-year-old Cooper Layton had been one of those venturesome lads who had made the climb to Virginie’s window—and descended like a shot when Virginie had hissed her father was coming. He had not been back since, fearing an enforced betrothal, for the Laytons were indeed a respectable Philadelphia family and his mother would have gone into shock if he had announced he was going to marry a girl—even a governor’s daughter—from buccaneer Tortuga.
But of course Esthonie did not know that. The Captain, as was his custom with all women, had been very gallant with the governor’s lady. She gave Georgette a tranquil glan
ce. “Now there is a lad I would not mind having you speak to, Georgette. You might even invite him to have a glass of limeade in the courtyard if he comes calling. His people, I’m told, are well-to-do and his father well spoken. Not that I’d want you to marry one of these Colonials, mind you, but—’’ But he would do to practice your wiles on, was the plain inference. Inwardly shaken with mirth, Imogene wondered what Esthonie’s daughters would grow up to be.
Georgette snilfed at her mother’s suggestion. “Andy’s a child,” she said airily. “I take no notice of him! It’s only puppy love anyway.” Her shrug of enormous ennui would have done justice to a courtesan and nearly convulsed Imogene. “Besides,” her eyes sparkled, “when I marry it will be someone dashing like Captain van Ryker and not a scaredy-cat like Cooper Layton or his little brother.” This in scathing reference to seventeen-year-old Cooper’s' near record descent down the pepper tree.
Virginie knew when she was being attacked. She took up the cudgel with energy.
“Cooper Layton wouldn’t deign to notice you,” she said with a sniff.
“That’s all you know about it!” cried Georgette. “He said I was a French meringue and tried to kiss me behind the camellia bush.”
“He didn’t, you’re lying!” Her face flushed, Virginie gave her pink parasol an angry twirl.
“He did, I’m not!”
“Girls!” cried Esthonie in a quelling voice. They were just now passing Dr. Argyll’s small white house and she shot a lowering look at his green-shuttered windows where this kissing fiend was undoubtedly lurking. “Virginie, if that boy calls on you again, make certain you keep him out in the open. You girls cannot be too careful of your reputations. Remember, not only was your grandfather a chevalier of France but you are both governor’s daughters.”
Once again Imogene fought back her laughter. She was rather of the opinion that the little Scots doctor had warned his genteel young houseguests of too close association with the wild daughters of Tortuga’s French governor, and that that was the reason for Cooper’s defection and Andy’s skulking about.
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