“Yes, Mamma,” came a shaky voice from inside.
“Who is in there with you?”
“No one, Mamma.” A firmer tone.
Racing upstairs with the heavy key ring, which contained the keys to the entire house. Georgette heard that and marveled at Virginie’s aplomb. After all, in a minute or two her clandestine visitor would be found and only heaven knew what would happen then—maybe Mamma would have Virginie put in irons and transported far away to France!
This exciting thought caused Georgette to trip on the top step and plummet into her father, who said “Oooof!” as he dropped his pistol. It went off with a deafening report that brought forth a united scream from all his womenfolk as well as two female servants downstairs who had crept out of their quarters, round-eyed, to ask each other what was going on upstairs.
“Don’t shoot. Papa!” implored Virginie as the door burst open. She was at her dressing table, desperately trying to rearrange her hair and she was holding the torn front of her bodice together with her other hand.
“Virginie, what has happened to your dress?” cried Esthonie.
“Nothing, Mamma.” Virginie turned a shade paler. “1 was fiddling with the lace at the neck and tore it in fright when I heard Papa’s gun go off.”
The explanation seemed reasonable enough to the governor, who was beginning to feel foolish. But Esthonie was not satisfied. “What happened?” she demanded loudly, her ears still ringing from the report of Gauthier’s pistol.
“I stepped on the cat,” sighed Virginie.
“Then where is Malcolm?” Esthonie cast a suspicious look around.
“Maybe he’s gone under the bed, Mamma,” offered Georgette helpfully. She fell to her knees, peering through the fringe under the bed—fully expecting to meet the scared blue eyes of the young buccaneer and see him put a finger to his lips to command her silence. Instead she saw Malcolm, his orange and white fur fluffed out, his assaulted tail swelled out like a porcupine, his golden eyes baleful. When she reached out a tentative hand, he drew back and spat at her. “Malcolm’s under the bed,” reported Georgette. “He’s frightened and he won’t come out. He hissed at me.”
“Oh, do let the cat alone.” Esthonie was pulling open Virginie’s big press and pummeling the clothes hanging there as she spoke. She gave the big full skirts a couple of kicks with her carpet slipper for good measure, half expecting a yelp. She seized the top of Virginie’s big trunk and yanked it open, and brought both fists down smartly upon the contents.
“Mamma.” Virginie’s eyes were round. “What are you doing?”
Her mother did not deign to answer. Instead she swept toward the window that looked out on the courtyard. “These casements should be shut,” she rasped.
Virginie slid in front of her to bar her way. “I’ll close them after you’ve gone. Mamma,” she quavered. “But right now I need some air!”
So that was where the intruder was! Clinging to the sill, dangling above the courtyard! Esthonie’s eyes gleamed.
“I will close them right now!” she cried. “Yes, and have your father nail them shut!”
“But, Mamma, I’ll suffocate in here!” Panicky, Virginie still barred the way. She jumped as Georgette, having seized Malcolm by the paw, tried to drag him forward. Indignation rose in Malcolm—first trod upon and now this! Growl rose to yowl. He bit Georgette’s finger and she shrieked—her wild yelp nicely covering the sound of a thump as Thaddeus’s fingers gave way and he fell to the courtyard. He landed on the side of one boot, toppled, and before he could save himself, struck his head against the corner of the same marble bench that had broken his friend James Notley’s leg. He crumpled and his falling body shot between the bench and a large enveloping shrub, which met above his fallen form in a way that hid him from onlookers from above.
In effect, Thaddeus had disappeared. And when Esthonie at last managed to brush by her protesting daughter and looked out before she slammed the casements, she saw nothing. With a frown, she turned to Virginie. “Nevertheless, these casements will be nailed shut!”
“Tomorrow, Esthonie,” sighed Gauthier, who felt that the whole thing was a tempest in a teapot. “Tomorrow I will have them nailed shut. Now let us get some sleep—if that is possible in this house.”
Grumbling, Esthonie had to be content with that. Together they all trooped away, with Georgette sucking the finger Malcolm, still skulking angrily under the bed, had bitten.
Back in her own room. Georgette peered out with interest—and saw from this angle the fallen figure of the young buccaneer. She studied him with relish. What if the fall had killed him and his body was discovered there tomorrow morning? Everyone would remember the incident of the night before and realize that he had been visiting Virginie. There would be a rare scandal and Virginie would be ruined. Callously, Georgette wondered what it would be like to be ruined—not secretly ruined as Virginie insisted she was, but publicly ruined like Cousin Nanette. Of course those overdressed bawds with their loud voices and raucous laughter who hung about the buccaneers at the quayside market were also ruined. Georgette would not care to be like them; they lived in tawdry squalor. But Cousin Nanette, who had deserted her family for a fabulous life in the theater in Paris, was also ruined, according to Mamma. And now Cousin Nanette, who had never had two petticoats to her name when she lived with her family in Lorraine, had clothes and jewels to rival a duchess and was the talk of Paris.
Plainly, there were different levels of “ruin.” Georgette wondered which level Virginie would find—if Thaddeus were indeed dead. She watched him as a cat might a mouse as the minutes ticked by on the lantern clock in the hall. Finally she heard a hiss from above and looked up at Virginie’s open casement.
“Can you see him?”
Georgette nodded vigorously.
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so,” whispered Georgette. “I just heard him groan.”
“Oh, dear,” came a sibilant whisper from Virginie. “I do hope they don’t find him here. If he must die,” she added petulantly, “let us hope that he staggers away somewhere to do it!”
Georgette nodded in complete understanding.
It was near dawn before Thaddeus came to and shook his head to clear it. His vision seemed to have doubled. He muttered a curse and wondered what had happened to him. Then he looked up at Virginie’s window and remembered. The house had gone into an uproar and he had fallen from the window. Still giddy, he crawled under the bush and retrieved the cutlass he had left there. With a manful effort he made it to his feet. The golden chain slipped from his sleeve unnoticed as he staggered away. No one remarked his going. By then both Georgette and Virginie were sound asleep.
They had come by their hard hearts naturally. They were, after all, Esthonie’s daughters.
CHAPTER 9
In the morning the sisters fought over the gold chain, which Georgette found glittering by the marble bench.
“Give it to me!” grated Virginie, in a temper. “I near lost my virginity for it!”
“You haven’t got your virginity,” mocked Georgette. “And besides, I found it—finders keepers.”
Virginie made a snatch for the delicate gold chain, missed and boxed her younger sister soundly on the ears. Georgette shrieked and dropped the chain as Virginie pursued her, skirts flying, around the courtyard.
Lured by the sounds of warfare, Esthonie came out into the courtyard. Her eyelids were heavy, she had a headache brought on by lack of sleep, and she was in no mood to cope with her angry daughters.
“Virginie! Georgette! Stop this nonsense at once and come here!”
Sulkily, Virginie approached. “Georgette took my gold chain,” she said, bending down to pick it up.
“It’s not hers—I found it!” cried Georgette in a passion.
“Where did you get it, Virginie?” asked Esthonie tonelessly.
“I—why, it was—!” Virginie colored, for once at a loss for an explanation.
“I see.
” Still tonelessly. Esthonie reached out and took the offending chain from her reluctant daughter’s hand. “I will settle this argument by keeping the chain myself.”
Regally she turned to go back inside while two pairs of dark eyes watched her with furious indignation.
“It was a gift to me!” Virginie grasped Georgette’s arm as she moved to follow her mother.
Georgette shook free. “He never gave it to you, he fell out the window.”
“He didn’t fall out, he was dangling from the sill and his fingers must have given out.”
“Or he let go because he knew Mamma was going to slam the casements and break his fingers and he would fall anyway,” said Georgette loftily. “And then Papa would have had to go out and finish him off with his pistol—to save your reputation.”
“Mon Dieu, you’re bloodthirsty!” Virginie shivered.
“What was it like?” wondered Georgette, big-eyed. “Upstairs? With him?”
Virginie gave her younger sister an irritable look. “He was very rough,” she said. “He pounced on me and tore my bodice. And now," she groaned, “Mamma will have my window nailed shut and I will not be able to stand the heat.”
“No, they’ll put up iron bars. Like mine.”
Georgette was right. The iron bars she had predicted went up that same day. When Virginie saw them, she stalked around like the heroine of a tragedy. Esthonie took her daughters driving—to quell any rumors before they started. And when the carriage passed Thaddeus with his head bandaged and James Notley with his splinted leg stretched out, both of them lolling in a doorway, Virginie turned away with a sniff, elevated her pointy chin and refused to look at either of them.
The two friends gave each other a startled look. Their guilty eyes met. And for the rest of the day, they vied with each other as to who could invent the most erotic story about his encounter with the governor’s eldest daughter.
Fortunately, something happened to divert the governor’s daughters from their shared resentment over the iron bars that had gone up over Virginie’s courtyard window—resentment from Virginie because it stopped her diverting “social” life, and from Georgette, aggrieved that her role as voyeur had been abruptly cut off. They were already scheming to steal the house keys and “go out on the town” some evening, but Esthonie must have guessed their temper, for she began hiding the keys whenever she was not wearing them. Still, both girls were ready for diversion and that diversion came in the person of lmogene, who that very afternoon paid a surprise visit to the “governor’s palace,” bearing gifts.
“lmogene, you’ll set a bad example for my daughters!” chided Esthonie as her guest floated into the cool hall from the brilliant sunlight outside. “I can see right through you— like one of those cutout silhouettes they sell down by the quay!”
Imogene, who had spent a sleepless night and whose eyes felt heavy, answered in a curiously clipped tone that she couldn’t care less. The tissue-sheer cream linen she was wearing was simply one of the few dresses left in the big fortresslike house—all the rest were packed away in lavender in big trunks aboard the Sea Rover. Esthonie would have chided her for not wearing gloves but she held her tongue as Imogene motioned to Arne to bring in the big linen-wrapped bundle he was carrying. Grasping Esthonie’s eyes brightened. She loved a gift.
“Why, what is this?” she cried in a pleased voice.
“A little something for you to remember me by,” said Imogene dryly. “At least, for a season.” The brittleness of that remark entirely escaped Esthonie as Virginie and Georgette came running at her call. They all gasped at the beauty of the gowns Imogene was unveiling from their linen wrappings.
“Georgette, you said you yearned for a gown as bright as a mango. Now you have your heart’s desire.” Imogene held up a remarkable dress of peach silk with slashed sleeves lined in rose satin, and with a petticoat of rose and gold squares stitched lightly with gold threads.
Georgette was ecstatic. “It’s beautiful!” she gasped. “Not like those hateful white cotton dresses that make me look like a schoolgirl!” Impulsively she threw her arms around Imogene. “I shall never wear anything else!”
“Then you will soon wear through such thin material!’ warned her mother jovially. “But we do thank you, Imogene. And look, Virginie, what she has for you!”
They all gasped at the sight of the regal white taffeta heavily overlaid with creamy lace and accompanied by a lustrous embroidered white satin petticoat edged with heavy point lace.
“It can serve as a bridal gown,” suggested Imogene, “since I had it from you, Esthonie, that there might be a marriage in the offing?”
“You must stay and see me married in it!” cried Virginie, her eyes shining.
“I am afraid I cannot do that.” Imogene smiled, but her eyes were not smiling. They were very bright and anger smoldered in them—anger directed at van Ryker. “And this, Esthonie, is for you.” She held up a black taffeta dress overlaid with gold tissue heavily ornamented with gold silk embroidery. And with it a petticoat of rich gold satin heavily embroidered with black silk peacocks. Esthonie, Imogene knew, loved glitter.
“How elegant,” purred Esthonie, cradling the showy dress in her arms. “And with my diamonds and jet!”
Imogene winced inwardly. The dress by itself was overpowering enough, but Esthonie would try to outshine it with all the jewelry she owned, no doubt.
“I have also told van Ryker that I am leaving the marquetry long-case clock he gave me in the house for you.”
She had told van Ryker several other things, but she forbore to tell Esthonie about those. Yesterday at dinner, after the initial shock of seeing the Cup of Gold petals on van Ryker’s shoulder and realizing the plain implication of what that meant, she had been pale and distant and remote. When her announcement that she would take the jewel case containing the van Rappard diamonds on board the Sea Rover at the last moment did not move him, her eyes had narrowed. Knowing how proud he was of the handsome marquetry long-case clock, which was a miracle of English clockmaking, she had added coldly, “I intend to leave the marquetry standing clock for Esthonie. She has admired it.”
He cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at her but made no comment. He was very thoughtful all through dinner and when she jumped up immediately after they had finished their dessert and announced that she had a splitting headache and intended to bathe her forehead in rosewater and retire at once, he said only, “Is there anything I can do?”
Was there irony in that simple question? she had wondered as her angry feet carried her upstairs. Fury made her slam the bedroom door hard enough to shake the house—and certainly in a way that no woman with a violent headache would do.
Downstairs van Ryker poured himself another glass of wine and frowned as he heard the door slam. He sat drumming his strong bronzed fingers on the table. Something was very wrong and he had a pretty good idea what it was. He jammed his hat on his head, left Arne to see to guarding the house, and wandered down to the taverns to see if he could learn anything of what men might be planning to his detriment. When he returned, he tried to open Imogene’s door and found it locked.
Walking softly not to disturb her, he went to his own room, pulled off his boots and went to bed. In the morning, on his way down to breakfast, he knocked on her door and heard only a jumbled mutter that sounded like, “Go away, I’m sleeping.” With a wry look at the barrier of the sturdy door that lay between him and his tempestuous lady, he went down, ate a hasty breakfast and spent the day out as usual, seeing to the seaworthiness and provisioning of the Sea Rover, concluding the deal on the Heron, and bargaining over the other vessels with hard-eyed Dutch and English traders who inspected them, stomping about with their big boots, poking into the holds, examining the rigging. With luck the ships would all be sold before he left and soon be sailed away by men who had paid cash for them and filled their holds full of trade goods purchased in Tortuga.
It was hard parting with some of these vessels but he realized w
ryly that although there were some among his crew who bewailed the breaking up of van Ryker’s fleet, his young wife was not among them. That fleet, Imogene felt, had kept him anchored to Tortuga and the buccaneering life. Without those ships, he would be free to find his destiny someplace else.
So be it. He sighed and signed papers and bade good-bye to sturdy vessels that had served him well. He would cut free from the old life.
He would begin again.
Van Ryker had hardly cleared the house before Imogene, who had not slept at all, was up. She watched from the window as he strode away down the sunlit street, a handsome and dominating figure who had mastered his world—and her. For a moment she hated him because even now her body called to him, urging her to forgive him, to reconsider, to forget.
In violent answer to her own inner pleadings, she swept the embroidered coverlet entirely off the bed with an angry arm and sat down trembling before the mirror at her dressing table. Tangled golden hair and heavy-lidded eyes greeted her inspection. And a soft mouth with a new tinge of bitterness.
Too upset to eat, she drank a cup of the new “China drink,” as tea was called, and set to work furiously sorting the kitchen things. She rattled pots and pans blindly and astonished the kitchen help—she who was usually so calm—by throwing one three-cornered brass pot at the wall just because it fell over when she touched it. When she had finished she wasn’t sure what she had done. Had she really picked out the pots and pans that would be of excellent use in Carolina? Or had she consigned them to be sold on the quay?
Unable to swallow solid food at lunch, she drank instead two cups of the new “West India drink” that had become so popular and which would come to be known as chocolate. She told herself she must not forget to pack the special covered cups in which it was served, but she was unwilling to disturb the help at their meal of hog’s harslet and pease and fritters, so she went upstairs to pick idly at her wardrobe, unwilling to come to grips with packing anything.
Wild Willful Love Page 12
