Imogene, who would have given anything to have had her own daughter beside her at this moment, said stonily, “I am sure it is,” for it was evident that Esthonie was very upset. “But—is Jean Claude ready for this?” she could not help asking. “I mean, he had not expected anything so soon, surely?”
“He had better be ready,” declared Esthonie wrathfully. “After the way he was pursuing Virginie in the garden last night! Why, he had worked one of her sleeves down before I—’ ’ She cast a sudden look at the driver’s back and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I do not know what might have happened if I had not chanced by at that moment. Virginie was giggling and leaning back in his arms—you know how innocent she is,” she added quickly. “She did not realize what might have happened. Why, he had her half stretched out on one of those stone benches!”
“And her skirts might have ridden up,” pointed out Imogene with dancing eyes.
“Indeed they might!”
“I doubt he would have been shocked, if he is the chaser you claim him to be,” laughed Imogene. “Indeed, it might have helped Virginie’s chances for a quick betrothal if they had!”
“Her chances'? Ah, you need not worry about her chances! Jean Claude’s father and I have already agreed by letter that he is to marry Virginie if they get along well, but I will not have him deflowering her ahead of time. Indeed”—the fan waved furiously—“I have changed my mind. He shall marry her tonight! Gauthier has the power to issue a special license and the minister will make no remonstrance, for we just had the leaks in the church roof repaired. Yes! That is what we will do!” She smote her bronze silk lap with her fan and lapsed into muttering over the details.
Esthonie would work it out, Imogene decided fatalistically. She always did. There was a certain wistfulness in her gaze as she rode for the last time through these hot narrow streets, winding down to the quay. About her sprawled a hodgepodge town of scattered houses lazing under the tropical sun. Stark white lime-washed walls and wooden shutters with peeling green paint shimmered past them in the heat as the carriage wheels turned lazily behind the walking horses. Through the satiny dark green leaves of citrus trees the tropica. sun blazed down on faded terracotta roof tiles and sturdy ironwork. Spanish made and installed by captive artisans. And everywhere the enormous cascading vines of the tropics The air was heavy and sweet with the scent of flowers. It was strange to ride through these crooked streets and realize that this was the last day she would ever spend in this buccaneer stronghold. Behind came the clank of cutlasses from the walking men, reminding her proudly that they were her guards—as wife to the unofficial mayor of Cayona!
She started as Esthonie leaned forward and tapped her with her fan. “We will of course expect you and van Ryker at the wedding tonight.”
“Of course we will come,” smiled Imogene, wondering distractedly if she could keep that promise!
“I don’t see Gauthier anywhere, do you?” cried Esthonie as they reached the quay.
“No,” said Imogene, but her gaze was fixed not on the crowded market but on the departing sails of La Belle France, just now clearing the harbor.
Van Ryker was having his revenge on his old enemy Don Luis, she thought. With cold precision he had engineered it and now before her eyes it was taking place.
Veronique and her lover were aboard that ship, sailing away to an uncertain future. Esthonie had no reason to fear Veronique any more—but of course she did not know that. Imogene, watching the great sails billow, wished them well. Instinctively she felt that Veronique had been right in her decision—lovers should not be separated. Veronique should go with her Diego wherever that led her. Just as she herself would follow van Ryker wherever the winds of fate blew them, to the very ends of the earth.
They alighted, and Esthonie was delighted at the stir caused by the contingent of watchful buccaneer guards who kept pace with Imogene as they strolled through a winding maze of piles of oranges and fresh coconuts and guavas and mangoes and big stalks of yellow bananas and breadfruit.
“I thought you said you needed fresh fruit for your table?” she remarked mildly.
“Yes, I do think I will have some of those bananas sent to the house,” she decided hastily. “And some of those oranges as well. Attend to it, Arne.” Making good her comment about needing fruit, she bought coconuts and lemons as well—at least Arne would enjoy them even if they themselves were far out to sea when he ate them.
She was distracted from her thoughts by a sudden gouge from Esthonie’s fan. “Is that not Georgette?” she cried in horror. “Alone? And without her hat or gloves?”
Through an opening in the crowd Imogene did indeed see Georgette’s dark shining curls bent over a collection of pearls being displayed on a keg top by a sun-blackened buccaneer, before the crowd closed between them, shutting off her view.
“Why—there’s Virginie too!” gasped Esthonie. She was fairly dragging Imogene toward them as she spoke, puffing along in the heat in her rustling bronze silks through mountains of lemons and limes.
They came up behind the girls. Georgette, in white dimity, was rapt in her inspection of two short strands of pearls that she was comparing by holding them up to the light, dangling them from her short fingers. Virginie, in pink voile, was gazing with delight at a single baroque pearl that she held between thumb and forefinger. She made a little pirouette that brought her face to face with her mother.
“Mamma,” she cried blithely. “Look what Jean Claude has just bought me!” She displayed the handsome pearl.
The look on Esthonie’s face was ludicrous. It veered somewhere between anger and shock. Imogene choked back her laughter as Esthonie looked wildly about her.
“Where is Jean Claude?” she gasped.
“Over there.” Virginie nodded toward a pile of wine kegs over which Jean Claude was bent in inspection. Now he rose and strolled in their direction. “Papa took him on a walk to view the town this morning and they rushed back right after you left, Mamma, to tell me they’d seen this beautiful pearl and Jean Claude wanted to buy it for me as a bride’s gift if I liked it.”
“And they told Virginie to hurry down before it was sold,” Georgette finished for her. “I came along to select a necklace.” She held up her choice meaningfully for her mother to view.
Her mother ignored that obvious invitation to purchase. “But where is Veronique?” she gasped, bewildered at this new turn of events.
“Oh, she rode out early before any of us were up,” said Georgette. “It was barely light out and I called to her and she said hush, I would wake everyone up. She said she might stop by the market before coming home. I guess she changed her mind.” The girl gave Imogene a slanted look of enormous malice—Georgette envied Imogene inordinately.
“What an odd expression you have on your face, Georgette,” said Esthonie suddenly. “Have you some great revelation for us?”
Georgette cast a half-triumphant, half-taunting look at Imogene. “No,” she said airily.
Imogene caught the menace of that sudden bold glance. She wondered uneasily if Georgette knew that Veronique had sailed. She knew that alone among the governor’s family, Veronique was fond of Georgette and might have confided in her. No, surely even Veronique would see that it would have been folly to entrust such knowledge to a child. Georgette would never keep her secret, she would brag about what she knew that others were unaware of, and slowly, surely, word would reach Don Luis in Spain of what had happened and his long arm would reach out and pull his errant young wife back to him.
Imogene shivered. These were cold thoughts that raked her in the hot Tortuga sun.
Jean Claude had reached them now. He was a gangling fellow of medium height with narrow shoulders, a rather caved-in chest and a sallow complexion. Veronique, Imogene thought in amusement, could not possibly have been interested in him. Indeed, if she had she would have been the death of him—he looked too fragile to satisfy such a lusty woman. Still he did have a languorous air and w
ore his unnaturally orange hair unconscionably long and wavy. A drooping orange mustache hung from his noticeably long upper lip and his small bright brown eyes looked out over a beaklike nose. His age was uncertain but Imogene agreed with Esthonie—the closer one looked the older he became. It was as if he kept up the façade of youth, the trappings of the young, but behind it one sensed an enormous ennui, a boredom, a lack of purpose.
Imogene judged him to be a failed fortune hunter whose family had despaired of finding him an heiress in France and had sent him here to this disreputable island. She did not care for him, but she knew how anxious Esthonie was to get Virginie wed.
“Why, Jean Claude,” Esthonie simpered with more truth than she would have liked to admit, “I thought we had lost you!”
“Never, madame.” Jean Claude swept them all a bow so low that his long orange hair grazed the dust.
Esthonie tittered. “Then I am sure what I have to say will come as good news to you. Madame van Ryker here—” she paused to introduce Jean Claude to Imogene and at her beauty Jean Claude came instantly to attention. Esthonie frowned. “As you know, we are buying Madame van Ryker’s house.”
“Yes,” murmured Jean Claude raptly, his eyes never leaving Imogene.
Esthonie’s voice sharpened. “As a friend of the family, Madame van Ryker desires to attend the ceremony. Since she is leaving so soon, I could not but oblige her.” She beamed at Jean Claude as if she were bestowing on him a gift. “So I have promised her the wedding will be held tonight!”
“Tonight?” Jean Claude was staggered. The face he turned to her had a jaw gone slack with shock; his future mother-in-law had at last his full attention. “But Madame Touraille,” he protested in confusion, “my family expects me to return with Virginie and marry her there. In France!”
Roguishly Esthonie waved her fan beneath his beaklike nose. “Ah, but they could not but approve when you tell them that if you are married tonight Captain van Ryker plans to give our Virginie a little gift!”
Imogene winced at being used in this manner, but Jean Claude straightened suddenly and blinked. The mixture of expressions on his face was a wonder. He knew there was no way to escape this marriage—he had come to that dismal conclusion back in France. But he had planned to postpone it as long as possible—even though he was in desperate need of her dowry to pay off his gambling debts, which had piled up so monstrously. He had been lured here only because Virginie’s father, Gauthier Touraille, was amassing a fortune selling letters of marque to the buccaneers of Tortuga. And now if he wed the girl tonight, the buccaneer who had taken an entire Spanish plate fleet would bestow on him a large gift!
“Madame Touraille, you are right,” he agreed gracefully. “There is no sense waiting. We should accommodate the van Rykers. Tonight would be excellent!” He gave Virginie a sunny smile and she managed a virginal blush. Imogene envied her aplomb.
Esthonie’s attention was diverted. “Do I see your father over there behind those wine kegs?” she demanded of Virginie. “Yes, I am sure it is he. Jean Claude, do go over and collect him. See that he does not buy any more wine—tell him I said he is not to do it. And bring him back with you. He must inform the minister and make all the arrangements. Now, this afternoon, if we are to have the ceremony tonight.”
Jean Claude bowed and left them, and the buccaneer sitting on his haunches behind the keg that served as a table for the pearls reached out a gnarled hand to retrieve the short pearl necklace Georgette seemed about to make off with.
“Fine pearls, my ladies,” his big voice boomed at them. “Fit for queens like yourselves!”
“That’s the necklace I want,” Georgette told him airily as she surrendered it.
Imogene peered at the two necklaces. “The other necklace is better matched,” she said wickedly, as a prod to Esthonie. “Why did you choose the one with smaller pearls, Georgette?”
“Because there are ten more pearls in that one,” Georgette pointed out impatiently.
“I would still prefer the other one,” laughed Imogene. “It’s much better looking.” She was amused that Georgette did not yet understand the value of larger, better matched pearls—that was something grasping Esthonie obviously had forgotten to teach her!
“Well, I wouldn’t,” insisted Georgette. “A string of pearls just can’t be long enough—queens wear great ropes of them wound around their necks and around their waists and someday I’ll have ropes of pearls too—like you do! I wouldn’t bother with a lumpy pearl like that.” Her lofty shrug dismissed Jean Claude’s gift to Virginie.
Nettled that her handsome baroque pearl should be thus cavalierly dismissed—and on her wedding day too!—her sister gave a heartless laugh. “You’ll never get them,” she told Georgette. “Papa is going to be short of funds what with having to raise my dowry in such a hurry!” She gave her sister a winsome smile. “Jean Claude says he will buy me a string for Christmas. In Paris.”
Georgette was not one to be bested. “I don’t need Papa to buy my pearls,” she stated recklessly. “I’ll have my pearl necklace, you’ll see—in fact I may even have that one!” She indicated the strand those gnarled hands had just taken from her.
“Ha!” said Virginie. “Braggart!”
“And I won’t have to wait till Christmas, either!” Georgette’s voice rose shrilly.
“Two pieces of eight say you don’t!”
“Five say I will!” flashed Georgette.
“Girls, girls,” chided their mother. “You are making a scene here on the quay. Mon Dieu, what will lmogene think of us?”
Both girls subsided, pouting, and immediately—pearls and wagers and weddings forgotten—began studying with appraising glances the buccaneers who swaggered past. Once again lmogene was reminded that the governor’s daughters had the air of very young, very determined prostitutes prowling about looking for their first customers. For a wild moment she wondered if Georgette intended to acquire her string of pearls that way. Esthonie had better hang onto the house keys or she might find Georgette swaggering down into the town some night!
Jean Claude came back with Gauthier, who looked floored when his wife airily told him the marriage would be held that night. With her usual domination, she overrode his weak protests and he trotted off dutifully with Jean Claude to find the minister.
“lmogene, I have no time to buy Virginie a proper pair of bride’s garters,” twittered Esthonie. “And you have such lovely things. Could we stop by your house and borrow a pair?”
“No, I”—Esthonie must not see that empty house and jump to the right conclusions—“I am still in a flurry of packing and will have to look for them. You and the girls had best drop me off and I will find a pair and have them sent over.” And that, she thought with irritation, meant that she would have to send one of the servants down to the quay to buy a pair, for all of her own, save those she was wearing, were already on board the Sea Rover.
“Is that woman Papa and Jean Claude are talking to a whore?” wondered Georgette as they climbed into the carriage.
Esthonie’s bronze bodice lurched as if pierced with a pin. She whirled to view in the distance the stylish madam with whom Gauthier kept company—and for whom he bought vast quantities of wine.
“Virginie said she was,” insisted Georgette.
“I said she was a madam,” corrected Virginie.
“What’s the difference?”
Esthonie looked about to choke. “Have you no sense?” she cried. “Nice young girls do not speak of whores. Or madams! Ramon, drive on!”
lmogene saw the driver’s shoulders shake, convulsed at Georgette’s question. In spite of himself, Ramon was beginning to feel a real fondness for the French governor’s unconventional family.
“I hear Captain van Ryker prowled the town in search of the two men who attacked you,” said Virginie, who had not seen lmogene since the incident. “And killed them.”
“Yes,” said lmogene shortly.
“What did they plan to do wi
th you?” breathed Georgette, her eyes growing enormous.
“I think they planned to hold me for ransom.”
“And rape you too?” said Georgette in admiring horror.
“That too,” said Imogene.
“Georgette!” cried her mother. “Ladies do not use the word ‘rape’—it is indelicate.”
“What do they call it?” Georgette was fascinated.
“They say”—Esthonie cast a rather hunted look about her and found no help from Imogene—“that a man forced his attentions upon them.”
“Or that they were evilly used,” supplied Virginie smugly.
Georgette shivered happily. “Jean Claude is all very well but I want a man like Captain van Ryker,” she stated loftily. “Someone who will litter the Caribbean with bodies in my behalf!”
Her mother, vexed as the carriage gave a sudden jolt when it hit a piece of coral rock, turned on her menacingly. “I will paddle your bottom with my hairbrush if you say another word on the subject, Georgette! Be silent—and sit straight!”
Georgette’s back stiffened even as her lower lip stuck out in a pout.
But Imogene was not looking at the governor’s younger daughter at that moment. She was looking at Virginie, leaning back against the carriage seat and holding the baroque pearl up for inspection. They were just leaving the quay and a handsome young buccaneer leaning on a crutch had stopped to study them.
As she watched, Virginie gave him a brilliant smile, then airily considered the pearl and turned kittenishly to cast a slanted, inviting look at his face.
The young buccaneer got the message. The governor's daughter was not priceless—but her price was high. Swearing an inward oath that he would garner the pearls of the Indies for her favors, he beamed and stood on one boot to wave his crutch enthusiastically as the carriage swept by full of bright billowing skirts and wide-brimmed hats and waving plumes. With a self-satisfied expression, Virginie leaned back sensuously, continuing to regard her baroque pearl with absorbed interest.
Wild Willful Love Page 16
