’Twas hurt that sent her forth.
Fast away from her southern love
The tall ship carries her north!
PART ONE
The Masquerade
Noble oak and swaying pine
In the dark may seem similar trees.
And a wench may be mistook for a queen
'Neath the moon in a sheer chemise!
The High Seas
1661
CHAPTER 13
Dawn—that swift hot dawn of the tropics—burst over the wild blue wastes of the Caribbean. It gilded a flight of gulls streaming out over the ocean to feed. And it picked out the lone figure of a woman leaning on the rail of the Goodspeed as that stout merchantman careened over the waters on the long journey back to England. The freshening breeze that came with the dawn was a relief to the early-rising passengers, who had tossed and turned on their bunks in the sultriness of the night. But although it blew the light silk skirts of her tangerine ball gown and ruffled her golden hair into a wild halo, making her a remarkable and striking figure aboard that staid ship, Imogene never felt it. She was wrapped up in her own somber thoughts, lost in a world that did not include the Goodspeed or its sober crew.
The other passengers nudged and whispered. They gave her area of the deck a wide berth—but Imogene was not aware of that either. There was some reason for their wariness, for had she not burst aboard weeping last night, making a great scene and demanding a cabin just as the ship cast off?
“I am Imogene van Ryker,” she had cried dramatically. “My passage has been fully paid and I demand to be taken aboard and transported to England!”
With an alacrity that had surprised the passengers, Captain Bagtry had agreed. One might almost have thought he had been waiting for this late arrival, so swiftly did he cast anchor after she came aboard.
Why had van Ryker done it? Over and over Imogene had asked herself that through that long night. Was revenge then so sweet? Or. . . were Veronique’s slender arms even more tempting?
Whatever had driven him, everything was over between them now. She had left him, the dark buccaneer who had swept into her life with the force of a gale and swept her along with him into what had seemed at the time such a glittering world. She no longer needed Esthonie’s warnings or van Ryker’s protestations—she had seen the truth with her own eyes. And been shattered by it.
A false dawn had appeared and then the sun had come up and she was hazily aware through her grief that there were people walking about, muttering when they looked at her. They must think her actions exceedingly strange. She looked down at her fluttering tangerine skirts and realized that she was still wearing her ball gown, still glittering with jewels. They would assume her to be a runaway from Tortuga, as indeed she was.
But they would not guess the reason.
Moving stiffly, she left the rail and walked slowly to her cabin. She leaned against the door, loath to go in, and told herself she must try to sleep—and after that, to think. There was nothing for her now, nothing left, and it seemed to her in her despair that no man had ever been true to her. Not Stephen, the copper-haired lover who had deserted her in the Scilly Isles, not Verhulst who had loved her madly and nearly killed her with his jealousy, not van Ryker who had seemed so steady and so true.
All of them, faithless in the end. ...
A dry laugh crackled. She realized vaguely it had come from her own parched throat. Annoyed that she should make such a sound, she flung open the door.
She had expected an empty cabin with naught but a blanket on the bunk and perhaps a rude chair and table. What greeted her made her grasp at the cabin door in shock.
It was obviously the best cabin on the ship—after the captain’s—that met her gaze. Upon the wooden table in the center of the room reposed a large silver bowl filled with fresh fruit—mangoes and grapefruit and oranges and limes. A tall stalk of bananas graced one corner and there were open kegs of golden lemons, bright oranges, deep green limes. Upon the bunk was spread no ordinary ship’s mattress but a fluffy feather bed, spread with a handsome blue coverlet that she recognized, and three pillows. Two blankets of fine white wool reposed at the foot against the colder nights that would come on the North Atlantic. And—-there was a leathern trunk. Her trunk.
With an exclamation of surprise, she ran to it and threw open the heavy curved lid with its shining brass fittings.
Inside she saw a mirror, a silver comb and brush. But there were fresh undergarments as well, a dressing gown of soft rose-colored wool against any chill, a light blue silk shawl and another of fine white wool to wear on deck. There were perfume vials and several bottles of fine wine. And— thoughtfully—a beautiful dress she had never worn. The fabric had been of van Ryker’s own choosing, a gift to her from the buccaneer goods on the quay. It was of sky blue velvet, simple and tailored and figure-fitting, with a wide skirt, a deep-cut neckline held together artfully with an amethyst clasp, and a blue silk petticoat embroidered in shimmering silver roses. The big sleeves too were heavily embroidered in silver.
She recoiled from that dress. It reminded her both of Stephen, who had loved her in blue, and of van Ryker, who felt the same way. Angrily she pushed the dress back in the trunk. She would remain dressed in her tangerine ball gown rather than wear it!
As she did so, the glitter of gold caught her eye. Slowly, almost in fear, she pushed aside the finery and peered into the bottom of the trunk. There, underneath the perfumes and toilet articles and several bottles of fine wine, was a heavy gold money chain, enough to keep her for years.
White-faced now, she sank to her knees beside the leather trunk and felt like ice in her hands the smooth cold metal of the money chain. Its presence had for her a bitter significance.
Van Ryker had cast her out. Here indeed was the evidence of it.
He had found another woman to share his life but—his was a handsome nature. He had spared Imogene a confrontation, spared himself recriminations and explanations—he had let her see with her own eyes what he intended, knowing full well what she would do about it.
He must have asked the Goodspeed's captain to wait sailing on her sure arrival, knowing she would fly like an arrow toward the fastest escape route once she had seen him with Veronique.
Now, stunned, she realized he had contrived for her to see him with the Spanish woman, he had staged it! To give her a way out. So she could leave him of her own will, proudly, defiantly—instead of being cast aside as other less thoughtful buccaneers cast aside their women.
Doubtless at this moment Veronique’s dark curls reposed on van Ryker’s pillow!
A sob caught in her throat.
She flung herself down on the bunk but sleep refused to come. Instead, memories chased each other around her mind, making her feel strangely disoriented. Memories of perfumed nights in the arms of her dark buccaneer, memories of long sultry wonderful days spent lying naked beside him on some strip of isolated white beach in Tortuga, or walking proudly beside him through admiring crowds on Cayona’s quay, memories of the way it had been...before Veronique with her long legs and her restless gestures and her challenging amber eyes had come over the horizon like a lean pirate ship and taken van Ryker by storm.
Galled by the thought, Imogene jumped up and paced frenziedly about the cabin.
Abruptly her footsteps slowed. It had occurred to her suddenly that something was missing.
The van Rappard diamonds! She had forgotten all about them. They reposed either in the hall of their house on Tortuga—where avid-eyed Esthonie would stumble upon them. Or they had been stowed aboard the Sea Rover, where Veronique would find them a foil for her own dark blazing beauty. A bitter laugh welled up in Imogene’s throat. Either way, some other woman would wear them.
The cabin was too oppressively small to contain such large emotions. Again she sought the deck.
And bumped into Captain Bagtry. “Ah, I was just seeking you. Mistress—Tremayne, is it?” And when she frowned, he jogged her m
emory with “That is the name Captain van Ryker said I should call you, but when you came aboard last night crying out that you were Madame van Ryker!” He gave an expressive shrug. “I am afraid your secret is out.”
“No matter,” she said wearily. “I am Madame van Ryker. Let the world know it!”
Captain Bagtry pulled at his pointy brown beard. He cleared his throat. “The man who brought you aboard handed me a note before he left. He said it was from Captain van Ryker and that I was to give it to you the minute the ship cleared Cayona Bay. He left and I was just sticking the note into my doublet when”—he looked sheepish—“I saw that little Miller lad had climbed the railing and was about to fall into the sea. I leaped forward to seize him and when I looked for the note later I could not find it. I fear the note must have fallen into the sea, instead of the lad.”
So van Ryker had thought to pen her a good-bye... . “It’s all right,” she told the captain dully. “I know what was in the message.”
Captain Bagtry nodded and left her and Imogene, painfully, in her mind, worded the message van Ryker might have written her: You will be better off without me—yes, that was what he would have said. You do not believe it now, but you will come to realize it later.
And he had sent her off exactly as he had meant to—with one trunk and a blue dress and a money chain. And kept the van Rappard diamonds, like the buccaneer he was.
All her lovely clothes would be worn by another woman—just as another woman would admire her beautiful marquetry long-case clock. Another woman would wear the jewels that had in a way been her dowry—-the van Rappard diamonds, gift of her tragic first husband.
But it was not the loss of those things that dulled her eyes and made her stare straight ahead of her, past the whispering passengers. It was the loss of the dangerous man who had filled her life and her heart.
From the taffrail of the Sea Rover, the object of all this travail considered through a glass—for the distance was too great to see her with a naked eye—the dipping white sails of the merchantman up ahead. He noted with approval that the Goodspeed's captain held his course well.
He lowered the glass and turned a grim face toward his own ship.
Van Ryker had reason to be grim. He was not proud of himself this day. Last night he had tossed restlessly, unable to sleep, his mind and his heart filled with thoughts of the woman who would have been clasped in his arms, save for his own conniving.
He had tricked Imogene.
Aware of Georgette’s obsession with pearls, he had sought the girl out and made a bargain with her. If she would pose as Veronique, complete to unique hairdo and heart-shaped birthmark duplicated by the use of the Spanish paper women used for rouge, if she would don the black satin gown Veronique so favored, and slip away from the wedding party shortly before midnight and accompany him to his house for just a few minutes—
At this point Georgette had interrupted. Having leaped to the natural conclusion that van Ryker was setting up a rendezvous with her and wanted her disguised as Veronique so she could safely come and go from the governor’s house, she gave him a melting look. For already she could see herself replacing Imogene, set up in splendor in the house her mother so coveted. “Would not some tavern be better?” she suggested. “Or some house in the town where we are less likely to be interrupted?”
Van Ryker had given this presumptuous miss an impatient look.
“I do not set out to seduce you. Georgette,” he said bluntly. “You will but pretend that I am courting you and afterward I will personally escort you back to your father’s house. Safe and unmolested.”
A petulant frown had creased Georgette’s creamy forehead at this brusque rejection of her young charms. “I have other things to do,” she said loftily, “than play games with you. Captain van Ryker. But,” she added in a spiteful voice, “I think your wife might be interested to know that you had asked me.”
The coldness that stole over van Ryker’s dark features chilled Georgette. “I would not do that if I were you,” he said silkily. “For if I hear that you have spoken to lmogene about it—governor’s daughter or no—I will lift up your skirts and spank that white bottom of yours until it is cherry red!”
Georgette paled. She had no doubt van Ryker would do exactly what he said. She sidled away from him in panic.
“I but seek to play a trick on my wife, who is jealous of Veronique,” van Ryker explained. “And since you have the same height and coloring, and are a talented actress”—he flung this in ironically—“I thought of you.”
Georgette gave him an uncertain frown. He had called her a talented actress! She thought of Cousin Nanette, dancing through life across the Paris stage.
“Of course there is a string of pearls in it for you,” he added casually.
Pearls! Avarice flared in Georgette’s dark eyes. “Let me see them!” she cried. “Of course I will do it!” And then, to save face, “I did not realize it was but a trick on your wife. Captain van Ryker,” she added hastily. “Or of course I would have said yes immediately.”
“Of course,” agreed van Ryker gravely. “The pearls you may select for yourself from among the strands Stoddard has down at the quay. You know who I mean?”
Georgette nodded raptly, and entered with enthusiasm into the planning of the venture.
Now, from the taffrail, van Ryker thought wryly that Georgette had indeed flung herself into the part, stretching herself seductively upon the long divan, extending a tantalizing gloved arm across the back. He had personally pulled that glove down far enough to display the heart-shaped birthmark rubbed onto that arm with Spanish paper. He had wished they could dispense with the gloves, which threatened to creep up, but Georgette’s young and slightly grubby hands were easily differentiated from Veronique’s long slender ones. They had stuffed the fingertips of Veronique’s gloves with cotton at the last minute and made the picture complete. Georgette had meticulously copied Veronique’s hairstyle. The black satin dress was a shade too tight and perhaps an inch too long but lying on the divan with the back of the divan concealing most of her thin young figure, who could see that?
It had gone well. Perhaps too well. At moments she had seemed almost real to him as Veronique—probably, he told himself wryly, because she yearned so much to be like Veronique.
He wondered idly if he would overtake La Belle France and see in the distance the ship that carried Veronique and Diego to Marseilles. For it had been with a sense of triumph that he had watched her clear Cayona Bay.
CHAPTER 14
As the merchantman La Belle France cleared Cayona Bay on her long voyage to Marseilles that morning of what was to be Virginie’s wedding day, the woman who had called herself Veronique Fondage when she was a houseguest of Tortuga’s French governor—but was in reality Maria Theresa del Rio de Guarda, duquesa of Sedalia-Catalonia and runaway wife of Don Luis Alvarez—was standing by the taffrail, leaning against the strong figure of Diego Navarro, who had an arm clasped about her shoulders. His dark head was inclined toward hers in a most loving way.
Veronique was dressed in a strikingly low-cut, wine red velvet gown of van Ryker’s providing, and her hair was arranged differently, swept back so that only one “heart-breaker” curl hung over each ear, and she had cut a fashionable fringe of bangs across her forehead. For van Ryker had warned her that she must look as different as possible, so that Don Luis’s agents would not be able to thrust a miniature painting of her into the hands of those people she met from now on and have them instantly identify her by her distinctive hairstyle and manner of dress. Unjeweled in Tortuga, she had dipped into her jewel case, which van Ryker had sent aboard, and was now wearing a blaze of rubies—and they were vastly becoming against her pale olive skin.
Diego too looked strikingly different. He had lost the rakish—indeed, somewhat sinister—look of a Spanish officer, emissary of that mighty grandee, Don Luis Alvarez, duque of Sedalia-Catalonia, and was got up as an elegant French cavalier, in doublet and trousers
of rich viridian green satin. The lime gold silk of the lining showed fashionably through his slashed sleeves, there were lime silk rosettes at his garters, a spill of frosty Mechlin at his throat and cuffs—for van Ryker had spared no expense in outfitting his gallant former adversary. And if the clothes were a bit too flamboyant for Diego’s taste, he told himself that too was a part of his disguise, for he must learn henceforth to think of himself as a French aristocrat, with a Frenchman’s elegant taste in clothes.
Such a pair could hardly escape attention. Anyone could see they were lovers and the other passengers gave them indulgent glances, for had not Captain Ducroire told them that Monsieur and Madame de Jonquil were still honey-mooners—indeed, their wedding trip to Martinique had been unpleasantly interrupted when their ship had been taken by the Spanish and they had found themselves briefly captives of the Spaniards. Was it any wonder after such an experience that upon being rescued they should elect to proceed not to their original destination of Martinique but back to their native France by the first available vessel, which had turned out to be his own La Belle France?
The passengers had agreed heartily with the wisdom of such a move and the honeymooning de Jonquils’ name was on everybody’s lips, for the distinctive pair had attracted much notice. Many speculative looks were given them. And one of those passengers, a fragile lady in elegant plum silks and spiderweb lace, named Mademoiselle Pernaud, who was traveling with her maidservant, gazed at them longest of all, and her gaze was sad.
“L'amour,” she murmured. “Mon Dieu, how marvelous it is....’’ There was desolation in her voice—and with reason. For Mademoiselle Pernaud was frail-looking for a reason: she was wasting away. The handsome gown that now hung on her thin body had fitted her well but two short months ago. Mademoiselle Pernaud was sister to the French governor of Martinique and she was returning home to France to die, for the doctors had given her but a few months to live. Now her wistful gaze caressed the lovers. “If only I...” She let the thought trail off and turned her head away from the sight of those two striking and romantic figures that seemed to blend in the morning light, and gazed instead out across the vivid turquoise wastes of the Caribbean.
Wild Willful Love Page 19
