Wild Willful Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “I don’t wish to go back,” she said in a blurred voice. “It would remind me of my guardian, who’s dead and—other things.”

  “But you must go,” Bess told Harry. “It really is the best place to start a flower plantation. And even if you decide it’s not, there’s so much to see. You can follow the road around the western side and pass Hangman’s Island and reach—”

  “ ‘Hangman’s Island.’ That’s appropriate,” said Melisande to no one in particular.

  Bess gave her a surprised look. “And reach Cromwell’s Castle,” she said. “It was built just below King Charles’s Castle-—and I’m afraid they took down most of that to build the Lord Protector’s stronghold!”

  Melisande was watching Harry with an unpleasant look in her brown eyes. Imogene thought they looked more like swamp water than ever before. Melisande’s full lips curved into a slight sneer as she took a last bite of plover’s egg and wiped her mouth inelegantly with the back of her hand. “Yes. Harry,” she drawled. "You must by all means go there!"

  And later, when the disastrous breakfast had ended and Bess had fled upstairs to intervene between Ambrose and Lady Moxley and her mother, when Mr. Robbins had gone off whistling on his bird-watching expedition to Annet, and Imogene had strolled outside to let her long hair blow in the sun and think, Melisande caught at Harry’s arm and dragged him back down the endless corridor that led to the “inn wing,” as Bess now called it.

  “Do you believe Imogene is really van Ryker’s wife?” she asked him excitedly.

  “No,” mused Harry. “But if she is ...”

  Melisande snilfed. “If she was, she wouldn’t be here. She’d be with him. wouldn’t she, livin’ off the fat of the land?”

  “They might have had a falling out,” said Harry softly. Melisande made a derisive sound. “She wouldn’t be livin’ in no rundown castle like this one, she’d be off to London or somewheres and rentin’ her a fine town house!”

  “But she did claim the dress—and it fits her like it was made for her,” he pointed out.

  “She saw it and she wanted it! Same as I did! And Bess altered it overnight—you heard her say Imogene was down from London.”

  “I heard it, but I didn’t believe it. And besides, she knew about the amethyst brooch. Melisande, there was a trunk found on the wreck full of silver plate and at the bottom was a heavy gold money chain worth a fortune. And the blue dress was in that trunk. If that trunk belonged to her—”

  “It didn’t!”

  “But if it did...” Harry’s face had grown dreamy. He was remembering the sight of that golden woman with the delft blue eyes in that sky blue and silver gown. What buccaneer would not want her? “If the dress is hers, then the money chain’s hers, and if she left Tortuga with that much gold. there’s a fair chance her buccaneer wants her still—and will pay to get her back.”

  At last Melisande’s murky brown eyes held an answering gleam. “I take your meaning, Harry,” she said, giving him an exuberant slap on the back. “We’ll ransom her!” She did a little jig and threw her arms about him.

  Harry winced inwardly. Ransom was not really what he had had in mind for glamorous Imogene. He had been merely thinking out loud and Melisande had seized upon it.

  Now she drew away from him. She was pouting. “Oh, come on, Harry, you don’t really believe she’s van Ryker’s wife, do you?”

  “No,” sighed Harry. “But if she is, we’re wasting our time with these wrecking operations.” Smoothly, he followed up her thought. “For van Ryker would pay more in ransom than we could make in a year just to get her back. But if she doesn’t belong to him”—he gave her a wry smile—“then we’d be wasting our time to take her at all.”

  “How can we find out?” wondered Melisande, frowning.

  “There’s no other way—I’ve got to get to know her better.” Harry sounded pleasantly resigned.

  Melisande drew in her breath and gave him a sharp look. Then she clapped him playfully on the shoulder and laughed. “I guess you’ve got to at that, Harry, you fox!”

  Harry, looking at her thoughtfully, hoped this mood would hold through the ensuing days, for Melisande was given to sudden rages. She could ruin everything.

  “You must give me some time with her,” he said harshly. “She’s not apt to confide in me in the presence of witnesses!” Leaving Melisande discomfited, he strode away. He found Imogene strolling in the garden, pensive, wondering what she should do now. She started as he called her name, for she was lost deep in her own thoughts. She tossed back her long fair hair and waited for him.

  “I saw you out here this morning, leaning on the garden wall, looking like a blue angel,” he told her with a grin.

  So not only Ambrose but Harry as well had seen her in her dressing gown! The corners of her mouth twitched with amusement at what Lady Moxley would have to say about that! “I was looking out to sea,” she said frankly. “I didn’t see you.”

  “No, I expect you didn’t. I was watching from the walls and looked down and there you were.” His tone was caressing. “You should always wear blue, you know that?”

  Two other men had told her that... her first love and her last. But she had married, in between, a man who had loved her in yellow and called her his golden bird of love.

  “No, I don’t know that,” she said perversely. “In fact, I thought the gray voile suited me very well.”

  “Oh, anything would suit you,” he drawled lazily. “With a figure like yours! I was talking about what suits you best.”

  “I am surprised Melisande lets you out alone,” she said ironically.

  Harry was taken aback. “D’ye think me tied to Melisande’s skirts, then?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Only so much as brotherly piety leads me to be,” he said in a bland voice, and took hold of her wrist.

  Imogene gave him an impatient look. “You are a fake, Harry,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. And I know your secret.”

  His hand, which had been caressing her wrist, now closed over it. He was holding her lightly still but at any moment his strong fingers could clamp down. Was she telling him, he wondered, that she knew that he and Melisande were the brains behind the wrecking operations on St. Agnes Isle? If so, she could be dangerous to him. “Then share it with me,” he said steadily.

  Imogene laughed. “You are traveling with your doxy and because you are staying in a respectable house, you have passed her off as your sister. No, do not bother to deny it because I saw you rolling about with her yesterday in a great clump of yellow flowers!”

  Harry relaxed. “My secret is out,” he said charmingly. A sudden shadow of embarrassment passed over his cynical countenance. “Does Mistress Bess suspect me as well?”

  “ ‘Suspect’?” laughed Imogene. “She is certain of it! But have no fear, Bess is of a serene nature. She does not believe in meddling in other people’s affairs.”

  “I am glad to hear it.” His face cleared. “And what does Imogene van Ryker believe?”

  She took back her hand from his grasp and resumed her stroll. “Imogene van Ryker believes in the truth,” she flung over her shoulder.

  Harry fell into step beside her, his dark head bent slightly over her own. From that position he could inhale the slight lemony perfume that emanated from her hair, and watch the sun shimmer its golden strands. “And what truth would ye have me admit?”

  Imogene shrugged. “No more than you’ve a mind to!”

  “Is that what your buccaneer did?” he challenged her.

  “My . . . buccaneer,” she said in an altered voice. She had been trying not to think about van Ryker. She cast a hunted look about her. Past the yellow-lichened stones she could see clouds of purple heather, sea holly and bracken and foxgloves and huge golden mounds of gorse. And past all that a lonely cormorant was diving upon the glittering sapphire surface of the sea. She took a careful step to avoid a wayward white and gold narcissus that had invaded
the stones of the garden walk. “I do not wish to talk about van Ryker,” she said distantly.

  “Nor do I,” agreed Harry with a sincerity that surprised him. “Indeed, I’m glad he’s far away! Even though I think him a fool to let you wander so far. ...” he added, leaning a trifle closer to that bright head.

  Imogene lifted her skirts to avoid another clump of narcissus. Plainly, Bess had not been able to bring herself to move the plants at this time of year, fearing they would die. “Watch out there,” she said sharply. “Your boot near did for some of Bess’s flowers.”

  The only flower that interested Harry at that moment was the flowerlike woman swaying beside him, fragrant, desirable, remote—but he removed his boot from the spot with alacrity. “You make me regret... many things, Imogene.” The honesty of his tone made her look at him sharply.

  “Regret nothing for me,” she said with a small discordant laugh. “My life is none so perfect!”

  “Yes, but you have come through it unscathed,” he murmured. “You have come through it—well.” Clean, he was thinking and marveled that it should be so. Shining, unsullied, and—a phrase he had not heard since his childhood— pure of heart.

  “You must be speaking of some other woman,” she scoffed. “Surely not of me.”

  “Only of you, Imogene.” He thought of Melisande, so damaged by life, so hardened—and contrasted her with the woman beside him. He halted, caught her by the elbows and turned her to face him. “I’ll change your mind about me, you know,” he promised her in a rich-timbred voice. He smiled caressingly and the sun flashed on that smile, making it blindingly brilliant.

  “You’re a rogue,” she laughed, but there was a catch in her voice.

  “Perhaps we’re a pair?” he suggested impudently. “Well matched?”

  She shook her head. “Never a pair...”

  “Why not?” he asked softly. “I’d change to suit your pleasure. D’ye wish a wandering life, Harry’s your man! D’ye wish to sport silks and gauzes and dance at Whitehall, Harry’s your man!”

  That last made her laugh. “You? At Whitehall? I’d give odds you’ve never set foot there!”

  “Aye, and you’d win,” he agreed instantly. “But for you. Imogene—” He reached out and tenderly ruffled a tendril of her fine fair hair that had come free and blew lightly in the breeze. “For you I’d make it happen.”

  She was studying him, grave now for she recognized something real and earnest in that timbred voice. A commitment. “I almost believe you would,” she murmured.

  “Oh, I would do it.” His self-assurance was contagious; it led her to believe that Harry would do great things—if only she’d join him in the venture. “For you I’d do it.” He sounded suddenly melancholy. “But then ... you’re not planning to give me the chance, are you?”

  She caught her breath. How well he had guessed what was in her mind! And now she looked away from him quickly lest his hot blue gaze penetrate to the very depths of her—and find there a woman tempted.

  “You have Melisande,” she pointed out in a breathless voice.

  “Ah, yes, Melisande..His hand stroked her hair for a moment. “There’s always Melisande. But Melisande has a dozen rogues back in London eager to take my place.” And some on St. Agnes too if the truth be known, but Harry wasn't willing to admit that just yet!

  “You’re saying she wouldn’t miss you?” lmogene gave him a level look. “Then perhaps you’re saying I wouldn’t miss you, if later you were to leave me?”

  Harry’s blue eyes widened. He hadn’t expected such a challenge to be flung at him—or that she’d see him for what he was, a rover with a rover’s way with women. He respected her the more for saying it and now he looked at her anew. Not only desirable—she had honesty and spirit. Behind those level eyes that now considered him there stood a woman worth winning, worth—he had almost said to himself, worth dying for. But of course that was nonsense; no wench was worth dying for—not even this one.

  “I’d never leave you,” he declared gallantly, lmogene favored him with a mocking smile. “You say that now.”

  How well she divined his faults! Plainly here was a lass who had known many rakes and knew their ways. “How can you say that?” he complained. “When you know so little of me?”

  “I know your kind, Harry. Charming, attractive—and false.”

  “Then tell me if this is false!” he said harshly. And of a sudden he seized her and whirled her into his arms. His blue eyes burned into hers. “You believe you know the truth when you meet it. Tell me if this is false!"

  His lips—for she made no move to stop him; indeed her heart was beating like a butterfly’s wings—crushed down upon hers, warm, demanding, willing her to love him. For a moment the ocean’s deep rumbling became a torrent in her ears, a clamorous rush of sound. And with it her reserve broke and she melted in his arms, unresisting, passionate, giving him back kiss for kiss.

  It was an impassioned moment and it lasted for a long time.

  When, finally, lmogene burst free, she was panting and her face had gone two shades paler.

  Harry too was pale. He looked almost appalled, as if he had encountered some great revelation about himself.

  “We’re too much alike,” she said bitterly. “We would only bring about each other’s ruin!”

  “How can ye say that?” cried Harry. He had kept hold of her hand and now his grip tightened. “ ’Twas not what your lips told me just now!”

  “My lips are no concern of yours. They have their own treachery.” She ran a trembling hand over her mouth as if to erase the memory of his lips. For she had fought that wine of freedom that had stolen rapturously over her, even as Harry had fought it—because, like him, she feared commitment.

  Harry stared down at her in tormented fashion. He felt as if his senses were drugged with some new sweet perfume. A kind of enchantment was stealing over him and he shook his head to clear it.

  “I’ll make you mine,” he predicted hoarsely. “Faith, you’re mine already—’tis just you have yet to admit it!”

  Imogene shook off his hand and flung away from him. She felt confused, endangered. A girl could break her heart for the likes of Harry—and be thrown away carelessly, like some broken toy. He was no good, some sure cold instinct told her that. And yet for the space of a heartbeat or two, her whole being had responded to him wildly.

  The ice on which she trod was treacherous at best—and now it was beginning to break up. She could find herself dragged down, down into some deep desperate pool, drowning in love for Harry ... and break her heart again.

  Her slender back stiffened. Harry, who stood silent, watching her blue velvet skirts swish away from him, noted that change.

  She is fighting me, he thought. And then reluctantly: That speaks well of her, does it not? He tried to laugh off that sudden reckless feeling that had washed over him when he held her in his arms. At that moment he would have done anything, promised anything, and perhaps—it was only a “perhaps” but it nagged at him—kept that promise.

  If he made a commitment to this golden woman—and at the moment he had no intention at all of doing that—he sensed that it could well be for life. For under the calm blue pressure of those level eyes, what would he not attempt. It was a new and frightening thought to Harry and it was a shaken man who sauntered back to the castle and stood looking from its old gray walls across the turquoise sea where other men led other lives, respectable untarnished lives... men who basked in the pride of their women. Did he want to reform? To be like those other men?

  These were new questions that Harry asked himself, still caught up by the remnants of that enchantment that had shaken him to the core. This newfound passion that tore at him, threatened to destroy his comfortable roving ways—it never once occurred to him to call it love.

  CHAPTER 27

  It had been a stormy week at Ennor Castle—a week no one at Ennor would soon forget. A week during which Imogene had fought off the strong attraction she
felt for Harry, a week during which he had sought her out at every opportunity, teasing her, cajoling her, begging her to love him. And after she turned him away (each time, he told himself, more reluctantly), he would go back to Melisande, gloomy and dour, and tell her that the wench was mighty cagey about van Ryker and he still couldn’t quite make out how matters stood.

  Melisande was beginning not to believe him. Suspicion showed in the pout of her full lips and in the way she’d turn swiftly when Imogene came into a room, or watch her balefully out of the corner of her eye.

  All week low, scudding clouds had skimmed over the horizon, promising rains that did not fall. In between, the sun broke out for brief periods, bathing everything in its glory. But inside the old walls of Ennor Castle a tempest more violent than any that was likely to beat down upon its ancient battlements was building up.

  It had begun the afternoon of Lady Moxley’s abrupt return. Bess had knocked on Imogene’s door, very pale, and informed her that Lady Moxley had “talked it over with her mother” and intended to stay all week.

  Imogene gave her hostess a tormented look. “Shall I stay in my room, Bess? Would that help?”

  “Of course not,” said Bess with dignity. “I just wanted to warn you that she’s apt to be very unpleasant. Oh, Imogene, you shouldn’t have baited her so by tearing off your whisk and letting down your hair.”

  “I’ll tear it off again,” said Imogene through her teeth, pulling off the whisk she was even then arranging. “I’ll go without one the entire time she’s here!”

  Bess sighed. She had known it would be like this. Imogene and Lady Moxley were old antagonists, and Ennor Castle was merely a new setting for their continued combat.

  “I wonder why she hates me so,” puzzled Imogene.

  Bess gave her a startled look. “I thought you knew. Your mother took the man Lady Moxley loved away from her and then jilted him to marry your father. Her rejected suitor drowned a week later—oh, it was a very ordinary accident, his boat capsized, but Lady Moxley persists in believing he committed suicide because your mother wouldn’t have him. She was convinced that if he had lived he would have turned to her, and has told everybody so. Your mother escaped her wrath by moving to Penzance, where you were born. But Lady Moxley never forgave her. And since you look so strikingly like your mother, everybody says, it rubs an old wound every time she sees you.”