Wild Willful Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  In point of fact, Melisande had left. Her clothes remained, so Harry presumed she’d be back. His Melisande had left him before—but never for very long. Always she came back smiling and full of schemes to take the world. The boat was gone too, so he presumed she’d sailed to St. Agnes to consult with Lomax. Harry sighed. He wished he hadn’t taught Melisande to sail. Still, Melisande had the devil’s own luck; he was confident she had made it to St. Agnes.

  Now with Melisande out of the way, Harry set about his pursuit of Imogene in deadly earnest.

  “Come away with me,” he urged. “I could take you anywhere. We’ll start a new life—together.”

  “And Melisande?” she mocked.

  “Melisande can find her own way,” he said shortly.

  “I don’t think she’ll let you go so easily, Harry,” warned Imogene.

  But Harry, who lived for the day and never gave tomorrow a thought, brushed that off with a careless, “She’d have no choice.”

  Imogene gave him a brooding look. In a way it would be tempting to disappear with Harry, to find a new life, to walk in the glow of this man’s eyes, which told her more strongly than any words how very much he wanted her.

  Still she hesitated, holding him off.

  Another day passed. Melisande stayed away and Bess, fully occupied with Lady Moxley and her mother’s exhortations, paid little attention. Her concern was for Imogene.

  “I’m sorry Ambrose is staying with the Thaxtons,” she said. “I’d hoped he would help me control Lady Moxley and soothe Mother. She’s almost too much for me, I confess. And—I’m afraid for you, Imogene. There’s something spiteful in Lady Moxley’s tone when she speaks of you. She might do anything. Indeed, I now believe we’ve got to get you away from here.”

  “I have decided to stay, Bess,” shrugged Imogene. “That is, unless you cast me out. Van Ryker will pass this way eventually, I presume, and I intend to flaunt in his face a new lover. Just as he flaunted his mistress in mine!”

  ‘‘A new lover! Oh, you can’t mean—”

  “Harry Hogue.”

  “But that woman with him isn’t his sister'. She’s his doxy! She’ll tear your eyes out once she’s up and around!”

  Imogene gave her a Circe-like smile. “Do you think Harry will let her?” she asked tranquilly. “Besides,” she added contentedly. “I think she’s left, Bess. For good.”

  “But—where would she go?” Bess gave her a blank look. “I don’t know, but I noticed the boat is gone. Harry told me some story about it but I didn’t believe it. I think Melisande may have sailed right out of his life.”

  Bess received this new information with shock. Imogene had always moved too fast for her. Hers was a settled nature, meant for tranquillity, while Imogene seemed always destined for passion and danger and unsettling events. “I would never turn you out, you know that,” she said.

  “Yes, Bess.” Warmly, Imogene clasped her friend’s arm. “I know that.”

  Frightened, for she knew Imogene’s impetuous nature,: Bess waited for something to happen. With each day Imogene’s blue eyes had grown more luminous, her manner more carelessly flaunting. Bess did not like the way she smiled at Harry—it was an invitation, that smile.

  Things came to a head the very next night. It was a beautiful night and Bess felt in her bones that something was going to happen, for Lady Moxley was entirely silent, studying Imogene balefully, and Imogene reacted by flirting outrageously with Harry at supper. She had entirely abandoned Bess’s gray voile and was wearing the sky blue velvet dress with the shimmering blue silk petticoat alight with silver. She looked stunning. Bess, watching the reckless abandonment of her gestures, was afraid for her. She remembered another night four years ago at Star Castle when Imogene’s voice and smile and gestures had had the same reckless quality.

  The reckless girl had become a reckless woman, Bess thought sadly. And once again she might crash on the hidden reefs of love.

  She watched as, after supper, Imogene let Harry lead her out into the garden, although Lady Moxley protested that they should stay to hear Bess play the harpsichord.

  “No, let them go,” sighed Bess. “They wouldn’t hear me, anyway,” she added in an undertone.

  For Imogene, as she walked beside Harry through the familiar castle halls, there was a magic in the air tonight. She felt its touch like gentle fingers as they strolled out into the softness of the night.

  On such a night, she thought idly, a girl could fall in love. But she was no longer a girl, of course. She was a woman, but she knew, ruefully, that she lacked a woman’s wisdom. She would follow her heart—wherever it led.

  And tonight it led her dangerously in Harry’s direction.

  Harry led her to the garden wall, glamoured by moonlight.

  “The gorse is springy as a bed—and as soft,” he said wistfully, flexing her fingers in his. “Would you not like to try it?”

  Imogene’s light laugh had a little catch in it. “I’m still making up my mind about you, Harry. I know you’re a rogue—don’t deny it. But would you be true to me?”

  “Forever,” he declared gallantly—and at that moment he meant it with all his heart. And that heart leaped within him as he spoke, for she had never said anything so serious to him before.

  “I doubt it,” Imogene sighed and gave him a rueful look.

  “You give me no chance to prove it,” he complained.

  “No, I don’t, do I?” His arms were around her waist now, his face rubbing gently against her hair, his warm breath now brushed her ear like a feather. “I’ve not been lucky for the men who’ve loved me,” she added soberly, trying halfheartedly to pull away.

  “I’d chance it,” he said, his arms tightening. His lips traced a hot tingling path from her delicate jawbone down her slim neck and over her shoulder and down the smooth white flesh of her bosom. “I’d make you love me, Imogene,” he murmured. “I’d make you care.”

  Little waves, little ripples of emotion went through her, like the frothing surf as it struck the beach and receded—back and forth, rhythmically. She could feel his words striking her heart, soft and heavy and comforting. Her senses responded to him, and his touch seemed to her like the wild waves striking at the rocks. His very maleness seemed to pour over her, surround her, claiming her, owning her as his own.

  She lay back lazily in his arms, drifting, feeling her body’s sense of release, of surrender. The magic of the night had claimed her. In a few moments she would let him lead her from the garden to one of those clumps of springy gorse that rose up everywhere, and there beneath the stars of Cornwall she would take a new lover.

  So rapt were they, so intertwined were their emotions, that neither seemed to hear the sounds about them. Then:

  “She’s there, she’s out there!” screamed a triumphant voice that penetrated Imogene’s bewildered senses as Lady Moxley’s.

  There was a sudden pounding of feet that seemed to come from everywhere. She heard Harry’s low curse and felt rather than saw him leave her arms and vault over the low wall, disappearing around a corner of the castle.

  And now rough hands had seized her.

  “In the name of the law!” cried a hoarse voice. “I arrest you for complicity in the murder of Giles Avery four years ago.”

  BOOK IV

  The Legend

  Fortune smiles on fools and knaves,

  They need her or they’ll fall.

  But those who break the rules each day,

  They need her most of all!

  Cornwall, England

  1661

  CHAPTER 28

  It was a glorious day in Penzance and the town had the look of holiday about it. Hawkers were out on the village streets, crying their wares, for people had come from everywhere, on foot and on horseback, gliding along in carriages or creaking in on carts and wagons, all of them converging on the stone building where a great event was taking place. There in a makeshift courtroom (actually a ruined hall, but no place else in th
e town had been adjudged large enough to hold the crowd) the most beautiful woman in all of Cornwall was on trial for her life. Something to tell your grandchildren about, people muttered, how you watched lmogene Wells tried—and hanged. For the Averys were the most powerful family in this part of Cornwall, and had lmogene not been implicated in their son’s murder? Punishment, they predicted, would be fierce—and fast.

  Now in the heat, lords and ladies, hostlers and chambermaids, coachmen and cooks, jostled and craned for a better view as the lovely accused, conducted by the bailiff, walked gracefully into the courtroom. A murmur went through the crowd at the sight of her.

  No quailing prisoner this! Erect and regal in her sky blue gown, Imogene’s delft blue gaze swept the assemblage and not a man there but was stunned by her beauty.

  But to Imogene, coming in off the hot cobbled streets, seeing her last of the sunshine, and now emerging into the dimness of this high-walled ruined hall, into this press of people all staring, it seemed incredible that she should be here on trial for her life.

  It had all happened so fast she still could not believe it. She had been seized, charged, and—over Bess Duveen’s tearful protests—carried away to jail in Penzance on the mainland. Harry had disappeared somewhere; Bess had promised to do what she could.

  Imogene had sailed in silence from St. Mary’s, crouched in a boat with her captors, watching the island world recede in the darkness and with no real hope in her heart that she would ever see it, or Ennor Castle, or Bess Duveen ever again. Dawn had broken as they reached the shore of the Cornish mainland, but Imogene had scarce taken notice of the wrecked village of Penzance, devastated as a loyalist stronghold during the civil wars and just now rising from the ashes. Due to that destruction, she found herself quartered in a makeshift jail—actually a small barren room in a private house—but what did that matter? She was locked in, without hope.

  A day passed, uninterrupted except by food and water, brought by the jailer’s surly wife. And another. The sun was up on the third day, and still she did not bestir herself. She felt as if she had been overtaken by fate—as if she had been given a whimsical four-year reprieve and now she must pay the piper, not for murder—she was not guilty of that—but for an indiscretion, for taking a lover four years ago when she was sixteen.

  Through the roaring in her mind she seemed to hear Bess Duveen’s anxious voice. It was Bess. She was being let in by the jailer, who locked the door again as he left.

  “Oh, Imogene, I can’t believe this has happened to you!” Bess quickly set down the basket of food and wine she was carrying and embraced her friend.

  “What news, Bess?” asked Imogene in a tired voice.

  Bess sank down on one of the two three-cornered stools the room sported. “I sent a note to the Averys entreating them—but there’s been no answer.”

  “Nor will there be. You’d best stay out of it, Bess,” Imogene counseled wearily. “You could make a slip of the tongue and they could get wind that Stephen is still alive. They’d be after him like bloodhounds—all the way to Barbados.”

  “I know.” Bess shivered.

  Imogene’s lips twisted. “It would seem that Lady Moxley has done her work well.”

  Bess hung her head. “’Twas not Lady Moxley who betrayed you, Imogene—although it was at her instigation. It was Ambrose. He claimed he was protecting the family name!” Her voice grew scornful but her gray eyes were beseeching.

  Imogene was taken aback, but she felt Bess had suffered enough on her behalf. She patted her friend’s hand. “If Ambrose hadn’t, Lady Moxley would have.”

  “Yes, that is what he said. She kept at him, it seems. Told him no niece of hers would marry into a family who shielded a murderess!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, Imogene!”

  “It’s all right,” said Imogene stonily. “I’m sure that’s what she considers me. Like mother like daughter,” she added in a wry voice.

  “Anyway, Ambrose was so terrified she’d prevent his marriage to Marcy that he sent word to the Averys that you were staying with us. And the rest”—Bess shrugged helplessly— “you know as well as I. I couldn’t believe that my brother would do such a thing—and to a guest in our house, someone we grew up with, someone he knew I held in such affection! But I have told Ambrose”—her tearful voice hardened—“that if the trial goes against you, I will abandon any further restoration of Ennor and go back to Barbados!”

  “Well, let us hope that Ambrose’s first commercial venture does not die aborning,” said Imogene with feigned lightness, for it grieved her to see gentle Bess in such disarray.

  “Oh, don’t make light of it, Imogene,” cried Bess. “It was a terrible, inexcusable thing to do!”

  “Yes, it was, Bess,” soothed Imogene. “But remember he’s your brother and you do care for him.”

  “If the trial goes against you, I shall never forgive him! I have told him in that event he can no longer consider himself my brother, that I will refuse to receive either him or his bride and will return all letters unopened!”

  Imogene thought privately that that would be a protection for Stephen, but she refrained from saying so.

  “The jailer told me the trial is day after tomorrow,” she told Bess.

  “Yes, and you must eat and look your best,” said Bess, indicating the basket. “And appear downcast and submissive. Then perhaps—”

  “But I am innocent!”

  “I know that, Imogene, but—” Oh, how could she tell Imogene the terrible rumors that were running like wildfire through the town? She had heard them as she arrived. They were saying that Imogene Wells had never really left Cornwall, that she had turned into a witch these four years past and was to blame for all the ills that had befallen them. That old woman who’d been struck by lightning at the foot of the great standing stone called the Blind Fiddler—Imogene was to blame for that. And the child who had died of a stone in its throat—had not a big white bird flown in through the window, crashing through the leaded panes and dying at the doctor’s feet, at the very moment he pronounced the child dead? Her spirit had been in that bird! And those three women, huers' wives, who had been raped and strangled near Boleigh (which, as everyone knew, meant “a place of slaughter”) and their bodies found in the ancient fougou, or underground passage—that was not done by foreign sailors, as had been thought, but the women had chanced upon lmogene’s lair, the cavern from which she wrought her evil! Bess had been shocked at the rumors, and now she could not even bring herself to speak of them to this steady-eyed woman before her. “Judge Hoskins is coming back from Bath to preside at your trial,” she told Imogene.

  “That old lecher?” said Imogene contemptuously.

  “Oh, don’t, I pray you, take that attitude!” wailed Bess. “And Mr. Allgood undertakes your defense, I understand.”

  “He has already been here,” said Imogene shortly. “He has undertaken my case for the notoriety, it would seem.” Her lips curled. “He does not care for the truth, but wishes me to fabricate a new story more to the liking of delicate ears!” Her teeth closed with a snap.

  “Well—perhaps you should listen to him,” worried Bess. “For any delay, Imogene, works in your favor.”

  Imogene flashed her a keen look. What did Bess know?

  “I do not wish to raise your hopes up too high, but Harry says the Sea Rover was sighted by a fast sloop, and if that’s true—”

  Imogene’s heart leaped. If that was true, then van Ryker was nearby. He must be informed of her predicament and at once! For whatever future he had envisioned for her when he tricked her into storming aboard the Goodspeed—whether it was a ménage for three, or a different wife for each of his plantations, or just to be rid of her—whatever his intent, van Ryker was not the man to let the authorities hang a woman he had once held in his arms!

  “If only it be true...” she whispered.

  “Harry told me he would be willing to take his boat out and scour the coast watching for him—tha
t woman Melisande has come back to him, Imogene, and with her the boat!—but he was uneasy about facing up to a shipload of buccaneers, I think, and he wondered if you might not give him some sign so that van Ryker would know he had indeed spoken with you? Your ring, perhaps?”

  “Yes, of course, that would be just the thing!” With shining eyes, Imogene tore off the ring and deposited it in Bess’s hand. “Harry is right, he will know the ring! Indeed, it will exactly match the one he wears upon his little finger, for he had mine made to match it!”

  “Then I must be about it!” Bess rose and smoothed down her gray skirts. “I hope to have good news for you soon, Imogene—news that van Ryker is coming.” She gave her friend a last embrace for—like Imogene—she felt that if van Ryker did not reach her, Imogene was as good as dead already.

  Until the night before the trial, the news that van Ryker’s ship had been sighted sustained Imogene. She ate heartily, she drank the wine Bess had provided, she was filled with hope.

  But as the long hours dragged on and there was no word, she found herself pacing restlessly in her cell. And at midnight with her trial set for the next day, she faced the fact that they had somehow missed van Ryker, that he had not seen the Goodspeed's hull sticking to the rocks—if indeed it was still there—that he had sailed on to Amsterdam ... without her.

  And with Judge Hoskins presiding, she was now bereft of hope.

  People were supposed to compose themselves for impending death, she had heard, and she little doubted that she would be taken from the courtroom to a place of execution and there strung up on a gibbet, but she could not even seem to arrange her thoughts. Her past life beat at her stormily, all the good and all the bad seeming to weigh her down equally.

  But when on the morrow the bailiff took her through a muttering crowd to the courtroom, she was calm as ice. For it had come to her in those last hours of tossing and turning on the narrow pallet in her cell, that she wanted to die well. They would get no mawkish protestations from her at the end! She would face them down, every one!