Wild Willful Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “Then you were sailing to St. Agnes the night I met you,” said Imogene in horror. “You were the man who’d unfurl a red sail and wait for an answering light!”

  His shamefaced look told her it was all true.

  “Oh, Harry,” she whispered. “How could you?”

  It was Melisande who spoke for him. “ ’Twas easy for Harry,” she said coolly. “He needed the money! And when Harry Hogue needs money, he gets it—don’t you, Harry love? And now I'll just put on this blue dress, which was mine by rights anyway, seein’ as how Lomax took it! And you’ll put on these gray weeds I’m wearin’, and we’ll take you to a boat we’ve got waitin’ down below the cliffs.” She nodded in the direction of the ocean. “And we’ll sail away with you to somewheres nice and safe where Lomax and the others can join us. And we’ll keep you there until your buccaneer pays a fat ransom for you!”

  “No!” cried Imogene, forgetful of the gun, forgetful of everything but her disgust for the pair of them. “I won’t do it! I won’t go with you!”

  Her voice died as Melisande struck her a blow on the side of the head with the barrel of the gun. She crumpled to the grass, a slight figure in a sheer chemise. In a daze she heard Melisande say, “You’re well shut of her, Harry, in spite of anything you think now. She’d have got you killed, sooner or later, and you know it as well as I do!”

  There was an unrecognizable sound from Harry and then Melisande’s voice again. “Here, help me with these hooks. There ain’t no time to lose, Harry. I seen a big crowd headed this way—come to see the hangin’, I guess, only there ain’t goin’ to be no hangin’, so’s they might start lookin’ around and some o’ them might happen to recognize us. Ain’t as if we was new at this game, Harry. There’s those as would recognize us for havin’ picked their pockets or cut their purses for them. Or maybe even held them up on the king’s highway!” Her laughter pealed.

  Imogene’s head was ringing, but she managed painfully to sit up and open her eyes. She saw that Harry was helping Melisande with the hooks of the blue velvet dress. The pistol lay on the grass. Absorbed in getting Melisande dressed—and quickly—neither of them was watching her. She felt a wave of blackness stealing over her but she crawled toward the pistol.

  “Ouch, Harry, that hurt!” Melisande was scolding him. “You caught those last hooks in my hair!”

  A resentful mutter came from Harry’s lips that sounded vaguely like “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be! Are you sure you’ve got it hooked up right in the back there? I don’t want to be lookin’ like I’ve been rollin’ in some hayloft, Harry!”

  “Stand still, Melisande! How do you expect me to—there!” Imogene reached the pistol, felt her fingers close around it. She rolled over and from her prone position on the ground, pointed it at them.

  “Harry,” she said quietly.

  Harry turned in surprise that her voice was coming from the wrong side of him. She saw his eyes widen. “Imogene,” he said. “Imogene—don’t.”

  “Why shouldn’t I kill you?” she asked dully. “You killed so many others. People who never hurt you.”

  Melisande had glided behind Harry. She was using his lean body as a protective shield, her blue velvet skirts blowing around his thighs, between his legs. “Talk to her, Harry,” she muttered anxiously.

  Harry moistened his lips. His eyes were on the gun, held there, riveted. “Look here, I didn’t take part in the killing, Imogene. I never killed anyone in my life!”

  “No, but you profit from it, you see that it’s done,” she sighed.

  Sweat had broken out on Harry’s brow. “I told you I’d change,” he cried.

  “How? By taking me captive and holding me for ransom?” she mocked him.

  “He won’t do that now.” Melisande jabbed Harry with her elbow. “Will you, Harry? He’ll be true to you. Promise her, Harry!"

  “I’ll be true to you, Imogene!” cried Harry in an anguished voice. And deep with hurt, torn from the heart of him, “God help me, you know I will!”

  “Like you were true to Emma and all those others?” Imogene’s voice sounded remote. There was a roaring in her ears. Suddenly she realized that the roar came not from within but from without.

  “Oh, my God, what’s that?” cried Melisande. She stuck out her head from behind Harry’s shoulder. Harry too was staring forward.

  Imogene inched to a sitting position. A quick glance behind her showed a number of men running downhill toward them. They were making an enormous noise. “Heva, heva!" came the roar.

  And suddenly, without being told, she knew what had happened. Knew with inner certainty. The Averys had decided to make certain that their dead son was avenged. They had managed to set the huers on her and now they were bearing down the hill hard upon them, shouting "Heva, heva!" which meant “Found, found!” Unaware of the rumors that had been circulating, Imogene wondered briefly what lie the Averys had invented to set them against her. No matter, she told herself, almost tranquil now at this anticlimax after the agony of her trial, she would soon be dead—just as dead as if that Cornish jury had convicted her!

  It amused her that first these huers might strike down Melisande by mistake simply because she was wearing the blue dress.

  “They’re after me," she told them, pleased that she could strike terror into Melisande’s cold heart. “And at this distance they think you’re me—because you’re wearing my blue dress.”

  “I’ll get it off!” cried Melisande in panic. She began ripping at the bodice.

  Imogene’s voice stayed her. “I’ll shoot you if you try it,” she told Melisande amiably.

  Melisande’s hands fell away like lifeless things. She began to whimper. “Harry,” she pleaded. “That mob is after Imogene because they think she’s a witch—you heard the talk in town. Do something, Harry! Don’t you see, if they get her, they’ll get us? Even if they kill her before she can accuse us, they’ll ask us questions we can’t answer because we’re with her!”

  Harry was trembling. “Imogene,” he whispered hoarsely. “For the love of heaven!"

  “Heaven doesn’t love you, Harry,” mocked Imogene. “How could it?"

  He stiffened at her mockery. His boyish face was gray with fear, but now a spark of desperate courage kindled in his eyes. “We’re going to make a run for it,” he said. “Melisande and me. There’s no point our dying with you!”

  Imogene laughed. She was surprised she could still laugh, when anytime now her life would be ending. “No point at all,” she agreed. She cocked the gun.

  “I loved you, Imogene!” The words were wrenched from Harry. “You’ll not shoot me,” he added with strangled bravado and turned away from her.

  Imogene lifted the pistol. And then she remembered how she had felt about this rogue, how he had amused her, kindled desire in her, made her want to live again. She remembered how for a moment there he had wavered, wanting to go her way. Why should he die with her after all?

  With a sob she let the pistol barrel fall. Harry might be as bad as she now believed, but she could never be his executioner.

  Casting a look of triumph behind him that he had correctly judged his woman, Harry had already taken to his heels and Melisande was sprinting along beside him.

  The roar had increased to a mighty tower of sound and those vengeful feet were pounding ever nearer.

  Suddenly a hand went over Imogene’s mouth. “Quiet,” grated a low voice and she felt the gray homespun petticoat Melisande had left on the ground flung over her head. Imogene struggled indignantly. “They went that way!” roared the voice above her, obviously addressing the tumult that was bearing down upon them. “Tried to steal this poor woman’s clothes to get a disguise! Held a gun on her!”

  The roar increased as pelting feet sheered off and passed them by but Imogene had gone limp. For she had recognized that voice.

  “Now!” came a low-voiced whisper close to her ear and she felt herself swept up and carried in strong arms. Arms she knew
. Arms she loved. Arms she should never have left.

  The gray petticoat was still thrown over Imogene’s head like a hood, obscuring her golden curls, but the face that looked up from beneath it was alight and starry-eyed.

  “Van Ryker!” breathed Imogene. “How did you ever find me?”

  CHAPTER 30

  Van Ryker was running now, holding her lightly in his arms, sprinting down the grassy gully that led to the sea. The torrent of men had gone on past them, through the shallow valley. They were running up the long slope after Harry and Melisande—in pursuit of Imogene, as they believed the woman in the blue dress to be. Herding them upward toward the cliffs, toward the sea.

  “I’d come ashore looking for you.” The dark, loved face that smiled down upon Imogene’s split into a wide grin. “At first I thought ’twas you standing there beside the tall fellow in leather, for I recognized the blue dress. I was dashing toward you with my boots making hardly any sound on this soft grass, for ’tis damp the way I came up, as you can tell by how quiet we’re going, not hard like that ground over which that great body of men is pounding. Who are they and what do they want? Do you know?”

  ‘‘They’re huers and they want me,” said Imogene composedly. She would have been content to lie in these arms forever and be carried along.

  Van Ryker quirked an eyebrow at her.

  “Like you,” she murmured, “they’ve been fooled by the blue dress. They think they’re pursuing me. But never mind about that,” she added impatiently. “Go on. Start at the beginning.”

  “I left the ship far out,” he said, “with orders that when Barnaby received my signal, he was to sail in and start bombarding the town. I would lead the attack from the land side.”

  Imogene felt a little thrill of joy go through her. She had not lied to the jury. Van Ryker had sailed in ready to do battle for her.

  “I left a force of men below the town and came in to reconnoiter—I had to locate you. I reached Penzance just as you and the fellow who just ran away were leaving. Or escaping. I couldn’t tell which. He appeared to be removing you from harm, so I followed, not daring to attract attention to you by calling out or giving chase. When I saw he was leading you into that gully, I began to suspect his motives. About the same time I sighted far off a great body of men running this way. I didn’t like the look of any of it, especially since he seemed to be leading you into the concealment of some trees. So I decided to circle around and approach you by way of the gully from below, under cover of the trees. At least that way I’d have blocked his path to the sea. I was out of sight for a short while and when I got there I thought it was you standing there in the blue dress—and then I saw that you were lying on the ground holding a gun on the pair of them. The woman seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.”

  “She stepped from behind a tree,” said Imogene.

  “I was about to spring for him when the pair of them broke and ran. It occurred to me then that you might be the quarry when I saw the men running downhill toward the gully were all pointing at the woman in the blue dress and waving each other on—and when I realized that you were lying on the ground in your chemise with your dress on the other woman’s back and naught but a pile of gray homespun on the ground. Fabric,” he chuckled, ‘‘that you would never wear by choice! So I seized you before you could cry out, threw that petticoat over your head to conceal your identity and called out to your pursuers to draw them off.”

  She owed her life, she realized, to his quick thinking. It brought home to her how narrow her escape had been—if escape it was, for they were not out of it yet.

  The gully had narrowed to a steep rocky ravine down which he ran, light-footed in his wide boots as a mountain goat. That narrow defile had now led them far down to the base of the cliffs, where they could see the whole wide panorama of the sea and the mighty cliffs rising tall on each side of them in their granite march along the Cornish coast. At last van Ryker slowed his breakneck pace and found a concealing cleft in the rocks.

  “We’ll wait here a moment,” he said, looking about him keenly. Her senses quickened for she knew he sensed possible pursuit and was quietly loosening his sword in its scabbard.

  “Put on the petticoat,” he flung over his shoulder. “I’m afraid I left the dress in my hurry. But this”—he pulled out a scarf—“will at least conceal your hair, which is too conspicuous for comfort.”

  Quickly, still feeling that all this could not be happening, that van Ryker could not really have appeared out of nowhere, she did as she was bid. The scarf was of heavy gray silk and long; it covered her hair and fell down over her breast, hiding the fact that the top of her garment—above what was in reality a petticoat but appeared to the onlooker because of its homespun serviceability to be a kirtle—was not a sheer bodice but indeed a chemise!

  He looked at her when she had finished.

  “You will do,” he smiled, and the caressing way he said it made hot color rise into her cheeks.

  Over the roar of the crashing surf as they crouched there, listening to it break rhythmically against the cliff's, she said puzzled, “I still don’t see how you knew to look for me here?"

  “ ’Twas chance mostly,” he admitted. “From the Sea Rover we spotted the wreck of the Goodspeed still hanging to the rocks and went ashore on the island there.”

  “St. Agnes,” she supplied breathlessly.

  He nodded. “I had neglected to paint some other name on the Sea Rover's hull.” He did not add that it was anxiety for her that had caused him to neglect it, but she guessed as much and smiled gently at him. “Someone on shore recognized her as a buccaneer ship and men in brown robes poured down toward the beach. One of them tried to sell me this.” He reached inside his doublet and pulled out the topaz and diamond necklace Imogene had given Clara for saving her from the wreckers.

  “But I gave that to Clara for saving me!” she exclaimed in alarm. “What happened to her?”

  He frowned. “There was no woman. They told me there were only men on the island.”

  “They lied!”

  “I recognized the necklace as belonging to you and offered a large price if the fellow who had it could tell me where the golden-haired wench who owned it was to be found.”

  “And they told you?” Surprise made her look blank.

  “They were eager enough to tell me,” van Ryker told her sardonically. “They told me the golden-haired wench was being tried for murder in Penzance and would probably have been hanged before I could get there. As you can surmise, I wasted no time in setting out for Penzance!”

  “And found me!” she marveled. “I still cannot believe it!”

  “I have a strong force of buccaneers just down the coast,” he told her grimly. “Barnaby and de Rochemont and all the rest were almost as eager for this venture as I—you are popular with them, Imogene.”

  “I am glad,” she said, smiling. “For I have an affection for them too—” She broke off, her gaze suddenly riveted on a sight farther down and above them, atop the gray cliffs where a long ledge of overhanging rock at the top pointed a finger out toward the sea. The top above was grassy and must have looked safe enough to a stranger, but anyone local would have known better than to run out upon it, for it seemed supported by nothing—almost to hang in the air like a snow bridge.

  But a pair of strangers had run out upon it: a tall dark man and a woman with long golden hair—for Melisande’s hair had come loose as she changed clothes with Imogene. Her sky blue skirts were blowing.

  “It’s Harry and Melisande!” she cried—and clasped her hand to her mouth in horror at what she was witnessing.

  The cliffs were old and gnarled—they had waited for centuries for this moment, it seemed. Year by year, little bits of the cliff’s body had crumbled away, battered by the fierce Atlantic gales, the boulders rumbling down to crash upon those other sawtooth rocks far below, rocks that as the tide came in would be covered by the sea. Even now that tide was surging in, each wave licki
ng farther toward the tall cliff’s ancient face.

  And now it was as if the old cliffs had grown restless and with the rhythmic shouting of the huers, some inner resonance along the cliff’s fault lines was set up and the ground swayed for a moment beneath the panicky feet of Harry and Melisande.

  Swayed—and rent asunder with a sound like a great cracking cough as the old cliff cleared its throat and straightened its granite shoulders to stand sentinellike and watchful once more in its timeless role of guardian of the land against the hungry prowling ocean.

  As the ground beneath their feet gave way, a terrified shout from Harry pierced the forward-pressing onlookers’ ears and a wild scream from Melisande rent the air, silencing those shouts of “Heva, heva!"

  Their screams continued eerily to reach the huers as they and the very patch of earth upon which they had stood disappeared from the huers’ view, and those who leaped forward, daring annihilation to get a better look, saw their crushed bodies lying in the foam upon the rocks below. But Imogene, from her vantage point, saw Harry and Melisande describe a long arc, falling downward, ever downward, on their long, long drop to crash on the sawtooth rocks below. Rocks that waited like an endlessly open mouth filled with big shark’s teeth—to destroy them.

  Together, screaming, they fell—together landed.

  And so perished Harry Hogue, the London rogue, and the doxy he had christened Melisande.

  Together. As Melisande had predicted, they would always be together.

  Imogene had heard their screams end abruptly as the rocks found them and broke their bones. A cry would have risen in her own throat had not van Ryker swiftly clasped a warning hand over her mouth.

  With a convulsive shudder, she hid her face in van Ryker’s doublet. Gently he removed his hand from her trembling mouth and his arms went round her warmly, cradling her, murmuring to her soothingly. She had been through so much, his lady. He wanted to care for her, to protect her, to shield her from harm.