Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  Seeing how important the trappings of splendor were to him, Imogene went meekly into a round of fittings that left her pinpricked and exhausted.

  “Of course,” Verhulst told her cheerfully, “there are plenty of good tirewomen in New Amsterdam, downriver from Wey Gat, so we should stock up on materials as well.” And promptly insisted that she choose several dozen lengths of dress materials—the more expensive the better.

  They had just come out of a cellar shop where Imogene had chosen several lengths of jewel-toned velvet—deep ruby red and vivid sapphire blue and the haunting green of emeralds, all of which Verhulst had insisted on, as well as his usual selection of rich lustrous blacks for himself—and several lighter tones of gold and saffron and lemon that Imogene felt would be a relief against the brilliance of Dutch dress. As the shop door closed behind them with a jangle of its bell, Imogene looked up and saw a man regarding her from the street with a narrow smile.

  He was not at all an ordinary sort of man. He looked, she told herself dispassionately, like a brigand—but he had the air of a commanding general. There was authority and lean, lithe strength in every line of that tall frame. Strength—and a wildness she recognized, with a sudden stirring of her own wild heart, in those narrowed eyes, gray as the northern seas, that were even now mentally stripping her. The tall gentleman had a thick shock of dark hair, hair of so dark a brown that it appeared black expect where the sun struck it and highlighted it to a rich, glowing bronze. He was dressed in fine Dutch style, with wide pantaloons and fine leather boots with wide tops, and he stood easily balanced with his legs wide apart as he considered her. There was a heavy pistol thrust casually into the yellow silk sash that swept down from his broad shoulder, and his finely shaped hand rested negligently on the hilt of a very serviceable-looking sword. His clothes looked a bit the worse for wear—except for his linen, which was spotlessly clean. Lace spilled snowily at his throat in sharp contrast to the strong jaw of his sun-browned face, and she saw that his brow and cheekbones were darkened by the sun almost to the color of his russet doublet—which made those narrowed gray eyes startlingly light.

  She was startled when the gentleman spoke to Verhulst. “Ah, mynheer, I did not expect to see the Patroon van Rappard in Amsterdam,” he said affably. His voice was resonant and deep-timbred.

  Beside her, Verhulst froze. His tone, she thought, was notably uncivil. “Good day to you. Captain van Ryker.” He would have pushed on but van Ryker stepped neatly in front of him and that broad chest barred their passage.

  “I believe I have not had the pleasure,” he said suavely, smiling at Imogene.

  Verhulst was obviously nettled. “Mistress Wells, this is Captain Ruprecht van Ryker.”

  “Captain van Ryker.” Imogene acknowledged the introduction as the tall gentleman swept her a deep bow that spilled his dark shining hair down across his shoulders. He straightened up and his smile deepened.

  “You are English, Mistress Wells—I can tell from your accent. Cornish, perhaps?”

  She gave him a quick, wicked smile, for it occurred to her that he knew very well she was English, that she and Verhulst had been speaking together in English when they had emerged from the shop. And because his bold direct gaze irritated her, she said, “You are right,” and added innocently, “I thought you must be English also, Captain van Ryker, since you addressed Verhulst in that tongue rather than in Dutch.”

  His smile deepened still further. “Touché,” he murmured in French. “A very good sword-thrust, Mistress Wells. I see you would make an admirable opponent. Perhaps we will cross blades again sometime?”

  “I doubt it.” Imogene gave a shrug that dismissed him and all his kind from the face of the earth—there, let that be the answer to his knowing grin that seemed to be peering into her chemise!

  “My betrothed and I are heavily occupied, for we set sail with the tide,” said Verhulst impatiently. “This is our last day in Amsterdam and we have many last-minute errands—you will have to excuse us.”

  “ ‘Betrothed’?” murmured van Ryker, his dark brows lifting. “Yes, I can see you would be heavily engaged to keep such a headlong lass in check.”

  “What do you mean by that?” demanded Verhulst, his thin face reddening.

  “Why, nothing, nothing at all,” was the urbane reply. “Save that Mistress Wells has a tongue as sharp as a rapier and a smile that would melt stone. Come now, there cannot be so great a hurry. Where are you staying? I would drink a draft with you, mynheer—and with your lovely betrothed.”

  “We are staying this night on board ship,” burst out Verhulst. “And as I told you, we are very busy, for we have boxes and baggage to see to.”

  “Ah, yes—boxes. Do not let me interfere with the loading of luxuries for the bride, mynheer.”

  Verhulst gave Imogene’s arm a peremptory tug and they were off into the crowd even before she could acknowledge the captain’s ironic bow. She glanced back to see his ice gray eyes following them.

  “Who was that?” she wondered. “Faith, he was a formidable-looking gentleman. Is he one of your neighbors, Verhulst?”

  “ ‘Formidable’?” Verhulst sounded annoyed. “Indeed, he is formidable—reputed to be the best blade in the Caribbean. But one of my neighbors he is not. Why, he’s—he’s nothing but a damned pirate! I didn’t want to present you, Imogene, but there was no other way. The fellow was like as not to run me through if I angered him.”

  “ ‘A pirate’?” Imogene looked surprised. She had seen occasional pirates roaming the streets in Cornwall, but they had been a raffish lot, they had lacked this man’s style, his presence. “He is Dutch, then? But he spoke such excellent English.”

  “Oh, yes, I understand he is Dutch but he speaks a dozen languages excellently. The fellow’s something of a scholar, I’m told—reads books all the time in his great cabin.”

  “I would have thought a pirate would find something else to amuse himself with,” she murmured. “Women, for example.”

  Verhulst snorted. “He does not lack for those either! Come along, Imogene, we do not want the fellow to catch up to us.”

  “What, is he following us, then?”

  “I do not know—no, don’t look round, he’s like to join us!”

  “And why would that be so terrible?”

  “I told you, because he’s a damned pirate!”

  “His gaze was overbold,” agreed Imogene instantly.

  “I am glad you noted that.” Verhulst spoke with vigor. “Such men walk the streets of New Amsterdam freely—but I do not receive them at Wey Gat.”

  All that day Imogene, who had gone through the days since word of Stephen’s death like someone in a dream, found herself haunted by the stranger’s bold glance—as if he saw through her to her very soul and marveled at what he found there. Something about him had disconcerted her and she found it hard to concentrate on what Verhulst was saying, something about this being their wedding day.

  Their wedding day! Somehow the thought was remote, it was happening to somebody else, not to her. But as the day wore on and the sun dipped gold in the west, she found herself grateful to the bold stranger for one thing—he had taken her mind temporarily away from Stephen, who was lost to her, and away from Verhulst, who tonight would be shocked to learn that his English bride was not a virgin after all.

  Nervously clenching and unclenching her hands, Elise, dressed in her best—a rustling gray silk that lmogene had insisted Verhulst buy for her in Amsterdam—stood by that night on the deck of the Hilletje when the captain read the marriage ceremony that united lmogene Wells with Verhulst van Rappard, patroon of Wey Gat. Nothing short of death or dismissal would have separated her from lmogene, but her back was rigid with fright for the young girl whose drifting white veil blew with the sea breeze.

  And lmogene, standing almost in a trance with the salt wind fanning her hot cheeks and the white shrouds flapping from the masts above as the Hilletje beat her way into the North Sea, listened more to th
e creaking of the great ship than to the words the captain was speaking. She looked not toward the thin, intense young man beside her, but out toward the white stars winking down from a black velvet sky and heard an inner voice repeating over and over: A new life, a new life. . . .

  But practical Elise was almost hysterical when, after toasts had been drunk and a late wedding feast consumed, she readied lmogene for bed in the cabin she would share with her new husband. Elise’s bony hands shook as she slipped the beautiful white lace-trimmed night rail lmogene had bought in Amsterdam for this occasion, over the girl’s bare white form.

  “What will you tell him?” she mourned, giving the soft floating material a tug that carried the white night rail down below Imogene’s delicately molded breasts and past her supple hips to brush against her slender white feet. “Oh, what will you tell him?”

  lmogene loosed her fair hair and it fell in ropes of gold down around her shoulders. She shook it out. “I will tell him I had a riding accident,” she flared. “I will tell him whatever I choose. Verhulst will believe me—you’ll see.”

  “Why?” persisted Elise. “Why will he believe you? Why will he not think something else?”

  “Because,” sighed lmogene, combing her hair vigorously with a sculptured silver comb so that it glimmered in the light of the cabin’s swinging lamp, “I am a very convincing liar.” She wished for a treacherous moment that it were not so, that she could start this night, this new life without lies, without deception. The comb paused in her hand. “Do you think perhaps I should tell him the truth?” she wondered wistfully.

  “Oh, no, don’t do that!” Elise dropped the slippers she was holding—dainty white satin bridal slippers that had been worn on deck earlier—from nerveless fingers. “Promise me you won’t do that,” she pleaded, near hysteria.

  “Very well, I promise,” snapped lmogene, Elise’s fright restoring her own courage. “Anyone would think you were the bride, not I! For heaven’s sake, get you to your cabin, Elise.” She nodded toward the tiny cabin next door that was to be Elise’s on the voyage. “Verhulst will be arriving at any moment and he will hardly expect to find you still here.”

  “I will not sleep a wink,” cried Elise brokenly, for the tension of what was soon to come had set her nerves on edge and rubbed them raw. “I will listen at the door—call me if there is trouble.”

  “You will not listen at the door. If there is trouble—” lmogene’s voice was ironic—“it will be a bit late to call on you. I will have to deal with it myself.”

  Elise scurried away, her control completely gone. She was bent over and wringing her hands. Her sister Clara, who had always considered Elise a tower of strength, would have been appalled to see her at that moment. “Not a virgin,” she was muttering to herself. “Oh, who knows how this Dutchman will feel about that?”

  The same as other men, came Imogene’s silent answer. But she felt a quiver of fear go through her—and of shame. Because she had not been fully honest with her Dutchman.

  She plumped the fat bed pillows and lay back against them, trying to arrange herself fetchingly. Wild thoughts coursed through her mind. She could pretend to virginity, of course, she could twist about, cry out, feign tears. She could insist on keeping the lamp on—then she could watch Verhulst’s face and see if he believed her.

  No—her face was stained with color at the thought. She would do nothing so humiliating. She would murmur something about “A riding accident . . . you must understand . . .”at an appropriate moment, and hope that Verhulst’s blood would run hot enough with desire that he would forget—or at least forgive.

  Perhaps she should tell him that she had fallen as a child while climbing on the rocky cliffs and torn herself. He must know that Cornwall and the Scillies abounded with cliffs and jutting sawtooth rocks.

  But then he probably knew nothing about Cornwall. The problem was—how much did he know about women?

  Time passed.

  Imogene, biting her lips—more from nervousness than to make them red—told herself petulantly that Verhulst would consider her lack of virginity of no importance. Had he not stressed time and again how he had always meant to marry a lovely woman to grace his handsome home, to receive his friends? That was what was important to Verhulst, not virginity!

  She felt perspiration breaking out on her forehead and almost panicked. She must seem fresh and dewy! Everything depended on it. For Imogene was steeped in the knowledge handed down from Eve that a lovely woman, fresh as springtime and delicately scented, could hold out her bare white arms and bend a man from even his firmest intentions.

  She dived from her bed and seized a fine linen handkerchief and feverishly rubbed her damp palms across it, blotted it against her face. Now the barest brush of attar of roses, so that the scent of the damask rose would rise faintly from her silken body.

  Her face was flushed and her thoughts hammered at her: Could I tell him that it is not the custom in England? That only the poor go virgin to their marriage beds? Oh, no, he would never believe that. He would ask who—and I cannot speak about Stephen, not yet. Perhaps ... not ever.

  Tears stung her eyes and were hastily brushed away. A crying bride? Never!

  Back in the bed she lay down atop the coverlet, stretched out one white arm over which a wash of sheer lace spilled, and turned a bright expectant smile toward the cabin door.

  No, she could do this better. She slid one leg up, bending a white knee invitingly so that the skirt of her night rail slid up along her hip, and blew out the lamp. There, that knee would shine silver in the moonlight.

  And so Imogene waited, looking infinitely desirable and frozen in fear, with her heart pounding in her chest—and waited, and waited.

  At last the cabin door swung open.

  Verhulst van Rappard stood there, a dark shape in the doorway.

  BOOK II

  The Sea Rover

  A toast to the lean sea rover

  Who hides with his wolfish grin

  The terrible cost of all he has lost

  And all that it meant to him.

  CHAPTER 8

  The sun shone bright on the clean-scoured boards of the Hilletje's deck and a fair wind billowed her shrouds. Barefoot sailors whistled as they went about their chores and the few passengers—most of them New Netherlanders on holiday, for Holland had trouble getting the contented Dutch to migrate to their raw American colony—strolled about, taking the morning air.

  But one passenger was not strolling. Elise, her face so white and pinched that passersby assumed her to be seasick, leaned against the ship’s rail, watching not the blue sea with its frothy white-capped waves but scanning anxiously each passenger who emerged on deck. She was watching for Imogene and her imagination was so harrowed by wild thoughts of what the girl’s wedding night must have been that she started forward with a convulsive protective gesture when Imogene at last came out on deck and walked toward her.

  As the full sight of Imogene sank in on her, Elise sank back against the rail and her fearful eyes surveyed the young girl in amazement. Imogene was wearing a wide-skirted dress of ruffled yellow calico that billowed in the salt breeze over a sky blue silk petticoat. Black velvet ribands decorated her low square-cut neckline and crisscrossed her V-shaped bodice. Saucy black velvet bows accented her wide yellow calico oversleeves and peeped from the frothing lace of her white lawn chemise cuffs. She sauntered toward Elise on soft yellow slippers, looking as if she had not a care in the world, and wished her a smiling good morning.

  Still, Elise—whose kindly heart had almost stopped at sight of Imogene out of very real fear for her—could not bring herself to trust this casual stance. Imogene was bold; she well might be trying to carry off a disaster by ignoring it.

  “Was it—was it all right?” Elise whispered hoarsely, clutching Imogene’s arm. “I kept trying to listen at the door—”

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” chided Imogene, lowering her voice as two passengers walked by. She acknowl
edged their greeting, then turned and studied Elise’s haunted face. “You do look as if you haven’t slept all night, Elise. Best take a nap today.”

  Elise gasped at this offhand answer. “I couldn’t hear anything,” she protested. “Your voices were too low. And I hoped, I hoped—oh, was it all right?” she entreated. “How did he take it? Has he turned against you? What did you tell him?”

  Imogene acknowledged the simpering bows of a passing Dutch vrouw and her daughter, then turned a puzzled face toward the far blue waters, stretching away in the glittering distance. She waited until the two women were out of earshot. “There was no need to tell him anything.”

  “ ‘No need’? But he must have wondered when he—”

  “He told me he was seasick, but I think he was drunk,” said Imogene dispassionately. “He did not touch me. Not once. I think—” she frowned—“I really think he must be afraid of me.”

  So it was all postponed for some other possibly more terrible time. Elise looked as if she might faint. “He did not touch you? Not at all?”

  “Verhulst was taken suddenly ill,” Imogene told her tersely.

  “ 'Ill’?” Wild new thoughts coursed through Elise’s terrified mind. “Oh, I do hope it is not the plague!”

  Imogene gave her a very steady look. “I do not think it is the plague,” she said evenly. “But even in the moonlight I could see how pale his face was as he unlaced his doublet. I thought at first that he must be a poor sailor and was seasick but . . . now I am not so sure.” Her voice dwindled as she remembered the maddening slowness with which Verhulst had undressed, how careful he had been always to keep his back turned to her, how at one point he had sought to steady himself by grasping a chairback . . . indeed, he had seemed afraid to turn and face her. And when at last he had, his expression had been unreadable. She could not bring herself to tell Elise that her bridegroom had all but tottered to the bed or that his heavy breathing—which she had mistaken for unbridled passion and braced herself—had been merely a symptom of his distemper. For at the bedside he had paused as if to study and memorize each feature of his young bride, so temptingly displayed upon the bed.