The Golden Cross

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  She stared at him, dumbfounded and more confused than ever, but he placed the paintbrush back in her hand and urged her to continue. “This shows great promise,” he had said, thrusting his hands behind his back as he studied her poor little painting. “Great promise, indeed. You are very nearly there, Aidan.”

  Very nearly where? she had wanted to shout. She had come such a long way since beginning her work with Heer Van Dyck; she could paint and sketch and see the world with more clarity than she ever dreamed possible. He had opened her eyes to technique, to creativity, and to the possibility that God had gifted her out of love. But she had not attained the level of maturity he desired for her, and now he was gone.

  She was still mourning his loss when Sterling returned, his arms burdened with vines and broken wood. “I could use your help,” he said, spilling the materials at her feet. “Time is short, for unless I’m mistaken, Tasman will sail away at first light.”

  “What’s to stop him from leaving us now?” she answered dully. A sourness rose in the pit of her stomach. “It is all for nothing. It is no use. We are doomed to fail.”

  “Believe that and you will never be what Heer Van Dyck intended you to be.” The doctor grinned at her as he knotted a length of vine.

  “Heer Van Dyck?” She stiffened at the challenge in his voice. “What would you know about his intentions for me?”

  “I know that he considered you a great talent,” the doctor answered, slipping a noose around the boards at his feet. “He once told me that the world would grieve if you did not succeed. He believed in you enough to risk your life and his honor by bringing you on this expedition.”

  Mercifully, the moonlit shadows hid her embarrassment. She was neither a talent nor a lady, and now that Heer Van Dyck was dead, she would never be either. He would not finish his map. She would not draw the flora and fauna to adorn it, and no one would ever sponsor her so she could complete her book of engravings.

  “Heer Van Dyck was a sentimental fool.” The words hurt her throat, as though she’d swallowed some sharp object. “He thought a great many things.”

  “He thought you a great lady—far above the common realm, I think he said.”

  Aidan lowered her head as blood began to pound in her temples. Had the old gentleman really said such a thing? Knowing where she had come from, how could he?

  But he was faultlessly honest, she remembered. He could not even bring himself to lie when he brought her aboard the Heemskerk. Yet if he had told the doctor she was a great lady …

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked suddenly, searching the shadows for the doctor’s face.

  “Because I want you to live.” His voice, soft and vibrant, seemed to fill the hollow where they crouched. “Because I see that you are sorrowing, and sorrow will do you no good now. Mourn if you must, but wait until we are aboard the ship and away from this place. Then you can reveal yourself to the captain and know that you are safe. And you can be the great lady you truly are.”

  “What?” Startled at the sound of her own cry, Aidan glanced up, half-expecting the forest beyond to erupt with blood-thirsty savages. When none appeared, she lowered her voice and leaned closer to hiss in Sterling’s ear. “Why would I want to reveal myself? I have just resisted one savage, why would I want to resist the advances of a hundred men until we return to Batavia? Are you insane? I cannot think of a more lunatic idea!”

  “You won’t have to fight off the other men.”

  “And who will stop them?”

  “I will.” His voice was a salt-encrusted croak, rusty with weariness, but still a tremor of emotion ran through it. “Marry me, and I will protect you. No man would dare dishonor another man’s wife.”

  Aidan looked up, shocked beyond words at his proposal. But her heart betrayed her—it leaped at his words like a child promised her one desire.

  Sterling heard her quick intake of breath and silently cursed his own clumsiness. He ought to have prepared her for this. A lady ought to be gently wooed and won, but he had no time for such civilities. Indeed, he could scarcely believe his own brashness, but when confronted with her beauty, her sorrow, and her passion all in the space of an hour, heaven itself could not have stopped the words from his lips.

  “Marry you?” Her words were quick and cutting. “Heavens above, how could I? You are promised to another.”

  “Well, I—” He paused, his mind sputtering as he fumbled with the boards and vines. He could think of no honorable way to dispute that objection. In truth, every man aboard both ships knew he was betrothed to Lina Tasman. He could not marry Aidan without incurring the disapproval of his captain and most of his companions—excepting, of course, those who would applaud him for recognizing a bit of delectable female flesh when he saw it.

  “Forget my honor,” he snapped, furiously lashing the boards together with the raw vine. “Better to let my honor be tarnished than to let yours be violated by the likes of those men aboard yonder ships! Let them think me a worthless cheat and a scoundrel.”

  “You may be both, for all I know, but what would they think of me?” Every curve of her body spoke defiance; doubtless he had offended her modesty and virtue. “They would say I tempted you, that I came aboard to catch a handsome husband and did not hesitate to take another woman’s betrothed. Well, sir, that is not true. And just as I would have fought off that savage, I would fight you, too, if you—”

  “Be assured, my lady—” He stopped, forcing himself to calm down. By heaven, why did this girl arouse such strong passions within him? He was only trying to help, to save her from an impossible situation, and yet she looked at him as though he wanted to use her like some cheap hussy.

  He reached out and took her arm with gentle authority. “Listen, lady, and hear me well. I am only attempting to keep you from certain disgrace and hardship. You are a lady, and I respect you. You need not fear me.”

  She looked up, her eyes like green ice, and Sterling suddenly realized that color had begun to bleed back into the air. The heavy darkness had thinned, and as he glanced over his shoulder he could see a definite brightening in the east.

  An oddly primitive warning sounded in his brain. The sun would soon rise, even now the seamen were awake and slogging down their morning cups of coffee. In a matter of moments, the ships might bloom with sail.

  “We should go now,” he said, gesturing abruptly toward the beach. “There is no time to waste.” He dropped the boards, then reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. “This is the plan,” he said slowly, his voice urgent and low. “We will walk as quickly as we can into the water. As soon as it is over our heads, you must lean forward upon these boards and kick with all your strength. The planks will float, and the vines will hold them together. But don’t look back, don’t argue with me, and don’t worry.”

  Her face clouded with uneasiness, but she bent down to grasp one end of the wooden planks, then looked up and nodded.

  “Let’s go,” Sterling said, lifting the other end of the boards. “The sun is rising.”

  Aidan pushed herself forward, struggling to match her stride to Sterling’s longer steps, the wooden planks heavy and cumbersome in her hands. There were three planks, three thin pieces of wood which would keep her afloat, preserving her life, lifting her to freedom … and who knew what else. For she had not had an opportunity to rebraid her hair. Dressed like this, with her hair curling and her long shirt wet and dirty, few men would look at her and not see a woman.

  The sharp shells on the edge of the beach sliced her bare feet, but Sterling’s cry urged her forward. They pressed through the breakers, resisting the snarling waves that pushed them back toward the island, and soon the water had risen to Aidan’s chest. “Now,” Sterling said, spreading the entwined planks upon the water. He turned and spanned her waist with his hands, then lifted her up until she fell forward. The planks formed a raft beneath her, and held firm. In an instant Sterling sprawled by her side, his broad form warming hers, his left hand fi
rmly over her right, holding her tight even as his strong kick propelled them toward the waiting ships.

  “Keep kicking, Aidan,” he shouted, glancing over his shoulder. “Don’t quit!”

  Following his glance, she looked toward the shore, then let out a tiny whine of mounting dread. A dozen natives had turned over a canoe and were steering it into the waves while at least two dozen others ran down the beach. Aidan had been so intent upon kicking that she hadn’t heard anything above the crash of the water and her own frantic breaths. Now the air filled with warbling war cries. Her heart leaped to her throat, and when she looked back again, she saw the man who had claimed her as his own riding at the front of the advancing canoe. The cut on his chest gleamed red in the early morning sunlight.

  “Don’t look, kick!” Sterling commanded. Gulping down her fear, Aidan commanded her legs to work harder than they ever had in her life.

  Ahoy, Heemskerk!” Sterling called, churning the water with his kick. “Man overboard!” His pulse quickened at the steadily increasing whoops of the natives, and through the roaring din he breathed two words: “God, help!” Summoning a deep breath, he called again: “Heemskerk! Captain Tasman! Ahoy!”

  A score of tanned faces appeared at the ship’s railing, then a long arm pointed down toward them. The lookout’s voice seemed to rise an octave as he sounded the alarm. “Captain! It’s the doctor and the boy! And the savages in full chase, sir!”

  Sterling felt Aidan shift beside him and knew she was looking over his shoulder at the approaching enemy. God, don’t bring us this far and fail us now.

  Sterling felt a hot surge of joy when a bundle of netting appeared at the railing and fell, unfurling over the side and smacking the water with a solidly reassuring sound. He guided their makeshift raft toward the rope ladder, then kicked with the last reserves of his energy.

  “Here,” he said, reaching out for the netting as they drew near. “Aidan, let go of the plank. Take the rope.”

  She stopped kicking and sagged in relief against the planks as momentum carried them forward. Sterling thrust out his hand, bringing them to a halt half an instant before Aidan’s head would have bumped into the ship.

  “Come on, ketelbinkie,” he said, speaking in as reasonable a tone as he could manage. “Let go of the boards. Here is the rigging, we have only to climb up.”

  But Aidan’s fingers remained splayed over the edges of the first plank. “I—I can’t.”

  “Come, love.” Hooking his right arm through the rope ladder, Sterling slipped his left arm around her shoulders, then tenderly pried her rigid fingers from the board. “We’re almost home.”

  Alerted by the noise, the men of the Zeehaen lined her deck, adding to the confusion and noise with shouting and threats of their own. Sterling silently urged Aidan to respond, knowing that soon Tasman might unleash the cannons.

  Finger by finger, Aidan relaxed, then allowed him to guide her to the rope ladder. Oblivious to the cries and shouts from the Zeehaen and the railing above, Sterling braced his weight on the lower rungs of netting and concentrated on her movements. She had just shifted her weight to the rigging when a strong hand reached out from the murky depths and nearly pulled Sterling from his perch.

  Shock jolted through him as he whirled and looked down into the sea. The huge warrior was treading water there, one hand stretched toward the rope webbing, his dark eyes intent upon Aidan. She screamed, but couldn’t seem to move.

  As Sterling tensed for battle, the warrior touched the wound on his chest, then pointed to Aidan, a proprietary gleam in his eye. No one needed to interpret the unintelligible words spilling from his lips. Clearly he consider the lady his property.

  “No, she’s not yours!” Sterling swung his body over Aidan’s to shield her from the savage. Mimicking the man’s gesture, he touched his own chest, then wound his hand in Aidan’s hair, tilted her head back and kissed her full on the lips.

  An appreciative chorus of oohs and ahhs rose from the canoe and the Dutch ships alike. Though Sterling couldn’t see what was happening behind his back, he knew his actions would leave no room for misunderstanding. Let the world see and know that the woman Aidan O’Connor had his heart, and if any man would fight him for her, Sterling was willing.

  A youthful voice broke the silence and echoed across the water. “Sakerloot! Captain, come quick! The doctor’s kissing the ketelbinkie—and she’s a girl!”

  Aidan did not fully understand everything that transpired in that moment. She only knew that when her life stood in dire jeopardy, Sterling’s body wrapped around her like a shield and his lips claimed hers. Suddenly nothing else mattered. She knew she was safe. Protected. And cherished.

  She leaned back against the security of his strong frame, feeling the rise of the netting as her weight pulled it away from the ship. Sterling had broken off the kiss, but her face still gravitated toward his, like a flower seeking the sun. Her eyes flew open in time to see Sterling lift his fist and brandish it toward the warrior. A musket thundered from the deck, a warning shot that cracked the prow of the canoe, and the warrior in the water slipped away like a cur when someone throws a stone at it. The other warriors, daunted by the Heemskerk’s size and the unknown power of the musket, sat motionless in their boats, unwilling to fight.

  “Quickly, darling, before he changes his mind,” Sterling murmured. In a surge of adrenaline she climbed the rope, cheered on by shouts of applause, astonishment, and approval from her shipmates.

  From the deck of the Zeehaen, Witt Dekker stared at the drama unfolding aboard the Heemskerk … then managed a choking laugh at the thought of his own stupidity. He had been as blind as the others, but now all the pieces fell into place.

  Clearly, Dempsey Jasper’s missing guttersnipe had given Sweet Kate the golden dress, and in exchange the harlot had provided the trickster with breeches and a sailor’s shirt and cap. And the boy’s fragile features—where had he seen them before? At the tavern, surely, if the girl and Kate were friends. Something about the ketelbinkie’s nose reminded him of Lady Lili, but that coppery hair could belong to no one but Irish Annie.

  He rubbed a hand over his mouth, marveling at the simple genius of the girl’s plan. Who had envisioned such a masquerade? And why had she followed the old man on this dangerous voyage? Unless she was more intuitive than Dempsey Jasper believed, she could not know that Van Dyck’s son-in-law had put her in danger.

  So if the girl wasn’t hiding from Dempsey Jasper, she had to be bent on performing her harlot’s trade at sea. The supposedly noble and honorable Van Dyck was apparently so enamored of this vixen that he had planned to keep his little hussy by his side throughout the entire expedition!

  Witt felt a slow smile of admiration creep across his face. The old man had not looked like a lecher, but the cloak of gentility could cover all sorts of dark and unexpected sins. This one would surprise even Dempsey Jasper.

  Dekker lifted his spyglass and saw the girl moving through the crowd of men on the upper deck, the doctor at her side. Of course. Now that her rich patron was dead, the flaming-haired harlot had thrown herself into the arms of the next man to cross her path. Sterling Thorne.

  “Well, Dr. Thorne,” Dekker whispered, lowering the spyglass, “I hope you’re prepared to guard your little titmouse. For she will not return to Batavia.”

  Dekker followed her movements until that coppery head disappeared inside a cabin. He had been hired to kill an old man and a girl called Aidan. Now half his work was already done. He could snuff out the wench’s life whenever he chose, and in the meantime, he might find the game … interesting. She was a mouse, alert and skittish, and she had every reason to be. She did not know that the cat had already sighted his quarry.

  Dekker smiled as he turned toward his cabin. A sea journey of some months was a long time to pass without a woman’s company. At least now he knew where he could find a very pleasing one at a moment’s notice.

  The ends of Abel Tasman’s moustache were bristling wit
h indignation when Sterling and Aidan walked into his cabin. They’d been aboard half an hour, scarcely enough time to change into dry clothes and quench their raging thirsts, but immediately after commanding the ships to make sail and head out on a northeasterly course, the captain convened a meeting of the officers’ committee.

  Sterling stiffened as he recognized the tribunal-like quality of the assembly before him: Visscher and Holman of the Heemskerk, Janszoon and Dekker of the Zeehaen. Heer Van Dyck, who often sat in on officers’ meetings in his role as cartographer, was unfortunately gone forever, and the old man’s beneficent presence would be sorely missed.

  This should have been a meeting to assess the events of what Tasman had aptly named Assassin’s Bay, but the captain’s eyes conveyed little but the dark fury within him. Sterling knew Abel Tasman was less concerned with his doctor’s safe return than with his daughter’s open humiliation.

  “Would you care, Doctor,” Tasman said now, rapping his knuckles firmly on the table before him, “to explain the events of the last twenty-four hours? We sent you ashore with six men, and you have returned with one woman—a wench with whom you actively engage in an indecent public expression of the basest carnality.”

  “Hold now, Captain,” Holman interrupted, his own eyes frank and admiring as he looked at Aidan. “I’d hardly call one kiss an indecent expression of carnality.”

  “This man—” Tasman’s finger shook as he pointed at Sterling. “—is betrothed to my sweet daughter, who waits for him in Batavia.”

  “I beg your pardon, Captain.” Sterling lifted his chin and met Tasman’s furious gaze. “If you will allow me to speak freely, I would have you know that your daughter was less than pleased with our betrothal. I found her delightful, perfectly pleasing, but before we sailed, she told me that though she would marry me in order to please you, her heart belonged to another.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I had thought perhaps God might soften her heart toward me during our voyage. But as we left it, sir, she does not hold me in any special regard. She loves someone else—”