Pirate's Golden Promise (33 page)

“He will come,” Lena said with certainty. “That is, if you've been good boys and girls.”

Suddenly the large knob shook and turned. Everyone grew silent. The children's eyes grew large and round. Wynter watched as the door opened and a shower of candies, cookies, macaroons, and marzipan flew onto the sheet. The children lunged for the sweets, each one's hands eagerly grasping their treasures. Into the house walked a tall man who was dressed in long robes like a bishop. A small boy with a thin wooden switch accompanied him. Every child grew silent and watched in trepidation.

“Have the children in this house been good children?” the berobed figure asked.

All of them nodded, too fearful to reply. This silence appeased St. Nicholas, and he and the boy departed into the black, freezing night. The children shouted farewell and jumped with happiness. They would find presents in the morning!

The evening passed in a haze of strange faces bidding well wishes to Wynter and Cort. When all the guests had departed, Lena gathered the help around and began the chore of cleaning up. Wynter made a move to help her, but Lena waved her away.

“You need your rest,” she softly scolded. “And your husband needs you.”

How Wynter wished that were so! But Cort had already gone upstairs. She started to mount the stairs when she felt an arm snake around her waist.

“You don't look like the happy wife whose husband has recently returned from the grave, so to speak.”

Wynter winced under Rolfe's probing but amused stare. “I'm quite thrilled. I believe I'm still in a state of shock.”

“As am I,” Rolfe admitted and paced himself with her steps. “I foolishly held the hope that one day you and I—”

Wynter cut him short. “Nothing could ever have happened between us, so please don't dwell on the subject. You do have a wife,” she reminded him in a biting tone, not because of Rolfe but because Katrina and Cort had been in love once.

“I have a wife, but I love you, Wynter.”

Cort appeared at the top of the stairs and held a shawl out to her. He apparently heard Rolfe's declaration of love for Wynter, because when he spoke, his voice held bitterness.

“I thought you might be chilled. I would have helped you up the stairs,” he said. Cort placed it around her shoulders.

This simple gesture of concern touched Wynter, but she sensed that Cort was displeased to have found her with Rolfe. Who did he think he was, she thought, and grew angry that he should dislike her friendship with Rolfe while Katrina threw herself at him.

“I can walk upstairs without help from either of you.”

“Dear cousin,” Rolfe put in and grandly bowed when they reached the landing. “I think only of your welfare. I bid you both a good night.” He turned on his heels and walked down the hallway to his own room.

Cort gently guided her by the elbow to her chamber and entered the room with her. Once inside he began to undress.

“You really are going to sleep here tonight?” Wynter asked, growing alarmed. It had been so long since they'd shared a bed, and now he detested the sight of her. What sort of perverted vengeance was this?

“I prefer to sleep with my ‘wife.'”

“Rolfe and Katrina don't share a room.”

Cort shrugged. “That's their problem.” He sat down and began pulling off his boots. “Do you intend to stand in the middle of the room all night or get undressed?”

“I have to ring for Mary. The laces on the back of my gown are hard to reach now.”

“I'll help you. I told Mary to go to bed long ago.”

Cort stood up and turned her around, his fingers already freeing the laces, but Wynter balked.

“Don't touch me!”

His face fell, and he looked as if she had slapped him soundly, then his finely shaped mouth twisted into a sneer. “If I were Morgan or Rolfe, I bet you'd delight in their hands upon you.”

She couldn't admit it was just the opposite. Feeling the warmth of his fingers on her flesh had brought back the memories of lovemaking, of the blissful times they'd been locked in each other's arms. Now Cort hated her, and she couldn't bear to be reminded of how wonderful loving him had felt. She knew those moments would never arise again, and she mustn't yearn for what would never come to pass.

“Perhaps that's it,” she lied and expected he'd retreat into silence or leave the room. He did neither.

Swiftly he turned her around again and, like a man possessed by inner demons, unlaced the gown until the ivory flesh of her back was bared to him. How smooth her skin was, how perfectly kissable, he found himself thinking. Without realizing his intention, his head bent forward, and he would have kissed the porcelain-smooth surface, but Wynter's voice stunned him and brought him back to reality.

“Thank you for helping me,” she said.

Cort raised his head and began to undress when a servant girl knocked on the door. Wynter bade her to enter, and the girl shyly bobbed to them. She carried a warming pan and passed it quickly between the sheets. “I hope this will keep you and the captain warm, ma'am,” she said and giggled before she left the room.

Wynter still remained in the center of the room. The back of her gown was opened, and she felt the hollow chill in the air. Even the fireplace's warmth didn't reach her.

“Hurry and undress, Wynter,” Cort told her in a soft voice. “You'll become ill.”

He waited by the side of the bed and held the covers opened for her. She had no alternative but to obey him. Divesting herself of the gown and her stockings, she left on her thin white chemise and was very much aware of Cort's heated gaze upon her. When she was beneath the warm covers, she felt rather flushed and knew it wasn't from the warming pan.

Cort blew out the candles on the dressing table. She watched him undress through lowered eyes. Even after all the suffering she felt sure he had endured, he was still a magnificent-looking man.

They lay in the dark, not touching, not speaking, scarcely breathing. The flames were dying in the fireplace, as had their love, Wynter thought. She never imagined that the spiraling, hot passion which had seared their two souls as one would ever die. But it had. She hadn't told Cort she had forgiven his deception of her, and now Cort would never believe she hadn't betrayed him with Henry Morgan. Tears formed in her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. She wiped them away.

“Can't you sleep?” Cort asked her.

“Today's events have overwhelmed me. I shall try to be still.”

She heard him sigh in the darkness. “Good night, Wynter.”

“Good night,” she mumbled and felt him turn onto his side, away from her. She burrowed beneath the heavy down blankets and drifted into a troubled sleep.

Cort woke near dawn, and for the first time in months felt contented and warm. When he opened his eyes he realized why. In the gray light of morning, Wynter lay huddled with her back against his chest. He caught the sweet whiff of lavender from her hair against his cheek. He discovered that his arm was around her, and that his hand rested on her swollen abdomen. Suddenly his hand jumped twice, and he realized the baby must have kicked. A look of happy surprise touched his face, then disappeared. Was this Morgan's child? His own child? He wished he knew. He didn't remove his arm, but lay in that position with her against him. Finally he drifted off to sleep again.

Cort was roused again from slumber by Wynter's moans. He sat up and looked at her. She was awake.

Cort mouthed her name, and she lifted large, frightened eyes to his worried ones.

“I think the baby is coming, Cort. Please get Mary and Lena for me. Please hurry!”

Cort wished to stay with Wynter, but after Lena and Mary arrived, Lena pushed him bodily from the room.

“Childbirth is no place for a man. When the baby is born, I'll send for you. Ja?”

Nodding like a ten-year-old, Cort obeyed, but with him he took the image of Wynter's tousled hair about her face and the sound of her painful moans. He went downstairs and helped himself to a generous brandy. When he poured another glass, Rolfe sauntered into the sitting room.

“Soon you will be a proud father,” Rolfe observed. “Fatherhood is a wonderful blessing.”

In the short time that Cort had been at Lindenwyck he didn't believe that Rolfe felt this way about fatherhood. Rolfe didn't seem to care for Mikel, blatantly ignoring the child. But he didn't say this to his cousin. Instead, when Rolfe poured a glass for himself, Cort allowed the man to toast him.

“To Wynter and your son.”

“I really hadn't thought about the child's sex,” admitted Cort after he quaffed the brandy. “I don't care one way or the other, I suppose.”

“But you must,” Rolfe insisted. “All the Van Lindens have boys before girls. It is a family tradition.” He smiled.

A shrill scream pierced the early morning stillness of the house. Cort shivered. What sort of pain must Wynter be in? “I pray only that Wynter comes through childbirth without difficulty. She is a small woman.”

“And a strong one. Don't worry about her, Cort. Women always come through these things.”

Cort didn't believe that. He remembered that his own mother had died giving birth to a dead son, because the child was too large for her. The agony on his father's face was still etched in his memory. He didn't want Wynter to die. What would he do without her? He'd found her again, and he couldn't bear the loss of her. Whether the child was his or Morgan's suddenly didn't matter. He knew only that he loved Wynter, and she must live so he could convince her of that love.

“Those awful screams have brought on another of my headaches!” Katrina complained as she swished into the room. She sank onto the sofa and pressed a wet cloth to her forehead.

Rolfe threw her a withering look, but it was nothing in comparison to Cort's. “I should think you'd understand what Wynter's going through, Katrina. After all, you had a child,” Cort remarked.

She lifted her head and removed the cloth. “Ja, I had a son. An heir for Lindenwyck.”

Her wistful gaze rested on Cort's broad-shouldered figure when he turned again to pour another drink. Rolfe noticed and shook his head at her in a warning gesture. Katrina leaned against the cushions and drank in Cort's handsomeness. At that moment she didn't care about Rolfe or his fear that Cort would learn the truth about Mikel. She only knew she loved Cort beyond all caring.

“I believe I shall go outside until this is over,” Cort said a few seconds later when another scream rang through the house. “Someone fetch me when Wynter delivers.”

Then he was gone.

“He loves her very much,” Rolfe commented. “I can understand how he feels. I remember a time I loved you so much my heart ached.”

Katrina sighed. “Rolfe, stop being so tiresome. You wanted me only because I loved Cort. Otherwise you wouldn't have bothered with me.”

“That isn't true. I loved you from the first moment I laid eyes upon you, and I knew you'd marry me because of Lindenwyck. I remember how your eyes glowed brightly when you first arrived here, how you drank in the furnishings, mother's jewels, her clothes and furs. You wanted it all, little Katrina, and you got it. I gave it to you. Not Cort.”

“Cort gave me a greater gift, Rolfe. He gave me a son, something you were never able to do.”

Rolfe grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. “Only because you contented yourself by sleeping with every man you saw. But none of them eased your ache, did they, Katrina? You still wanted Cort. And now he's home again. How lucky for you, but he won't look at you ever again. He loves Wynter.”

“You love her, too!” Katrina spat. “Content yourself with the knowledge that she'll never belong to you either.”

“You have a shrewish tongue, my love. Just as you make do with men to relieve your ache for Cort, perhaps I should use you to ease my desire for Wynter.”

Revulsion swept over Katrina's face. She hated Rolfe, hated every man with whom she had ever bedded, save one. The thought of sleeping with Rolfe was so disgusting to her that if he forced her, she'd fight. But Katrina knew she'd be no match physically, so she used her trump card, certain her ploy would work.

“Touch me, force me into your bed, and I will bring in the authorities. Remember, my dear husband, that you killed a poor merchant. I suppose his wife and children would give anything to have the name of his murderer.”

Rolfe dropped his hands from her. A red fire glowed in the depths of his brown eyes. He knew Katrina well enough to know she would inform the authorities, and he couldn't take the chance of losing Lindenwyck. “Damn you to hell!” he roared.

Her delighted peals of laughter followed him out of the room. Joyful tears flowed down Katrina's cheeks. How easy Rolfe was to manipulate, she decided, and sat down on the sofa again. But her momentary gladness turned sour when Lena rushed in to inform her that Wynter had been delivered of a daughter. The information caused Katrina to feel displeasure. She realized how a child could bind two people together, and Rolfe was right. Cort did love this Englishwoman, Wynter Van Linden.

“Van Linden!” she scoffed. “She's no more a Van Linden than one of the servants.”

The memory of listening at the door the previous day after Cort returned home filled her with renewed pleasure. Quite clearly she had heard Wynter say that she and Cort weren't married. She placed a finger on her ruby lips in a thoughtful pose. Did it matter that Cort loved Wynter? Not really, because he had never wed her. Evidently the tie that bound them was extremely fragile. She pondered this a few moments more, then she bounced up, free of her headache. If she encouraged Rolfe's attentions towards Wynter, Cort would undoubtedly grow disenchanted with the woman. Then there would be only one woman who knew how to heal his broken heart, and that woman had given him a son, not a useless daughter.