Love's Odyssey (15 page)

Safe. Yes, she was safe here, safe with him.

"What you need is a good bath and then a long rest," he told her, smiling down at her.

She could only look at him, at the bright blue eyes, the sharp planes of his face, the dark hair that curled on his collar. How wonderful to be able to stare at him all she wanted.

The brightness of his eyes clouded with tenderness and he bent his head to hers.

"So you found her after all," Margitte's voice said from behind Adrien. He raised his head without kissing Romell.

Margitte came around him to peer at Romell, then clutched at Adrien's arm.

"Good God!" she exclaimed. "How disgusting. Why the girl looks scarcely human!"

Chapter 15

During the first few days aboard the ship, Romell did nothing but eat and sleep. When she regained enough strength to take an interest in her surroundings, she found Margitte at her side. Romell sat up, aware that her head felt strangely weightless. As she raised a hand to find out why, Margitte spoke.

"I had no choice but to cut most of it off, you know."

Romell stared at Margitte's sleek blondeness as her fingers encountered her cropped head.

"Actually, you don't look too awful, rather like a charming young boy. With the weight you've lost, you might even pass for one."

Margitte's hair was piled elegantly atop her head. She wore a black silk gown with an overskirt trimmed in green and gold brocade. The gown was cut to emphasize her breasts, and every inch of her was feminine—and fashionable.

Romell tried to smile, despite her feeling that Margitte was deliberately trying to undermine her confidence, she took her hand away from her short curls and studied the thinness of her arm.

"Thank you for taking care of me," she said.

Margitte shrugged. "I can’t claim aught but directing Tima in your nursing," she said.

"Tima?"

Margitte gestured and Rommel blinked as a small sepia-skinned girl stepped into the cabin, head bowed. No, not a girl, for her draped garment showed the rise of breasts.

A woman, even though she came only to Margitte’s shoulder. Tima wore no shoes and didn’t meet Romell’s eyes, keeping her head bowed.

"She’s certainly an improvement over Loulie. The Javanese make excellent servants." Margitte grasped Tima's shoulder, pushing her away from the bed.

Tima backed soundlessly from the cabin.

"A quiet, unobtrusive but efficient maid." Margitte smiled. "I am liking Batavia very, very much so far."

Romell belatedly remembered that Margitte's purpose in sailing for Batavia had been to join her husband.

"I trust your husband is in good health," she said, feeling as if talking was a task almost too difficult to perform.

Margitte extracted a lace-edged handkerchief from a pocket in her overskirt and dabbed at her eyes. "Alas, no. Poor Dirk succumbed to the dysentery even before the Zuiderwind set sail from Amsterdam. I've been a widow all this time and didn't know it until after we arrived in Batavia on the rescue ship. They were afraid to tell me before we docked."

"I'm sorry to hear about your husband." Romell's voice wavered with the strain of speaking.

"Ah, well, I weep, but perhaps not so much as I would have if we'd lived together longer. Poor Dirk was off to Batavia scarcely two years after our wedding."

Margitte bent forward and pulled Romell's covers straight. "But I mustn't tire you, you're still very weak. You must rest. Tima will stay with you in case you need anything."

Romell started to protest, to ask her to take a message to Adrien, but Margitte put a mug of milky liquid to Romell's lips and she was too weak to re-sist.

"Here, you must drink this," Margitte ordered. "I do believe it is what saved your life, for you were barely breathing at the first."

Romell obediently swallowed several mouthfuls of the slightly sweet, thick mixture and dimly recalled the brew as one she'd tasted before.

"Such a good girl," Margitte told her, putting the mug down. "I'll be back later with food. You must eat all you can before we arrive in Batavia, so you won't be ashamed to be seen in public."

Margitte slipped out of the cabin before Romell could ask about Adrien. With great effort she pulled aside the covers to take stock of herself. Under the too large nightgown she was thin, yes, but not so skeletal as she'd feared from Margitte's words. In fact, she was a good deal plumper than any Southland native women she'd seen. Still, compared to Margitte…

Fighting sleep, she drew her feet up to examine them. Scabs and sores crisscrossed the soles of her feet; walking would be painful once she was strong enough to try.

I want to see Adrien, she thought. I must see him. But drowsiness overwhelmed her.

When she woke, the Javanese woman, Tima, was bending over her.

"Nonee," Tima said in a soft pleasant voice. "Nonee."

Romell realized that this was what had roused her.

Tima offered her a bowl of food, helping Romell to sit up to swallow. Romell ate the rice and fish mixture without relish, not feeling hungry. Instead, she felt logy and heavy-headed.

After she'd eaten and Tima had given her water, Romell pushed herself upright with her legs dangling over the edge of the bunk.

Tima murmured in protest, but Romell went no further, thinking that if she tried to stand she would crumple to the floor. She eased back under the covers but remained sitting. She gazed at Tima, who smiled shyly and bowed her head.

The Javanese woman wore a patterned garment that covered her breasts but left her shoulders bare. The cloth was draped and tucked about her small form in a pleasing style, falling almost to her ankles. She had a pointed face, even features, and large brown eyes. Quite pretty, Romell thought.

But it soon developed that Tima spoke almost no Dutch and understood very little more than what she spoke.

Romell slept, waking to find Margitte with her again.

"I'd like to get out of the cabin for awhile," Romell told her. "If both you and Tima help me, I could--"

"No, it's not a good idea," Margitte said quickly.

"I want to." Romell raised her chin stubbornly.

"You have everything you need in your cabin, and you're not strong enough to be up."

"If you won't help me, I'll crawl."

Margitte frowned. "You're a most ungrateful girl. I've taken the time to nurse you back to health and now you—"

"You told me Tima did all the nursing."

"Well, naturally, but I've had to direct her. And after all, Tima is my maid—just as the ship was chartered by me."

"By you? But I thought Adrien—" Romell stopped, Wishing she hadn't mentioned Adrien's name.

"Adrien helped arrange the details, but it was my money that brought the ship to rescue you from those dreadful cannibals."

Romell stared at Margitte, not doubting her. Adrien had no money to hire a ship, or pay a crew.

"Why?" she said at last. "You don't even like me."

Margitte shrugged. "I don't dislike you, you misunderstand me. But you're quite correct in believing I wouldn't spend poor Dirk's hard-earned guilders to rescue you. No, I did it as a wedding present for Adrien. He's so softhearted."

A wedding present? What was Margitte talking about? Romell's pulse speeded at the thought of marrying Adrien. Instantly, she dismissed the idea. Margitte meant something else.

"I didn't want to tell you until you were stronger, for I know how fond you are of Adrien. He and I will be married as soon as my mourning period is over. Since poor Dirk actually died some ten months ago, I've set the date for August, just a bit over a month from now." Margitte smiled at her. 

"Adrien hasn't wanted to look in on you in case you--well, misunderstood how he feels. He's concerned about you, but I'm the one he loves."

Romell fought hard to hold back tears. She wouldn't let Margitte see her cry—she wouldn't cry over Adrien, in any case.

Margitte patted Romell's hand. "I do have to confess I didn't put up all the money for your rescue." She spoke almost coyly. "A certain Mijnheer van der Pol shared the cost. He's terribly anxious about your welfare. I took the liberty of describing you to him and telling him how excited you were about meeting him."

Margitte's words seemed to surround Romell like a soft and sticky web from which she could not escape. Margitte and Adrien. Romell and Hendrik van der Pol.

I've never seen him, she thought, suddenly panic-stricken. I can't marry this man.

"He's quite a catch," Margitte went on. "Very good-looking, a giant of a man. Forceful but charming. You're a most fortunate girl, Romell."

Romell said nothing, letting Margitte give her more of the liquid in the mug even though she suspected it was a drug to make her sleep. Sleep was her only escape.

Still, the next time she woke, Romell made Tima help her stand and, despite the pain in her feet, staggered about the cabin for a few moments until weakness drove her back to the bunk.

When Margitte next visited, Romell was sitting up in bed.

"I'd like some clothes," she said.

"When we land," Margitte told her.

"I see."

"Do you? I'm trying my best to protect you from the stares and speculations of the riffraff crew we have aboard. Naturally they believe the savages abused you in every way, even to taking you against your will. I fear you'd be subjected to undesirable attention if you stepped out on deck."

"I wasn't molested in the way you mean," Romell protested. "The Southland natives didn't feed me well, but that's their custom. I had to work hard and go naked as their women did. But I ran away before—before anything else happened."

"I don't doubt your word, dear, but you know how men are, always suspecting the worst. Even hoping for the worst. Every man aboard this ship knows what he'd do with a helpless woman, so you'd never convince a one of them with your story. Even Adrien—" She broke off.

Adrien would believe me! Romell told herself fiercely. Then she sighed. What difference did it make what Adrien thought? He loved Margitte, not her. Hadn't he run past her on the castaway island to go to Margitte first?

"I suppose you're doing your best to help me," Romell said dully. "I must sound ungrateful indeed."

"After such an ordeal, your conduct can be excused. I'm amazed you survived. Pieter evidently didn't."

"I think the natives killed him." Romell found she couldn't go into detail; the idea of Pieter being burned was so horrifying that she closed her eyes.

"Please don't tell me any more," Margitte said hurriedly. 'They hanged Jan Hardens, you know, then strung him in chains on the Castle wall. He's still there, you can see him if you've a mind to. And Loulie's in prison." Her mouth twisted. "I hope they hang her too."

Romell opened her eyes. What had happened on the island where the Zuiderwind went aground seemed far away, remote, as though it had happened to someone else.

"How did Adrien know where to find me?" she asked; for it was Adrien who had found her, no matter whom he loved or who had paid for the finding.

"Something to do with the wind and the currents. He was pouring over charts with the captain all the time. As it was, if the raft hadn't been left on the shore, I doubt you'd ever have been found."

I'm here, Romell told herself. I'm alive. No matter what happens to me, I'm glad to be here and not spending what remains of my life with the Southland natives she thought, then, of the castaway island she'd also escaped, and poor Catarina came to her mind.

"What happened to the minister's daughter, Catarina Deeters?" she asked Margitte.

Margitte thought a moment. "Oh yes, the mad girl. A married couple sailing back to Holland took her with them." She shook her head. "The girl had improved a bit, I believe, but. . . ." Her words trailed off, and neither of them spoke for a time.

"We're two days out of Batavia," Margitte said abruptly. "I'll bring clothes for you to try on tomorrow."

After Margitte left, Romell motioned to Tima to help her walk about the cabin. She was feeling stronger and since she now refused to take any more draughts of medicine from Margitte, her head was clear.

The day after tomorrow the ship would land at Batavia. Once there, she would meet Hendrik van der Pol, the man who had not only paid her passage on the Zuiderwind but had helped pay for her rescue. She certainly owed him a debt.

The Romell who had boarded the East Indiaman in Amsterdam was gone—that young and foolish girl who'd made the journey because Adrien was going to Java and because Java was a strange, exotic land far from the staid burghers of Holland.

That Romell hadn't given more than a passing thought to the man who'd made it possible for her to escape Amsterdam. She'd taken his money, agreed to be his wife, and hadn't meant to keep her part of the bargain—not if Adrien wanted her.

What kind of person was she? Sir Thomas would be aghast at a Wellsley breaking her word, and her father had been known throughout the colony of Virginia as a man to be trusted.

"Hendrik van der Pol," she whispered to herself. Will he like me? she wondered, fingering her short hair. Well, a cap would hide that. She would be a proper Dutch woman and wear a cap. Her arms and legs looked less like sticks every day, and her breasts had never completely lost their fullness. Under a gown her thinness wouldn't be so noticeable, especially a gown with long sleeves.

Perhaps he won't want to marry immediately, she thought. I'll look quite like myself in another month. He'd promised her cousins she could stay at the home of friends until they became better acquainted. Very well, she'd have time to regain her health and be the kind of bride he deserved, for he must be a kind man, this Hendrik, to pay good guilders to finance the chancy rescue of a woman he had never seen. She had learned that most Dutchmen were not given to spending money without a sure return.