The Dutch Girl (4 page)

The colonel was walking down to meet her. For a moment she thought that she had tarried too long, that the meal was finished and he was impatient to be on the road again, but her timepiece and his appearance told her otherwise. Only a quarter of an hour had passed. He
had removed his crested helmet, washed his face, and combed his thick auburn hair.

And sought her out now, alone on the path, when he might have spoken to her in the company of Mr. Ten Broeck anytime that morning, or during their arrival at the inn. He was handsome, well-spoken, well connected, and well respected, but that did not make him safe. Safe men weren't, as a rule, whispered about in finishing school parlors.

“I thought you might enjoy some company on your amble, Miss Winters,” he said. In the light filtered through the canopy of leaves above their heads, his brown eyes seemed almost black.

She was conscious all at once of how well he blended into the forest in his dark green jacket and brown breeches. Like a predator. Going deeper into the woods with him seemed like a very bad idea. “I was just returning to the inn, actually.”

“Then permit me to escort you.” She felt a ripple of unease when he offered her his arm. It was the wrong gesture to make to a lady one barely knew. In public, in view of Mr. Ten Broeck, it might have been courteous. Alone on the path, out of earshot of the inn, it bordered on effrontery, and placed her in an impossible position. If she refused, she risked giving offense. It would be as provoking as a slap to the face. It would suggest that she questioned his motives, which she did. Which was why he shouldn't have offered his arm at all.

The Widow had made her own way through the world and must have encountered dangerous situations—
dangerous men—like this all the time.
When in doubt, play the scene through as though it is of your own making
. Anna took her advice, and Tarleton's arm, and prayed she knew what she was doing.

“How long will you stay at Harenwyck, Miss Winters?” He placed his hand over hers, which she did not like at all. With each step he pulled her a little closer until they were hip to hip. It was entirely too familiar for the shallow depth of their acquaintance. The Widow had taught her how to extricate herself from physical danger, but Anna was unpracticed in the far trickier art of evading this kind of subtle encroachment.

“It is difficult to say how long I will be,” she said truthfully. “Much depends on what sort of curriculum the patroon has in mind for his nieces, and of course how quickly the misses Van Haren progress.”

“Then allow me to tender a piece of practical advice: charge the patroon by the day, and dearly, and we'll have you back in New York before the month is out.”

It was an invitation to flirt. She ignored it. “Is Harenwyck so grim, then?”

He gave her a sidelong glance. She doubted that many young women declined an opportunity to flirt with him. “Harenwyck is a pleasant enough countryseat,” he said. “The new house is very English and very modern. The patroon is another matter. You will find these rural Dutch even more boorish than their city counterparts, and their entertainments and diversions rustic at best. They think a cider pressing the highest
sort of social occasion and account their greasy oil cakes a great delicacy.”

He did not know she was Dutch, of course. He did not know that she had eaten hot
olykoecken
, her lips and gown frosted with sugar, her fingers sticky, standing next to the bubbling pot, while the cider that leavened the dough was pressed on the great granite stone. It was like drinking in pure autumn, the perfume of apples and wood smoke and frying oil.

“The Dutch are notoriously mean,” continued Tarleton, oblivious to the offense he gave, “but that parsimony may work to your advantage—if you are eager for a swift return to New York, where I might call on you.”

She did not in fact like that idea at all.

“I am certain that the patroon will expect at least a complete sampler from each girl,” she said, “if not other accomplished works from his nieces before I depart Harenwyck, and that will likely keep me in the Hudson Highlands at least into the new year.”

“Teaching the patroon's nieces embroidery will be like throwing pearls before swine. They are sure to marry some country cousin with a desirable mill or sandpit or some such thing, who will not care a whit whether his wife can embroider an angling lady scene on a fire screen or not.”

“You know a remarkable amount about the current taste in schoolgirl embroidery, Colonel Tarleton,” she said. She did not altogether disguise the suspicion in her voice.

To her surprise he laughed. “I assure you that is not because I have been
fishing
among your young charges.”

“No?”

“No. Though surely no man could blame me if I had.”

Their fathers might,
thought Anna.

“Some of your young misses,” continued Tarleton, “are decidedly saucy pieces, and wise in the ways of the world beyond their years. Impossible to avoid, I'm bound, with so many lambs all in one fold.” There were some men, Anna had long ago realized, who could not conceive of a gathering of unrelated women in any other context than the one with which they were most familiar: a brothel. It said more about those men, she believed, than about the essential nature of female education.

“It is my sister,” continued Tarleton, “who writes to me about the fashion in stitchery. She is tutored at home, of course”—
of course
—“but she debates a choice of motif for her silk picture with the seriousness Parliament reserves for taxes.”

“And how do you answer her?”

“That any man who cares more about the quality of her stitchery than the quality of her conversation isn't worth her time or effort.”

She had been starting to dislike him, intensely, but it was impossible to despise a man who took his sister's part, no matter how unenlightened he might be on the subject of females outside his own family.

“What?” he prompted. “Aren't you going to lecture me on the importance of feminine accomplishments?”

“I expect that your sister already has, so I will spare you the lesson.”

“I'm certain there are other things you could teach me.”

Banastre Tarleton, the brother, and Banastre Tarleton, the man, she decided, were tolerable, even engaging. Banastre Tarleton, the seducer, was a decidedly unsavory character.

When she did not take the bait he said, “I expect to be sent south in the new year, but if you are able to return before then, you could write to me, and I could come up with some pretext to visit Harenwyck and escort you home. It would not be so very difficult to arrange. There's always unrest in the highlands and the territory is so vast that cavalry is the only answer. We could make it a very pleasant journey, you and I, and I could cover any expenses you might incur.”

It was a proposition, and nicely done considering his aims, with no open vulgarity, and only an oblique reference to money changing hands. It had been a long time since she had received such an offer, and never one so delicately phrased.

That was because her new profession rarely placed her in proximity to men like this. Anna spent most of her days surrounded by women. The gentlemen she did meet were fathers in the company of their wives and daughters. Such men were always on their best behavior. The tradesmen and artisans she dealt with valued her custom and would never risk losing her business.

Tarleton, though, was neither a parent nor a
tradesman. He saw her as a
demimondaine
, a woman on the fringe of polite society. Because she sold her services as a teacher, he assumed that she sold herself as well. That made it all too likely that he would take her refusal personally. She wished they were closer to the inn.

“It is a very flattering offer, Colonel,” she said carefully, “but my livelihood in the city relies upon my reputation as a snaggletoothed dragon.”

“And you conceive that I might play a swording Saint George to your toothy dragon.”

“I think that is rather the point.”

He smiled now, a wide, knowing grin, and she realized she had made an error. He mistook her frankness for another form of coquetry, or indeed for mere haggling. “The Hudson Highlands are
not
New York, Miss Winters. I know an establishment nearby that is both comfortable and discreet.”

She had to make her answer plain. “I am sorry, but I am not in a position to accept,” she said.

He stopped on the path and because her arm was entwined with his she was forced to stop as well. “I enjoy games,” he said. “I truly do. But
not
coyness. Not in a grown woman. It is unseemly and unflattering.”

“I am sorry if I gave you a false impression, Colonel, but I'm not the sort of woman who conducts casual liaisons.”

“But
I
know that you are. Your young ladies are very well-informed on a variety of subjects not usually taught in finishing schools.”

Her stomach lurched. Anna knew she had taken a
risk explaining the dangers of intercourse, of disease, and pregnancy—and how to avoid them—to Mary Phillips. It was the lecture the Widow had given her, more or less. Anna had deliberated for weeks about whether to have such a talk with Mary, but after four months with the girl under her roof—one narrowly averted disaster after another—she had decided that it would be unforgivable to let the girl go on without a full understanding of the dangers she courted. And because Anna was a realist and could remember the temptations of youth, she had given her the resources to avoid them.

She had carefully considered the danger to the school if Mary Phillips tattled, but never the danger to herself in the form of men like this one.

“There is time enough for a short lesson,” he suggested, pulling off her cap and brushing her lower lip with his thumb.

For a second she froze, incapacitated by memory. Sound dwindled, her vision dimmed, and the world narrowed to the space between them. There was not enough of it, not nearly enough. She stepped back, felt rough bark impress its pattern on her shoulders through the cotton of her gown. She stepped to the right and met Tarleton's arm, like a boom gate barring her path. She darted left and he moved to block her with his body, bringing them into closer contact than she could tolerate.

He laughed. It was a game to him, a hunt, and her feelings mattered as much as those of a fox. “I must get back to the inn,” she said.

“In a little while,” he said.

She tried to push him away. He captured her right hand in his. She struggled, but he was stronger and it took an act of will to stop herself from fighting him, to soften and melt as the Widow had taught her.

This was the difficult part. Every fiber of her being screamed to push him away, but safety lay in pulling him close. Men are, as a rule, bigger, and generally they are stronger, at least physically. That does not mean you must play the victim. It means you must learn to use their size against them, as a wrestler might.

Anna slid one hand to Tarleton's collar and took hold of his lapel. She grasped his sleeve with the other, stepped in close . . . then turned, dropped, and threw him over her shoulder.

Then she took off running.

She wished then that she had not worn the dainty kid slippers, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She could hear Tarleton crashing through the underbrush after her. She knew better than to look back.

When she reached the rear of the inn she smoothed her skirts and hurried on to the bustling taproom, where she found Mr. Ten Broeck making an end of his meal, and promptly sat down beside him.

“Your walk has put color in your cheeks,” said Ten Broeck cheerfully.

“Yes,” agreed Anna. It had probably put another shade of red in Tarleton's complexion. She brought her breathing back under control, grateful now for the Widow's lessons—which had often seemed tedious and
painful at the time—and that practicing at dancing with her charges had gifted her a reasonable stock of wind and speed.

Ten Broeck frowned now. “But you have lost your pretty cap.”

“Have I? It must have gotten snagged on a tree branch.”

It was a terrible lie, and Ten Broeck's pursed lips told her that he did not believe it, but he did not press her, and she knew better than to tell the true tale herself. Such incidents so seldom had repercussions for the men who instigated them, but always cast a shadow over the women who related them.

Tarleton came in a few minutes later and called for a glass of ale. From across the room he flashed her an unpleasant smile that warned her he wasn't done with her just yet. She slid her chair closer to Mr. Ten Broeck, and he tried to ply her with pudding, but the thought of food did not appeal.

After that she did not stray far from the estate manager's side.

Their journey resumed, and the afternoon passed if not comfortably, then supportably, the leagues rolling by in Ten Broeck's pleasant,
safe
company, until the sun dipped below the horizon, and they slowed to a halt on a flat stretch of road that felt smoother than the previous miles.

“Are we here?” she asked. Her back had begun to ache from sitting so long and she was hungry and eager
to be done with traveling—and to bid farewell to their escort.

“No,” said Ten Broeck, a note of concern entering his voice. “This is the border of Harenwyck.”

Ten Broeck opened the carriage door and Anna craned her neck to see beyond the horses. A red sandstone arch straddled the road. It was weathered, but the inscription was still legible:

Harenwyck 1630

She could not remember seeing the arch on her way off the estate, but then she had come miles through the woods, off road, to avoid the men searching for her.

Tarleton sat his horse at the head of the column. He signaled his men and they wheeled as one to fall in behind him. A picture of equestrian grace, he trotted up to the carriage window.