The Golden Cross (53 page)

As if he had read her thoughts, Dekker grinned. “You are quite right, lady, to take me seriously. I will tell your husband anything, truth or lie, but if I make up my mind to ruin you, you will be ruined. And if you report this exchange to the authorities in Batavia, I may kill your husband … or even you.” He grinned at her, then reached under the kerchief at his neck and pulled forth a gold chain. Perplexed, Aidan watched in silence until he brandished the ornament upon the chain in her direction. A golden cross hung at the end of the chain, an unmistakable Celtic cross that had once been her father’s … and Orabel’s.

“No!” she moaned. The image of her murdered friend floated across her field of vision. Orabel had been wearing the golden dress Dempsey Jasper had last seen on Aidan, but the cross was missing from the girl’s bruised and broken neck.

“Yes, I killed your little friend,” Witt said, his features suffused with an expression of remarkable malignity. “She wouldn’t tell me where to find you, and at the time I had no idea you had made up your mind to go to sea. But after you revealed yourself at Assassin’s Bay, I knew we’d have this meeting.” His gaze shifted, and his icy demeanor thawed slightly as his eyes focused on her lips. “You should be nicer to me, Irish Annie. I can be a very patient person … if persuaded by the proper inducements.”

Aidan braced her hands on the seat of her chair and looked across at Dekker, whose image had gone slightly blurry. “What is to stop me,” she whispered, scarcely able to form the words, “from killing you?”

The devil threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Do you think,” he said, struggling to contain himself, “that you could?” He paused, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes with the back of his hand, then gave her a hideous smile. “Be assured, lady, that we are linked in life as well as in death. If, by chance, I come to some untimely end, my last breath will be spent whispering your name. If you do not send my money each month, I will confess to any and all that you and I are linked by love. Every woman
I kiss will know that she could not possibly compare to my lovely Aidan. So—if I die, when I die, the story of our adulterous love will be whispered in every alley and served up with every round of drinks in the taverns. And because I will remain in your shadow, your husband will undoubtedly hear of it.”

“Enough!” Aidan couldn’t believe that one man could be so ruthless and cruel. But she was trapped, with no way out. She could not expose him without exposing herself, and she could not be rid of him without dealing with his lies as well as her own.

Her lungs tightened as if a gigantic hand had suddenly begun to squeeze her rib cage. For a moment the room whirled madly around her in an explosion of colors and buzzing sounds, then all went black.

She awoke to the sight of Sterling’s concerned face above her a moment later, but his presence did nothing to ease her fears. She was lying on his bunk and Witt Dekker was fanning her, the palmetto frond pushing hot air across her face and blowing curls in all directions. She recoiled from him, but now he wore an expression of dutiful, compassionate concern, without a trace of malevolence in his dark eyes.

“Darling, are you all right?” Sterling slipped his hand under her head and held a glass of water to her lips. She pushed the glass away, spilling half of the precious liquid over her bodice and skirt.

Sterling glared up at Dekker. “What happened?”

“I was just describing the poor man’s broken arm,” Dekker said, his eyes wide pools of innocence. “And suddenly she claps her hands over her ears, tells me, ‘Enough,’ and faints dead away.” He nodded in a generous display of compassion. “Women are a weak sort, Doctor. You can’t say much without having them get all queasy on you.”

Aidan blinked rapidly, forcing the room into focus. Dekker stood above her on one side, Sterling sat on the other. One man she wanted dead; the other she would give her life to protect.

“Come darling, drink this,” Sterling offered again, holding up the glass. Closing her eyes to block Dekker from her sight, Aidan dutifully obeyed.

An ocean away, Lili halted in midsentence. She had been bent over a book spread on a tavern table, teaching Sofie and Francisca how to read, when for no explainable reason her heart began to burn with the certainty that Aidan was in trouble.

“Almighty God,” she whispered, unable to shake the sense that her daughter needed help, “be with her now.”

“Are you all right, Lili?” Sofie asked, arching her brows. “You’re as pale as milk.”

“Pray, ladies,” Lili murmured, grasping the back of a chair as she slowly lowered herself into a seat. Her legs felt like water beneath her, and unbidden tears had risen to cloud her sight. “Pray for Aidan. Wherever she is, she needs us now.”

The women did not hesitate, but pressed their hands together and began to pray as Lili had taught them. Lili’s own heart, however, was too full for words. She lowered her forehead to the table and let her tears water the wooden surface.

God had a son. He would understand her pain.

O
n the pretext of giving Sterling room enough to set the injured man’s shattered arm, Aidan left the cabin. Dekker and his oarsmen had already returned to the
Zeehaen
, so she felt safe roaming the decks of the
Heemskerk
. She needed time and space to think, and she needed privacy. As much as she loved Sterling and wanted to share her life with him, there were some aspects of her heart she could not let him see.

A pale sun had shone on the water when Aidan first looked out the porthole and spied the barge, but now an ugly haze veiled the sky. The rising wind blew past her, lifting her hair off her shoulders, whipping her skirts tight around her legs. The wind was hot and humid; in a few moments it would begin to rain. Aidan lifted her face to the gray sky to welcome whatever weather would come.

She swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat and braced herself on the railing as she considered the dreadful facts. Witt Dekker, a distinguished officer with this expedition, had killed Orabel trying to get to her! And now the past she had thought she could bury had risen to haunt her footsteps and overshadow her happiness.

The ship trembled slightly under Aidan’s feet, the boards brushed by some huge sea creature. Aidan gazed across the dark surface of the heaving ocean. “Lili, you tried to preserve my purity,” she whispered, seeing her mother’s reflection in each little cat’s paw the wind ruffled up, “but you couldn’t do enough. The truth will come out, no matter what. Perhaps Sterling could have
understood if I had been honest from the beginning, but to tell him now, with Dekker breathing threats and lies … ”

She gripped the railing. Sterling must never know. He would never understand. His was an honest soul. Like Schuyler Van Dyck, he could no more tell a lie than he could commit wanton murder. She had no choice—she would have to agree to Dekker’s plan, pay him whatever he demanded, and pray for deliverance. If God was merciful—if he would forgive her sins and the bitterness of the past years—then perhaps he would rid her of Dekker. The man could be swept overboard in a storm at sea; he could be cracked over the skull in a tavern brawl; an insanely jealous girlfriend could stab him in the heart. But he would need to die quickly, with his mouth closed and his eyes open to see God’s justice worked on Aidan’s behalf.

“I don’t care about the money, God,” Aidan whispered as the first drops of rain began to sting her cheeks. “But Sterling must never know what I was. He must always believe me a gentlewoman, for he could not love me otherwise. So if you will kill this vile man for me, I will—”

She would what?
What could she give the God who already had everything? She already believed in him, and she had already mended her behavior—she hadn’t picked a pocket since deciding to become respectable. The life she lived here, as a woman, was as honest and virtuous as any matron’s in Batavia. So what could she promise to seal the deal?

Her mind floated in a sepia haze, then focused on a memory of Heer Van Dyck. One afternoon they had been painting together in his garden, and she had tried to explain why she wanted to leave the tavern and take charge of her own life.

“Ja
, I see,” he had answered, his eyes sparkling. “But you don’t understand, my young friend. Take your life into your own hands, and you have only yourself to rely on. Give your life over to God, though, and you have the limitless treasure of his mercy and love at your disposal.”

He put down his paintbrush and turned toward her. “All the arts we practice,” he said, gesturing toward the canvases they were painting, “are but an apprenticeship. The big art is our life. I wouldn’t want to paint that picture alone, so I have placed the brush into the Master’s hands.”

On that summer day so long ago, Aidan hadn’t had the faintest idea what Heer Van Dyck meant. Now his words took on meaning and substance. God had her faith, her good deeds—but what he wanted was her paintbrush. Control. Her
surrender
.

Aidan looked toward the sky, where stark white bones of lightning cracked through the gray skin of the clouds. “All right, God,” she said, raising her voice above the howling of the wind. “I yield to you. Take my life, I’ve made a mess of things, and there is no one else to blame.”

There was no answer from the overcast heavens save the rains, which fell like needles against her skin. Aidan lingered a moment more, hoping for some sign that she’d been heard, then slowly turned and sought refuge in the sanctity of Sterling’s cabin.

Four weeks passed without incident. In thoughtful moments, Aidan stared across the sea toward the
Zeehaen
. That sturdy little ship followed the
Heemskerk
like a puppy following its master, and she noticed no signs of distress, no signal that anything untoward had happened within its belly. Once, spying Dekker’s broad form on the deck, Aidan retreated into the shadows of the forecastle as if she’d seen a ghost.

One thing was clear: God wasn’t going to kill him for her. He would take her father, her best friend, and her mentor, but he wouldn’t take her enemy.

“I don’t blame you for not wanting that fiend,” she muttered. “But you leave me with very hard choices, God.”

The sight of Dekker had left her feeling queasy. Pressing her hand to her churning stomach, she paused and looked around the
tiny cabin. Last night she had arranged her sketches into one neat pile, then stacked the painted canvases as carefully as she could. She spent most of her time sketching now, for her paint supply was dwindling and only one blank canvas remained.

Just this morning, Sterling asked why she had reserved that one canvas.

“I’m waiting,” she answered.

“For what?”

She had smiled to herself, and for the first time voiced the idea she had not been able to articulate. “For the feeling of almost home. That’s when I’ll know what to paint.”

Aidan shook her head regretfully. After days of praying and wondering what God would have her do, she had awakened to the realization that since the Almighty honored truth, truth was what she should offer her husband. When Sterling had left the cabin this morning, she pulled his battered English New Testament from his trunk and read these profound words: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”