Read Online The Golden Tulip by Rosalind Laker - Free Book Online

husband quickly. Then I’ll get away from Maria and have everything I want!”
             
    D URING THE NEXT two years Sybylla kept a keen lookout every time she went to the Korvers’ home. They were the only well-to-do people she knew and really rich men came to their house. When she was fifteen and her mirror showed her a pretty, dimpled face with sparkling mischievous eyes and a bosom of which she was proud, she thought she had found what she was looking for in Jacob Korver. He had come home from serving his apprenticeship and she had grown up in his absence. They looked at each other with new eyes. With his dark good looks and a future destined to be even more prosperous than that of his father, he filled her every requirement.
    From him she received her first kiss. They were alone in the garden, hidden from the sight of the house. She melted toward him and was awakened to the first taste of the delights to be found in a man’s arms, his lips warm and eager on hers.
    “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, his face tender and adoring. He was totally infatuated with her.
    “Kiss me again,” she demanded shamelessly. It was even more thrilling the second time, for he placed his hand over her breast. They were breathless with delight and with each other.
    “We shall be betrothed!” he declared recklessly.
    But it was not to be. Heer Korver invited Hendrick for a glass of wine and they agreed amicably that a match between a Jewish boy and a girl brought up in the Dutch Reformed Church would not be suitable. They finished the bottle between them and parted in the same good neighborliness as before. Jacob was sent off to learn about buying diamonds in foreign lands and Sybylla found herself back where she had started with a wedding ring as far away as ever.

Chapter 3

    F RANCESCA HAD MANY TEMPESTUOUS SCENES TO SETTLE WITH Sybylla over Jacob and there was no peace for anyone. Hendrick kept out of the way as much as possible, either leaving the house when trouble erupted or locking himself in the studio. Then, almost overnight, Sybylla accepted the situation. Nobody was more relieved than Francesca, for her painting had been severely disrupted, it being impossible to concentrate with such turmoil in the house. Looking in the mirror on the day she heard her younger sister laughing again, she wondered that she did not look thrice her age of seventeen years.
    She was unaware of the extent to which her face had taken on an unusual and striking beauty, for she saw no symmetry in her features such as she admired in others and she was dismissive of compliments. Yet there was a haunting, fascinating quality to her expressive visage that Hendrick had long recognized in his paintings of her, and which was further enhanced by her lustrous green eyes, the upper lids weighed down by thick lashes. Her nose was narrow with delicately flaring nostrils and her neck was long, giving her a swanlike poise. Her cheekbones were wide, as was her mouth, but her lips were curved and her complexion was smooth as creamy silk.
    She enjoyed men’s company and, had she allowed it, could have been like any girl in becoming attracted to one or another handsome smile. It was not always easy to turn away, although by now the boys she had known since childhood had given up pursuing her, the older ones betrothed or wed elsewhere. The decision she had made long ago to be an artist had not changed and marriage was something she did not intend to contemplate for years to come, if ever.
    The letter from Janetje was delivered one morning shortly before Francesca was to pose in another of many sittings for Hendrick, who was painting her as Flora, the goddess of spring. With about ten minutes to spare, she darted upstairs to her bedchamber, where she could read it on her own before sharing it with the rest of the family. Her hair, loosened in readiness for the sitting, hung in waves down her back and swirled out as she settled herself on the cushioned