Lisbon (29 page)

“Her hand is shaking with fury,” murmured Rowan. “I am surprised it will carry food to her mouth without spilling it.” He was lounging gracefully in his chair, drinking ruby-red port wine, as he said that, for he and Charlotte had already finished their dinner and were dawdling over their wine. “Too bad Talybont has his back to you,” he added regretfully.

Charlotte was glad. She had been a little ashamed of her performance yesterday and she was again wearing the blue dress that made her young breasts appear miraculously to be in motion even though she was sitting still. The slightest breath made those dangling beads sway and glitter.

“Ah, well,” Rowan sighed. “We will have to provide our own entertainment, I suppose.”

He beckoned to the pair of guitarists who were discreetly serenading the patrons with their music for what coins they could garner, and the musicians came quickly to their table. Rowan promptly gestured them to the other side.

He is placing them so that they will make a backdrop for us in case the Talybonts should look this way,
Charlotte thought resignedly. She took a quick sip of her malmsey wine, which was heavy and sweet.

“What strange guitars,” she murmured, noting the shape of the instruments.

Rowan gave them a casual glance. “Yes, they are Portu
guese guitars. You have probably seen only the Spanish guitars, which have six strings. These have eight or”—he looked more closely—‘twelve by my count, and the shape is somewhat different.”

Charlotte was surprised by the breadth of his knowledge— she always would be. Rowan seemed to have the knowledge of the world at his fingertips.

She was about to ask him rather wistfully about his childhood and where he had gained all his lore, but he was speaking in Portuguese to the two guitarists, who looked pleased and struck up a lovely tune that stirred the senses.

“It is a love song,” Rowan told her, reaching across the table to take her hand caressingly. “It is about a man who searches the world over until he finds the perfect woman. The song is very old and is usually sung by a woman, but I will do my best.”

To Charlotte s surprise, he began to sing in a low voice that nevertheless penetrated to the farthest reaches of the room. He had a beautifully melodic voice, timbred, rich. Gradually conversation in the dining room ceased while the patrons turned about in their chairs to watch the singer. In the candlelight the scene made a charming tableau, Charlotte in her glittering blue gown with her golden hair bathed in lamplight, her breasts rising and falling with her breathing, causing her beaded bodice to sparkle, her lips softly parted, Rowan with his dark head bent eloquently toward her. They looked young and handsome and lost in love.

Across the room where the Talybonts were sitting there was a sudden clatter, as if a glass might have been turned over and some cutlery dropped.

When Rowan finished the song there were smiling nods of approval and light applause from the dinner guests. Somewhat flushed from all this attention, Charlotte looked about her.

The Talybonts’ table was empty, their dinners left half-eaten on their plates.

Rowan seemed vastly pleased.

But pleased or not, he was out again that night prowling the taverns alone, searching for the man he was to meet in

Lisbon. Charlotte knew nothing of this meeting—she only knew that her husband went out every night, often waking her when he came home and making love to her. Rowan could get along with very little sleep, she had learned.

All that week he kept up his relentless pursuit of the Talybonts. And although by now the Talybonts promptly turned their backs or made their escape whenever Charlotte and Rowan appeared, it was clear that Katherine was hard put to keep Eustace in check.

One afternoon they met face-to-face at the bullfights, where for a dreadful moment Charlotte thought that Eustace, his face contorted with rage, was going to charge at Rowan head-on. Katherine obviously thought so too, for her face went white and she pitched forward in a faint, sagging against her husband so that he must perforce catch her and so lost sight of Rowan and Charlotte in the crowd.

Something would have to be done about this situation, and soon, Charlotte decided, for Katherine could not always pretend to faint and Eustace now seemed in a perpetually ugly mood, ready to challenge Rowan even if he died of it. She intended to speak to Rowan about it when they returned to their room at the Royal Cockerel. Rowan must have seen something in her face, because before she could speak he said, "I had best go down and pay our landlord something on account—wouldn’t want him to start worrying about us/’

Deciding she could speak to him later about it, Charlotte watched him go. Then suddenly she remembered that the seam of Rowan s cuff had been ripped in the crowd at the bullfight. She opened the door to call to him to ask for a needle and thread to be sent up, for she meant to stitch up the seam herself when he returned, when she saw him standing near the head of the stairs deep in conversation with the thin woman in black.

Charlotte stopped, puzzled. There was something very friendly in the way they stood there together, as if they knew each other well.

She forgot the torn cuff.

When Rowan came back, Charlotte asked carefully, "Who 
was that woman and what were you saying to her just now?”

Rowan’s dark brows lifted, but he answered her frankly. "Her name is Annette Flambord. She is French. And I stopped to ask her if she had found a husband yet. ” Charlotte was not to be distracted. "She is Katherine Talybont s personal maid, isn’t she? And that is how we know so much about the Talybonts’ movements. You were asking her about where they will be tomorrow and the next day and the next.’’

"Oh, I had no need to ask her that,’’ he said carelessly. "Annette volunteers such information very readily.

Charlotte caught her breath. Sometimes her husband’s coolness astonished her.

"Are you not afraid you will cause her to lose her job?’’ she shot at him.

He laughed. "There is probably no better hairdresser in all of Europe. Do you think Katherine would let her go for a mere indiscretion? Indeed, I am amazed that Katherine has been able to keep her so long!’’

Charlotte studied Rowan. Handsome, dashing, an arresting face, and a manner that swept all before him. A dangerous, dominating man. "Maybe
you
had something to do with it,” she suggested.

"And what do you mean by that?” he asked, amused. "Perhaps this hairdresser is in love with you,” she offered doubtfully.

Rowan came a step closer and there was real mirth on his face now. "Annette,” he stated, "is in love with gold. She has never been able to get enough of it to please her. It is a standing joke between us that whenever she does get enough gold for her
dot
—that’s a dowry, Charlotte— she will go back to France and marry the man who seduced her and abandoned her in Marseilles and make his life miserable forever. I think she should do it.”

Charlotte was a little daunted by this worldly view shared by Rowan and the Frenchwoman. "Is Marseilles where she learned her trade?” she inquired.

"Yes, she was a wigmaker’s assistant there and became expert at curling and dressing wigs. I have told her that 
her skill would bring her fame if she would find herself some great patroness.”

“But she already has Katherine Talybont,” protested Charlotte.

Rowan chose to ignore the irony in his wife’s tone. “Someone far beyond Katherine,” he said airily. “At least a marchioness—possibly a duchess. But you have doubtless noticed Annette’s skill by the elegance of Katherine’s coiffures.” He gave Charlotte’s golden hair a fleeting glance. “Perhaps I can persuade Annette to dress hair someday when Katherine is out.”

Smarting under the implied suggestion that her own coiffure was not as elegant as Katherine’s, Charlotte stiffened slightly. “Perhaps
you
should find Mademoiselle Annette this great patroness she needs,” she said in a hard voice. “Or do you find your other uses for Mademoiselle Annette too absorbing?”

Rowan was looking angry now. “Be careful, Charlotte, or you will say something you regret. Annette has nothing to do with you.”

“Oh, I know she has not.” Charlotte sighed. “It is just this . . . this endless pursuit of the Talybonts that has set me on edge. And Annette is part of that. I wish she would go away—I wish they would all three of them go away!” “Come to dinner,” he suggested sympathetically. “And rest easy. I have just been told that the Talybonts are not coming down. Katherine is sulking and Eustace is stomping about the floor railing at her.”

Charlotte enjoyed that dinner more than any she had ever eaten at the Royal Cockerel.

But after dinner, as was his wont, Rowan again went out on the town. Charlotte wondered audibly why he did not take her with him. Lisbon by night, he told her, was a city of men. There were few women abroad. If Rowan’s behavior was typical, she could well believe it.

Hardly had he left before there was a soft knock on the door and a French-accented voice murmured in English, “Madame, are you there?”

Charlotte opened the door to admit Annette, who slipped by her like a shadow and closed the door behind her.

“I do not know what to do,” Annette said quickly in very good English, and Charlotte had a chance to study her face by candlelight. The golden light on those sharp sallow features made Annette’s mouth seem sly, her black eyes too watchful. And “thin” was not quite the word for her—“lithe” seemed more appropriate; her step was light, she moved with the easy grace of a Toledo blade. “From the window I saw Rowan leaving,” Annette explained. “But he disappeared into an alley, and in the darkness I knew I would have difficulty catching up with him.”

“That is undoubtedly true,” agreed Charlotte. “But why would you
need
to catch up with him?”

Annette’s voice was hurried. “The Talybonts have been quarreling all day. They wrangled over dinner and he ended up by oversetting the table and all the food was thrown on the floor.”

“Spare me,” said Charlotte with irony. “My husband is far more interested in the Talybonts’ activities than I. But I note that you call my husband by his given name. Are you then such old friends?”

The other woman considered her thoughtfully. “Yes— old friends,” she said. “He saved my life once in Marseilles. ” 
As he did mine in Scotland and again on shipboard, 
Charlotte thought suddenly.
We have something in common, Annette and I.

There was a little flicker, perhaps of amusement, in the shrewd black eyes facing her. Annette’s voice had an impish quality.

“And I saved
his
life in Paris.”

Charlotte was taken aback. Somehow it did not occur to her to disbelieve that statement. It had been thrown out almost tauntingly, as if to say,
You may think me a servant, but we are equals, Rowan and I. We have always been equals.

The Frenchwoman was still studying her, as if expecting her to say something. Charlotte obliged.

“Tell me how you came to know my husband.”

Annette shrugged. “He must tell you himself, madame. But I have been long his friend. The Talybont woman is 
anxious to speak with you. She has sent me to fetch you. I do not think Rowan would like that.”

Charlotte frowned. She didn’t think she would like that either. She had no desire for a confrontation with Katherine Talybont; certainly there was nothing to be gained by it.

Noting Charlotte’s hesitation, Annette said, “Perhaps I could say that you are out, that you did not answer my knock?”

“No, I will not hide from her,” decided Charlotte. “But I will not go to her either. Tell your mistress, Annette, that if she wishes to speak to me she must come here. I will not retire for the next hour. ”

Was that a flicker of admiration in Annette’s black eyes? Charlotte could not be sure.

“Very well, madame. I will tell her. ” Annette was gone like a shadow.

Moments later there was a crisp knock on the door. Katherine Talybont, no doubt. Charlotte rose with a sigh to meet her enemy.

Katherine swept in with the air of an injured duchess. She was wearing a loose-backed gown of thin rose damask that swept away from the back of the shoulders into a slight train. She kicked that train aside as she came through the door, and stood in the middle of the room regarding Charlotte with her rose-damask bodice rising and falling in annoyance.

“I think you know why I have come,” she stated regally.

“I haven’t the least idea,” was Charlotte’s airy response. She noted that even if Katherine’s coiffure had been arranged by “the best hairdresser in Europe,” the curls were damp across her forehead and pulling loose in several places. She wondered if Katherine and Eustace had actually come to blows at some point in the evening. “Won’t you sit down?” she asked, and waved Katherine to a chair.

“Thank you, but I prefer to stand.”

“Very well, but
I
intend to sit if you do not. ” Charlotte sank down gracefully into a chair and raised her high arched brows questioningly at her visitor.

Katherine was a little nonplussed by Charlotte s aplomb and by being thus received, as if she were a commoner in the presence of a queen, but she came straight to the point.