Taming Charlotte (16 page)

“I wouldn’t have guessed that violet was your color,” Charlotte remarked tartly.

He tossed it to her and it billowed on her lap, a riot of ugliness smelling of cheap perfume. “Put it on and keep your mouth shut,” he said.

Charlotte stood, holding the frock in front of her and frowning at it. As if she had a choice whether to wear the thing or not. “Apparently I wouldn’t have been the first to wander about the
Enchantress
in a state of nakedness,” she observed, though she didn’t really want to hear about the strumpet who had entered the captain’s cabin wearing that awful dress and then went off without it. “Perhaps the poor creature was plucked straight from your bed by pirates?”

Patrick folded his arms, and his gaze was level. “I believe she left wearing one of my shirts,” he answered. “This was after she poured tincture of opium into my brandy and relieved me of my watch and all my money, if I remember correctly.”

Charlotte couldn’t help smiling. “It’s good to know that not every woman responds to your charms as shamelessly as I do,” she said sweetly. She was angry with herself for succumbing to petty jealousy, and with Patrick for being able to inspire the emotion in her in the first place.

He lifted one eyebrow. “I did not say the lady didn’t enjoy
herself thoroughly in my bed before robbing me,” he informed her.

A hot blush bloomed in Charlotte’s cheeks. It seemed grossly unfair that she had come to Patrick as a virgin, while he had probably bedded women of every station from princess to belly dancer.

“How modest of you to say so,” she snapped.

Patrick laughed and, to her profound relief, left the cabin without another word.

Charlotte put on the hideous dress, which was too small in the bosom and made her feel like a streetwalker. The neckline was low, and she had to keep tugging it upward to hide her cleavage.

For all of that, Charlotte’s curiosity was greater than her commitment to propriety, and she couldn’t bear to stay in the cabin. She had to go up on deck and see what damage had been done to the
Enchantress.
Some of the crewmen were undoubtedly wounded, too, and would need medical care.

First thing after reaching the deck, Charlotte looked up and saw that the mainsail had been torn from top to bottom. There were smears of blood everywhere, and part of the railing had been shattered, probably by cannon fire. The ship listed slightly to one side, and the smell of gunpowder still lingered in the air.

Looking out to sea, she saw the other vessel moving slowly toward the horizon.

“You look even better in that dress than Monique did,” Patrick said, startling Charlotte so badly that she jumped. It was uncanny, the way he could sneak up on her, given his size. He moved with the grace of a circus performer on a high wire.

Charlotte seethed. From the looks of things, the ship was probably going to sink at any moment, and Captain Trevarren wanted to discuss past conquests. “I’m surprised she kept it on long enough for you to take notice,” she retorted.

Patrick laughed. “I suppose it would be useless to send you back to my cabin,” he said, “so I’ll just tell you not to get underfoot.”

She gave him a haughty look and glanced around, searching for wounded crewmen. “I used to help my stepmother and Dr. McCauley tend the sick and injured sometimes, back home. Was anyone hurt?”

He gestured toward the port side. “Yes,” he said, and all the humor vanished from his expression in an instant. “Over there,” he told her, already moving in the opposite direction, toward the rigging. Moments later, he was climbing the net of ropes as deftly as a spider on a web. Charlotte felt a pang as she recalled their first meeting, a decade before, in the harbor at Seattle.

After a moment’s reverie, she broke free of her thoughts and started for the other side of the ship.

Only about half a dozen men had been hurt, she was relieved to find, and none of them seriously. Charlotte tried to ignore the sailors’ vocal appreciation of her borrowed purple dress while she helped Mr. Cochran and Mr. Ness to wash and stitch their wounds.

When all the men had been treated, there was nothing to do, and Charlotte would have been the first to admit that idleness generally had an unsavory effect on her character. She returned to Patrick’s cabin long enough to wash her hands and select a book from the captain’s collection, then returned to the deck.

Patrick was still high in the rigging, working with several other men to mend the rent sail. It seemed to Charlotte that the ship was limping toward the coast of Spain, and her vivid imagination delivered up a series of disconcerting pictures. She saw the
Enchantress
sinking, encircled by sharks and other creatures of the deep. She even felt the water closing over her face…

“Mrs. Trevarren?”

She started slightly, clutching the borrowed book to her bosom. Mr. Cochran was standing before her, his expression mild and polite.

“Excuse me,” the first mate said, “but you look a little on the peaky side. I was thinking that perhaps you might want a cup of strong tea with a little brandy added.”

Charlotte put Patrick’s precarious position in the rigging firmly out of her mind. She was struck by Mr. Cochran’s
refined way of speaking. “That was very thoughtful,” she said, with a prim nod. “Thank you.”

Mr. Cochran nodded and walked away, and Charlotte sat down on the very crate she’d hidden behind just over an hour before. Although she was wearing a harlot’s dress, the first mate’s kind attentions made her feel like a lady again. She looked up at Patrick, saw him pull off his shirt and drop it from the rigging to work bare-chested in the sun.

She sniffed. Her husband had a few things to learn about being a gentleman.

The next day, just before sundown, land was sighted. Charlotte stood at the rail, watching purple shadows dart and waver across the water. A welcoming committee of dolphins greeted the ship, jibbering and showing off like rowdy children.

Charlotte hadn’t slept at all the night before; she’d been too busy trying to keep the ship afloat by the power of her will. Patrick’s lovemaking might have diverted her mind from her fears, but he had never come to bed. In fact, he hadn’t even joined her for supper.

Now, watching the dolphins frolic, Charlotte acknowledged the duality of her emotions, at least to herself. She would be overjoyed to feel solid ground beneath her feet again, and to be in a country where a man was entitled to only one wife, but she felt a peculiar, niggling dread, too. She sensed another great change approaching, as ominous and powerful as one of the wild windstorms that sometimes ravaged the shores of Puget Sound.

The cook’s helper, Tipper Doon, appeared beside her. The young man sighed as he regarded the olive groves and the red tile roofs of the stucco houses clustered close to the shore. He was very young, and Charlotte wondered, not for the first time, if someone somewhere was worrying about him and praying for his safe return.

“What’s the name of that village?” she asked, hungry for conversation.

“Costa del Cielo,” he said. “Coast of the Sky. Sometimes the water and the heavens are just the same color, and the town looks like it’s floating in midair.”

Charlotte smiled. “You’re a poet, Mr. Doon,” she told him. “Tell me—where were you born, and are there people there waiting for you?”

He turned and regarded her with eyes as blue as the coastal sea. His sandy hair just brushed his collar, and he dressed much as Patrick did, though his plain-spun breeches and muslin shirt were not so costly as the things the captain wore.

“I boarded the ship in San Francisco,” he answered. “My ma was all I had, and I figure she was too busy with whiskey and men to notice I was gone.”

“You’ve had some formal education,” Charlotte persisted, with a note of affectionate suspicion in her voice.

Tipper lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “A lady from the church came around when I was little and asked if I wanted to go to school. I went most days, because the place was warm and the teacher usually brought me something to eat.” He shrugged again and gave Charlotte a lopsided grin. “While I was there, I happened to learn a few things.”

Thinking of her own sheltered childhood, in comparison to Tipper’s, made Charlotte feel both gratitude and sadness.

“Where did you grow up, Mrs. Trevarren?” he asked, a little shyly.

She smiled. “In a little town in Washington Territory called Quade’s Harbor. My sister and I were wild as monkeys in the jungle until I was thirteen and Millie was ten. Then Papa, who had been a widower for some time, remarried. Lydia—my stepmother—changed all our lives for the better.”

Before Tipper could offer a reply, the cook bellowed his name and he had to leave. After a nod of farewell, he sprinted belowdecks to the galley, leaving Charlotte alone again.

She was in a nostalgic mood, having spoken aloud of her home and family, and a sense of deep loneliness bruised her heart. She wished Patrick would appear, but he didn’t, not until after dinner, when members of the crew had dropped the anchor and a sizable skiff was being lowered over the side. A rope ladder was flung after it.

Patrick dropped a carpetbag into the bobbing dinghy and smiled at his wife. “I’ll go down first,” he said.

Charlotte looked over the side and, all of the sudden, began to feel seasick. The fact that she was about to descend a rope ladder in full skirts was the least of her problems.

She swallowed. “I d-don’t know if I can…”

He seemed to be remembering the episode a decade before, when Charlotte had frozen high above the decks of the
Enchantress
and he’d had to climb up to fetch her. There was no mockery in his manner or his expression.

“I’ll be with you the whole time,” he promised. Then he swung over the rail and climbed down just far enough to leave space on the ladder for Charlotte to fit within the sheltering circle of his arms.

She clutched her skirts as close to her legs as possible, and Mr. Cochran very politely lifted her over the side.

Patrick’s breath was a warm temptation near her ear as he spoke. “Don’t look down. Well be in the skiff before you know it.”

Charlotte clung to the rough hemp ladder and simply took one step downward after another, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Just as Patrick had promised, she soon found herself seated in the small boat, clutching the bench and battling nausea.

Several more crewmen joined them, and then Patrick and the others began rowing toward shore. Charlotte drew a series of deep breaths and reminded herself of all the times she and Millie and Lydia had gone out on the Sound in a rowboat, fishing for cod.

It didn’t help much, and Charlotte knew she was green by the time they finally reached the wharves. The dock shifted and swayed under her feet, and she fairly scrambled onto the cream-colored sand covering the bank.

The first stars were popping into view, and a pleasant breeze blew in over the water.

Charlotte began to feel better. Now she would be able to purchase appropriate clothes, and sleep in a room where the floor didn’t move. In the morning she would have a fine
breakfast of fruit and biscuits, then she’d write another letter to her family and post it immediately.

“Is that the hotel?” she asked, pointing to a gracious white building looming just ahead, at the end of a street paved in brick.

Patrick smiled. “There is no hotel in Costa del Cielo,” he replied.

Charlotte could not hide her disappointment. “No hotel?” she echoed.

“There are two taverns with rooms for hire,” he told her, his blue eyes sparkling, “but I think you’ll be happier staying with my friends, Señor and Señora Querida.”

Querida.
The name caught in Charlotte’s spirit like a fishhook in tender flesh. She recalled the elegant handwriting on the perfumed envelopes she’d found in Patrick’s desk.
Pilar,
she thought.

In that moment Charlotte was more ashamed than ever of the purple dress she wore. She yearned to ask about Pilar, but she didn’t dare because she wasn’t ready to admit that she’d seen the letters.

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” she said, with all the dignity she could summon. The sailors who had come ashore with them took their leave and headed toward the center of town.

Patrick smiled at Charlotte, giving her gown an amused assessment. “You can’t stay at either of the taverns, even though I have to admit you’re dressed for it.”

Before they had reached the tall iron gates of the Querida compound, a servant appeared, holding a lantern. A beautiful young woman in a glowing white dress stood waiting, the light of the stars and the gas streetlamps flickering in her dark hair.

Seeing Charlotte, the other woman narrowed her brown eyes for a moment. In the next instant, however, she turned all her attention on Patrick, uttering a joyous little cry and hurling herself into his arms.

He set her away from him with a slightly stiff motion.

“Hello, Pilar,” he said.

The girl looked at Charlotte again, her eyes widening with disbelief when she saw the purple dress.

Charlotte was thinking of the letters this beautiful young
woman had written to Patrick, and all that might have passed between them. She held her breath, waiting.

“This is my wife, Charlotte,” he said.

Pilar’s dark eyes flashed. She muttered something in rapid Spanish, turned on one delicate heel, and swept away into the gathering darkness like a ghost.

Patrick didn’t seem at all ruffled by his mistress’s displeasure. He chatted with the servant in amicable Spanish while the man led the way through a courtyard, past a tall, whispering fountain, and through a set of double doors.

The room beyond was a small suite, dominated by a huge bed with a blue velvet canopy and a white eyelet spread. There was a marble fireplace at one end of the chamber, with a large mirror above the mantel. Behind the gleaming brass andirons on the hearth stood a lush green plant in a ceramic pot.

Charlotte saw herself and Patrick—indeed, the whole of the room—reflected in the looking glass over the fireplace. He stood behind her, this husband she loved so desperately and knew so slightly, and laid gentle hands on her shoulders.