Taming Charlotte (17 page)

“Look at you,” he scolded gently. “You have shadows under your eyes.” He began unfastening the buttons at the back of her dress, and Charlotte shivered, partly from anticipation. “Tomorrow will be a busy day, goddess. You need your sleep.”

He had already taught her to need something else even more than sleep, but she could not speak so boldly of her desire for him. Her emotions were too near the surface.

“Will you stay with me?” she asked.

Patrick bent his head to kiss her lightly on one temple. “I will be back later,” he replied. “Are you hungry?”

Charlotte was still a little seasick, and meeting Pilar Querida had been something of a shock. She shook her head, her gaze linked with that of the man in the mirror. Her pride kept her from begging him to stay until she’d fallen asleep.

He turned her in his arms then and touched her lips with the tip of his forefinger instead of kissing her. “Good night, Mrs. Trevarren,” he said.

Charlotte was sure he was going off to make peace with
Pilar, and the knowledge was like poison in her soul. The thought of Patrick charming another woman was nearly unbearable.

“Good night,” she said, lifting her chin.

When he was gone, Charlotte found water and soap in a small dressing room adjoining the bedchamber and washed as best she could. Someone had laid a soft cotton nightgown with an embroidered bodice across the foot of the bed and set a tray on one of the bureaus.

Charlotte put on the gown and ignored the food. Drawing back the covers, she tumbled into bed, expecting to lie sleepless as she had the night before, waiting for Patrick. Instead, she tumbled head over heels into a dark well of exhaustion, and when the bright light of morning awakened her, she remembered no dreams.

C
OCHRAN WAS INDULGING IN THE WATERFRONT TAVERN’S
specialty, a particularly potent red wine, spiced and heated, but it was too early for Patrick to take strong drink. Instead, he sipped from a mug of overbrewed tea.

“How bad is the damage to the ship?” Cochran asked, as sympathetically as if he’d asked about the health of a beloved relation.

Patrick let out a raspy sigh, weary to the core of his spirit. He had spent a sleepless night in a room down the hall from Charlotte’s suite at the Queridas’ home, ensnared in a conflict between his conscience and his desires as a man. He needed a shave, he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and he was exhausted.

None of these factors did anything to improve his mood.

“I was waiting at the gates when the boatyard opened this morning,” he finally replied. “The
Enchantress
will be in dry dock for at least a month.”

Cochran cursed under his breath. He enjoyed shore leave, like the other members of the crew, but Patrick knew the first mate was always happier at sea. “I’d say we have a score
to settle with those pirates,” Cochran said, after a few moments of silence. “Any idea who they were?”

Patrick nodded grimly. “Raheem was leading that crew of bilge rats,” he replied. He was certain the notorious outlaw of the Mediterranean had had two goals in mind: to capture Charlotte, whom he surely regarded as his rightful property, and to avenge Patrick’s interference in the matter. Even now it chilled the very marrow of his bones to think of Charlotte falling into the bastard’s hands.

“Raheem,” Cochran reflected, rubbing his stubbly chin. “I’ve heard of the fellow, but never made his acquaintance. Did you catch a glimpse of him during the fight?”

Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know. I was pretty busy, all things considered.”

Cochran smiled. “It was quite a scrap, wasn’t it?” he said, obviously relishing the memory.

Privately Patrick wondered at his own personal reaction to the incident. He’d always enjoyed a good fight himself, but during Raheem’s attack on the
Enchantress,
he’d been so worried about Charlotte’s safety that he’d hardly been able to think straight. In fact, he was lucky the distraction hadn’t gotten him killed.

“I must be getting old,” he confessed. “The whole time it was happening, all I could think about was my wife, and whether she’d done what I told her to do and hidden herself, or if she was wandering around the deck in the midst of it all, looking to get her throat slit.”

The other man laughed and raised his mug of spiced wine in a wry salute. “To love,” he said.

Patrick glared at him. He thought of Charlotte constantly, and whenever he did, he wanted her with an embarrassing intensity, and he would willingly give his own life to protect her. Still, he couldn’t credit the idea of romantic love. That was the province of schoolgirls and comsumptive poets.

“Don’t be maudlin,” he snapped. “Charlotte and I are playing a game, that’s all. When we tire of it, I can set us both free with a few words and a gesture.”

Cochran’s smile faded. He sighed and pushed back his chair. “If this is a game, Captain,” he said seriously, “Mrs.

Trevarren is winning. Have a care that you don’t take your feelings for the lady too lightly.”

Patrick stood too. Although he was confused by his friend’s words, and the attitude behind them, he didn’t pursue the subject. He simply tossed a coin onto the table and followed Cochran out into the hot brightness of a Spanish morning.

Ten minutes later, when Cochran had gone to the boatyard to oversee the repairs on the ship, Patrick walked back to the Querida compound. He planned to stretch out on his lonely bed and catch up on some of the sleep he’d lost the night before.

A servant appeared in Charlotte’s room almost immediately after she’d awakened, carrying a pretty yellow cotton morning gown. Probably it was a grudging donation from the beautiful Pilar, but Charlotte accepted the offering with grace and gratitude. After all, her alternative was to wear that hateful purple thing Patrick had unearthed for her.

When she had washed and dressed, another maid came to brush and arrange Charlotte’s hair. Then she was served a delicious breakfast of flaky pastries, fruit, and coffee in the small courtyard outside her suite.

She ate heartily, and felt restored as she sat sipping her coffee at the end of the meal, enjoying the chatter of birds and the warmth of golden sunshine. Then Patrick strode into the courtyard, looking weary and not a little despondent.

Charlotte’s heart constricted when she saw him, even though she had every reason to suspect that their marriage, so real and so sacred to her, was no more than an amusing diversion to him. She did not ask where he’d been, but simply said quietly, “Good morning, Mr. Trevarren.”

He came to a reluctant stop next to the white iron table where she sat, folded his arms, and tilted his head to one side. “Hello, Charlotte,” he responded gravely. He swept his gaze over her soft, upswept coiffure, her face, her shoulders, left bare by the borrowed dress. “Did you sleep well?”

She smiled serenely. “As soundly as the dead,” she replied. “You?”

Patrick scowled down at her, then, with that same diffidence he’d shown before, he dragged back a chair and sat “Charlotte, I—”

Charlotte never found out what he’d meant to say, for just then Pilar joined them. He stood again, as quickly as he’d taken a seat.

Pilar favored him with a soul-rending smile, her dark eyes shining, her ebony hair bound into a single heavy plait woven through with gardenias of the palest cream shade. As she had been the night before, the girl was dressed entirely in white—this time the fabric of her gown was a gauzy organdy.

The daughter of the house was startlingly beautiful, a Spanish angel, and yet as Pilar and Patrick talked, Charlotte underwent a revelation of sorts. The night before, in the more whimsical light of the moon and stars, Pilar had seemed older. Now, however, in the sun-flooded courtyard, Charlotte could see that she was really a child, no more than fifteen or sixteen, and she was clearly suffering from a colossal crush on Patrick.

Charlotte frowned, ignoring their conversation to refill her coffee cup from a small bone china pot. Patrick had kept Pilar’s letters, it was true, but now Charlotte suspected that he meant to return them someday. She could imagine him teasing Pilar good-naturedly, sometime far in the future, of course, about her tender
amor.

“We’ll be here for a month or more,” Patrick was saying as Charlotte turned her attention back to the here and now. “You’ll need all sorts of clothes, so see that you don’t stint when the dressmaker comes to call.”

With that, Patrick bent down to kiss Charlotte’s cheek, which was instantly aflame at his touch, nodded to a pouting Pilar, and went into the house.

“I do not see why he must be so blind and bull’s-headed,” Pilar said, in stilted, boarding-school English.

Charlotte smiled, feeling much calmer—not to mention more charitable—now that she realized Pilar was no threat, and gestured toward the chair Patrick had just abandoned. “I think most men are blind and ‘bull’s-headed,’“ she replied.

Pilar sat, with a little flounce of her voluminous skirts, and tears of frustration and youthful heartbreak brimmed in her lovely eyes. “You are from America,” she said, and there was a vague accusation in her tone. “Patrick, too, is an American. Is this why he married you?”

Not knowing how to answer, Charlotte simply shrugged.

Pilar dashed away her tears with the heel of one palm, then narrowed her eyes at Charlotte as if to see past some murky veneer to the reality beneath. After that, she gave a theatrical sigh. “I shall never marry,” she said tragically.

Charlotte bit her lower lip for a moment, to keep from smiling. She suspected now that Pilar wore white often, because she so wanted to be a bride.

“Nonsense,” she replied, when she could control her expression. “You are young and lovely and you obviously come from a very good family. You will fall in love with some devastatingly handsome rake—when you’re older of course—and have the grandest wedding Costa del Cielo has ever seen.”

“What is this ‘rake’? Is it not a tool for digging?”

Charlotte squeezed one of Pilar’s hands, touched by the girl’s fragile naiveté, and defined the word as best she could.

Pilar gradually warmed toward Charlotte as they talked, though it was easy to see she wouldn’t have chosen that course if she could have helped herself.

When the same servant who had brought Charlotte the dress she was wearing reappeared and spoke with Pilar in rapid Spanish, the girl listened, then dismissed the maid.

“Manuella says Mama’s dressmaker has arrived. She has brought samples of cloth and many drawings of gowns she can make for you. Come, we are to meet with la señorita in the sun-room.”

Charlotte followed Pilar back into the house, through the suite, and along several wide hallways. Soon Charlotte was poring over books full of beautiful, hand-colored illustrations, and she and Pilar were chattering like old friends.

Although Charlotte would have settled for a half dozen sensible day dresses, Patrick had evidently left orders that she was to be outfitted for all contingencies. She selected morning and afternoon gowns, gowns for parties and operas,
gowns of silk, with embroidered bodices, for sleeping. Her feet were measured for shoes and dancing slippers, and the dressmaker showed her exquisite lace trims for delicately stitched drawers, camisoles, and petticoats.

Charlotte’s family was prosperous, and she’d always had fine clothes. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed all her pretty things. Unlike her younger sister, who had always been something of a ruffian from infancy, Charlotte appreciated fashion. Back in Paris, before she’d gone adventuring, she’d filled drawing tablet after drawing tablet with sketches of lovely French clothes, intending to have some of her favorites made up when she arrived home.

Sadness touched her spirit. Life could be uncertain and perilous, she’d discovered; she might never see her family again. She hurried to her private courtyard, overcome, and stared blindly out at the dancing sea, struggling to regain control of her emotions.

She didn’t hear Patrick approaching, didn’t realize he was there until he laid his hands on her shoulders.

“What is it?” His tone was gentle, as much a caress as the touch of his hands.

Charlotte turned, looked up into the beloved face—the face she so often wanted to slap. “I was just feeling a little wistful, that’s all,” she answered.

Patrick took her chin in his hand, passed the pad of one thumb lightly over her lips, as he sometimes did as a prelude to kissing her. “Then we’d better try to lift your spirits,” he said. His voice found its way inside Charlotte, resonated there, like a note played on some inner harp.

Her heartbeat quickened, a flush rose in her cheeks, and both occurrences made her feel silly. Even as her pride rebelled, however, her all-too-human body yearned to make the sweet, silent music Patrick alone could bring forth.

He chuckled at her expression, bent to kiss her lightly on the nose. “What you need, Mrs. Trevarren,” he said, “is a diversion. An elegant party, I think, with lots of dancing and laughter and food.”

Charlotte swallowed. She loved parties, but she’d had another kind of celebration in mind. She looked up at Patrick uncertainly, caught in the age-old dilemma of
whether to speak forthrightly of her feelings or keep them to herself.