Lisbon

by Valerie Sherwood

  Charlotte took a deep breath. This giant with his lowering expression and large hands and feet was only Rowan’s “man”—he must not be allowed to intimidate her.

  “Yates,” she said in a voice of authority, “you may take my bags upstairs. I am sure Rowan must have had a bedchamber prepared for me. If not, I will select one. ”

  Yates gave her a sharp look, but without comment he carried her bags up the stairs and opened the door of one of the two front bedrooms, set down her bags, and departed.

  Charlotte looked about her. What she had seen of the downstairs had had a rich, luxuriant look and was very tasteful—walls and wainscoting in muted tones, rugs from the Orient, handsome paintings. This room had the look of being freshly done and waiting for its occupant. There were no small possessions, no personal objects. Even the walls were bare of pictures, as if those too would be brought in. The armoire in the adjoining green dressing room was bare of clothing. And the colors startled her: the obviously new bedroom draperies and coverlet were of a brilliant crimson, the Oriental rug beneath her feet a darker crimson—hardly her colors.

  And then she saw it, what she had overlooked in scanning her new domain: a large K was embroidered into the red satin coverlet and a smaller K had been embroidered into the corners of the rich damask draperies that reached the floor.

  These were Katherine’s colors, this flamboyant red room and that vivid green dressing room. Katherine had probably selected everything in it.

  Charlotte sat down on the bed, feeling suddenly depressed. Rowan had redecorated for his late betrothed but he had not bothered to redecorate for his bride. Perhaps he had not wanted even to enter this bedchamber where he had meant to bring Katherine. It brought back to her sharply those last troubled days in Lisbon before Rowan rode away in the night to Evora.

  Well, there was no use moping here. Briskly she got up and prowled about, surveying the house. The furnishings were handsome and elegant—all chosen by Rowan, she had no doubt, for his taste was impeccable. His bedchamber she did not see, for his door was locked, and so were the desk and most of the cupboards downstairs. She did find a rather daunting array of sword canes in a dark corner, and there were matched dueling pistols in a drawer of the library table—but those were understandable enough in a day when gentlemen warred politely with one another and beat off footpads who sprang from dark alleys.

  She would have liked to question the servants, but all of them appeared to be out, although there was a savory pot of stew simmering in the kitchen. She wondered if taciturn Yates had prepared it.

  She was wondering uncertainly whether she should eat a bowl of the souplike stew when she heard the front door open. She hurried toward the sound and met Rowan, looking travel-stained and tired, just coming into the house.

  He stopped in surprise at the sight of her.

  "Charlotte! But you were not due until next week!

  “I know, but we had favorable winds. She felt suddenly shy with him; it had been a long time since she had seen him.

  “Have you eaten?” And when she shook her head, “Well, I will take you out to dinner and you can tell me all about it.”

  “Wait, I will get my hat,” said Charlotte breathlessly. By the time she was back downstairs, she realized that he was slipping back into her life as if he had never been gone. His greeting had been easy, almost casual, as if they had been separated for hours instead of for long weeks.

  “Why did Annette tell me to meet you at the Gray Goose Inn instead of at your home in Grosvenor Square?” wondered Charlotte, when they were enjoying a candlelit dinner at one of the fashionable inns near Drury Lane.

  Rowan, who between bites had been keeping up a running conversation on trivial matters, hesitated for a second, and shutters seemed to close down on his dark eyes, but his answer was glib enough. “I had promised the servants their holidays at this time and I had thought you and I might take a trip—I could show you the south of England as winter approaches. Unfortunately,” he added with just the proper note of regret in his voice, “I find I am now too busy for that.”

  Charlotte could not fault his answer, but she had a deep feeling that it was not the truth.

  Later, when he took her home and she threw open the door to the red bedchamber that had so obviously been prepared for Katherine, Rowan drew in a harsh breath.

  “I had meant to have all this stuff cleared out, ” he said frankly. “And would have, before you arrived, had your ship not made port early. You shall select for yourself the hangings and furnishings for this room.”

  Perhaps this was the right moment . . .

  Charlotte gave him her most winsome smile. “It would be much nicer to make my own selection,” she admitted. And then, ruefully, “I might have managed staying here with all these K’s without complaint, but it would be hard to bear my baby beneath a coverlet lavished with another woman’s initial!”

  She had Rowan’s full attention now! “A child?” he murmured, almost unbelievingly.

  “Yes, Rowan. Our child. In the spring.” For whether the baby was Tom’s or Rowan’s, Charlotte felt she must brazen it out so that her baby would be certain of acceptance, so it would have a father’s love and protection.

  “Our child. ...” She could not tell whether he was pleased or not. Suddenly he laughed. “I will be honest with you. I have never given much thought to becoming a father.” He looked about him with distaste. “You shall not spend your first night here in a room that bears another woman’s stamp. You shall sleep in my room, with me.” They were over that hurdle; Rowan had asked no questions about when in the spring. Charlotte felt almost dizzy with relief. She accompanied Rowan into his bedchamber, which was a room that puzzled her. That he kept it locked she already knew, for he had to insert a key into the lock to open it now. The furnishings were handsome, but while those downstairs were exquisite with a French elegance, these were heavier, sturdier, the four-poster canopied and of solid oak, the chests and cupboards looking formidably strong, and . . . Could that be a rope ladder casually attached to a solid metal ring at one of the front windows? What earthly purpose could it serve there unless . . . unless Rowan thought the day might come when armed men would rush up these stairs and break down his bedchamber door, and he wanted a swift way out to the street?

  She tore her eyes from the rope ladder and looked about her at the walls, all lined with maps.

  “I see you prefer maps to family portraits,’’ she said, smiling.

  ‘‘Family portraits are for those who have ancestors,” was his light rejoinder. “I am remarkably short on ancestors.” She noted uneasily that he had crossed to the window and was unobtrusively kicking the rope ladder under the long cinnamon velvet draperies as he spoke.

  That night he made love to her with a gentleness she had not known he possessed.

  “My perfect woman . . .’’he murmured, drinking in the perfume of her blonde hair as he buried his face in it. “And now you will bear me a son. ...”

  Or perhaps a daughter, thought Charlotte, but she did not voice it, for Rowan s new gentleness had given their lovemaking this night a wonderful dreamy quality and she did not want to break the spell.

  But she slept only three nights in Rowan’s room, for the very next morning Rowan had the red bedchamber and the green dressing room stripped. The red damask on the walls was replaced with delicate blue-and-white French wallpaper, the woodwork was painted a misty blue, and Charlotte was amazed to find that not only was the fragile French furniture she selected from a ship in the harbor whisked immediately in, but even the sky-blue silk draperies and blue silk coverlet were in place before the end of the week, and now her feet trod upon a blue-violet Chinese rug, flower-figured and so deep her feet sank into it. Where the crimson rug and the furniture that had formerly been in the room went, she did not know. She guessed that it had been sold. Anyway, like Katherine, it was gone, hopefully forever.

  “I was lucky to get this house,” Rowan told her. “They began the dev
elopment of this six-acre tract here at Grosvenor Square seven years ago and built the east side first, with that large house with the pediment in the middle. On this side we’ve a jumble of houses, and the mansions about us went begging for a time because the wealthy were all building country houses. 1 didn't really want one of the big ones, too large for a bachelor, but this one is just right. And,” he added proudly, “you’ll be interested to learn it was the home of the Duchess of Kendal.”

  Charlotte gasped. “The Duchess of . . . You mean the Maypole?”

  “She was the king’s mistress,” Rowan said stiffly.

  “I know, but . . . ” As a child growing up in the warm sea breezes of the Scilly Isles, Charlotte remembered her merry widowed mother, Cymbeline Vayle, laughing herself breathless over tales of German George I's strikingly homely German mistresses—the enormous uncorseted fat one that everyone surreptitiously called Elephant and Castle and the tall scrawny one they had dubbed the May-pole, with whom he had spent pleasant evenings cutting patterns out of paper. She had always thought those tales excruciatingly funny, but plainly her husband took a different view. “So it’s a celebrated house,” she managed in a somewhat muffled voice.

  “In a small way, yes. ” The look of disapproval on Rowan’s face was unmistakable. He took his royalty seriously, she saw—at least German George.

  “What did you think of him?” she ventured. “German George.”

  “I thought he was what England needed at the time,” he said heavily, closing the subject.

  She realized she had made him angry and launched immediately into engaging tales of her explorations with the Milroyds of the environs of Lisbon, which brought him back into a good humor.

  “They were very good to me. I should like to write and ask them to visit us,” she finished.

  To her surprise. Rowan shook his head. “They were well enough in Portugal,” he said with a dismissing shrug. “And they were people I could leave you with. But here in London they would be no asset.”

  He uses people, she thought. And realized guiltily that in a way she was using him as well, for the child she carried might not be Rowan’s. And suppose it looked like Tom!

  With that in mind she began a careful campaign.

  “I have often regretted my coloring,’’ she told him as they shopped for clothes for her—for she would be needing things soon with waistlines that could be let out.

  “I regard your coloring as perfect,” he said, cocking an eyebrow at her. “In what way would you have it changed?”

  “My mother’s hair was so much lighter—white as moonbeams, and it glittered in the sun. I used to long for hair like that.” She sighed. “And my father had wonderful green eyes, so clear. While I ended up with this sort of murky violet. ”

  “Clear violet,” he corrected.

  “Very well then, clear violet—but I’d much rather have had green.” She brightened. “Perhaps the baby will.”

  In point of fact her mother’s hair had been darker than hers and her father’s eyes a vivid blue—but then, there were no portraits left of either of them; Uncle Russ had sold them off along with the rest of the furnishings long ago in the Scillies, so Rowan would have no way of knowing.

  She felt reassured when Rowan said mildly, “If tis a girl, I’d hope she would have your coloring, but we'll take what we get.” He grinned. “Just so she doesn’t look like Russ!”

  “God grant I never see his face again!” exclaimed Charlotte violently.

  But she did—the very next night.

  It was a bad day for both of them. Morning sickness had struck Charlotte at breakfast and left her feeling shaky. But the weather was perfect, brisk and sunny, and Rowan had insisted on a drive through the park in an open carriage “because a breath of the outdoors would do you good, and besides, I want to show you off in that new lettuce-green gown I just bought you. ”

  When he put it that way, Charlotte could only give him a wan smile and agree. After all, she would soon be so thick around the middle that Rowan might not care to take her out to “show her off. ”

  They had gone scarcely three blocks before they were hailed by two young men who zigzagged excitedly through the traffic to come up beside their carriage. Laughing, Charlotte introduced two of the Cambridge students who had brightened her voyage home.

  As she leaned back to wave good-bye to them, Rowan spoke through tight lips. “It would seem you made the most of your voyage from Portugal. ”

  The words struck Charlotte like a slap, and one look at his hard expression told her he imagined the worst.

  “It was a lonely voyage,” she sighed. “I was grateful to them for making it bearable. They were merry and always joking.”

  “And so good-looking,” he added cuttingly.

  “Really?” Charlotte sank deeper into gloom. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Rowan gave her a sharp look and she faced him squarely. “Rowan,” she said, “I have done nothing to ...” Suddenly her voice faded away, for a woman was just passing in a carriage, a dark-haired woman in crimson velvet. “Oh, dear, isn’t that . . . ?”

  Rowan followed her gaze and turned a quizzical look upon her. But Charlotte now saw that the woman was a stranger.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought it was someone else.”

  “You thought it was Katherine.” He sounded amused.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you can set your mind at ease. Katherine is nowhere hereabouts. I am told she is somewhere in the wilds of Dorset, arrayed in widow’s weeds and trying to persuade her late in-laws to give her an allowance.”

  Charlotte shivered at his cold amusement. Did Rowan never forgive anyone? Surely—whatever she had done— Katherine had suffered enough. He didn’t need to gloat.

  The two incidents, small though they were, spoiled her day. When they came back, after dining out in one of Rowan’s favorite places, she said she didn’t feel well and would go right to bed. Rowan said he would be up shortly.

  She had changed into a dark blue velvet dressing gown and was poking up the fire, for the night was cool, when she heard the metallic clang of the front door knocker. It was late to receive guests. Curious, she drifted down the hall to the head of the stairs, still holding the poker. The sight below made her grip the poker’s brass handle until her knuckles were white.

  In the hallway below, confronting Rowan, who had gone to the door, and looking as if he had just been blown in by the wind on this harsh autumn night, stood her guardian. Feet planted broadly apart, he stood there in his brown coat looking surly—he also looked somewhat unkempt, but in the shock of seeing him, Charlotte didn’t notice that. It was his words that froze her where she stood.

  “ Tis about time you got back,’’ he was snarling at Rowan. “I’ve been hiding out from my creditors waiting for you to pay this note of hand you signed!” He waved a paper in Rowan’s face. “Honor it, man—or d’you think I’d not use it against you in a court of law?”

  “I don’t doubt you would,” was Rowan’s cold rejoinder. “But I’ve since had Charlotte’s affairs looked into, and it would seem she was left a fair sum by her mother—money you squandered!”

  Even at the head of the stairs Charlotte could hear her uncle draw in his breath with a hiss.

  “You dare—” he began.

  “Oh, yes, I dare,” cut in Rowan’s bored voice. “But I’m a reasonable man. That’s a large sum I promised you there.” He inclined his head curtly toward the parchment in his adversary’s hand. “But since you won’t want countercharges of misappropriation of your ward’s fortune brought against you, I’m prepared to settle for half—enough to pay off your gambling debts. And the rest of the deal still stands.”

  “The devil you say! I’ll collect on this in full or have the bailiff here tomorrow!”

  “And find me gone.” Rowan smiled. “And by then your creditors will have found you, for I’ll see to that. And there’ll be charges and countercharges while you languish in de
btors’ prison. ”

  “The charge should be murder!” Charlotte’s voice rang out from the head of the stairs. Below her in the hall, looking up at her in surprise, was Tom’s murderer. A man who had stolen her fortune, killed her lover, and tried to sell her in marriage!

  Without conscious volition, without even being aware that she was doing it, she threw the poker like a spear. Down the stairwell it shot, whizzing past the chandelier to strike through the stiffened skirts of her uncle’s coat and pin him—unhurt but frightened—to the heavy panels of the front door.

  Rowan shot a look upward at his lady. She stood like an avenging angel, he thought, leaning over the stair railing as if she would fly down on dark velvet wings and tear at Russ with her talons. A wistful look passed fleetingly across his hard features—he was wishing her violent action might have been on his behalf, and not another man’s. Still, he turned in amusement to Russ, ashen-faced at his narrow escape and struggling to remove the poker from his coat.

  “Knowing how she feels about you, d’you want her back?” he mocked.

  “A hellcat she is, like her mother before her!” yowled Russ, his voice cracking in rage and fear at his narrow escape.

  “So we’ve a deal, then? You don’t wish her back? I’ll meet you on Fleet Street tomorrow—at Child’s.” Rowan saw that Russ had torn the poker free from his coat and flung it down, and he threw open the door to let him out. “Be glad her aim was not as good as her intentions, Russ,” Rowan said with a chuckle.

  “But if I see you in this house again,” Charlotte leaned over the second-floor railing to warn Russ, aim will be better!”

  Russ made his escape gibbering, and Rowan closed and locked the door behind him. He looked upward, but Charlotte had disappeared, gone back to her room—perhaps to weep, perhaps to shudder that she had nearly killed a man, perhaps to stalk about in rage that her aim had not been better, that the poker had not found Russ’s flesh. Rowan was not sure which it would be with his wild Lake Country wench, but he understood violence, and his heart had known a kindling sympathy when she had thrown the poker like a spear. For some odd reason, he felt closer to her at that moment than he had ever felt before.