He looked deep into her eyes and told her the truth. “I came seeking a lady,” he said. “A lady who had left England, it seemed, even as I arrived.”
Charlotte stared at him. That was why Rowan had taken her to Portugal so suddenly! Oh, he might very well be on a mission—who ever knew with Rowan? But he had brought her along to Lisbon so she would not meet Tom! That was the news old Conway had brought him back at Aldershot Grange that had changed his mind!
And that accounted too for Rowan’s strange moods, for the callous violence of his lovemaking—he was jealous! Of Tom!
Pain must have racked her face at that moment, for Tom leaned forward. “What’s the matter, Charlotte?”
“Nothing. ” She made a slight gesture as if to brush away cobwebs. “I am honored, Tom, that you came seeking me.” But it is too late, too late.
“And found you, more desirable than ever. Rowan Keynes is a lucky man, Charlotte. You would fill a man’s life.”
“Not Rowan’s,” she said bitterly, stirring her coffee.
“Oh?” He looked up alertly. “You are not happy, then?” She thought of last night's hurtful lovemaking, of this mornings insults. “No, I am not happy,” she admitted huskily.
His big hand still covered hers, warm and protective. “I have never stopped loving you, Charlotte, not for a moment. And the day came that I had to see you again, to know how you were, to make sure you were all right. On that day I sailed for England.”
“Oh, Tom.” Her voice was choked.
“I know you have another life now.” He spoke gravely. “And I would not take it from you. But if there is ever aught that I can do . . . ”
Oh, there is, there is. You could take me in your arms, you could make my heart whole again!
“I cannot ask you to the house,” she said. “Rowan would hear about it and he is wildly jealous of me. Scarcely can I speak to a man that he does not rush me away somewhere. I am sure that the reason he brought me to Portugal is that he heard that you were back in England.
“Then I am endangering you—something I would not do.”
He looked about to rise from the table and depart from her life again—oh, not yet, not yet!
“Rowan has left the city, ” she heard herself say. “He will be gone a week or longer.”
She saw his eyes kindle and his hand on hers tightened. “Then we might . . . see something of each other?” Charlotte looked at Tom. The world fled away. . . . “Hire a coach,” she said. Her voice was almost harsh. “We will stop by the house and I will tell Wend . . . Oh, I do not know wbat I will tell her, but something. We will go south, Tom, across the Tagus toward Setubal. It is a land of sand dunes and orange groves and little villages crowned by ancient castles. ” A land for lovers . .
His eyes were alight and his hand held hers in a grip that almost hurt. “It is more than I hoped for,” he said hoarsely.
And more than 1 should dare. . . . But there was a madness in her today, a restless longing that would not be brooked. Tom s return was a dream come true, a wonderful impossible dream. A wondrous flower-stitching in the plain weave of her days. She knew herself to be hopelessly entangled in Rowan’s web, held fast by her children, who must have a settled home and grow up decently. But that lurking knowledge was submerged in the joy of having found Tom again. She knew it could not last, she knew that Tom would go away once more, out of her life, this time forever. But oh, what fate would be so unkind as to deny them these few precious hours together, hours that must last through a lonely lifetime without him?
Tom hired a coach and they went directly to the house in the Portas del Sol. Charlotte ran in, looking radiant. As she was throwing some night things and a change of clothes into a bag, Wend came in.
“You are leaving him?” Wend asked sharply.
“No,” said Charlotte. Although God knows 1 would like to! “I have run across some old friends, the Milroyds. They have invited me to stay with them for a while.” And in response to Wend's puzzled look, “I will be gone only a couple of days, Wend.”
Wend's puzzled look followed her as she left, running downstairs to get into the coach with Tom.
“Was everything all right?” He was concerned.
“Yes.” I have covered my tracks, Tom. 1 am about to do what I thought never to do—break my marriage vows.
It was very silent in the coach. Too moved to speak, Tom took her in his arms.
The world fled away, and Charlotte was seventeen again and deep in love. . . .
At the Tagus River they dismissed their coach as too cumbersome. They crossed the Tagus by ferryboat, hired a cart, and meandered unencumbered into the unspoiled countryside. When they found a fishwife cooking salmonetes or red mullet over a little earthenware pot, keeping the charcoal aglow by wafting a straw fan, they stopped to watch, then bought some from her, along with brown bread and a wineskin of vinho verde. And lunched upon the fine sand of an empty beach, watching little distant fishing boats bob up and down on the horizon. They spoke of the time Charlotte had surprised Tom by the waterfall— and laughed, and remembered. . . .
After lunch their cart plunged into the pine woods and they turned olf the road and found a lonely spot where the pine needles were thick underfoot and low branches swept gracefully down overhead like a curtain.
Tom reached down and piled the pine needles thickly. “Will you sit, my lady?” he asked.
Charlotte smiled and sank down with her apricot skirts billowing about her. “Why couldn’t life have been kinder to us, Tom?” she murmured.
“It is being kind to us now,” he said huskily, and took off his coat.
“Oh, Tom ...” She held out her arms in yearning and he went into them, cradling her head in his hand as he bore her gently backward onto the natural bed he had made. The air was fragrant with the scent of pine.
He stroked her hair with a gentleness she had not known for a long time—for Rowan was seldom gentle. He kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, as if he could not believe his luck.
“Charlotte, Charlotte, how I have missed you. ...” His voice was timbred, soft.
Charlotte closed her eyes. She had missed him too. Ah, how she had missed him! She felt his hand, moving delicately among the hooks at the front of her bodice, release her breasts, and gave a little gasp as his left hand cupped her right breast and he bent down to nuzzle its rosy crest with his lips.
Sweet passions coursed through her at his touch, and she felt her clothes slide away without regret. Tom’s long body fitted to hers as if made to her measure, and she moved gracefully to welcome him. Swaying upon their soft bed of pine needles, he slipped inside her gently, tenderly. This was a lover. . . .
Charlotte was thrillingly aware of the reverence with which he claimed her, of the love she could feel in his every touch. There was a dreamy, unreal quality to this love they found again here in the fragrant pine woods, and a tingling sense of destiny, as if all their lives had been channeled to this moment.
Then passion swept them up and sent them soaring. They were like wild things with wings beating here on their scented bed of pine. With every thrust she held him closer, closer, as if she would never let him go. With every retreat, her body quivered, wanting him, needing him. With each return, new heights were reached, distant, unattainable. This was a magic world they wandered in, a world Eve had known, and Adam. They were lost here, man and woman, swept up beyond themselves into an ecstasy that seemed to know no end.
Until at last in one mad rush they were swept over the brink into a last wild shattering sweetness and drifted down, fulfilled, to lie together upon the pine needles and breathe the fragrant air.
“Tom.” Charlotte lay upon her back, looking up at sparkles of sunlight that glittered down through the dark flulfy branches. “I want you to know that if I had known you lived ...” Her voice broke.
“I know,” he said, moved, and stroked the silken skin of her breasts. “I never believed otherwise.”
She turned to him with
a little sob and pressed her naked body against him, felt the strong beating of his heart.
“Oh, Tom, what has life done to us? Why did I have to hurt my ankle that day? Why couldn’t we have slipped over the border to Scotland? I was married at Gretna Green, you know. Rowan had knocked down my uncle and carried me away, and he told me I must marry him or he would be hanged for trepanning—I thought I was saving his life!” She felt his muscles ripple and he held her closer.
“I meant to throw myself into the sea, ” she choked. “I did not want to live without you. And I almost did—but Rowan dragged me back. And then in Lisbon, so far away from all I knew, I found I wanted to live again.”
Pressed close against her, Tom understood. She was young, she had wanted to live. In that moment he thanked God for Rowan, who had saved her from the sea. . . .
Saved her so that he, Tom, might hold her in his arms again.
“And then when I learned that I was pregnant ...” But she could not tell him that Cassandra was his child, it would be too bitter to send him away—as send him away she must—with the knowledge that he was leaving not only herself but also his daughter to another man.
“Hush,” he murmured, making it easy for her. “I understand. No man could have asked you to do more than you did.”
“Oh, Tom!” She melted against him, feeling hot tears spring to her eyes, that he should have no blame for her. Her Tom, her wonderful Tom. . . .
They dallied there through the long summer afternoon, and in the lavender dusk found a tiny inn. There on a crunching straw-filled mattress, with the heady scent of blossoms wafting in through the open window, they made love beneath a white crescent moon to the sound of frogs croaking in the nearby rice paddies. It had been so long, so long since they had been torn apart, their world shattered. They could not get enough of each other.
The moon waned and morning came, bright and clear. Tom waked before Charlotte did and leaned over and kissed her awake.
“You were smiling in your sleep,” he told her.
Charlotte stretched in his arms, her body moving luxuriously against him. “I was dreaming, Tom. Dreaming that you and I were somehow in possession of Castle Stroud.” Her voice caressed him. “And we were the happiest couple in the land, living in the loveliest place. ” She was aglow with remembering.
Tom’s face clouded, for there were no castles in his future. Faith, he could not even give Charlotte the equal of what she had now, that fine house in the Portas del Sol.
Charlotte saw that look and quickly twined her arms about his neck. “Oh, Tom, it was only a dream. Reality is better. Just having you with me is better.”
Tom made a soft sound in his throat. His wonderful Charlotte, she would never change. Once she would have thrown her world away on him. He would not let her do that now. But she was endlessly tempting. He buried his face in the hollow of her smooth neck, savoring as always the delicate texture of her skin, marveling that he should be here with her at all. Surely he did not deserve such splendors!
Lost in love, Tom and Charlotte stayed snug in their tiny inn near the rice paddies for two more enchanted days.
Then they drifted on to the village of Azeitao. There beside a beautiful stone fountain for which the town was renowned they ate ewe’s milk cheese and drank muscatel wine. The air was soft and heavy. Reluctant to leave, they drove on past ancient houses and turned toward Palmela, watching along the sunlit road as a stork swooped down upon the croaking frogs. They were content, happy in each other’s company.
At Palmela the inn was full, but they found a room in one of the low whitewashed houses that lined the cobbled streets. It was small and not very comfortable and smelled a little of olive oil and overripe fermented fruit. But they had brought their magic with them and it lingered through a starlit night and into the next day, when they climbed up toward the huge medieval Knights Templars Castle that crowned the heights, and paused to catch their breath, looking out toward Lisbon, where the Sea of Straw caught and reflected back the light.
Lisbon. . . . The sight of it brought home to Charlotte that she could not stay here forever, that she must be getting back to the house in Portas del Sol. But not yet, surely not yet. ... A dim foreboding filled her at the thought of returning. She shivered suddenly, as if the breeze had turned chill.
“Are you cold?’’ Tom asked, surprised.
“No—oh, no.” What was it Wend had so often said back in England? When you feel a cold wind and there’s no wind blowing, it means there’s a death soon to be. Ah, but that was ridiculous, and not a thought to brook on such a beautiful day. She turned her back upon the ominous dazzle of the Sea of Straw and let Tom find them a secluded place to lie in each other s arms there in the cool shadows of the castle’s battlements.
The sun was hot, scorching, a breathless day. Damp and straining, concealed by luxuriant palm fronds from prying eyes, their bodies seemed to become one—and today there was a desperation in their lovemaking, for they both knew it was all coming to an end.
Panting, they fell apart at last. Happy, exhausted, fulfilled. Seabirds screamed by overhead. Bees buzzed lazily. They lay in the patterned shade, resting in the golden afterglow of their lovemaking.
Abruptly Tom raised himself upon an elbow. “When did you say your husband would return?”
“He said a week, maybe more. But—”
“I must not ruin your life, Charlotte. I must get you back to Lisbon.” He stood up, his face wearing a hunted look. “God knows,” he said slowly, “I want nothing more in this world than to take you with me, Charlotte, and live with you to the end of my days. But what can I offer you and your children? I am running out of money—I had barely enough to get me to Portugal. I must take the first berth offered.”
She looked at him with large reproachful eyes.
He turned to her with a wild gesture. “What can I do, Charlotte? I cannot take you with me to my haunts in the Bahamas. It is not fit for a woman there. And the pirate s trade is not flourishing—nor will it flourish, for the law will swoop down one day upon the last of these cutthroats and finish them off.” He spoke moodily, his tone telling her how much he hated this trade he had grown up in. “So I must take you back, Charlotte, and leave you with this man who saved you from your guardian when I could not. ” “Tomorrow,” she whispered. “Not till tomorrow.” “Today,” he said firmly. He ran a hand through his white-blond hair and his voice went husky. “Because if I lingered another day with you, Charlotte, I don’t think I could ever let you go.”
She thrilled to his words, to the timbre of his voice as he said them.
She opened her arms. “Don’t think about it.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I am in deep enough now. Your husband may return early, Charlotte. Do you want him to find you gone?”
Charlotte looked at him yearningly. She almost said, Yes, I want him to find me gone. Take me with you, Tom—wherever you go. But of course that wasn’t possible. Tom could not find employment here in Lisbon—nor could they even stay in Portugal if she left Rowan. Too well she knew his implacable nature—he would seek them out, he would find a way to destroy them. And she didn’t want Tom destroyed.
Nor could she go with him when he left, for he would leave as a working ship’s officer, but not high enough that he could take along a wife. And besides, there were the children to consider. Little girls who were used to nursemaids and tender care. How could she even imagine blasting away their future? She would not let the scent of orange groves or the smell of fragrant pine woods beguile her. She would see the future as clearly as Tom did, and face it as bravely as he did.
“You are right,” she said, rising and brushing off her skirts. “Fate gave us grace for just a little while, Tom. And now we must go back.” Her voice was flat, her eyes downcast.
Tom took her in his arms, held her close to him.
“I doubt I can ever match the life Keynes gives you, Charlotte, but if ever I can, 1 will be back for you.”
> Her senses wavered. It would be so easy to say, I will go with you anywhere. Now. We can drift south, perhaps into Spain. Rowan will never find us. We will find a way to live—somehow. Oh, we must seize our chance now, Tom!
She did not say it. The faces of her children rose up before her. She could see the way it would be if she snatched up the children and went with Tom now. She saw them tired, hungry, hiding, waiting for him to come back from some voyage from which he might never return. They would never have advantages, make good marriages. With Rowan they would have an education, fine clothes, a brilliant future.
Her throat was dry. “You are right,” she whispered. “We must go back.”
Still reluctant to part, they wandered through the orange groves, drinking in the heady scent, brushing through the dark green waxen leaves, still lost in the magic they were soon to lose. Not till dusk did they go back to Lisbon, lingering along the way so that the moon was out and torchlights flared and cast their wavering light when at last they reached the flat-fronted mansion in the Portas del Sol.
They had released their carriage a short way down the street, for, as Tom pointed out, the clip-clop of horses’ hooves rang very loudly on the cobbles at this time of night and there was no use attracting attention. Charlotte agreed. She could imagine that some neighboring serving wench peering out through the shutters would see them there in the pale moonlight and mention it to Vasco, who would certainly tell Rowan.
Walking—and silent now—they approached the house.
Charlotte found that her hands were clenched as they reached the door. All the way back in the coach she had been warring with herself, unwilling to face losing Tom, knowing she must. And now she was—reluctantly—contemplating the long years ahead with Rowan. A man totally unpredictable, violent, and cursed with a consuming jealousy. Facing the future beside such a man filled her with foreboding.
She felt trapped, hopeless.
They had said their good-byes in the carriage, but now she found herself hanging back at the door, caught up by a sudden sense of panic, unwilling to enter.
She got hold of herself. There was no sense waiting. She must go in.
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