The Charm School

by Susan Wiggs

  Hunter. Isadora tried to picture the stepbrother—older, of course. Dissolute, with a big red nose from drinking all those mint juleps on the porch while his slaves worked themselves to death in the fields.

  “What are his children like?” Rose asked.

  “I hardly know—they were both in leading strings when I left. The boy’s name is Theodore and his sister is Belinda. Hunter’s wife—her name is Lacey—didn’t welcome my attention.” A wistful expression softened Lily’s face. “I would have liked to be a grandmama.” The expression vanished as she drilled Ryan with a stare. “Perhaps one day someone of my own flesh and blood will oblige me.”

  Ryan laughed. “I know I performed a small miracle in getting us here so fast, but even I would have trouble having a baby.”

  Rose burst out laughing. Her sister merely shook her head. “Whatever shall I do with the boy?”

  Isadora took a very small bite of melon, chewed it carefully and swallowed. She prayed they would not see the hot blush that stained her cheeks.

  “We’ve embarrassed our guest with all this bawdy talk,” Rose said. “Shame on us.”

  “No, really—”

  “Nonsense, my dear. Let us move on to politer topics.” She folded her unfashionably sunbrowned arms on the table. “You are a most intelligent young lady. Lily was telling me you’ve a gift for languages.”

  Isadora shook her head. “If the conversation I heard at the wharves today was any indication, I am no expert.”

  “She’s being modest,” Ryan said. “She’s the best interpreter I’ve ever heard.”

  She blinked. After her performance with the harbor pilot, she hadn’t expected praise.

  “Is that so?” Rose asked, lifting a dark eyebrow.

  “It is,” he said, upending his wine goblet.

  Isadora felt a soft shock of pleasure. Praise from Ryan Calhoun should not feel so good, but Lord help her, it did. She knew pride was a vanity, yet his compliment warmed her like the wine she was drinking.

  “You have,” Rose observed, “a most remarkable smile.”

  Isadora immediately pressed her mouth into a flat line. Ryan had probably given her a compliment because he felt guilty about his behavior.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Rose commented. “But that smile—it quite transforms you. And the cut of your hair is quite…revolutionary. I simply adore it. Perhaps I shall get mine cut short, too.”

  Isadora had no idea what to say. Lily rescued her by turning the subject back to Albion and people they knew years before. Isadora sampled her lemon ice and listened, enjoying the stories of these lovely strangers while barefooted servants waited on them.

  A low churring sound came through the arched windows, startling her. Noting her widened eyes, Rose said, “That noise you’re hearing is a tamarin—a nocturnal monkey. He’s a pet of sorts. Shy, but he’ll come around for a taste of fruit or honey from the kitchen.”

  “I’d love to see him.”

  “Ryan, show Isadora out to the patio,” Rose said.

  “No, really,” Isadora began, quickly changing her mind. Rose’s suggestion bore a nightmarish resemblance to the well-meaning matchmakers of Boston, forever trying to pair her up with mortified young men. “It’s not nec—”

  “I don’t mind.” Ryan pushed his chair from the table. She searched his face to see if he wore the look of those doomed suitors.

  “You can stop in the kitchen for a pail of food,” Rose suggested. “The monkey is sure to be prowling about the garden.”

  Torches illuminated the stone-paved area which formed the heart of the villa. Low arches flanked the patio, and one side had no wall but a wrought iron fence and a huge, unusual tree with a twisted trunk that resembled straining sinew and branches that grew almost horizontally out from it.

  The scent of flowers weighted the night air, the odor so thick and exotic that Isadora felt woozy simply breathing it. She stopped in front of the burbling fountain in the center of the patio and stood very still, inhaling deeply, feeling the essence of the night pour through her, bringing parts of her to life that had been sleeping since before she could remember, sleeping so soundly that until this moment she didn’t know they existed.

  “Are you ill?” Ryan asked, breaking in on her ecstatic reveries.

  She opened her eyes. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “You looked a little…peaked,” he said. “A little dizzy.”

  “If I’m dizzy it’s not due to illness,” she said, flushing. “It’s because this place is so wonderful—the smells and sounds and the very feel of the air—it makes me…tingle,” she explained, then flushed again. “For want of a better word.”

  “Tingle,” he repeated, an amused quirk lifting the side of his mouth.

  “What I mean is that this environment gives me a sense of vitality I’ve not felt before. Does it have that effect on you, Captain Calhoun?”

  He studied her with a frank and probing scrutiny that made her uncomfortable. And without moving his gaze from her, he said, “I do believe I feel that tingling effect, Isadora.”

  “Now you’re teasing me,” she said, but the night was too perfect to feel angry about it.

  He held out his hand to her. “Oddly, I’m not. Shall we go in search of this elusive creature?”

  When she touched his hand, the tingling sensation heightened. She hadn’t expected that. Perhaps it was something she’d eaten—all the fruit had tasted so exotic. She felt light on her feet and graceful, probably a trick of equilibrium, since she had been so long at sea.

  They walked to the end of the path, finding a sundial sitting in the gloom.

  “How do you call a monkey?” Ryan asked.

  “I have no idea. I’ve never even seen a monkey.”

  He rattled the pail of fruit and made a smooching sound with his mouth. Isadora laughed. “That’s your monkey call?”

  He winked at her. “Can you do any better?”

  She pursed her lips and tried to emulate the churring sound they’d heard in the dining room.

  “I don’t know how the monkey feels,” Ryan said with a chuckle, “but you’ve certainly got my attention.”

  She laughed again, wondering if it was the perfumed garden air, the wine she’d drunk, or sheer madness that made everything seem so delightfully funny.

  “Ah, Isadora. If your laughter doesn’t tempt the little rodent, I don’t know what will.” He propped one foot on a garden bench made of tiled masonry. The negligently elegant pose looked wonderful on him. “You have the prettiest laugh I’ve ever heard.”

  “And you, sir, have the glibbest tongue.”

  He grinned. “Talked my way onto the Swan.”

  “I have often wondered. How did you manage that?”

  “I won’t say. You already find me despicable enough.”

  “I don’t find you despicable,” she protested. “Just…exasperating.”

  “Ah, exasperating. Does this mean I’m rising in your esteem?”

  “At least it’s a feeling you can understand,” she said, “because you find me equally exasperating.”

  He fixed her with an unreadable stare. “I was with a woman this afternoon.”

  “I know that. I’m not stupid.”

  “Were you shocked?” he asked.

  “Was it worth it?” she countered.

  “Are you going to report me?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On why you did it.” She bit her lip. “Besides…the explanation you gave me earlier.”

  “To shock you? And perhaps…hell, I don’t know. It’s not…what you think. I came away feeling empty. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “Because I’m a bad man.”

  She shook her head. “I think you’re actually a good man with some very bad habits.”

  He propped an elbow on his knee and gave her a dazzling smile. “Isadora—” He broke off and grabbed h
er hand, holding on tight. “He’s coming,” he muttered in a low voice.

  “The monkey?” she whispered.

  He nodded. They waited, straining to hear. A distant night bird called and another, even more distant, answered. Closer in, the bushes rustled with a furtive sound.

  Isadora kept her grip on Ryan’s hand. She liked holding his hand. His bore calluses of hard work and a comfortable dry warmth. She couldn’t help but note the size—she had large hands for a woman but his were much bigger, swallowing hers so her fingers nestled safely inside. Safe. That was the way she felt with Ryan Calhoun. Safe, as if nothing in the world could harm her so long as she kept hold of his hand.

  It was a fanciful notion. An un-Isadoralike notion. Yet it rang through her with a strange resonance.

  Safe with him. When had she ever been unsafe? Physically—never. She had lived the sheltered life of the daughter of one of Boston’s first families. But in other ways her peril was constant. She could not even walk into her parents’ drawing room without feeling as if she were in danger of drowning.

  It occurred to her that she hadn’t experienced the drowning sensation since she had left Boston. Not even in the deadliest moments of the great storm.

  “There, see?” Ryan whispered, his lips so close to her ear. She shivered with the warm vibration.

  Ye powers. Here she sat in a perfumed garden, holding hands with a man while he whispered in her ear. Her fevered imagination had, of course, conjured this moment many times. But the man in her daydream had always been Chad Easterbrook. And in her daydream, the moment had never, ever felt this delicious.

  “I don’t see it,” she whispered back. She told herself no romance heated this moment. They shared only a mutual curiosity in what the exotic night would bring, a mutual anticipation of learning the secrets of the forest.

  “A tiny shadow. It’s there.”

  He did the most extraordinary thing. With a restrained gentleness so poignant it made her chest ache, he touched her cheek in order to turn her head toward the low shrubbery border. His touch nearly shattered her, for not since Aunt Button had someone caressed her with such tenderness. Yet this surpassed even Aunt Button’s affection, for this sent shivers radiating outward along her limbs and stirring up a strange pool of heat somewhere deep inside her.

  “Do you see it now?” he whispered.

  She forced herself to concentrate. “Heavens be. I think I do,” she said, mouthing the words, barely speaking them.

  A tiny creature, furtive as a thief, darted out of the bushes and snatched up a chunk of papaya.

  “He is so little,” she whispered. “Like a wizened old man.”

  The monkey crouched over its find, stuffing its mouth greedily until it could hold no more. Then, grasping a piece of plantain in its tiny paw, it made off into the shadowy night forest.

  Isadora felt a welling of wonder and joy in her chest. She could not have erased the smile on her face if she’d tried, but she didn’t try. She turned to Ryan, realizing that even though the creature was gone, he still kept his lips close to hers, still cradled her cheek in his large, warm hand.

  “How wonderful,” she said. “I can’t believe we saw such an amazing creature.”

  “You,” he said with laughter in his voice, “are a very hard woman to impress.”

  “What do you mean?” She was amazed she could even get the words out, for his other hand let go of hers and slipped, as furtive as the night creature they had come to see, around her waist, holding her lightly but firmly.

  Men had touched her there to dance with her, but they had been different. They’d all had the aspect of wooden soldiers forced in front of a firing squad. But Ryan…dear Lord, she could only think of him as Ryan now…he gave her the impression he actually wanted to be here, wanted to touch her.

  He smiled gently, the faint torchlight softening his features. “What I mean is I’ve crossed oceans and battled storms to bring you here, and you’ve taken it all in stride. I haven’t seen you so perfectly enraptured, not once, until you saw the little fellow come stealing out of the forest.”

  That’s not what has me so perfectly enraptured. The thought—and the utter truth of it—startled her. She nearly blurted the words aloud.

  But at the last moment, she stopped herself. Because she didn’t trust herself, didn’t trust her heart. Didn’t trust Ryan not to break it.

  “I suppose,” she said softly, with a touch of irony, “I seem terribly worldly and sophisticated.”

  “Far too worldly and sophisticated for the likes of a Virginia farm boy turned sailor,” he said.

  Still touching her. Holding her. His gaze a lodestone she could not look away from.

  She managed a wobbly smile at his statement. “Farm boy? Judging by what your mother has told me of Albion, you grew up in a world of unimaginable wealth.”

  “I never found what I wanted in that world,” he said.

  She moistened her lips, tasting the fruit she had eaten earlier and finding herself strangely hungry again, empty and yearning for…“What is it you’re looking for?” she heard herself ask. “What do you want?”

  He chuckled low in his throat, and the sound sent a thrill through her. “Those are two different questions, Isadora.” Though she didn’t think it possible, he leaned even closer, so that the warmth of his breath and the fruity scent of the rum drink he’d imbibed mingled with her own shallow inhalations.

  He was close. So close. She’d never been this close to a man before.

  “Do…you have…two different answers?” she managed to force out.

  “Only one at the moment. Only one.”

  The hand at her waist tightened. She had the most inexplicable urge to touch him as well, for her hands lay clenched in her lap and she wanted to put them somewhere else. Wanted to put them on him.

  Her fingers reached up, lightly coming to rest against the wall of his chest.

  His swift intake of breath was a sound of surprise—but not one of outrage.

  “Which one?” she asked, still unable to believe that she, Isadora Dudley Peabody, was in the middle of this splendid garden, in the middle of this splendid moment, in the arms of this splendid man.

  “What I want,” he said, and the words sounded tense and strained. “Ask me what I want, Isadora.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’ll only answer if you promise you’ll believe me.”

  “If I—”

  “Promise, Isadora. Say you’ll trust my answer.”

  “I’ll trust your answer.”

  He smiled, and once again she heard that silken chuckle that did such odd and unsettling things to her. “What I want,” he said, “is to kiss you.”

  “Liar,” she said automatically.

  “You promised you’d believe me.”

  “Because I thought for once you’d tell me the truth.”

  “You know what your problem is?”

  “You?”

  “No. It’s that you talk too damned much. I suppose I could swear on King James’s Bible that I want to kiss you, but there’s a better way to convince you.”

  The smoldering look in his eyes astonished her, held her mesmerized. “How is that?”

  “Like this, love. Like this.”

  And then it happened. Slowly. Each passing second an endless heartbeat of time, and she experienced it all, reveled and immersed herself in it. The way he bent his head ever so slightly, for unlike most men, he was taller than she. The way his thumb skimmed lightly, searchingly, across the crest of her cheekbone then rode downward, brushing at a spot on the side of her throat that pulsed with a heat she had never felt before. The way his other hand at her waist drew her closer, tighter.

  And then his lips. The lips she had watched, day after day, with increasing fascination and bafflement. The lips that had sneered at her, sworn at her, laughed and shouted and smiled at her. He didn’t plaster her with his kiss; he merely tasted her, at first barely touching her mouth with hi
s own.

  Back and forth, slowly, subtly, he moved his head, sharing the merest hint of himself, the briefest brush of pressure. Overwhelmed by the sensations, she let her eyes drift shut and heard a strange, whimpering sound escape her. As of their own accord, her fists clenched into the fabric of his shirt.

  Closer. She wanted to be closer. She wanted to taste more of him, to feel the pressure of his mouth on hers. But he simply kept brushing her lips, holding her gently as if she were fragile, breakable. The hand at her waist moved, a minor shift, barely noticeable, except that she felt his thumb graze the underside of her breast, could feel his touch even through the stiff buckram of her corset. She felt a surging and singing inside, things she had read about in the romantic novels she was not supposed to see until she was married, but read in secret anyway. And, oh, this was so much better. She wanted so much more than this moment, yet she was terrified that it might end.

  She had an overwhelming urge to lean toward him, to press into his embrace, to crush her mouth against his. But she didn’t dare. Didn’t know how. Didn’t trust him to accept her.

  It was an act of supreme self-control, then, to hold herself rigid, unmoving, disbelieving.

  And finally it was over. From the time he had begun to kiss her until the moment it ended, an eternity had passed. The world had changed color, tilted on its axis. Yet when Ryan Calhoun drew back from her and regarded her solemnly for several long moments, he looked exactly the same: handsome, relaxed, assured.

  And she was a perfect mess inside.

  “I won’t apologize,” he said easily, “although a gentleman would. I’m not sorry that happened.” He stood, his lithe grace never more apparent, and helped her to her feet. She went like a marionette on a string, wooden and stiff, jerky in her movements.

  “We’d best get inside. They’ll want to hear all about the monkey.”

  “What monkey?” she asked stupidly.

  Fourteen

  O bed! O bed! Delicious bed!

  That heaven upon earth to the weary head.

  —Thomas Hood

  (1841)

  Ryan awoke the next day and stared for a long time at the plaster-and-timber ceiling of his large, airy room in the villa. “I still can’t believe I did that,” he said aloud, though there was no one to hear.