Taming Charlotte

by Linda Lael Miller

  “No,” Charlotte said, somewhat sadly. She loved Patrick, and she knew in her heart that home was at his side, but she still missed Papa and Lydia and Millie and all her rambunctious little brothers and cousins. “I wrote and told Papa I’d married you.”

  That announcement garnered Patrick’s full attention. “What?” he demanded, raising himself on one elbow to frown down at her.

  “I couldn’t let my family suffer, Patrick, so I told them I was happy. Papa will yell and swear when they get the letter, but then Lydia will calm him down and he’ll accept what’s happened. Isn’t that better than letting them believe I was forced into white slavery?” When he didn’t answer, she went on. “Besides, what I said is all true—now. I did marry you, and for tonight anyway, I’m happy. And you needn’t think I can be so easily distracted, either—I want to know if you intend to keep our wedding vows or not.”

  “I didn’t make any vows, remember?” he pointed out, but there was a smile in his eyes as well as his voice. “Ours wasn’t exactly a conventional ceremony, obviously. However, since it’s important to you, I’ll make a promise now. For whatever time we may have together, I will ‘cleave only unto you.’ “

  “I’d better not catch you cleaving to anybody else,” Charlotte warned. She was troubled by the words “whatever time we may have together,” but decided to consider the implications of that remark later, when her mind was clear again.

  Patrick laughed. “Fine.” He moved to kiss her, but she stopped him by putting her fingers between his mouth and hers. “What?”

  “You haven’t told me about your family.”

  He frowned, shrugged one shoulder. “I’m the only son of a very wealthy man, whom I dislike intensely, and the feeling seems to be mutual. He sent me to school in England after my mother died, and when I was finished I apprenticed myself to my uncle, who was captain of the Enchantress until he died three years ago.”

  Charlotte moved her hand in a circle on Patrick’s belly, intending to comfort him but soon discovering that she’d done something else instead. “What a lonely life you must have had.”

  Gently he lowered the cover again, so that Charlotte’s breasts were bared to the moonlight and to him. “I have everything I want,” he said gruffly. “A fine ship, a home so like Paradise that even Adam and Eve probably couldn’t tell the difference, more money than one man could ever need—and now a sweet, fiery wife to warm my bed.” He took one of her nipples into his mouth and suckled.

  Charlotte stretched in luxurious surrender, her toes curling. “D-Don’t you want a son?”

  Patrick tongued her thoroughly before lifting his head from her breast. His indigo eyes looked black in the darkness, and somber. “Several,” he replied, “and daughters, too.” He lay between her legs now, and slipped himself an inch or so inside her, just to tease. His tone, however, sounded serious indeed. “Will you give me a baby, Charlotte?”

  She was already fevered with wanting, even though he had done very little to arouse her. “Y-Yes—oh, yes…”

  “ ‘Oh, yes, take me’ or ‘Oh, yes, I’ll bear your children’?” Patrick asked, giving her only slightly more. His voice was full of mischief.

  Charlotte arched her back suddenly and claimed him, delighting in the way he groaned in response and offered up a visible struggle for self-control. “Both,” she replied, gripping his taut buttocks and holding him prisoner inside her for several long moments. “I want you to take me, and start a baby growing inside me this very night.”

  Patrick groaned again, and began to rock his hips, and Charlotte could say no more. The pleasure consumed her as quickly as wildfire.

  7

  JUST BEFORE DAWN, PATRICK AWAKENED HIS BRIDE AND THEN went to the door to summon a servant. Sleep-fogged, Charlotte bathed in the tiled pool and again donned her white robes.

  “You’re sending me back to the harem?” she asked Patrick, confused and a little alarmed when she returned to the bedchamber to find Rashad waiting patiently beside the door, his thick arms folded.

  Patrick’s manner was conciliatory, but his words did nothing to reassure Charlotte. “Just for a little while,” he said. “Khalif and I have business to discuss.”

  Indignant color pulsed in Charlotte’s cheeks, but she offered no protest, sensing that Patrick had made up his mind on the matter.

  Reaching the hamam, the central gathering place within the harem, Charlotte encountered Alev. The other woman took her arm and hustled her out into the enclosed courtyard, and her manner was terse.

  “Did you spend the night with Khalif, then?” she demanded.

  Charlotte didn’t like Alev’s tone or the implication of her question. “No,” she replied coldly, pulling free of Alev’s hard grasp on her elbow. “I was with my husband.”

  Alev arched one eyebrow in a silent query.

  “Patrick Trevarren,” Charlotte explained, somewhat smugly. “Khalif married us in his chambers last night.”

  Alev’s relief was apparent, but there was a spark of something else in her eyes, too. A sort of amused skepticism. “And already your ‘husband’ has sent you back to us?”

  Charlotte’s face burned, and she narrowed her eyes. “Patrick had business to discuss with the sultan,” she said. “As soon as that’s completed, I’m sure my husband will send for me and we’ll leave.”

  Taking Charlotte’s arm again, Alev sat down on the bench under the elm and pulled her companion after her. “This marriage—was it a Christian ceremony, or did Khalif simply utter a few words and make a pronouncement?”

  Charlotte swallowed. The nuptials had not been performed by a priest or a minister or even a justice of the peace, which might well mean the marriage was binding only in the kingdom of Riz. It was even possible that the impromptu service had been nothing but a sham, cooked up between the two men, and designed to lure Charlotte to Patrick’s bed…

  “Well?” Alev prompted, when Charlotte was silent.

  “Khalif married us himself,” she said miserably. She couldn’t bring herself to voice her suspicions; besides, the situation was probably obvious to Alev anyway.

  Alev nodded, her brows knitted together in a thoughtful frown. “Then you and the captain are forever joined in the sight of Allah,” she said. “Unless, of course, your husband decides he wants to divorce you.”

  Charlotte was still in shock from her earlier conclusions. “Divorce me?”

  “If you displease your sea captain, Charlotte,” Alev said importantly, “all he has to do is clap his hands together and say ‘I divorce you’ three times.”

  “That’s awful!”

  “Under our laws,” Alev went on, “such a parting of the ways is entirely acceptable. And that’s not all—a man can have as many as four wives, and all the concubines he desires.”

  Charlotte stood, then sat again, forlorn. She’d given herself to Patrick wholeheartedly, believing herself to be his wife. Matters had seemed so simple when she’d lain beneath him on his couch, and in the bath in the small courtyard outside Patrick’s bedchamber. Now Charlotte was badly shaken.

  “Patrick and I are Americans,” she pointed out, her voice revealing her uncertainty. “Islamic laws don’t apply to us.”

  “They do when you are living in an Islamic country,” Alev said, without rancor. “And Trevarren sent you back to the harem, didn’t he? Besides, that would mean the marriage wasn’t legal either.”

  Charlotte’s misery intensified. She rose and began to pace back and forth in front of the bench. “You don’t suppose he lied to me?” she asked, speaking more to herself than Alev.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time a man had twisted the truth to lure a woman into his bed, would it?”

  Charlotte stopped and glared down at Alev, who was still seated comfortably on the bench, her face and figure dappled by the shadows of the elm’s many leaves. “Why are you trying to upset me?” she demanded. “What have I done to you?”

  Alev sighed and stood. “I did not mean to be u
nkind,” she said. “You don’t seem to understand that things are very different here, and I was trying to warn you about having expectations that can only lead to disappointment.”

  With that, the other woman vanished inside the seraglio, and Charlotte once again peered speculatively up through the branches of the elm tree. Had Patrick merely used her? Did he intend to abandon her in the harem again, now that he’d taken his pleasure with her?

  She had to find out.

  Charlotte laid one hand to the rough bark of the elm tree. The last time she’d attempted an escape, she’d nearly perished in the desert, and she certainly didn’t want to go through that ordeal again. No, if Patrick had indeed deceived her, she would learn of it prior to his departure and find a way to stow away on board the Enchantress.

  Having a plan, however outlandish it might be, always made Charlotte feel better. She took a few more minutes to calm herself, then returned to the harem.

  In the early afternoon, the other women stretched out on their couches to sleep, but Charlotte was far too restless to lie still. Her heart leaped with relief when Rashad caught her eye and gestured for her to come to him.

  With unusual obedience, she hurried to meet the eunuch in the doorway.

  “Your husband wishes you to join him in his chamber,” Rashad said.

  Charlotte’s heart tripped over a beat, then fluttered wildly, like an excited bird beating against the bars of its cage. She was filled with dizzying joy and with an equal measure of resentment that Patrick had the power to treat her like a slave.

  When they reached Patrick’s quarters, the door was open. Rashad gestured for Charlotte to pass over the threshold and, when she had, left them alone.

  Charlotte’s temper simmered, though she managed a sweet smile. “Hello, Mr. Trevarren,” she said.

  Patrick had just popped a fat purple grape into his mouth, and he chewed and swallowed before answering, “ ‘Mr. Trevarren.’ I like that. It sounds old-fashioned and deceptively obedient.”

  Charlotte’s stomach seemed to do a somersault. “If you want obedience, I would suggest you buy a little monkey in the souk and train it to dance on its hind legs whenever you snap your fingers,” she said. Her emotions were still in a wild tangle; one part of her wanted to fling herself into Patrick’s arms, while another would have liked to claw his ears off.

  He laughed and folded his arms. “You are either very brave or very foolish, my love. I haven’t decided which.”

  She drew a deep breath and held it for a moment, but she could not hold back her greatest concern. “One of the women in the harem told me you can divorce me by clapping your hands three times. Is that true?”

  Patrick’s indigo eyes sparkled with some private mirth. “Absolutely,” he replied.

  Quiet rage set Charlotte’s face aflame. “She also said you could have four wives if you so desired, and all the concubines you wanted,” she ventured, struggling to keep her tone of voice even.

  He nodded. “Here in Riz, I can take more than one wife if I choose, though the unions wouldn’t be recognized outside the Arab countries, of course. As for concubines, there is no limit, here or in the Christian world.” His mouth twitched almost imperceptibly at one corner as he paused, studying Charlotte. “Come here.”

  She wanted to resist him, but she could not. She moved toward him, stepped into his arms. “I will not be your concubine,” she said, in pure bravado.

  Patrick slipped one side of her robe down, revealing her shoulder and the rounded top of her breast. “You will be whatever I ask you to be, Charlotte,” he said huskily. “And we both know it.”

  He kissed her, and although Charlotte fought to summon up some shred of rebellion from her beleaguered soul, she found herself surrendering instead. Patrick undressed her, touched and admired her exquisitely vulnerable body at his leisure, and finally arranged her like a feast on the velvet couch.

  After that, he pleasured her unmercifully, with his hands and his mouth and finally, blessedly, his shaft. Charlotte was utterly spent when at last he let her rest, collapsed across his chest in a daze of satisfaction.

  Patrick splayed long, sun-browned fingers through her tousled hair while, with his other hand, he gave her bottom a proprietary squeeze. In those moments, Charlotte would quite literally have given her soul to hear her husband say he loved her, but no such tender words were forthcoming.

  “We’ll sail with the morning tide,” he said instead.

  Using the little bit of frail strength that remained to her, Charlotte lifted her head to look into Patrick’s ink-colored eyes. “I-I want to go with you.”

  He touched the tip of her nose with his forefinger and gave her an indulgent look. “I’ve already told you, Mrs. Trevarren—where I go, you go. Don’t you trust me?”

  She found some of her old spirit. “Of course I don’t trust you,” she said, touching his lower lip idly. “Why on earth would I, when I might be just the first of four wives, or no wife at all?”

  “No wife at all?” Patrick frowned. “What in the name of God’s eyeballs do you mean by that?”

  “Our marriage wouldn’t be legal anywhere but here,” Charlotte said. She sounded brave and even defiant, but inwardly she was on the verge of tears. “And even in Riz, all you have to do to get rid of me is clap your hands and say a few words.”

  Patrick lifted his head to kiss her lightly on the mouth. “I guess you’ll have to behave yourself, then,” he said.

  It wasn’t the answer Charlotte had hoped to get. “My father isn’t going to appreciate this one bit,” she warned. “When Papa and Uncle Devon find out how shamefully you’ve used me, they’ll chop off your fingers and toes and make you eat them.”

  He grimaced, but mockingly. “Such threats, Mrs. Trevarren. I’m terrified.”

  “If you had the brains God gave a pump handle, Mr. Trevarren,” she replied, “you would fear for your life. Brigham Quade is not a man to be trifled with.”

  Patrick’s eyes smiled, even though his mouth was somber. “Then it would seem to be a good thing that it’s you I want to trifle with, goddess, and not your illustrious sire.” He rolled over, so that Charlotte was beneath him on the velvet couch, looking up at him with mingled irritation and desire. “Spread your legs, wife,” he said. “I want to take you. Now.”

  Only minutes later, Charlotte was crying out, her body wrought with desperate convulsions of pleasure as Patrick reveled in her wildness and, at the same time, tamed her.

  He did not send her away again, not that afternoon, or that night, when they’d bathed and eaten and then made love so many times that Charlotte lost count.

  In the morning, after saying farewell to both Rashad and Khalif himself, Charlotte boarded the Enchantress with her husband. She wore bright yellow robes sent to her by Alev, and stood on the deck watching as the magnificent white palace was swallowed up in the sapphire distance.

  “Go into my cabin,” Patrick ordered in passing, busy with the workings of the ship. “I want you to stay out of the sun.”

  Charlotte obeyed, having little other choice. She was escorted to the captain’s quarters by Mr. Cochran, who promised to bring tea and fruit once they were well under way.

  Bored, Charlotte read the spines of every one of Patrick’s books while she waited, then resorted to going through the ship’s log. When that enterprise failed to turn up any interesting information, she opened the top drawer of his desk.

  Inside, tucked discreetly to one side, she found a small packet of letters, tied with a narrow ribbon. The stationery was heavy vellum, soft blue in color, and the scent of gardenias rose from it.

  Charlotte knew better than to snoop, but she was feeling bored and slightly rebellious, and now an undeniable stab of jealousy had been added to the mix. The name Pilar Querida was neatly scripted in the upper left-hand corner of each envelope, along with a street address and the name of a small city on the southern coast of Spain. Costa del Cielo.

  She had barely returned the pack
et to the desk and closed the drawer when Patrick entered the cabin. He paused just over the threshold, looking at Charlotte in an odd way, as though he suspected her of some unsavory action but was at a loss to prove his claim.

  She did not ask who Pilar Querida was, for the faint hint of perfume permeating the letters had answered that question already. The discovery left Charlotte feeling as though she’d been struck behind the knees by a runaway log.

  Putting her hands behind her to clutch the edge of Patrick’s desk, she asked, “Where are we going now, please?”

  Patrick crossed the room to the bed, sat down on its edge with a purely masculine sigh, and kicked off one of his boots, then the other. “Spain,” he answered, collapsing onto his back and offering no indication whatsoever that he expected Charlotte to join him.

  She sank into the desk chair, her fingers knotted in her lap. “Are you ill?” she asked, because all the other questions that came to her mind were inflammatory ones that could only start trouble.

  Her husband sighed again, just as heavily as before. “No, Charlotte,” he answered patiently, “I’m just exhausted. I don’t think I’ve slept more than two hours in succession since you and I were married.”

  Charlotte blushed, and when Patrick yawned, she gave an involuntary yawn of her own. She waited until his breathing had settled into a deep, even meter, then removed her slippers and crawled onto the bed beside him. She had no more than closed her eyes before the sweet darkness of slumber overtook her.

  “How long before we reach Spain?” Charlotte asked hours later, as she and Patrick stood looking out at a dark sea and a sky full of stars.

  Patrick was leaning against the railing, and it seemed that he was somehow taking sustenance from the quiet waters and the creaking of the ship’s timbers. “We’ll be there tomorrow, if the winds are good,” he replied, somewhat distractedly.

  Charlotte had agonized over the mysterious Pilar, fearing that the woman held some unshakable place in Patrick’s heart, but now, for the first time, she recognized that he had other mistresses as well. There was the sea, for one, and the Enchantress, for another. Perhaps he would never love a woman with such quiet reverence.