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.
9
COCHRAN 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 tu
rned 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.
Again Patrick caressed her mouth with his thumb. “What?” he prompted quietly.
Frankness won the hour, being so integral a part of Charlotte’s nature. “You didn’t come to our bed last night,” she said, faltering but determined.
He grinned. “Did you miss me?”
Charlotte wanted so to say she hadn’t, but it was a lie she couldn’t manage. She skirted the question, countering with one of her own. “Do you have a mistress in Costa del Cielo?”
Patrick arched one dark eyebrow. “Only a wife,” he replied. His expression was very serious, although Charlotte thought she saw merriment lurking far back in the depths of his eyes. “As unconventional as our wedding was, my dear, I’m afraid we are married.”
She met his gaze directly, bravely, hoping he could not see how crucial the whole matter was to her. “You could end it just by clapping your hands together three times and repeating, ‘I divorce you,’ “ she reminded him.
“Is that what you want?”
Charlotte looked away for a moment, found her courage. “No. But it seems to me, Mr. Trevarren,” she said, “that all the advantages of this union are on your side. I have no assurance that you won’t take up with another woman, or sail away and leave me on some wharf—”
“Those things could happen even if we’d been married in a church in Quade’s Harbor, with all your family looking on,” Patrick pointed out reasonably. “Besides, it isn’t only husbands who stray, Charlotte. You could leave as easily as I could.”
She opened her mouth, realized she didn’t have a sensible response prepared, and closed it again.
Patrick laughed and bent his head to give her a tantalizing kiss. “I will be very busy, tomorrow and the next day and for a lot of days after that,” he told her, while she was struggling to catch her breath again, “but I won’t neglect my duties as a husband.”
Charlotte was at once elated and embarrassed. “Until this morning, when I saw her clearly in the light of day,” she confessed, “I thought Pilar was your mistress.”
Her husband uttered a long-suffering sigh. “Pilar is a child,” he said.
“She’s old enough to send perfumed love letters,” Charlotte argued.
Patrick was obviously trying to look stern, but the laughter in his eyes gave him away. “You’ve been going through my desk,” he accused.
She bristled. “It was an accident,” she said.
“Umm,” Patrick said thoughtfully, frowning as he considered. His hands rested low on the small of Charlotte’s back, pressing her close with graceful insistence. “Did you read the letters?”
Charlotte’s face warmed. “No.”
“Because they’re written in Spanish?”
She was deliciously aware of Patrick’s proximity, of the scent and power and sheer substance not only of his body, but of his spirit as well. “I didn’t need to read them,” she faltered, and although she’d intended to sound defiant, her words seemed petulant instead. “The perfume told me quite enough.”
Idly Patri
ck lifted one hand to cup her breast. “Pilar is convinced she adores me,” he said. “At some point, she’ll come to her senses and I’ll give the letters back to her.”
A web of delicious sensation, centered in the plump breast Patrick was caressing, unfolded into every part of Charlotte’s being. It was a struggle to keep her mind on the subject of their conversation. “You could simply destroy the letters, couldn’t you?”
Patrick shook his head, sighed, and deftly drew down the neckline of her borrowed gown, as well as the muslin camisole beneath, baring her. “No,” he answered. “She would always wonder if I had really destroyed them, or if they would turn up later to embarrass her. A lady shouldn’t have to worry about things like that.”
Charlotte trembled as his thumb moved across her nipple, lightly shaping and preparing it. Her reason was fleeing rapidly, but she clung to a few remnants. “In that case—why not give them back now?”
He sighed again, focused his attention on the breast he was clearly hungry for. “That would be unkind,” he answered, his voice slow, sleepy-sounding. “Pilar’s adoration is harmless, after all. She’ll grow out of it sooner or later.”
Charlotte was in an anguish of wanting, although the courtyard certainly wasn’t the proper place for the playful intimacies of a husband and wife. She let her head fall back in helpless surrender, moaned when Patrick leaned down to take her nipple between his lips.
He took his nourishment freely, with no apparent concern that they might be interrupted, then put Charlotte’s camisole and bodice back in place and gave her well-attended breast a fond little pat.
Charlotte’s need had risen to a fever pitch. “Patrick—” she pleaded, hating her weakness and his strength, stunned once again to know how easily he could stir a violent tempest within her. A storm only he had the power to still.
He touched his fingers to her lips. “I’ll be back tonight,” he said, and then he left her, striding across the courtyard, disappearing through a gate.
Charlotte sat down on a stone bench, unable to stand because of the riot of emotions besetting her. She loved Patrick, she hated him. She wanted to obey him, and to rebel against him.
Taming Charlotte Page 13