Taming Charlotte

by Linda Lael Miller

  Patrick startled her with a burst of hoarse laughter. “Ah, Charlotte, Charlotte. You vex me to my limits at times, but no one could ever describe you as dull.”

  She was in no frame of mind to appreciate humor. “You once promised me fidelity,” she said evenly.

  “That,” he answered with a sigh, “was when we were still married.”

  Charlotte’s exasperation was overwhelming. “Yes, I remember. It was also while we were married that you fathered this baby I’m carrying.”

  To his credit, Patrick looked chagrined. “I keep forgetting about that.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Charlotte rejoined tartly.

  He leaned forward, frowning. “Exactly what do you want from me?” he demanded. “Unflagging faithfulness? Fine. As long as we’re together, sharing a bed, you’ll have that.”

  “And after you deposit me in Quade’s Harbor?”

  “Don’t be naive,” was the succinct reply. “Do you really expect me to be celibate for the rest of my life?”

  Yes, Charlotte thought miserably. “Of course not,” she said aloud. “Nor do I intend to wither away on the vine like a spring violet on the hottest day of August, once you’ve sailed merrily over the horizon and left me on shore. For better or worse, Patrick, you’ve taught me to enjoy a man’s intimate attentions, and I will naturally want to take a lover. Don’t fret, though—I’ll be discreet.”

  He reddened again, unable to hide the irritation her remarks had engendered in him. “That would hardly be proper,” he pointed out. “Do you think I want my child raised by a woman with a—a reputation?”

  Charlotte smiled smugly. It was all an act, of course, but Patrick didn’t have to know that, and it was clear that he wasn’t smart enough to guess. “I don’t give a damn if it’s proper, and what you want or don’t want matters even less. I intend to be positively notorious. “

  “Charlotte!” Patrick was obviously scandalized, a fact that delighted her.

  She began to sweep back and forth at the foot of his bed, a pensive expression on her face. “I don’t suppose it would be right to advertise,” she mused.

  “Advertise!” Patrick gasped. “Advertise?!”

  “Oh, yes,” Charlotte replied distractedly, drumming the fingers of her right hand against her left upper arm. “I’d want a certain sort of man, handsome, discerning, but wholly devilish when it comes to pleasuring a woman—”

  “Good God, Charlotte!” His shout fairly rattled the windows. “If you’re saying all this to raise my hackles, you’re succeeding brilliantly!”

  She smiled, catlike. “Am I to understand,” she began sweetly, pausing to look straight into Patrick’s eyes, “that you are to have unlimited rights when it comes to entertaining other women in your bed, but I am expected to guard my virtue until the day I dissolve into dust?”

  Patrick pondered. “Yes,” he finally said, sounding petulant, like a small boy.

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Charlotte replied warmly. With that, she turned and left the room. Humming.

  Patrick sent something crashing against the doorframe and bellowed something quite unintelligible.

  Alone, Patrick thrust himself out of bed, too furious to languish for another moment, but still too enervated to return to his normal way of life. He swore as he made his way into the adjoining washroom and began stripping away his clothes.

  He’d intended to make things easier for Charlotte—and, admittedly, for himself—by alienating her with talk of other women. He had supposed that she would weep, and be furious for a time, and then resign herself to living out her life safe in the bosom of her well-known family.

  Naked, Patrick lowered himself into the tepid waters of the bathing pool. Instead of reacting the way he’d expected, Charlotte had come back at him with all that talk about taking a lover and being notorious.

  He fumed as he reached for a cake of soap, squeezed too hard, and sent the bar skidding across the tiled floor. There was no denying it, Patrick thought miserably, his spectacular plan had exploded in his face like a cheap pistol, and his very bones were still quivering with the impact.

  He raised himself out of the tub, retrieved the soap, and began to wash. When he was clean, and had dried himself off with a towel, Patrick dressed in fresh breeches and one of the flowing shirts he loved. He did not favor the garments because of the dashing appearance they made, but because he could move freely in them, with no sense of confinement.

  He brushed his shorter hair, polished his teeth, and went back to the bedroom to pull on his favorite pair of boots. Then, with uncertain but determined steps, Patrick made his way out into the hallway.

  He had to stop twice before he reached the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall and dredging strength from some well deep inside him, but finally he managed to descend to the first floor.

  In his study, Patrick sank gratefully into the leather chair behind his desk and began going over the records his overseer had been keeping concerning that year’s crop of sugarcane. During that brief time of absorption, he didn’t think of his lost ship, or of Charlotte, and that was a mercy.

  After a day spent exploring the island and sketching, Charlotte had dinner on the downstairs veranda, with Mr. Cochran. Following that, she sat alone in Patrick’s study, reading a spicy novel purloined from a high shelf.

  It was late when she returned to Patrick’s room, and through the French doors she could see a bright, silvery moon spilling its light over dark waters.

  The captain was in a quiet but nonetheless foul temper, wearing a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles she had not seen before and reading grimly from a volume of Chaucer.

  At the sight of Charlotte, he slammed the book closed but made no move to rise from his chair facing the empty fireplace.

  “Have you come to plague me again?” he asked.

  Charlotte raised her eyebrows, contained the giggle that rose in her throat, then replied, “Anyone who would read Chaucer on purpose is quite capable of plaguing themselves, without assistance from me.”

  Patrick’s mouth twitched at one corner, but he was clearly not about to let humor get in the way of a good sulk. He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward slightly. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I should think that would be obvious, even to someone as deliberately obtuse as you are. I plan to extract my rights as a wife and then get a good night’s sleep.” Sometimes Charlotte was as amazed at her audacity as anyone could have been, but she was careful to hide her personal surprise and chagrin.

  “Your rights as a wife,” Patrick repeated, in angry marvel. “May I remind you, Miss Quade—” he put a purposefully unkind emphasis on the word “Miss” “—that we are no longer legally married?”

  “Maybe not legally,” Charlotte agreed, “but we have a moral bond, and I’m not about to let you forget it.” All of the sudden, she was enjoying herself. She gestured toward the bed. “Lie down, Patrick. I want you.”

  She almost laughed at the crimson flush that surged into his neck and then flooded his face. He was clearly flabbergasted, and when he attempted to speak, the words were garbled.

  “Very well,” she said in a light tone, turning away for a moment to hide the sparkle in her eyes. “If you won’t cooperate, then I’ll just have to take…matters…into my own hands. So to speak.”

  The book clattered to the floor and at the same moment Patrick uttered a low, growling shout of amazement and fury. He approached her from behind, caught her shoulders in his hands, whirled her around to face him.

  “Are you trying to infuriate me?” he demanded, in a stunned whisper.

  “No,” she replied. She was intimidated, and that was precisely why she raised her chin and did her utmost to appear undaunted. “I’m just treating you the way men treat women every day, in every part of the world.”

  Patrick looked baffled now, as well as outraged. “What has that to do with—”

  “It has everything to do with what’s happening
between us, Mr. Trevarren,” she interrupted. “And you know it quite well.” She found a nightgown, spread it neatly on the bed, and began unfastening the buttons of her dress. She neither showed nor felt the slightest self-consciousness as she took off her clothes. Knowing that he was completely off balance, she changed the subject. “I had a nice chat with Mr. Cochran this evening, at dinner. He says the men are all recovering nicely.”

  Patrick obviously wanted to look away, and just as obviously could not make himself do any such thing. His throat worked visibly as he stared at Charlotte, and his voice came out sounding gruff. “I know that. Cochran gives me a daily report.”

  Charlotte was bare of all but her good intentions by that point, and she took her time covering up. She reached for the nightgown she’d selected earlier and held it out, as if reconsidering its appeal. She felt Patrick’s gaze as surely as if he’d been touching her, and she secretly reveled in his fascination.

  “Did he tell you, then,” she began distractedly, “that barrels and lengths of rope and other such things have been washing up on the beach for the last day or so?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Patrick stood with his arms folded, and there was an element of suppressed energy in his bearing.

  “Yes,” he answered, drawing nearer now. “It would seem to indicate a ship in trouble, since none of the debris is from the Enchantress. “

  Charlotte turned and looked up into his eyes, her expression serious. “Shouldn’t someone go out there and look?”

  “In what?” Patrick retorted impatiently. “A native fishing boat? We’re all stranded here, Charlotte, until another ship comes in.” He ran splayed fingers through his sleek, newly shortened hair. “It might be months or even years before we lay eyes on an outsider.”

  To Charlotte’s way of thinking, the prospect was not without good points. “Hmmm. That will make it difficult for you to palm me off on my family, won’t it?”

  “So we’re back to that, are we?” He was glowering.

  Charlotte laid her hands against his chest, felt a slight trembling and then the acceleration of his heartbeat against one palm. “I’ve said all I have to say on that subject. Kiss me, Patrick.”

  He looked at her mouth, leaned his head toward hers in a motion so slight as to be nearly imperceptible, then drew back and scowled. “You’re not turning into one of those blasted ‘new women,’ are you?”

  She smiled, sliding her palms lightly upward to his neck, knitting her fingers together at his nape. “Oh, no, Patrick, I’m not turning into ‘one of those blasted new women.’ I was raised to be one.”

  He sighed. “All right,” he said, exasperated, spreading his arms wide of his body and then slapping his hands against his sides in resignation. “You win—I don’t have the strength or wit for your games. Have your way with me.”

  The seriousness of this speech made Charlotte laugh out loud. Then, her hands still caught together at his nape, she drew him downward into a leisurely kiss.

  After that, there was no way of telling who had their way with whom.

  Charlotte was breakfasting alone on the veranda the following morning when Cochran came hurrying up the walk, a look of intent concern on his face.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Trevarren,” the first mate said. Although he sounded distracted and a little rushed, she was pleased that someone was still willing to recognize her bond with Patrick. “Is the captain up and about?”

  Charlotte had risen from her chair and stood gripping the porch railing now. Over Mr. Cochran’s right shoulder she could see several natives just emerging from the thick foliage to the east of the house. They were carrying an inert, half-naked man.

  “Captain Trevarren decided to breakfast in his—our room this morning,” she said. She was already making her way down the steps. “What’s happened? Has that poor man been drowned?”

  Mr. Cochran shook his head. “No, ma’am, and more’s the miracle. Two fishermen found him on the sand this morning. He’s been in and out of his proper mind.” The first mate paused, hat in hand, and cleared his throat. “We wouldn’t have brought him here, Mrs. Trevarren, but he’s in such poor shape that I didn’t figure it would be wise to put him in the cottage with the others. He’s surely too weak to stave off infection.”

  Charlotte nodded, lifting the pretty skirts of her pink lawn dress so that she could hurry across the grounds to greet the approaching party.

  Mr. Cochran went inside the house.

  Charlotte studied the unconscious man who had washed ashore like so much driftwood, her heart twisting with sympathy. He was unlike Patrick in every way, with his delicate build and pale brown hair, but something about him touched her all the same.

  Jacoba arrived before the group had reached the front veranda, sputtering and fretting like a mother hen who’s just found a chick far afield of the coop.

  On orders from the housekeeper, translated by a wide-eyed Mary Catch-much-fish into their own language, the fishermen laid the stranger out carefully in a downstairs bedroom. He’d lost one boot, and the few shreds of his brown trousers that had not been torn away were sodden. He began to shiver violently as Mary and Jacoba stripped him, as though the ruined clothing had offered him some warmth and protection.

  “Be easy in your spirit, traveler,” Jacoba told him, in a soothing voice Charlotte had not heard before. “You’re among friends now and we’ll take care of you.” She looked at a hand-wringing Mary with her single eye. “Fetch warm water and towels and some of that rum I keep for the Christmas cakes.”

  Charlotte drew nearer the bed when Mary bustled out. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Before Jacoba could answer, Patrick’s voice sounded from the doorway, as low and ominous as approaching thunder.

  “You can leave this room immediately,” he commanded coldly.

  Charlotte glared at her erstwhile husband. “I have experience as a nurse,” she reminded him.

  Patrick came to the foot of the bed and looked down at the poor shipwreck victim with dispassionate curiosity. His words, however, were plainly directed at Charlotte. “Jacoba was tending the sick and injured before you graduated from diapers to drawers. She doesn’t need your help.”

  Jacoba looked from the captain to Charlotte and smiled. Charlotte was infuriated at first, but then she recognized the older woman’s expression as one of knowing amusement, not triumph.

  “I will not have you in here yammering and getting underfoot, Patrick Trevarren,” the Scotswoman said. “Facts be that I’d rather the both of you got out of my way so I can work on this poor devil proper-like. Why, look at him. What parts of him isn’t blue is gray, like a corpse.”

  If it hadn’t been for the gravity of the situation, Charlotte would have laughed at the look on Patrick’s face. Clearly he wasn’t used to being dismissed like a troublesome child, and Charlotte wanted to ask how he liked getting back some of his own.

  She didn’t quite dare. It was one thing to disobey Patrick and quite another to go against Jacoba’s alarming authority. The older woman was an unknown quantity, and Charlotte wanted her friendship.

  She swept out in a rustle of skirts, her chin held high, and was followed, at a much slower rate, by Patrick.

  The captain had been most friendly during the night, but he had returned to his surly and recalcitrant mood upon awakening that morning, which was why Charlotte had taken her breakfast in solitude.

  She returned to the veranda, sat down, and poured lukewarm tea into the china cup she had left behind in the excitement.

  Patrick joined her, to her secret pleasure, not taking a chair at the white iron table but instead leaning back against the porch railing, his arms folded.

  Charlotte hoped her trembling didn’t show as she lifted the cup to her lips and took a ladylike sip.

  “What do you make of this?” Patrick asked, almost grudgingly, when she failed to initiate a conversation.

  She raised her eyebrows, as if puzzled about his meaning, though
she knew full well, of course, that he was referring to the man being tended with such fierce efficiency inside the house.

  Patrick seemed annoyed. “There can be no doubt that there’s been a shipwreck.”

  Charlotte sat back in her chair, dabbed at her lips with a linen napkin, and reached for another of the light, sugary biscuits Jacoba had baked that morning. “Perhaps,” she agreed, after stretching the silence as long as she dared. “But perhaps our visitor was captured by pirates and thrown overboard for some reason.”

  “You have a wild imagination,” Patrick accused, clearly irritated.

  Charlotte took her time in eating the biscuit, then shrugged one shoulder and replied, “I won’t deny that. But it isn’t as though recent events haven’t given me cause to expect the unexpected.”

  Patrick narrowed his eyes at her. He looked different, with his shorter hair and his somewhat gaunt features, but Charlotte realized in that moment, with a searing jolt, that she would love him forever and ever. The knowledge comforted her but, at the same time, filled her with an elemental and fathomless fear.

  His words came as an even greater shock than her insight had. “You know, of course, that you and my child will never lack for any luxury, even though I may be a world away from you?”

  She averted her eyes, unwilling to let him see the pain he’d caused her. Damn him, she thought brokenly. Is he so dense that he can’t guess the truth—that I’d rather go hungry at his side than live in luxury on another continent?

  “My father is a wealthy man,” she said, wanting to wound Patrick, wanting to attack him bodily, but forcing herself to speak in a quiet, ladylike tone. “Neither the child nor I will want or accept so much as a bent penny from you, Patrick Trevarren. Once you leave us, you’ll do better to stay gone.”

  A difficult silence followed, during which Charlotte’s heart seemed to tremble, crack, and then break into two badly bruised pieces. Finally she made herself look up at this man she loved so thoroughly, so desperately, and so hopelessly.