Taming Charlotte

by Linda Lael Miller

  Their lovemaking was different that night, though no less consuming. They hardly spoke—usually they teased and tempted each other until the need became too great and they hadn’t the breath to speak—and when their bodies were joined, satisfaction became torment. They battled each other, knew pleasure so keen in its poignancy as to be nearly unbearable, then immediately needed to be fused again, as if there had been no communion, no release.

  Eventually exhaustion overtook them. Charlotte, who had been to the stars in Patrick’s arms, felt more alone and hopeless than ever before. She cried until sleep came.

  In the morning, hasty farewells were said all around—there was no sign of Patrick anywhere—and Jayne and Gideon and Charlotte and Mr. Cochran were taken out to the Victoriana in long, graceful skiffs. Their baggage had apparently been loaded on board during the night.

  Charlotte stared back at the island, unable to believe that the grand adventure was over, that Patrick had not had the charity of spirit even to bid her a proper farewell. Gideon took her hand and squeezed it.

  The rest of the morning passed in a haze, for Charlotte at least. Jayne and Gideon were properly married by Captain Trent, and after much preparation, the ship moved gracefully toward the open sea.

  Charlotte stood at the railing, watching as the magical island slowly vanished, along with her most cherished dreams.

  23

  April 1878

  Quade’s Harbor

  Washington Territory

  MILLICENT QUADE BRADLEY WAS NOT A FANCIFUL WOMAN, but as she watched her sister, Charlotte, now visibly pregnant, go about her daily life, she often thought she heard the distant howl of the banshee.

  “Charlotte is dying,” Millicent said to her husband, Lucas, one bright spring morning as the two of them sat on the screened sun porch of their house across the street from the Presbyterian church.

  The pastor, a good-looking man with a square jaw, pale gold hair, and the calm gaze of someone certain of things eternal, put down his teacup and gazed out at the harbor. Millicent’s look followed his; as always, the sight of the gray-blue water, rimmed in snowcapped mountains and multitudes of lush evergreens, lifted her spirits.

  “You must have faith, darling,” Lucas said. He took her hand and squeezed it, and she was thankful, oh, so thankful, for the steady, unshakable love of her husband.

  Charlotte deserved just such a husband, Millie thought angrily. It wasn’t fair that a fine woman like her sister should get her heart broken by that scalawag of a sea captain. Papa and Uncle Devon often argued as to who would have the privilege of horsewhipping Patrick Trevarren in the street, if he ever dared to show his face in Quade’s Harbor. Millicent, normally a peaceful person, half hoped Mr. Trevarren would get his due.

  “Lydia says Charlotte weeps at night,” Millie went on, heartbroken. “She eats only for the baby’s sake, not her own, and constantly watches the bay for ships.”

  Lucas sighed, but did not speak. One of his greatest strengths was his ability to listen, unruffled, making no apparent judgment on anything that might be said.

  Suddenly Millie began to cry. “I can’t bear it, Lucas,” she whispered, “it’s too dreadful, seeing Charlotte suffer like this—she was always so strong, and so full of laughter and mischief!”

  Lucas rose from his chair, came around the white iron table to crouch beside Millie. “Darling,” he said, putting a strong arm around her, “Charlotte is home, safe among people who cherish her. Given time, she will be herself again.”

  Millie dried her eyes with the heels of her palms. No one, with the possible exception of Patrick Trevarren himself, knew Charlotte as well as she did. Sure, Charlotte was resilient, and there could be no question that her large and boisterous family loved her to distraction. Because there was a passageway of sorts, between her own soul and her sister’s, however, Millie was aware of something the others could not sense.

  The light of Charlotte’s spirit, the essence, grew dimmer and dimmer as each day passed.

  Lucas stood beside Millie’s chair, one hand resting on her shoulder. “I have calls to make,” he said.

  Millie turned her head, kissed his hand lightly, and nodded, without looking up at him. When he was gone, she cleared the table, arranged the dishes in the kitchen sink, removed her apron, and set off for the main house.

  Charlotte sat on the widow’s walk on the second floor of her father and stepmother’s grand house, hands resting on either side of her enormous belly. A faltering smile touched her lips. “Perhaps it will be today,” she told her unborn child. “Perhaps your papa will return to us today.”

  She heard one of the French doors creak on its hinges and resettled herself in her chair as her stepmother came out to join her.

  Lydia was a strikingly beautiful woman, with her fair hair and strong spirit, a fine mother to her flock of sons and a good wife to Charlotte’s father. Moreover, she was a power to be reckoned with in the operation of her husband’s far-flung timber interests.

  She stood at the railing of the narrow terrace, tendrils of blond hair lifting in the misty salt breeze. “If I could wish you one thing in all the world, Charlotte,” she said, without looking at her stepdaughter, “it would be a love such as the one your father and I share. Ours is the sort of union that nourishes the soul and helps each of us to be our best selves.”

  Charlotte listened in silence. Lydia was not making an idle boast, for the glorious passion between Brigham Quade and his beloved wife was visible to anyone who took the trouble to look. Millie and Lucas had a similar bond, although theirs was quieter.

  Lydia turned, looked down at Charlotte, who remained in her chair, awkward and uncomfortable because of her great bulk. “I would not normally speak this way, knowing what pain you’re in, but I feel that I must. I think you and your Patrick Trevarren have the same kind of bond. If I’m right, Charlotte, then you must prepare yourself to fight for your marriage.”

  Charlotte swallowed. Patrick had, to all evidence, deserted her as well as their child. Oh, he’d ordered the construction of a grand house in nearby Seattle, and not one but two new clipper ships were being built for him, but he had never paid his wife a visit or even written to her.

  “I thought we did,” she said. Not a moment had passed, nor a heartbeat, since her parting from Patrick that afternoon on the front stairs of his island house that she hadn’t yearned for him.

  All during the sailing to Sydney, she had expected him to come after her somehow—perhaps another ship would pass by the island. But Patrick had never appeared.

  Reaching Australia, she and Mr. Cochran had seen Jayne and Gideon off on their missionaries’ journey into the interior, and rested a few days, attending the theater together and exploring the countryside. Raheem, the pirate, was sent back to Britain to be tried.

  Charlotte was soon restless, and she asked Captain Trent of the Victoriana to recommend a ship sailing north to San Francisco. There, she had said good-bye to Mr. Cochran and traveled on, via another vessel, to Seattle, where her father and Lydia and Millie had been waiting for her.

  She’d flung herself into Brigham’s strong arms that day weeks before and sobbed with bitterness and pain, but a part of her had still believed that Patrick would not be able to stay away from her forever. He would miss the grand adventure of their life together, just as she did…

  Lydia’s gaze held concern, but no pity. “You are a Quade, Charlotte, and you were raised to be strong. When I look at you now, however, I see a woman who has given up. Your father and I are desperately worried.”

  Charlotte stiffened in her chair before she could offer an answer, her womb clenching suddenly and violently. In the harbor the daily mail boat sounded its horn, a testament to ordinary things.

  Lydia, who had served as a nurse during the Rebellion of the Southern States and helped Dr. Joe McCauley for years, assessed the situation and acted without panic.

  “So the time has come, has it?” she said gently, helping Charlotte to h
er feet.

  Charlotte groaned. Her brow and upper lip were wet with perspiration, and her hipbones felt as though they were being pried apart. Patrick, she cried, in the deepest part of her spirit, and she thought, for just a moment, that she heard him answer.

  Alas, it was only the mail boat whistle.

  Brigham Quade recognized the tall, broad-shouldered young bull the moment he opened the front door to him, and if it hadn’t been for the circumstances, he would have hauled off and decked him, right there on the porch.

  Trevarren nodded a greeting and shouldered his way past Brigham, into the cool, shadowy entryway. “Where is she?” he demanded. “Where is Charlotte?”

  At exactly that moment, a shriek of pain came from the second floor.

  “Upstairs,” Brigham answered coldly. “Giving birth to your child.”

  Trevarren went pale and dropped his fancy leather traveling bag, and Brigham thought, somewhere in the calm center of his own distraction, that there might be hope for the rogue sea captain. The man might have some shred of decency in him after all.

  “Where?” he rasped.

  “First door on the right,” Brigham answered, though grudgingly. Another cry met their ears as Trevarren bolted up the stairs, and Brigham winced. It had been bad enough, standing by helplessly while Lydia bore each of their five strapping sons, but to hear his firstborn daughter suffer so was worse in some ways.

  Still, Brigham smiled as he lifted his eyes to the ceiling, recalling Trevarren’s reaction to the news of imminent fatherhood. The man had looked as though he’d swoon, then gathered himself and scrambled up those stairs as though his life depended on reaching Charlotte’s side.

  Yes, Brigham reflected. There was still hope.

  Charlotte’s back arched as the pain seized her again and she thought she was hallucinating when she saw Patrick burst through the door, sending it crashing against the wall, and collapse on his knees at her bedside.

  Lydia, unflappable, did not look up from the delivery. “If you’re going to be underfoot, Patrick Trevarren,” she warned, “I’ll have you dragged out of here.”

  Charlotte groped for Patrick’s hand, found it. “You’re here—you’re really here?” she asked stupidly. Again a contraction racked her, again her body rose high off the bed.

  “Yes,” Patrick said gruffly, when the worst had passed. He was still holding her hand in a tight grasp. “I tried to stay away, but God help me, I couldn’t.”

  “If God’s going to be of any help to you, Captain Trevarren,” Lydia commented dryly, at the same time examining Charlotte, “I should think He’d have to hit you alongside the head with a shovel first, in order to get your attention.”

  Patrick’s mouth curved slightly upward on one side at Lydia’s words, and Charlotte took the familiar smile inside her, where it worked like some magical potion to ease her pain. He kissed Charlotte’s knuckles and said, “Perhaps He has, Mrs. Quade. Perhaps He has.”

  “Don’t leave me,” Charlotte gasped. She was ashamed to need Patrick so much, but there it was, the stark reality.

  “I’m here,” he assured her, kissing her hand again, this time on the palm.

  Charlotte would have been happier if he’d said, “Never again, darling” or “We’ll be together forever,” but she hadn’t the time to quibble. The pain came again, raised to an agonizing pitch, and she had to scream.

  Patrick didn’t flinch at her cries, but held her hand, smoothed her hair, and whispered gentle words of encouragement and reassurance.

  Finally, after several hours of hard labor, the child slipped from her body.

  “A girl,” Lydia said, with joyous tears in her voice, as she tended to the child. “Dear heaven, I thought we were never going to see a baby girl in this family again!”

  Charlotte looked at Patrick as their small daughter was placed between them, and saw that his eyes were wet. “What shall we call her?” she asked gently.

  He was staring rapt at their child, as if he’d never seen a baby before. “Is there a name fine enough for such a creature?” he whispered, tentatively touching the infant’s tiny cheek.

  Charlotte laughed. “Yes. Annie, I think. Annie Quade Trevarren.”

  Patrick was still gazing at the child, obviously marveling. “We created her, you and I together,” he said. “I can’t believe it—it’s a miracle.”

  Lydia left the room, but Charlotte could hear her voice as she spoke quietly to someone in the hallway—probably Brigham. No doubt Millie was there, too.

  Patrick reached carefully past Annie to smooth back a tendril of Charlotte’s hair. “Why didn’t you tell me you could work magic like this?” he teased, his blue eyes shining as he looked at his wife.

  A sob of relief and joy rose in Charlotte’s throat. Patrick was there; the sun would shine again, and the moon would spin around the earth, and the stars would take their rightful places in the night sky.

  For now, she could not allow herself to believe he might leave her again.

  “I love you,” she said, opening her soul to him.

  He kissed her—with the sort of respectful passion the situation demanded—but the old spark was there. “And I love you,” he answered.

  Presently Lydia returned with Millicent, and Patrick was gently shooed from the room. While Millie rocked the newborn baby, her eyes shining with delight, Lydia bathed an exhausted Charlotte, helped her into a fresh nightgown, put fresh sheets on her bed. Since Charlotte’s milk hadn’t come in yet, Annie was to be fed from a bottle.

  “Sleep now,” Lydia said when Charlotte was in bed again, bending over her stepdaughter to plant a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You’ve had a momentous day.”

  Charlotte wanted Annie beside her, and Patrick, too, but she was too weary to argue. She closed her eyes, just for a moment.

  The room was dark, except for a flood of moonlight pouring in through the windows, when Charlotte awakened. Patrick was lying beside her, sheltering her with his size and strength, holding her in a loose embrace.

  “How did you manage to get here just when I needed you most?” she asked, knowing he was awake even though he had given no indication of the fact.

  Patrick kissed her temple. “I couldn’t stay away,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Have you been to see the house in Seattle?”

  Charlotte recalled all the loneliness she’d endured since their separation and bristled. “No,” she said. “I knew about it, because your lawyers wrote to me, but frankly I didn’t feel any desire to see the place.”

  “Why not?” Patrick sounded confused, and not a little injured. “That house wouldn’t even be built if it weren’t for you and Annie. You’re supposed to live in it.”

  “Annie and I are not china figures, to be arranged in a fancy cabinet and occasionally dusted, Mr. Trevarren. We will not set foot under that roof, I promise you, unless the three of us are going to be a real family.”

  “How can we be anything else?” Patrick asked, clearly still at a loss. “Annie is our child. You are her mother, I am her father. That makes us a family.”

  “No,” Charlotte argued. “This—what Lydia and Papa and the boys have, in this house—is a family. They live here together, loving and fighting, laughing and crying, all of it.” She paused, drew in a deep breath, knowing she was about to take the greatest risk of her life but unable to avoid it. “If you are going to leave us again, Patrick, then I must ask you never to come back. Papa has powerful friends—he can arrange for a discreet divorce.”

  She felt Patrick stiffen beside her, and his embrace tightened, but he did not make the promise her soul hungered to hear. Perhaps it wasn’t even possible for him to do that.

  “Until today, I thought I couldn’t go on living without you,” she went on, finding strength, somehow, even in the midst of her great weakness. “When I saw you, I knew I loved you more than ever, needed you even more than before. But then, out of that terrible pain, came Annie. She’s a gift from God, Patrick, a miracle, just as yo
u said. And until I’m strong in my own self again, she can be my reason to live.”

  Patrick laid a hand lightly against Charlotte’s face and no doubt felt her tears. She suspected, by the trembling she felt in his large frame, that her husband might have shed a few tears of his own in those moments. “God in heaven, Charlotte,” he marveled brokenly, after a long time. “You are surely the most remarkable woman who ever lived.”

  It was no answer, but for that night, it was enough. Charlotte held her husband, and allowed him to hold her, and slept peacefully for the first time in months.

  A week after Annie’s birth, when he could be sure that both his wife and child were well, Patrick traveled to Seattle to inspect the enormous house he’d commissioned long before his arrival in the United States. He did not even stop to check on the project of his two new ships; that could wait.

  The brick mansion stood on one of Seattle’s several hills, facing the water. Every huge, gracious room seemed to brim with sunlight, and it made Patrick happy to think of Annie growing up in such a place. Being her mother’s daughter, she would no doubt slide down the banisters and skim over the sleek wooden floors in her stocking feet.

  Cochran’s voice didn’t startle Patrick, even though he’d believed himself to be alone. “Tell me, has she agreed to wait for you here, your lovely Charlotte, and receive you in her heart and her bed whenever you come home from the sea?”

  Rage filled Patrick. Cochran was his oldest and best friend, and he had a way of going straight to the painful center of things. He turned to face his first mate.

  “No,” he replied coldly. “Charlotte told me, in effect, to go straight to hell. She claims she would never live here without me.”

  “And?”

  Patrick sighed. “And I couldn’t promise her that I would. We’re at an impasse, Charlotte and I.”

  Cochran’s usually jovial face hardened with impatience and contempt. “Dear God, man, it never ceases to confound me, what a fool you can be. You’re only half-alive without Charlotte, and you know it!”

  Patrick moved to one of the towering, arched windows that reached from the hardwood floors to the ornate ceilings, with their plaster moldings. The harbor was dappled with sunlight and brimming with ships. “She’s safe there, near her father. So is Annie.”