Lisbon (9 page)

The effect, for all the tempting low cut, at which Livesay blinked and Ivy moaned rapturously and Cook muttered, was strikingly virginal and entirely enticing.

Charlotte was so excited she almost wept. She tried the entire costume on and ran downstairs to twirl around the cavernous kitchen to the delight of Wend and the other servants. She broke into a dance her mother had taught her when she was a small child. The steps might be out-of-date now, but her young body was so graceful, her feet in their soft new shoes tripped so lightly across the stone floor, that the servants—even disapproving Cook, who objected to so much of Charlotte’s bosom showing—cheered her on, clapping their hands until finally, flushed and laughing, she collapsed onto one of the long benches at the rude trestle table.

“I think I’ve never been so happy!” she gasped.

Wend, who had been off visiting her mother along the Greta, had come bouncing in while Charlotte was dancing, and stood watching while Charlotte collapsed laughing at the kitchen table.

“Oh, Wend, isn’t it a beautiful dress?” she cried, smoothing out the skirt that rippled like cream. “My uncle’s friend 
sent it to me. Oh, Wend, I think I’ve never been so happy!”

“Oh, I think you could be quite a lot happier,” was Wend's lazy comment.

Charlotte shot a look at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Wend said with enormous nonchalance, “that on the way here I ran across Will the Peddler. He was just down from Carlisle, where he’d been buying his goods along the waterfront. He told me a ship had just been sighted coming in, and someone with a glass said it was the 
Mary Constant.
She was still far out but she’d be 
docking on the next tide. ”

The
Mary Constant
—Tom’s ship! The look on Charlotte’s young face dazzled even Wend.

Tom Westing was back!

That day in early June dawned bright, and Charlotte, who had been far too excited to sleep the night before, was up with the dawn and demanding of a sleepy-eyed Wend how long she thought it would take a man to reach Aldershot Grange from Carlisle.

“That depends on whether he’s afoot or riding.’’ Wend yawned.

“Well, I doubt he’ll be riding,” said Charlotte reluctantly. “After all, he’s a navigator and he doesn’t own a horse.”

“So don’t look for him before tomorrow at the earliest.”

But of course he could hire a horse, or manage a ride in a cart . . . Charlotte spent all the afternoon half-dressed, watching from her casement, ready to slip into her wondrous new gown the moment she saw Tom’s familiar form in the distance.

The sun set without him.

The next day she was certain he’d be here, so she dressed herself in the white gown and went out and sat on the garden wall, arranging her skirts to make a pretty picture for him from a distance. After a while the sun grew too hot for wall perching—after all, she wanted to look cool and fresh when he arrived—so she waited beneath the shady branches of a nearby tree.

Hunger finally drove her inside.

“There’s lots of reasons why he wouldn’t be here yet,’’ Wend tried to comfort her. “Maybe there was some trouble docking the ship. Or something about the cargo.’’

“But would that keep the navigator aboard?” wondered Charlotte.

“Who knows?” Wend, who knew nothing of the sea, shrugged. “It might.”

Charlotte brightened a little at that, but Cook noted that she scarcely touched her dinner.

The following day, when Tom still didn’t come, Charlotte didn’t touch her dinner at all. She shook out the lovely new dress and packed it carefully away. To await some great ball, she told herself—and then her eyes filled with tears.

Outside, as if to suit her mood, the weather changed. Overcast days replaced sunny ones. Gray clouds swirled overhead and there was a mist of rain in the air. Charlotte, now back in her buff homespun, wandered out uncaring into the dismal weather. She found her way aimlessly northward along the eastern shore of the Derwent Water, feeling the dampness in her hair, feeling her clothes grow limp.

Tom had not come after all. No doubt she had been a fool to expect him, Charlotte scolded herself. More than a year and a half had gone by since Tom had left England— perhaps he had found another girl somewhere. The thought cut deep.

A low promontory rose just ahead, but Charlotte had not the heart to climb it. She sat down on a rock and pulled up a blade of grass from nearby, tested it with her teeth. It tasted springlike and sour—but no sourer than her thoughts. For until now she had had a lover, if only in her dreams. Now she had no one.

She sat there, head drooping, for a long time. Finally she decided that there was no sense coming in drenched, and she threw away the grass stem she had been twisting in her fingers. She got up and tossed back her wet blond hair.

As she did so she saw a figure silhouetted against the gray sky, a figure in a tricorne hat.

Charlotte s heart gave such a great leap inside her chest that she felt it must surely burst her bodice. Before her the figure on the promontory saw her as well and waved. Now he was hurrying down the incline, moving awkwardly, she saw, because he was walking with the aid of a stout stick.
That
was why he hadn’t arrived before, he’d been hurt! Charlotte picked up her skirts and ran like a deer toward him.

And came to a halt halfway up the slope, suddenly overcome by shyness.

Not so Tom. At sight of her he gave a whoop and began to run down the slope, tossing aside his stick as he ran. And brought up before her, beaming.

“So you’re still here,’’ he said. “I was afraid you might not be.”

Charlotte found her voice. “Oh, yes, Tom—I’m still here.”

And then—neither of them ever knew later just how it happened or who made the first move—they were in each other’s arms, Tom was holding her so close the buttons of his coat bit into her flesh, and Charlotte was saying, “I knew your ship had come into port, and oh, Tom, I was so afraid you weren’t coming!”

Tom’s grip tightened and his lips were on her wet hair so that his voice was muffled as he said huskily, “Little chance of that!”

It had begun to rain in earnest now, but neither of them noticed.

“When I first saw you, I thought you were hurt!” she exclaimed.

“No, tis my shoe,” was his cheerful rejoinder. “There’s a hole worn in it I could put my fist through. I had stuck a piece of leather in it but I lost it.”

“Your . . . shoe?” she asked, fascinated. “But why haven’t you had it fixed?”

“I didn’t want to take the time. ” He laughed. “For I had a wench waiting at Aldershot Grange.”

“But you’ve been home a week or more!”

“I’ve been in Scotland.”

She stared at him openmouthed, and tasted the falling rain.
“Scotland?”

“Aye,” he said grimly. “And a fool's chase it was.” He explained that they had cast anchor in Carlisle harbor at night and he had gone ashore with the others, meaning to get a good night’s sleep and hire a horse to ride to the Grange. He’d had but two rounds of ale with his shipmates before he left the carouse and headed back for his inn. “ ’Twas in a dark alley that they set upon me. Five men who’d been lying in wait. I might have managed the four who came at me from the front and sides, but the one from the back near cracked my skull, and my friends found me later unconscious and robbed of my entire ship’s wages. ”

 “Oh, Tom,” breathed Charlotte. “How awful!”

“Awful it was,” he agreed dryly. “And I have naught but my own folly to blame.”

“Oh, but you couldn’t know—”

“I could,” he said, his tone definite. “I’m used to rough towns
”—and rougher men
, he might have added, but didn’t—“and I was not taking proper care when I went into that alley. My mind was on a wench.” He gave her a whimsical smile that made her heart lurch happily.

“Did they ever find the men?”

He shook his head. “One of my friends found me—and brought me to with a bucket of water and some brandy. I had the damnedest headache. And then we searched the town for the thieves who robbed me. Twas late morning before we learned that a party of five who met their description had been seen around dawn setting out for the north. We tracked them over the border and there lost their trail.” His voice turned rueful. “Save for the few coins my friends lent me—all spent for hired horses and lodgings along the way—I’m as poor as the day you found 
me.

“It doesn’t matter,” Charlotte told him warmly. “I don’t care for money at all.”

Tom snorted. “Shows how young you are! Tis money keeps a roof over your head and the rain out—never say you don’t care for money, Charlotte!”

“Well, you know what I mean. " She was suddenly aware that water was running down her forehead and into her eyes. “It’s raining," she said wonderingly.

Tom laughed and hugged her. “We didn’t seem to notice!"

But he let her retrieve his stick and urge him down toward Aldershot Grange, where, she told him blithely, “We’ll hang up our clothes and dry off."

His brows shot up at her choice of words, but the idea was so appealing that he went with her willingly enough. She brought him into the kitchen with a flourish.

“I am entertaining a gentleman tonight," she told them all grandly. “We will have supper for two served in the dining room, if you please. "

Cook winked at Wend, and Ivy gasped, but Livesay was equal to the occasion. He rose and acknowledged his mistress’s order with a deferential nod. “Yes, Mistress Charlotte," he said gravely.

“Oh, and . . . we re both soaking wet."

“We can all see that," muttered Wend, eyeing the puddle in which they were standing.

“I’m going up to change, and I’ll need a hot bath. Wend, will you bring it up? And Tom will be wanting a hot bath too. In the green bedchamber, I think. And a dressing gown—one of my uncle’s—while his clothes dry by the hearth. Would you see to it, Livesay?"

Again that courtly nod. All the servants loved their employer’s young niece, and if she wanted to play hostess, they would do their best to assist her.

Tom limped gingerly over to the hearth and sat down upon a three-legged stool.

“Tom wore a hole in his shoe while he was out chasing the covey of thieves who stole his money and fled to Scotland," she announced regretfully. “I’m afraid we can’t do anything about that. My uncle didn’t leave any shoes here when he left for London."

Livesay cleared his throat. “I was apprenticed to a cobbler in my youth," he explained. “ ’Twas a trade I disliked, which is why I don’t talk about it. But there’s leather in the stable and I can still mend a shoe. If you’ll give me the 
shoe tonight, young sir, I'll guarantee you ’twill be fixed by morning.’’

Tom’s eyes lit up and Charlotte breathed, “Oh, Livesay, that would be wonderful. I do want to show Tom the countryside, but how can I if he’s limping?’’

Everyone in the kitchen beamed.

Charlotte left them and went upstairs to bathe in the hot water Wend brought—along with word that both Cook and Ivy were atwitter over Tom’s arrival. She dashed away carrying Charlotte’s white voile dress to be pressed by Ivy, who had a knack for those things. Charlotte soaked lazily in the metal hip tub and then dried herself on linen towels. She thought she might not have given Tom time to get his clothes dry and to climb back into them, but when Wend arrived bearing the meticulously pressed white voile dress, she rolled her eyes and warned Charlotte that “Tom Westing is pacing the hall waiting for you to come down those front stairs, and you’d best hurry, for I think Ivy has fallen in love with him!’’

Charlotte laughed and Wend helped her into the dress, and between them they got her long hair—which had gotten wet in her bath—combed out and tied back with a riband.

“And if you don’t come down quick,’’ Wend warned, giving Charlotte’s hair a last pat, “Cook is going to have a fit, because she’s been waiting supper for you.’’

Thus alerted, Charlotte ran soundlessly down the hall on her soft white slippers ad paused at the head of the stairs to drink in the sight of the broad-shouldered man who paced restlessly about below. In the wild excitement of seeing him again she had not realized until now that he was wearing new clothes. The russet trousers that encased his strong muscular legs now matched a russet coat that sported brass buttons instead of wooden. And the coat had wider cuffs and was of a better cut than the one he had worn when he embarked (she would have blushed with pleasure had she known he had bought them both to impress her at his last port of call).

But new clothes or no, Tom had not really changed, she thought fondly, looking down at that shock of fair hair, and 
jaunty gait. Still . . . there
was
something different about him. She pondered over what that difference was, and it came to her that it was in indefinable
presence.
The wild lad had become a man, no longer a tall stripling gone a-roving, but a strong man to reckon with. And to love.

And the green eyes that looked up and caught her standing there were a man’s eyes, hot with passion, yet steady too. Her heart abrim, clad in her lovely new white dress, Charlotte floated down the broad front stairway to meet her lover.