Taming Charlotte (14 page)

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 packet 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.

She felt an oddly sweet sadness fold over her spirit as she linked her arm with his. “And after Spain, where will we go?”

He turned his head, looked down at her with those wondrous eyes. “Where would you like to go, Charlotte?”

She let her cheek rest against his muscular upper arm for a few moments, reflecting on the question. Charlotte had often marveled at her stepmother’s devotion to Brigham Quade; now she was beginning to understand how deeply a strong woman could care for an equally forceful man. Such love was an elemental thing, beyond blithe definitions and even poetry; to grasp it fully might take every moment of a lifetime. Or an eternity.

Finally, softly, she echoed, “Where would I like to go?” Charlotte paused again, drinking in the slumbering sea, the multitude of silver stars. “Wherever the wind takes me.” Bold as she was, she couldn’t quite make herself reveal the full truth and say,
Wherever you are, Patrick. That’s where I want to be.

He might laugh at her for thinking their marriage was anything more than a game to him.

Patrick gazed down at Charlotte in silence for a long time, his eyes reflecting the starlight and the deep, primal secrets of the ocean itself. “I have business in Spain,” he said at long last, his voice gruff. “After I’ve finished with that, we’ll sail for the island—we’ll have cargo to deliver there. Then, after the
Enchantress
has been made ready again, we’ll set out for Seattle.”

Charlotte gripped the ship’s rail tightly. She wanted most desperately to be reunited with her family, but she feared that Patrick meant to leave her in Washington Territory, to sail on without her.

She grasped what she hoped was a safe topic. “The island?”

Patrick’s teeth flashed in a spontaneous grin. “I believe I’ve mentioned the place once or twice—it’s in the South Pacific. I raise sugar cane there, but mostly Hidden Island is a place to think and restore myself.”

Charlotte was enchanted and, momentarily at least, distracted from her worries. “Hidden Island,” she repeated dreamily, imagining palm trees and blue lagoons and gloriously colored orchids growing wild. “What a mysterious name.”

Above them, the masts creaked in a light breeze, and sailors called to one another from fore and aft. Patrick was silent, and Charlotte was homesick for a place she’d never seen.

They stood on the deck awhile longer, then went below to Patrick’s quarters, where a large tub brimming with steaming water was waiting.

Charlotte was delighted. “A bath!”

Patrick gave her a sidelong look as he closed and latched
the door. “Yes, Mrs. Trevarren. And it’s mine, so don’t get any ideas about taking it over.”

She put out her lower lip and sat down on the end of the bed, her arms folded. “You aren’t being very gentlemanly, I must say.”

Her husband hauled his shirt off over his head, revealing a well-sculpted chest and back. “I’ve made no claims to good manners,” he said. “I like my comforts and pleasures, and I’ve been pretty straightforward about that.”

Charlotte blushed and averted her eyes for a moment. When she looked back—she tried to resist and failed miserably—she saw that Patrick had kicked aside his boots and was in the process of removing his breeches.

“Ministers preach sermons about men like you,” she observed. “They say you’re nothing but tools of the devil.”

Patrick stepped into the large, ornate copper tub, sighed hedonistically, and lowered himself into the water. “So you listened in church, did you?” he asked, settling back and cupping his hands behind his head. “That’s amazing. You strike me as the sort to wool-gather from the first note of the opening hymn to the last word of the benediction.”

Charlotte coveted the feel of warm water against the skin, and she was vaguely insulted as well. “I’m not the scatterbrain you seem to think I am, Mr. Trevarren,” she said, somewhat tersely, while fighting a quite contrary urge to strip off her clothes and join her husband in his bath. “Furthermore, I was attentive in church. My stepmother, Lydia, was very strict about our spiritual development. She says people need fellowship and ritual to be healthy in their minds.”

He reached for a bar of soap and the washcloth one of the sailors had laid out, along with several towels. “Are you a believer?” he asked offhandedly, as though it were normal to have such a discussion stark naked, in a lantern-lit ship’s cabin dominated by a rumpled bed.

“Yes,” Charlotte answered, “though I must admit I share my father’s doubts about organized religion. Too many people are looking for an excuse to let someone else do their thinking for them—like their pastor, for instance. Or the deacon.”

Patrick lathered the washcloth, looking thoughtful. “Not everyone is a leader, Charlotte. Plenty of people need somebody to look up to and follow, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Would you mind washing my back, please?”

The change of subject was so quick and so unexpected that Charlotte’s tongue tangled around the words she’d planned to say.

“No,” she finally managed.

He frowned. “Why not?”

Charlotte took a few moments to cast about for an answer. “Because I’m annoyed with you, that’s why not. First, someone dumps me out of a sack at your feet like a litter of unwanted kittens, and you immediately start ordering me about. Then you leave me in a
harem,
for pity’s sake, and after that, you offer me a choice between marriage and a beating. Now you don’t even have the common decency to let me take the first bath!”

Methodically Patrick soaped his chest, making the dark hair lie against his skin in swirling patterns, like frost on a window. “You’re welcome to join me,” he informed her, after lengthy consideration.

He was so arrogant, Charlotte thought furiously. Not only had Patrick dismissed her list of complaints concerning his behavior without so much as a shrug—now he seemed to think she should be honored to share his bathwater!

“Thank you so much,” she said, with acid sweetness. “You are extremely
generous,
sir.”

Patrick laughed and sprang up out of that copper bathtub as suddenly and sleekly as a dolphin breaking the surface of the sea. He gripped Charlotte’s arm, while she was still stunned, and dragged her, robe, slippers, and all, into the water.

The gossamer fabric of her gown turned transparent and clung to her every curve. She struggled wildly, and the floor of the cabin was awash, but Patrick held her easily, her back to his chest.

“You wanted a bath, Charlotte,” he reasoned, his lips close to her ear. “Now you’re going to get one.”

She kicked and twisted. “Let me go this instant!”

Patrick sighed but did not slacken his hold. “There is just no pleasing you,” he said, with philosophical resignation. “We’re going to have to do something about your contrary and, yes, downright shrewish temperament, Mrs. Trevarren.”

Charlotte calmed herself, but it took a series of several deep breaths and a mental count to twenty-seven. Her hair had come down from its pins and was plastered to her shoulders and breasts in sodden strands, and the robe, the only garment she possessed, was almost certainly ruined. “This is reprehensible behavior, Patrick. Release me at once.”

Instead, he turned her to face him and brazenly admired her breasts, which were entirely revealed by the filmy fabric. “Certainly, my dear—anything you say. You have only to wash my back, as a good wife could surely be expected to, and then you may do whatever you wish.”

Once again, Charlotte began to count, making no sound but shaping the numbers with her lips.

Patrick laughed. “By God, you must be the stubbornest woman ever created. It will be a challenge to tame you.”

Charlotte knew her eyes were shooting fire. If she’d dared, she would have spit in Patrick’s face, but even she wasn’t quite that courageous. “You will see angels dance the minuet in hell first,” she hissed.

He brought her dose to him, raised her a little way out of the water, and scraped one fully visible nipple lightly with his teeth. “No, Charlotte,” he argued, after subjecting her to sweet torment for several moments. “But I will see
you
dance beneath me, in my bed, this very night. Your own cries of pleasure will be the music.”