The Charm School (31 page)

“The notary left. I’m supposed to lock the specie in the till. Once I do that, only Abel Easterbrook can open it.”

He signed his name to one of the papers and started putting the money into a coffer the size of a bread box.

“Sure is a lot of money,” Journey remarked.

“Sure is,” Ryan said. Money meant only one thing to Journey: reuniting with his family.

“But Delilah and my babies” — “Will sail into Boston harbor with us.” Ryan savored the expression on Journey’s face. He might have lost his heart and with it, his chance to be anything but a memory to Isadora Peabody, but he would bring Journey and his family together no matter what the cost.

Even if it killed him.

“Cap … captain sent me to ask you to translate these.” Timothy Datty set down a sheaf of papers sandwiched between marbled card stock.

Beneath a canvas awning, Isadora was seated in a deck chair. The Swan lay sixteen days out of Rio, and she had tried to avoid Ryan the entire time. He seemed to accept the arrangement with a certain sheepish relief.

He had been afraid she’d follow him around like a love-struck mooncalf. She could see that now, though it hurt. He should know better. Her practical nature had taken over. The extraordinary experience in the rain forest had been just that—an extraordinary, overwhelming, marvelous experience. An occurrence so perfect it could not, should not, ever be repeated. It was like finding a four-leafed clover or seeing a comet in the night sky: a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. She should count herself lucky for having lived that moment even once, for surely most people never knew such bliss. To wish for more was simply greedy. And futile.

She set aside the letter she was writing and smiled at Timothy. No point in condemning the lad simply because the skipper was a horse’s backside.

“Thank you for bringing these,” she said.

“You’re … welcome.” When he employed the breathing strategies she had taught him, Timothy rarely stuttered. He stood leaning against the pin rail smiling and regarding her in a very curious way.

“Is there anything else you need?” she asked.

“Urn … no. Just … did you like Rio?”

“Very much, thank you.”

“I thought so.”

“What makes you think so?”

“You seem … different, is all.”

She smiled, knowing her smile was touched with sadness and knowing she was inches from tears.

“Oh, I suppose I am different,” she said, staring off into the empty distance.

“I am indeed.”

He withdrew and she looked at her hands. When had she stopped biting her nails? She had undergone a dramatic transformation on this voyage, and the changes manifested themselves in curious ways. She felt a certain sense of wonderment looking down at her hands with the nails neat and smooth, the skin tinged gold by the sun, the palms callused from working. Yet mingling with that wonderment was confusion and sometimes a wish to crawl back into her shell, hiding from the world as she did on Beacon Hill.

She set aside the letter in her lap. She had no idea what she had been writing or for whom she’d intended the missive. Ye powers, her brain had softened to commeal mush these days. She could not seem to concentrate on anything for very long.

Except for Ryan. Despite her resolve to be practical, she could think of him for uncounted hours without straying even once to other topics. It was quite awful, really, this sad obsession of hers. On some purely intellectual level she understood the reason for his constant presence. He was the first man to awaken her carnal desires, to show her physical pleasures she’d never imagined. Like an addict, she craved more of the ecstasy he’d shown her.

Fortunately for Isadora, she possessed a powerful reserve of common sense.

Her will alone would protect her from making a fool of herself over an inconstant sea captain who probably couldn’t wait to get her out of his life.

Her will had given her the strength to flout convention and sign on aboard a merchant ship. Her will had given her the power to face the perils of life under sail. Surely she could fight a base and inappropriate attraction to Ryan Calhoun.

Though when, a few minutes later, he came strolling over to her as if summoned by her thoughts, she felt that powerful will falter. It was absurd, the way nature had favored him with such physical beauty and magnetic appeal.

And the yearning ran deeper now, because she knew firsthand that the beauty and appeal extended over every square inch of his body.

Feeling hot and untidy, she shaded her eyes and tilted her head to look up at him. He could not have planned for the strong westerly wind to plaster his shirt to his damp chest so artfully, or for the sun to raise ruby-toned glints of light in his long, wavy hair, but one would think he had orchestrated the effect to taunt her.

Isadora smiled politely.

“Good day, Captain Calhoun.”

“Good day.” He bowed from the waist, mocking her formality with a wink. He indicated the folio she held. “Thank you for taking on those translations.

I thought we’d have done with paperwork once we left Rio, but it never seems to end.”

“I don’t mind doing my duty.” She straightened the papers with a consciously officious air.

He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to go. Instead, with an unreadable expression on his face, he sat cross-legged beside her on the deck.

“Are you enjoying the voyage home, Isadora?” “Thus far I am,” she said.

“I’ll need the Swan’s enrollment certificate copied again,” he said, handing her a rolled document.

“We’ll be making port briefly in Virginia.”

She took the official paper from him.

“Virginia? We’re going to call at Virginia?”

“Briefly.” His jaw drew taut with tension.

“Do the men know of this?”

He glared at her.

“If you persist in being insubordinate, I’ll assign your duties to someone else.”

The old Isadora would have flinched at his tone. But she knew now how to face a man’s anger; she knew it wouldn’t kill her.

“Virginia was not in the original sailing plan,” she remarked.

“Damn it, woman,” he burst out.

“Just shut up and do your job.”

“Aye-aye, sir.” Unwilling to be intimidated, she put the enrollment certificate in her lap desk.

They sat in disgruntled silence for a time. Then he indicated the letter in her lap.

“Writing to Chad again?”

She bristled at his astringent tone.

“I”

“Of course you are,” he cut in, his voice quiet but sharp as a blade.

“You promised to tell him of all your adventures abroad.”

“I seem to recall I pledged to correspond” — “What about the adventure at the waterfall, Isadora?”

Hearing the words spoken aloud created a havoc of emotions in her. It had been the most beautiful day of her life. But Ryan Calhoun seemed determined to make a mockery of it.

“Well?” he persisted.

“Did you tell him about that?”

“How dare you.”

“How dare I what? Finally make you speak of that day?”

“Don’t make it my fault. You’ve been avoiding me. There is no need to speak of it,” she said curtly.

“It is over.” “I thought so, too,” he said, and suddenly his voice lowered to a whisper.

She could barely hear him above the creak of timber strained by wind-filled canvas.

“But the more time goes by, the more I think about it.”

She toyed with the black ribbon that bound the folio together.

“I see no point in dwelling on that day. You said it was a mistake, and you were correct.”

‘ “What about you? Was it a mistake for you, too?”

The direct question pushed her toward the brink. Could she unveil her feelings to him? Could she take that risk?

No. And the saddest part was, she had no idea what her feelings meant. Her emotions careened crazily, touching on yearning, lust, tenderness, melancholy. She never knew, when she opened her mouth to speak, whether she would laugh or cry. Regardless, he would not welcome them anymore than Chad Easterbrook ever had. So why tell him?

Why open herself to that hurt?

Rather than hardening her to pain, all the countless wounds of the past only made her more vulnerable. So Isadora did the only thing she could. She gave him the practical explanation.

“We took a drug that made us do something very foolish.”

“So you feel nothing now?”

“The only thing I feel is foolish.” She was lying. She knew it even as she spoke. Even stone cold sober, she felt dizzy with passion each time she thought of him. But life had taught its hard lessons well. A handsome, charming man would bring nothing but heartache. She had to prove herself stronger than her desires.

“I’m certain it’s the same for you,” she added.

Without warning, he touched her cheek with the back of his hand.

Lightly. His knuckles grazed her skin, leaving a trail of fire. The caress evoked other caresses, other moments.

“You have no idea how it is with me, Isadora.”

Something in his expression frightened her. The darkness. The intensity. Just when she thought she knew this man, he showed her another facet of himself. She pulled away, flinching from his disconcerting touch even when a part of her longed to settle her cheek into the cradle of his palm.

“Then perhaps you should explain what you mean.”

He dragged his fingers through his hair.

“I can’t give you anything, Isadora.” “I never asked for anything,” she said.

He smiled, the expression shaded with a heartbreaking regret.

“Oh, love, you have,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“You expect everything. The moon. The stars. The planets and their moons.

But you’ve chosen the wrong man. You’ve made the error of thinking I have something to offer.”

She laughed, amazed that such a bitter sound could come from her.

“How clever of you. Captain Know-All. Over the years, gentlemen have offered me every excuse on record to explain their reluctance to court me. I have been responsible for more dead great aunts, horses with the colic, broken buggy axles and even cases of the measles than any other woman in Boston. But this is a first.” She heard herself babbling, but she feared that if she stopped, she would waver. She would weep. She might even blurt out the truth.

“I can honestly say that you’re the first to declare yourself ineligible on the basis of your own personal qualities—or lack thereof. I congratulate you.

That was very original.”

He stood.

“Christ, Isadora. I’m not like the others. You know damned well I’m not.”

She forced herself to wave her hand in a dismissive gesture.

“It really doesn’t matter. I’m told gentlemen have amorous encounters all the time. You’re no different. Surely your lack of moral character is not worth dwelling on when there is so much work to do.” Doggedly she opened the folio and glanced at the papers. She could not see a word—they all melted together in a blur of unshed tears.

He grasped a shroud, freshets of wind plucking at his hair and shirt.

She kept waiting for him to leave, but he didn’t. He simply stood there.

She made a show of leafing through the papers.

Finally Ryan spoke.

“About that day—if anything, that is, if you should find yourself with child, I’ll make things right, I swear it.”

Then he turned and walked away.

Her hands dropped inadvertently to her middle. A baby. The very idea filled her with terror and excitement. But at the heart of her wonder lay a deep sadness.

Didn’t he understand? Nothing would ever be right again.

Journey stared pointedly at the cup in Ryan’s hand. “It won’t help, you know.”

Ryan leaned against the wheel. He didn’t need to steer, for the helm was lashed in place. The sails had been set for days on the starboard tack; with the present steady winds, they’d make landfall in record time.

“What makes you think I’m looking for help?” he asked peevishly.

Journey chuckled in that deep, knowing way of his.

“That’s your third cup of rum since Isadora came out on deck.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed. When did she come out on deck?”

Laughing harder. Journey took the cup from him. “Oh, you got it bad, don’t you?” He drank the rum with an exaggerated swallow.

“So what you going to do about it?”

Ryan parked one hip on the rail, folded his arms and scowled up at the foredeck. The men were giving Isadora dancing lessons. They had already introduced her to sailors’ jigs and schottisches; this evening they’d moved on to ballroom dancing.

While Luigi and Chips played a broken-sounding waltz on mouth organ and fiddle, Ralph Izard led Isadora through the steps. The others clapped the one-two-three rhythm with their hands or drank from their tin cups with little fingers daintily crooked out.

Isadora’s bare feet pattered with increasing assurance on the bare wood of the deck. She wore a simple skirt and blouse and had one of Gerald’s bandannas tied jauntily around her head. Her cheeks glowed in the amber sunset, and above the airy music, her laughter flowed like a banner of silk.

Watching her, Ryan felt a powerful jolt of desire, curiously tempered by a rush of tenderness. Before his very eyes he had watched her turn from a prune-lipped spinster who distrusted the world to a laughing young woman with a lust for life. Her transformation fascinated him.

“Where you reckon Izard learned that fancy-ass dancing?” Journey asked.

Ryan kept his eyes on the waltzing couple.

“He grew up the son of a New York shipping tycoon. Had a gentleman’s education, but he had a falling-out with his family and went to sea.” Ryan was relieved when Journey didn’t ask the reason for the rift. The chief mate had outraged his family by taking an African wife.

The waltz ended, and Isadora pantomimed the breathless pleasure of a debutante, fluttering a fan the Doctor had fashioned of chicken feathers.

“Why’d you quit courting her?” Journey asked.

Ryan looked at him sharply. He’d hoped to keep his unwise affair with her a secret. He’d hoped the lunacy of falling in love with her would escape Journey’s notice.

“I never should have courted her to begin with.” He paced across the cockpit as Isadora and the men formed the lines of an elegant country reel.