Taming Charlotte (39 page)

“Do you think we’ll be killed?” Deborah dared to ask, her voice small and shaky. Just then, she seemed even younger than she was. “Will the house really collapse?”

Charlotte reached out and took the girl’s hand. “No, love. We won’t be killed. Jacoba was exaggerating just now—the walls of this place are as sturdy as the island itself.”

“I think we should sing,” Stella announced.

“Oh, Lord,” fussed Jayne. “Isn’t it bad enough that we’re sitting out a hurricane in a musty cellar with a monkey for company? Do we have to listen to you bellowing too?”

Charlotte smiled. “We might as well enjoy ourselves,” she said, with a shrug of one shoulder. Moments later, they were all singing a silly song at the tops of their voices—except for Jacoba, that is—the monkey included.

Soon the men came, all except Patrick and Mr. Cochran, bringing blankets and a fresh supply of candles, along with baskets of food, and milk cans full of water.

Hours had passed when the wind died and the great house finally stopped trembling on its foundations. Charlotte was lying awake on a large crate, wrapped tightly in her blanket, when she heard the door creak open.

“It’s over,” she heard Patrick say. He sounded weary.

She sat up, tossed the blanket aside, and went to him. “Are you all right?”

He looked away, and she saw a muscle flex at the base of his throat. “Yes,” he answered hoarsely, “but the cane crop is gone, and so is every outbuilding on the property.”

Charlotte laid her hands lightly against his upper arms, which were hard under his torn and dirty wedding shirt. She told him, with her eyes, that she wanted to help him forget the lost crops and general wreckage, at least for that night.

I need you,
he conceded, with nothing more than a look.

“Everyone,” Mr. Cochran said in a merry voice, “back to your own soft beds! The worst is over.”

Patrick stood looking down at Charlotte for a long time, then he took one of her hands into his, raised it to his lips, gently kissed the knuckles. They were alone—even the monkey had gone—when he whispered, “Oh, Mrs. Trevarren, why must you be so beautiful?”

She slipped her arms around his lean waist. “I don’t have
any shoes on,” she whispered, letting his question pass because she didn’t know how to answer it.

He laughed as he lifted her hem and saw ten toes glowing like dust-smudged alabaster in the dying light of the candles. “Remind me to lecture you unmercifully for your disobedience,” he said, whisking her up into his arms and starting toward the doorway.

“Speaking of that—” Charlotte began, frowning.

She felt his sigh as he carried her up the stone steps and into the main part of that enormous, wind-battered house. “If you’re about to berate me for shouting at Nora earlier, wife, save your breath. Had I allowed her to get by with endangering herself like that, what would have kept the others from going off on tangents of their own and very likely getting themselves killed? There are times, my beloved, when expediency must take precedence over more gracious inclinations.”

Charlotte could not refute his reasoning. In times of crisis the lives of everyone on the island depended on cooperation, and there could only be one leader. Undeniably that was Patrick.

She nuzzled his throat mischievously as he carried her through the dark house.

“Are you sorry you married me?” she asked, only half teasing.

“Right now,” Patrick replied, mounting the main staircase with agile speed, “I’m very glad you’re my wife. I need to lose myself in you, Charlotte, more than ever, and I can do that with a free heart because this time you really are Mrs. Patrick Trevarren.”

She nibbled at his earlobe. “I am indeed.”

“Don’t tease me,” he warned, pushing open the door to the master suite with a none-too-gentle motion of one foot. “I’m already hard as the mainmast on a sailing ship, and it’s all I can do to get you as far as the bed before I take you.”

Charlotte trembled with naughty anticipation. In this one area of their life together, she was willing to be submissive at least part of the time. “Then perhaps you should be satisfied immediately, Captain, so that you can take your proper time making love to me.”

He set her on her feet, lifted her chin with one hand. “You are a sorceress,” he said, his voice husky with emotion and the plain needs of a man. “Just touching you, just being close to you like this, makes my blood burn in my veins. What have you done to me, Charlotte Trevarren?”

She unfastened his breeches, button by button, slowly, slowly, pausing to cup him in her hand now and then and listen to his involuntary moans of pleasure. Finally she turned her back to him, a wordless instruction to undo her dress, and he was awkward in his obedience.

When the dress was gone, Charlotte took off her petticoats, her camisole, and then her drawers. Patrick stood staring hungrily at her breasts, still fully clad himself, as if entranced.

Gently Charlotte smoothed his breeches down over his sleek, muscular hips, then pressed him into a chair without undressing him further. His manhood rose high and hard against his belly, awaiting her.

Charlotte was wanton in her joy, and she came to stand astraddle of Patrick’s lap, lowering herself onto him inch by pulsing, vibrant inch.

Patrick groaned and let his head fall back as she rode him, and when he tried to quicken the pace, she withdrew. He uttered a hoarse plea and she gave him his pleasure again, but sparingly.

“Oh, God, Charlotte,” he finally gasped, when she had subjected him to an agony of pleasure. “Please—give me what I need…”

She deliberately misunderstood and leaned forward to brush his lips with a hard, ready nipple. He took it hungrily, greedily, and suddenly Charlotte’s own instincts overtook her. She whimpered as Patrick took command, continuing to suckle even as he bent her back on his lap and invaded her silken shelter with the tips of his fingers. When he began to stroke her rhythmically, as well as move inside her, Charlotte went wild.

Patrick teased her for a while, then finally gave up her breast, grasped her hips in his powerful hands, and raised and lowered her on his shaft in earnest.

Charlotte could not have been silent in her surrender even if she had the wits to try, because the pleasure was so keen. It consumed her, like a fire, and made her beg hoarsely for satisfaction and then cry out, long and loud, while her body flexed repeatedly, in a graceful fury of passion. Patrick came violently as she sank against his chest in exhaustion, bucking beneath her and stirring a series of smaller releases that made her groan in surprised reluctance.

They sat, still joined and recovering, for some considerable time. Then, matter-of-factly, Patrick arranged Charlotte on his lap again, still filling her with his inescapable manhood. She arched backward, against his hands, while he kissed her breasts and flicked at their tips with his tongue.

Soon Charlotte was writhing once more, and Patrick had her again, stroking the sleek planes and curves of her body and speaking soft words of solace as she convulsed around him.

It was a long, delicious night, and when Charlotte awakened in the morning, there was bright sunlight coming through the slim spaces between the boards covering the windows. Patrick’s side of the bed was empty.

Untroubled, Charlotte stretched sensuously, her flesh still humming with the singular well-being Patrick’s attentions inevitably brought to it. This time their marriage was legal and binding in their own culture, and Patrick could not get rid of her on a whim. Their child was going to have an honorable birth, and for a time at least, Charlotte would be truly happy.

She didn’t delude herself; Patrick had not changed his mind about leaving her in Quade’s Harbor. Still, it might be months before they were even able to leave the island, let alone sail north to Washington Territory and get a house built. Charlotte consoled herself with the fact that she would have plenty of time to bring her husband around to her way of thinking.

After a luxurious interval, she rose, put on a wrapper, and went into the next room for a bath. When she was dressed, she descended the stairs and found that Mary Catch-much-fish and even the fierce Jacoba treated her with a new
deference. They called her “Mrs. Trevarren” now, in quiet, respectful voices, and insisted on serving her breakfast on the veranda, so she could enjoy the sunshine.

The landscape was a scene of wreckage, littered with uprooted palm trees and sundered branches—Charlotte thought the aftermath of the Great Flood must have been much the same—and part of the veranda roof had fallen through. However, enough debris had been cleared away at the opposite end for a very gracious table to be set.

“Where is the captain this morning?” Charlotte asked. She reached for the teapot, but Mary slapped her hand away, making a good-natured
tsk-tsk
sound, and poured the brew herself.

“Him be out looking at the fields,” the maid replied. “The cane will be wantin’ to be replanted, I think.”

Charlotte blushed, mortified at the sudden realization that she hadn’t once thought of the island’s natives, not even when the hurricane was at its very worst. “Mary…your people—what happened to them?”

Mary shrugged and favored Charlotte with a blinding smile. “They hide in caves when the big winds come, like ever and ever, since the time of dreams. It be well with them.”

“Their homes—?”

The smile intensified. “They build new ones,” she said, and then she bustled back into the house, as cheerful as if there had never been a storm at all.

T
HE CANE CROPS WERE LAID TO WASTE, AND THE NATIVE VIL
lage on the other side of the island was in ruins, and yet the sun shone as brightly as if God had set it blazing just that morning. The sky was a fragile, soul-piercing blue, and the breeze came in cool and fresh off the crystalline sea.

As Patrick inspected the cannon salvaged from the decks of the
Enchantress
before she went under—it appeared that all the weapons had withstood nature’s rage—he reflected on his situation.

The loss of that year’s sugarcane would certainly tax his resources, as would the necessary destruction of the
Enchantress,
but he knew he could recover from both disasters with time and hard work. Eventually, too, a friendly ship was sure to appear on the horizon, Rowling’s blasted prayers notwithstanding. He and Charlotte—Patrick paused to smile, recalling what a tigress his wife had been the night before—would eventually sail on to Seattle, where he could arrange for the construction of a new vessel. He also meant to oversee the building of a fine house in that community, one that would shelter his wife and child during his long sea
voyages. That way, Charlotte could see her family often without being too close.

Once matters had been arranged in Seattle, they would both proceed to Quade’s Harbor for a visit. Charlotte might stay as long as she wanted, though Patrick would come and go.

He leaned against the cold metal of the cannon barrel, his grin fading. Surely Charlotte had only been baiting him when she’d vowed to take a lover if he left her alone.

She wouldn’t
dare
do such a thing—would she?

He thought uncomfortably of the time he’d first encountered Miss Charlotte Quade; she’d been fifty feet off the deck of his clipper, clad in skirts no less, and clinging to the rigging. On their next meeting, she’d ventured into the
souk
in Riz, a place where a sensible angel would fear to tread.

Hellfire and damnation, Patrick thought. If she’d risk those other outrageous escapades, what or who could keep Charlotte from making good on her threat to take up with another man?

Inwardly Patrick seethed. The image of Charlotte sharing her favors with anyone other than himself was too unbearable even to entertain.

Though he was not a man to be particularly concerned with the opinions of others, he dreaded the inevitable scandal. Every ship, every train and stagecoach and hay wagon, would carry the news of Charlotte Trevarren’s wayward affections, until there wasn’t a gossip in the western hemisphere who hadn’t heard the sordid details.

Patrick swore, moved on to inspect the next cannon for storm damage. His countenance brightened all of a sudden as he considered Charlotte’s father, the legendary Brigham Quade. Patrick was barely acquainted with the man, but he knew Quade well enough to be certain that Charlotte would be made to behave herself while in his charge.

Cochran scaled the ridge, scratched his head at the sight of his captain, who was by then whistling cheerfully as he prepared to defend his small but perfect kingdom.

“What are you so happy about?” the first mate demanded, sounding a little breathless from the climb. “Here you are,
with a cash crop crushed to the ground and Lord only knows what kind of trouble coming in on the next tide—”

“Have you forgotten that I’ve taken a bride?” Patrick interrupted, glad to be diverted from the track his thoughts had taken. “And that last night was my wedding night?”

“I had indeed,” Cochran admitted, wiping his brow with a sun-bronzed, sinewy forearm. His ears reddened, and he cleared his throat, then turned to gaze uneasily out to sea. “When do you suppose he’ll show up—Raheem or whoever that bastard is, lurking out there?”