Taming Charlotte (40 page)

Patrick pulled palm fronds and other debris from the barrel of the largest cannon. “Probably after nightfall,” he replied. “Trouble usually strikes when a man’s just getting back on his feet after some other calamity, Cochran. You know that.”

Cochran spat. “Well, the boys are as ready as they can be, Captain. I’ve seen to that.” He paused, cleared his throat uneasily. “What about the women? Shouldn’t we hide them somewhere? After all, if it’s Raheem that’s making my skin crawl and the hair stand out at the back of my neck this way, then he’s come here to collect Charlotte.”

Rage boiled up inside Patrick, but he immediately brought it under control. If ever he’d needed to keep his wits about him, it was now. He nodded in grim agreement, recalling Khalif’s warning that the pirate would never rest until he’d gotten what he saw as justice. “It’s Raheem,” he said. He sighed, rolled his shoulders in an effort to release some of the tension that knotted his muscles. “And yes—we have to try to keep the women out of sight. God only knows whether they’ll stay hidden, though.”

“They won’t want to risk the kind of scolding Miss Nora got,” Cochran said, sounding for all the world as though he truly believed such rubbish.

“Have you been paying attention, Cochran?” Patrick snapped. “Not one of those chits would hesitate to defy my orders if it suited them. Sometimes I wish I were the sort to take a woman over my knee—that’s the only really dependable method of keeping the creatures in line, you know—but the fact is, I just don’t have the heart to do it.”

Cochran smiled and slapped Patrick lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Captain. Times are changing, and men of sound spirit know that women are for loving, not hurting.”

Patrick set his teeth. He could be philosophical about the running of his household now. What would happen, though, if he came home from the sea someday and found that Charlotte had cradled some other man between her soft thighs, given a stranger comfort at her breast?

He feared what he might do in such circumstances even more than Charlotte’s betrayal itself.

“Have you seen my wife this morning?” he asked, after a brief silence, as he left the cannon behind to start down the gentle slope toward the house.

“Aye,” Cochran answered. “She and the others have gone to the village to help out.”

“Well, get them back here right now,” Patrick grumbled, thinking how easy it would be for Raheem or anyone else to row ashore and snatch his wife and wards from the midst of the peaceful villagers.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Cochran answered, falling into step beside Patrick, “but get them back yourself. I’d sooner tangle with a pack of she-wolves than try to give orders to that lot.”

Patrick swore, but he didn’t give Cochran a second order. He simply went to the stone stables, which, like the house, had stood strong against the storm, and saddled his sorrel gelding for his second visit to the village that day.

Deborah drew in her breath and then gave a horrified cry when she and Charlotte and the others arrived, with Mary Catch-much-fish, at the little community on the far side of the island.

Charlotte was astonished that the servant girl had spoken so lightly of the debacle earlier that morning, on the veranda of the big house. Where huts must have stood before, there were now only craters in the ground—holes filled with seawater.

Old ladies perched on rocks, wailing their laments, and babies squalled. The men were busy repairing fishing boats,
while the younger women gathered foliage and sturdy, flexible wood and stacked it in piles on higher ground.

“Dear Lord,” Charlotte breathed. “The destruction…”

“What shall we do?” Deborah asked, her lovely blue eyes brimming with tears of empathy.

Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but before she got a word out, Jayne took charge.

“Stella and Nora and I will help the others find more building materials. Charlotte—er, Mrs. Trevarren—it would probably be best if you and Deborah helped with the babies. Deborah loves the little mites, and has a way with them, and, well, I don’t think Patrick would want his new wife tromping around in the jungle.”

“Please call me Charlotte,” Mrs. Trevarren said crisply. “And Patrick’s views on feminine deportment are hardly the issue here. I’ll help look after the little ones, but it won’t be because I’m trying to tiptoe around my husband’s temper. I love children, and that’s all the reason I need.”

Jayne smiled, and Charlotte knew that in that moment she and the other woman had become lifelong friends. “Well, then,” she said. “Let’s roll up our sleeves and try to be of some assistance to these people.”

Despite the din of the grandmothers, who mourned the village even though not one human life had been lost, and the crying of the many hungry babies, that was a happy time for Charlotte. She gathered the chubby infants close by the armload, delighting in their dark, beautiful faces, loving them for their innocence. She and Deborah dried their tears and gave them coconut milk in place of the nourishment their busy mothers could not offer.

In the meantime, Jayne, Stella, and Nora garnered foliage and thick vines and branches with as much industry as any of the natives. Everyone seemed to be feeling very pleased with themselves when suddenly Patrick came riding along the white beach, with an air of mission about him.

A baby wriggling in the crook of each arm, Charlotte picked her barefoot way around the muddy edges of the flooded village and went to meet him. The rich leather of his saddle creaked as he turned to look out to sea, then he met Charlotte’s eyes again.

His expression, grim before, softened visibly. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

Charlotte hoisted the squirming babies higher against her shoulders and laughed softly. “Oh, Patrick,
everything
is dangerous. If you had your way, I’d just sit in the parlor, day in and day out, stitching silly samplers and waiting for you to come home from some grand adventure.”

Patrick swung one leg deftly over the saddle and slid down to stand facing Charlotte. “Would that really be so terrible?” he asked, and he sounded serious.

A pang clutched at Charlotte’s heart, unbearably sweet. How she loved this man, and how she wished she didn’t! “Yes, Patrick,” she answered, in a gentle tone. “For me, it would be like being cast into prison.”

He sighed, this husband of hers, and reached out to take the heavier of the babies into his arms. “I’ll never understand why being safe means so little to you,” he admitted.

She extended her hand and ran her fingertip lightly over the buttons of his shirt, delighting in the almost imperceptible shiver he gave in response. “If you really want to protect me, Patrick,” she teased, in a low, impish voice, “perhaps you should stop making love to me. Sometimes I truly think I’m going to die of the pleasure.” Charlotte paused, leaned closer to him, well aware that her words had made him hard and that there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. “I tell you, Captain, my heart starts racing and I can’t get my breath and, well, my mind goes off somewhere on its own. It just isn’t
safer

“Stop it.” He scowled. The base of his neck was reddening as he spoke.

Charlotte laughed and Patrick swore as the naked baby set a stain spreading across the front of his shirt. She was still laughing when he muttered another swear word, thrust the child back into her arms, and strode over to a tide pool to wash.

When he returned to her side, Patrick was bare-chested, having rinsed both his skin and the shirt in salt water. The garment was hanging over a nearby branch.

Charlotte looked at him, suffered a few poignant recollections
of the night before, and felt a tightening sensation in her depths. She averted her eyes.

Patrick worked as tirelessly as anyone else through the morning, helping to construct the new huts on the rise above the old village. At midday, however, after yet another troubled glance toward the horizon, he suddenly ordered his wards back to the main house, telling them to keep away from the shore and hide themselves in the appointed place as soon as they arrived home. Then he collected his sundried shirt, hoisted Charlotte onto his horse’s back, and climbed up after her.

“What is it?” she asked, alarmed, sensing a sharp, lethal alertness in him.

The horse danced restlessly beneath them as Patrick spoke not to his wife, but to the villagers. He addressed them in their own language, and his words sent them scrambling. They gathered the babies, the small children, and the noisy old ladies and vanished into the foliage.

“Visitors,” Patrick said, taking a small spyglass from a leather pouch behind his saddle and training it on the distant blue-green line where the sky and sea met.

Charlotte’s heart somersaulted over several beats, and she squinted, unable to see anything but a speck bobbing on the edge of the world. “That’s good news, isn’t it? If we’re having company, I mean. Now we won’t be marooned anymore, and perhaps Gideon can go on to Australia and get started on his conversions.”

“Gideon?” Patrick echoed, arching one eyebrow. He handed her the costly brass telescope.

Charlotte offered no reply, but instead squinted to see through the glass. With some difficulty, she found the object of his concern—a slow, ominous-looking ship with no identifying flag flying from its mast.

“Pirates?” she breathed.

“Raheem,” Patrick replied, quite matter-of-factly.

Charlotte gave an involuntary shiver. She knew only too well that when she’d been kidnapped in the
souk
that memorable day in June, she’d been meant as a sort of gift for the pirate. Instead, of course, Raheem’s men had lost her in
a gambling wager and she’d ended up being delivered to Patrick Trevarren’s cabin in a burlap sack.

“He must be a very vindictive man,” she observed, with a certain loftiness of tone, as Patrick reined the horse away from the village and back down the beach. “Just imagine coming all this way only to carry off one ordinary woman.”

Patrick chuckled, and his voice was low as it passed her ear. “You are no ordinary woman, goddess. And I would travel much farther to collect you. On that score at least, I can hardly fault Raheem.”

Despite the danger, and the general seriousness of their circumstances, Charlotte felt a rush of pleasure at Patrick’s words. Most of the time he gave the distinct impression he couldn’t wait to have her off his hands, and the knowledge that he valued her enough to sail the seas in search of her was uplifting.

It was romantic, like a scene from one of her fantasies, racing over the sands on horseback, encircled by the strong arms of the man she loved. When they arrived at the stables, however, Patrick was all business.

He swung down from the saddle, lifted Charlotte after him, and told her in a clipped tone, “Get inside and take your place with the others. Jacoba will tell you where to go.”

“I’d like to suggest a few places
you
could go,” Charlotte replied sweetly. “To blazes, for instance.”

“Charlotte,” Patrick growled, unbuckling the cinch and then pulling the saddle from the gelding’s quivering back, “I have neither the time nor the patience for any of your mischief.” He set the saddle on a stall railing, pointed Charlotte toward the house, and gave her a light swat on the bottom to get her moving.
“Go.”
he warned, when she, flushed and furious, started to protest.

She sighed and then, wishing she were bigger and stronger so she could challenge Patrick to a fisticuffs and bloody his nose, she gave up and obeyed his command. Jacoba was waiting for her inside, and immediately bustled her along an inner hallway leading into a part of the house Charlotte had never visited before.

Reaching the end of the passage, Jacoba moved a cabinet aside, revealing a door, which made no sound as it was
opened. The hinges, Charlotte noticed, had been so well oiled that they gleamed in the dinginess.

On the other side of the threshold was a surprisingly pleasant-looking room, equipped with Roman couches, chairs, candelabras, and plenty of food and books. Nora, Deborah, Stella, and Jayne sat around a table, embroiled in a game of cards.

The whole scene rather reminded Charlotte of Khalif’s harem. That place, like this one, had afforded many comforts, and both were little more than fancy prisons.

“Will you join us, Charlotte?” Deborah asked eagerly, scooting aside so that the newcomer might pull up a chair beside hers. “We’re playing poker.” She lowered her voice, as if confessing to a magnificent indiscretion. “We’re wagering, too—I’ve already lost every hair ribbon I own—and you’ll want to pay special attention because I do believe Nora and Jayne are cheating.”

Charlotte found a chair and entered the circle. Nora and Jayne, instead of being insulted by Deborah’s accusation, were only amused.

“You have always been a poor loser,” Nora told the youngest girl.

Jayne sat with one foot resting on the seat of her chair, absorbed in a study of her cards. “Let’s not bicker, ladies,” she said reflectively. “After all, we might be shut up in this place for days.”

Charlotte flushed. In many ways, it was her fault that the islanders were in danger and that she and the others had to hide out in a secret room. She’d begun it all by venturing out to the
souk
that day, when she’d been told to stay away. “I’m sorry,” she said.

The other four looked at her in bewilderment and surprise.

“Sorry?” Nora echoed. “For what?”

“I’ve endangered all of you,” Charlotte confessed miserably. “Those pirates are here because of me.”

Nora’s eyes rounded with interest; she slapped down her cards and leaned forward. “You’re teasing, Charlotte Trevarren.”

“Aren’t you?” Deborah asked, uncertainly.

“They’re after you?” Jayne demanded, gesturing toward the outside world to indicate approaching trouble.

Charlotte nodded, swallowed, then told her story in halting words, from the moment she’d been kidnapped in the marketplace in Riz to the arrival of the doomed
Enchantress
on the shores of the island only a short time before.

“Tarnation!” Stella cried, when the tale had unfolded. “That’s just plain splendid!”