Taming Charlotte (28 page)

The sultan took Charlotte’s hand and led her off into the dusk, and Patrick sprang away from the wall, remembering
what
he’d
done when he’d lured her into the shadows and lifted her dress.

In the next moment, however, he stopped himself. Charlotte deserved to make her own choice, he thought. Besides, surely she wouldn’t want to stay in the palace, to live with the other women and be summoned to Khalif like a servant when he wanted her.

Patrick bit his lower lip. Not a few of the female sex were actually happy as members of a harem. They had every luxury, after all, and the attentions of their husband were rare enough not to become tiresome. If Charlotte married Khalif, she would have jewels, carriages, the grandest of clothes—

He made a mental note to buy her a string of pearls or maybe a diamond necklace if she chose to remain with him. There would be no need of a carriage on the island, but maybe he could have a boat built for her. Yes, a fancy barge, worthy of a modern-day Cleopatra.

Charlotte emerged from the darkness as he watched, and approached Patrick with a determined step. “Khalif has proposed marriage,” she told him, with a solemn gravity he had not expected. “Do you have anything to say, Mr. Trevarren?”

Patrick gaped at her for a moment, then barked in a furious whisper, “Of course I have something to say! I want you with me, where you belong.”

“Enough to marry me?”

“We
are
married.”

“Here, perhaps. But once we get beyond the borders of Riz, we’ll be living in sin.”

Patrick looked for some sign of humor in her face, but she seemed totally serious. “I see no reason to change things,” he told her. “Our arrangement has worked very well up until now.”

“It just stopped working,” Charlotte answered. “Unless you promise to marry me, before a priest or a minister of the gospel, I’m staying here.”

“You can’t be serious,” Patrick challenged, angry at the realization that she held a winning hand. “You hate this place. Even as a
kadin,
you would only be one of several—”

Charlotte interrupted with an eloquent sigh. “I would not have to live here,” she said. “Khalif promised to buy me a house in Paris and have a magistrate marry us legally.”

The heat of anger surged into Patrick’s face. Khalif hadn’t said anything
to him
about setting Charlotte up in France and offering her a wedding! “Why, that—”

Charlotte blocked his way when he would have gone around her. “Fighting will solve nothing,” she said, in a tone that made him want, just briefly, to throttle her. “Besides, if you attack the sultan, his men will play croquet with your head. Do I have your promise, or not?”

It was blackmail, as far as Patrick was concerned, but some well-honed instinct warned him not to say so. “All right,” he said. “You have my promise. We’ll be married as soon as possible.”

A
T LAST, CHARLOTTE THOUGHT, STANDING NEAR THE BOW OF THE
Enchantress
and gazing toward the horizon, they were at sea. The misty salt air was like medicine, and even the sway of the deck beneath her feet was a welcome sensation. She did not look back at the palace; the place was imprinted on her memory for all time.

Patrick appeared beside her, bracing himself with his forearms against the railing, the wind ruffling his raven hair. “There’s a surprise for you in our cabin,” he said.

Charlotte studied his profile for a long moment, marveling at the power of the emotions his very presence could rouse in her. She drew a deep breath and took a plunge every bit as dangerous as if she’d dived over the side of the ship to swim with the sharks. “I don’t think we should share a cabin,” she replied, ignoring the mention of a surprise even though she was wildly curious. “It isn’t precisely proper, under the circumstances.”

He turned slowly, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her. “What circumstances?” he queried, in a dangerously low tone. “We are married, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“We aren’t,” Charlotte argued softly, squaring her shoulders. “There is no written record of a union between us anywhere in the Christian world.”

Patrick sighed, leaned a little more heavily against the rail. “That didn’t seem to bother you when we were in Spain,” he pointed out.

“I had other concerns then,” Charlotte replied. “I think you should bunk with the crew until we make port and find a judge or minister.”

He was ominously silent, and Charlotte was reminded of the great hush that sometimes descended on the land around Puget Sound just before a violent windstorm. “It seems to me, Mrs. Trevarren, that you are slightly tardy in your virtue. Have you forgotten that my child is growing inside you?”

Charlotte drew herself up in valiant resolve. She could not force Patrick to love her, she knew that. But if she didn’t have his respect, there would be no hope for them. “I haven’t forgotten,” she said, at length. “I will not be your mistress, Patrick.”

He glowered down at her. “You were willing to go to Paris and live in a house Khalif provided.”

“Khalif offered me a real marriage. Besides, I never considered accepting his proposal. I just wanted to illustrate to you that my affections are not to be trifled with. It would be most unwise to take me for granted.”

When Patrick didn’t respond, but simply glared as if he would dearly love to fling her overboard, Charlotte turned in what she hoped was a dramatic and graceful swirl of skirts and marched off to investigate the surprise awaiting her in the captain’s cabin.

On the bed she found a stack of high-quality sketching books, tied together with a wide blue ribbon. There was also a fine set of water-mixed paints, colored chalks, some special pens, and half a dozen bottles of ink in various shades.

Charlotte was charmed and delighted, but she was also determined not to let gratitude overcome good sense. Patrick was a willful man, and if she did not set adequate
boundaries for their relationship, great unhappiness would result.

With a smile, she took up one of the drawing pads and the box of bright chalks and returned to the deck. She was not one to keep a journal, not in the common fashion at least, but Charlotte liked to put her dreams and memories down on paper in the form of sketches. She had not had much opportunity to draw since her abduction in the
souk
in Riz, and the prospect of making pictures was a wondrous pleasure to her.

She found an out-of-the-way place on the upper deck, sat on a crate with her limbs curled gracefully beneath her, and began to record her experiences in detail. She drew harem dancers, and men fighting with swords, and a desert camp beneath an enormous moon. She rendered Patrick’s likeness more than any other, however, showing him as he’d looked in profile that morning, standing at the railing.

“That’s very fine work, Mrs. Trevarren,” a voice observed.

Charlotte looked up, startled, and smiled to see Mr. Cochran standing before her. She turned to a fresh page in the pad and began to sketch his image as they talked.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve always drawn, you know, and I was trained in Europe.”

Mr. Cochran crouched before her, reminding her of an Indian at ease beside a campfire. “You should take steps to preserve those pictures,” he said amiably. “You’ll want to show them to your grandchildren, when you tell of your adventures in Riz.”

Charlotte sighed. “I haven’t thought that far ahead,” she confided, still sketching. “At the moment I’m still trying to sort it all out for myself.”

They lingered in companionable silence for a time, then Mr. Cochran said, “I was sent to tell you that your dinner is waiting in the captain’s cabin.”

Charlotte was hungry; the fresh sea air and sunshine had given her a hearty appetite. She closed her sketch pad, gathered her chalks back into their box, and stood.

There was no sign of Patrick when she reached the cabin,
now crowded with trunks containing all the new clothes made for her in Spain. Although Charlotte told herself quite firmly that she was relieved to be alone, a deeper and more insistent part of her nature was disappointed.

She poured water from a brass ewer into a basin and washed her face and hands, then sat down at Patrick’s desk to survey the contents of her tray. There was fresh fish, riced potatoes, green beans cooked with bacon, and hot tea.

Charlotte ate with exuberance.

She was finished, and replete, when Patrick swept in like a fierce wind scouring a canyon. He stood just inside the doorway, arms folded, regarding her in a way that made her distinctly uneasy. Especially since she had left the desk to sit on the bed, with her back to the wall and her legs outstretched, the sketchbook in her lap.

At last the captain spoke. “You haven’t changed your mind about our sleeping arrangements, I presume?”

Charlotte shook her head, struggling to put down the rebellion of emotion stirring in her heart and soul. She would miss Patrick’s lovemaking, for she had reveled in it, but she knew she must make every effort not to show her feelings. If Mr. Trevarren were to take her into his arms and kiss her, for instance, or simply touch her in some of the ways he had, her fortitude would surely melt like so much candle wax.

“That is correct,” she said formally and at some length. She kept the sketchbook in front of her like a shield and primly smoothed the skirts of her dress.

“You completely discount our marriage, then?”

Charlotte lifted her chin. “We have no marriage,” she said stubbornly.

Patrick looked at her in silence for a long moment, then sighed philosophically and said, “Very well.” With that, he clapped his hands together. “I divorce you,” he said. He clapped again. “I divorce you.” And a third time. “I divorce you.”

Even though she herself had denied the existence of a marriage between them, Patrick’s gesture came as a severe shock to Charlotte. She knew she’d gone pale, and that her
lower lip was trembling, and that she was going to cry at any moment.

Patrick nodded politely, opened the door, and walked out of the cabin without another word.

Charlotte sat stunned, staring at the place where he’d stood, as if by concentrating she could conjure him back. Tears brimmed along her lower lashes and coursed down her cheeks.

Her unreal marriage seemed very real indeed, now that it had been terminated. What had she done?

Patrick did not make another appearance that night; he sent the cook’s helper, Tipper Doon, for the toiletries and fresh clothes he needed.

Feeling especially lonely, Charlotte took out pen and ink and paper and drew her father’s image, then added Lydia’s deceptively delicate-looking personage at his side. On succeeding pages she sketched Millie and each of her brothers, and her beloved uncle Devon as well.

The dear faces were both a comfort to her and a reminder of how very far from home she really was. She had pinned the drawings to the walls of the cabin to dry, and she cried as she washed, cleaned her teeth, put on her nightgown, and brushed her hair. After lying abed for a long time, the sea rocking the ship as gently as a loving mother would rock a cradle, she drifted off into a fitful and restless sleep.

The first dream came that night.

Charlotte awakened with a cry, sitting bolt upright in bed, groping wildly for Patrick before she remembered with dismay that she had banned him from the cabin and he had subsequently “divorced” her.

She tried to remember what had happened in the nightmare, in order to dismiss it as mere fancy and thereby calm herself, but she recalled nothing except a sense of doom and helpless horror. The feeling lingered long after she had lain down again, long after her breathing and heartbeat had slowed to their normal meters.

It was the pregnancy, she finally concluded, laying her hands protectively over her abdomen, one above the other. Lydia had sometimes been very testy and emotional when
she was carrying her children. Her stepmother had had dreams, too, and nights that were altogether sleepless, and once she’d left the family dinner table in tears because Brigham had announced his intention to vote for a Republican president.

Charlotte sighed again, then tossed and turned for a while, trying to get comfortable. She missed curling up in the warm shelter of Patrick’s embrace, and feeling his hard chest against her back.

Finally, beset by pure exhaustion, Charlotte slept.

They passed Gibraltar early the next morning—it was a breathtaking sight, and Charlotte’s pencil flew over her sketch pad. Patrick might have anchored the
Enchantress
there, at the busy port, long enough for them to be married at least, but he made no effort to do so.

Charlotte avoided him, which was relatively easy because he was making every effort to stay out of her path. She considered going to him and trying to institute some sort of peace, but that idea went wholly against the grain. After all,
he
had been the arbitrary one, with his summary hand-clapping divorce.

Still, Charlotte missed Patrick, and not just in her bed. She mourned the silent, secret language that had grown between them, the shared laughter, even the rousing disagreements.

The
Enchantress
coursed gracefully along the coast of Africa, the wind warm and ample in her sails. Charlotte stood at the railing for hours at a time, watching the tropical shoreline for any sign of an elephant or a zebra or a lion. From a practical standpoint, she knew such exotic animals would only be seen far inland, but that didn’t stop her from hoping.