Taming Charlotte (30 page)

He bolted from his chair, as if her fingers had burned his skin, and staggered out of her reach. His back was still turned to her; she had yet to see his face.

“We’ll reach the island soon,” she said, in a quavering voice, trying to offer him the same hope he had extended to her the night before.

Patrick turned, swayed slightly, and waved Charlotte away with a distracted motion of one hand, as though she were an insect. “Tomorrow,” he confirmed, in tones she barely recognized. “But I won’t be leaving the ship until the last man can be brought ashore, and that might be weeks.”

“But you said—”

He looked at her at last, and she saw the sickness move in his features, like a second entity. “I said you would be going ashore, and you will. To send you is to risk every life on the island, but I can do nothing else. The rest of us will stay until the danger is past.”

Charlotte moved toward Patrick, sensing what was about to happen, but before she reached him, his knees buckled and he sank to the deck with a crash. She screamed once, and fell across Patrick’s chest in abject sorrow, and it took Mr. Cochran and several other men to pull her away.

T
ORCHES BURNED ALONG THE SHORE OF THE ISLAND, SHINING
like golden stars of welcome in the dark night. To the crew and passengers of the
Enchantress,
however, the land might have been beyond the far side of heaven, rather than within shouting distance, for they dared not leave the ship.

Charlotte stood on deck, exhausted and haggard from battling the tenacious illness that had felled Patrick and a number of the other men, and looked with yearning at the flickering lights and the shadows of trees.

“Oh, Mr. Cochran,” she said to the man standing at her side, “I do long for fresh food and solid ground beneath my feet. I want to sleep beside my husband in a bed with crisp, clean sheets, and smell the scents of flowers instead of the stench of this plague.”

The first mate nodded with glum agreement. “Aye, Mrs. Trevarren,” he said, with a sigh. “Sometimes it seems we’re condemned to sail back and forth across the River Styx, you and I, while Satan himself laughs at our predicament.”

Charlotte sagged slightly against the railing, nearly at the end of her strength. By some miracle, she had not fallen sick, but Patrick had been unconscious for several days, and she
could not know whether or not her unborn baby had been affected by the malady. There would be no peace for her until she felt the child move, and until its father was his old arrogant and irascible self again.

She lifted her chin, determined that, for the sake of her man and her baby, as well as herself, she would not fold.

Charlotte spat overboard, furiously and with vigor, and shook her fist. “That’s for the devil,” she said, with purpose. Then she shouted into the gloom, “You’re not going to win, Lucifer, so go back to hell, where you belong, and leave us be!”

Mr. Cochran chuckled, and there was grief as well as amusement in the sound. “Are you truly so intrepid, Mrs. Trevarren, that you would challenge the evil one himself?”

“Yes,” Charlotte replied firmly, but in the next moment her resolve deflated a little. “It’s easier if there is someone to fight, even if that someone is the devil himself,” she told her friend sadly. Then she took up her skirts and turned back, making her way quickly along the deck, down the steps, through the passageway to Patrick’s cabin.

He lay insensate, his skin gray as death and at the same time drenched in sweat, upon the very bed where he had made such vital, tireless, explosive love to Charlotte only days before. Candle flames provided the only light, a dim, funereal glow that made Charlotte shiver.

One by one she lighted the kerosene lanterns and blew out the candles. Then she went to the bedside and began, for the thousandth time, to bathe Patrick’s face and upper body with cool water.

“Patrick?” She had whispered his name again and again, and he had not responded, even with the flicker of an eyelash or the twitch of a muscle, but this time he actually opened his eyes.

Charlotte was not comforted by this, for she viewed his soul through those indigo windows, and it appeared to be receding, drawing back from life. Tears brimmed along her lower lashes and she smiled and took one of his hands in hers.

“You’re home,” she said gently. “We’re at anchor, just a stone’s throw from the shore of your island.”

Patrick sighed. “Good,” he said. For some moments he fought visibly to gather strength. “You’re well, Charlotte? The child—?”

She bent, kissed his pale forehead. “I’m fine, Mr. Trevarren, and your baby is just where you left it.”

He smiled at that, and the sight broke Charlotte’s heart as smoothly as a piece of seasoned wood coming under the ax. “That’s good,” he struggled to say. “And the men? How many survive?”

Charlotte’s instinct was to protect Patrick from the truth, but she knew that could not be done. “Twenty-six,” she answered.

“Fourteen perished then,” Patrick said. He closed his eyes once more, and a single tear slid down over his right temple to glitter in his hair.

She squeezed his hand. “Yes,” she told him softly, “but it seems the worst is over. Five of the men who fell ill are recovering now.”

Again Patrick looked at her. “If I die, bury me on the ridge behind the island house—Jacoba will show you the place.”

“You’d better
not
die, Patrick Trevarren,” Charlotte scolded quickly, holding on to his hand with a tighter grasp, fearing he meant to go right that minute. “I’m depending on you, and so is this child of ours.” She pressed his hand against her belly, hoping to emphasize the reality of the new life they’d conceived together even though there was still no evidence to be felt.

He brought her fingers to his lips, kissed the knuckles. Then he closed his fever-bright eyes and slept.

Charlotte did not let go of his hand, but clutched it in her own as she prayed fervently for Patrick, for their baby, for herself. When there were no words left, no dreams and hopes and pleas that had not been brought before the Almighty, Charlotte stretched herself out beside the man whose soul was joined to hers and slept.

A knock at the cabin door awakened her; she sat bolt upright, fresh from the deepest regions of slumber, and it was a moment before she realized where she was. She turned to Patrick, saw that he was breathing still, and swayed under a crushing flood of gratitude.

“Just a moment,” she called quietly to the visitor waiting on the other side of the door. Rising, Charlotte smoothed her hair and her hopelessly rumpled dress. “Who is it, please?”

“It’s Miss Jacoba McFaylon,” came the reply, in a burr as thick as cold oatmeal. “I’ve come for my beloved captain, and no one will keep me from him, miss, neither you nor that fatheaded Mr. Cochran nor anyone else on this ship.”

Charlotte opened the door and found a plump woman, late in middle age, standing in the outer passage and looking every bit as determined as she’d sounded. She wore a crisply starched housekeeper’s dress and had gray hair and one lazy eye. The other orb, brown and bright as a bird’s, regarded Charlotte with testy curiosity.

“Mr. Trevarren has given orders that he’s not to be taken ashore until all danger is past,” Charlotte said, somewhat lamely, stepping back to admit Mrs. McFaylon, who entered like the fiery breath of God.

“I’ve never followed his damn orders anyway,” the Scotswoman said. She bustled over to the bed, lifted one of Patrick’s eyelids, and peered beneath it.

“Good God, Jacoba,” he blurted out, with more strength than Charlotte had seen him evidence since before his illness, “you’d scare a man straight into perdition without giving it a second thought!”

Jacoba nodded wisely. “I told Mr. Cochran as how you’d come round soon enough, if I could just lay a hand to you, and I was right,” she said. She gestured toward Charlotte. “And who’s this pretty bit, pray tell?”

Charlotte smarted under the older woman’s words and tone; they combined to make her feel like a stray mongrel with mange and a bad smell.

Patrick’s eyes seemed to dance, just for a moment, as he looked past his housekeeper to Charlotte. “She’s my wife—sort of. It’s a long story, I’m afraid—one I haven’t the strength to tell just now. I want you to take very good care of Mrs. Trevarren, Jacoba—no matter what happens.”

The old woman turned to look at Charlotte with that single, plainly discerning eye. “Mrs. Trevarren, is it? Well, the others will not be pleased to hear that, now will they?”

“The others?” Charlotte inquired.

Conveniently Patrick closed his eyes and descended into another deep sleep.

“What others?” Charlotte persisted, drawing closer to Jacoba.

Jacoba waved the question aside. “No time for such silliness,” she said. “We must get the captain to his bed now, where he can be looked after in a proper fashion.”

Not even an hour had passed before Patrick had been put on a litter and taken ashore by boat. Charlotte rode with him, carrying her art supplies and staying stubbornly close to his side. She couldn’t help looking around here, though, for the sea and the island and the sky made a great spectacle, with their violent blues and greens, crimsons and golds.

Parrots and other, smaller birds added dizzying colors of their own—reds and yellows, pinks and whites; the variety seemed endless. Flowers bloomed everywhere, in even more audacious shades, and a sugary scent filled the air.

The small boat was manned by black-skinned natives, and when they reached the shore, they leaped out into the surf and lifted Patrick’s litter between them, like pallbearers carrying a coffin. The captain was only half-conscious, but in a moment of lucidity he barked, “Jacoba!”

The Scotswoman, who had been waiting on the beach, stepped forward, but there was nothing in her manner to indicate that she was in any way cowed by the thunderous summons.

“Here I be, Captain,” she said, with awe-inspiring dignity.

“I gave an order,” Patrick pointed out, struggling to rise from the litter and failing. “I was to remain on board ship until there was no danger of bringing this fever ashore!”

“So you did,” Jacoba conceded, “but there are lots of your orders I don’t pay a mind to, sir, and this be one of them.” She turned her single eye to the two men standing at either end of Patrick’s litter. “Take him to his rooms in the big house, and be quick about it. I’ve got a kettle of my special soup bubbling on the stove, and the sooner we get some down that gullet of his, the better.”

Charlotte was at once relieved and disquieted. She felt a new hope for Patrick’s recovery, and it was an almost holy
joy to feel the solid ground under her feet. Still, Jacoba was obviously a force to be reckoned with, and Charlotte did not know whether the older woman was friend or foe.

She scrambled through the deep, soft sand to keep up with the litter bearers, all her attention fixed on Patrick. He was very weak, and the bones of his face showed too plainly under his skin, but he flashed her a brief smile before drifting off again into sleep.

Patrick’s house stood high on a hillside, overlooking the turquoise waters of the cove, a gigantic place with white Grecian pillars supporting the roof of the front veranda. Charlotte was too weary to be impressed, though her arms did tighten around her drawing supplies as she regarded it.

They crossed a great lawn, as green and manicured as any in England, and entered through a great double door. The floor of the entryway was of priceless green marble, and there was a tapestry on one wall that surely dated from the sixteenth century.

The work portrayed a number of nymphs in gauzy dresses, lounging around a pool, and Charlotte made herself a silent promise that she would return later and study the scene more closely. While it was beautiful, something about the tapestry troubled her, and she was frowning as she climbed the wide, curving stairway with the others.

Patrick’s quarters took up the entire front of the house, and the enormous bed, with its graceful folds of mosquito netting, overlooked the sea. Three sets of French doors separated the room from a stone terrace large enough to accommodate a table and chairs and numerous potted plants.

The island men took Patrick from his litter and laid him on the bed, dirty clothes and all. Charlotte set her art things on an exquisite table topped with gray marble and approached him, unaware until the moment of impact that Jacoba had the same thought.

“I won’t leave him,” Charlotte said bluntly when she saw the look of challenge in Jacoba’s eye.

Patrick had rallied himself again, however briefly. “Charlotte stays,” he decreed.

Jacoba gave a great sigh. “Very well,” she said, although it
was clear from her tone that the concession was against her better judgment. She regarded Charlotte thoughtfully, and at length. “You look as weak and spindly as a baby bird,” she finally announced. “You won’t be much help to the captain if you don’t get some rest and some flesh on those bones, and a hot bath wouldn’t hurt you none, either, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Charlotte lifted a corner of her mouth in a weary smile. “Would it matter if I did mind your saying so?”