Taming Charlotte Read online

  Praise for the Author Who “Enchants Readers” (Romantic Times) LINDA LAEL MILLER

  Yankee Wife

  “Sweeping and complex … Yankee Wife is a beautiful and meaningful romance—one of Ms. Miller’s best and destined for ‘bestsellerdom.’”

  —Romantic Times

  “You’ll have the time of your life keeping up with this quartet! Read this highly entertaining tale….”

  —Rendezvous

  Daniel’s Bride

  “Linda Lael Miller is in top form as she brings readers into this warm, tender and exciting love story with touches of humor, poignancy and great compassion. Daniel’s Bride is a delectable tid-bit.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Linda Lael Miller is the greatest! Daniel’s Bride sizzles with humor, danger and romance, encompassing every emotion and leaving you breathless.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  Caroline and the Raider

  “Funny, exciting and heartwarming, Caroline and the Raider is a delight—another romance that’s as wonderful and hot as you’d expect from Linda Lael Miller!”

  —Romantic Times

  Emma and the Outlaw

  “Ms. Miller’s unique way of tempering sensuality with tenderness in her characters makes them come alive and walk right off the pages and into your heart…. Emma and her outlaw will captivate and enchant you.”

  —Rendezvous

  Lily and the Major

  “Earthy and sensuous, these two lovers are another wonderful hero and heroine presented to us from Ms. Miller’s fertile and very creative imagination. If all the girls’ stories are this delicious, have we got a treat in store? Darn tooting!”

  —Rendezvous

  “An absolutely joyous book, it will warm every reader’s heart.”

  —Romantic Times

  Moonfire

  “Linda Lael Miller continues to prove that she is one of the hottest romance authors writing today. This is a novel filled with passion, mystery, drama, humor and powerful emotions. Her love scenes sizzle and smolder with sensuality.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Sizzling love scenes and excellent characterization make Moonfire a delectable morsel of romantic fiction.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Dynamic, sensual, very emotional…Ms. Miller’s explicit account of events is stimulating.”

  —Rendezvous

  Angelfire

  “FIVE STARS—HIGHEST RATING!…Linda Lael Miller is a most talented craftsman with the written word. Her characters step out of the pages majestically and the reader is soon on very intimate terms with them.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “One of Linda Lael Miller’s hottest, most sizzling romances…Readers will be captivated by these headstrong, vulnerable lovers, their heartwarming love story and the scorching sensuality that pervades every page.”

  —Romantic Times

  My Darling Melissa

  “[An] adorable, sprightly romance. Melissa is a delight—probably the most stubborn heroine of the season. Her determination to succeed, her unbridled sensuality and special brand of humor will capture your imagination.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A fast, entertaining read. Ms. Miller’s incorporation of the suffrage movement and the returning Corbin characters gave an added dimension to the story.”

  —Rendezvous

  “Unsinkable fun. The author dishes up her favorite fare: plucky women with the strength to reason and the passion to follow their hearts; powerful men who find an independent woman infuriating yet irresistible; countless love sequences that leave plenty to the imagination; and a flavorful 1890s setting.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Books by Linda Lael Miller

  Taming Charlotte

  Yankee Wife

  Daniel’s Bride

  Caroline and the Raider

  Emma and the Outlaw

  Lily and the Major

  My Darling Melissa

  Angelfire

  Moonfire

  Wanton Angel

  Lauralee

  Memory’s Embrace

  Corbin’s Fancy

  Willow

  Banner O’Brien

  Desire and Destiny

  Fletcher’s Woman

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  A Pocket Star Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1993 by Linda Lael Miller

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce

  this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue

  of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-1110-6

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4516-5529-2

  First Pocket Books printing November 1993

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered

  trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Cover art by Yuan Lee

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  For those who came to celebrate:

  Debbie Macomber, Robyn Carr, Nancy Higginbotham, Jill Marie Landis, Janet Carroll, Kim Bush, Patty Knoll, and Ginny Hillard, with big-time love and much gratitude (and honorable mention to the guy Irene hired to sing “New York, New York”).

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  TAMING CHARLOTTE

  June 10, 1877

  Paris, France

  My dear sister,

  I hope this letter finds you well and happy. Of course, I have no reason to doubt that it will, since you have always been healthy as Papa’s best oxen. As for your joy in your forthcoming marriage to the young pastor, well, there could be no questioning that, even from so great a distance. Do you realize that every word you’ve written to me in the past year, Millicent Quade, has been but a single note in an ongoing serenade to the wonders of love in general and Lucas Bradley in particular? Even Lydia cannot praise the man enough, though fortunately for me, our beloved stepmother at least takes the trouble to tell me that Papa and the boys are well and that Uncle Devon and Aunt Polly and their brood are thriving as usual. If I had to depend upon you for a complete understanding of events in Quade’s Harbor, I would know a great deal about your intended and absolutely nothing about our family and friends!

  No, darling, of course I’m not scolding you. If anything, I’m a little jealous of your Grand Passion. (I confess to wondering precisely how grand passion is allowed to be, with a minister of the gospel. I’ll ask you about it when I return home, and know the answer by your blush.) In any case, you needn’t run straight to Papa and tell him I’m hankering to get myself married off, because I’m not.

  Millicent, if you were here beside me, you
would hear me sigh quite sadly at this juncture. I’m twenty-three now, as you know, and I’ve long since completed my education here in Europe. Needless to say, I am now officially an old maid, at least by standards in Washington Territory. And I am quite aware that I cannot delay coming home much longer; soon enough, I’ll sail into that familiar harbor and Papa will have a row of prospective husbands lined up on the dock. I’ve resigned myself to becoming a wife, and bearing children, and I’m certain that I will be happy enough, once I’ve mourned the death of my dreams. I mustn’t forget, too, that I will still have my painting for solace, when and if I am spared the time.

  Oh, Millie, do forgive me for being so dreary about the whole thing. I don’t object to the idea of being a wife and mother, truly I don’t, but I wanted so to have one splendid, glorious adventure first, before settling down. It would seem, though, that I shall have to content myself with a brief journey to the shore in southern Spain, and a possible side trip to the island of Riz, with the Richardsons, those friends of Papa’s and Lydia’s who are traveling in Europe now. As you already know, I will be making the trip home to Seattle in their company. You remember their daughter, Bettina, I’m sure—she is still as timid as a deer, and will probably want to sit in a corner and crochet edgings for pillowcases rather than do any exploring.

  How I wish you were here instead!

  I find myself sighing again, Millicent, and continue writing only after gazing dreamily off into the distance for an interval. Is it truly too much to ask that, before I become a matron, subject to vapors and washday and plumpness, I could experience just one magnificent exploit? Something so undeniably fabulous that I could draw on it forever, in those times when my spirit will surely be in famine?

  I fear it is indeed too much to expect, and I grieve for my lost hope, though I put on the bravest front at all times and shall certainly continue to do so.

  I will see you soon, darling, and watch proudly as Papa escorts you down the aisle to join your bridegroom at the altar. Please, set aside a little time for me, after the honeymoon. We have so very much to tell each other!

  Do give my everlasting love to Papa and Lydia, our tribe of rambunctious little brothers, and to Uncle Devon, Aunt Polly, and all our many cousins. Don’t forget to greet Dr. Joe and Etta and their little ones, too. And kiss your handsome reverend once for me, if that’s proper—oh, never mind if it’s proper. Do it anyway!

  I cherish you.

  As ever,

  Your Charlotte

  1

  EVEN AT THAT MIDMORNING HOUR, THE AIR OF THE MARKET place, or souk, shimmered and undulated with heat. Chickens squawked, vendors shouted and argued, monkeys wearing little vests and fezzes shrieked for attention, and strange, incessant music curled among the stalls in place of a breeze. The smells of spices and unwashed flesh competed with pungent smoke from cooking fires, and the bright silken folds of Charlotte’s borrowed robe and veils clung to the moistness of her skin.

  She was enthralled.

  Her companion, Bettina Richardson, who was a few years younger than Charlotte and clad in a similar disguise, did not share this enthusiasm.

  “Papa will murder us if he finds out we’ve come to this dreadful place!” she hissed, the veil covering her pretty face swelling with the rush of her breath. “Why, we could end up being carried off to the desert by some sheikh!”

  Charlotte sighed. “We won’t, more’s the pity,” she said, just to annoy Bettina.

  “Charlotte!” Bettina cried, shocked.

  Charlotte smiled behind her veils. The Richardsons had sailed to the island kingdom of Riz, which lay between Spain and the coast of Morocco, to visit old friends, wealthy merchants they had originally known in Boston. Bettina had wanted to stay in Paris until it was time to sail for London and then the United States, but Charlotte had campaigned against the idea. She wasn’t about to miss a chance to visit such an exotic place as Riz, since there was at least some potential for adventure.

  That, of course, was exactly what vexed Bettina so much. She’d had to be coerced into borrowing the robes and veils from their hostess’s wardrobe, sneaking out by way of a side gate, and venturing through the narrow, dusty streets, following the odors and the cacophony of sounds to the souk.

  Standing in front of one of the market stalls, Charlotte touched a crudely made basket tentatively. She would remember this day all her life, and out of desperate boredom, she would no doubt embellish it at some point. She might add a grand sheikh mounted on a fine Arabian stallion, riding to the marketplace to buy slaves, or perhaps even a band of marauding pirates, scattering chickens and merchants in every direction with their swords…

  A stir at the end of the row of tawdry little booths and crevices in the ancient walls interrupted her colorful musings. Bettina grabbed Charlotte’s forearm with surprising strength and whispered, “Let’s go back to the Vincents’ house, Charlotte, please!”

  Charlotte stood staring at the tall man striding through the crowd, barely able to believe her eyes. For a few breathless moments, she was thirteen again and back in Seattle. She’d climbed up into the rigging of a sailing ship, the Enchantress, and high off the deck her courage had fled. She’d clung to the ropes, too terrified to climb down on her own.

  Patrick Trevarren had come up to fetch her.

  Bettina gave her a little shake. “Charlotte!” she pleaded balefully. “I don’t like the looks of that man! He’s probably a brigand!”

  Charlotte couldn’t move, and she was especially grateful for her veils because she knew the fluttery smile trembling on her mouth would be an idiotic one. Patrick hadn’t changed a great deal in ten years, though he was broader through the chest and shoulders, and the angles of his face were sharper; he still wore his dark hair a little too long, caught back at his nape with a thin black ribbon, and his indigo gaze was as incisive as before. He walked with an arrogant assurance that infuriated Charlotte, and yet her heart was hammering in her throat and it was all she could do not to run to him and inquire if he remembered her.

  He wouldn’t, of course, and even if he did, she had been only a girl when they’d met last. She had dreamed about him all these ten years, weaving fantasy after fantasy around the young seaman, but he’d probably never given her so much as a second thought.

  He drew nearer, and even though there was a smile on his darkly tanned, aristocratic face, his eyes were cold. He plucked a ripe orange from a fruit stand, using the point of a dagger drawn from his belt, and flipped a coin to the crouching vendor.

  Charlotte neither moved nor made a sound, except to breathe, but something about her must have given him pause. He came and towered over her and the trembling Bettina, staring down into Charlotte’s amber eyes with an expression of bemusement.

  Say something, Charlotte ordered herself frantically, but she couldn’t. Her throat was shut tight.

  Patrick pondered her for another moment, ran his gaze over the clinging robes she wore, and then proceeded around her with a shrug. He peeled the orange as he went, tossing the parings to one of the chattering monkeys.

  “That’s it,” Bettina said firmly. “We’re leaving, Charlotte Quade, this very minute. That was a pirate if I’ve ever seen one!”

  Charlotte watched as Patrick stopped to look up at a veiled and shapely creature dancing on a board stretched between two large barrels, and felt a jealousy so intense that her throat opened and her lungs started drawing air again. “And we all know you’ve seen your share of pirates,” she retorted, with unusual sarcasm. Instantly she felt a twinge of remorse for her sharpness. For all that Bettina and she were not perfectly matched as friends, Bettina was a decent sort and quite fragile, undeserving of such treatment.

  Tears had already welled in Bettina’s green eyes. She was an only child, gently raised, and it had not been easy for her to disobey her parents by sneaking out of the Vincents’ home to explore a foreign marketplace.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte said gently, feeling broken as she watch
ed a smiling Patrick lift the dancer down from her improvised stage and toss a coin to a robed man slumping nearby. “We’ll—we’ll go now.”

  Determined not to look back again, Charlotte squared her shoulders and started off in the direction of the Vincent compound. Her senses were in a riot of shock at seeing Patrick Trevarren so unexpectedly, and she couldn’t bear even to consider where he might be taking the dancer.

  She was distracted, and conscious of Bettina’s rising anxiety, and finding the path they’d blazed only an hour earlier proved difficult, without the noise and flurry of the marketplace to guide her. All the impossibly narrow streets looked the same, and any one of a dozen might have led to the quiet residential area she had left so boldly.

  Bettina was sniffling, and she dried her eyes with her veil. “I knew it,” she fretted, “we’re lost!”

  “Hush,” Charlotte snapped, impatient. “We’ll just go back to the marketplace and ask directions.”

  “We don’t speak the language,” Bettina reminded her, with maddening accuracy.

  “Then we’ll simply start out again, trying every route until we find the right one,” Charlotte answered. She sounded a great deal more confident than she felt.

  Bettina mewled in alarm. “I shouldn’t have listened to you,” she cried angrily. “I knew something terrible would happen if we disobeyed Papa, and I was right!”

  Charlotte bit her lower lip to keep from telling Bettina to shut up. “We will get back safely,” she said, in a purposefully gentle voice, when she had her impatience in check. “I promise we will. But you must be calm, Bettina.”

  The younger girl drew a deep, tremulous breath and looked around at the empty street. It was eerie, how quiet the place was, after the clamor and excitement of the souk.

  “I shall have to drink poison if we are taken captive and forced to live in a harem,” Bettina warned, quite matter-of-factly, when she’d recovered a little of her composure.