The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School. Сьюзен Виггс

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      “You are so amusing,” he said, mimicking her tone. “Come, Sancho. Our quest begins.”

      “Our quest for what?”

      “You’ll see.” He patted his saddlebag, then kicked his heels into the burro’s flanks. The little animal trotted forward, and Isadora’s mount followed.

      She enjoyed the ride too much. She loved seeing the countryside from the back of a plodding burro. Everything passed with delicious slowness. They rode two abreast on the gravelly mountain pathways, winding downward toward the city. The hot, dry sun felt good. The hat brim shaded her face, but she could feel the brush of heat on her bare arms and the backs of her hands.

      She and Ryan spoke little as they descended the steep road to the heart of Rio. Isadora kept thinking of the way Ryan had touched her, holding her as if she were something fragile and fine, something he didn’t want to hurt yet couldn’t let go.

      Then she remembered that this was Ryan Calhoun. He had probably learned the seductive manner of embracing a woman from his countless lovers, and he’d honed it to a fine art. He had, in fact, come from the arms of another woman as if it didn’t matter whose embrace he shared. She was making a fanciful moment out to be too big an affair. They were together in a scented garden, coaxing an exotic animal out into the light, and the moment had been no more than that.

      That’s all it was. That’s all it could ever be. That’s all she dared to want it to be.

      “You’re living inside your head, Isadora,” Ryan called to her.

      “What do you mean by that?”

      He swept one arm out to encompass the view of the harbor, the sparkling waters and the distant mountains. “I’ve brought you to paradise and you’re scowling. What are you thinking about that makes you scowl?”

      She felt the rash of a new blush. “Nothing. This is a different mode of travel for me, and I’m not used to it.”

      “Well, try enjoying the scenery, and the travel won’t bother you so much.”

      He was right, she discovered. Rio was endlessly fascinating, from the Fountain of the Laundresses with its chattering servants and energetic water boys stationed at the spigots to the fashionable rua do Ouvidor, where mysterious, bejeweled donas went about in curtained litters.

      They visited the ship and watched the discharging of the cargo. Ryan’s next task was to check the inventory against that of the consignee, then come to a reckoning of a price.

      “We’ll sail back with more specie than any other ship in Boston Harbor,” Ryan declared. “A hundred thousand pounds sterling.”

      From anyone else, she would have dismissed it as an idle boast.

      They tethered their mules at the edge of the vast, busy marketplace. Lusty voiced vendors hawked their wares from beneath gaily colored awnings. Some chanted rhymes or banged wooden clappers to get attention. Mounds of fruit, flowers, fish, cloth and every sort of small ware cluttered the market square.

      Ryan took her hand. Isadora felt a twinge of pleasure but immediately denied it. He had grabbed hold of her because the crowd surged around him. Nothing more.

      “Let’s shop,” he said.

      “For what?” Her gaze took in a veritable banquet of sights and sounds—the fruit, the coffee and vegetables, hammered metals from the mountain mines, jerked beef and cod, ungainly sacks of beans and rice, brilliantly dyed cloth and bamboo cages with exotic birds.

      “For everything,” Ryan declared.

      She couldn’t help herself. She laughed with delight. No matter how exasperating he could be, Ryan Calhoun made everything fun.

      The hours sped by as they walked through the market. They ate melons, letting the juice dribble down their chins. They sent a special fifty-pound sack of coffee to the Swan to take back to the Peabodys as a gift and bought a silver samovar for Arabella’s wedding gift. They picked out silver filigree earrings for Lily and Rose, a tortoiseshell comb for Fayette and a fancy cigar for Journey.

      Ryan bought something else from the jeweler, but tucked the small box away before Isadora could see what it was. Doubtless a trinket for one of his lady friends, she thought with a stab of jealousy.

      What a calamity it was, finding that she was jealous of harborside whores.

      She thrust away the disgusting thought. She would not let it mar her day. If she must fix her hopes on a man, she should be thinking of Chad rather than allowing her attention to stray to such an inappropriate man as Ryan Calhoun. Chad had held her heart for so long. She would not turn her back on him for the sake of an inconstant, swaggering sea captain.

      She knew better than to believe she meant anything to Ryan. She told herself to concentrate on her goal to be an asset to the company. She was too smart to open herself to heartache over Ryan Calhoun.

      Having settled that issue in her mind, she hurried toward a brightly painted puppet theater. She laughed at the antics of a pair of marionettes, translating the silly story for Ryan.

      “They fight like cats and dogs,” she said, pointing to the papier-mâché man and woman bobbing before the crowd, “and they’ve both gone off to a masquerade fantasia, each determined to find a more worthy love. And each discovers an exotic stranger.”

      The crowd guffawed and clapped as the puppets danced.

      “Let me guess,” Ryan said. “When they take off the masks, they discover they’ve been in love with each other all along.”

      “Of course.”

      “Just like in real life,” he said with a chuckle.

      He put his hand on the small of her back in order to steer her toward more vendors’ stalls. They perused pyramids of papayas and mangos. Her body responded to his light touch before her mind could deny it. She felt the warmth, the flush of pleasure, and by the time she realized what she was feeling, it was too late to stop herself from reacting.

      He stopped at a display of carnival masks.

      “No,” she said, guessing his intent.

      “Yes.” He bought a handful of feathered-and-gilt masks and a colorful fringed shawl. “For the lady,” he explained.

      “I don’t need it.”

      “Which is precisely why you must have it.” And he looped the shawl around behind her, using it as a sling to draw her closer and closer to him. She thought she might die of embarrassment.

      Instead, something unexpected happened. She started to enjoy the moment. The vendor and his friends laughed and clapped with delight. Isadora put her hands over her head and pantomimed the style of a flamenco dancer. Her hat fell back and trailed on its strings. Ryan held out the shawl like a matador’s cape and she charged him, grabbing the fabric from his grasp and teasing him with it.

      When their pantomime was finished, Ryan bowed deeply. He took Isadora’s hand and presented her to the crowd like a showman at the circus. She laughed long and loud, quite unable to believe that she, Isadora Peabody of Beacon Hill, was playing a street performer СКАЧАТЬ