The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School. Сьюзен Виггс

He felt the whoosh of lungs emptying, and he could not have said if it was he or the boy who had made the sound.

      His legs and chest burned as, with a heated whir, he slid down the rope and smacked, bruised but safe, into Journey and Ralph. Timothy sprawled on the deck, flexing his hands and shuddering.

      As nimble as any seaman, Isadora descended from the rigging. Ryan dragged her to a hatch and all but stuffed her down a companion ladder, too furious to speak.

      Then he braced himself. Until today, the sea had been his fair-weather friend. Now, retribution was at hand, and God knew, he deserved it. He was a careless man, sometimes even cruel in his carelessness. With hardly a thought for the consequences, he had ripped Journey from his family, offering little more than a wish and a prayer of reuniting them. He had lied through his teeth to gain command of the Swan. Now they would all die because of it.

      He expected the storm to destroy him and the ship and cargo and crew. But instead, as quickly as it had whipped up, the squall skirled away to the northeast, leaving high seas and a brooding sky in its aftermath.

      Ryan stood with Journey on the deck. “It’s over.”

      “We survived,” Journey said.

      “We did better than that,” Izard pointed out, joining them at the rail. He started to laugh with pure joy. “I took a reading. We’re less than ten miles out of Rio.”

      Isadora sat in the galley, a rough green blanket draped around her shoulders and a mug of tepid tea cradled between her hands. Shaken and cautious, the Doctor had allowed a small fire in the stove to heat water for tea. She took a sip, glancing over the rim at Timothy Datty. Someone had put dry trousers and a shirt on him; now he lay fast asleep upon a bench, knees drawn up and hands cradling his cheek.

      He looked exhausted by his ordeal and impossibly, achingly young. In the hollow of his lap, the ship’s cat slept. Setting her mug in a holder, Isadora stood and covered Timothy with the green blanket. Some impulse compelled her to put out a hand, brush the salt-stiffened, spikey hair away from his pale brow.

      In that moment, she knew this lad was more than a shipmate to her. Dear God, they’d almost lost him.

      “Get into some dry clothes,” said a voice from the doorway. “I don’t want you catching a chill.”

      Yanked out of the sentimental moment, she turned to scowl at Ryan Calhoun. “I’m not at all cold. We’re in the tropics, remember?”

      He tossed his head, damp hair sprinkling his shirt. It, like his trousers, was dry. He came into the galley, stopping in front of her, standing so close she could feel the heat from his body. She tried to step back, but he’d cornered her against the table. “Very well,” he said. “That wet dress gives us all an intriguing view of your smallclothes, so you might as well entertain us.”

      She folded her arms protectively across her chest. “Only someone like you would find a storm at sea entertaining.”

      “Someone like me,” he said, running his thumb down the inside of her arm until she batted his hand away. “And exactly which someone am I like?”

      “Like…like the very devil,” she blurted out.

      “Do tell,” he said, touching her other arm so that she unfolded that one, too. “I’ve been called many things, but not the devil.”

      She knew she should find his nearness and the impudence of his touch offensive, but God help her, she didn’t. For some reason the gentle, insistent up-and-down motion of his hand soothed her, made it difficult to think. “Like Lucifer, you have a great capacity for strength and goodness. Yet you use your power to tease and torment me.”

      “Is that what this is?” he asked with a delighted chuckle. “Teasing? Tormenting?”

      “Why do you find this so amusing?” she asked, starting to feel light-headed and strange.

      “Because I came here to thank you for your help during the storm and you’ve completely misconstrued my intent.”

      She kept staring at his mouth. He was so much taller than she, that her eyes were level with his mouth. He had a wonderful, chiseled shape to his lips, and he smiled more easily than anyone she’d ever met.

      “Then you’re…welcome. But you needn’t thank me.”

      His hand lifted and the side of his finger slipped beneath her chin, bringing her gaze up to his. “True. In fact, you’re far more deserving of…”

      For some reason, her eyes seemed to want to drift shut. And her mouth, her mouth wanted to…

      “Deserving of what?” she asked faintly, her whisper barely audible above the noise of the dissipating storm.

      He pressed closer. She felt herself lean into him, and then, swearing between his clenched teeth, he stepped back. “You’re far more deserving of a lecture on safety,” he said. “I ordered you to stay in your quarters, and you deliberately violated that.”

      Mortified by the sense of forbidden intimacy that had surrounded her only moments ago, Isadora ducked beneath his arm and hurried to the door. “I didn’t hear any argument from you when you were up that yardarm,” she said.

      “Then be sure to note that in your report to Mr. Easterbrook.” His insolent, ice-blue stare fastened on her bodice. He was trying to intimidate her, she thought. And, as she fled from the galley, she conceded that it was working.

      They were obliged to wear ship and stand off from shore until the heavy seas abated. Ryan used the time to prepare for a grand entrance to Rio.

      On his previous trip to the Caribbean, he’d learned that in a seaport, appearances were everything. He represented the ship’s interests to port authorities, shipping agents and consignees. To get the highest prices for his cargo, a skipper had to appear prosperous and well-groomed from stem to stern. Fortunately, the Swan was a fine-looking vessel, the crewmen diligent in their swabbing and polishing. The storm had caused only minor damage. The bark would look like a proud bird as she sailed into harbor.

      Ryan kept the crew busy scrubbing down the decks and smoothing them with the holystone, polishing the brass, checking the sails and awnings for spots of mildew. Even the women pitched in, his mother pulling things from the linen locker while Fayette strung them along a line on the afterdeck. Isadora made reparations to the storm-battered hen coop and then—hugely amusing the crew—groomed the goat with a silver-backed hairbrush.

      He tried to figure out what it was about her that so fascinated and infuriated him. They always seemed to rub one another the wrong way, even when things started out pleasantly enough. One moment they were laughing at a shared joke; the next they were grousing at each other over the most minor of issues. And sometimes he found himself—of all the damn fool things—pressing her into a dark corner and wondering what secrets she hid beneath her voluminous skirts.

      He had always taken pride in his ability to understand the female of the species. He thought he knew what women wanted, what they needed, what they expected. And, until Isadora, he had been able to provide it with reliable regularity.

      But this one, this intelligent, vexing, interesting female, did not seem to be taken by any of the usual charms. She didn’t care for fashion, though she clung to the restrictive modes of Beacon Hill out of habit. She was immune to flattery, for she neither trusted nor believed a compliment sent her way. She took no delight in the usual ladylike pursuits of needlework and gossip, finding more pleasure in perusing the Bowditch with Ralph Izard or conducting elocution lessons for Timothy Datty. To look at her, he’d never have guessed she had the strength to endure the storm, yet the hardships only made her quicker and more assured than she’d ever been on dry land. Worst of all, she was impervious to the unexpected mist of heat that pervaded the atmosphere whenever they found themselves alone together. He had no idea where his unwanted urge to be close to her came from. He meant to intimidate her, humiliate her, make her sorry she’d forced her presence on him, yet his plan kept misfiring. He kept catching himself enjoying the closeness