The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School. Сьюзен Виггс

laughing. Her sister merely shook her head. “Whatever shall I do with the boy?”

      Isadora took a very small bite of melon, chewed it carefully and swallowed. She prayed they would not see the hot blush that stained her cheeks.

      “We’ve embarrassed our guest with all this bawdy talk,” Rose said. “Shame on us.”

      “No, really—”

      “Nonsense, my dear. Let us move on to politer topics.” She folded her unfashionably sunbrowned arms on the table. “You are a most intelligent young lady. Lily was telling me you’ve a gift for languages.”

      Isadora shook her head. “If the conversation I heard at the wharves today was any indication, I am no expert.”

      “She’s being modest,” Ryan said. “She’s the best interpreter I’ve ever heard.”

      She blinked. After her performance with the harbor pilot, she hadn’t expected praise.

      “Is that so?” Rose asked, lifting a dark eyebrow.

      “It is,” he said, upending his wine goblet.

      Isadora felt a soft shock of pleasure. Praise from Ryan Calhoun should not feel so good, but Lord help her, it did. She knew pride was a vanity, yet his compliment warmed her like the wine she was drinking.

      “You have,” Rose observed, “a most remarkable smile.”

      Isadora immediately pressed her mouth into a flat line. Ryan had probably given her a compliment because he felt guilty about his behavior.

      “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Rose commented. “But that smile—it quite transforms you. And the cut of your hair is quite…revolutionary. I simply adore it. Perhaps I shall get mine cut short, too.”

      Isadora had no idea what to say. Lily rescued her by turning the subject back to Albion and people they knew years before. Isadora sampled her lemon ice and listened, enjoying the stories of these lovely strangers while barefooted servants waited on them.

      A low churring sound came through the arched windows, startling her. Noting her widened eyes, Rose said, “That noise you’re hearing is a taramin—a nocturnal monkey. He’s a pet of sorts. Shy, but he’ll come around for a taste of fruit or honey from the kitchen.”

      “I’d love to see him.”

      “Ryan, show Isadora out to the patio,” Rose said.

      “No, really,” Isadora began, quickly changing her mind. Rose’s suggestion bore a nightmarish resemblance to the well-meaning matchmakers of Boston, forever trying to pair her up with mortified young men. “It’s not nec—”

      “I don’t mind.” Ryan pushed his chair from the table. She searched his face to see if he wore the look of those doomed suitors.

      “You can stop in the kitchen for a pail of food,” Rose suggested. “The monkey is sure to be prowling about the garden.”

      Torches illuminated the stone-paved area which formed the heart of the villa. Low arches flanked the patio, and one side had no wall but a wrought iron fence and a huge, unusual tree with a twisted trunk that resembled straining sinew and branches that grew almost horizontally out from it.

      The scent of flowers weighted the night air, the odor so thick and exotic that Isadora felt woozy simply breathing it. She stopped in front of the burbling fountain in the center of the patio and stood very still, inhaling deeply, feeling the essence of the night pour through her, bringing parts of her to life that had been sleeping since before she could remember, sleeping so soundly that until this moment she didn’t know they existed.

      “Are you ill?” Ryan asked, breaking in on her ecstatic reveries.

      She opened her eyes. “No. Why do you ask?”

      “You looked a little…peaked,” he said. “A little dizzy.”

      “If I’m dizzy it’s not due to illness,” she said, flushing. “It’s because this place is so wonderful—the smells and sounds and the very feel of the air—it makes me…tingle,” she explained, then flushed again. “For want of a better word.”

      “Tingle,” he repeated, an amused quirk lifting the side of his mouth.

      “What I mean is that this environment gives me a sense of vitality I’ve not felt before. Does it have that effect on you, Captain Calhoun?”

      He studied her with a frank and probing scrutiny that made her uncomfortable. And without moving his gaze from her, he said, “I do believe I feel that tingling effect, Isadora.”

      “Now you’re teasing me,” she said, but the night was too perfect to feel angry about it.

      He held out his hand to her. “Oddly, I’m not. Shall we go in search of this elusive creature?”

      When she touched his hand, the tingling sensation heightened. She hadn’t expected that. Perhaps it was something she’d eaten—all the fruit had tasted so exotic. She felt light on her feet and graceful, probably a trick of equilibrium, since she had been so long at sea.

      They walked to the end of the path, finding a sundial sitting in the gloom.

      “How do you call a monkey?” Ryan asked.

      “I have no idea. I’ve never even seen a monkey.”

      He rattled the pail of fruit and made a smooching sound with his mouth. Isadora laughed. “That’s your monkey call?”

      He winked at her. “Can you do any better?”

      She pursed her lips and tried to emulate the churring sound they’d heard in the dining room.

      “I don’t know how the monkey feels,” Ryan said with a chuckle, “but you’ve certainly got my attention.”

      She laughed again, wondering if it was the perfumed garden air, the wine she’d drunk, or sheer madness that made everything seem so delightfully funny.

      “Ah, Isadora. If your laughter doesn’t tempt the little rodent, I don’t know what will.” He propped one foot on a garden bench made of tiled masonry. The negligently elegant pose looked wonderful on him. “You have the prettiest laugh I’ve ever heard.”

      “And you, sir, have the glibbest tongue.”

      He grinned. “Talked my way onto the Swan.”

      “I have often wondered. How did you manage that?”

      “I won’t say. You already find me despicable enough.”

      “I don’t find you despicable,” she protested. “Just…exasperating.”

      “Ah, exasperating. Does this mean I’m rising in your esteem?”

      “At least it’s a feeling you can understand,” she said, “because you find me equally exasperating.”

      He fixed her with an unreadable stare. “I was with a woman this afternoon.”

      “I know that. I’m not stupid.”

      “Were you shocked?” he asked.

      “Was it worth it?” she countered.

      “Are you going to report me?”

      “That depends.”

      “On what?”

      “On why you did it.” She bit her lip. “Besides…the explanation you gave me earlier.”

      “To shock you? And perhaps…hell, I don’t know. It’s not…what you think. I came away feeling empty. It’s hard to explain.”

      “Then why do you do it?”

      “Because I’m a bad man.”

      She shook her head. “I think you’re actually a good man