The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School. Сьюзен Виггс

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 in the middle of the Brazilian mercado.

      They were leaving the marketplace when a handsome tilbury rolled to a halt in the street by the burros. A slender, dignified man of middle years stepped out.

      “Captain Calhoun?”

      “At your service,” Ryan said.

      “Your chief mate said I’d find you at the mercado. I am Maurício Ferraro.”

      Ryan broke into a grin. “My elusive consignee!”

      “Congratulations on a most successful run.”

      “Congratulations on being the first to fill your warehouse with ice,” Ryan said with a conspiratorial wink. “May I present Miss Isadora Peabody.”

      “Charmed.” The dark, smiling Brazilian took her hand and held it to his lips with excessive courtesy. “I was hoping you would join me and my family for supper tomorrow. You and your delightful lady friend.”

      Isadora was so stunned to hear herself referred to in such terms that she barely heard Ryan say “Mighty obliged,” barely felt him steer her toward the burros and help her mount. Was that why everyone liked her? Because Ryan had shown her favor?

      She didn’t know what surprised her more—that Senhor Ferraro thought her delightful or that he assumed she was Ryan’s lady. The rest of the day passed in a delicious blur of activity. They took their time going back to the villa, stopping every so often to take in the arresting beauty of the exotic city. Everywhere Isadora looked, she saw new wonders, from the lush floral growth in every alley and garden to the jagged distant mountains with their smooth granite faces plunging into Guanabara Bay.

      “Why are we stopping here?” she asked.

      He tethered the burros. “It’s Ipanema,” he said. “One of the most famous beaches in the world.”

      Indeed it was a remarkable place, populated by bathers in all shapes, sizes and colors. Parents relaxed in hinged wooden chairs shaded by giant parasols while children dug in the sand or chased balls or each other.

      As they walked, they sank into the sugar-white, sugar-fine sand. Ryan stopped at a bench and bade her sit.

      “I want to walk on the beach,” she protested.

      “So you shall.” Without asking for permission or explaining himself, he knelt in front of her, grabbed her left ankle and removed her shoe and stocking.

      She would have shrieked in protest but she was too shocked. By the time she found her tongue, both her feet were bare.

      “Why did you do that?”

      Calmly he removed his own shoes and socks. “It’s too hard to walk in the sand in shoes.”

      “It’s indecent.”

      He parked their shoes on the bench. “You’re not going to start that again. I won’t allow it.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s walk.”

      She took three steps in the warm sand and stopped. “Oh, dear.”

      “Now what’s wrong?”

      She looked down at her shockingly bare feet, buried to the arches in silken sand. “This is the most sinfully delicious sensation I’ve ever felt.”

      He laughed. “Oh, love. You have led a sheltered life.”

      They walked on, passing Sugar Loaf Rock. Beyond the rock, they found a deserted spot where cliffs towered over the shore and the waves stole onto the beach. Without hesitation, Ryan led her directly into the surf.

      “We mustn’t,” she said. “This is—”

      “Don’t squeak and squawk at me, Isadora,” he said with excessive patience. “It’s so tiresome when you do that.”

      The surf was creamy and sinuous as it rushed to the shore, swirling around their ankles. “It’s warm,” Isadora exclaimed, “and I was wrong.”

      “About what?”

      “This is the most sinfully delicious sensation I’ve ever felt.”

      “No,” he said, pulling her against him. In that one movement she felt the multiple pressures of his thigh against hers, hip to hip, chest to breast. “You are.”

      Fifteen

      Oh Lord! If you but knew what a brimstone of a creature I am behind all this beautiful amiability!

      —Jane Welsh Carlyle

      (1836)

      “Why are you scowling at me so?” Isadora asked, holding the running strap of the carriage.

      Ryan deepened his scowl, peering at her in the dim light of the coach lamp that shone through the window. “I was wondering if Senhor Ferraro will believe my supper companion was the same laughing, carefree girl he met at the marketplace yesterday.”

      “Not all men put such stock in a person’s appearance,” she said, shifting her gaze out the window.

      Ryan had a devilish urge to grab her, muss her hair and clothes, to make her sorry she’d attempted to crawl back into her proper Bostonian shell. She wore the black-and-brown dress he’d hated from the start, the drab skirts belled out over multiple crinolines. She’d scraped her hair away from her face, though he was pleased to see the wavy stray locks retained a golden vibrance imparted by weeks of exposure to sun and sea.

      But far more alarming than her sober mode of dress was her attitude. She had once again adopted a cowed and apologetic demeanor, holding her shoulders hunched and her chin lowered almost to her chest. This was the way Isadora Peabody of Beacon Hill had presented herself to the world: as a woman who had absolutely no sense of her own worth.

      “You look as if you’re dressed for a funeral wake,” he grumbled.

      She turned from the window, let her gaze flick over him, taking in the yellow waistcoat and turquoise jacket. “You more than make up for my lack of color.”

      “Could you at least try not to look as if you’re on the way to the gallows?”