The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School. Сьюзен Виггс

didn’t even want to think about that. Didn’t want to think about seeing her relaxing on deck with a book or hauling in sheets alongside the men or fishing off the stern with the Doctor. Didn’t want to think about her lying alone in her solitary berth, a single candle burning down to midnight while she dreamed of…what? Chad? Good God, not him. Ryan shouldn’t know or care about Isadora’s dreams.

      For the next few days, he worked long and hard, sleeping on shipboard and taking his meals with other skippers on their vessels in the harbor. But shortly before they were to set sail, he knew he could no longer put off the trek to Tijuca. He went back up the mountainside to his aunt’s villa.

      “Hello, Mama,” he said, finding her on the patio, looking serene and relaxed as she and her sister shelled beans into a carved wooden bowl. As he bent to kiss her cool cheek, he couldn’t help admiring how adaptable Lily was. She switched roles from plantation mistress to world traveler to genteel houseguest with amazing ease. “I thought I’d find you packing your things.”

      Lily and Rose exchanged a glance, then his mother said, “Son, I’ve decided to stay with Rose.”

      “For how long?”

      “Permanently,” she said.

      Ryan gave a low whistle. “But what about Albion?”

      “That place hasn’t been my home since Hunter inherited it. Now, don’t scowl like that—Hunter has been a perfect angel, letting me know I have a home there for the rest of my life if I so choose.” She set aside the bowl of beans. “Albion isn’t my home anymore, nor my life. My travels on the Continent left me a changed woman. Seeing Rose again and losing Fayette only made the future that much clearer to me.” She beamed at her sister. “My home is with my family, and these days, my family is Rose.”

      “I think that’s fine, Mama,” Ryan said, and he meant it. There was something both comforting and appropriate in the image of the two sisters gracefully growing old together in the middle of paradise.

      “And you’ll visit often, of course,” she said, leaning forward anxiously in her chair.

      “I will,” he said, and he meant that, too.

      “We’ll be sending a crate down to the harbor,” Rose said. “Lily and I picked out some fripperies for Isadora. She doesn’t seem the sort to buy things for herself, so we took the liberty of choosing some mementos of her time with us.”

      “Where is she?” Ryan hoped his voice sounded nonchalant. “Packing?”

      “Oh, I’m quite certain she’s already done that. I believe she’s gone exploring again,” Lily said.

      He narrowed his eyes. “Exploring?”

      “She’s been going off by herself constantly,” Rose said. “She insists on taking in as much sightseeing as she possibly can. I believe today’s expedition was to sketch some of the local flora and fauna.”

      He felt a twinge of irritation. “She shouldn’t go off by herself.”

      “There hasn’t been anyone for her to go off with these past several days,” Lily said pointedly.

      “So were did she go today?” Ryan demanded.

      “Into the rain forest. She wished to visit the Springs of Our Lady of Gloria do Outeiro.”

      “And she went alone.”

      Rose nodded. “The walk is not a demanding one. But I fear she didn’t take anything to eat or drink with her.” She patted a basket covered with a red embroidered napkin. “Angelica had this all fixed for her, and she forgot it.”

      Rose and Lily exchanged a glance that made Ryan think immediately of conspiracy. “Mama,” he warned.

      “Perhaps you could take her the basket,” Lily suggested, all innocence.

      Ryan swore under his breath. He should let her starve in the jungle.

      But he knew damned well he wouldn’t.

      Isadora stopped to sketch an orchid she saw hanging from a huge, smooth-barked tree. Curling her feet under her, she sank to the spongey floor of the rain forest and studied the spray of deep pink blooms. According to her field guide, it was a moth orchid. The orchids and bromeliads intrigued her, for they seemed to be born of air and mist rather than earth and water, hanging from tree branches or liana vines as if they were butterflies that might take flight any moment.

      She wished her quick pencil strokes could capture the lushness of the thick creamy petals. She longed for a palette that might do justice to the mysterious quality of the diffuse light that shone through the emerald forest.

      If only she could uncork herself like a bottle and let the atmosphere pour in, become part of her. In Boston, nature had been kept at bay by concrete edifices and pruned hedgerows and fences. In Brazil the forest was an aggressive presence, spilling exuberantly through ravines and over walls, filling the cracks between rocks, sneaking across man-made pathways that, only the day before, had probably been clear.

      The sheer abundance bombarded her senses. Flowers exploded like flames from shadowy places or rocky heights. Tumbling rapids knifed through rock and vegetation, an ice-blue blade slicing a path to the sea. Birds flew in hyacinth or yellow flocks beneath the high canopy formed by the trees.

      Yet as overwhelmed as Isadora was with the splendor of the forest, she was gripped by a wistful ache to share her sense of discovery. Aunt Button would have loved this. But Aunt Button was gone. Isadora didn’t know anyone else who would feel this awe and wonder. And that lack diminished it somehow, made it seem less important, less wondrous.

      Ryan, she thought.

      She shook off the impossible notion before it could depress her. Taking up her pencil again, she completed her drawing of the orchid. Perhaps she would write a chronicle of her days here and publish it. That way, kindred spirits—people totally unknown to her—could read her words and share her wonder.

      But how could mere words possibly capture the almost painful thud of ecstasy she felt when she looked up at the dazzling sunlit green of the forest canopy? Words were such inadequate tools to convey her delirious rapture over something so beautiful that her eyes smarted with tears.

      She finished sketching and walked on, trying to find a turn of phrase to describe that particular quality of light as it slanted down from impossibly blue skies through a faceted filter of leaves, ferns, mosses, epiphytes. As she hiked uphill, it occurred to her that she should feel winded with exertion, her legs weak from all the activity. But, oddly, that was not the case. She felt more fit and spry than ever before in her life.

      Angelica, the maid who had befriended her the first day at Villa do Cielo, had told Isadora that if she climbed high enough she would find a great cataract where the spring was born from the earth. According to local wisdom, the water here was the sweetest and coldest in the mountains. The spring was so prized that the maker of Brazil’s best aguardiente hired water carriers to bring down great casks on their shoulders. Today the path was deserted.

      Before long the climb grew steeper and strewn with rocks. The liquid song of the rushing water beckoned her. She rounded a bend in the path, pushed aside the nodding fronds of a banana tree and knew she had almost reached the source.

      Wet mossy rocks held a slick clear glow, brighter than diamonds. The trees and flowers growing along the verges swayed with the force of the torrent. The sounds of wind and water created a complex, elusive melody, filling her with a wild pleasure that she felt in every cell of her body.

      The sense of imminent discovery held her in its thrall as she climbed on. Yet gradually she became aware of another sound, one nearly masked by the murmur of tumbling water and the rustle of leaves.

      She stopped and looked behind her, suddenly apprehensive.

      Her mind whirled with images of the dangerous creatures that lived in the rain forest. Vampire bats. Jaguars. Arrow poison frogs. Giant, ill-tempered sloths. Five-hundred-pound gorillas. Snakes