The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School

She flinched at his language. “Is that what this is? An apology?”

“Yes, damn it,” he shouted.

“Well, it’s not working.”

“Not for lack of my trying,” he said, mimicking her.

“Steady there, miss,” Chips cautioned Isadora. “Keep one hand in the rigging no matter what, and make sure your feet stay balanced in the ratlines.”

Though she had climbed only a few feet off the deck, Isadora felt vulnerable, particularly when the ship crested a swell and listed a little. Yet despite her uncertainty, she felt proud and excited. The Isadora who had left Boston Harbor would never have dared to climb a ship’s rigging. But since the men of the Swan had decided to teach her the ways of the sea, she had dared a hundred new things and her confidence grew every day.

“What the devil—?” Ryan Calhoun hurried over, a scowl on his face. “Damn it, Chips, you can’t let the lady go aloft.”

“It’s not his fault, Captain,” Isadora said hastily. “I insisted. I heard a rumor that Cape Frio is near and I wanted to see it.”

The truth was, she wanted to see everything. For her, the voyage had grown and burgeoned into a journey of self-discovery. She had no idea what she would find at the end. All she knew was that she felt more at home aboard this ship than she ever had in the middle of her own life in blessedly distant Boston.

“Come down from there this instant,” Ryan said, his voice harsh with command. He stood leaning against the capstan, looking unconsciously appealing as well as commanding.

Isadora couldn’t stop the wave of warmth that engulfed her. Though he couldn’t know it, he had everything to do with her newfound sense of belonging. The way she looked or spoke or comported herself mattered not at all to Ryan Calhoun. He treated her no better and no worse than his crew of seamen. Thanks to him, she’d learned to endure a flash of male temper, to understand teasing and joking, to see humor in situations that used to appall the old Isadora.

The amusing part was that he seemed to have no idea how good this was for her. She smiled bravely down at him. Climbing the spanker rigging had seemed such a grand idea when she’d first thought of it. Chips scrambled around like a monkey, making it look so simple. Yet now that she had begun her ascent, she began to regret it.

“Don’t make me order you down,” Ryan said furiously.

She quickly made up her mind. Pride demanded that she stay her course.

Since crossing the equator several days earlier, they had gone back to avoiding one another. Let him save his roguish charm for girls with empty heads and full bosoms. Isadora was not about to be taken in by him.

“I’m going to continue, Mr. Pole,” she said to Chips.

The ship’s carpenter sent Ryan a helpless look. “Opposite hand and foot every time, miss, there’s the way. Opposite hand and foot.”

“Damn it, I’ll keelhaul you, Pole,” Ryan shouted. “Don’t think I won’t.”

“You won’t.” Chips failed to suppress a grin. “I have to help the lady. It’s her first time, you know.”

Isadora tried not to smile as she grasped the rigging in one hand and raised her opposite foot to the next ratline. Her blowing skirts made the going awkward, and it was immodest in the extreme to climb in this manner, but she couldn’t help herself. She hungered for a sight of the wild, exotic land they had sailed so fast and so far to find.

“I can see your drawers,” Ryan Calhoun called loudly.

She nearly let go. Only a keen sense of self-preservation kept her hanging on. “A gentleman would not look. And he certainly wouldn’t make a comment.”

“Who would ever mistake me for a gentleman?”

The rigging bowed out in the opposite direction and Isadora realized he was climbing, too. In three quick hauls, he had hoisted himself into the ratlines and was facing her through the web of rope.

“Since you insist on making this climb,” he said, “I’ll do it with you so I can save you if you start to fall.”

“If I start to fall,” she said ruefully, “there’ll be no saving me.” She nearly laughed at the expression on his face. “Don’t worry. I do not plan to fall. And you really don’t have to climb with me.”

“You’d rather have me stand on deck below you, looking up your skirts with the rest of them?”

Her hands gripped the line with a vengeance. “I shall not answer that insolent question.” Without further ado, she continued upward, as she had seen the seamen do so often. The climb was harder than it looked, for the loose ropes tended to bow this way and that with the sway of the ship.

She tried her best to ignore Ryan Calhoun. When they were halfway up the topmast, Isadora made the mistake of looking down.

“Dear God,” she whispered.

“It’s a long way down, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly.

She ignored him. The deck appeared tiny, dotted with doll-size crates and hatches and coils. Due to the slant of the ship, she knew if she climbed any farther, she’d be out over open water.

The wind whistled through her hair and the sun warmed her face. Lord, but it was hot. Sweat soaked her in places she dared not mention, and a blister had formed on the palm of her right hand.

This was a terrible, foolish idea. Why had she wanted to climb the rigging today?

“A bit higher,” Ryan urged her, his voice insolent and teasing. “Up here, where the ratlines are set too close together, we call this the ladies’ ladder. You’d think it was made for you.”

She hated that he could see her fright. Setting her sights aloft, she continued to climb. The blister on her hand burst and then stung with sweat and grime from the rope. Far below, the sea resembled blue marble, veined in purest white, intimidating as a snake pit as it foamed and seethed around the ship.

Oh, please, she thought helplessly. Let me survive this and I’ll never try anything adventurous again.

Her gaze tracked the arrow-straight wake of the Swan, then found the horizon to the south. What she saw gave her such a jolt that she nearly let go of the rigging.

“Steady there,” Ryan said, climbing up beside her. “You’re finally getting a good view of Brazil.”

“It’s astonishing,” she said, forgetting to be mad at him. “The mountains are so beautiful—they look as though they’re draped in green velvet.”

“There’s Corcovado, and the tallest ones are called ‘Dedos de Deus,”’ Ryan said, indicating a row of five sharp peaks nudging the shoreline. The rich emerald green, set against the clear blue sky, created a picture so intense that Isadora’s eyes smarted.

“The Fingers of God,” she translated.

“The nearest mountain town is Petropolis. In the summer, every carioca worth his salt moves up there for cooler weather and to get away from the yellow jack.”

She shuddered. “The yellow fever, you mean.” It was a terrible killer, she’d read, particularly virulent among Yankees who had no resistance to the disease. “It’s hard to imagine such a plague on a land so beautiful.”

She kept her gaze on the horizon, enthralled with the view, until her hands trembled with the effort of holding herself aloft. “Captain,” she said suddenly. “Look there—to the northeast.”

He glanced back over his shoulder and studied the sky. The distant clouds had a peculiar bruised quality. A yellowish caste tinged the light coming from that quadrant, and as she held on, Isadora noticed the heaviness of the seas. “There’s a storm coming, isn’t there?” she asked.

“Uh-huh. A squall.”

A shriek swirled up from the deck. “What in the name of heaven are you doing?”

Startled, Isadora lost her hold on the rigging. For a split second she hung weightless, flying free, doomed. Then, with a joint-twisting jolt, she stopped falling. Ryan had reached through the rigging and held her by the wrists, the cords in his neck standing out with the strain.

“I suggest,” he said between his teeth, “that you grab hold of the ropes. Now.”