Lisbon Read Free Page A

had gone out to enjoy the night life of Lisbon without her, Charlotte thought bitterly. She tossed and turned and at last fell into a heavy exhausted sleep—from which Rowan had shaken her awake and told her to dress, that they would be off to Evora within the hour.
    Now beside her she felt Wend's slight shiver. “I wish we hadn’t come with him to this foreign place,” Wend muttered. “I wish we had stayed back home at Aldershot Grange.”
    “Oh, but how could we stay, Wend? What excuse could I possibly have given, when Rowan came north specifically to take me to Portugal?”
    “He didn’t come north to do that,” Wend objected doggedly. “He met Livesay on the road when he was riding in and told him that he planned to stay at Aldershot Grange a month and then go back to London.”
    Charlotte’s breath caught. “Did Livesay tell you this, Wend?” Livesay was the butler at Aldershot Grange.
    “Yes. I thought he told you too.”
    “No, he didn’t.” Charlotte’s mind was racing. What had happened to make Rowan suddenly change his mind?
    Abruptly she remembered something that had not seemed odd at all at the time. She had been looking out the window and had seen Rowan riding toward the house in the distance. And then, just as she was about to turn away, intending to change from the housedress she was wearing into something more fashionable in which to greet the husband she had not seen for all of six months, she had seen another man riding hard over the brow of the hill on a lathered horse—she could see the foam even at that distance. She had recognized the rider as old Conway from Carlisle, a man who occasionally transacted business for Rowan. The two of them had talked for some time and then Rowan had spurred his mount toward the house and almost collided with his wife in the doorway, ordering her brusquely to pack for Portugal. And looking at her with inexpressible anger.
    What had happened between the time he had spoken to Livesay and the time he had burst into the hallway of Aldershot Grange without even a greeting, demanding that she pack at once?Could old Conway on his lathered  horse have been racing to tell Rowan something? And if so, what?
    What had happened to make him suddenly decide to take her abroad? All at once it seemed to Charlotte of major importance that she find out. There had been something so threatening in Rowan’s manner toward her at dinner tonight. And at times this week—alternating with periods of, for him, unusual tenderness—he had glowered at her for no reason at all and she had had the eerie feeling that he was about to burst out with some unwarranted accusation. . . . What could it be?
    What did she really mean to Rowan? she asked herself, troubled. Sometimes, when he was on good behavior, she had even been persuaded that he loved her. Or had he married her only for her lissome body that had caught his fancy, her face that caused men to catch their breath and turn and watch her wherever she went? Rowan collected beautiful things . . . and sometimes, in those uncontrollable rages of his, he smashed them beyond repair.
    Her husband was a formidable and ofttimes frightening man.
    She turned now to Wend and sighed. “I’ll never be able to go back to sleep now, and I don’t feel hungry. ” This to ward off Wend, who, having been brought up on near starvation, thought food was the answer to everything. “I think I’ll walk down to the fish market. It should be crowded at this hour.”
    “What, walk alone?” Wend was scandalized. “You’ll be set upon by cutpurses!”
    “No, I won’t. Dawn is breaking now, the city is waking up. And perhaps I’ll find a chair and have myself carried down to the waterfront.”
    Wend looked alarmed. “Wait till I dress! I’ll come with you. ”
    “No need. Go back to bed, Wend. You need sleep too.”
    She left Wend frowning over the guttering candle she had brought downstairs with her and went