Taming Charlotte Read Free Page B

brilliant idea of putting on robes and veils and exploring the forbidden
souk.
    Charlotte pictured Millie, her beautiful, spirited sister, all dressed up in her lacy white wedding dress, eyes sparkling with love and excitement. She imagined each of her five younger brothers in turn, and grieved for them, one by one. Their names swelled in her heart; Devon, Seth, Gideon, Jacob, Matthew.
    There was a very good chance she would never see any member of her family again. Even worse, her loved ones would surely suffer over her disappearance and obvious fate, and Bettina’s parents would be devastated. Their daughter was all they had, and because of Charlotte’s impulsive actions, they had lost their child.
    Despair would almost certainly have overtaken Charlotte in that moment if she hadn’t been given something more immediate to think about.
    Door hinges creaked, and a slash of light appeared in the darkness. Then a small man entered the chamber. He wore Arab garb, but that was all Charlotte could make out in the gloom.
    Her heart pounded with fear and helpless rage as he approached her, wrenching her roughly up off the floor and then pulling off her gag. He produced a cup of tepid water and pressed it impatiently to her mouth.
    Charlotte bit back all the inflammatory things she wanted to say, all the frantic questions she yearned to ask, and drank greedily. The heat was intense, and she realized she was wet with perspiration.
    “Who are you?” she asked hoarsely, when she’d satisfied her thirst.
    The man mumbled something in Arabic, and while Charlotte missed the meaning of the words, she caught the attitude. Her captor was not contemptuous, or even hostile; he was indifferent.
    “What is this place?” she burst out, more in an effort to discourage the Arab from gagging her again than from any hope of getting a reply she could understand. “Why are you keeping me here?”
    Charlotte’s visitor shouted something at her; like his earlier conversation, the remark needed no translation. He wanted her to keep quiet.
    To demonstrate this, he put the gag back in place and tied it a little tighter than before, so that the filthy cloth chafed at the corners of her mouth. Then he shoved Charlotte, hard, sending her toppling to the floor.
    For the first time, a slow, almost imperceptible sensation of rocking penetrated the fog of fear and anger surrounding her, and she realized she was in the hold of a ship. It gave her comfort that she’d identified her prison, but she also had to face the forlorn reality that escape would be even more difficult.
    As Charlotte watched the guard leave her makeshift cell, she was actually glad to be wearing the gag. The scrap kept in the flow of scathing and very colorful invective she’d learned in her father’s logging camps. Even though he didn’t speak English, the Arab would have known he was beingroundly insulted, and his already thin patience would probably have snapped.
    Charlotte forced herself to draw in deep breaths through her nose and let them out slowly through the cloth. Whatever happened, she must stay calm, taking every care not to lose her temper or show fear.
    The heat in the dark hold was dense, and now that Charlotte knew the place
was
a hold, she picked out the sound of rats scampering overhead in the beams and foraging in the supplies stored around her. She shuddered and offered up a silent prayer for a miracle to happen.
    Soon.
    Patrick sighed and turned away from the rail of the
Enchantress.
Usually he enjoyed watching the last fierce light of day shatter into glimmering liquid on the water, but that evening he was troubled.
    His friend and first mate, Tom Cochran, was standing behind him. “Do we set sail with the evening tide, then, Captain?” he asked. He was a solidly built man, of medium height, and a gray-white stubble of beard covered the lower half of his face. “I imagine that Khalif fellow will be looking for us to put in sometime tonight.”
    Patrick gave