The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School

In preparation for landing, Isadora had read a traveler’s guide and studied the engravings to learn the lay of the land. But no travelogue or sketch could have prepared her for Rio. She stood in a thrall of amazement, observing the busy, glittering paradise: a mountain called Corcovado, shaped like a man bending over and draped in emerald silk. The Sugar Loaf rock, massive and gleaming like pure marble in the hot sun. Botafogo, a sparkling diamond necklace that collared the turquoise bay. Overlooking all this splendor was a dazzling white edifice she recognized as Laranjeras Palace.

Dear Lord Almighty, Isadora thought. I have died and ascended to paradise. She almost believed the fanciful thought, except for the rivulets of sweat that trickled unbearably down her back and between her breasts.

“Ah, here’s our coach,” Lily exclaimed. “I cannot believe I’m nearly there. I can hardly bear the anticipation.”

Isadora studied the coach with a twinge of suspicion. All but buried beneath a pyramid of luggage, the conveyance looked as if it might collapse at any moment. “Do you think we’ll be safe in that?” she asked.

“Of course. It’s the way all people of fashion travel. Have you got everything you need?”

“Yes, but I should stay here,” Isadora protested. “Captain Calhoun might need help translating—”

“Not today,” Ryan said, striding along the waterfront. He retained his seaman’s rolling gate, though he wore beautifully cut shore togs—tight black trousers and a full, blousy white shirt, with a tangerine-colored waistcoat.

He was with a dark, slender man of indeterminate race—he had the close-curled hair of an African, yet his skin was rich cinnamon in tone.

“Edison Carneros, at your service,” he said, his bow like that of a matador before a cheering crowd. When he straightened, he looked directly at Fayette.

Isadora felt the heat sizzle between them. That was the only way she could explain it. The moment their gazes connected, the two experienced a leap of knowing. Isadora glanced at Ryan to see if he, too, had sensed the sudden, undeniable interest.

“He’s an agent of my consignee,” Ryan explained, clearly oblivious to Fayette’s reaction to Carneros. “Since he speaks excellent English, I’ll have no need of a translator.” His grin was dazzling, his eyes dancing.

“Why, son, you certainly look pleased with yourself,” Lily observed.

“The ice cargo,” Carneros said. “It is in a most excellent condition. Yours is the first ice of the season to arrive.” He fashioned his brown face into a mournful look that failed to disguise his glee. “He will rob me blind, making me pay such a sum for the ice.”

Ryan laughed. “You’ll earn it back. Senhor Ferraro is no fool. He knows what it’s worth to be the first to fill his plant.”

The coach driver helped Lily in, and Ryan offered Isadora his hand. He’d not been pleased with her first live translation with the harbor pilot. Clearly this was his way of showing it—by handling her as if she were a stranger.

The rejection was harsh simply because he was so charming about it. He kept one hand on hers, the other pressed to the small of her back. She knew with mortified certainty that he would feel the dampness of her sweat.

“What do you think of Rio?” he asked as she stepped up to the footboard. His tone was dismissive; he didn’t care about her answer.

What she wanted to tell him was that it was astonishing, magical, enchanting. A paradise she had seen only in dreams. “It’s very attractive,” she said tersely.

He handed her up and she seated herself beside Lily under the colorful fringed awning.

“Fayette,” called Lily, “are you coming?”

The maid mumbled, “Yes’m.” But she never stopped staring at Carneros, nor did he take his eyes off her as he helped her into the coach. A magnetic energy seemed to charge the air around the pretty dark-skinned maid and the slender, debonair agent.

“Go with God,” Carneros said softly, addressing all the ladies but not taking his eyes off Fayette. “Until we meet again—farewell.”

The coach lurched, then started up the dusty road.

“Really, Fayette,” Lily said in a scolding voice that failed to mask her indulgence. “We’re not an hour in port and you’re flirting already. What am I to do with you?”

“Don’t know, ma’am,” Fayette said vaguely, leaning against a corner awning pole with a distant look on her face. “I surely don’t know.” She sighed sweetly and lifted one hand in farewell. Carneros returned the gesture, but Ryan had already turned away.

Isadora directed her attention to the scenery. She spied the mercado in the distance, pinwheels of color and sound, bright sunshades stretched over mounds of melons and pineapples and fruits she had never seen before. They passed busy bodegas and a church with an airy song coming from the choir, and a flock of nuns moving down the street. Black-skinned servants and laundresses with baskets balanced on their heads passed in droves up and down the road.

“There’s too much of it,” she said. “It’s so hard to take it all in.”

“You have three glorious weeks here before setting sail again,” Lily said. “You should make it a point to see a new sight each day. That’s something we learned while touring the Continent, isn’t it, Fayette? Something new each and every day. Fayette? You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

“No, ma’am,” the maid said dreamily.

When the road wound around a hill they came to a cluster of houses. The dwellings, set into the side of the hill, were pink-and-white confections of dusty pastel plaster. On all of the verges, seemingly in every rock and crevice, something grew: fuschia, bougainvillea, crimson and white poinsettia.

The coach went on into a thick forest, but it was like no forest Isadora had ever seen. The trees grew immeasurably tall; they had thick glistening leaves and some blossomed with mysterious huge yellow-tongued flowers. Lush ferns carpeted the floor. Birds, the same green and yellow as the foliage, swooped here and there, and somewhere close by, a secret spring trickled.

She leaned back against the seat and trembled, simply trembled, for she felt as if she had landed in the middle of a dream, and she was terrified of waking up.

Yet when the coach ground to a halt on the crushed seashell drive of a vast pink villa, she dared to believe it was real.

The driver gave a whistle. A herd of houseboys swarmed over the carriage, helping them out and chattering away in a charming patois as they liberated the luggage. Isadora was delighted and challenged by the language. How different it was from her textbook Portuguese. The rapid, colorful slang barely gave the nod to the formal mother tongue.

She caught the eye of one of the boys and smiled pleasantly, greeting him in her best Portuguese.

He and his friends giggled uncontrollably.

Lily asked, “What did you say to them?”

“I hope I said it’s a pleasure to be here, but the way they’re giggling, I can’t be certain.” She found the boys enchanting. She could not be certain of their race. They were not black in the way Journey and the Doctor were, but neither were they Anglo. Their faces and bare legs were the color of the caffe com leche the port authorities had served at the landing.

She found it interesting that their race was indeterminate—and that it did not seem to matter in the least.

A high-pitched squeal issued from a colonnaded walkway leading from the main house. Lily became alert like a hound on the scent. She whirled around and answered the squeal with one of her own.

“Rose! Oh, my darling Rose!”

The two women fell into each other’s arms with such heartfelt emotion that Isadora and Fayette held hands and gulped back tears as they watched.

The two sisters made an entrancing pair. Lily was as pale and delicate as her namesake, and Rose was as bold and vibrant as hers. She wore an extraordinary garment—a tiered skirt that showed her shapely ankles and bare feet. Her blouse was cut low in the neck. Isadora could tell for certain that Rose wore no corsets and petticoats under the loose, light costume.

When Lily made the introductions, Rose embraced both Fayette and Isadora in turn. “Welcome to my home,” she declared. A touch of Virginia still accented her words, but her speech also had the rhythmic cadences of Brazil. She laughed at their stares and plucked playfully at Lily’s multilayered skirts. “We dress for the weather at Villa do Cielo, and so must you. Were it not for the hot-blooded nature of our menfolk, we would probably go about in the nude.”

Isadora stifled a gasp. Yet lightning did not strike simply because a woman mentioned something earthy. She decided she liked Rose very much indeed.

As Rose led the way under the blossom-draped colonnade, she looked up and saw that each flower was a perfect orchid.

Isadora knew she was going to enjoy Rio.

Thirteen

Be good and you will be lonesome.

—Mark Twain,