Authors: Shirl Henke
“I will pray on that, Father,” she murmured softly, dismissing him and bidding the serving girl to leave her as well. She stared sightlessly out the window, waiting for the echo of footfalls down the hall, knowing they would not dare to come near her quarters.
An act of God indeed! Her lips thinned disdainfully. Lucero had always detested children, as had Anselmo, who made it quite clear to her the day of his son's birth that she need not bother him with the infant until he was old enough to introduce to the pleasures of the flesh. And Anselmo had kept his word. Upon Lucero's fourteenth birthday he had taken the boy all the way to Durango to one of the city's most expensive bordellos for his initiation into manhood.
How she had despised the pair of them as she lay isolated in her invalid's bed while they cavorted with whores. But now Lucero had returned, apparently a changed man who loved Gran Sangre and took responsibility for his wife, even his illegitimate child. Could it be...? No, for surely Mercedes and Father Salvador would know. Or would they? Over the many years of her illness, Doña Sofia had come to believe that people saw what they expected to see or what they chose to see...
A wintry smile spread across her face, emphasizing the deep hollows of her eye sockets and the desiccated skin across her cheekbones. It was a ghastly smile, serenely malevolent. “What a splendid irony...I shall have to share it with him...before I die.”
* * * *
“We'll have to decide where you will sleep, little one. How do you like your new home so far?” Nicholas asked as Rosario gaped at the lavish surroundings in the sola. He set the yawning child down and looked at her with a smile.
“The house is daunting for a little girl the first time she sees it,” Mercedes said. “I ought to know, for it quite frightened me the first time I saw it.”
“Did you live in a convent, too?” Rosario asked, holding onto the lady's skirts.
“Yes, I did,” she answered, glancing over at Lucero, who said nothing during their exchange. Did he remember how in awe of Gran Sangre she had been as a bride?
As the two adults' eyes met and held, Rosario's eyes grew round as saucers. She blinked and looked around the
sala
. The walls were whitewashed to a snowy brilliance and massive oak beams arched across a ceiling that seemed high as the sky. Beautifully carved furniture glowed, hand-rubbed with lemon oil. Ignoring the two adults, she slipped over to look at a figurine of a beautiful lady. She started to reach out to touch it, but drew back at the last second. Then the glittering candlesticks sitting on the credenza caught her eye. There was more silver in this great room than in the whole Ursuline chapel! And paintings, pretty paintings hung on the walls, not of religious subjects but of finely dressed lords and ladies.
“I can really live here?” Her voice was a high-pitched squeak of disbelief as she turned back to Nicholas and Mercedes.
“Really and truly,” the man who claimed he was her papa replied.
Then a loud woof sounded down the hall and Bufón came bounding toward them. Mercedes intercepted her pet, throwing her arms around him before he accidentally knocked the child down. "This is Bufón,'' she said, dodging great slurping licks to her face. "He likes little girls very much. Would you like to pet him?"
Rosario had instinctively moved behind Nicholas for protection, watching the behemoth who wrestled playfully with the lady. “He won't hurt you,” Nicholas assured her, kneeling himself to give one floppy ear a tug.
When both adults petted the shaggy dog he quieted and sat down, cocking his head inquisitively in Rosario's direction. She mimicked his action, then giggled. “He is funny.” Timidly she reached out one small hand and Bufón licked it. She jerked back in surprise but then quickly repeated the movement, this time letting his tongue thoroughly bathe her fingers. Step-by-step she inched closer until she could bury both small sets of fingers in the dog's thick fur.
“I think Bufón has made a new friend,” Nicholas said with amusement.
“That makes two in the past few days,” Mercedes replied, studying the way he was patting her pet with a thoughtful expression on his face.
Before Nicholas could reply, a smiling Angelina appeared in the doorway. “I have some fresh-baked bread sweetened with sugar and cinnamon just waiting for you,” the cook said as she walked into the room. She looked down at the child. Her eyes swept from the little girl's delicately chiseled features and distinctive eyes to the
patrón's
face and back. She nodded, extending a large work-roughened hand to Rosario. “I am Angelina, the cook.”
This time Rosario could not help placing her thumb in her mouth again. After leaving the convent, she had done so for reassurance numerous times. Neither Sister Agnes nor Mother Superior was there to forbid it. The beautiful lady and her papa did not seem to care. She clutched Bufón tightly with one arm. Too many strangers were offering her kindness. She was uncertain of how to respond.
“This is Rosario,” Nicholas supplied for the child who stared curiously. “But I fear you've made a mistake, Angelina.” He sighed. “Little girls must not like sweets.”
“Oh, yes!” Rosario pleaded, her thumb suddenly forgotten as she stood up. “I am hungry and I love cinnamon bread.” She looked beseechingly up at the tall man with the smiling face.
He picked her up and handed her into Angelina's open arms, knowing she had raised six daughters and would deal well with the little girl. Rosario went to the cook without protest, laying her head on the big woman's shoulder.
As they disappeared down the hall with Bufón padding patiently beside them, Mercedes said, “Your daughter does have a way about her when she holds onto you for dear life.”
“Echoing my very thoughts again. We're becoming surprisingly attuned, my love,” he murmured.
She looked up at him with frank surprise on her face. “I suppose we have dealt well together on this trip. You have a natural way with children, although I would never have imagined it likely.”
Nicholas chuckled. “Or me either, but I think I like being a father.” He moved closer. “Now we must work on making you a mother, eh?”
Mercedes could feel his breath warm against her cheek, but he did not touch her. She knew if she looked up he would have that mocking smile on his face again. Edging casually away, she ignored his comment. “I'll have Lupe prepare the room at the end of the hall for Rosario.”
“That's the nursery, for the heir you will give me.” He knew she had chosen the room because it was adjacent to her own bedroom.
“It's not in use now,” she countered evenly, not wishing to be drawn into his obvious opening.
“Neither will your bedroom be in use, for you'll sleep with me from now on.” He watched her body stiffen.
“Would you allow me no privacy? A lady is always granted her own quarters. That's how this house was designed.”
“This house was designed for the most infelicitous marriages of my forebears. I don't choose to live as they did,” he added with a touch of bitterness.
“You always have up until now,” she snapped as visions of him and Innocencia flashed before her eyes. “It would seem to me this has been a most traditionally infelicitous marriage.”
“Perhaps we've been given a second chance,” he replied in a silky voice, determined not to allow her to sleep in her own bed any longer. Lying beside her without being able to make love to her when they camped along the trail had not been nearly as difficult as he had imagined. On the return journey they had slept with Rosario between them. For the first time in his life, Nicholas Fortune felt protective of the two females who were now in his charge. It was a totally new and unsettling experience for him.
She read the shuttered look on his face, and knew he would come for her that night and carry her back to his room if she resisted his plans. There was nothing she could do to stop him.
If she wished to stop him.
That shocking thought came unbidden. She looked away, murmuring, “I shall see to Rosario's room, then order you a bath lest those cuts fester.”
He grinned at her. “I'll expect you to come tend them when I'm finished bathing,” he replied, a dare in his eyes.
“You were the one who assured me they were shallow and you've had far worse. Merely keep them clean and there'll be no harm done.”
His softly mocking laughter followed her up the stairs as she called for Lupe to assist her with the nursery bedding.
Chapter Eight
Mercedes sat in front of the large oval mirror in her bedroom, brushing her hair, a ritual she had performed for herself in recent years since servants had become scarce and were so overburdened with other duties. She had grown to love the solitude and relaxation of the leisurely rhythm, a blessed respite after the long days of hard work. But tonight she could not relax, knowing that her husband would come through the door adjoining their bedrooms at any time.
Lucero had left her after dinner and retired to his study for
aguardient
e and cigarettes. She had gone to Rosario to be certain the child was not frightened in her new surroundings. Lupe had tucked the girl into her new bed and seemed genuinely fond of her quiet little charge. Once Rosario was sleeping soundly, Mercedes had nothing to do but prepare for the night ahead. A good stiff drink of old Anselmo's
aguardiente
might give her courage, but to reach it she would have to go to the study where Lucero was ensconced.
“I will never come to him,” Mercedes vowed, pulling the brush through her hair with faster, harder strokes.
She stared at the stranger's face in the mirror, hardly knowing herself anymore. Over the past four years a quiet, pampered schoolgirl had grown into a secure, strong woman, a woman who knew her worth and valued her freedom. The specter of Lucero's return had always hovered over her, but she had come to terms with it, feeling certain she could maintain her identity after they reached some accord regarding their cold and mutually unwanted marriage. He had made it clear before he left that she held not the slightest interest for him. She had expected to submit to him briefly in bed and do her duty by providing an Alvarado heir. Then he would move on, living a separate life, letting her raise his child and run Gran Sangre in peace.
But he had turned the tables on her, changed all the rules. This new Lucero looked on her with smoldering eyes, desiring her body yet demanding more—much more than she knew how to give. Most certainly more than she wished to give.
Nicholas opened the door between their rooms silently and leaned casually against the frame, a crystal snifter of brandy in one hand, watching his wife at her nighttime toilette. He could tell she was deep in thought, no doubt troubling thought about him. In time she would come to him, he arrogantly reassured himself. He would win her if he was patient enough to overcome the lifetime of ladylike reticence inculcated in her by convent schools and reinforced by his brother's cavalier cruelty.
But God, could he be so patient? Play the game so skillfully? His throat went dry and his pulse hammered as he watched her. She sat on the bench, her back arched provocatively, her firm young breasts moving ever so slightly from side to side with each stroke of the brush. She wore a soft robe of rich green wool that clung lovingly to every lush curve of her body. He would bet anything she wore a high-necked, long-sleeved night rail beneath it. Just thinking of removing it to reveal the pale silky beauty of her skin made him go rigidly hard. The candlelight cast shimmering reflections across her mantle of deep golden hair as it cascaded down her back and around her shoulders.
“Here, allow me,” he said as he stalked into the room with predatory grace and set his glass on her dressing table.
Mercedes gave a small gasp of surprise, pulling the brush from her hair and clutching its ivory handle tightly with both hands as she twisted around on the bench to face him. “Must you always sneak up on me like a thief?”
His forehead creased in a fleeting frown at her words. “Sorry. A habit from the war, I suppose.” He pried the brush from her nerveless fingers. Taking her shoulders firmly in his hands, he turned her back toward the mirror, then stood behind her so they faced one another in the glass. Her eyes were huge and luminous, a dark magical shade of gold that matched her hair. What was she thinking? He saw the faint blush of color on her cheekbones, the rapid pulse that beat at the base of her throat. And he knew.