Bride of Fortune (8 page)

      
“The young ones we should kill—see the hate in their eyes?” Schmidt said, his own eyes gleaming.

      
Fortune kicked over a corpse lying in his path as he walked into the plaza. A boy who couldn't have been more than twelve years old. “Is this young enough for you?” he snarled.

      
He combed his fingers through his hair and glared at the armed group surrounding him. He'd spent half his life with men of this ilk, men like his half brother, who grew to love the killing more with every battle. Nicholas Fortune felt like a stranger among them. “O'Malley, are the rifles taken care of?”

      
“That they are, Capt'n.”

      
“Then mount up. Schmidt, you and Lopez stampede their horses after we cull the ones worth taking with us.”

      
Reluctantly his orders were obeyed. They rode out of the silent village just as the rain resumed in a steady, sullen downpour.

* * * *

      
Stupid. The whole stinking mess was senseless, leading nowhere. For every boy with a machete they shot, two more rode down from the mountains to take his place. Lord God above, he was sick unto death of the slaughtering. The coppery smell of blood filled his nostrils and for the first time since he was sixteen, he felt sick with loathing.
Time to get out.

      
If only Luce's careless words about their father were true, he might have a place to belong, but that was absurd. He'd met enough haughty
hacendados
to know how one would feel about a man like him, no matter how much he resembled the old son of a bitch. Besides, he had his pride. In all his life, Nicholas Fortune had never begged and he was too old to start now.

      
He looked across the fire at his brother, who was dallying with one of the camp followers, a coarse wench with a lusty laugh and great masses of curly black hair. The image of Luce straddling the terrified girl back in that village flashed into his mind. His brother liked women to fight him before he took them. Riding with Marquez had given him a taste for rape as well as plunder and killing. He thrived on danger, volunteering every time a point had to be taken under withering fire or a Juarista town had to be infiltrated before they hit it.

      
Last week he had gone into Tampico, which was currently occupied by the rebels, and set a charge of dynamite in the customs house. When it ignited too soon, he was caught in the mob. Nick rode in with Peltre and the two of them made good their escape in a hail of bullets.

      
Luce had the devil's own luck. In fact some of the men, especially the Mexicans, had started calling him
El Diablo.
The Devil. An ironic conceit considering his name Lucero meant “light.” Everywhere he went, Luce brought darkness.

      
“So deep in thought,
hermano
” Luce said in halting English. Since joining his brother he had begun to pick up the language although he detested it even more than French. His mewling pale little wife was half English, but Nick was
Americano
. A very clever
Americano
whose uncanny likeness to himself fascinated him almost as much as the incredible life Nick had led. Indeed, his brother had become a hero of sorts to the spoiled young
criollo
. “What troubles you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

      
Nick tossed his cigarette into the fire. “I thought you were busy with Esmeralda.”

      
“She's just a
puta.
``

      
“So was my mother.” Nick's eyes bored into Luce's.

      
The tense exchange was broken when a rider came galloping into camp. Expecting dispatches from Colonel Ortiz, Nick stood up and signaled the man to him.

      
“You are
el capitán
?” the grizzled older man inquired in broken English.

      
Fortune identified himself in Spanish, asking for the orders from Monterrey. He was handed a small satchel by the rider, who then cleared his throat and held up another envelope.

      
“I have a letter of great importance, entrusted to me by the colonel himself. He received it all the way from Sonora, from a great
hacendado
. It is for Don Lucero Alvarado. I was told he rides with you.”

      
By this time a crowd had gathered, including Luce, who stepped forward, hand extended. He read the crumpled, water-stained missive with a look of peculiar resignation on his face, then stalked off.

      
Nick perused the news from the capital and other areas, all the while wondering about the message for Luce. Finally, his brother ambled into camp and sat down beside him.

      
“Cigarette?” he asked, rolling one with deft fingers.

      
“When you have that cagey look on your face, I've learned to smell trouble,” Nick replied, taking the tobacco. “You walked away a couple of hours ago looking like the sky had fallen on you. What's happened?” He lit up and inhaled the pungent smoke, then choked on it when Luce replied.

      
“Our father is dead. I've been summoned home. What would you say if I offered to trade places with you? I'll take charge of the men and you go to Gran Sangre as Don Lucero.”

      
“Why the hell would you do that?” Nick asked incredulously.

      
Luce gave a careless shrug. “Why the hell not? I don't want to settle down, but I think you do.” He studied Nick with hooded speculative eyes. “You've saved my life more than once and you've for sure taken a damn sight more interest in me than anyone else ever did.” Then his mood shifted abruptly, as if he were uncomfortable, revealing too much. He grinned sharkishly. “Hell, just call it life's payback to you, big brother.”

* * * *

Spring 1866

      
Nick coughed again, then rolled over on the wide soft mattress and awakened in the master bedroom at Gran Sangre. His dream had seemed as real as the hard wooden chest sitting beside his bed. He rolled up and reached over to it, picking up the makings for a cigarette. But he was no longer dreaming. He had done it, really done it, traded places with his half brother and come to Gran Sangre to claim the birthright his illegitimacy had denied him as Anselmo Alvarado's firstborn son.

Chapter Four

      
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Nick sat up on the edge of the bed and stared out the window. He was Don Anselmo's heir now, even if he was a nameless bastard the
hacendado
had never known existed. He felt nothing for the man who had sired him. At least that was what he had believed, but Luce told him he was only fooling himself.

      
Maybe he was. During his years growing up he had been shuffled from whorehouse to tawdry whorehouse as his mother's looks and price declined. Lottie had never talked about his old man. Hell, he had thought she didn't know who his father was. Nick assumed he was just another down-and-out farmer or tradesman like the average run of her customers. Around the time he had turned six or seven she had occasionally looked at him strangely—never with affection, for she did not consider him anything but a burden. Perhaps that was when he first began to resemble Don Anselmo. A few years later she had packed him off to Hezakiah Benson, who assured him that he was the spawn of Satan.

      
Life had been hellishly hard, but he had been so busy just surviving he had little chance to ruminate on his paternity. The very idea that he was the son of a noble house would have seemed laughable before he met Luce. Once their bargain had been struck, his brother had made him intimately acquainted with every detail of their ancestry, which went back all the way to fifteenth century Andalusia in Spain.

      
“What a joke on the old son of a bitch,” he murmured to himself, looking around the big room filled with fine furniture and paintings. “Luce has turned into a hired killer who loves
pulque
and
putas
. And I end up with Gran Sangre and Mercedes.”

      
Mercedes
. He could picture her sleeping behind that heavy oak door, her dark gold hair spread like spilled doubloons across the white pillowcase. Just thinking about her made his body grow rigid with lust and ache. She was a fine lady with high morals and great pride, the sort of woman he had never dreamed of possessing.

      
There had been rich women from good families who had thrown themselves at him in the past. Hell, by the time he was seventeen he had learned that his looks were exceptional. All sorts of women fancied him and the aura of danger that his profession lent him only intensified the fascination. But he had always understood that such casual liaisons were mere diversions for bored rich ladies, who would not acknowledge that they even knew him if they passed on the street. He had grown to prefer the company of whores who were at least open and honest about their relationship with him.

      
But now he had a wife.
Your brother's wife
. “No, dammit, she's mine now,” he growled into the silence. She had grown into a woman of spirit and, doubtless, had reason to despise Luce's touch. From the way his brother had described their brief time together, Nick could understand her unwillingness to share his bed. Yet when they had first laid eyes on each other, Nick had sensed a magnetic pull. She had responded to him, he was certain of it, and Nicholas Fortune was no novice at such matters. He wanted to win her over slowly, to woo and seduce her so she would come to him eagerly, desiring his touch. But he knew the role he was playing all too well. He knew Lucero Alvarado all too well. Patience was not one of his virtues, least of all where women were concerned.

      
Nick smiled grimly and inhaled the cigarette smoke. Luce liked his women with fire, but he also liked them cheap and lusty. And no woman, regardless of her station, would dare refuse his advances without risking his wrath. Nick had ridden with him for over six months and seen his casual brutality toward women, which was not unusual among soldiers. He had done some pretty ugly things himself, but never rape. On several occasions he'd come close to blows with Luce to keep him from taking an unwilling woman.

      
Luce had laughed and given in, humoring his “big brother” because it amused him to do so. But here at Gran Sangre, Nick knew that everyone expected the to claim his husbandly rights. Not to do so would be completely out of character for Don Lucero. Mercedes herself knew she had made an impossible request. Luce would never let his own wife defy him. If he acceded to her wishes, people might become suspicious. But if he acted as Lucero, would he forever forfeit the chance for happiness with his beautiful wife?

      
The soft hum of insects and the melodic call of a night bird gave him no answer. He would have to make a decision soon. Muttering a curse, he ground out his cigarette and stretched out on the big lonely bed.

* * * *

      
Nick slept late the next morning, a luxury his hard life on the trail as a
contre-guerrilla
had not afforded him. When he walked into the dining room, Baltazar bowed officiously. Seeing the food had been taken from the sideboard and Mercedes was not in the room, he asked, “Has my wife broken her fast yet?”

      
“Doña Mercedes always arises at six, sir. She rides, then eats her breakfast in the courtyard. She is working on accounts this morning. Shall I summon her?”

      
“No, don't disturb her now.”

      
“Shall I tell Angelina to prepare your breakfast, ?”

      
“Yes, and be certain the steak is seared and bloody,” he reminded the old steward, knowing Luce's penchant for exceedingly rare meat, a taste he himself had acquired by force of necessity.

      
“But of course,
,
” Baltazar replied, then vanished into the kitchen.

      
There had been so much to learn—and unlearn—while Luce had been coaching him. He was ambidextrous, a trait passed on from his mother and a handy skill for a professional soldier; but Luce was right-handed, so he had practiced doing everything with only his right hand. He loved French food in mellow cream sauces, but his Mexican half brother detested all things foreign and preferred the burning hot tang of chilies. Since Luce, too, had taken up smoking, there at least was one thing he had decided not to change. They were both skilled horsemen and when he had admired Luce's splendid Andalusian his brother had carelessly gifted him with Peltre, saying it would be remarked upon if he did not ride home on the big gray.

      
He was contemplating what to do first that day when the kitchen door opened behind him and a voluptuous woman with waist-length black hair and bold striking features emerged carrying a tray laden with a silver coffee service. The smoldering look in her dark eyes and the provocative sway of her hips as she set down her load would have indicated that they had been lovers even if he did not recognize the woman Luce had described in such detail.