Authors: Shirl Henke
“I don't recall any of it. I was so furious. If Mariano had deserted my bed for another woman, that I could understand. But for political intrigues!” The young woman quickly quelled her anger, shifting tone. “I look for my pleasures elsewhere now.” Ursula gave a seductive flutter of thick black lashes. She leaned closer to him, pressing her ample breasts against his chest, brushing them back and forth across his shirt studs tantalizingly. “Does that feel as good to you as it does to me?” she purred.
Just then, Agnes du Salm caught his eye from the opposite side of the floor, motioning him to look toward the gardens outside. She mouthed his wife's name. What in the hell was going on? The music ended and he made his bow to Ursula, glad of the excuse to end their increasingly intimate encounter before he was forced into an altercation with Mariano, dashing his hopes for gathering any useful information from Encarnación's circle of plotters.
When he reached the princess, she took his arm at once and smoothly slipped through the wide doors that opened into the courtyard. “Come quickly,” was all she would say.
He followed her down the length of the porch, past the birdcages and hammocks, out into the lush concealment of the ornamental garden. Mercedes stood at the edge of a small fountain, daubing her lip with a wet handkerchief. Nicholas turned her to face him, taking the small lace square from her and holding her chin up to inspect it in the moonlight. A thin trickle of blood welled up from a cut on her lip and the bodice of her gown was torn at the right shoulder.
Mercedes shivered in spite of the flush of anger surging through her. She could sense Lucero's left hand gliding down his thigh, instinctively reaching for the knife he normally wore there, ready to use it on the man who had done this. “He did nothing that I wasn't able to handle.”
“I can't wait to see the shiner Arnoldt will be sporting by morning,” Agnes said cheerfully. “You really socked him quite neatly,” she complimented Mercedes.
“Lucero—”
“You know I can't let this go,” he said grimly, cutting off her plea, but she held tightly to his arm.
“It will only cause gossip if you call him out.”
He looked at her with Luce's most coldly haughty
criollo
expression. “And you don't think having guests and servants see you with your gown torn and your mouth bruised from von Scheeling's mauling would cause gossip?”
His tone was sarcastic, almost accusatory. “Are you implying I encouraged him?” she asked, stung.
“For God's sake, I don't think for one minute that you encouraged him. Tell me what happened.”
“I believe this is the best time for me to leave you two alone,” the princess interjected. “Personally, I shall be delighted to see Arnoldt get his comeuppance. It's long overdue. Salmi has wanted to challenge him for the past year, but he says it's considered bad form for a superior officer to kill one of his subordinates.”
Mercedes’ eyes flashed from the retreating Agnes back to her husband. “You might be the one who's killed!” She clutched his arms, digging her nails into his biceps even through the heavy fabric of his suit coat.
“Never fear, beloved, I've grown accustomed to dealing with men like von Scheeling, but I'm touched that you fear for me.” He pulled her into his embrace, stroking her hair softly.
She felt so secure, so protected nestled in his arms. “He made me uneasy when we were dancing so I excused myself. I know now that fleeing the dance floor like a timid virgin seeking out her
dueña
was a mistake. I only whetted his appetite for the chase. He followed me outside on the pretext of bringing me champagne.” She gestured to the shards of glass glittering on the flagstones a few feet away. “I asked him to leave me alone. When he wouldn't, I walked away, thinking such a direct insult would surely cause him to take offense and leave.” She laughed bitterly. “He took offense, but he didn't go away. Instead he followed me here and tried to kiss me. I smashed my fist in his eye and grabbed one of the glasses he'd set by the fountain. Even throwing the champagne in his face didn't deter him. He's insane, Lucero.”
She looked up at him with tears welling in her eyes. Nicholas could feel her beginning to tremble now, her earlier iron-willed self-possession deserting her as she relived the horror. “He grabbed me and I twisted away, but he held fast, laughing all the while. That's when he kissed me and cut my lip but I tore free and stumbled back, searching for a weapon. I saw the glass stem lying where I'd dropped it in our scuffle and I picked it up. When he was certain I'd use the jagged edge on him if he came a step closer, he shrugged and walked away. Agnes passed him on the porch and figured out what must have happened. She found me here, then went in search of you. I think she means well, but she wants you to duel von Scheeling.”
“She's in luck. Her wish will be granted,” Fortune said in a low furious rush of breath.
“He's dangerous, Lucero! I think he wanted this to happen—for you to challenge him. He wants to kill you.”
“I'm not easy to kill, my love, as many of my enemies could attest—if they were alive to do so. Come, let me take you upstairs and fetch your maid to tend your hurts.”
“Then you'll search out von Scheeling, won't you?” She stiffened apprehensively in his arms.
“What do you think?” he asked rhetorically.
“Then I'm going with you.”
Her chin was mutinously set. He knew short of throwing her over his shoulder and locking her in their room, he could not prevent her presence at the challenge. “I suppose you have the right, but the women will gossip when they see you like this.”
“I don't give a fig about gossip—only you,” she said fiercely. “He might try to kill you some sneaky underhanded way.”
He was touched by the concern, even fear that underlay her anger. Running his fingertips lightly across her cheek, he placed a soft kiss to her forehead, then knelt by the fountain to soak her handkerchief in fresh water. When he pressed the cool cloth to her lip she winced but did not pull away. Rather, her hand came up, covering his as they stood side by side in the courtyard, staring into one another's eyes, communicating silently. She entreated fearfully. He refused adamantly. Yet beyond the clash of wills love trembled and grew.
Finally she spoke. “I could not bear to lose you, husband.”
“You won't, love. I know what a man like von Scheeling is capable of, believe me.”
“Think of our child.”
“I am. And I won't let my children grow up hearing their father called coward. You know our honor demands this.”
She could read the finality in his eyes. “Let's go. I know he's waiting for you.”
The Prussian was indeed waiting in the sala, surrounded by a number of
criollos
, holding forth on imagined campaigning glories, a crystal snifter of Don Encarnación's excellent French brandy in his hand. It almost seemed as if he had staged the scene.
The crowd of sycophants parted nervously as Fortune strode across the room. They looked from the cold deadly gleam in Alvarado's dark eyes to his lady, standing defiantly in the doorway. Her gown was torn, and she pressed a bloody cloth to her mouth, staring daggers at the Prussian. The soft murmuring died away when Nicholas stopped directly in front of von Scheeling.
“You know why I'm here, von Scheeling. Name your second and meet me at daybreak on top of the hill facing the mine entrance.”
“So, the young lordling really is a fighter, even if he has quit the emperor's service,” the lieutenant replied with a slightly drunken slur overlaying his German accent. He clicked his heels and bowed, causing a straight hunk of his thick yellow hair to fall across his forehead. When he straightened up there was a gleam of madness in his flat gray eyes. “I shall enjoy killing you.”
Fortune smiled chillingly. “I suspect it is impossible for a dead man to enjoy anything.”
“As the challenged, it is, I believe, my choice of weapons.”
“Of course.”
“Then I choose sabers—cavalry sabers.” Von Scheeling's smile was slow and nasty.
The hushed room erupted with low murmurs and shocked gasps. This was certainly a breach of
criollo
decorum.
“But surely, Lieutenant, you cannot be serious. A duel is fought with foils or pistols,” Don Encarnación said stiffly, his voice ringing from the doorway that he had just entered. “Gentlemen do not duel with sabers.”
“I am not a gentleman. I am a soldier,” von Scheeling replied in Spanish. In German, he added scornfully, “I've met no gentlemen in this lizard-infested wilderness.”
Nicholas understood the insult but could make no comment without revealing that he spoke the language.
Don Encarnación and several other of the men around von Scheeling intuited the Prussian's hostility. The murmuring in the room quieted as the two antagonists faced each other. Nicholas knew why von Scheeling chose sabers. The Prussian thought he could use his heavier build to advantage and hack his opponent to pieces.
The smile that slashed Fortune's face broadened, but it did not reach his deadly wolf's eyes. “As you say, a saber is the true soldier's weapon. At dawn tomorrow we'll learn just who the true soldier is, won't we?”
Chapter Eighteen
“You cannot just leave me behind as if I were a child, Lucero. They have no physician here. What if you're injured?” Mercedes asked as they entered their suite.
“You can't come with me, Mercedes. A duel is no place for a woman. When a man fights, the presence of his woman is a distinct liability, a distraction that can get him killed.”
“I don't faint or have vapors,” she said with asperity. “Oh, Lucero, you could be killed!”
“Thank you for your confidence, but I won't be,” he replied with dry assurance. “I know how to handle von Scheeling. Now, let me see to your injuries,” he commanded, deftly turning her to unfasten the hooks at the back of her ball gown. “After all, it's only fair, since you've tended mine so often...” She winced silently when he eased the torn gown from her right shoulder. An ugly bruise was beginning to darken her soft golden skin.
The imprint from that bastard's hand.
He felt a killing rage wash over him, building up like an ocean tide rolling in.
Mercedes heard his sudden intake of breath and felt his body tense when he saw the marks. They were tender but not serious. She turned around to reassure him. The look of icy fury in his eyes was utterly terrifying and at that moment she almost pitied von Scheeling.
“I'd like to beat him to death with my bare hands,” Nicholas said in a low growl as his fingertips carefully examined her, sliding the ruined dress to the floor and unfastening her lacy undergarments.
“I've given you a good start on that task, Lucero. Agnes says I blackened his eye.” She strove for a light tone but he did not join in her tremulous smile.
Gently he touched the bruises, then pulled her into his arms. “When I think of another man putting his hands on you, hurting you this way…”
She could feel him trembling as he held her so protectively, possessively. “I'll be all right, Lucero,” she whispered, looking up into that implacable, beautiful face of his. She traced the thin scar on his cheek. “You've suffered far worse hurts than I.”
“But he would have raped you.” There was a savage desperation in his voice as he realized Luce had already done that to her, and that he, too, had almost committed the same crime the night he had smashed in her bedroom door. “Oh, Mercedes, I'm so sorry, so sorry...” His mind shut down, unable to think of it.
She held onto him, intuiting that he was apologizing not only for what von Scheeling had done but for what he had done as well...or had he? Could this man be capable of the coolly amused brutality to which she had been subjected on her wedding night?
No, don 't think of it, don’t…
Nicholas forced himself to regain control. “Let me get cool compresses to soak away some of the ache.” He raised her chin in his hand and daubed at the blood dried on her lip. The sick fury began to churn inside him again. Trembling, he released her and walked over to the dry sink by the window. A porcelain basin and pitcher filled with fresh water sat on top of it. He filled the basin, then soaked a soft linen towel in the water and wrung it out. “Sit down,” he said softly.