Authors: Jennifer Blake
Charro tended to believe Philip innocent of murderous intent. But who else was there? One of his friends could have acted from the same motive of angry pride, but placed the sword near Philip's hand to save his own honor. He could also have been paid by someone acting for Don Esteban. The question was, who?
As with the shot that felled Refugio, it seemed that there must have been an agent of the don on the ship with them, someone who had followed them from Spain. That there had been no other attempt on Refugio's life since they sailed from Havana might indicate that this person had been left behind on the island, or only that there had not been another convenient opportunity.
The nature of the attacks thus far was suggestive. It seemed that the agent was too cowardly to perform the deed himself, but preferred to pay someone else. It could also mean that the person was too weak to go against Refugio in a personal encounter, perhaps an older person, someone unfamiliar with firearms or swords, such as a clerk or merchant — or, possibly, a woman.
Refugio seldom participated in the discussions of the two attempts. Whatever opinions he had of them he kept to himself, nor could he be drawn. He did not hold himself aloof; he played cards with them, gave them music, told stories of pointed hilarity, made extravagantly gallant gestures to the ladies and chivied his men to exhibitions of wrestling and swordplay on the decks as well as leading them scampering like monkeys about the masts and cross-trees. Still, when the subject of the attacks came up, he either gave the conversation an adroit turn or found reason to be elsewhere.
And he slept alone.
The narrow bunks in the open sleeping cabin made anything else difficult, but Pilar was not certain he would have chosen to have it otherwise. His manner in private toward her since the tournament was polite yet distant, though she sometimes caught him watching her with a speculative light in his eyes that was intensely disturbing. There was some satisfaction in the fact that his manner toward Doña Luisa appeared no warmer. Pilar wondered if he was not just as satisfied to have an excuse to avoid private sessions with the widow also. That may, of course, have been her own wishful interpretation.
The ship dropped anchor in the crescent bend of the Mississippi River before the town of New Orleans just before midday. It was late afternoon by the time the customs officials had made their cursory inspection and issued landing permits. The band disembarked as a group, leaving the city as night fell. Their destination was Doña Luisa's holdings, located some distance outside the city, along a waterway called Bayou Saint Jean.
The house the widow had inherited on the death of her husband was a rambling, whitewashed structure in the French West Indies style. It had two floors with six rooms each, and a hip roof that projected out over upper and lower galleries on all four sides. There was also a connecting wing known as garçonniere, which was usually used for the older boys in a family, or else for indigent relatives or visitors. The walls were of vertical logs with the interstices filled with bousillage, a plaster of mud thickened with moss and animal hair.
There was a mulatto housekeeper and her two teenage children installed in one of the downstairs rooms of the wing. They appeared not to understand Spanish, but Doña Luisa, using her court French, soon made her husband's former mistress understand who she was and why she was there. The mulatress was inclined to be sullen, but soon accepted the fact that bedchambers must be made up, bath-water heated, and a meal prepared.
Doña Luisa made a circuit of her new abode, walking quickly through the interconnecting rooms. Immediately afterward she began to assign bedchambers. For herself she chose one of the corner rooms at the rear of the main house. Refugio she directed to the front corner bedchamber which connected to her own, while she gave Pilar the other front bedchamber, one separated from that of Refugio by a sitting room. Baltasar and Isabel she sent to the upper floor of the garçonniere, with Enrique and Charro in the remaining rooms of the wing. Having arranged everything to her satisfaction, she turned and began to order the mulatress and her children to carry the pieces of hand baggage stacked on the front gallery to the various chambers.
“No.”
The objection, simple but firm, came from Refugio.
“I beg your pardon?” Doña Luisa's brows were raised to her hairline as she faced him.
“Forgive me, but no. You have been everything that is kind, and have earned our gratitude for offering hospitality at this time. I am desolate at being forced to countermand your arrangements; still, I have a greater duty to protect those who have come so far with me.”
Doña Luisa brushed away the politeness with an impatient gesture. “You prefer to sleep elsewhere?”
“I prefer to have those who are dependent upon me sleep closer.”
“Such as?” Their hostess's voice was harsh.
“Pilar will share my quarters.”
“Oh, but really—”
“Nothing else is acceptable. It will also be more convenient if the others are in the main house. I suggest Enrique occupy the chamber next to your own, Doña Luisa, with Baltasar and Isabel on the opposite corner. Charro can then have the other front chamber.”
“What impertinence! I'm not sure I can allow it. Next you will be telling me when I may come and go.”
“Not at all. You are free to do as you will. If our presence displeases you, we will of course find other accommodations.”
The two of them stared at each other across the dusty, candlelit room while the others shuffled their feet and gazed around at the rough walls and shuttered windows, the handmade furniture and the few pieces of pewter and faience that served as decoration. Pilar did not look away, but divided her glances between Refugio's expectant features and the pale face of the widow. She was the cause of the contention between them, but she could not see Refugio's reason for making an issue of it.
Abruptly, the widow threw up her hands. “Have it your way, as usual! I don't remember you being so hard all those years ago, Refugio, and the change is not for the better.”
“Am I to blame for the inevitable? You wound me.” The words were laced with mournful humor.
The widow eyed him with disfavor. “I wish I might think so, but I doubt it!”
They retired to their respective rooms soon after dinner; there was something about reaching the end of their journey that was wearisome; and they all knew they must begin early the next morning on the mission they had come so far to accomplish.
Pilar was standing in the middle of the bedchamber she was to share with Refugio, staring at the plain bed of cypress wood with its gauzelike curtains of mosquito netting when he entered. He paused on the threshold, then came slowly into the room and closed the door behind him.
She turned her head to look at him, and her voice was cool as she spoke. “You angered our hostess over these sleeping arrangements. Was that wise?”
“No, only necessary.”
“But you have been at such pains to keep her happy.”
“And so I should have waited here, panting like a lapdog for the joy of receiving her caresses? Doña Luisa has given us shelter; that fact does not carry extraordinary privileges.”
“Only ordinary ones?”
He inclined his head in agreement. “There are limits. She can command me, she cannot command you.”
“That's a privilege you prefer to retain for yourself.”
He moved closer, his body loose-limbed and powerful, his gaze dark gray and intent. Softly he said, “You object to my protection?”
“Is that what it is?” she asked in mock surprise as she held her ground. “Are you sure I'm not protecting you?”
“Occasionally, though not often enough.”
There was the shadow of a smile in the words. It was enough to bring heat to her face as she remembered her frenzied attempt to stop the tournament. “You know I didn't mean that!”
“Didn't you? But you must have, or else I'm left to believe that your vexation is from pique, or worse.”
The implication was that she was jealous. It had been a mistake to challenge him on this matter of the rooms when she was so uncertain herself what she wanted. There was only one way to retrieve the situation. She lifted her chin, her gaze steady upon his as she spoke. “I have no claim upon you.”
“And would scorn to make one. I understand perfectly.”
“I don't think so. I'm trying to say that whatever may happen to me, it won't be your fault. I asked you to take me with you that night in the garden, and regardless of where that request may finally lead, I would do the same again.”
The angles of his face were still, impassive, but there was a flicker of something bright and vital in the depths of his eyes. “Endearing,” he said, “but while you are busily absolving me, you might consider that there are more recent obligations between us.”
“You mean my attempt to rouse you from your self-imposed paralysis?”
“Rather, your success.”
She kept her voice even in spite of the images his words conjured up in her mind. “Either way, the situation is the same. It was my choice.”
“And mine. Do you think I could not have refused your tender sacrifice? It might have imperiled sanity and soul, but was a possibility.”
“I am aware, now. Why didn't you?”
“Courtesy, fatalism, and intemperate logic. They can all be vices.”
“Intemperate,” she murmured.
“Violent, and for my own ends. Does that make it more acceptable, or less?”
“What?” Her gaze was focused somewhere beyond his left shoulder, her thoughts elsewhere.
“My protection. Are you inclined to accept it?”
She met his gray gaze, taking careful note of the derision half buried there, and the purpose. “You ask so courteously; why do I feel that I have no choice?”
“You are a lady of some discernment.”
“Then why pretend?”
“Illusions can be comforting.”
Holding courage close, she said, “Who do you think has need of them?”
“I do, of course,” he said without hesitation as he reached to cup her face in his hands. “Will you allow me this one, that you care?”
Once more he thought to spare her. In the face of such generosity, how could she refuse his protection or the desire cloaked within it? It was far too late for maidenly scruples, and in any case she lacked the will to invoke them.
This could not last. In his world, women were fleeting distractions; he had no time, no wish for more, and was too steeped in notions of honor to follow a different inclination. One day soon, perhaps tomorrow, he would either kill Don Esteban or be killed by him. Whichever happened, he would be gone. This moment they held between them, then, might well be their last together.
“I will do more,” she said quietly, “I will share it.”
She heard him inhale, a sharp breath of surprise. Unable to meet his eyes for fear of what she might see, she let her lashes flutter downward. He lowered his head, and his lips, warm and sweetly rewarding, touched hers. Her sigh wafted over his cheek, and she moved nearer, pressing her firm curves against him. He caught her to him for a long, aching moment so she felt the hard beat of his heart and the cool steel of his coat buttons. Then he bent swiftly to put his arm under her knees and lift her high in his arms.
She swung giddily, then felt the soft brush of mosquito netting about her. A feather mattress gave under her hips and shoulders. He lowered her to the surface, then stripped away coat and cravat, waistcoat, shirt, and breeches, before joining her there. His broad shoulders blocked the light of the single candle that burned on the table beside the bed. It gilded his skin, rimming his form in a glowing nimbus while leaving his face in shadow. He turned and stretched a long arm through the folds of netting to snuff the flame with his fingers. All was dark.
Pilar kicked off her slippers so they landed on the floor; there were no stockings to trouble with since she had not replaced them after her bath. She lifted her hands to fumble with the hooks of her boned bodice. He stilled her movements by clasping her wrists with his long, sword-callused fingers.
“Allow me, “ he said, his voice rich and deep.
The hooks gave way beneath his touch, and the bodice, which acted also as stays, was tossed aside. He untied the tapes that held her skirts and petticoats and drew them down her hips, pushing them lower until she could free her ankles. It took only a second to strip her shift off over her head. He lay propped on one elbow beside her for long moments afterward while he smoothed the small ridges and channels pressed into the skin of her waist by her stays, then slowly he lowered his head and began to follow them with soft kisses and the heated touch of his tongue.
He was a gentle marauder, but a relentless one. With flowing phrases and delicate guidance, he persuaded her to be the same. He cupped her breasts in his hands while he suckled the rosy crests. She trailed her fingernails through the silky mat on his chest, flicking and tasting the erect sweetness of his paps like sun-dried peach rounds, soothing the puckered scar between them with her tongue. He brushed the cream-smooth inner surfaces of her thighs with his lips, dipping toward their apex and the secret and fragile convolutions of fragrant skin there. She explored the warm and resilient length of him, measuring, cupping, saluting his indomitable firmness. Together upon the mattress they turned and twisted, matching hardness and softness, muscled curves and moist hollows, until the blood surged hot and throbbing in their veins and whispered in their ears and their rasping breaths were taken in plundering forays from each other's mouths. When finally the melding could no longer be postponed, was far beyond denial, he sank into her welcoming softness in a fit that was as wrenching as it was consuming. Together they moved, shuddering with pleasure, lost in untrammeled bliss.