Spanish Serenade (51 page)

They had gone perhaps five miles when she looked back. The road behind was clear, and yet there was a haze rising above it, a roiling cloud that caught the moonglow with a pale glinting. It seemed to be moving fast, caused by a group of horsemen of no small number.

Her eyes were shadowed as she looked toward Refugio. “We're being followed,” she called.

“I know.” The acknowledgment was grim.

“Apaches, do you think?”

He shook his head. “Charro.”

They increased their speed, galloping through the night. The wind was cool in their faces, the air tinged with a sweet, sharp scent of sage. Rabbits sprang from their path and sprinted away. Birds with long legs and longer necks raced beside them for short stretches before veering into the grass. The moon leaned toward setting, then finally, as if letting go, dropped below the horizon. Still, they rode on.

The horsemen behind them kept pace. They did not close the gap between them, but neither did they fall back. On and on they went as dawn spread slowly into the sky, lining it with pink and rose silk and veils of blue gauze. The sun came up, sending its searching, life-giving rays to slant into their eyes. And then, when the world was brightest, they heard floating toward them on the morning breeze the sound of church bells.

Vicente was waiting for them in front of the mission chapel. The two brothers clasped each other's shoulders, both grinning. Vicente, when Refugio released him, stepped forward to salute Pilar on the cheek.

“Enough of that,” Refugio said in mock disapproval. “We have need to hurry.”

“There's a problem?” Vicente inquired, his humor disappearing.

“You might say so. Charro is coming.”

“Then come this way. The padre is waiting.”

As Vicente stepped inside the church, Refugio turned to Pilar. There was sudden gravity in his eyes as he offered his hand, and with it an open, unshielded look that she had never seen before. He drew a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. “I didn't mean it to be this way,” he said. “I meant to take long hours convincing you that all the things I said to Don Esteban and Baltasar that night were lies meant to preserve your life and my sanity. I meant to woo you with soft words to make up for all those unspoken these long months when I had no right to declare myself, to court you with caresses and promises of eternal devotion. Only if those failed did I intend to steal you away.”

“Only then,” she said, staring past his shoulder, “because you thought I might require it?”

“Quick, so quick,” he mourned. “I knew better than to say that aloud. But can you deny it? Could you have brought yourself to wound Charro's tender pride with a blunt refusal when the wedding was so near? Could you have overcome the outcry of your conscience in order to tell him? I meant to do it for you.”

“To save me from making a mistake?”

“I am not so noble. To save you for me.”

“I heard the reasons you gave to convince Charro,” she said in soft distress as she met the penetrating gray of his eyes, “but are you sure this is what you want?”

“It's what I need, what I must have, or become a raving maniac trying to hold the world at sword's length while I keep you.”

“You could travel faster alone.” The words were stark with self-denial.

“I'm going nowhere.”

“You must, eventually. What of when Governor Pacheco receives word from Spain?”

“He has decided against sending a dispatch; he told me so at the funeral. The Tejas country needs settlers, and it's not as if there has never been a bandit in the province. According to him, half the officials in the colonial system qualify.”

“He knows then, about you?”

“Rather, he refuses to know. So long as there is doubt, he is content. He didn't care for your stepfather. Not only did Don Esteban infuriate him, but he had heard of him, not to his credit, in Madrid. And it seems that he once knew my father.”

“Then that means,” she said in slow, mounting gladness, “that you're safe.”

“We're safe. For the moment. There's still the matter of a jilted bridegroom, and time is slipping away. Shall I be a dead abductor or a dead husband, my sweet Pilar? What will it take to have the answer I seek?”

“Only ask,” she answered, her eyes richly brown, perfectly clear as she sustained the intensity of his searching gaze.

He smiled in slow, rich amusement. “I prefer my way,” he said, and bent to place his hand under her knees, lifting her high in the strength of his arms. He stepped with her inside the church doors.

There, he halted. His voice deep, he asked, “Will you marry me?”

“Immediately,” she answered, for she could hear the drumming of horses' hoofs, a muffled roar above the quick beating of her heart.

“Yes,” he said softly, “immediately.”

The priest was in his vestments and the candles had been lighted. The kneeling bench was placed before the altar. The smell of incense, dry wood, and sanctity hung in the air. The mission Indians, their faces expectant, filled the hand-hewn pews. The bells had stopped ringing. All was ready.

It took no more than a few scant moments for the names to be repeated for the priest. Their vows were made while candlelight shone on their faces, reflecting serene and golden in their eyes. The priest made the sign of the cross in blessing over them, intoning his command to be fruitful. They were wed. The priest, his voice gentle but hurried, faintly harried, began to intone the final prayer.

The church doors opened. The tread of booted feet could be heard, echoing on the wooden floor. Then came silence.

The priest's voice faltered, but he continued courageously to the end. With a final benediction, he raised his head.

Pilar, with Refugio's arm around her, got slowly to her feet, then turned to face the church aisle.

Charro stood there, with Enrique at one side and his father on the other. Behind them were the charros, some twenty strong. There was dust on their shoulders and in the lines of their faces, and they all held their hats in their hands.

“We could not let you ride all this way unescorted, even if we were somewhat tardy,” Charro said, his face creasing in a wry smile. “It seemed that it would be a shame if the Apaches were allowed to stop the wedding. It's one we have — all of us — thought should have been celebrated long since.”

His father clapped him on the back. “Well said, my son. And we will celebrate it as only we can celebrate weddings here in the Tejas country. My wife and Benita are preparing a feast, and riders have been sent to bring the guests. By the time we return, they will have prepared the nuptial chamber, where the two of you will stay as long as you wish, or as long as you are able! Come now, and let the joy begin!”

It was unending, that joy. The music and the food, the wine and the laughter continued for two days and nights. Enrique and Doña Luisa, watching it, stated their unalterable purpose of taking up residence in San Antonio before they were wed. They were not certain they could survive another estancia fiesta.

Charro's gaiety was forced at first, then as the daughters from neighboring estancias strolled past him, looking at him from the corners of their dark, liquid eyes, he became more resigned. And he was often seen in dark corners with Benita. Consoling him in myriad ways, with soft words and inviting glances and access to her downstairs chamber, had become the maidservant's most pressing duty.

Benita came to Pilar during the first night. Leaning over the chair where Pilar sat under the loggia, the maidservant whispered, “Tomorrow you must grind corn.”

“What?” Pilar turned to look at the girl.

“Among my mother's people, who came with the priests from far south in Mexico, a young man often steals a bride. If she doesn't run away, if she begins to grind the corn, it's all right.”

“I'll remember that,” Pilar said, smiling.

“Oh, yes, it's funny, but also wise. Shall I bring you a grinding bowl and some grain?”

“Please,” Pilar said, thinking of what Refugio would say when he saw it.

“I will,” the girl said, and went away to see who Charro was dancing with now.

What would become of Benita? Pilar wished she knew. It seemed unlikely that Charro's parents would countenance a marriage between them. And yet, they had nearly lost Charro once because they tried to separate them. Perhaps something could be worked out; she would have to think about it.

In the meantime it was growing late, and Refugio, standing with Enrique and Señor Huerta, was ignoring the conversation of the other two men while he watched her with a look that brought heated blood to her face. She made her excuses and good-nights to her hostess and moved with unhurried steps toward the stairs.

Refugio joined her within the quarter hour. She was waiting, lying naked in the curtained bed with her hair brushed and spilling around her on her pillow in the light of a single candle, and the sheet pulled up and tucked over her breasts. He paused in the doorway, the light in his gray eyes becoming steely with intentness. Closing the door behind him, he stepped into the bedchamber.

It was then that he saw the small bag of emeralds that lay in the center of the second pillow of the bed.

“What is this?” he asked quietly as he began to strip off his shirt.

“My dowry,” she answered.

“To offend you is my last wish at this moment, but I have to tell you I don't feel like sharing my pillow with them.”

“We must decide how they are to be used.”

“Must we? Now?”

She ignored the seductive depth of his words. “There is the matter of the estancia that joins this one, with an owner who may sell.”

“You would like an estancia?”

“I thought you might, since you mentioned it before.”

“The emeralds are yours. Do what you want.” He tossed his shirt aside and began to lever off his boots.

She gave him an irritated look. “How can I buy land unless you agree? I'm not the one who will have to tend it or fight the Indians!”

“You require that I decide?”

“I don't require anything!” she said, raising herself to sweep the bag of gems from the pillow and fling them at him. “Do what you will with them!”

He left off unbuttoning his breeches to catch the bag in a deft grasp. His gaze went to the expanse of softly curving, pearl-tinted flesh exposed as the sheet over Pilar was dislodged. His voice quietly questioning, he said, “Anything?”

“Yes, I don't care. I never did care, except that—”

“I know, cara, I always knew. There's no need for you to tell me.” He skimmed from his breeches, then, splendidly naked, sat down on the bed beside her.

She glanced at him, then away again. “Then let the emeralds be ours. Let's decide together what's to be done.”

“Eventually,” he murmured, taking the sheet she held and tugging it from her grasp before stripping it to the end of the bed. “I've thought of something else to do with them just now.”

He leaned over her, supporting himself on one elbow. Pressing her backward so she lay flat on the mattress, he opened the top of the bag he held, then upended it.

She jumped a little as the cool stones touched her skin, rolling into the valley between her breasts, bouncing in a trickle over her abdomen to the flat expanse of her belly, with the last bright stone coming to rest near the apex of her thighs. And yet, guessing his purpose, she knew the slow surge of excitement in her veins. She watched in bemusement as Refugio bent over her and took between his lips a gem that rested on the side of the mound of her breast, before tasting the skin underneath.

With slow reluctance he lifted his head, then turned and spat the emerald into his hand.

“Gritty,” he said, “but unaccountably delicious.”

“Unaccountably?” she queried, her voice low.

He smiled with a slow curving of his firm lips. “It's possible I might account for it if pressed.”

“I love you,” she said, reaching to touch his face, trailing her fingers through the crisp waves of his hair, feeling the rising swell of joy and passion and hope that came from deep inside.

“I know,” he answered, his gaze darkening as he watched her face, “but I thought you would never say it. If you tell me a thousand times, it will never be enough.”

“Shall we see?”

“Not . . . right this minute.”

“Ah. You prefer this other thing you thought of?”

“Possibly.” He leaned to take up another stone, but spat it out more quickly than the last. “Very gritty. This idea may have been a mistake.”

Pilar lifted a brow, the look in her dark eyes sultry. She picked up the three or four sandiest emeralds in her fingers and rubbed them on the sheet to clean them. Returning them to their former places with care, she reached for the candlestick from the table beside the bed, bringing it to her lips to blow out the flame.

She settled back on her pillow in the darkness. “Oh,” she said softly, “I don't think so.”