Bride of Thunder (15 page)

A couch was positioned directly beneath the flower, covered with purple silk and bolsters and cushions of every color. Spotted hides were scattered around the floor. There were several beautifully carved chests, a stand built to hold a large onyx washbasin and brazen ewer, and an airy, high-backed wicker chair cushioned with turquoise velvet.

The high chamber was for the bed, and the bed was for love. Feeling Zane close behind her, Mercy felt as if her blood were slowing, heavy as molten gold. Her breath came quick and short, seeming not to reach her lungs, turning her dizzy, faintingly weak.

“If you'll be my woman,” Zane said, and his voice seemed to come from far away, strained and odd, as if he, too, were having trouble with breathing, “you could live here and I'd supply whatever you wanted for a pastime—books, a horse, music, or painting equipment.”

“And Jolie?”

His long mouth tightened. “I'll find another teacher for her, someone older and plain. Why waste you on her when she's going to fight you every inch and detest you for the reasons that make you so desirable to me?”

“But you say you haven't found anyone who'll come here.”

“I haven't tried that hard. Now that I see how spoiled Jolie's getting, I'll get a suitable dragon if I have to advertise in the New Orleans papers.”

“You wouldn't want me to see Jolie?”

“You'd have a housekeeper. There'd be no need for you to be at La Quinta.”

“You mean that you don't want your mistress besmirching your daughter.”

He scowled. “It can't distress you to avoid a trying and perhaps impossible task. I'm no sentimentalist. My daughter's behavior can only make her distasteful to you.”

“Working with her was the position I accepted when I refused Mr. Kensington's proposal.”

“I told you flatly there's to be no proposal—of marriage—from me.”

“And you promised not to force me into your bed.”

“I'm not forcing you.” He laughed suddenly and his eyes shone incandescent. “You want me. Your breasts hurt, don't they? I can take that ache away with my mouth; I can pierce that inflamed swelling so you'd be honey-sweet and peaceful and sleep happier and sounder than ever in all your life.” He didn't touch her, but his voice and eyes burned into her depths. “Why deny what you want, too? You'll have a luxurious life and I'll be generous. When you go back to the States, it can be as a well-to-do woman.”

“And I can open an elegant brothel like many a retired whore?”

For a moment she thought he would strike her, and she willed herself not to flinch. “I wouldn't advise it. Some goaded customer would slit your lovely throat ear to ear!”

Bowing sardonically, he stood back to let her descend. “This is where you lodge your paramours?” She couldn't keep from asking the question.

“It's none of your damned business, but I've only kept one woman here, and she wasn't mine.”

Jealousy flared in Mercy. She pictured another woman on that couch, smiling at Zane with outstretched arms and a compliant body. “A nun, I suppose!”

“Very near it. She's Xia, the priestess in the village that I mentioned before.”

“And you made that tower for her?” Mercy asked in a disbelieving tone.

“In daylight you'll see how ridiculous that is,” Zane said with a harsh laugh. “The tower is part of an ancient ceremonial site that spread over several miles. My father rebuilt it and kept his concubines there after my mother died, but I've had no such use for it myself. Nor, in case you're wondering, have I used the women of La Quinta. A few nights in Tekax have always cured my restless seasons.”

“Then I wonder why you'd risk the possible difficulties of having a mistress you couldn't just use, pay, and forget till the next one of your seasons.”

“I'm not a young stallion to go rutting off when the devil drives me. The convenience of having a woman close at hand rather than a day's ride away is beginning, I'll admit, to counterbalance my liking for solitude, but not,” he added grimly, “to the extreme that I'll marry, in case you hope to price yourself up to that!”

If you loved me, that would be enough. Nothing else is, unless you do
.

“I'd hate the life you offer,” Mercy said. “I'd be doing nothing useful, existing only for your … diversion. No amount of money or luxury could make such a waste of myself worthwhile.”

He stared at her, shock changing to mockery as his long mouth quirked. “And what was the mystic and high purpose you fulfilled in marriage with Philip Cameron?”

Stung but unsubdued, Mercy snapped, “I learned that I need more than to be some man's convenience! Wouldn't the prospect of only”—she cast around for some withering description—“standing at stud disgust you?”

“Doña Mercy!”

“Wouldn't it?” she pressed.

“I'd enjoy a chance to find out.” His eyes danced, the cleft deepened in his chin, and he looked younger than she'd yet seen him.

“Not if that was all you could do. A married woman at least has a house to take care of, cooking, and usually children. Her time can be full and useful. Your mistress needs to be a stupid, sloth-like creature who could spend all day sleeping or preening. No woman of intelligence or ability would live in such a harem-like manner.”

“You,” he said grimly, “make the virtues of a stupid, sloth-like, but amiable mistress shine by comparison! You stole your tongue from an adder! One might as well take a thorn bush to bed. So go to your virtuous sleep, madam, but take this with you!”

He crushed her to him, ground her breasts cruelly against his hard body, forced his loins against hers, and took her lips savagely, bruisingly, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth. From struggling futilely, she went limp, supported only by his arms, ravished by the onslaught till, if he had thrown her on a bed, she could not have resisted.

As she went softly and yielding, his hands gentled and his lips moved over hers so softly that she trembled. “Good night,” he said, drawing away, steadying her till she had control of herself again. “As soon as you've settled in, you may start pursuing your Calvinistic ideal of duty and work. I wish you joy in it!”

He bowed, his dark hair falling over his forehead so that she longed to push it back, turned abruptly, and strode to a door opening off the veranda.

Her hand going to her lips which still felt the force of his, Mercy fought back tears. Why? Why was he so obstinate?

Was he so mulish he'd never admit he craved a single mistress to give him the security and closeness he'd failed to find in marriage but could never find with casual, infrequent couplings?

He wanted closeness without risk, the solace of love with none of the pain. He wanted to be the center and source of a woman's life, and to pay for that in money and things.

Not with me, Mercy vowed, not with me.

But she knew if he really chose to use a little force, break down her defenses as he had just done minutes ago, he could have her.

Once.

If that does happen, if he does take me
—
and God knows he can if he's ruthless, for I love him and my body cries for his
—
then I must go away. To live as he wants me to in that tower would destroy the person that I want to be. His slave I may be, but I won't be his body servant!

Mercy thought of going to see how Mayel was, but there were no lights in the rooms behind the kitchen. The girl must be asleep.

And Jolie? Had she cried that night with self-pity and hate for an interloper? What would happen if she remained adamant, refusing to be friends?

Mercy sighed. Journey's end. She was at the center, the fifth direction, and what would happen now?

7

Mercy awoke to a presence and saw Mayel, golden in the light that streamed through the window. The girl had the yellow ribbon at the back of her hair, and the shine in her large, dark eyes made her look like a different person from the whipped, rebel debt-slave of two mornings ago. She put a tray with a covered pot, cup, and crisp, sweet bread on the bedside table.

“
Buenos días,
Doña Mercy.”

“
Buenos días,
Mayel.” Mercy searched for words. “
Como estas?
”

There followed a torrent of words and gestures, none of which Mercy understood, except for “
buenos
” and “
está bien,
” repeated many times. She sighed, realizing again that she must learn two languages before she could enter fully into the life of La Quinta. But there was no mistaking Mayel's happiness. She was like a shrinking thorn plant that had suddenly burst into leaf and flower.

“She says the wonder of La Quinta is what it
doesn't
have,” said a scornful voice from the window. Curled into the ledge that was large enough for a bench sat Jolie, her pointed chin digging into her knees, her tousled curls a bright blaze. “There's no jail, no whipping post, no
administrador
or assistant mayordomos, and the
chichan cuenta,
a little bill, is an honest charge that is paid off regularly so that a
nohoch cuenta,
a big bill, doesn't accumulate and make the workers debt-slaves.”

“I'm afraid I still don't understand much of that.”

Jolie shrugged as if to say Mercy's dullness of wit was no surprise, nor any concern of hers. “Most haciendas are run by an
administrador
who often lives in Mérida or Campeche or Valladolid, like the owner. He visits the holdings of his employer and sees that the mayordomo is running things at a good profit. The mayordomo lives at a hacienda and sees to its day-to-day operation with the help of overseers called assistant mayordomos. We don't need those. Our people don't have to be whipped, because if they work well, they get wages besides what they charge at the store. They elect their own field bosses, and Macedonio, the mayordomo, and Papa do all the managing.”

“But the … what did you say?
Nohoch cuenta?
”

Jolie patted back a yawn. “I can't explain it all,” she said, swinging off the ledge like a stretching cat. “It's time for my breakfast.”

She slipped out of the room, leaving Mercy to wonder how long the girl had been sitting there and watching her. Why was the thought of being watched while asleep so disturbing? Because one was exposed, defenseless?

Mayel pointed to several white native dresses spread on the chest and conveyed by words and gestures that Chepa had sent them for Mercy.

“
Gracias,
” Mercy said and nodded when Mayel glanced at the door, as if asking permission to go.

Propping up pillows, Mercy luxuriated as she slowly nibbled the crisp, sweet bread and sipped hot chocolate. Except when she was sick, it was the first time she'd ever eaten in bed, and though she didn't intend to make it a habit, this morning it was most pleasant to pamper her travel-sore body and savor the spicily delicious drink.

She'd best take comfort where she found it—from this indulgence, from Mayel's joy—for it would be a long struggle to win Jolie, and a different and infinitely harder struggle to keep from being Zane's woman in the tower. In that she had to fight herself. If he had spoken love words to her, wooed her with sweetness, made it more than lust, she'd have succumbed to him last night, even knowing how deadening such a life would be, cut off from normal contacts, devoted to serving only one need of this stormy, complex, terribly cynical man she loved.

She was lucky that he'd been honest. Of course, that was so he wouldn't have to feel guilty or responsible for her, but it showed him to have some conscience. And apparently he was a kind and just master, one who toiled on the place with the men causing his prosperity.

Sipping the last of the hot chocolate, Mercy stretched, winced, wondered when the numb feeling would leave her buttocks, and got to her feet. Small knives seemed to jab through her legs, thighs, and shoulders. Thank goodness she hadn't had to mount and ride today! Although she loved horses, she didn't care if it was weeks before she got on one again.

She hobbled to the chest, grimacing, and examined the white dresses, fine cotton worked with bright embroidery in broad borders around the skirts, sleeves, and simple round necks. One had flowers, another birds of every color perched among leaves and vines, and on the third shift-like garment fluttered yellow butterflies, some hovering between neck and toe.

With a soft cry of delight, Mercy put two dresses in the armoire and began to dress in the third one.

When she entered the courtyard half an hour later, it was with shyness and the fervent hope that she wouldn't encounter Zane till she was more accustomed to the airily loose garment.

Her camisole and drawers slightly distorted its flowing lines. Petticoats would have bunched grotesquely. Mercy was sure native women wore nothing at all under the garment, a stupefying thought that had a forbidden seductiveness when she imagined for a second how comfortable and free that would make her.

Utterly shameless, too! It was all very well for women who were used to such unrestricting ease, but, even with her vestigial undergarments, Mercy felt naked, nervous without yards of material swathing her legs, without the confining tightness at the waist, throat, and shoulders.

Feet were another matter, though. She wiggled her toes happily in the sandals that had been placed near the dresses. As a child she had gone barefoot with her father's approval, though visiting ladies had warned her that her feet would spread to the “size of a fieldhand's,” and during the war it had been no privation to be shoeless in warm weather. Sandals were an item of native dress she could eagerly adopt, and she added them to hot chocolate, the sweet breads, and fresh tortillas as admirable features of this new life.

Hesitating in the sun-splashed courtyard, she decided to let Chepa know she wouldn't need more breakfast. Then she should go to Zane's library-office and see what was suitable for Jolie's lessons. Surely, after an absence, he'd be out looking over his fields and attending to anything urgent that had come up. Mercy wished for him to see her in the charming butterfly dress, yet she dreaded the way she was sure his gaze would go through the cloth and make her nipples stiffen and thrust against the butterfly wings.…