Bride of Thunder (30 page)

They fell asleep, and when they awoke he was ready to take her again. She, in spite of being swollen and tender, welcomed him hungrily.

“We should go,” he said after the last time, running his hand along her cheek and throat. “I've got to get ready, make some kind of sense … God knows how I shall! Will you meet me tonight, Mercy?”

“Yes! Oh, yes!”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently. “Tell me, love, had you decided to have me even before I came?”

She laughed huskily, tracing the cleft in his chin, glorying in being able to lavish the warmth of her love. “I had decided, sir, to demand you take me to bed! I couldn't let you leave without that.”

He laughed, too. “And I had sworn to say I loved you even if you didn't want to listen. I couldn't leave you without that.”

He kissed the tears from her eyes as they came down from the tower.

One more night to discover and delight each other, to try not to think of the separation that had, ironically, brought them together. They slept to awake embracing, and they pleasured each other till they drifted into sleep, closely entwined, as if they could become physically part of each other.

“Will you marry me when I come back?” Zane asked, his head on her breast in the dawning while he caressed her throat and face and shoulders.

“Are you sure you want that?”

“Yes,” he said somberly. “I thought it would be enough to keep you for my hidden love—and I've loved you for a long time, though I tried not to admit it. But I want you in my home, in my life, to mother Jolie and the babies we'll make, to be with all my years. I suppose that's why I could never quite force you, though I came close to it several times, especially when I was trying to convince myself that you were a mercenary wench who thought only of iron-clad marriage vows for security's and convention's sake.”

She smoothed the lines in his tanned forehead and kissed the sun wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “If you'd said you loved me, I don't think I could have resisted. But I couldn't have been happy in the tower, shut away from everything else.”

With a rueful chuckle, Zane pulled her up. “I guess it took a revolution to shake us out of our pride enough to tell the truth. And now I have to go, my love! But at least now in the nights, till we can be together again, I can know how you feel in my arms and go to sleep remembering.”

He kissed her tears. Before he left that morning with Vicente and a score of young men who welcomed a chance to see the world beyond La Quinta, even if it meant battle, he put his mother's wedding ring on her finger.

“I didn't give this to my first wife,” he said. “I must have known, in the back of my mind, that she wouldn't be the woman I could treasure and love more and more all my life.”

His last kiss was for Jolie, but his gaze lingered like white-hot steel on Mercy before he inclined his dark head, signaled to his men, and rode through the gates.

Mercy was so grateful and happy to know Zane loved her that it eased some of the pain of missing him, but Jolie moped about for a week, sticking to Mercy's side, except when Salvador wasn't wanted by Victoriano and she could roam with him. Chepa tempted her appetite with her favorite foods, but moving Flora into her room seemed to comfort her most, and Flora seemed glad enough to escape her nearly grown brood, though she graciously visited them several times a day. Mercy lengthened school hours a bit. Jolie was encouraged to spend evenings after dinner reading or chatting in Mercy's room.

Zane had told Jolie that he meant to marry Mercy, and Jolie approved of this. “I hope you'll have a baby girl, though,” she mused, her violet eyes dreamy as she cuddled Carlos while Flora lay at her feet. “I don't think boys are as amusing to dress and take care of. Do have a girl, Mercy!”

“I'll try,” Mercy promised, though her wish was for a boy with Zane's eyes and mouth and hair.

“You should have twins,” Jolie decided, “a boy and a girl. Then you'd have it all over with.”

“That would be time-saving,” Mercy said, smiling. “But I'm afraid there's no way of controlling it. What shall we read tonight?”

“The Cheshire cat?” Jolie rustled through the pages of
Alice
. “I wish Flora could learn how to do that—just fade away to a grin!”

“Then you couldn't hug her.”

“I guess not, sighed Jolie. “Things and people have to be
there
before you can touch them.” Her voice quivered, but she cleared her throat and plunged into the story.

February came and the new cornfields were cleared, with the brush and trees drying till the time came to burn them. Macedonio seemed to be faithfully supervising the laborers in the henequén fields and told Mercy that the new land was being planted. Apparently Zane had told him Mercy would be future mistress of the hacienda, for the mayordomo treated her with even greater deference than previously.

Mercy and Jolie rode almost daily, accompanied by one or another of the men at the stable. Jolie also spent considerable time with the colt she'd picked, a handsome little gray with a black mane and tail. Mercy kept a sort of journal-letter for Zane in case there should be an unexpected chance to send it. He'd promised to send messages whenever he could but he had warned her not to expect them.

“If I should be killed, Vicente or one of my men will come at once to tell you,” he'd said. “Otherwise, consider me well and try not to worry. This shouldn't take long.”

It seemed, already, very long. But somehow hour followed hour and day passed into day, busy, but every moment was made long by wondering where Zane was and what was going on in the world beyond La Quinta.

One night after Jolie had been tucked in with Carlos in her arms and Flora cuddled against her knees, Mercy was describing this in her long letter to Zane. He might not see it till he came home again, but it helped to share things with him and believe that wherever he was bivouacked, he was thinking of her, too. She'd finished an account of the day and sat remembering those nights in the tower, tremendously grateful that they'd been together at the same time she was sick with longing.

She didn't recognize the faint scratching at her door as more than the rasp of limbs outside until it grew insistent. Chepa or Mayel would have knocked, and no one else ever came to her room after nightfall except for Jolie.

Nervous simply because this was so unusual, Mercy went to the door and called softly. “
Quién es?
”

“Xia,” came the answer. “I have news of El Señor.”

Xia, here late at night? But Mercy, though full of misgivings, would have opened to the devil if he'd had word from Zane. Unbarring the door, she held it open. Xia slipped in like a forest wraith. She was wrapped in a shawl of purple with deeply fringed edges and her topaz eyes shone in the lamplight as she surveyed the room before turning to Mercy.

“El Señor has been wounded and carried to a village a few leagues from mine. If you want to see him, I'll take you there.”

“Wounded?” Mercy echoed.

“In the thigh. It seems to be healing.” Xia spoke in slow Spanish that Mercy could follow without much difficulty. She grimaced, watching Mercy with plain dislike. “He asked for you constantly till I promised to come, but I shall be happy to tell him you chose not to leave your comforts.”

“I must call Chepa. She might know of some herbs …”

Xia shook her head decisively. “I had enough trouble persuading the
batab
of the village to let you come and persuading him to shelter El Señor till he's well enough to be moved. I've seen his wound and you must know I have some skill in such things. Chepa could do nothing. Leave a note for her if you wish, and let's be on our way”—the proud, full lips compressed scornfully—“unless you're afraid to walk with me in the woods.”

“How do I know this is true?”

“You don't.” Xia shrugged, turning. “I'll tell him you lacked the courage to come to him and that he must get well enough to hobble home before he can see you.”

“Wait” Mercy breathed deeply.

She wrote a note to Jolie, asking her to tell Chepa what had happened, and pinned it on her bed. Then she changed into outdoor shoes and put on her cape.

“We could get horses,” she suggested.

“The way to the other village is too overgrown for horses,” Xia said. “It's much faster on foot.” She set off at a swift, flowing pace that compelled Mercy to hurry in order not to lose track of her. They slipped out through the rear courtyard and went past the orchards and the ruins where Zane had brought her one night, then picked up the road that ran from behind the stables.

Questions crowded Mercy's tongue. Where had Zane been fighting? Was the revolution over? Was he all right except for the thigh wound?

“Who knows?” responded Xia to everything but the last query. This she answered peevishly by saying that he must have a fever to call so insistently for Mercy, who certainly couldn't nurse him as well as she, Xia, could.

She went at such a pace that Mercy had to save her breath for walking. Soon they turned off the road and headed for Xia's village. Trees and brush pressed in around them. Vines caught at Mercy's cape and hair. It was exceedingly dark and only the white hem of Xia's dress and the soft glide of her sandals assured Mercy that the priestess was still in front of her.

Had she been a fool to come? Xia had tried to kill her once. Why not finish the task while Zane was gone and then lie to him? Mercy took some comfort in the note left on her bed, but she was distrustful and increasingly frightened. Xia could take a few steps off the path and abandon her, then get rid of her in any one of a dozen unpleasant, untraceable ways. Yet how could Mercy not have followed her, when Zane might be at the end of his journey?

Xia seemed to slow down a bit and hesitate. Mercy stopped, breathless, pressing a pain in her side. “How much farther?”

“This will do.”

Mercy's heart turned over. She knew the voice even before the tall, broad figure before her seemed to blot out everything. Whirling, she tried to dodge into the woods. Hands so powerful that they muffled her struggles brought her against a muscular, dense body that made her feel smothered, helpless, insignificant. She writhed till she could jerk her head downward, then sank her teeth into his hand.

Eric laughed, opened her jaws with his thumb and forefinger, and set his mouth brutally against hers in an assault as deliberate as a physical beating, embracing her so tightly that she was pinioned. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move. Her mind darkened in panic.

“Well, now, my sweet,” he murmured, lifting his head, “you must write your good-bye note to Falconer, and then we'll be on our way.”

“You must be mad!”

“Probably. I can't believe I'd go to this trouble for a woman—finding your worthless husband, bribing him to buy you back so he could hand you over to me, and now this stratagem!” He laughed gaily. “Whether I'm bewitched or it's become a matter of pride, of scoring over Falconer, I'm going to have and keep you as long as I desire.” His palm curved over her breast, completely covering it. “But first you'll come along to my camp and compose a letter that'll convince your recent owner that you've seen the advantages of going with me.”

Mercy's knees were so weak that she'd have fallen without his encircling arm. “Maybe you can drag me to Belize,” she said, “but you can't make me write a letter.”

“But of course I can.” Eric sighed as if grieved to have to demonstrate. “How sad it would be if Falconer returned to find that his only child, such a winsome little golden one, had been strangled in her sleep one night.”

Mercy gasped. “Kill Jolie? You … you couldn't!”

“I could,” he said silkily. “What you must understand, Mercy, is that I have no conscience—not a wisp. I could have that girl, who's apparently dear to you and certainly her father's pet, killed with no more compunction than if I'd shot a deer for dinner.”

Mercy believed him. He read this in her silence and made a sound of approval as he drew her off the main trail.

“Be happy,” mocked Xia, a trilling voice from the night. “When Zane comes home, I'll forgive his affronting me for your sake. Don't worry about him. He'll be consoled.”

Silvery, taunting laughter echoed in Mercy's ears. She'd been tricked. She had known all the time that it might be a ruse, but she hadn't been able to risk ignoring Zane's distress. She'd have to write the abominable letter, and when Zane read it his ingrained distrust of women would incline him to believe it. Besides, it might be months before the revolution was over, and by then Mercy felt as if she would be dead, or so used by Eric that Zane wouldn't want her.

Numbly, guided by Eric's hands, she stepped into a clearing. Eric called an order and in a moment a light flared, dimly revealing its location inside a stone hut. Two horses and half a dozen men stood by the building.

Eric stooped to enter the thatched hut, drawing her after him. On a stump, worn smooth with use and lit by a candle, lay paper, a steel pen, and a small inkwell. Eric indicated a stool.

“Compose your letter, my love. Then you'd better write another for that housekeeper who seemed to dote on you.”

His head almost reached even the highest peak of thatch. He sat down on a crude bench, crossing his arms, while the splendidly built black man who must have lit the candle brought him a flask.

“Some wine?” Eric asked, offering her the embossed silver container.

Mercy shook her head, staring at the paper. Was there some way to code the truth into her message?

Head thrown back, Eric drank thirstily, wiped his lips on a fine linen handkerchief, and watched her with eyes the shade of snow reflecting shadow.

“Perhaps I should spare you the difficulty of creation and tell you what to say. Yes, that would be best. You might otherwise cleverly inject a word or two that'd set Falconer wondering if you'd gone with me willingly.”