Bride of Thunder (37 page)

And she might cease to be herself, too, atrophy till there was no chance of ever finding Zane. Mercy lifted her feet off the side of the bed. She mustn't let Eric cow her, but she would have found it hard to go downstairs if Celeste hadn't said he was riding. She had been undressed and put to bed in a loose peignoir. With Celeste's help she slipped into underthings and one of her native dresses.

“Tell Pierre I'll have a little food on the terrace, but not too much,” she said, brushing her hair, unable to tell in the dim light if there were bruise marks on her throat.

“I understand,
madame
.”

Celeste went out quietly with a consoling backward glance. What did she know? How had Eric explained Mercy's condition? Not that he had to explain. If he had killed her, there was no one to demand that he explain.

I have only myself to rely on,
she told herself as she plaited her protestingly curly hair into one thick braid and let it hang down her back. But she remembered Dionisio, knew there was at least one other defiant soul on this estate, and somehow that cheered her, made her feel not quite so alone.

He could die or she could die without the other knowing. They might never meet again. But Mercy had felt a closeness with him that day, gloried in his pride, and she knew she'd never forget him.

Mercy touched her cheek, swollen where Eric had struck her, decided there wasn't much she could do to hide it, and went downstairs.

Lamps burned in the halls and a few were scattered around the terrace, but Mercy reached the table before she saw she wasn't alone. Eric rose from a chair in the corner, came forward, and took her hands before she could retreat.

“I thought you might come down if Pierre's grief and my absence were presented to you,” he said lightly, but strain showed around his eyes and mouth, “I … I'm sorry, Mercy,
mia
. But when will you learn not to madden me?”

Strange, but she almost laughed. “Probably when you learn not to make me angry.”

He kissed her eyes and mouth, then the throat that still pained from his grasp. “It seems I must learn,” he said huskily. “You're too small and fragile for such handling. I'll have to master you by other means. Come now and sit down before Pierre has apoplexy!”

After dinner he played the piano for an hour while Mercy lay on the chaise, pretending to read, but actually listening. He played with vigor and sweep, stormily, and she wondered if he ever imagined that Alison stepped out of her portrait and played her long-abandoned harp.

He shared Mercy's bed that night, but his kiss was brief, and though he held her in his arms, it was protectively. Only who was there to protect her from Eric himself?

The next day at dinner Eric had considerable news, garnered from an English logger from Belize on his way to cut mahogany on lands rented from Marcos Canul.

The emperor was rallying for what could only be defeat in Mexico, deprived of the support of his poor, demented empress. In Yucatán, Peraza's forces were growing as he gained daily support in the north. Mérida would soon be under siege, if it wasn't already in that familiar and unhappy state.

“And there's a joke from your country, love,” Eric concluded as Mercy wondered if Zane was safe and if he found winning more to his taste than losing. “Secretary Seward seems about to get his wish! Alaska! Can you imagine that frozen wasteland? It's got a new name: ‘Seward's Folly.'”

“Was there anything else?” Mercy asked wistfully. It seemed so long ago since she left Texas! But the news she hungered, for would scarcely filter to this crown colony—how her neighbors were, what had happened to the farm, what was really happening with Reconstruction.

Eric frowned, trying to remember. “The government's setting up reservations in Indian territory for what are called the Five Civilized Tribes and making a reservation for the Sioux in the Black Hills. And they say buffalo cover the plains and that hunters are going after them thick and fast. If I weren't so busy here, I'd be tempted to go up and see that western country. And I'd take some of those cattle that're being butchered in Texas for their hide and tallow up north, where they'd fetch real money.”

“It's a long way to a railhead,” argued Mercy.

“Cattle can walk and men can drive them.” Eric shrugged. “Would you like that, Mercy? To go home?”

He seemed to mean it. Mercy's heart leaped. Then she remembered Zane. Where he was would always be her center now; she'd never be at home without him.

When she didn't answer, Eric swore. His gaze fell on the gold band on her finger. “Will you satisfy my curiosity?” he asked in that leashed way she had come to dread. “I've assumed that ring was Philip's, but you aren't the type of woman to wear a ring for convention's sake. Where did you get it?”

“It … it's an heirloom.”

“Your mother's?”

“No.” Why couldn't she lie?

“Your father's?”

She shook her head.

Eric's breath went from him in a sigh. “It must be Falconer's—belonging to his sacred mother, no doubt. I'm sure he kept nothing to remind him of that trull, his wife, except the child.”

“It's his mother's.”

“So you believe he meant to marry you,” said Eric in a pitying tone.

“I know he did.”

“Such faith, and from one who should know better!”

“It wasn't the way you think at all!” Goaded past keeping her secret, Mercy fought to steady her voice and hold back tears. “Zane … we weren't lovers till two nights before he left, after Peraza's messenger came.”

Eric's eyebrows rose. His gaze probed hers. “Is this true?”

“Why should I lie?” Mercy asked bitterly. “You've treated me like a whore! Why should I care what you think?”

“I've treated you like the one woman I've had to have.”

She shuddered involuntarily. Eric muttered something, grasped her hand, and slipped off the ring. Mercy leaned forward, catching at his large, hard fingers, trying to pry them apart. “Give it back! Please, let me have it!”

“So you can consider yourself married in all but fact to that pirate's son?”

“I … I won't wear it if you'll only let me keep it.”

He shook his head. “I know so well the use of shrines, sweet Mercy. However, I won't throw it away. It'll go in my vault, along with deeds, wills, mortgages, and other important items.” She knew that begging would make him more adamant, perhaps anger him into throwing the ring away, but she couldn't hide her intense sense of loss.

Springing up from the table, she ran blindly into the hall, groping for the stairs so she could go to her room and vent her helpless wrath. Eric seized her by the shoulders, turned her against him, and stood immovable as a rock while she sobbed and beat at him.

“I'll give you another ring,” he said when her outrage was spent and she fell stonily quiet under his hands. “I can marry you as I offered in the beginning, now that I know you didn't live complaisantly as Falconer's concubine. From what you say, it's possible he meant to marry you. I can see how you might feel, with some justice, that I owe you a husband.”

She stared up at him, unable to believe her ears. “I don't just want a … a husband! It's Zane I love!”

“An unfortunate predilection, Mercy, since I love you.”

“Not me, God help you! A likeness to your half sister!”

“That drew me to you at first. But I have glimpsed a fire in you that Alison was too gentle and young to have. That's why I hunted for Philip all the way to New Orleans and brought him to La Quinta in the hope that Falconer might feel obliged to sell you back to your repentant husband.”

“But you meant to buy me from Philip.”

“Exactly, though I thought you to be Falconer's woman. How did he resist, or is he softer toward tears than I? I couldn't marry his mistress, but I meant to keep you as long as that sweet fire warmed me.” He passed one hand lightly over her face. “It hasn't warmed me yet, but one day it will. You will love me. A woman, in time, must love the man who delights her body, protects her, and sees to her needs.”

Mercy stayed mutely defiant. He drew her against him so that she heard the steady, strong pounding of his heart.

“She comes to love the man who fathers her children,” he finished. “That's how I'll have you at last, Mercy, if not before. A baby will fill your hearty preempt first place. Loving the child, you'll love something of me that will lead you to forget what's past and gone.”

She thought of the dwarf poinciana flowers, but she knew better than to tell him she would use every means in her power not to be with child by him. A primitive part of her nature told her that the instincts and biological drives of a mother were directed at the child's safety and good. Even if she kept from developing a feeling for Eric, having a child by him would make it harder to find a way back to Zane.

“Why,” asked Eric abruptly, “did you never conceive by Philip?”

“He was at the front for a good part of our marriage, and then when he came home …” Mercy fell silent, hating to remember those drunken fumblings, her pain and humiliation. “It … just never happened.”

“I suspect he didn't come to you often.”

Mercy averted her face. In spite of all that Eric had said and done to her, she found it shaming to discuss sex, and especially her relations with Philip.

“Blushing, sweetheart?” Eric laughed softly. “Never mind. “I'm in no wild hurry, but if you don't root one of my seeds by Christmas, I'll think myself a poor planter! And if there's some problem with how you're made, we'll find a doctor who can set it right.”

Would a doctor be able to tell she was using a draft? Christmas was a long way off. Mercy refused to worry that far ahead. “When a baby starts, you'll want to marry,” Eric said. “But why not do it now? We could go to Belize City this week. The governor's my friend. He'll give a reception and do all the honors. You've never been to Europe, have you? We could go to Paris or Rome, stop in London. And New York has wonderful shops, if you'd enter Yankeeland.” His face glowed with eagerness. “Let's do it, Mercy! You won't be sorry!”

It was strange that she should hate to dash his excited boyish planning when he had forced her from her love's house in a way that would surely cost her Zane's trust.

“Well?” Eric persisted.

“No, I can't”

He was very still. Only his powerful heart pumped its secret rhythm against her cheek. “I'm going to take you upstairs and have my pleasure with you,” he said at last. “I'm going to give you pleasure, too, however you fight it, for that lovely body craves what I can do. Why not protect yourself, be able to go anywhere with pride?”

“I could never be proud again if I did what you suggest.”

He stiffened. Fear made the flesh seem to move on her bones. She knew how swiftly, ferociously, he could attack. His strength and size were such that even when he was trying to be gentle, he sometimes hurt her. But he only swept her up and buried his lips against her throat.

“Then we must make a baby! That'll change you!”

He used her skillfully that day, coaxed and brought her twice to that shivering, tremulous pulsing during which he entered and prolonged her sensations. Then with an inexorable, hushed intentness, he strove for and reached his own summit, his steel-muscled body locked over her so quietly it seemed she could hear him pumping into her.

Let me not get a baby,
she implored in the sort of desperate prayer that wells out of human impotence, made without any clear idea of to whom it's directed.
Let me not conceive, but if I do, let the poinciana work.…

Eric liked to watch her bathe, to watch Celeste rinse her with clear water and help her dry off after she stepped onto the soft wool mat. One day he brought a crystal flacon. After Mercy was toweled dry, he told Celeste to rub the perfumed oil into Mercy's skin.

Though she was embarrassed at being touched all over, lingeringly, by another woman, Mercy didn't argue. She'd learned that the only medical facility on the estate was a hut near the cane fields where the contagiously ill could stay till they died or recovered. Celeste said Eric had twice hired English doctors, but both had been such drunkards that they were of no use, and workers had to rely on their own smattering of herb knowledge. Having learned this, Mercy had been trying to think of a way to persuade Eric to let her run a sort of clinic and teach interested people what she knew so the widely scattered cattle and lumber workers wouldn't be far from someone with a certain degree of medical knowledge. Mercy, of course, needed the task for her own sanity, but since the good of other people was involved, she didn't feel guilty about catering a bit to Eric in the hope of achieving her aim. So she stood quietly while Celeste rubbed in the spice-scented balm and Eric watched her with lazy eyes beneath slightly drooping lids.

“The oil's not a hint that you're wrinkling, my dear, but it's my opinion that any body stays more beautiful if it's pampered and cherished. How old are you?”

“Almost twenty-five.”

“Such an age!” He grimaced. “Would you guess that in August I'll have twelve years' seniority over you? When's your birthday?”

“This month.”

“What day?”

“The twenty-eighth,” she said unwillingly.

She didn't want one of Pierre's feasts or gifts from Eric, which could only seem like manacles of gold. But then she remembered that she did want some things that were within his power.

“We must celebrate,” he said, catching her hands and kissing them. “I have one thing for you, but perhaps you have a few secret longings?”

Absorbed in this chance, Mercy scarcely remembered she was naked, her flesh warming and giving out the piquant sweetness of her anointings. ‘There are two things I want very much.”