Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong (35 page)

"even though I protested. But I thought you might prefer to pay the bootmaker yourself."

"You are correct," he said crisply, frowning down at her from his great height. "And while you are a guest in my house you will observe certain rules of propriety. I am told that before I arrived in Havana, the governor's daughter smiled upon Don Ramon del Mundo. It would please me to have her smile on him again. You will not stand in the way of it."

Carolina hid a grin. So he found Marina's hot pursuit a bit tiresome-s-it did not surprise her!

"Don Ramon is an old friend," she said carelessly.

He gave her an astonished look.

"Well, at least I met him before I came here," she amended. "He dined with me in Port Royal." "He dined with you and your buccaneer?" Don Diego asked in astonishment.

"No, with me alone. Kells was away up the Cobre, seeking to buy a plantation." She studied his face as she spoke, hoping to jog his memory-if indeed he had such a memory-but there was no spark of recognition.

"You are renewing a friendship, then, begun in Port Royal," he said slowly. "I think I begin to understand."

"No, you do not understand," she said, her voice sharpened by disappointment. "Don Ramon treats me as a lady, which the rest of Havana does not!"

"Do I not-" he began. "You bore me to the mattress at first sight!" she flashed. "I seem to recall that ,you were more than willing," he drawled. "You must have known I mistook you for somebody else-e-you should be ashamed!"

His hard gaze raked over her. "I find it hard to be ashamed of enjoying such a beautiful body," he murmured.

That was what she was to him-a beautiful female body to be enjoyed! Not Carolina Lightfoot, who had loved to distraction a man who was breath of his breath!

Carolina felt as if he had struck her a blow. Blindly she turned and would have fled the dining table but that his voice stopped her. "You will stay at table throughout the meal, Mistress Lightfoot. I have no wish to dine alone."

Sulkily, Carolina sat back and stared rebelliously down at her plate.

He began to talk then-e-companionably, as if he had known her always. His lazy voice lulled her as he spoke of the day's doings, how he had spent some time with the governor, how he was being considered to command the inner fortress of La Fuerza in case new orders failed to come from Spain. He was every inch the Spanish gentleman even though out of courtesy he spoke to her in English. She could not fault him.

It is true, she thought, and felt an infinite sadness steal over her. This man is who he claims to be-Don Diego Vivar, late of Castile. Her heart bled a little at the thought for her rebellious spirit had never really accepted it.

Had it been like this for Dona Ana? she asked herself suddenly. Had she loved the real thing and accepted the counterfeit? Or had the counterfeit seemed as good as the real?

The glow of candlelight showed pain in her lovely eyes as she tried to reconcile the present with the past. "Will you not miss Spain?" she asked him wistfully.

"Will not Havana seem like exile to you?"

"Odd that you should ask that," he said thoughtfully. "I think that I was cast here by fate, which undoubtedly has some purpose in foiling me of my objective, although I cannot for the life of me imagine just what it is."

"You speak in riddles," she said stiffly.

"Yes, I suppose I do. I was born yesterday, Senorita Lightfoot-although I am indeed Diego Vivar," he hastened to add, remembering her earlier outburst.

"And what does that mean?" she inquired.

"It means that I was on a delicate mission for the King of Spain when the Santo Domingo, the galleon on which I was traveling, was blown from the water by buccaneers. I was hurt somehow in the fighting a head wound." He touched a red scar that came down a shade below his hairline-something she had not noticed before.

"A head wound?" she asked, suddenly intent.

"Yes, it has interfered with my memory."

"You have trouble remembering things?"

He sighed. "Of the present, I remember everything, but of the past I remember nothing. I seem to have been born fully grown here in Havana for I have no memory of how I came here nor where I was before. But of course," he added with a shrug,

"much is known of me. The governor has a letter describing me. And those who brought me here were fully satisfied of my identity."

Carolina's heart seemed to miss a beat at this admission, and she looked up at him on a caught breath. "So," she said slowly, "there is something that you had not told me, Don Diego. Your life began, as you say, 'yesterday'-you know only what others have told you-you yourself have no idea who you really are!"

THE GOVERNOR'S PALACE HAVANA, CUBA

With her regal carriage and daunting manner, red-haired Penny had established herself overnight as being "in charge" of the governor's great house on the Plaza de Annas. The governor had been so delighted with her that he had supped with her privately that first night (which had so infuriated Marina that she had refused her own dinner and stomped off to bed). Since the governor spoke excellent English, Penny had talked a great deal and charmed him further with her unbridled view of life. This morning as he left for his office in La Fuerza he had told her that henceforth she would sup "with the family," and Penny had been wondering how Marina would take that!

With the governor gone, she had spent the morning intimidating the servants, who had been inclined at first to view her as one of themselves-they must be set straight on that point! Hampered by having little command of Spanish, for she had none of Carolina's facility with languages, she was frowning over how to explain what she wanted to one of the serving girls when the front door knocker sounded.

Impulsively she opened it herself and was confronted by a heavyset olive-skinned gentleman in military uniform who blinked at the sight of her, but recovered and said in a surprised tone, "Ah, one of the English ladies!"

Relieved that he should speak to her in English, Penny gave him her most winning smile and said, "Whoever you are, please do come in at once. I am at my wits' end trying to tell the servants what to do, and you can translate for me!"

If he was a trifle dazed to be thus energetically addressed, the military gentleman recovered very well. "Captain Juarez, senorita, at your service!" He swept her a courteous bow.

Pleased both by his respectful mien and by his willingness to serve, Penny swept him into the courtyard and gave half a dozen servants orders-all translated gravely by Captain Juarez.

"Now then," she told him gaily when that was done, "instruct this one-her name is Zita-to bring us something cool to drink. The governor has some fine Malaga. Would you like that?"

Captain Juarez was familiar with the governor's Malaga. He coughed discreetly and asked if the governor was about.

"Oh, no, he just went out. To La Fuerza, I think." Penny led her guest to a grouping of stone seats in the cool shadows of the colonnade, for the heat today was blistering, and even the palm fronds in the courtyard were blinding when the sun struck them. "I am surprised you did not meet him on your way in," she added.

Captain Juarez flushed ever so slightly, a condition that only darkened the weathered olive of his skin. In point of fact he had lurked about across the street until he had seen the portly governor stroll out on his way to his office in La Fuerza. Only when the governor was out of sight had he hurried over to bang the iron knocker of the governor's house. "And Dona Marina?" he asked diffidently. "Is she about?"

Penny, just settling her wide skirts on the stone bench, looked up quickly. From her guest's look of sudden discomfiture, his abrupt loosening of his neckpiece, she guessed shrewdly that he had not come to see the governor at all but to pay a call on the governor's ripe young daughter.

"No, Dona Marina went out much earlier with her duena," she told him carelessly. "I am not sure when she will be back." Her eyes twinkled. "I expect she is riding through the town in some excitement, for last night she was serenaded for the first time below her balcony. The governor fears that now there will be a constant succession of suitors, caterwauling beneath Marina's window every night until he can get her married!"

Captain Juarez gave the magnificent redhead across from him a wounded look. It pained him to hear her speak so lightly of his wonderful Marina, the light of his life!

And most especially it pained him to hear that suitors were already serenading young Marina, who, in accordance with Spanish custom, now occupied the front bedroom of the house overlooking the street, so that bedazzled suitors could strum and sing love songs beneath her window and entreat the marriageable young lady above to have mercy and toss down a rose or a lock of her hair. It pained him even more since he was afraid to become one of those caterwauling suitors; the governor had never given him any encouragement and indeed might consider it impudence for him to aspire to Marina's hand, for how could he, living on a captain's pay, support a wife in the grand style to which the governor's daughter was accustomed?

"I had come to inquire about the state of Don Diego's health," he explained, for it alarmed him that he might leave the impression that he had been calling on Marina.

"Don Diego now lives next door," Penny informed him.

"Oh?" In his embarrassment, he had forgotten that.

The Malaga was brought just then, and Captain Juarez quaffed a glass while a pair of sapphire eyes studied him. "Don Diego's health seems to be excellent. Why should you inquire?" Penny could not resist asking.

"Ah, senorita," smiled Captain Juarez, the wine warming him and loosening his tongue. "I have good reason to inquire for I am the man who brought him out of the hell of Port Royal!"

"Indeed?" Penny had heard nothing of this from the governor. She would have something to tell Carolina! She settled herself more comfortably upon the stone bench. "It sounds like a valorous tale. You must tell me about it-so that I can regale Marina with it!"

Marina had already heard it-several times-but Captain Juarez was flattered. Such a tale could scarcely be heard too often.

"But so that you willtruly understand, senorita," he explained, "I must go far back."

"Oh, go as far as you like," Penny said carelessly, and poured her guest another glass of wine.

Somewhat dazzled by all this attention, for he was not a man who got along well with women, Captain Juarez leaned forward and began to talk.

Through his eyes she relived his whole mad adventure, which had begun not in Port Royal but in Havana.

He recounted to her the terrible scene when Don Ramon del Mundo had received word from Spain that he would not be leading the expedition to Port Royal which he himself had conceived. Don Ramon's strong face had grown purple, he had sprung forward and seized the King's envoy by the throat, and Captain Juarez, who had had the misfortune to be present at the time, was certain in his heart that murder would have been done at that moment had he not swiftly intervened and wrested del Mundo away.

"How fortunate you were there!" she said lightly. Captain Juarez inclined his head in agreement and went on.

Of course he himself, being a military man, could sympathize with Don Ramon del Mundo's plight, for had not Don Ramon worked out a plan of supreme cleverness to seize the buccaneer stronghold of Jamaica, and once Jamaica was subdued, to proceed island by island to boot the English out of the Caribbean? Captain Juarez had been in Don Ramon's confidence and he knew that the entire scheme had been laid before the King's advisors in Spain a year ago. Don Ramon del Mundo had grown understandably impatient-as dashing caballeros were wont to do-on hearing nothing from his sovereign after so long a time and had gone to Jamaica himself earlier in the year. They had sailed in as far as Lime Cay and rowed del Mundo ashore by night, then retired to Great Goat Island around the point and picked him up again in darkness by rowboat. Captain Juarez had gone along on this venture but he had had no more than a glimpse of Port Royal by night from the harbor.

Back in Havana, Don Ramon had enthusiastically set about rounding up the party of

"advance men" his plan envisioned-and he, Juarez, was to lead them. Don Ramon had been certain that each newly arriving galleon that sailed past frowning EI Morro Castle into Havana harbor would bring the word from Spain that would light the torch!

And when word arrived at last it had sent Don Ramon into a passion. Del Mundo's efforts were appreciated, the suave message had said, but more experienced men than he would now take over. Since del Mundo was a gunnery expert, he would be most useful when the golden galleons mounted their assault, and he would not accompany the advance guard as he had hoped, but would wait in Havana for those galleons to arrive-the letter was very definite about that. After Jamaica was taken, his sovereign would no doubt find him some suitable post in the government of the island-nothing was said about the governorship of the island. Meanwhile this Captain Juarez, whom del Mundo had described as being most competent, should go about assembling a few good men-no more than a pinnace could conveniently accommodate-to infiltrate Port Royal as an advance guard. They were to contact del Mundo's friend there, who would arrange for their housing, and they were to familiarize themselves with the town, the location and strength of the forts-and it was important that some of them be able to speak English, as Captain Juarez did.

These men of the advance guard were to attract no attention-only to wait. The letter had been very specific about that. An eminent Castilian gentleman was being sent out from Spain to lead them. This caballero's name was Don Diego Vivar, and both King and Council had every confidence in him. Don Diego was sailing upon the Santo Domingo which would take the Windward Passage and pass near Jamaica en route to Panama. Don Diego would be set ashore just off the Jamaican coast in a small boat and would make his way to Port Royal.

The advance guard under Captain Juarez, already there, would recognize him by his boots, which had been crafted to his measure from an old pair left at Don Diego's bootmaker for repair. They had been placed upon the Santo Domingo in advance of Don Diego's coming aboard, a gift of the King of Spain. The body of these boots was unremarkable-black, of boiled jack-but their bucket tops were of fine scarlet morocco leather and would bear the initials DV intertwined in gold. These handsome jackboots would serve a twofold purpose: Cleverly sewn into their hardened sides were his orders, not to be opened until his arrival in Port Royal. Second, by their striking color they would attract the attention of the sharp-eyed men who waited for him-and by those intertwined initials DV they could identify him as their leader.