Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong (42 page)

"Why do you flinch from me, querida?"he asked in a voice rich and sad-because he was afraid he knew.

"I-this is all wrong," she choked. "I should never have let you bring me here, never led you on to believe that I would-" She stopped, hopelessly.

"Why?" he asked reasonably and his hand reached out and gently, yearningly stroked her thigh. "Never did a man more desire to be led!"

She edged away from him, trembling. A pulse beat in her throat. He was terribly attractive. It would be so easy to give in to him. Easy-and wrong.

"You must not fall in love with me, Ramon," she said in sudden panic, abruptly ashamed that this tryst should mean so much more to him than it did to her. "You do not deserve to be hurt. Indeed, I find myself confused. I have been very unhappy of late. I-"

"You want still to make your choice between us?" he divined. The vision of her riding forever beside him was vanishing now, the image of her smiling at him against the blue backdrop of the Guadalupe mountains was fading. He laughed ruefully. "Well, I suppose to choose is a lady's right although"-there was a certain wistfulness in his voice-"I had far rather settle the matter with my sword."

"Oh, no, you must not!" That was to be averted at all costs but she couched her words carefully, in terms that gallantry would understand. "Don Diego still suffers from his head wound," she explained. "He will not admit to it but he has terrible headaches-I have seen him sitting with his head in his hands. It would be murder to challenge him."

What a glib liar I have become! she thought, but his answer surprised her. "I know."

He sighed. "It is what held me back when I tried to buy you from him."

Her head came up. "When you what?" she gasped.

"Did Don Diego not tell you?" he asked mockingly. "It was outside La Fuerza before witnesses. I offered him my greatest possession here in Havana-a ruby cross that I had inherited from my father. It has been long in my family so I had never before considered selling it, but in such a cause ..." His tawny gold eyes caressed her. "I thought Don Diego might covet it. I offered it to him if he would send you along to EI Morro to--tend my house as you tend his."

Carolina felt her hands clenching. "And what did Don Diego say?" she demanded stormily.

Don Ramon gave an indifferent shrug. "He refused to discuss it. He said you were not for sale. He was very curt about it. Indeed his manner was such that I considered challenging him"-Don Ramon's eyes gleamed-"but I recalled his recent wound and decided the governor would frown upon me if I injured him."

More likely he would injure youl thought Carolina with asperity, for she had solid faith in Kells's skill with a blade. Kells had told her nothing about Ramon del Mundo's offer. How like him, she thought with a sudden rush of affection, to have nearly fought a duel over her and kept it to himself!

Her joy in that was suddenly tempered by the realization that Kells was probably in bed with Dona Jimena at this very moment.

"When did you make this offer?" she wondered. "When Don Diego sought me out to pay me for the shoes I bought you."

So he had done that, too! She remembered now how Kells had come home and looked at her cynically and said, "You have found an admirer in Don Ramon del Mundo:'

"I must go back," she said. "But I cannot rise -your knee is on my skirt."

Obligingly he moved his knee.

"But why? Why must you go back?" His hand trailed idly over her soft breasts, caressing the nipples. "Why can we not stay where we are till morning's light and ride back with the dawn?"

She pushed his hand away. "But I cannot have a hue and cry raised and ride back to find all Havana searching for mel"

She would have scrambled up then, but his long arm blocked her. "So you are to go back to your life and I to mine? As if nothing has happened?"

"Yes!" She tried again to rise.

"But Carolina, querida, something has happened. I have fallen in love with you. And I will not be pushed out of your life!"

Oh, she should have foreseen this would happen! She tried to keep her voice calm, to fight the rising panic in her breast.

"You will make of me a scandal," she protested.

His lips twitched. "A scandal? A woman who arrives in Havana by way of New Providence and is snatched from being sold in the marketplace by the governor, who gives her to Don Diego as a plaything? And you think you are likely to become a scandal?"

His words brought a flush to Carolina's cheeks. "I was a lady when you dined at my house in Port Royal," she reminded him frostily. "I am no less a lady now!"

He chuckled. "What a beauty you are!" he murmured. "Even in the darkness I can see your eyes shine."

She gave him an affronted look. "I am leaving!"

"Is it marriage you want?" he asked thickly.

"Ramon!" Her voice held a wild appeal. "You have said that I still believe myself married to someone else," she chided him.

"Yes, I have said that." His voice was sad but he released her, let his hand fall to his side. "What is it you wish of me, querida?" he asked her softly. "Name it and it is yours."

"I wish-c-ob, Ramon, I wish--" Tears choked her voice and she leaped up suddenly and sprang upon her horse. Lifting the reins from the ceiba tree where the mare had been tethered, she was off toward the town.

Don Ramon gave a shout-perhaps of warning-and sprang upon his own horse and thundered after her.

The white Arabian mare was fleet and they had covered some distance before the big black stallion caught up with her. As Don Ramon galloped up alongside, he leaned over and said, "Carolina, I am sorry. Slow your mount. I promise I will give you no cause for alarm."

The night wind had dried her tears and Carolina allowed the mare beneath her to find a more decorous pace. She acknowledged to herself guiltily that she had invited his embrace, encouraged it, wanted it. And then rejected him. How bewildered he must be!

"It is Don Diego, is it not?" he was asking her wearily. "You have given him your heart?"

"I don't know," she said. But she did know. She had given her heart long ago to Kells, whatever name he used.

And if Don Ramon should learn that Don Diego was actually Kells- The thought froze her blood. Whatever folly her despair had driven her to this night, it must not cost Kells his life! On that point at least she would never falter.

Don Ramon was not looking at her now. He was looking sadly into distant vistas.

Proud man that he was, it was a blow to find himself rejected. But-he wanted Carolina to love him and he knew instinctively that he would forever ruin his chances if he sought to take her by force. It was a wrench to let her go when she had seemed so nearly his beneath the ceiba tree, but he could still cherish the thought that she would change her mind. Women did that. He could hope.

Carolina was dimly conscious of this mood of his as they rode through a night magically scented with rosewood and saffron, and the strange exotic scents of lush tropical flowers wafted to them by the trade winds.

Finally she spoke-and what she said was the truth.

"Don Ramon," she sighed. "I have done you a great injustice-and you in no way deserved it. I led you on-and backed away. For that I make no excuses but I offer you my apologies." She flashed him a bittersweet smile. "It is my lot in life to bring my world constantly crashing down upon me."

He did not really understand that last remark but he studied her from shadowed tawny eyes as they rode into Havana.

"Querida," he murmured. "You are all a man could desire. For you I would forgo much, endure much." Carolina regarded him mistily. She could not bring herself to speak.

They rode silently through the dark streets.

When they reached the house on the Plaza de Armas, Don Ramon leaped to the street and lifted her down before she could dismount. For a moment he held her luxuriously in his arms, savouring her slight weight that rested against his chest, drinking in the faint lemony scent of her shining blonde hair.

"Querida, if you should have need of me, you have only to call," he murmured, then swiftly set her on her feet and went to bang the big iron knocker. It sounded very loud in the quiet street.

Carolina looked up nervously at the windows of the front bedroom above her, wondering if the noise would wake Kells and if he would come down and perhaps confront Don Ramon here in his doorway.

But no candle flared in the darkness above. Indeed it was a long time before old Juana shuffled to the door, unbarred it and let Carolina in.

Almost before the heavy door had closed behind her, Don Ramon had remounted and was gone like a wraith in the darkness.

"Where is Don Diego?" Carolina breathed fearfully. "He has not come home." Old Juana's voice was stolid. What would be would be.

Carolina took a deep shaky breath. "What are you doing up?" she asked. "Why didn't Luz answer the door?"

"Luz slipped out to spend the night with Miguel. And if Luz does not watch her step, the governor's cook will be pursuing her down the street with a butcher knife!" She chuckled, for the amorous mishaps of those around her did much to brighten her days.

"Go on to bed, Juana. If Don Diego bangs on the door, I will let him in. And one more thing." She turned on the stairs to call to the old woman who was lumbering across the courtyard. "Tell Luz that if she tells Don Diego that I went riding with Don Ramon, I will have her whipped until her back is nothing but stripes." Her eyes narrowed. "No, I will not have it done-I will do it myself!"

Old Juana chuckled again. "I will tell her," she promised. And then thoughtfully, "I do not think she will tell him. Luz fears the whip."

"Is Nita awake? I would like a bath." "I will wake her,"said Juana. "She is young, she will not mind-and I will let her sleep late tomorrow."

Carolina, in her black riding clothes, went on upstairs. From the top she called down,

"Tell Nita I will be in the front bedroom."

Just on her way to the kitchen, Juana heard that and grinned. Back from her tryst with another man and she would greet Don Diego naked in his bedchamber-ah, there was a wily wench. Juana did not know when she had enjoyed a job more!

Carolina pulled off her clothes thoughtfully. She had made a mistake tonight-made it with a hot-blooded Spaniard who was already half in love with her. And she would pay for that mistake, she had no doubt. A wiser woman would never have done what she did. But then-when had she ever been wise?

Nita brought the water and Carolina sank into the tub gratefully, washing off the dust of Havana's streets, of the outlying barrios, of the magnificent countryside. She relaxed in the warm water, feeling it lap about her waist, and she scrounged down in the tub with her knees bent, letting it lap about the white mounds of her young breasts that had aroused such ardor in Don Ramon.

She was beginning to live with regret. Kells did not know his real identity, and as a patriotic Spaniard-for in truth he believed himself to be the genuine article-he mistrusted her as a "buccaneer's wench," and who could blame him?

But she---she had been about to betray him, with her eyes wide open. She had been angry and confused and despairing that he had chosen not to believe her, that he had gone off to some other woman's arms.

Her eyes darkened as she thought about it, turned to tarnished silver as she considered the possibility that Dona Jimena had somehow spirited Kells away to her father's house, and that the winking lights she had seen from the hacienda had been a candlelit upstairs bedroom where Dona Jimena strained with her lover. . . . It did not bear thinking on, but somehow it eased a little the pain of her own remorse!

THE HOUSE ON THE PLAZA

DE ARMAS

HAVANA, CUBA

Carolina awakened in confusion. Somewhere a door had shut. She sat up, putting a hand over her eyes to ward off the brilliant light that streamed in from the windows.

She realized suddenly where she was: in Don Diego's front bedroom, where she had curled up to nap after she had toweled herself dry last night.

Now she lay completely naked upon the coverlet and Don Diego himself stood in the door. A Don Diego who looked haggard and worn, as if he had fought some great battle with himself-and lost.

"Kells . . ." she murmured, not knowing what to say to him.

"You may call me that." He shut the door behind him. "You may call me anything you like. I have tried to fight you off but it seems you are in my blood and the only way to get you out is to stop breathing."

"You-remember?" she asked joyfully. He shook his head. "I remember nothing. I would swear before God that I have never met you before- and yet . . . and yet there is something about you ... and this feeling I have for you." He shook his head.

"That feeling is called love," she told him sadly. "You were in love with me once even though you do not remember it."

"I only know that what was enough for me before you came is not enough for me now. I find myself thinking about you at odd times through the day, no matter where I am." And through the nights, as well, no matter in whose arm she spent them!

"Try," he pleaded, "to call me Diego."

She sighed. "That will be very hard for me," she said in a voice gone husky.

"Because to me you are Kells." "Your lost lover ..." He looked bemused. "I am to become a shadow of some other man!"

"No," she maintained stubbornly. "Of yourself. You are a victim of what others have told you. They saved your life-so you choose to believe them."

"Carolina," he said, "enough of this. I have come to offer you somewhat more than your other suitors in Havana may offer you." She tensed because she guessed he was speaking of Don Ramon del Mundo. "I have come to offer you marriage. I want you to share my life, Carolina. I will take you away to Spain. You will be happy there."

Her eyes blurred with sudden tears as the declaration he had just made sank in. It was a great deal, coming from a proud gentleman of Spain-which he believed in his heart he was. And to a heretic, the daughter of an enemy country, bride to a buccaneer!