Spanish Serenade (30 page)

Hard hands closed on her arm. She was whirled around and half dragged, half thrown into the alleyway between two houses. She came up against a plastered wall. The jolt scraped her shoulder blades and caused bright fragments of golden light to flare behind her closed eyelids. A cry rose in her throat but was trapped by a firm hand over her mouth. A man's body pressed against hers.

“Curse me quietly,” Refugio said against her ear, “and I'll do the same for you.”

14

ANGER SURGED UP INSIDE Pilar. She shoved at Refugio with both hands, bracing her shoulders against the building wall for purchase. He stepped back, but retained her wrists in a loose clasp, standing balanced and ready to forestall any attempt at escape.

“What do you think you're doing?” she cried. “You nearly frightened me to death.”

“You had every appearance of trying to avoid Don Esteban, and I sought only to aid the cause. If I was wrong, I can withdraw.”

“Oh, yes,” she said bitterly, “you were aiding the cause. Your own! I was not quite ready to meet the don, but that doesn't mean that you can stop me from seeing him. My reasons are as compelling as yours, and you can't make me stand aside.”

“Stand aside? Oh, no, I would not dream of asking that.”

She stared at him with suspicion rising in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“My hope, my dream, is that you see Don Esteban. Imagine my joy to find you still intend to do it.”

“I am trying to do that,” she said in heavy irony.

He released her, giving her a taut smile. “Never mind. Come let us put our heads together like a pair of thieves, and decide how you are to deliver yourself to our enemy.”

She stared at him as comprehension seeped into her face.

“You're going to let me help you?”

“Help me? No, no, my love, how could I be so unfair? It's I who am going to help you.”

She raised her chin, never taking her gaze from his face. “Why?”

Why, indeed, Refugio asked himself. The decision had been sudden and instinctive, and caused by fear. He was afraid of what might happen to this woman if she were not with him. He had refused her help before because he wanted to keep her safe. Tom now between a desire to strangle her and the need to close her in his arms and banish the lingering fear behind her eyes, he recognized his defeat and dismissed it. Changing his plans and intentions toward Don Esteban at speed, he smiled.

“Why not?” he said.

The explanations did not take long. Within minutes Pilar was standing alone before the front door of Don Esteban's house. It opened to her knock, and a manservant, her stepfather's majordomo, appeared in the opening. The man's eyes widened as he saw her, but he invited her to step inside. From a room not too far away came the clink of silver and glassware and the murmur of familiar voices, as if her stepfather was at his noon meal. No doubt he had been returning home for that purpose.

She was shown into a salon, a room of some size laid with a Moroccan carpet. The chairs grouped here and there were cushioned in green velvet trimmed with gold cord. At the shuttered window were gathered and poured taffeta draperies, and a chandelier of crystal and bronze hung from the ceiling. The embellishments were rather like lace on an everyday gown, however, for the walls were of plain whitewashed plaster and the floors of unpolished cypress.

The salon was the main room of a house built, in typical French fashion, much like that of Dona Luisa, with all the rooms opening into each other. Access to most of these other rooms appeared to be gained from this central salon, for a number of doors were set into the walls. Though the front door opened directly onto the street, the house appeared to have a gallery across the back that overlooked the garden. This outdoor area was open, without enclosing walls, and connected with the gardens of the houses on either side.

Pilar moved to the window. The casement was open for air, and she reached to push the shutters open also, in order to look out. Coming toward the house along the outside street, moving at a slow pace, was a cart piled high with the gray, curling moss known as Capuchin's beard, which grew on the trees along the river and was used for stuffing mattresses. The man on the seat, a hunched and pathetic figure, wailed a thin and quavering song: “Fine moss, soft moss/Moss for bride's beds and accouchements/Moss fit for babies and dear old ones/Buy my moss, fine moss!”

Footsteps were approaching at a hurried pace. Pilar pulled the shutter gently closed and turned to face the room. She moved to stand beside a chair with a tall back on which was carved the lions and castles of Spain. A tremor of dread ran over her. She put her hand on the chair arm, as if the lion's paw that formed it could give her courage.

Her stepfather appeared in the doorway, coming to a halt. He still held the napkin from his interrupted meal in his hand. He wiped his mouth with the cloth and handed it to the majordomo, who hovered behind him. Waving the man away in dismissal, he walked forward into the room. His face creased in a harsh frown as he spoke.

“So it is you. I could not believe it. How did you come to be here?”

“By ship, as you did.”

“I am amazed.”

“Yes, you thought me safely in Spain. Or safely dead.”

“An unjust charge. How can you think such a thing?”

He was speaking at random, it seemed, as if trying to collect his wits. “I don't just think it, I know. I heard you order me killed.”

“You must have misunderstood,” he said, the words pompous, his manner overbearing. “You are my dear dead wife's daughter whom I was attempting to place safely with the nuns during my absence. Your kidnapping by the bandit El Leon must have left you confused in your mind. Where is he, by the way? How did you manage to escape him?”

“My mind is perfectly clear, I assure you,” she said. “As, for El Leon, I have nothing to say of him. I have come to talk to you about my mother's property which you took as your own.”

“Your lack of trust, your lack of gratitude for my care of you, saddens me, but I am not surprised. It's of a piece with your attempt to seduce my man Carlos. You are a willful, irresponsible female, one doomed by the cravings of the flesh. I would wash my hands of you if it were not for the love I bore your mother. As it is, I will take you back into my household out of charity. If I do this, however, you must submit yourself to my wishes and to the discipline I will impose.”

The words sent a chill along her spine, even though she knew she need not heed them. Her voice steady, tinged with sarcasm, she replied, “You are everything that is good and compassionate, as always, but I don't require a place in your household. I require what is mine.”

“Ah.” He turned away, circling a table on his short, stout legs before he faced her again. “Did you travel here alone?”

“I am not a fool.”

“Who is with you and where are they?”

“That is no concern of yours. You will give me what I ask, now, this minute, or else I will go to Governor Miro and tell him that you are unfit for the position you hold. The governor, I understand, is an exacting official, one who likes to go by the book. He will not be pleased to learn of your activities before coming here.”

“He won't listen to you. In the first place, you are a woman, and in the second, you have been disgraced and discredited by your time spent in the company of a notorious bandit. All I need do, is let it be known.”

There had been a time not too long ago when his assurance, along with his position and the recognition of his enmity, would have been enough to make her retreat. Now she thought of her mother and her aunt and the way they had died, and refused to be intimidated.

“You may be right, then again, you may not,” she said. “It should be interesting to see, don't you think? But I don't believe you really want to make accusations. You have a weakness, you see, the presence of El Leon's brother in your house.”

Don Esteban's smile showed too much teeth. “The young man indentured himself to me because of a debt. He changed his mind afterward, so has to be restrained.”

“What kind of debt? One whose payment is in blood?”

Her stepfather's smile faded and purple color filtered into his face. “What do you know of it, of the pain and sorrow inflicted on my family by those whoresons, the Carranzas? They must and shall be exterminated, destroyed root and branch. In no other way can I live in peace.”

“Exterminated,” she repeated. “But not before you have the, pleasure of inflicting pain and humiliation upon them, as you have done with Vicente.”

“It's a right I have earned. But you are mightily concerned with the younger Carranza brother.”

From somewhere to the rear of the house there came a dull thud. She ignored it. “Does it seem so?” she said, holding his gaze. “Perhaps it's because I feel to blame for his plight. I assume he is still with you?”

“Naturally. He is not so experienced in escape as his brother.”

Nearer at hand, perhaps in the dining room, there was a strangled call followed by a crash. Pilar stepped forward in haste to catch her stepfather's arm, speaking in louder tones. “Never mind Vicente, I want my dowry! How can I live without it? You have left me nothing, no one of my own, no way to live. You have taken everything. I don't require much, just my rightful share. But I will have that, or else I will hound you to the last day you live!”

He shook her off, his look baleful before he strode toward the door, calling for his majordomo. “Alfonzo!” he shouted. “What is this disturbance?”

As no answer came, he swung back to her. “It's El Leon, isn't it? You've joined forces with him. He's come for his brother. That's it, I know it.”

She must distract him, delay him, if only for a few seconds more. “What do I care for Vicente?” she said. “Or for El Leon, if it comes to that. But I want my gold. Where is it? Where have you hidden it?”

Don Esteban's face twisted with contempt. “I'll not give you a peso, not a livre or a piaster. We might have dealt well together, you and I, if you had been quiet and obedient, if you had kept your place. You chose instead to defy me. You cast your lot with a bandit and his band of cutthroats and whores. You went with them of your own will. Well, then, stay with them. That's where you belong!”

A smile curled her lips. “Oh, yes, I went with El Leon. More than that, I sent for him. Now I have no other place, no other choice; you have seen to that. But where do you belong? What place is there on this whole wide earth for a killer of women?”

Don Esteban cursed her, a virulent sound that was nearly drowned by the sudden clash of arms in the next room. The look in his eyes was savage as he whirled away from her.

He did not reach the door. He was met by the sharp tip of a sword as Refugio rounded the frame of the opening in a smooth glide with his weapon in his hand.

“What a pity to interrupt this charming meeting,” the bandit leader said, his gray eyes chill, “but I have an interest in any question of gold.”

The blood drained from Don Esteban's face as he stared down at the sword point nudging under his chin. He held himself as stiffly erect as his paunchy body would permit. “How did you—”

“Easily. Annoying, isn't it, to be taken by surprise.”

“I'll have somebody's ears for it!”

“Not,” Refugio said succinctly, “if I cut your throat first.”

Don Esteban swallowed visibly. “It isn't your way to kill an unarmed man, or I've heard that's your boast.”

“You should never depend on gossip.” The sword tip did not waver.

“If — If it's Vicente you want, take him and get out!”

“I have your permission? How gracious, but I have him already. My men are even now striking his chains and tying up your stalwart hirelings. What I want is the woman behind you, and your gold.”

“I knew the bitch was with you, I knew it!”

The sword point sank: into the fleshy neck of the don until a bright red drop welled. “What was the title you gave her? I don't believe I heard correctly.”

“The — lady,” the don said with a hoarse gasp.

“And the gold?” Refugio prodded him gently.

“I — If you want it, you'll have to let me show you where I have it hidden.”

Refugio withdrew the sword point a short distance. “I have been waiting with hopeful patience for nothing else. But I'd advise you to move carefully. It would be a pity if there were an accident.”