Woman of Three Worlds

by Jeanne Williams

  “I do, and anyway, it’s none of your concern! I won’t stay any longer!”

  She tried to wrest free, but he took both her hands. “Brittany, stop! We are acting like lunatics.” The muscles in his broad jaw hardened. “Forgive what I said. Panchita will alter the gowns as you direct. But you must promise to give up any ridiculous notion of going to Arizona alone.”

  It must be one of the few times he had ever curbed that hidalgo temper. Calming in turn, Brittany knew it was madness to attempt a journey of over four hundred miles where she might encounter not only rampaging Yaquis and Apaches but bandits, Mexican and American.

  “If no train leaves by Easter,” she said slowly, “will you swear to escort me yourself?”

  He kissed her hands and beamed down at her. “At Easter, my Brittany, I will take you wheresoever you wish. And now, por favor, will you change from those hides, which turn you into a veritable Apache and, to be frank, stink to high heaven?”

  “All right, if you’ll send Panchita back. And don’t blame her, Don Roque! She tried to follow your orders.”

  “I knew that.” He studied Brittany, brown-gold eyebrows furrowed. “You are not like Francisca. She was my rose with no thorns. You are surrounded with them!”

  “A good thing,” she said lightly. “I have no wish to be plucked.”

  “Do you not?” Eyes darkening, he touched her cheek, let his fingers trail in slow caress to her throat. The pulse leaped. She felt exposed to him, almost as much as if he had stripped her.

  “A rose on the bush withers,” he said, voice husky.

  It took great effort to move away from him. “So does one in a silver vase.”

  He smiled. “But first it fulfills its destiny, sweetens the air, lends grace and beauty to this rough world, and is cherished.” He turned, said over his shoulder, “I’ll send Panchita. You’d better get out of that rig or you’ll scare her. Her village was raided by Apaches when she was a girl. She hid in a cornfield, but she saw her father and brother killed.”

  What a region of blood, this vast stretch of mountains and plains that was northwest Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico! For centuries Apaches and Mexicans had pillaged each other, and now the United States had joined in the mutual slaughters and retaliations.

  It wouldn’t go on much longer. Major Erskine had estimated that no more than five hundred Apaches, mostly women and children, were still at large, dodging into the United States and then refuging in the mazes of the Sierra Madre. It was only a question of time, and not much of that, before they were all either killed or put on the hated reservation.

  And then?

  Mexicans and Americans would travel and work their fields without fear of attack. But the proud, free people who had ranged from where White-Painted Woman ascended to Ussen as far as the Colorado, the Mogollon Rim, jagged blue wave after wave of Mexican mountains? They had been one with that wilderness, their lives and rituals tuned to its cycles.

  For the first time Brittany thought of Kah-Tay’s band without wanting to weep. Perhaps, dying swiftly in liberty, they were the lucky ones.

  The fate of a people made her ashamed of showing so little fortitude in her own troubles. She slipped out of the buckskins, folded them away, and was patient and friendly when Panchita reappeared.

  Roque might have warned Panchita that Brittany was unbalanced and must be humored. The whole thing must seem mad to her: first, to model a wardrobe on fine, existing clothes that needed only tiny alterations; now, to work the new gowns over to suit the Americana’s fevered whimsies!

  Brittany feared it was too complicated to explain in her rudimentary Spanish, but when she held up the wine riding habit, pointed to the trim and said, “De Doña Francisca,” then tucking the velvet under, giving it a new neckline, said, “De mí!” understanding shot over Panchita’s sweet features.

  She nodded in vigorous approval. “Sí, señorita. You are not the Doña Francisca—may she rest in peace!”

  After that she aided and abetted Brittany in devising ways to individualize the gowns, altering sleeves, necklines, buttons, and trims. At the end of the session she gathered up the dresses and paused in the doorway.

  “That Doña Lisette, she is a mean woman.” Brittany could follow the gist of most conversations now if the speaker formed words as slowly as Panchita did. “Mateo says she is always after Don Roque to order me and the children away. I know I am not good enough for him in the city, but she would be no good here.” Her dark eyes met Brittany’s in appeal. “If—if you become his woman, both for Alamos and Los Caciques, you will not force Don Roque to send his children away and forget them?”

  So, behind her pleasant calm, this worry had been nagging. Brittany touched the other woman’s hand. “I’m not going to be the woman of Don Roque,” she promised. “And he loves Trini and Chuey. I don’t think he’d send them—or you—away for anyone.”

  Panchita’s eyes widened. “You believe that? Doña Lisette—”

  “Doña Lisette makes him angry. She wants more than he cares to give her.”

  Panchita sighed. “I want only to be near him and have the children know him as their father. I think Doña Francisca is glad that I take care of him.”

  “She must be,” Brittany agreed.

  After the door closed, she fought back tears. In a world where love was so desperately needed, what a shame it was often wasted! If Roque gave Panchita a tithe of the devotion he had for a dead woman—From that, it followed to wonder why she couldn’t love Roque instead of Zach, who in turn might pine after Regina, who didn’t love him.

  It was all a muddle. But at least she wouldn’t add to the confusion by dressing so that Roque could fancy she was Francisca.

  Days passed in a leisured but agreeable fashion. She rode, played chess, and talked on a hundred subjects with Don Roque, chatted with Panchita and Concha as she helped with cooking and sewing, took Chuey and Trini for rides on La Dorada.

  Lived as it came, without looking forward or back, it would have been a tranquil, even happy existence, but Brittany was worried that other soldiers had died in searching for her, like Michael O’Shea. She was haunted by the fate of Jody and Pretty Eyes, tormented by the possibility that Zach hadn’t recovered, that he’d succumbed to his wound and lay buried near the mining camp.

  Besides, though fear that she might go plunging off into the wilds had chastened Roque into temporary circumspection, she could not mistake the tension mounting between them, nor could she deny the quivering shock that ran through her when their hands brushed at the chessboard, the melting weakness that suffused her when he paused in lifting her from the saddle so that she was almost in his arms, almost able to feel and hear the pounding of his heart.

  She loved Zach. But she sensed the power in this man, the controlled passion, and it drew her. Somehow she knew that he would seize the faintest signal from her. Then she would be lost. Even if after being swept away she still had the will to leave him, she understood with deep, primal knowledge that he’d never let her go.

  Once, when he beat her at chess, he chided, “You could have stopped me. Why do you forget, Brittany, that your queen can move in any direction?”

  “Perhaps it’s because I can’t.”

  His eyes held hers. He smiled slowly and shook his head. “More likely, it’s that you aren’t sure where you should move. But that will come clear in time.”

  How long, living in his house, constantly with him, could she keep from some involuntary look or motion that would snap his restraint, turn this silent, undeclared siege into a conquest?

  Brittany had no answer to that. Each day that passed settled her more naturally into this simple but enchanted life. She knew what was happening, as Roque used no force; she was bound by her word to wait for safe transport.

  It was on a morning about a month after she’d come to the hacienda that she was sitting with Trini and Chuey on either side, reading to them from a homemade picture book with easy Spanish verses she had composed
with Roque’s help, when there was a clattering on the patio stones.

  Panchita hurried to the door, but before she could open it, it swung ponderously ajar. Lisette McDonald stood panting there.

  XXIII

  Scornfully ignoring Panchita, the silver-haired woman swept across the room to Brittany. “I might have known I’d find you cuddling Roque’s mestizo brats and raising yourself ever higher in his doting estimation!”

  The children gaped, hazel and dark gazes going wide and frightened at this tall gringa, who glared at them from wintry eyes. Brittany gave them a reassuring hug, handed them the book to hold between them, and got to her feet.

  “Have you ridden all this way to abuse children?”

  Lisette’s harsh laughter made it clear whom she’d like to abuse, but she eyed Brittany warily for a moment before she spoke. “Have you an interest in a tall blue-eyed American named Zachary Tyrell?”

  Brittany caught the back of a chair. “Zach!”

  “You know him, then.” Lisette gave a satisfied nod. “He’s going to need a friend. It seems he assaulted Tranquilino and Anselmo de Haro after breaking into Anselmo’s house. He’s in jail, waiting to be shot.”

  Stunned, Brittany shook off a wave of blackness that threatened to engulf her. “Shot? They can’t do that! He’s an American citizen!”

  “So were Crabb’s filibusterers,” derided Lisette. “That didn’t keep them from being shot after they surrendered and Crabb’s head cut off to go on exhibit.” Stepping closer, she gripped Brittany’s shoulder and said between her teeth, “Mexicans hate us for taking away so much of their territory! You’re a fool if you think they won’t welcome a chance to execute a gringo.”

  “I—I can’t believe Zach would attack the de Haros without a reason! Or break into a house unless they refused to see him—”

  “That’s just how it happened,” Lisette shrugged. “He came hunting you, first to Roque’s mansion, where apparently Tomás had been ordered to play dumb in case such a thing happened. So Tyrell then stormed over to Anselmo’s house, was refused admission, and knocked a few heads together to get in. When Anselmo called servants to wrestle your big friend down, he wrecked the sala and half a dozen men, including Roque’s brothers.” She gave an admiring laugh. “Much man, that Tyrell. I bribed my way in to see him. Even with blacked eyes and a bruised, cut face, he’s a handsome devil.”

  “Was he hurt?” Brittany thought fearfully of the shoulder wound.

  “Not really.” Lisette’s pale gray eyes stabbed into Brittany’s. “That won’t matter if you can’t get the de Haros to intervene and withdraw their charges.”

  Brittany’s head whirled. In the midst of her distress was a glow; Zach had come after her! She must find Roque, persuade him to right this tangle! She was starting to ask Panchita to help find him when he strode in from the patio.

  Gold eyes furious, he stared at Lisette. “This is not your place. I’ve told you never to come here.”

  She tossed her head. “Don’t snarl, darling. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your guest to be upset when she eventually learned of the execution of the man you left at the mining camp.” She tilted her head amusedly. “Is it true, as he says, that you’d forbidden the priest and people to say where you’d taken Miss Laird or even your name? He had to get some miners drunk to win that information.”

  Roque’s lips thinned. “You have always been a clever liar.”

  “I don’t lie now!” she spat. “You told your Alamos servants and your brothers to feign ignorance if he did, by some chance, learn your identity. You may even have asked them to make sure that his curiosity was permanently quenched.”

  Face hardening to stone, he went over to the hinged writing surface of a high, carved desk, wrote with slashing swiftness. Handing it to Lisette, he said in a tone that cut like an ice-frosted knife, “Give this to Anselmo. He will provide you with a carriage, escort, and ample money to establish yourself wherever you choose to most profitably sell your body.”

  “You—you can’t throw me away like an old rag!”

  “I can do with you exactly as I please.” His soft voice held chilling menace. “You can go now, with the means for a luxurious future, or be awkward and—well, who knows?”

  He turned his back to her. Shrieking, face distorted, she flew at him, clawing at his eyes, mouthing unintelligible reproaches and entreaties.

  As if dealing with a frenzied cat, he pinioned her wrists, hauled her to the door, and called Mateo. “Take this woman to Alamos,” he said. “Tell Tomás she may collect her clothing and personal belongings but to watch that she steals nothing. She is not to be allowed to spend another night under that roof.”

  “Bastard!” she screamed. “Sneaking low-down greaser!”

  “If Señorita McDonald continues to rave,” Roque said, “perhaps, Mateo, you will think of a way to quiet her. She has pretty pechos, doesn’t she? Don’t stammer—I’ve seen you watching them!”

  Lisette understood the drift of his words, for she tried to writhe away from the bodyservant’s brown hands. “Roque! Roque, I love you! Don’t do this! Don’t let this peon hurt me!”

  “He won’t, if you behave,” Roque said. “What happens to you from now on depends precisely on how well you conduct yourself, beginning with Mateo and ending with Anselmo.”

  He motioned. Mateo led the woman away. Brittany could not keep from pitying the droop of Lisette’s head and shoulders, said urgently, “Don Roque, you can’t let Mateo hurt her!”

  “He won’t, if she goes peacefully.”

  “But—”

  His face closed. He made a gesture to Panchita, who gathered up the children and hurried them away. “I was more generous than she deserved. Don’t worry about Lisette. She was a French officer’s toy when I was fool enough to take her into keeping. Anselmo has an eye for her. If she weeps prettily and allows him to comfort her, he might set her up somewhere. I’ve tried to delicately hand her over to him before this, but she protested her devotion so persuasively that I kept her on long after I was bored with her jealousy and tantrums.”

  Brittany was horrified at this casual brutality, though she suspected that he was right. Deprived of the man she wanted, Lisette would find another. But Zach!

  “Is it true?” she asked slowly. “Did you try to make sure Zach couldn’t find me?”

  Roque shrugged. “It would have been much better for him if he hadn’t tried.”

  Brittany’s heart stopped. “But—but surely you’ll go into town, get your brothers to have him released!”

  “Will I?”

  He folded his arms, surveyed her coolly.

  Brittany gasped. “You can’t just let him be shot!”

  “I see no reason to interfere. I left him in good hands, with orders that he be given provisions and a mount to get back to Arizona. If he came blundering to Alamos, broke into Anselmo’s house, and assaulted my brothers, he deserves punishment.”

  Stunned, Brittany felt the tiles heaving beneath her. Roque made her sit down. She pushed away from him, crying fiercely, “You must help him!”

  Kneeling, Roque gripped her shoulders, compelled her to look at him. “Brittany, what is this man to you?”

  Something warned her not to avow her love. “He was captured while scouting with a patrol that was hunting me. I feel to blame.”

  The tawny eyes searched hers. “Let us make a bargain,” he said carefully. “I love you, my Brittany. I had hoped to wait till you loved me before saying that I want you to be my wife, stay with me forever.”

  “You—you promised to take me to Arizona!”

  “After Easter,” he corrected. “I was vain enough to believe that by then you wouldn’t wish to go.”

  Trying to wrest away, she flamed, “And the merchant trains? How many of them have gone through without me?”

  “Only one. Be glad you weren’t with it. Juh’s band ambushed it and everyone was killed.” He held her with such implacable strength that struggle was us
eless. “I still believe you will love me. Sometimes you almost do, yet you resist. I can feel it. You know I have been patient.” Slowly, he lifted her face to his. “I am tired of waiting, Brittany. I begin to think that for some obscure reason you are bent on going back to Arizona. Because of this, you will not let yourself love me.” His tone harshened. “So there must be no more thoughts of return.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You will marry me. With futile notions out of your head, you will love me and be happy.” Bowing his head, he pressed her hands to his lips. “Promise. You will ride to Alamos with me, tell this Tyrell that you are to be my wife, that you willingly remain. Then he will be released with a horse and supplies while we are married either here or in the cathedral of Alamos.”

  See Zach? Force herself to lie convincingly so that he’d return home? Her whole being revolted against this forced marriage, denying her only love, but the alternative was his death.

  Looking blindly at Roque, she said, “Let us go. Now.”

  On the way into town, she only said one thing. “Panchita and the children should stay where they are. I don’t want them sent away.”

  He looked relieved. “Good. We will not speak of it again, but let me assure your tender heart that they are provided for in my will. Trini and Chuey will get lands and mining income, while Panchita gets a permanent home at the hacienda and a generous allowance. I have had more comfort from her than ever I did from Lisette.”

  “You can’t marry her?”

  “An Indian? You know that is impossible!” His gaze embraced Brittany. “I had thought that even for legitimate heirs I could never put a woman in Francisca’s place. You changed that.”

  Ironic, that he should love her while Zach, whom she loved, only felt for her the masculine lust a healthy man had for almost any attractive woman. He must certainly have wanted Erskine’s reward to come all the way to Alamos. Her lip trembled. She bit it savagely.

  He’d forfeit the reward but he’d have his life. It was as well, for her pride’s sake, that he’d never know how much she loved him.