Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  At a tap on the door she moved toward it, expecting to be freed. Instead it swung open to admit a small procession. Two men, Nicaraguan soldiers in red shirts, came first, bearing a small but heavy table. The colonel came next with a pair of chairs, while following him was the black-clad woman and a plump, aproned female, both carrying trays of food and drink. Last was a small girl, of seven or eight, the daughter, from her scolding, of the woman who appeared to be the cook. The child held a wooden candelabra of upright design with three lighted candles. With glassy eyes and a painful care, she set the candelabra in the center of the table, then dropped a bobbing curtsy before, smiling her relief, she skipped out the door.

  Pushed to one side, Eleanora watched as the chairs were placed, the table laid, the food set out. The final ritual was the pouring of the wine in delicate Venetian goblets before the thin woman followed the others from the room. Eleanora was left alone with Colonel Farrell.

  Disappointment that she was not to leave her room gathered in a hard knot at the base of Eleanora’s throat. With an effort of will she kept it from her face as she met the intent, considering gaze of the colonel. He had shaved in honor of the occasion but had not donned full uniform. With his breeches he wore only a white lawn shirt open at the neck against the heat. The copper-bronze of his skin was in sharp contrast to the white, an impression intensified by the wavering candlelight. The flames cast odd angles and planes across his face, making a curving beak of his nose and cliffs of his cheekbones so that, for an instant, Eleanora caught the impression of something savage, ancient, in his features. He moved and the impression was gone. Still she stood straining after the image as he stepped to the French doors and threw them wide.

  The coolness of the night crept into the room with the warm fragrance of orange blossoms and wild gardenia. The man at the window put a hand on the iron grille with its curling arabesque design and gave it a small shake. The chain and padlocks held it firm, clanking with a cold metallic sound.

  At his air of satisfaction Eleanora felt her fingers clench. With an abrupt movement she thrust the betraying hand among the folds of her skirts. He turned, instantly alert, but seeing her standing still where she had been before, he relaxed and moved to draw her chair out. A mirthless smile indented one corner of his strongly molded mouth. As she took her place, Eleanora flicked a glance at him under her lashes. How old was he? Thirty? Thirty-five? There were fine lines radiating from his eyes, and a deep gash on each side of his mouth. Combined with the harsh aspect of his features, they denied him the conventional idea of handsomeness. And yet it was an infinitely memorable face — and a compelling one.

  The food was plain but well cooked, a variation of the omnipresent beans, spiced meat, and corncakes. The wine was red with the warm, dry taste of Spain. Dessert was a salad of chopped fresh fruit served with cream and followed by a cheese tray.

  Once or twice during the silent meal Eleanora knew an impulse to introduce some topic of conversation. She quelled it firmly. The colonel was host. The responsibility was his. Why should she help? But if he felt any such constraint, any need to fill the void between them with talk, he gave no sign. Once she caught him watching her, his eyes narrowed in speculation. He held her regard for long, tense moments, his eyes dark, measuring; unreadable. She found she could not look away until, with abrupt decision he let his eyelids fall, and lifting the glass in his hand, drained the wine it held to the dregs.

  He set the glass on the table and leaned back. “I believe you will be happy to know that the man, Carlos, who accosted you this morning has been released with a reprimand.”

  “I — yes, thank you.”

  “Why are you thanking me? I assure you, if he had deserved to be shot he would have been.”

  “Probably. But I have been given no reason to believe in your sense of justice,” Eleanora replied, carefully refraining from indicating the room that, for no more than his whim, had become her prison.

  Amazingly, a smile curved his mouth, then was gone. He let the comment pass.

  Emboldened by his lack of censure, Eleanora asked, “Then, if you are satisfied with the outcome, may I return to my own lodging?”

  “No.”

  “But — why? I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t — or won’t?” he asked coldly. “This is your room. I have sent for your things and left word with your landlady that you will not be returning.”

  “You can’t do that,” Eleanora protested, her face as blank as her mind.

  “I can. I have.”

  No. No. No. The negative screamed inside her brain, but with an effort of will she held it back. She could not decide, somehow, whether the colonel was acting as the provost marshal or as a man. If the first, she had few resources with which to defend herself. If the last, then she need feel no compunction about the methods she used to defeat him.

  “I understand,” he said slowly, as if feeling his way, “that you have a brother.”

  She agreed tentatively.

  “His commanding officer tells me that you are stranded here, penniless, because of a land deal that fell through.”

  Eleanora stared at him doubtfully. “That is correct.”

  “I have been empowered to offer you, Eleanora Villars, passage to New Orleans and General Walker’s regrets for your misfortune. That is the reason I followed you this morning.”

  “Oh,” Eleanora said, at a loss. It was the last thing she had expected to hear.

  He went on without pause. “I have decided, on second thought, to withdraw the offer.”

  “You—” Eleanora’s thoughts were too confused, too heated to put into words. Her fingers were trembling. She laid down her spoon with care and dropped her hands into her lap, clasping them together until the knuckles whitened.

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  “Of course,” she answered briefly, resisting the urge to sarcasm.

  “Because Uncle Billy has taken unto himself a mistress.”

  Her incomprehension was obvious.

  “Uncle Billy — William Walker. It is a name given to him by his men. We all have our nicknames, a sign of the bond among the men who came here with him.”

  “The Immortals,” she said.

  “That bit of mythology began in Rivas, started by the Costa Ricans — or maybe it began in Sonora. It’s hard to tell now.”

  The reflective tone of his voice was an encouragement. “And you, Colonel? Do you have a nickname?”

  He stood up, his manner abrupt as he crossed to the window to lean his arm upon the grille, staring out into the night. “None that would interest you. My name is Grant. You had better get used to calling me that.”

  “Had I?” Dryness edged her tone. Quiet self-control had its purposes, but it was beginning to appear that it would avail her nothing. “You were, I think, going to explain.”

  “The woman the general has taken under his protection is an aristocrat, a criolla, born of wealthy parents of Spanish descent here in Nicaragua. Her parents, now dead, were Legitimistas, as was her husband, an elderly man who wasted her inheritance trying to return to Spain as a grandee. He died there without ever sending for his Nicaraguan wife, Niña Maria. Despite the present cooperative government with the Legitimista president at the head, the aristocrats have no love for Walker. They resent Niña Maria’s association with him, and they have most successfully ostracized her.” He turned to face Eleanora. “Do you begin to see?”

  She had no intention of helping him. She shook her head.

  “Walker has arranged a reception tonight for the American minister, John Wheeler. The men of the town will come; the execution of Mayorga had that much influence. But their stiff-necked wives have sent their excuses. A plague of indispositions seems to have struck the women of Granada. Walker has sent out an S.O.S. to his officers. Bring women. He does not intend for his Niña Maria to be more uncomfortable than he can help. There are not that many women who, even under the circumstances, will make a respectable ad
dition to the company. Something about you reminds me of Niña Maria Irisarri, a look as though if life had treated you differently you might have been a lady. You will attend the general’s reception with me — as my mistress.”

  The blood drained from Eleanora’s face, then rushed back with a suffocating heat. “No,” she said. Rising to her feet, she repeated louder, “No, I will not! You must be mad to suggest such a thing. I would rather die than be paraded before the world as your woman. I hate you! Because of you I have lost my country, my home, and security, my clothes, the mementos and keepsakes of my family. Because of you I have been reduced to poverty and squalor in a country I had hardly heard of a month ago, a country that is breaking my brother’s heart and spirit. In spite of all that, Colonel, I am a lady. You can insult me, but you cannot take that from me, I won’t let you. And I advise you to think twice before using force to get what you want. I have nothing to lose in making you the laughingstock of Granada at this reception!”

  That reminder of the events of the morning touched him on the raw. He moved closer as he spoke. “It’s easy to see you know nothing of force. I could make you much sorrier than you realize. It will not be necessary to demonstrate, I think. There is a detail you do not know. Have you any idea where your brother is, now, at this moment?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, anxiety sharpening her voice.

  “I thought not. There is a Jean-Paul Villars at present in the guardhouse on charges of drunkenness and resisting the military police. And there he will stay until I free him. I may be wrong, cara,” he said, injecting a sarcastic amusement into the endearment, “but I believe your brother will serve as a hostage for your good conduct. He will serve his ten-day sentence, but whether he gets out at the end of it will depend on you, and how you — please — me.”

  4

  Eleanora stared at him. She wanted to defend her brother, to deny the accusation, but it seemed all too probable the colonel was telling the truth. “You — you wouldn’t take such a base advantage?”

  “No? Who will stop me? You asked for the name given to me by the men. I’m called — and it’s no compliment — the Iron Warrior because I always do what must be done. I am the man who commands the firing squad, the man who orders the whippings and brandings of the men in the ranks. I have been told to bring a woman tonight, and I will, whatever the cost.”

  “It’s very well for you to talk of cost,” she told him bitterly. “You won’t be paying it.”

  “That is a matter of opinion.” His mouth grim, he strode to the door and flung it open. “Señora!” he shouted, and stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips until the thin Spanish woman arrived, her wrinkled-crepe cheeks flushed with hurrying.

  “Señora Paredes, the young lady has decided to attend the reception. You will help her dress.”

  “I do not need help,” Eleanora declared. Neither of the other two paid the least attention to her.

  “Her things have come. She hasn’t a great many gowns to choose from,” the señora said.

  “There must be something else besides what she has on,” the colonel answered impatiently.

  “One other.”

  “Then bring it.”

  Her lips tight, the woman did as she was bid, returning with Eleanora’s belongings packed tidily in a palm-fiber basket.

  “I have taken the liberty of ordering a bath,” she said.

  Eleanora found herself watching Colonel Farrell as anxiously as the señora. On the ship the only facilities for bathing had utilized seawater, and at the Hotel Alhambra, she and Mazie had indulged in a long, leisurely soak to remove the salt from their pores. There had, however, been no facilities whatever at the widow’s house.

  Looking from one to the other, the colonel gave an abrupt nod. “Keep in mind that the reception begins in less than an hour and a half. The general does not like to be kept waiting, nor do I.”

  When the footsteps had receded the short distance down the inner galería to his bedchamber, Eleanora turned to the older woman. “You need not stay,” she said. “I can manage quite well by myself.”

  The señora looked away. “I have my instructions.”

  “I see. You mean you have been set to guard me. Doesn’t it bother you that I am being kept here against my will?”

  “I know nothing of the circumstances, and I don’t want to know,” the woman answered in a colorless tone. “I do not interfere with the colonel.”

  “Are you so afraid of him, then?”

  “He has been good to me, allowing me to stay here in my home.”

  “Allowing you to be his servant?” Eleanora suggested.

  “I serve as his housekeeper, yes, in return for my food. It is better than begging in the streets, the fate which could have been mine, that will still be mine if I displease him.”

  “The man is despicable, a barbarian,” Eleanora raged, turning with a violent switch of her skirts to walk to the open floor-to-ceiling window.

  “He is always just.”

  “How can you defend him?”

  The older woman moved past her to close the pair of French doors. “It is easy. First of all, it is true, and second, I have no wish to offend him by discussing him behind his back, especially when he may hear from his bedchamber next door.” The look the woman flung her over her shoulder sent a tremor of apprehension through Eleanora. Then she straightened her shoulders. What did she care what he felt? He had not troubled to hide his opinion of her.

  Lying back in the warm, violet-scented, soapy water, Eleanora closed her eyes. The tin tub was small, she sat with her knees practically under her chin, but it was deep. Best of all, there was no one waiting to use it. Odd that she could enjoy anything so much with such an ordeal looming before her, and this terrible uncertainty in her mind.

  When the reception was over, what then? Would her usefulness be over also? Would she be allowed to leave, steamship ticket in hand? She had no reason to think otherwise, and yet her lips were tender from the kiss Colonel Farrell had taken, and there were faint blue shadows where his fingers had dug into her arms. She could not delude herself that she held no attraction for him; she obviously did. The weakness, then, of her position brought a sick feeling to the pit of her stomach.

  She stood in stays and petticoats before the mirror, her arms, raised to secure her coronet of braids, when the colonel entered the room once more. Swinging around, she dropped her arms, crossing them over her breasts covered only by the thin lawn of her chemise. “I’m not dressed,” she protested.

  He did not retreat. “So I see,” he replied. “You should have been quicker.”

  His uniform was immaculate, the crimson jacket adorned by a number of ribboned medals, the white doeskin breeches neatly fastened under his boots. Noticing her gown laid out upon the bed, he placed his hat under his arm and moved to investigate it.

  Señora Paredes stood aside. “I have pressed it with a warm flatiron.”

  “You have my sympathy,” he replied.

  The task had indeed been a formidable one. The gown of pale-green muslin was made of tier upon tier of flounces edged with delicate white embroidery. Even the wide neckline, designed to display white shoulders, was encircled by a bertha flounce which, falling to the elbows, formed the gown’s only pretense to a sleeve.

  “It is satisfactory?” the señora asked.

  He nodded slowly. “I trust your taste.”

  “Thank you,” the woman returned with grave courtesy, and catching up her limp black skirts, hurried from the room.

  Colonel Farrell turned his attention to Eleanora, ignoring the sparkle of temper in her eyes. “Do you always wear your hair like that?”

  “Always,” she said briefly, tossing her long, thick braid back over her shoulder.

  “I don’t like it.”

  A scathing retort hovered on her lips, then she saw the expectant look hidden behind his lashes. “How would you like me to wear it?” she asked with dulcet sweetness.

 
“Something softer, with a few curls.”

  “I’m sorry. I have no idea how to go about it.” Her gaze was limpid, her smile smooth.

  Tossing his hat onto the bed, he moved toward her. “You begin by loosening the plait.”

  Eleanora backed away, but not quickly enough. With a quick grip on her elbow, he spun her around and catching her braid, began to undo it. Freed, her hair spread like a fiery mantle over her shoulders, falling well below her hips. Behind her the colonel went still, his hands lax upon her warm tresses.

  With a sudden movement, Eleanora twisted away, aware of an overwhelming need to put herself out of his reach. His reflexes were like lightning. One of his hands fastened in her hair, the other caught the wide, ecru ribbon strap of her chemise. There was a rending sound as the age-fragile lawn parted from the ribbon. Slowly, inexorably, she was drawn back against him. Bending his head, he pressed firm, warm lips to the soft curve of her neck.

  “Don’t,” she said with a catch in her voice.

  “Please?” he suggested.

  “Please.”

  “Grant?”

  She hesitated a long moment, then with tears of pain and chagrin starting in her eyes, she repeated obediently, “Please, Grant.” Still, it was not the pressure he exerted that forced the words from her lips; it was the peculiar tension that stretched taut and vibrating between them.

  The señora appeared in the doorway, a cluster of milk-white flowers in her hand. “Two of these in the hair, the others at the bodice…” She trailed off in confusion as she beheld the tableau before her.

  Without haste, Grant Farrell released Eleanora. Stepping to the bed, he picked up his hat. “Good. I will wait downstairs. Eleanora will tell you what is to be done with her hair.”

  The easy assurance that rode his shoulders as he moved toward the door set Eleanora’s teeth on edge. Without conscious thought her hand went out to her pin-box, a small painted tin which had held almond dragées. In a rain of steel pins, she sent it hurtling at his head.

  Her aim was not true, the box sailed over the galería railing, landing with a tinkling crash on the stones of the patio below. Señora Paredes gasped, her cheeks as waxen as the wild gardenias she held. The colonel halted. He turned with slow, deliberate restraint, his eyes blank and cold. And then the familiar derision sprang mocking into his eyes. “Next time,” he said softly, “aim for the heart, and choose a more lethal weapon.”