Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  Eleanora did not answer, neither did she drop her gaze. His was the last word, but she had had the satisfaction of seeing the Iron Warrior flinch.

  The fragrant, still air of the patio rose like a warm breath to greet her as she paused at the head of the stair. Seeing the colonel waiting among the lamp-lit shadows of the orange trees below, she lifted the front edge of her hoop and descended with conscious grace and the gentle fluttering of gossamer thin flounces.

  “Bella — a dream of radiance.”

  The low voice came from the tiled patio entrance. A man stepped from the dark doorway and moved to the foot of the stairs where he stood waiting in the flickering glow of a lamp on an iron bracket. Dark, softly curling hair, audacious eyes, neat Spanish mustache, Nicaraguan dress uniform, it was Lieutenant Colonel Luis de Laredo, the man she had met in Bank’s Arcade in New Orleans.

  As she reached the last step, he made her a deep obeisance. “I know now why the moon has hidden her face behind the clouds tonight. She is jealous of you.”

  To smile and give him her hand in appreciation of the compliment seemed a natural thing. “Thank you,” she said softly, though her nerves tingled with the awareness of Colonel Farrell’s silent approach.

  “Why, it is the lady from New Orleans who would not give her name,” the officer continued. “I should have known there could not be two such. I think, perhaps, it is destiny that we should meet again.”

  “We might have met sooner,” Eleanora told him, gently withdrawing her hand, “if you had not kept to your cabin for the entire voyage to Granada.”

  “You were on the ship? My accursed sickness of the sea! A horse I can ride for days without end, but the very sight of a ship—” He shrugged. “You appear to have survived in good frame, except I think you are thinner than when I last — held you in my arms.”

  If he meant to make her blush, he succeeded, and it did not help to recognize the cynicism with which the colonel surveyed her heated condition. Had he missed, then, that moment when she had collided with the lieutenant colonel in the barroom?

  “Good evening, Luis. I see you are already acquainted with Mademoiselle Eleanora Villars.”

  “In a manner of speaking, amigo.”

  The colonel did not respond to the teasingly significant tone. Reaching out, he placed a hand beneath Eleanora’s elbow in a gesture that in any other man might have been called possessive. “Then let’s go.”

  Luis stood still, making no attempt to follow them. Looking back, Eleanora thought there was a sallow hue to his features. Sensing her hesitation, the colonel looked back. “Coming?” he asked impatiently.

  “I — just thought of something I must do,” Luis replied, his face unreadable as he moved out of the circle of lamplight. “I will see you at the reception.”

  “Don’t be long,” the colonel said dryly. “You’ll miss the grand entrance.”

  “Now that would be a shame—” Luis agreed, but his mood was distracted.

  Niña Maria Irisarri. She swept into the long, mahogany-paneled reception room on the arm of William Walker, a magnificent creature in stiff, gold brocade. Her raven hair, drawn back from a center part, was worn in massed ringlets over her ears and covered by a starched black mantilla. Despite the heat, black velvet had been used to construct the bodice of her gown which narrowed to a point at the waist and over each shoulder. From beneath the shoulder points fell cascades of deep lace ruffles which served as sleeves. Behind the woman walked a pair of identical Indian boys wearing their native costumes of unbleached cotton, full-sleeved shirt, and multihued trousers reaching just past the knee. Upon the shoulders of each boy perched a brilliant green-and-yellow parrot. Following the boys came a tiny girl carrying a fan of yellow feathers so large she was nearly hidden by it.

  As Niña Maria passed near where Eleanora stood beside Colonel Farrell, Eleanora saw that she was not as young as she had first thought. Her face was not lined, but she had the self-assurance and lack of freshness that indicated a woman nearing her thirtieth year.

  Walker, surveying the predominantly male gathering with displeasure he did not trouble to hide, caught the colonel’s eye. He gave a slight nod before moving on to settle his mistress into a high-backed chair at the far end of the narrow room. The chair was not canopied, but with her honor guard of parrot-boys and her fan-bearer, Niña Maria gave the appearance of something perilously near a queen. General Walker leaned to speak to her, then straightened and began to make his way back toward the colonel.

  He was not a large man, standing nearly a head shorter than Grant Farrell. Built on slender lines, he had small hands and feet. Hair the color of unbleached flax lay soft and flat across his skull, and freckles from exposure to a too-hot sun meshed in a near-solid cover over his skin. His mouth was wide with an unexpected quirk of humor at one corner. The nose was straight, patrician, but it was his eyes, deep-set behind prominent cheekbones, that snared the attention. From beneath heavy brows they burned a clear and determined gray that was hypnotic in its intensity.

  “Colonel,” General Walker said in greeting, then turned to Eleanora, patiently waiting to be introduced.

  “May I present Eleanora Villars, recently come to Nicaragua, General Walker?” The colonel actually smiled as he spoke, his voice holding a nice blend of pride and affection. More disturbing, he moved nearer, putting his arm around her, resting a hand lightly at the smallness of her waist.

  Did one curtsy to a general? It might, under the circumstances, be in her best interests. The light of the hundreds of candles in the overhead chandelier shimmering on the curls massed at the crown of her head, Eleanora gave the general her hand, murmuring, “How do you do?”

  General Walker smiled, his gaze minutely appraising, but he skipped the social banalities, swinging back to the colonel. “There is a man waiting in my office whom I would like you to interrogate. He was caught climbing the stairs to my private apartments this evening. Fellow claims to be a nephew of Niña Maria’s maid, but the maid is old, with failing eyesight. She has a relative of that name, but she can’t be sure this is the man. It strikes me as odd that a nephew would come visiting with a gun hidden under his shirt.”

  “An assassination attempt?”

  “That’s one of the things I want you to find out.”

  “There are others who are better at prying information out of unexpected visitors.”

  The general nodded his comprehension. “I would prefer not to turn him over to the Nicaraguans unless I have to. I will abide by your decision.”

  “Very well.”

  Walker smiled. “I understand your reluctance to leave such a charming lady. However, I will try to keep the wolves at bay for you until you return.”

  Grimly amused, Eleanora watched the colonel’s departure. If he was reluctant to leave her it was more likely to be because Walker was beside her. He could not know how she would behave without his threatening supervision. Perhaps Grant Farrell did not quite realize what a potent weapon he held in her brother?

  “Tell me, General,” she said in a brittle voice, “do you really fear for your life?”

  “Let us say instead that I fear betrayal of some kind.”

  “You mean — spying?”

  “Such a thing is not without precedent. I’m beginning to think there is no loyalty or honor in this country. Betrayal seems almost a way of life — but that can’t interest you. So you have recently come to Nicaragua? That, I suppose, is true of all of us. How do you like what you have seen so far?”

  “It’s a beautiful country. I could, I think, learn to love it.”

  “You say that as if you mean it. I find that most women think of it as overhot, pestilential, and infested with sinister and frightening creatures.”

  A laugh lit Eleanora’s green eyes at his droll tone. “How very unappreciative of them, after you took so much trouble to win it. But I come from Louisiana. I love hot countries.”

  “Ah, I thought so. Your voice, the way you speak, remi
nds me of a girl I knew once, a Creole girl from New Orleans.”

  The gray of his eyes had darkened with the distant remembrance of pain. Was it true, then, that he had loved a girl who died of fever?

  “I believe, General,” Eleanora said diffidently, “that you may have known my father, Doctor Etienne Villars?”

  “Villars? Dr. Villars who treated patients from his house on the Rue Royale? Yes, he was a good friend to a young man just arrived in your city.”

  “Friend — and colleague?”

  Walker grimaced. “At the time I fancied myself a doctor. Then I discovered I could do absolutely nothing to save the people I loved most from pain and death. I watched my mother, for one, die by crippling degrees of rheumatism. All my father’s prayers and my expensive skill could not save her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Eleanora said.

  “So was your father. He thought reading law and scribbling with a pen for the Crescent a terrible waste of my time — and he was right. It was nearly, though not quite, as wasteful as studying for the ministry at my father’s knee.”

  The ministry. That made excellent sense as applied to this man’s ban on women and drink for his men. “You have been many things in many places, General, but surely they all helped to prepare you for your present position?”

  “As a politician?”

  Eleanora smiled, as she was meant to. “As a leader.”

  “You flatter me, Eleanora, and I have had enough, lately, to feed my conceit. You heard of the visit from the Indians?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “They came nearly four weeks ago, a delegation of Toacas and Cookra Indians from the unexplored regions northeast of here. They are extremely primitive people, almost never seen near a town. According to one of their ancient legends, there would come to Nicaragua a gray-eyed man who would deliver them from the oppression of the Spanish. They stood about in the plaza outside for three days watching me come and go, then they asked for an audience. They had decided I was the gray-eyed man destined to fulfill their legend. In recognition, they presented me with offerings of fruits and vegetables.”

  “It must have been—”

  “—Embarrassing? Yes, it was.”

  “I was going to say moving.”

  “It was that too, I must admit. The editor of El Nicaraguense has gone to excessive lengths to give the story circulation, which — lessens its effect, to my way of thinking. And yet, what happened has reinforced my own feelings about why I am here. Manifest destiny, or my own personal predestination, there is, to me, a fine rightness in being where I am.”

  It was only as the general finished speaking that Eleanora realized someone was standing at her elbow, waiting to attract her attention She turned reluctantly, and then her polite smile widened. “Mazie! And Major Crawford. How nice to see someone I know.”

  William Walker acknowledged the major’s bow, but he did not seem particularly pleased to be presented to Mazie. He barely touched her hand before turning to Eleanora. “If you will excuse me, I will leave you to your friends then, mademoiselle. I believe the American minister is finally arriving and the reception line beginning to form.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Perhaps we can reminisce about New Orleans another time.”

  Her reply, if she could have found one, would have been made to his retreating back.

  “I think,” Mazie said quizzically, “that it was not Minister Wheeler, but the beauteous Niña Maria who required his presence. She has been casting Spanish daggers at you with her eyes this past ten minutes, dear Eleanora. What can you possibly have been talking about with the general to fascinate him so?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He was only being attentive to a guest.”

  “Yes, well, you will forgive me, won’t you,” Mazie said archly, “if I point out that I was not singled out for such a signal honor?”

  Though she could not say so, Eleanora suspected Mazie’s gown of a blatantly Democrático red was a part of the reason. Its skirt was looped and poufed over its enormous girth with clutches of scarlet rosebuds nestled in blonde lace. The low neckline was edged in the same lace in a style known in New Orleans as the tatez-y, meaning “touch here.” It was not precisely the toilette to appeal to the son of a Protestant clergyman.

  His eyes on the new, softer lines of her hairstyle, the major said, “You make a welcome and charming addition to our company tonight, Eleanora. I suppose someone told you of Walker’s decree to his officers to bring women?”

  “Now, Neville,” Mazie protested, unfolding a fan of red silk and ivory and plying it against the heat directly beneath the chandelier. “That isn’t very flattering to either of us.”

  “It’s true, nevertheless,” Eleanora said, a trace of bravado in her lifted chin. “I came with Colonel Farrell.”

  Mazie stared at her, a frown beginning in her hazel eyes. “Farrell? But why? You hate the man.”

  “I had no choice. Jean-Paul—”

  “Jean-Paul wanted his sister to plead his case with the general. He’s in the guardhouse, you see. I tried to convince Eleanora that Walker wouldn’t listen, but she will do anything for her brother.”

  At the sound of Grant Farrell’s voice, hard and even, so close behind her, Eleanora controlled a start, a frisson of something like panic running along the surface of her skin. He had not reentered the room by the same door from which he had left it. To be forced to endure his fingers on her arm, pressing into her skin, and his subtle threat, nearly destroyed her composure.

  The remainder of the evening passed in a strained haze of stilted conversation and restricted movement under the watchful eye of Colonel Farrell. She remembered moving in the line past President and Madame Rivas, the American minister, John Wheeler, and her host. She could recall when Major Crawford and Mazie left them for more congenial company. Still, her greatest awareness was concentrated on the increasingly proprietorial attitude the colonel adopted toward her. He wasted no opportunity to touch her, guiding her, directing her attention, helping her with her voluminous skirts. Standing before the refreshment table he took her glass from her hand, and turning it, deliberately drank from the side her lips had touched, a look of such obvious anticipation in his eyes that she longed either to slap him or to run. That is, she did until she realized his act was for the sole purpose of annoying her.

  “You look besotted,” she told him in a fierce undertone.

  “Maybe I am,” he replied.

  “Yes, and maybe mules fly like Pegasus,” she scoffed.

  “You underestimate your attractiveness.”

  “And you my intelligence. You have no use for me or the kind of woman you think I am. Why pretend?”

  “No use?” he queried with the lift of a dark brow. “I can think of at least one — other than distracting notice from Uncle Billy and his paramour.”

  Eleanora followed his sardonic gaze to the end of the room where William Walker leaned attentively over Niña Maria. “You are hypocrites, both of you.”

  “Explain.” His voice was terse his eyes hard.

  “You do remember inviting Mazie Brentwood to leave Granada, don’t you? That’s hardly just, since apparently neither you nor the general leads the life of a monk.” It was irritation that carried her through that difficult speech. Why had she embarked on such an awkward subject? She did not know, but pride would not let her abandon it.

  “The general objects, first of all, to camp followers in the line of march because they make the column unwieldy, take the minds of the men off their job, and increase the possibility of the enemy being informed of our movements. He recognizes that during the lull in fighting they have their uses, and though the last objection still holds, he is willing to overlook them. Your friend Mazie now,” he went on, nodding to where the woman, changing partners, was taking the floor in a waltz with Colonel Thomas Henry, another of the officers Eleanora had seen at Bank’s Arcade in New Orleans — though he had discarded the sling he had worn th
en. “She is a different breed. She is here to sell her favors to the highest bidder, and it makes no difference to her how the price is settled. The phalanx has too few good officers to lose any of them on the dueling field over the disposition of a hundred-dollar whore.”

  “You—”

  “And if you see a warning for yourself in that, you can take it exactly as it sounds.”

  “Mazie is an American citizen. You can’t order her around.”

  “This is Nicaragua, not the United States, and a military government. I can, and I will do whatever is necessary to keep the men of the phalanx from killing each other.”

  “The Iron Warrior,” Eleanora said, in driest accents, lifting her head. “Take care. At this moment you look more as if you are threatening than seducing me.”

  “We are making progress then,” he replied, his smile without warmth as he set down the punch cup and drew her to his side, “for that is exactly what I am doing.”

  It was, perhaps, unwise to provoke him, but she could not be silent. She let her hand lie flaccid in the crook of his arm, asking in a bored drawl, “Again?”

  His grip as he covered her fingers with his was not gentle. He was prevented from answering only by the appearance of Lieutenant Colonel de Laredo at his side.

  “You see before you a desolate, a ruined, man,” the Spaniard said with a tragic gesture.

  A wary look came into Colonel Farrell’s eyes. “How is that?”

  “I have searched high and low through the calles of Granada and could find no woman who held the least attraction. Only fair women can now arouse my ardor, and here I find Colonel Henry, he of the hundred battle scars, in possession of one of the two such women in the city, and you, amigo, in possession of the other!”