Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  “What is it?” Luis called. “New arrivals?”

  “You might say so,” Molina answered cryptically, swinging back into the room to stand with his back to the wall, arms akimbo.

  Gonzalez, in a corner, was matching Jean-Paul in an endless game of odds-and-evens with their share of the food for stakes. Eleanora had been playing a form of tic-tac-toe in the gritty sand on the floor with Luis. She glanced at him to see resignation come into his face, and then she turned toward the door.

  Two men, backed by a pair of armed guards, shouldered into the tiny room. One wore the white-corded epaulettes of an officer in the Legitimista army, an older man whose grizzled mutton-chop whiskers grew to meet his mustache. The other man towered above him, a broad-shouldered giant in civilian clothes with sandy blond hair and pale blue eyes.

  “Major Crawford!” Eleanora exclaimed, getting to her feet.

  The other man did not answer. He turned to the Honduran. “That is the Villars woman and her brother, and one of Walker’s officers. These others I don’t know.”

  “Very good,” the officer replied. Without another word they turned and left, leaving the silence of dismay behind them.

  17

  Major Neville Crawford. Traitor, spy, and Vanderbilt agent. Why had she never guessed? It seemed so obvious now. There had been Mazie’s surprise aboard the Daniel Webster at his becoming a soldier, and his indiscreet admission of money as the motive. She must have realized that to a man who spoke as he did, the few hundred acres of land he might expect to gain would not mean wealth. Mazie’s guarded attitude should have warned her. The actress, a woman of experience, must have had her suspicions, though she could not have been certain or she would have mentioned them to someone. On second thought, this was not necessarily true. Mazie had little reason to love the Walker regime. Eleanora thought that she knew Mazie well enough to suppose that she would have come forward for her sake — if there had been time. There had not, and so speculation was useless.

  Dimly, Eleanora remembered another conversation she had overheard between the actress and the major. Mazie had warned him to take care in his dealings with Niña Maria. Had the meetings between him and Walker’s mistress been something more than social occasions? Had they, perhaps, been trysts between fellow conspirators? Who better than the aristocratic Niña Maria to filch information from the papers of the American Phalanx? Such a valuable position as hers must be protected at all cost, of course. Juanita, Jean-Paul, herself, even Grant and his career, could be sacrificed with impunity. There was a certain rightness in discovering a more valid reason than petty jealousy for her own implication in this mess. What seemed suddenly monstrous was the use to which Juanita had been put, and the lack of protection she had received for her service.

  The urge to prove her theories was irresistible. “Slim?” Eleanora spoke in a voice she thought low enough to escape attention. “Juanita’s confession. What did she say? How was it worded?”

  Slim, sitting some small distance along the sleeping shelf with his head tilted back against the stone wall, turned slowly in her direction. “Why?”

  “It isn’t idle curiosity,” she said quickly, and outlined her reasons.

  Slim shook his head. “There was nothing like that. She confessed to being the sister of a young boy who was killed at the battle of Virgin Bay. She said that she first took up with your brother because she thought she could persuade him to bring her papers and reports from the colonel’s desk. She urged him to get close to you again for that reason. But she decided later that he had too many principles to do what she wanted, and so she never asked him; she just did it herself.”

  “She didn’t mention Niña Maria at all?”

  “Nope. She cleared your name, made it sound like she was working by herself, getting even on account of her brother being killed by the phalanx. That was all.”

  Niña Maria did not deserve such loyalty, for despite the lack of evidence Eleanora could see no other explanation for the facts as she perceived them. She looked away, her gaze falling by accident upon her brother’s pale face. Something in his stillness begged further attention. Looking closer, she saw in the light of afternoon falling clear through the window the tears of silent pain.

  The day wore on. The men dropped their games, their banter and drawling anecdotes. They sat quietly talking, and when by chance their eyes would meet, they would each let their gaze slip away, afraid of what the other would see hidden there. Occasionally Slim would get up and lounge to the door. Ignoring the obscenities hurled at him, he would stand, quartering the common room with his far-seeing eyes. Sometimes he would take a few steps beyond the door, standing with his head up, like a deer scenting danger. But after all his prowling he always returned to join the others in their inescapable, interminable waiting.

  Father Sebastian, his shoulders bent beneath the black linen of his cassock, came at sunset. His sandals made a soft scuffing sound on the floor as he made his way across the room. The prisoners gave way in the gladness of reprieve before him as his rheumy old eyes failed to seek theirs. Louder and louder the scuffing grew until it seemed to reverberate through the cell. The pulse of the room quickened. Slim, standing straight, turned slowly toward the door. Jean-Paul raised his head, while Molina and Gonzalez shared a searching glance. Luis put aside Eleanora’s hand, which he had been toying with, and got slowly to his feet. As the old man appeared in the opening, he bowed. “Good evening, Father,” he said quietly. “We have been expecting you.”

  Confession, absolution, their sins were heard with compassion, and absolved with a trembling dignity that was much more comforting than the hurried and pompous grace of a cathedral prelate.

  “Not you, my daughter,” Father Sebastian said whenever Eleanora stepped forward, but at her softly murmured pleas he acquiesced.

  And when he was done at last, Luis touched his arm. “One thing more, Father, if I may trespass upon your goodness?”

  “Yes, my son?”

  “I wish you to perform the rites of marriage between myself and this lady.”

  As he spoke, Luis reached for Eleanora’s hand, drawing her close against his side. She stared at him with wide eyes, her mind curiously blank.

  “The lady wishes to be wed?” the old priest asked.

  Luis turned to her, catching both her hands in his. “Do not refuse me this, Eleanora, I implore. It is a small thing that will mean so much. Allow me to know for this short time that you belong to me, and to offer you what protection there may be in my name. I know I should have broached it earlier, but you might have refused me from pride or from reasons of the heart that mean little to me. But now I ask it without shame as my final request of you, my soul. Will you be my wife for this night?”

  How could she deny him? Even if she could have found the words, the will was not there. “You do me great honor,” she whispered, meeting the tenderness of his brown eyes without subterfuge. “Yes, I will marry you.”

  The ceremony was, perforce, a simple one. Their combined names echoed around the stone chamber. Luis’s signet, bearing the coat-of-arms of his family, slid heavy and warm from the heat of his body over her finger. Their responses were low, and glazed with a seriousness that was unavoidable. Eleanora knelt to receive the blessing of Father Sebastian with her senses steeped in unreality. Her mind refused to grapple with what she was doing and the reasons for it. Tomorrow was a distant time without meaning. For now the present was enough. The sand on the floor grated beneath her knees, the feel of Luis’s hand was firm on hers, the torchlight through the doorway flickered as it shone on the white hair of the priest, the shuffling of their audience both inside the cell and beyond it made a quiet background to the solemnity of the moment.

  And then it was over. There was a moment of awkwardness after Father Sebastian had gone. Jean-Paul stepped forward to banish it with a grave smile. “Happiness,” he said and embraced her, kissing her ceremoniously on each cheek.

  “And you,” she said, clinging
to his arm a moment longer than was necessary, her eyes on his face, knowing all the while that he too had received Father Sebastian’s blessing. Slim shook Luis’s hand and claimed a hug from Eleanora. Gonzalez and Molina contented themselves with a bow, and a salute upon her fingers. Then, as by some prearrangement, they filed with exaggerated casualness from the cubicle.

  Frowning, Eleanora stared after them. Aware, as always, of her feelings, Luis took her arm, leading her toward the sleeping shelf. “Don’t worry, pequeña. They will guard the door, and then, perhaps, if the women of the common room are kind and the omens are favorable, they may seek for themselves that which comes closer to immortality than anything found in war by warriors.”

  She had grown used to lying beside Luis, used to the feel of his hands upon her body. For the sake of the safety of sleeping next to him, she had gladly endured the bruising force of his frustration at his inability to possess her. This night was different only in that she surrendered to his will, withholding nothing of herself from him. His kiss did not warm and excite her, did not, as Grant’s did, command a response she was powerless to withhold, but it was so sweetly tender that she longed to give him surcease. She followed his guiding, holding him, moving in accommodation in an agony of tension. He drew her closer, ever closer, the circle of his arms tightening until the breath was crushed from her lungs. Her face was rasped and her mouth scorched from his bearded lips. His fingers, cruel with desperation, held her to him, until she could not help the small moan of pain that escaped her.

  He released her at once. Burying his face in the hollow of her throat he lay still until their breathing quieted. At last he murmured, “I burn for you, Eleanora. In my mind I taste the rapture of your giving. I want you beyond my dearest hope of heaven.”

  “Oh, Luis,” she whispered, pressing her hand to his bare shoulder. “I wish—”

  “No. Don’t.” He raised his head, his eyes shadowed in the dimness. “It may be that it was wrong of me to expect the good Lord to grant all my prayers. It is sacrilege to press desire upon an angel.”

  “Please, not that.” Eleanora forced the words through the constriction in her throat.

  “You are so beautiful,” he went on, gently drawing his fingers down across her shoulder to the swell of her breast. “It may be that it is best, for the good of my soul, that I do not profane what I feel for you. Kiss me, then, sweet angel, and tell me that you care for me, even if it is a lie.”

  She reached up to still that last word upon his lips. “I do love you,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “Please believe me.” And it was not an untruth. There was a part of her that, in the purity of her compassion, responded to him. It was gentle emotion, not that powerful, carnal passion of belonging that she felt when she thought of Grant — still it was no less real.

  Slowly Luis lowered his lips to hers in a kiss that carried within the depths of its gentle forbearance a benediction. He held her fitted against his heart, a long, unceasing caress, through the night. And when the first fingers of light began to steal into the room, he helped her to don her clothing and rebraid her hair.

  Fastening the end of her braid with a scrap of cloth, he laid it gently over her shoulder, smoothing the silk of it with his rough fingers. Without looking at her, he said, “I fear for you when I am gone.”

  “Please don’t worry,” she said, trying to smile, not succeeding very well.

  “I may have made a trap for you with my fool’s tongue.”

  “There was nothing else to be done. I am grateful for the thought you took for my safety.”

  Glancing toward the common room where in the gray light the men and women lay like lumps upon the floor, he said, “I may have done no more than postpone the ravishment. Dear God! How can I leave you?” He caught her close, pressing her against him. “How can I ever leave you?”

  They stood for a long moment, clinging to each other, and then beyond the main door of the common room they heard the soft thud of marching feet. Luis went rigid before he slowly relaxed. Smoothing his hands over her back to the roundness of her shoulders, he put her from him.

  “Listen carefully,” he said. “Your best hope is Major Crawford. Trust to his mercy. It can be no less than that of the canaille in there.” He nodded beyond the door.

  The door in the outer room swung open. There was a general outcry of those disturbed by the firing-squad detail. A shadow appeared in the doorway of the cell, a shadow that resolved into the shape of the plainsman. Seeing them, he nodded and turned away, taking up a stance facing into the common room.

  Hastily, Luis reached inside his shirt, and taking the chain he wore, lifted it off. He slipped it with care over her head, settling it into the valley between her breasts, then raised his brown eyes, aching with sorrow, to hers. “St. Michael will protect you now, for I have failed you, Eleanora. Forgive me,” he said.

  “No, no,” she tried to tell him. “I’ll be all right.” But even those words, inadequate as they were, would not come from her throat.

  A last kiss, flavored with the salt of her tears, and then the others were with them. She embraced Jean-Paul, clinging to his arm with icy fingers, searching the calm of his features with something like disbelief. She could not remember what she said to the others, what good-byes, what words of appreciation. They kissed her hands, speaking to her in voices deep with sincerity. They had a moment to speak among themselves, and then they were marching away, their backs straight, between the double file of soldiers.

  Clutching the gold medallion Luis had given her, Eleanora stared after them until the great outer door had clanged shut. She stood a moment longer, then she ran to the sleeping shelf and climbed upon it, standing on tiptoe to see from the tiny barred window above. By gripping with her hands she could pull herself a little higher, though the stone ledge of the window cut into her wrists and the wall was cold and clammy against her breast.

  The parade ground below was empty except for the old padre and an officer in his uniform of red and blue and white, holding an open watch in his hand. The pair stood as they were for long minutes. Finally, as if alerted by some sound, they turned toward a wide gate set in one wall.

  The gate swung open to admit the firing-squad detail. They marched across the square toward where Eleanora stood. Luis was first, followed by Slim and Molina; with Gonzalez, sagging between two men, his face twisted with horror, bringing up the rear. There was no one else.

  Eleanora ran her gaze over the men once more. She had been right. Jean-Paul was not among them. What had they done with him? Her scalp crawled with horror as she thought of him being held somewhere, being tortured, though for what reason she could not imagine.

  Now the soldiers were tying their hands behind them. Father Sebastian moved down the line with painful slowness, his low voice intoning, his hand making the sign of the cross again and again, his gnarled and quivering fingers holding out the wooden crucifix to receive their kiss. From somewhere Slim had found a cigarillo, and while those of the faith received their rites, he drew upon it, letting the smoke drift from his lungs with a quiet, almost reflective courage.

  The blindfolds were dirty white handkerchiefs folded inexpertly to go about their eyes. With a definite shake of his head, Luis refused his, the only one to do so. A heavy hand on their shoulders forced the men to their knees with their backs to the firing squad, lined at thirty paces behind them.

  The officer snapped the case of his watch shut and put it away. With a rattling clatter, he drew his sword. Imperceptibly, the day grew brighter. A cool morning breeze floated across the open square, stirring the soft, brown waves of Luis’s hair and lifting small puffs of dust from the ground.

  A command rang out. The soldiers raised their rifles, steadied them. The sword of the officer flashed as it began its descent.

  Below her, not ten yards away, Luis lifted his head. Seeing her face outlined in the window, a glad light sprang into his eyes. His lips moved as they formed her name. But the sound was los
t in the roaring crash of the volley of the firing squad.

  The blue smoke of gunpowder hazed the square. Strong, acrid, the smell of it drifted into the cell. Still Eleanora did not move. Her gaze fastened on those four figures sprawled across the sand, she hardly breathed. The Lebel rifles had done their job. Not a single shot had struck the wall at her feet. There was no need for a coup de grace. And yet it did seem callous for the detail to stand in the first rays of the rising sun, alive, reloading. It was a relief when, at a series of barked orders, they shouldered their weapons of death and left the square to Father Sebastian and the fallen.

  Even sounds behind her did not quite penetrate Eleanora’s concentration. It was as though as long as she refused to accept the knowledge of her eyes it could not hurt her. Her muscles were stiff from cramp, but she could not release them, and more than all else, she could not permit the onslaught of tears that burned behind her eyes. To cry would be to admit a cause for grief, something to be held at bay at all cost.

  The feel of hands dragging at her skirts, ripping away the rotten material, broke her perilous absorption. She was aware, suddenly, of a foul-smelling, pot-bellied man at her side, tearing at her hands upon the bars with dirty fingers ending in long, horny, yellow nails.

  Pain burst into her mind, bringing uncontrolled fury. Releasing the bars, she slashed out at the grinning, snaggle-toothed face, so that three bloody streaks scored the dirt that coated it. More hands reached up for her, grabbing for the gold chain at her neck. She caught the disk in her hand, cradling it protectively as she backed along the shelf to the corner. Her stomach knotted with hate and disgust, but she did not dare kick at the horde around her for fear they would catch her foot and pull her down among them.