“Eleanora?”
The urgency of his voice drew her back from a darkness so deep it had the feel of unconsciousness. She lay for a moment, collecting her senses before turning toward the sound, and in that instant shame, black and blighting, struck at her.
How much of the abandon she had shown had been of her own free will, how much for the sake of the vile purpose she had been recruited for? To do what she wished, pretending she must, or to do what she must, pretending it was her desire — which was the more degrading? Behind her shoulder, where it had been twisted on its ribbon, the medallion of St. Michael-burned into her skin like brand. The vows she had exchanged with Luis might not have been compelling or binding, but surely her mourning for his death could have been more closely and lengthily observed. More humiliating than these things, however, was the realization that they did not matter beside the single, overriding question: What must Grant think of her?
Her face flaming, she levered herself on one elbow and reached out, drawing her petticoat toward her. Grant put his hand on her arm, but she pulled away, sliding from the bed.
A swift lunge, and he stripped the petticoat from her, dragging her back down beside him, holding her still until her struggles ceased.
“Where were you going?” he asked lazily, wiping at the strand of her hair that tickled his lips.
Eleanora swallowed on the hard knot growing in her throat. “I — back to the Alhambra.”
Her answer obviously disconcerted him. When he spoke at last there was a tone in his voice that sent a quake of fear along her nerves. “I think not — not until you tell me what you meant by coming here if you didn’t intend to stay, and while you’re at it, what in God’s name happened to you to make you look like a wide-eyed, breakable china doll!”
“Grant—”
“From the beginning,” he said, his tone implacable for all its softness.
She caught her breath. “If you knew what you are asking—”
“I do know. But it won’t help to pretend it didn’t happen. Or would you rather tell the general? I can spare you that.”
“I don’t think I can find the words,” she said. The thought of compressing so many events, so many feelings, into short, cool sentences filled her with despair. It would be so fatally easy to make a mistake, to tell him more than it was wise for him to know.
“Try,” he recommended, and there was nothing else to do but comply as best she could.
She began, haltingly, with her arrest at the hospital, the words coming with less difficulty than she had imagined. As she spoke of the escape and the early days in the mountain valley when she had tended Luis and he had been so attentive of her comfort and safety, her voice grew stronger. She recounted in vivid phrases their lack of hope on learning of Juanita’s death and the execution of the men who had returned to Granada with her. The jungle trek, the sighting of the gulf, the death of Kurt, their arrest and transfer to Honduras; these things were told with comparative ease. She faltered, however, as she came to the arrival of Major Crawford, followed by the blessing of Father Sebastian, the eleventh-hour wedding.
“You are saying that Luis and the others were still alive when Crawford reached you?” he said, breaking into her narrative.
“That’s right. Why?” The sudden rigidity of his muscles made her aware that she had been in danger of succumbing to the languor stealing over her from being held firmly against his side.
“The major was empowered to negotiate the release of all the prisoners,” he said grimly. “I will be interested in reading his report. Still, don’t stop now. I was just beginning to be fascinated. Tell me about this marriage. A love match, no doubt, overcoming all obstacles, consummated in the glorious filth of a prison cell?”
“No — no,” she said on an indrawn breath, taking care to keep the tears rising in the back of her throat from seeping into her voice. “It was not like that at all. It was — a splendid gesture, no more than that. Luis gave me the protection of his name in a chivalrous union that was — never consummated. Not, I assure you,” she added hardly, “from a lack of willingness on my part, but because he was unable to do so. And the next morning I watched him walk toward death with my name on his lips — and I think that, except for leaving me behind, he was glad to die—”
Her voice broke with a strangled sound on the last word, and the bitter tears, so long restrained, welled into her eyes, running in scalding tracks down her face and into her hair. In an effort at self-control she tried to break away from Grant’s arms, but he would not release her. The sense of sheltering protection breached her last defense, and she no longer tried to stop the aching, hopeless flow.
Grant was silent for long minutes, and then his soft curse rent the moonlit darkness. As if what he felt demanded the release of action, he thrust himself up in the bed, found her eyelet petticoat, and pressed it into her hand to use to wipe away the tears. Then, sitting there with his arms resting on his knees, he stared through the bright dimness at the shape of the wardrobe in the corner.
His concern was a potent force, both balm and salt to the lacerations that had been inflicted upon her spirit. It also reinforced her guilt, so that the urge to confess everything became unbearable.
Drawing a deep breath, she began, “Jean-Paul—”
“You don’t have to say anymore. The rest I know,” he told her, the strength of his tone overwhelming her weak voice without effort. His next words effectively banished what she was trying to say from her mind. “I know everything — except why you came here tonight.”
“It must be obvious,” she countered after a moment’s silence.
“Not to me.” He lay down beside her again, resting on his elbow. He did not touch her, but she was aware, abruptly, of the tight leash he held on his emotions.
“I came because — I was sorry that I misunderstood about the gown—”
“You were going to give it back to me?” he asked in dry disbelief.
Eleanora’s cheeks grew hot. Tears persisted in oozing from her eyes and she scrubbed at them abstractedly. “No,” she answered, determined to speak the half-truth though she could not look at him. “I wanted to stay, and I thought it would be harder for you to throw me out if I — undressed.”
His breathing stopped, then reaching out to smooth the wet curve of her cheek with the back of one finger, he said, “Very wise. I would like to show you how wise once more, but I think it would be better for you if you tried to sleep.”
He believed her. He had questioned nothing she had told him. It was more than she had expected from a man with such a jaundiced view of life, more than she deserved. In the face of the kind of suspicions, the kind of questions, she knew Grant to be capable of, she might have weakened. His attitude made her ashamed, but it could not help but loosen also the straining grip of apprehension on her nerves. Her green eyes faintly luminous in the dark, she turned to him. “I may look breakable,” she said softly, “but I am stronger than you know, much stronger.”
The moon had set before they finally closed their eyes. Eleanora slept deep, more exhausted than she would have liked to admit. Still, toward dawn she woke herself crying loud with anguished sobs in some nightmare she could not remember. Grant, awakened, held her until she was calm. Though she tried, lying in the reassuring comfort of his arms, she could not tell him what she had dreamed. The details had slipped beyond her grasp, leaving only an incalculable sense of loss.
“What did you think when you came back from Rivas and found me gone?”
They were seated at the breakfast table. Flies were covering the orange peelings and bacon rinds left lying on their plates, and heat rose already like a wall beyond the overhang of the galería. Grant’s coffee cup was empty, and Eleanora refilled it from the blue enamelware pot so she would not have to look at him while he answered.
“At first,” he said, taking up his cup, “I was angry that the charges had been made, though I thought Luis had acted like an idiot, riding off with you i
n that melodramatic way before Walker could come back and settle everything. That was before I realized what they were trying to do to you. I recognized, after a while, that a major part of Juanita’s plan depended on the fact that I wasn’t on hand. Still, it hurt that Luis was there, and I wasn’t, when you needed me — that he knew where you were when I didn’t — -and was with you at night when I wasn’t. If I had found you then, in that mood, I might have tried to kill him. I cooled off under house arrest. I even learned to be grateful to him for taking care of you.”
“Under house arrest?” she asked quickly.
The corner of his mouth tugged in a smile without humor. “For my own protection. At least, that’s what Walker called it. It wasn’t long in actual time, less than two weeks, but it was long enough for you to get far beyond my reach, beyond my help. Long enough for Walker to save an officer for the phalanx, a fighting tool he knew he would need when he returned, as he had to, to Rivas. And long enough for him to lose a loyal follower.”
Had he cared so much? The words she might use to draw from him how much he cared pressed hurtfully against her throat, but she had forfeited the right to ask them. She said instead, “I don’t suppose it would have made any difference if you had caught up with us, or even if you could have come to Honduras instead of Major Crawford.”
“Honduras? I wasn’t informed of that mission until after Crawford had left. I guess I gave Uncle Billy good reason to doubt my cooperation, even my good faith, but that’s another thing I hold against him. That whole affair smells as high as the San Juan in the dry season to me. The information that you had been captured didn’t come through regular channels. I’d stake my epaulettes on it. Nor did it come through our regular Democrático contacts like Walker says; I would have known about it if it had. No, there’s something funny about that situation. I’m still not sure that the general has his information leak plugged.”
It would be normal for her to take an interest in such matters. “Luis and I talked of that possibility,” she said. “We wondered if Señora Paredes wasn’t involved?”
“Maybe. She is a cautious old woman, though, and too frightened of losing what she has for it to have been anything but against her will.”
“That makes a difference?” Eleanora asked with care.
It was a long moment before he answered. “I suppose not.”
Swallowing hard on her disappointment, waving at a fly which buzzed persistently around her face, Eleanora made herself question him further. “You have someone else in mind then?”
Shaking his head, he downed his warm coffee and reached for his hat. “Only a feeling.” Coming around the table, he drew her to her feet. “You had better shut the doors. It gets infernally hot in here these days if they are left open — or even if they’re not, for that matter. I don’t think you will be able to stay in here during the day, and as much as I like that costume you are wearing, he added, glancing down at the red shirt which hung upon her in the most enticing fashion, “I don’t think I want you receiving patio visitors in it. I suppose I had better do something about clothes for you again.”
“Do you mind?” she asked anxiously.
“I might even learn to like it,” he answered. “A little knowledge of women’s buttons comes in handy, now and again.”
“So long as you make a study of only mine,” she said with mock tartness. Accepting his farewell kiss, she watched him stride from the room with an ache in the region of her heart.
Her boxes arrived from the Alhambra by handcart an hour before luncheon — a marvelous example of organization and forceful persuasion in this country of mañana, and a positive indication of Grant’s personal supervision. Eleanora was smiling to herself over his comments on the subject, and getting into the skirt and blouse she had come to think of as her Honduran costume, when the bell clanged below.
Eleanora stepped out onto the galería in time to see the señora escorting a buxom female with an unlikely bonnet on her head, covered with fresh magenta hibiscus, into the patio. At the sight of the brassy curls fringing the forehead, Eleanora found her tongue.
“Mazie!” she cried, hurrying down the stairs. The actress opened her arms wide, and Eleanora flung herself into them.
“I’m welcome, am I?” Mazie asked when they drew apart.
“You know you are,” Eleanora said, smiling with an odd mistiness before her eyes.
“I had my doubts. You’ve been home for days and I’ve not seen hide nor hair of you.”
“I know,” Eleanora said contritely. “I asked Dr. Jones about you. He said you were doing well, happy with your John and the theater and your orphans. It sounded so idyllic I didn’t want to intrude with my problems.”
“Don’t be silly. If you know me at all, you should know I’m dying to hear from your own lips how you are and what happened to you. I had no idea it was such an ordeal until I read the paper this morning. I thought it was just a case of Laredo taking you away into hiding. Romantic, but scarcely the dangerous and trying time the El Nicaraguense hinted at. All the rest has been kept quiet here in town, very quiet.”
“Oh — the papers,” Eleanora said, wondering, suddenly, what Grant would make of her having talked to the editor. Not that it mattered. Still, she preferred to avoid any strain between them. “Come and sit down,” she went on. “And I will see what I can do about a cup of coffee.”
The orange blossoms were gone from the trees at the end of the patio now, leaving only a few fruit here and there and the cool shade of the polished green leaves. The sun’s glare was brilliant on the stones of the patio floor, and puddles of water, draining from the pots of the señora’s flowers which she had just finished watering, evaporated before their eyes.
“I have a curious message for you from Neville,” Mazie said when Eleanora had set the coffee tray before them on the wrought-iron table.
“Oh?” Eleanora handed Mazie a cup, leaning back with her own.
“He said to tell you ‘Congratulations,’ and warn you he will call sometime tomorrow.”
Eleanora lifted a brow in an attempt at wry amusement. “Does everyone know I’m with Grant again?”
“You are something of a celebrity. Naturally people are interested. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe Neville was more interested than most. It was he who told me you were here.”
The thought of Neville Crawford watching her movements, perhaps even watching the palacio during the night to see if she was sent away, filled her with repugnance.
Her hazel eyes on Eleanora’s expressive face, Mazie said, “If you find him so distasteful, you don’t have to see him — or do you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Eleanora answered, flicking a glance at the other woman through her lashes.
“My dear, I have known Neville for a long time. He has his good points. He has the instincts and breeding of a gentleman, and he can be good for a woman’s ego, but he has few principles when it comes to money. I know enough of his past dealings to guess that he is up to his neck in the tug-of-war between Walker and his backers, and Vanderbilt and his money. And I have a shrewd idea which faction is most attractive to Neville. You can pretend, if you like, that you have nothing to do with all that, but I’m warning you, I won’t believe you.”
To be relieved of her intolerable secret, to pour out the whole story to Mazie, including all the details she had not been able to speak aloud to Grant, much less expect him to understand, all the difficulties and embarrassments only another woman could appreciate — what harm could there be? Mazie was not likely to warn William Walker, even if it had not meant betraying both of her friends, Neville and Eleanora. In addition, the other woman had genuinely liked Jean-Paul. To lodge information that would bring all three before firing squads was a malicious act Eleanora judged Mazie incapable of committing. Neville, himself, with his cryptic message, had given Mazie her first clue that all was not as it should be. If Eleanora supplied the missing facts, he had only himself to blame.
/> She could not do it. The risk was too great. Raising her head, she said, “I’m sorry, Mazie, really I am, but I just don’t understand what you are talking about.”
Mazie stared at her. In the pitiless daylight there was a coating of rice powder on the actress’s face, and traces of lip salve on her mouth. It gave her a dissolute look that in no way detracted from her appearance of greater-than-average worldly wisdom. The petals of the flowers on her bonnet fluttered as she nodded. “It’s worse than I thought then. All right. We won’t talk about it. Just remember this: if you need a place to go, you are always welcome wherever I am.”
“Mazie, you—”
“Don’t worry about me. I can’t see much ahead except trouble for you, honey. I’d like to help with it if I can. If I can’t, then the last thing I want is to add to it.”
As Mazie got to her feet, Eleanora touched her arm. “There is something you can do, if you will?”
“What is it?”
“Tell Neville I don’t want him here. I’ll meet him anywhere else but here.”
“That’s all?”
“That is all.” Eleanora’s voice was firm. It might be harder for her to meet Neville elsewhere, still it would be worth it. She could not bear the thought of him penetrating to the fastness of this patio, of having to make him welcome here within the palacio where she had once known a fleeting happiness. It might be impossible to bar the effects of his machinations, but she could bar his presence, and she would.
Although Grant returned to take the noon meal with her, his manner was preoccupied and he did not tarry. When he had gone, and Señora Paredes, after clearing the table, had disappeared into the lower regions of the house for her siesta, Eleanora wandered about the patio. Her nerves were as tight as stay strings. Under the circumstances, it was impossible for her not to speculate on the reasons for Grant’s distraction. Had the news of the disturbance at León reached Granada? Was Walker even now holding council to outline his strategy to counter the move of President Rivas?
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2 Page 77