Spanish Serenade

by Jennifer Blake

  She reached her bedchamber again and stepped inside. Deliberately, she closed the narrow doors behind her. The music faded, dying away. She could no longer hear it.

  Or had it really stopped? She stood listening for long moments, but could not quite tell. The walls of the house were thick and the balcony doors so solid.

  She drew a deep breath, then closed her eyes and let it out slowly. Lifting a hand to rub the back of her neck, she moved farther into the room.

  She busied herself, straightening away her few belongings. However, she was soon uncomfortable. The closed doors shut out the cooling breeze of the night, and there was still heat trapped in the room from the long hot day. It was silly of her to endure it merely because of a piece of music and her own irritated sensibilities.

  Turning in a swirl of skirts, she moved back to the doors. She grasped the handles and pulled the solid panels open, letting the night air sweep inside.

  With the wind came Refugio. He glided soundlessly around the doorframe and halted with his back to the open door panel that lay against the wall.

  “Accommodating and endlessly hospitable,” he said, his voice resonant with warmth. “Will you also be loving?”

  22

  PILAR BACKED AWAY FROM Refugio. Almost afraid of the answer, she said, “What do you mean?”

  “I am asking, in my own way of course, if I am welcome?”

  “How can you think so, when I am to be married to Charro?”

  “As a ploy to persuade Governor Pacheco to feel compassion for me, spurning my suit could hardly have been bettered. I would have foregone the aid, however, if it had allowed me to avoid the rack of it.”

  “You hid your torment well.”

  “Practice gives that facility.”

  “Nevertheless, the decision was made, and I am to be married.”

  “Then you intend to pledge fidelity?” he said in sardonic tones.

  “Of course!”

  “I did wonder.”

  She lifted her chin as she caught his meaning. “You feel that I should have been faithful to you?”

  “I had somehow expected it.” He shrugged. “I can't think why.”

  “Nor can I, when you trusted me in nothing else.”

  “You mean the emeralds,” he said in stark acceptance of the change of subject.

  She turned away from him, pacing a few steps before swinging back again. “What else should I mean? You kept them from me, knowing full well what they meant to me. You hoarded them over all those long, weary miles, and never said a word. How could you?”

  “And what they meant to me, what of that?” His gaze was intent upon her flushed face.

  “What do they mean, indeed? The Carranza estates in Spain are gone forever. There might be a hacienda here in the Tejas country, cattle and horses and charros to follow your orders. But what do such things matter against the way you betrayed me?”

  “Nothing and less than nothing,” he answered impatiently. “For me to have given you the emeralds would have put you in danger from Don Esteban the instant he discovered you had them. More than that, they were a way of keeping you with me.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “If you intended to use them to bribe me into staying, then you have a strange idea of my character.”

  “Not at all. As long as I had them, your legacy from your mother was safe from Don Esteban. But as long as you did not know it, you would not have the means to leave me.”

  His features were defenseless as he waited for her answer. He stood perfectly still, leaning on his hands, which were pressed flat against the door behind him as if he would permit himself no gesture of appeal.

  Pilar, watching him, felt his meaning penetrate to the center of her being. He had not wanted her to leave him. He had risked everything against the chance of keeping her.

  Finally, she said, “You thought, when you came across the emeralds in New Orleans, that if you shared them with me, I would immediately abandon all of you and return to Spain?”

  “Share?” he said, the word tentative.

  “Naturally, I would not have taken them all. You had lost as much as I.”

  His face tightened over the bones. “So generous. But still, you would have had what you came after. There would have been no way to hold you.”

  “Must a woman be held by force or money, and never of her own desires? Can't she decide of her own will whether she will go or stay?”

  “The temptation to use the means at hand is strong when the alternative is unbearable.”

  It was, perhaps, an attempt at an explanation, or even justification; certainly it was not an apology. It came to her, fleetingly, that it might also be a declaration, though of what kind it was difficult to say. She had always known that he wanted her, though she had never felt before that, for him, the obstruction of his desire was something he would be unable to bear.

  She lowered her lashes as she considered it. “That night after Isabel died,” she said, “when you spoke of staying here in New Spain — it was not just idle talk, was it? You knew then that you had the money to do that, if you wished.”

  He was extremely quick. “I could not have used it without making you wonder where it came from. I would have told you when the time came.”

  “You would have told me something; I don't doubt that.” A hint of irony touched her lips and was gone.

  He pushed away from the door, taking a step toward her. “What can I say to make you believe me, to make you understand?”

  His words were nearly lost in the clatter of horses' hoofs. It was Charro and the others returning, sweeping into the courtyard through the gates that some servant on watch must have thrown open. Their voices rang against the walls of the house as they exchanged laughing insults and called out in exuberance for drink to clear the dust of their ride from their throats.

  “You had better go,” Pilar said, meeting Refugio's gaze with steady brown eyes. “Charro will not like finding you her.”

  “He has become a possessive bridegroom?”

  A troubled look crossed her face. “He doesn't say much, but I see him watching us.”

  “No doubt I would do the same in his place.” Refugio's voice indicated acceptance, but he made no move to leave.

  “Please,” she said, “you really must go.”

  “Must I? I could also stay. And you could tell Charro that you made a mistake, that you have changed your mind.”

  “I made a promise.” The words were firmer than she felt.

  “Promises can be broken, and often are.”

  “Not without good reason.”

  “What reason would serve, I wonder?” There was a hard light in his eyes.

  “Not the emeralds,” she said quickly, afraid that he might offer them.

  “Ah, Pilar, you misjudge me. I have better sense than that, and also plans for their use. Señor Huerta tells me there is an estancia that joins this one to the south that may be bought for a fair price. The owner grows old and tired of fighting Apaches, and wants to die in Spain. In any case, I have more . . . sentiment within me.” The astringency that crept into his voice was a reminder that the last phrase had been used at the meeting in the governor's study. Who had said it? Was it Don Esteban?

  Her husband-to-be had entered the house; she could hear his voice below, calling her name as he searched for her. The sound was followed by the quick tattoo of his footsteps on the stairs. Panic beat up inside her as she thought of the two men coming face to face with each other in her bedchamber. There was something in Refugio's stance, some incipient recklessness in his manner, that fueled it.

  On a quick, indrawn breath, she said, “Refugio, please don't do this.”

  He tilted his head, his eyes steel-gray with the darkness behind them. “Have you no interest in my sentiments?”

  “Not at this moment,” she said, clasping her hands into fists at her sides. “Not here.”

  He watched her for long seconds as Charro's tread came nearer, thudding on the floor o
f the sitting room that connected to her bedchamber. Abruptly he said, “Then I am left to requiems and revenge and my unrequited love. It could be that it's fitting.”

  There came a thumping on the bedchamber door. “Pilar?” Charro called.

  She glanced in that direction but did not answer. Turning back toward Refugio as if drawn by a magnet, she said, “Love?”

  There was no answer. He was gone.

  It was a moment before she could bring her taut muscles to move, could force herself to reach to open the door for Charro. He stood there looking down at her, studying her pale face, before he searched the room beyond her with a glance that lingered on the balcony door. Finally, he stepped inside.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Don't you feel well?”

  She summoned a smile. “Yes, fine. I was just . . . resting.”

  He closed the door behind him with slow care. When he looked at her again, there was the shadow of trouble in his eyes. “He was here, wasn't he? Refugio?”

  “Yes,” she answered. It would be wrong to persist in her lie.

  “Begging you to reconsider? Making love to you?”

  “Explaining,” she said, “or trying to.”

  “And that's all?”

  She inclined her head. There was no need to tell him that there might have been more if he had not returned.

  He moved closer to her and reached to take her hands in his. He caressed the smooth backs of her fingers with his thumbs, his gaze upon that small movement. His voice deep, he said, “Refugio is my friend. More than that, he has been as a brother to me. He took the scared boy that I was when I came to him, and turned him into a man. He gave me back my pride and my sense of who and what I was inside; there is no one I respect more. But, querida, I cannot permit him to visit you like this. If I do, it will destroy us.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice coming low and uneven from her constricted throat. “And I would do nothing to — to hurt you. I tried to tell him—”

  “I'm sure you did, but Refugio listens to no one when it comes to you. You are his weakness. We always thought he had none, those of us in the band, but that was before you came. He will have to go. He will have to leave the hacienda. We can't stay here together, the three of us.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “But what if he won't leave?”

  “Then he must learn, somehow, to let you go. If he cannot, if he will not, then we will eventually have to fight. And either I will kill him or he will kill me.”

  “Oh, Charro, no!” she cried, her eyes huge as she searched his face.

  He bent his head, lifting her hands to press her fingers to his lips. His voice was hoarse, his warm breath moist against her hands as he said, “There is no other way.”

  “There must be,” she protested.

  He made no answer as he caught her in his arms and pressed his mouth to hers. His lips were sweet and gentle, and he held her with care. But Pilar, shivering in the strong circle of his arms, felt only fear. Pilar did not sleep well when bedtime finally came. The things that Refugio and Charro had said repeated endlessly in her mind. She knew Refugio was right, that she was marrying Charro out of pique. Did that make it wrong when Charro wanted her, and when she had no one else, no other place to go?

  She realized also that, in spite of what Refugio had said, he had not offered her a portion of the emeralds. She didn't want them, not really, but it was a damning omission. Or was it? Might he not be protecting her from Don Esteban still?

  He had spoken of love, though in his own oblique fashion. Had he meant what she thought, or was there some other significance in it that she could not see? What was it he had said before about his speech? That he used it to hide behind? What was he hiding from now?

  The long sleeves and, thick linen of the nightgown Señora Huerta had loaned Pilar was too heavy for the warmth of the night. She thought of taking it off, but decided against it. The night breeze coming through the open doors onto the balcony was slowly growing cooler. She jerked the thick folds from under her, straightening the long length that had twisted about her as she turned in restlessness. Closing her eyes tightly, she willed sleep to come.

  It seemed endless hours later that she was startled into awareness. There had been a noise somewhere nearby, like the faint scrape of a footstep. She thought it had come from outside on the balcony, or possibly from just inside her bedchamber.

  Slow anger seeped over her. That Refugio could think that he might come and go in her bedchamber as he pleased, even in the middle of the night, was past bearing. She would tell him so in words that could leave no possible doubt.

  She opened her eyes to slits. The balcony doorway made a gray rectangle in the darkness. There was no sign of movement there, no shape of a man's form. The room around her was dense with blackness, but she could sense no movement in it. Where had he gone? Or had he been there at all? Perhaps she had only imagined that footfall, or else dreamed it.

  There came a quiet rustle from just above her head. Before she could turn, before she could move, a thick, smothering blanket descended. It covered her head and shoulders, and hard, rough hands pressed it down over her face. She struck out, and her arms were entangled in the folds. What felt like a knee was thrown across her legs, pinning her to the mattress. She drew in her breath to scream.

  The sound was trapped in her throat as a hand came down hard across her face. She felt her upper lip bruise against her teeth. Then the darkness exploded with points of light as a blow smashed into her jaw. The light points faded, and there was nothing.

  Pilar roused once. She was lying facedown across the saddle of a horse that was just jolting to a halt. She was wrapped in the close folds of a blanket smelling faintly of sheep's wool and wood smoke. Her feet were bound together at the ankles, and her hands were fastened at the wrists. Her head pounded with a ferocious, pulsing pain. She heard the creak of leather as someone dismounted. Then she was dragged backward, across the saddle. Her midsection cramped and the pounding in her head increased. The double pain took her backward once more into darkness.

  Voices drew her toward consciousness the next time. They made a deep rumbling that seemed to have no words. She turned her head slightly, catching her breath as pain throbbed in her temple. It was a moment before she realized that the voices had ceased.

  She opened her eyes. She was lying on a floor of packed earth. An Indian trade blanket was wrapped around her, though it had been pulled away from her face. Above her was an unsealed roof of crossed poles. For an instant she thought she was in the courtyard at the hacienda, then she saw that the roof had a hole in one corner through which could be seen the star-filled night sky, and the crumbling adobe walls about her were smoked black from countless fires. There were no furnishings, no bedrolls, no pots around the center fire hole. She was in an abandoned hut, perhaps an Indian jacal.

  The light for her inspection was provided by a single lantern of pierced tin. It sat on the floor well away from the sagging entrance door. Two men stood beside it, looking in her direction. For a moment their features were blurred, then she began slowly to make them out.

  “So you are awake, my dear Pilar,” Don Esteban said. “We were beginning to be worried about you. My large friend, here, feared he had struck you too hard.”

  She saw the other man standing there, heard what Don Esteban said of him; still her mind refused to accept it. She blinked, trying to clear the odd denseness from her mind. She moistened dry lips to speak, though the word she said was only a whisper.

  “Baltasar?” she said.

  “Are you really surprised?” Don Esteban said. “I would not have thought he had that much ability to play a part. It's interesting what people are able to do when they have good reason.”

  Pilar could find no answer. Her hands were now unbound, she discovered, though there seemed to be a braided leather thong still about her ankles. She closed her eyes, lifting a hand to her head.

  “I didn't mean to hurt you,” Baltasar said in
a bass rumble. “But I had to do something to get you away without any noise.”

  She lifted her lashes to stare at him. The lantern light below him shone on the white of his shirtfront and made a soft glow under his chin, glinting on his beard stubble. “Why?” she asked.

  “My orders,” her stepfather answered for Baltasar. “I had to have you, because you are the only one who can bring Carranza — and the emeralds.”

  “What—” she began, then stopped. Appalled comprehension rose in her eyes.

  “You see it, don't you? Just as he went after his little friend Isabel who was taken by the Apaches, he will come after you. He can do no less, because he is El Leon.”

  She shook her head, a grave mistake. Swallowing upon the sickness the movement brought, she said, “How will he know where to come? He's more acute than most, but not a mind reader.”

  Baltasar answered her. “I left a note on your pillow giving the place. And I told him to come alone. It may be a long time before the paper is found and taken to him, but he will come.”

  “On your pillow,” Don Esteban said in cold amusement. “That should worry him, don't you think?”

  Pilar ignored him, her gaze on Baltasar. “I don't see how you did it, how you got me out of the hacienda, I mean. What of the guard? How did you get past him?”

  “It was easy,” the large man said with a sardonic look that sat strangely on his broad face. “You are light and the grapevine at your balcony is strong. As for the guard, there was no problem. I was the guard.”

  “But if you could take me from the hacienda, why could you not just steal the emeralds, if that was what my stepfather wanted?”

  Don Esteban laughed, a harsh sound. “Taking the emeralds would have been much more difficult since Carranza keeps them near him at all times. Difficult or not, it would not have been enough. You of all people should know that I don't want just the emeralds.”

  “It's insane to take this so far,” she said, her voice querulous with distress. “You have risked so much, and for what? Hate and a few jewels that came from something you stole in the first place? Why couldn't you have just let us go when we left New Orleans?”