by Nan Ryan
“I am going.” Elizabeth’s voice was firm.
“In that case, you’re fortunate. I’ve contracted with the best guides in the Territory. West Quarternight was to arrive in Santa Fe either yesterday or today.”
“Good,” said Edmund. “I’ll invite Mr. Quarternight to have dinner with us tomorrow evening. We’d love to have you come as well, Martin.”
“Sorry, Edmund, but we’ve a houseful of guests in town for the Governor’s Spring Baile tomorrow night. Oh, Good Lord … that reminds me, I took the liberty of telling Governor Mitchell he could expect the two of you.” He suddenly frowned. “I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn. The governor is now insisting on making you his guests of honor.”
“We’re flattered and pleased, aren’t we, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth smiled warmly. “We’re more than anxious to meet the governor’s friends.”
“Wonderful,” said Martin Exley, relieved. “So we can expect you to join us tomorrow evening at the Palace of the Governors for the baile?”
“Certainly.” Rising, Elizabeth added, “And Friday night Mr. Quarternight can join us for dinner. Will we see him at the Governor’s Spring Baile?”
“My dear lady,” Martin Exley said flatly, “I’m afraid West Quarternight was not invited.”
Wishing she hadn’t been invited to the Governor’s Spring Baile, Elizabeth could no longer put off dressing for the grand affair. The sun had been down for more than an hour and soon Edmund would be knocking on her door.
Elizabeth sighed and rose from the red leather settee where she’d been lying since finishing her bath. She yawned and stretched before the fire, thinking she must surely be the laziest of women. She had not been out of the suite all day and oh, how she had enjoyed it.
Edmund had gone out briefly, returning at lunchtime to say he had bumped into West Quarternight, who had agreed to have dinner with them Friday evening. He added that he thought it a good idea for them both to rest through the afternoon so they’d be fresh for the baile.
Now the afternoon was gone and it was time for her to dress. Elizabeth chose a beautiful ball gown of pale gray silk. After she’d slipped it on and stood examining herself in the free-standing mirror by the highboy, she wondered at the gown’s plunging neckline.
Frowning, she jerked at the bodice, attempting to pull it higher on her bare bosom. It was impossible. The shimmering fabric outlined her full breasts, pressing their contours tightly and dipping so low between, she felt exposed.
Finally, she shook her head and shrugged. Her fine clothes had been hand-picked by a trusted Lord & Taylor clerk, as was the Curtins’ custom, and paid for by Edmund Curtin before leaving New York. In the hurried week prior to their departure, he had purchased for her a complete wardrobe of fine traveling suits, elegant high-necked blouses and well-tailored skirts and jackets in an array of spring colors.
Planning ahead, he had insisted she have several expensive riding habits and elegant ball gowns. He had even bought her some fine lingerie, those selections made sight unseen, trusting the reliable female Lord & Taylor clerk to choose the appropriate undergarments for a bride’s trousseau.
Apparently the clerk had been a true romantic at heart. Elizabeth had never seen such wispy bits of sheer white gossamer meant to serve as a lady’s underthings. The first time she slipped into a new chemise and a pair of daring thigh-high underpants, she felt and looked more naked than when she wore nothing at all.
Edmund’s knock startled Elizabeth. It was time for the governor’s baile.
14
SMOOTHING THE SKIRTS OF her gray silk gown with nervous fingers, Elizabeth hurried to open the door. Edmund stood in the portal, debonair in dark evening clothes, a snowy white shirt, and spotless white kid gloves.
Downstairs a crested carriage—sent by the governor—waited to collect the visiting couple. It whisked them around the plaza to the Palace of the Governors, site of the glittering baile. A cortege of carriages lined the avenue in front of the palace and laughter and excitement filled the warm spring night. The city’s gentry—wealthy ranchers, aristocratic grandees, and the politically influential—dressed to the teeth, arrived en masse for the governor’s annual gala.
Dreading the long, wearing evening that lay ahead, Elizabeth nevertheless smiled, took Edmund’s hand, and stepped down from the carriage. Her gloved hand resting on his arm, she swept into a long, large room where copper-and-crystal chandeliers cast honeyed light on a large, polished floor of gleaming oak. Huge clay pots filled with colorful blooming cactus bordered the dance floor. Slim Mexican waiters in black charro pants and white bolero jackets passed among the well-turned-out crowd bearing silver trays of French champagne. At the far end of the long room, an orchestra tuned atop a bunting-draped dais.
On seeing the visiting pair enter, the smiling, well-tailored governor of the New Mexico Territory hurried forth to greet Elizabeth and Edmund. Governor Robert P. Mitchell gallantly kissed Elizabeth’s hand, then turned to shake Edmund’s.
Welcoming them both profusely, the governor said, “Mrs. Curtin, I do appreciate your coming here this evening when I’m sure you would much prefer solitude.” Feeling as if he had read her mind, Elizabeth smiled warmly at him. He said, “Your selflessness, gracious demeanor, and beauty is a credit to your husband, my dear.”
“You’re very kind, Governor,” Elizabeth replied.
“Come now, both of you. Let me introduce you to my friends.”
The governor, deftly stepping between them, ushered them forward into the crowded room. He made sure they met his lieutenant governor; the territorial commissioner; His Eminence, the respected Bishop Lamy; a host of dignitaries and their wives; as well as the Territory’s wealthy Old Guard.
Elizabeth, radiant with her flaming hair swept atop her head and her gray silk gown accentuating her slender figure, drew nods, smiles, curious stares, and whispered comments as she moved through the celebrated crowd at the governor’s side, shaking hands and finding something to say to everyone she met.
“Elizabeth, may I present Doña Hope,” the governor said, stopping before a striking blonde wearing a champagne-hued gown of shiny satin. “Doña, this is Mrs. Dane Curtin.”
“Mrs. Curtin,” the doña acknowledged, “welcome to Santa Fe.”
“So nice to meet you, Doña Hope,” Elizabeth replied.
Smiling, the women automatically sized each other up. They were the same height exactly and approximately the same weight. While Elizabeth’s hair was fiery red, Doña Hope’s was silver-white. Her large almond-shaped eyes were a deep brown, Elizabeth’s a sparkling blue. Elizabeth’s berry-red lips were full and had a pouty, bee-stung appearance; Doña Hope’s mouth was wide and lush and sensual. Both women had skin of fair, flawless softness. Both wore gowns of daring but tasteful elegance.
Doña Hope’s distinguished-looking escort was introduced as S. Dwayne Haggard, owner of Santa Fe’s First Territorial Bank. A man of medium height whose light-brown hair was beginning to gray at the temples, S. Dwayne Haggard’s smile was genuine, his manner friendly. As he spoke, his possessive hand never left Doña Hope’s waist.
The orchestra began playing. The twittering and laughter increased as every eye came to rest on Governor Mitchell and his honored guests.
The governor bowed grandly to Elizabeth, took her hand, and led her onto the empty dance floor. She stepped into his arms and they began the waltz. The Governor’s Spring Baile was officially under way.
Other couples poured out onto the floor to turn and spin and enjoy the dancing. While Elizabeth waltzed with Governor Mitchell, she casually questioned him about the attractive blonde, Doña Hope. He told her the señora was one of his city’s most sought-after women. Not only was she breathtakingly lovely, Doña Hope was the wealthy widow of the late Don Javier Narcisco Baca. Upon his death, she had inherited the don’s six-hundred-thousand-acre rancho in the southern part of the Territory.
“Six hundred thousand acres?”
�
��One of the larger of the old Spanish-American land grants, although not near the largest. Don Javier was grandson of the rancho’s original owner.”
Elizabeth said, “Doña Hope is quite young to be widowed. Was her husband, Don Javier Baca, killed in an accident?”
The governor laughed, then shook his head. “Mrs. Curtin, when the don died of a heart attack three years ago, he had just passed his seventy-first birthday.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. The governor went on to explain that Don Javier was a vigorous man until his death. A full-blooded Spaniard, he had been a confirmed bachelor until he had met the lovely Hope Hayward on a trip to San Francisco. While in the city he visited the theater, saw the white-haired Hope onstage, and fell instantly in love.
As smitten as a schoolboy, the fifty-nine-year-old don stayed on in San Francisco until he could persuade the young actress to marry him. A month later, the don and his beautiful blond bride returned to New Mexico in time for her twentieth birthday.
The governor glanced across the room at Doña Hope. “That was fifteen years ago, though it doesn’t seem possible. Doña Hope is the same dazzling beauty at thirty-five that she was at twenty.”
“She is very beautiful,” Elizabeth agreed, wondering if the governor himself was half in love with the blond widow. From the soulful looks the blond widow drew from a number of the gentlemen present, it was evident she could have any man she wanted.
While Elizabeth danced with the governor, Edmund sipped chilled champagne from a stemmed glass and made conversation with the other guests. Laughter and music and the scent of expensive perfume filled the big hall, while outdoors a million stars came out to twinkle in the black New Mexico sky.
The party had been in progress for little more than an hour when Elizabeth, again dancing with the governor, felt her bare back lightly bump another lady’s bare back. Both couples paused.
Elizabeth turned at the exact moment Doña Hope turned. The two women smiled and apologized, the men nodded, and they changed partners for the remainder of the dance.
While Elizabeth made polite small talk with the brown-haired banker, S. Dwayne Haggard, Doña Hope put her wide red lips close to the governor’s ear and whispered that with all the champagne she’d consumed, she would have to be excused for a moment. Would he kindly allow it?
“But, of course,” said Governor Mitchell, charmed, as always, by the beautiful blond widow’s straightforward manner. “Promise we’ll finish our dance later in the evening.”
“I promise,” said she, lifted the skirts of her champagne-satin ball gown, and walked out of the crowded hall.
Over Elizabeth’s head, J. Dwayne Haggard had seen the exchange and he frowned as the blond widow hurried through the arched doorway and disappeared.
While the room continued to swell with the town’s elite ladies and gentlemen, one not-so-elite gentleman—who was not invited to the governor’s elegant party—waited alone at the La Fonda Hotel for one of the so-called ladies to slip up to his room and out of her fancy ball-gown.
West Quarternight didn’t bother to rise from his bed when the lovely Doña Hope swept breathlessly into his room without knocking. Naked, stretched comfortably out atop the bed covers, his long arms folded beneath his pillow, West leisurely turned his dark head and smiled at the woman who had begun anxiously undressing the moment the door closed behind her.
Caring not at all that the jealous, possessive banker who had escorted her to the baile might be wondering where she was, the blond widow—four years West’s senior—dropped her expensive champagne-satin ball gown to the carpeted floor.
Impatiently she struggled with her tight waist-cinching corset, then swept her satin chemise up over her head and her satin underdrawers down over her shapely hips. She kicked off her satin dancing slippers and, looking straight at the dark, naked man on the bed, slowly, seductively, peeled her silk stockings down her long, slender legs.
Wearing only a pearl-and-diamond choker and matching earrings that dangled almost to her bare ivory shoulders, Doña Hope swayed provocatively to the bed, her brown, flashing eyes going to West’s bare groin.
Pleased that the male flesh which had been totally flaccid when she had come through the door was now hard and pulsing and ready to give her exquisite pleasure, Doña Hope leaned down and gave West’s mouth a hot, wet kiss, allowing her soft breasts to fall onto his broad, bare chest.
West kissed her back, his tongue sweeping the insides of her mouth, but his arms remained folded beneath his pillow. He didn’t reach for her, didn’t attempt to pull her down to him.
But then, he didn’t have to.
When the passionate doña tore her burning lips from his, she climbed astride his hard thighs, licked her fingers wetly, then caressed his straining masculinity until it glistened in the light of the bedside lamp.
Her brown eyes darkening with desire, she raised herself up to her knees. And taking him gently with both hands, placing only the tips of her fingers just below the throbbing, mushroom-shaped head, she guided him a mere half inch up into the hot wetness of her pliant, yielding body.
For a long second they stayed like that, she kneeling above, her hands tenderly pressing him to her in an erotic initiation to invade and conquer, her heated gaze holding his. He lying below, arms still folded, long, lean body seemingly relaxed, his sexual force still leashed.
Giving him one last smoldering look, Doña Hope arched her body and threw her head back. Her hands fell away from him. The spread fingers settled atop her own creamy thighs. Doña Hope, knowing exactly how to please a man as well as herself, sighed with bliss as she slowly inched her way down on him, gloriously impaling herself on that expanding male power.
All the while, West watched the pleasurable flesh-melding ceremony with heated silver eyes.
When she began the movements of loving, West’s hands finally came out from under the pillow to settle on her flared, grinding hips. It was not the first time the pair had made love. There had been many such occasions in any number of locations. They knew they could draw out the ecstasy or bring it about in a heartbeat.
Both were aware that Doña Hope would be missed if she stayed away too long from the baile. They didn’t have much time. So West guided Doña Hope’s hips with his hands, urging her creamy bottom to slap down against his hard pelvis as he rose to meet her with deep, penetrating thrusts.
In minutes Doña Hope was shuddering atop him, her eyes tightly shut, her breath coming fast, her long red nails scraping down his chest. At the same time, West pumped the hot liquid of lust high up into her.
Afterward, while she stood naked before the tall pine bureau and washed him from her flesh, the doña told West about the illustrious Eastern guests of honor at the Governor’s baile.
“A Mrs. Elizabeth Curtin and her brother-in-law, Edmund Curtin of New York City, are there,” she said, reaching for her discarded chemise.
Shoving a pillow up against the tall headboard, West reached for a cigar, fit it, inhaled, and blew the smoke out slowly as he watched the beautiful blonde step into her lacy underdrawers.
“I know all about them,” he said evenly. “The Curtins are the reason I’m back in Santa Fe.”
Ignoring the quick look of displeasure that flared in the blonde’s brown eyes, West told her that he had been hired to escort the pair on a foolhardy trek deep into El Malpais and beyond in search of the missing Curtin-Lancaster Expedition.
“The man you met, Edmund Curtin, is brother to one of the missing men.” West drew on his cigar. “The woman is Dane Curtin’s wife.”
Doña Hope’s delicate jaw hardened. “And the wife actually means to go out on the trail with you?”
West shrugged bare brown shoulders. “Apparently that’s their intention. I met Curtin only this morning.”
“I see,” said Doña Hope. “And you’ve not yet met the wife?”
“No, I haven’t. Curtin has invited me to join them for dinner tomorrow night to further discuss plans for th
e trip. I suppose I’ll meet her then.”
Dressed again, Doña Hope came to the bed, sat down on its edge and laid a hand on West’s flat belly. Petulantly, she said, “Darling, I hope you don’t like red hair. The missing man’s wife is quite beautiful and she has flaming red tresses.”
West Quarternight dropped his cigar in a crystal tray on the night table. He grinned, reached out, and curled a forefinger down into the plunging V of Doña Hope’s champagne-satin gown. Slowly, he pulled her to him. When her parted red lips were inches from his own, he shifted his gaze to the white-blond glory framing her lovely face.
He said, “Never could stand red hair.”
15
ACROSS THE PLAZA, INSIDE the crowded El Palacio Real ballroom, Elizabeth Curtin wished she could slip away from the spring baile as the beautiful Doña Hope had obviously done. After meeting everyone present and joining in endless conversations and dancing with countless gentlemen and sipping two stemmed glasses of French champagne, Elizabeth felt flushed and weak and extraordinarily tired.
The orchestra completed a number, and the latest in a long line of dancing partners released her. Elizabeth looked up to see Governor Mitchell reaching for her hand. He did not lead her into another waltz. The perceptive governor led her right off the floor.
At the edge of the crowd he leaned down and said, “Mrs. Curtin, you aren’t feeling well.” It was a statement, so Elizabeth didn’t bother to deny it. Governor Mitchell smiled kindly and continued, “It’s the altitude, my dear. It takes some getting used to. It’s harder on women than it is on men, so until you’re acclimated, you must not overdo.”
“Perhaps that’s it, Governor,” Elizabeth replied. “I do feel a bit faint.”
“I knew it. May I suggest that you return immediately to your hotel suite.” When Elizabeth graciously protested, Governor Mitchell insisted. “You’ve stayed long enough. You’ve charmed everyone, done your duty beautifully. Now go; get some rest.”