Carlos kept his features carefully bland as Brett and Sabrina walked away, but he glanced down at the ground lest his eyes reveal his murderous rage. Tomorrow, he thought savagely, cannot come soon enough.
Breathlessly Sabrina allowed Brett to guide her into the concealing arms of the forest where it grew near the hacienda, and there, under the leafy branches of a gnarled oak tree, he pulled her next to his warm body, his mouth hungrily finding hers. He kissed her urgently, compulsively, his lips hard and demanding on hers.
Pressed tightly against him, she kissed him back eagerly, their bodies straining together, her arms creeping around his strong neck, and all doubts and suspicions fled. It was such heaven to be in his embrace, to feel his passion rising up hard and powerful between their locked bodies.
Eventually he raised his head. "I've been mad with longing to do that since Saturday," he muttered huskily, "but something or someone kept getting in the way. I couldn't wait another moment. I either had to have you to myself or do something violent."
Shyly she replied, "I wondered if you had changed your mind."
"Not a chance, sweetheart! I want you too badly." His eyes met hers gravely, a curious intentness about him. "I wondered perhaps if you might have changed your mind." An odd smile twisted his chiseled mouth. "Women have been known to do so."
With mocking affront Sabrina surveyed him. "Not this woman!" She was strangely light-headed, full of a warm, burgeoning ecstasy. All she had needed to banish her unhappy thoughts was to be in his arms, and dreamily she curled next to him, offering her mouth to him.
Groaning, Brett captured her lips, kissing her more deeply, even more passionately this time, his hands caressing her back and hips. The blood thundering in his brain, he reluctantly pushed her slightly away from him. "We keep this up," he said with a frankly sensuous cast to his mouth, "and I'm afraid I'll compromise you again—a dozen times before we are married."
Possessed of the same driving, elemental needs, she said daringly, "And would that be so very terrible?"
His eyes darkened with desire, but with an effort he resisted the lure of her tempting mouth and body. Ruefully he admitted, "No, except that even if I didn't make you pregnant the other night, if we make love too many times before marriage, Alejandro is definitely going to be very embarrassed at the arrival of his first grandchild an indecently short time after our wedding."
Startled, Sabrina stared at him. "Pregnant?" she breathed blankly. "Me?"
"It's possible," Brett said with a strangely tender smile.
Wonderingly Sabrina glanced down at her slim stomach, a wave of intense pleasure surging through her. "Our child," she said reverently.
"Mmmm, yes," Brett agreed softly, pulling her gently next to him, resting her pliant body against his. His lips brushed her temple, and he murmured, "I'm afraid I didn't take any precautions that last night—all I could think of was you. A child would please me, but selfishly, I don't want to start sharing you too soon!"
There was a companionable silence between them, both lost in their own happy thoughts of the future, each completely unaware of how closely those thoughts paralleled the other's. Sabrina's head rested on Brett's shoulder, his arms were about her waist, and for the moment there was no passion between them, only an engulfing sensation of tenderness, a sweet promise of what would come.
Night slowly enveloped the forest, and suddenly becoming aware that Alejandro was calling them from the hacienda, Brett stirred and shouted back a reply. He stared down at Sabrina's face in the gloom, thinking he had never seen a more lovely, entrancing sight in his life. The fiery hair was muted, tumbling in gorgeous disarray around her bewitching features, and the look in those dreamy amber-gold eyes made his breath catch painfully in his chest.
Almost as if mesmerized, his lips slowly found hers again, kissing her with such tenderness and gentleness that Sabrina felt tears sting her eyes. He must love her! He could not act as he did and not love her!
Arm in arm they walked slowly back toward the hacienda, and it was only when they neared the entrance to the courtyard that Brett spoke. "About the date of our wedding," he said abruptly, a slight frown creasing his forehead. "I think that in view of what happened the other night, we had better not have a lengthy betrothal. You could very well be pregnant, and if you are, we shouldn't delay too long in marrying." He suddenly grinned. "Besides, I don't know how long I can behave myself where you are concerned!"
Engulfed in a warm, hazy glow, Sabrina drifted dreamily through the following hours. And it was only the next afternoon, as two o'clock drew near, that some of the glow left her. Wishing now that she had never agreed to meet with Constanza, she almost decided to send a note to the gazebo stating that she had changed her mind. But her conscience would not let her.
She had just risen to her feet from the chair she had been sitting in on the patio when Brett and Alejandro appeared. Brett held a piece of paper in his hand, and from the expression on both men's faces, she knew that something was wrong.
"What is it?" she asked instantly. "Is something wrong?"
"Well, it is not good news," Alejandro said quietly. "But it could have been worse."
Brett lifted his eyes from the paper, a curiously speculative gleam in his gaze. "This letter from my agent in New Orleans just arrived. It appears that in June a hurricane leveled my plantation in Louisiana."
A gasp of dismay escaped Sabrina. "Leveled? Can nothing be salvaged?"
He shook his head, a waiting air about him.
"How dreadful for you!" she exclaimed helplessly, deep sympathy for him rushing through her. "What will you do? What can you do?"
Brett shrugged negligently. "I suppose I could sell it. Or, with enough money, a lot of money, I could probably bring it back into production again."
"Oh!" Sabrina said in a small voice.
Watching her closely, trying to gauge the effect of his news on her, Brett said slowly, "It is not a complete disaster. The plantation was in deplorable condition when I first acquired it, but I made it productive once and I'm certain I shall do so again. The crop was destroyed, it is true, as well as several outbuildings, but apparently the levees held, although the house itself was badly damaged."
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it now," Alejandro said heartily. "Besides, when you marry Sabrina you gain the Rancho del Torres—you may never want to do anything about that piece of property but sell it. For selfish reasons, it would delight me if you settled here. As far as I'm concerned, the destruction of the plantation in Louisiana could be quite a blessing."
Sabrina smiled sickly, and Brett's eyes narrowed, her reaction not going unnoticed. Conscious of a fierce urge to throw caution to the winds, wanting desperately to reassure her about their future, about his own wealth, Brett almost blurted out the truth about his finances, but pride stilled his tongue. That and suspicion. Was she already having second thoughts about marrying him? he wondered with a queer feeling. Could he bear it if she proved to be false and treacherous? He didn't think he could, suddenly realizing with a frightening intensity that Sabrina meant more to him than anything else in the world.
Feeling as if she were being driven mercilessly toward conclusions that were only going to bring her pain and misery, Sabrina couldn't look at Brett. Instead she glanced at her father and with over-bright eyes, muttered, "I feel a little faint. If you don't mind, I'll leave you two to discuss this unsettling news." And then, not waiting for a reply, she bolted from the courtyard.
Constanza was waiting for Sabrina at the gazebo, and still distressed and shaken by the uncertainties that were battering at her fragile peace, Sabrina was totally unprepared for the older woman's assault.
Sabrina had run through the forest when she left Alejandro and Brett, and consequently she was a little out of breath when she entered the gazebo. Constanza had her back to the door, and when she heard Sabrina's entrance, she glanced over her shoulder.
"You came," Constanza said simply.
Mutely Sabrina
nodded, wishing she were anywhere but here, wishing she were back at the hacienda, wishing Brett were holding her in his arms. She was suddenly afraid, afraid of this woman, afraid of what Constanza would tell her.
And a moment later she knew she had good reason to be afraid; Constanza's condition was evident the instant she turned to face Sabrina. Numb, her mind frozen, Sabrina stared at Constanza's gently swollen belly, saw the pity and misery in the dark eyes that watched her so intently.
She became aware that someone was crying. At first she assumed it was she, but then she realized with a shock that it was Constanza. Constanza was weeping softly, heartrendingly, the tears sliding dolefully down her cheeks, and despite the sharp agony that was clawing its way through her own body, Sabrina was moved by the other woman's misery.
"Don't cry," she begged. "Please stop. Tell me what is troubling you."
"Brett Dangermond," Constanza said sadly. "I carry his child. He promised to marry me—I would never have given myself to him otherwise. I trusted him—he told me he loved me, and yet not three days ago I hear he is to marry you." Mournfully she added, "What is to become of me? Of our child?"
Pain like she had never imagined pierced Sabrina's heart. She had known of his involvement with Constanza, but the reality of it had never hit her. It did now, agonizingly, shatteringly. This woman had lain in Brett's arms, had known his caresses, and now she was carrying his child. . . .
Sabrina was barely aware of Constanza standing in front of her, didn't see the calculating expression that crossed the other woman's face before Constanza threw herself to her knees and sobbed, "You must give him up! You must! If it weren't for your fortune he would marry me. I know he would! He said he would! It is your money that is keeping my child from having a father; your money that is keeping the man I love from me."
"What do you mean?" Sabrina asked dully.
Her sobbing reduced to a pitiful hiccuping, Constanza begged, "Promise you will never tell that you saw me? Promise you will never let him know what I have said? He would beat me if he knew."
Tiredly Sabrina nodded her head.
"He said that he wants to marry me, but that he needs your fortune more—that with your fortune he would better be able to provide for me and our child. Your money doesn't mean anything to me, but he is obsessed by it." Constanza's voice was filled with pleading as she implored, "Oh, please give him up! If you refuse him, he will marry me. I know he will. He loves me—it is only your money that he wants. Please, you must release him."
Possessed by an odd serenity, Sabrina gently touched Constanza's shoulder. Nothing mattered anymore; she felt nothing, only a blessed numbness. "I will," she promised simply. "You have nothing to fear. I will not marry him"—her voice shook slightly—"not now."
Vaguely Sabrina realized that it wasn't that Brett had made love to Constanza that she found so unforgivable—he was a sophisticated man, and there were bound to have been many women in his past, even his most recent past. But to seduce Constanza with promises of marriage, to father a child and then refuse to do the honorable thing because he wanted her fortune, that she could not forgive! Earlier in the year, when he had been seeing Constanza, she had been jealous when she'd had no real right to be, but she had thought that their association had been finished for some time. To discover that such was not the case, that these past weeks when she had been falling deeply in love with him he had still been seeing another woman, still promising love to Constanza, was shattering.
How she returned to the hacienda Sabrina never knew; one minute she was unconsciously patting Constanza's shoulder and the next she was in the courtyard. Alejandro and Brett were still there. They were seated at the iron table; tall glasses half-filled with liquid sat in front of them.
Both men looked up when she appeared, and Alejandro called out, "Ah, there you are! I wondered where you had disappeared to. We were just discussing different dates for the wedding. Your novio is an impatient man—he wants the wedding before the end of the month!"
The amber-gold eyes were empty, the beautiful features strangely lifeless, as Sabrina said flatly, "I've changed my mind. There will be no wedding. I will not many him."
Throughout the emotional, exhausting scene that followed her startling announcement, Sabrina remained unmoved, wrapped in an icy shell. Nothing seemed to matter to her anymore. Confusion, disbelief, and finally anger washed over her, not touching the tranquil emptiness that kept her from feeling anything but mild indifference to Alejandro's reactions. That Brett said nothing, his hard face dark and unrevealing, didn't even arouse a twinge of interest within her. He belonged now to Constanza—he was nothing to her, meant nothing to her . . . would never mean anything to her.
If she had been more aware, she might have seen the spasm of pain that had flitted swiftly across his face, might have recognized the brief flash in his eyes as bitter disillusionment. But as the moments passed, he seemed to retreat within himself, seemed to become a different man. Certainly he was no longer the man who had held her in his arms the night before. Now he was a stranger—an enemy, if the cold, hard glitter in the jade-green eyes mirrored his feelings.
When Alejandro finally stopped shouting, when he realized that nothing he could say would change her mind, Sabrina inclined her head politely and murmured, "If you will excuse me now? I have other things to do." Helplessly Alejandro glanced- from one set face to the other. Almost angrily he demanded of Brett, "Haven't you anything to say? Aren't you going to try to persuade her differently?"
"Why?" Brett returned curtly. "The lady knows her own mind. If she won't listen to you, I doubt anything I say will change her feelings."
Sabrina felt something stir deep within her. Objection? Pain? She couldn't tell, and she didn't want to know; she wanted this comforting emptiness to continue.
Alejandro threw up his hands in despair and marched away, leaving an oppressive silence behind him. Against her will, Sabrina's eyes strayed to Brett's still figure, and the icy shell that had kept emotion at bay slipped just a little.
Ah, God, she thought painfully. Is that the deceitful face I loved? The lying mouth that set me aflame?
He looked very large and virile as he stood there staring at her, his harsh features seeming as if carved in stone, and Sabrina was powerless against the storm of emotion that suddenly shattered the shell she had erected around herself. Pain and fury, revulsion and rage, came sweeping through her body, and unable to trust herself, afraid she would fling herself scratching and clawing at his face, she spun away, intent upon as much distance as possible between herself and Brett Dangermond.
Two steps was all she took. For a big man, Brett moved like lightning, and his hand curved bruisingiy around her arm, jerking her back to face him. "Don't run off so quickly, sweetheart," he drawled in a dangerous voice. "I think you and I have a little talking to do. Like why you've suddenly changed your mind."
Barely in time she remembered her promise to Constanza not to say anything about their meeting. Taking refuge in fury, she spat, "I don't have to explain myself. Certainly not to you!"
His eyes narrowed. "Wrong, sweetheart. Especially to me!"
Futilely she clawed at the hand that kept her captive.
Panting slightly from her efforts, she hissed, "Let me go! I don't want to talk to you—ever!"
He gave a bitter laugh. "No, your kind never does, do they? They just play with a man's emotions, and then, when they grow weary of the game, they destroy him." He loosed his hold on her arm and caught her chin between his strong fingers. The dark green eyes, black with some indefinable emotion, bored into hers. "And to think I believed in this lovely face—to think I almost trusted you, tiger lily."
His fingers hurt where they pressed brutally against her jaw, and her hands came up in an attempt to break his hold. "Don't call me names!"
"Why not?" he taunted. "Tiger lily is a lot nicer than some of the other names I have in mind for women like you. Names like . . . jade, cheat, and lying slut!"
"You almost fooled me," he snarled softly. "Almost had me believing—" He stopped abruptly, his mouth twisting. "What does it matter? You were an illusion after all."
PART THREE
PRIDE AND DESIRE
Spring, 1806
Revenge, at first thought sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself
recoils.
John Milton
Paradise Lost
CHAPTER NINETEEN
April of 1806 was a lovely month in Nacogdoches. Everywhere Sabrina walked in those warm, golden days, she saw signs in the meadows and woodlands that life was renewing itself. Spotted fawns trotted daintily alongside their watchful mothers, the demanding cheep of newly hatched birds filled the forest air, and once during her lonely walks Sabrina surprised an elegant tawny puma sunning herself while her two furry kittens slept nearby.
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