The Condé’s puzzlement deepened. “Christina, would you please explain to me exactly who this man is?”
“I’ve already told you who I am,” Michael said with his old impatience. “Michael Brett, Duke of Westbrook. I’m not exactly dressed for a fiesta; and my diligence is outside, waiting to take us down to Vera Cruz, and to the steamship Laura Belle. We’re boarding her tonight.”
“Tonight!” The Condé said in a gasp.
“Tonight! Christina stared up at him.
“Tonight. Now.” Michael spoke firmly, and looked down at Christina, their eyes locking together. Hers were soft, and bemused, and, at the question in his, she started to laugh, quietly and helplessly. He was driving her mad - mad with hope, and relief, and the unbelievable happiness brought about by the two.
“Unless you have any objections, querida? Although I won’t accept any, I’m warning you. The ship sails for Texas on the morning tide, and we’re both going to be on her, whether you like it or not. What in hell do you find so funny?”
She shook her head, and concentrated hard on subduing the giddy and extremely unbecoming laughter. When she said severely, “I do have an objection to going anywhere with you, Michael Brett. You know I don’t travel without a chaperone. You must send for Penny; a lady of my station would never consider . . .”
But her words were rudely cut off. Michael turned her and kissed her, there in Santa Anna’s foyer, right in front of the outraged Don Ignacio.
Epilogue
Time had passed, and the world had changed, since before when Christina found herself forced inside a diligence, hurtling dangerously through the night toward Vera Cruz. Yet, enough remained the same inside the dark, ill-sprung carriage to remind her nostalgically of that other, extremely frightening time.
The smell of sweaty upholstery. The jounce and sway of the diligence. The sometimes coaxing, sometimes threatening voice of the coachmen outside, guiding the horses along the badly rutted National Highway.
And, of course, the presence of Michael Brett. Not menacing now. Holding her tightly against him, almost in his lap. Kissing her lazily, tenderly, and hungrily. Running his hands over her with the possession of a man who has finally claimed what is his.
He was talking to her, also intermittently. Seeming to need to tell her of the last months he had spent away from her, in England, coming to grips with the death of Robert, and his own unexpectedly sharp feelings of grief and guilt and regret; and of his growing urge to be with her. To salvage this last, and most important, botched relationship in his life.
There was nothing sentimental in his words - Michael would never be a sentimental man! But he spoke, in alternately sincere and annoyed and pleasantly surprised terms, of his love for her. She reciprocated, at first, by provoking him to a series of small arguments disguised to test his new, not-quite-believable resolve. He accepted her challenges and argued back so persuasively that she finally gave in. When he arrogantly insisted that she loved him, too, or she wouldn’t have come along, she finally replied, “of course I love you, damn you!” And moved huffily away to sit opposite him. He came after her, naturally. They were quiet for some time after that.
Penny - and Maria Juana, too, little did they know at the time - had set out from the hacienda two hours behind them, and would barely make the ship before she sailed. Yet Christina and Michael were rowed on board before dawn. And no chaperone was considered welcome nor necessary when they reached their adjoining cabins, and inhabited only one. Propriety was finally tossed away by Christina, as a useless encumbrance; and so was sleep.
The time left before dawn was not for sleeping, but for rediscovering the passion that had become love.
THE END
Stronger Than Passion Page 40