Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  Francho protested, defending his loyalty. "What you thought was not true, hermanita, you know I would have swung you up on my horse and kissed you soundly in front of everyone."

  She held up a hand. "Ah, but 'twas better that I was not so sure of your good heart, you see. Because then I began to grow angry—nay, more—terribly jealous, to think of your sudden elevation in the world and me? Not even good enough to rate a kind word from you. And mind you, this anger grew even though I was not really certain there had been some other youth found in Ciudad Real and Francho, my Francho, cold and dead. I have somewhat of a hot temper," she reflected, then grinned along with his hoot of laughter.

  "I became restless, discontent with my homespun rags and hot little room over the scullery, disdainful of stupid Tía and disgusted with Papa's greed and selfishness, miserable with my lot. And then it ended, the 'lot' I was so unhappy with, in the blink of an eye it was gone."

  He saw her gray eyes cloud over as she shrugged and sighed. "Papa's greed grew so enormous he began to do careless things. Just as we took you in, so he took in another boy of small stature. He felt he had to; Carlos had gone away with his small band of brigands and taken Pepi along with him, to a hideout in the mountains, many leagues distant. And who was there left? Only me—poof, a girl." She shrugged, her lip curling at the insult. "I hated that new cutpurse, a stupid rascal with a running nose and a hand always reaching for my breast. He gulled hard enough but he was too slow, and one day the Hermandad caught him. And after they'd used the strappado on him he jabbered like a magpie; they knew that where they caught one they'd catch others."

  She drew in a deep breath. "The constable pounced, his men ransacked the inn, found some of the loot, and dragged everyone off to the dungeons. Except me. God helped me and I had run on an errand for Tía. When I returned, here was this great crowd about the gate, excited, boisterous, yelling epithets at the guards. But before I could elbow my way through, the priest saw me—you remember dear Father Julio?—and with a strength I had no idea he possessed he grabbed my arm and hustled me quickly away. For a few days I slept in the robing room of the church, and then he located a place for me to live and earn my keep, away from the city. It was as a serving maid to a young noblewoman...."

  "Once you told me you would never empty slops or carry bathwater for any female, even if you starved first. Remember?" Francho wanted to recall the stupid words the minute he had said them. Why embarrass her? Her story was sad enough and it touched his heart.

  But she seemed not to mind. "But you see, I had a mad plan at the time, that's why I accepted the place. I had an idea that perhaps I would meet you again, if you were still alive, and I was ashamed of me. So I fetched and carried and brushed out the gowns of this girl and combed her hair.... She wasn't even pretty and her purse was very slim. But I learned. I watched how she walked, how she ate, what she said—everything she did I memorized and practiced. I could read, you know—you partially taught me, remember—and as I helped her to study her lessons I learned too. Everything she knew, this born lady, I knew!"

  Moved by the pride and triumph in her eyes, Francho took her hand and put it to his lips in sudden tenderness, in tribute to her determined struggle.

  She stopped for a moment, a momentary shyness overtaking her. "It's such a long story," she excused herself.

  "Long or short, leave nothing out," he commanded gruffly, for he realized how alone she had been with her history, as indeed, in other ways, so was he with his own. "I want to know all that has befallen you in these years. Everything."

  Lifting her eyes gratefully, Dolores nodded, and continued. She recounted to him the two years at the convent, her fast friendship with Blanca Ganavet de la Rocha, and the fateful trip to Torrejoncillo on which the poor little Baroness died of a stomach evil. And how it came about that she finished that journey in Blanca's place.

  "The mad old Baron had died, in truth, leaving nothing but a ruined manse and some hectares of forest land." Her voice was stronger now, as if reflecting the boldness she had summoned to carry out the deception. "There were some funds in Blanca's dowry box, but not nearly what she had told me. Evidently there had been another key," she speculated acidly.

  "Was your identity questioned?"

  "Never. Not once. And by whom, anyway? The woman who had cared for the Baron and had buried him in that monstrous cave was by no means as ancient or stupid as Miguel had made out, she was merely old and with no other roof to go over her head. She had never known Blanca. She is, in fact, the little servant who brought you here, and greatly loyal to Blanca—to me—for not having turned her out. And the notary, when he was summoned, merely told me how tall I had grown, and as soon as I had paid him from Blanca's dowry box the past and present fees due him—a reasonable amount, surprisingly—he produced documents of inheritance to sign. And so I signed them."

  "But how do you come to be known as Doña Dolores, not Doña Blanca?"

  She threw back her head a moment in delight; and he was enchanted by the pure line of her slim throat. "That bothered me too," Dolores continued, chuckling, "for I cannot abide the name Blanca, rest in peace my poor little friend. I just told him I preferred to be called Dolores, to honor a nun whom I revered, and with not so much as a blink of an eye he wrote it into the documents after the name Blanca, and said he would tell the priest to add it to the church registry of Blanca's birth. Just like that. After I broke my head for nights trying to think of a clever way to do it...."

  "And what happened to Blanca's betrothed?"

  "He came to see me. But I told him there was no dowry left, nor was there any true, signed agreement, merely a promise to betroth. He pressed his suit anyhow and seemed not to care for the money or the land, but I discouraged him and at last he left." That the poor, gentle young man's back was humped and hearing impaired Dolores did not mention; her pride preferred Francho to think Don Diego a worthy suitor. "After all, at last I had the trappings of a lady and especially a title. What use to bury it all in the furthest reaches of Extremadura?"

  "We interred Blanca under Miguel's tree in the full sun, and then and there I decided I would never let go of that land, wild as it was, for it was dear Blanca's legacy to me. There was just the little matter of having to live as poorly in that leaking manse as in Ciudad Real. And worse, isolated from the world. Not much improvement from the alleys, was it?"

  She threw back her head again and laughed, and he thought the rich, fluting notes of her uninhibited mirth could make a leper grin. She recovered herself. "Patience, you wanted to hear it all, did you not? I have Miguel to thank for making me wise, for he pointed out that there was a gorge on the Baron's land over which flowed a small river to form the only strong fall of water in hundreds of leagues, and according to him the place was worth one hundred times the rest of the estate. A water mill was already located there, used years past to grind grain, but it was in ruins, of no use. As I cast about frantically in my head for a means to earn funds with which to leave that place—although I had nowhere to go—Medina-Sidonia's chief steward arrived with an offer to purchase the barony. But I refused."

  Now Francho's eyebrows shot up. "Refused? But why? You said you had not a maravedi and here was an offer of money."

  Her eyes flashed. "Ah yes, but without the land I held no title, and you must see, Francho," her tone turned mocking, "that the blue had been in my blood for so short a time that it was hard to give it up." He let his grin match her own. "I refused at least three offers."

  "In any case, Miguel guessed it was the power of the riverfall that the Duke wanted, not the land or unimportant title, for he already had a dukedom's worth of property in the area. So I thought of something that might gain me everything, the land, the title, and some money. Hah! Little did the grasping steward realize that the young woman so hard to bargain with lived with her two servants for so many stubborn months on coarse bread and beer, some chickens, and a few greens and beans from Miguel's garden. Finally the Duke was in residen
ce at La Natera, the steward said, soon to head north to join the Court in Madrid. And he was furious that I, a penniless woman of no importance, was thwarting his steward's plans to enrich him further."

  "What plans?"

  "I had little idea then and not much more now. Something new, to do with making the paper on which books are printed and which requires a mill and a force of water capable of operating great beaters and cutters and other machinery." She shrugged. "And so the Duke himself arrived, in a cold rage at first. But then he became suddenly much gentler when I mentioned I would compromise and would rent to him the riverfall for an annual sum and for so many years, but rent only."

  Abruptly she fell silent and dropped her eyes. In silence he contemplated her. Francho finally said softly, "He was much gentled because he clapped eyes on you, I think."

  "And that is most of my story," she said, her chin coming up, and her mouth turned up at the corners again. He had decided he didn't want to know the rest, it was patently obvious anyway, and she seemed to sense that. "Now tell me about you," she demanded brightly, and with a pleasant sisterliness braced his shoulder to face her a little more. But he suddenly wanted to move about. He put aside her hands and stood up, stretching a bit. "Dios mío, how can I make four years of nothing but studies and training interesting to tell? Compared to yours my life has been a morass of serenity. Well—I promised...."

  Pacing, sweeping his hat off and placing it on the table, he began with his arrival at Mondejar and quickly described all that had been his life there, save, of course, whatever was connected to the secret of his own birthright and the plans to reestablish that. He enjoyed her laughter when he described practicing his light-fingered skills all over the castle; and they both became hilarious together as they imagined, now they were both on the scene, the reaction of people they knew at present to a mysterious rash of purse liftings and jewel thefts right in the bosom of the Court.

  The laughter wiped away his discomfort with the untold end of her story. But the subject of stealing had led his thoughts back in a circle and a somber question finally struck him. He came and sat down beside her again as she dabbed at her eyes, her face warm and flushed from laughing. "Dolores. You never said what became of Tía and Papa. Or perhaps I feared to ask. Are they alive?" Her smile disappeared. "Are they dead?"

  She saw the pucker appear between his eyes and looked down, sadly, picking at the silver-embroidered flowers on her gown. "I couldn't find many tears when they hung Papa; I was too numb."

  "Ah, Dolores!"

  "Yes, they strung him, what did you expect? Once the finger was pointed they found all the evidence they needed, there'd been no time to hide anything. They had to carry him to the gibbet, jerking and screaming in terror and wet with his own water." Her lower lip trembled. "It was horrible. And Tía Esperanza? The poor woman at least had God's mercy on her and died easily—her heart failed her as they were taken and I saw her as she lay sprawled in the street, lay there for hours until the guards fetched a big enough cart to remove her. Poor, dear Tía, she was so fat. But Father Julio had caught me and he held me tight, would not let me go near her for fear they would grab me too. My dear aunt, my only mother, and I could not even kiss her goodbye." Feeling grief again she swayed toward him and Francho took her in his arms to comfort her, and himself too for that matter, for he had also loved the fat woman.

  Dolores rested her silken cheek against his shoulder. "God's children are all so frail, Francho," she murmured. "We are here a moment and then we are gone and nothing to show where our mortal feet have trod, or with what humors our hearts have beat." Her hand rested against his chest, she was like a child come to have a wound bound up. "I loved Tía Esperanza. She really was like my mother, she cared for me. And there was no one, no one at all to cry with me when she died."

  Distressed with her pain Francho sought to ease her. "But she lives on in your heart, little sister, and in mine, and in the mind of God. Why should you sigh for a spirit that is so sweetly guarded?"

  "But she died alone and unshriven. Perhaps she is burning in Hell?"

  "No, no, do not think that. In purgatory only, awaiting God's mercy." He held her close and kissed the top of her head, a purely fraternal gesture meant to soothe and assure her, as his stroking hand was meant to calm her. For a few minutes they were silent. He could feel her breathing against his chest. Then she leaned back and lifted her gorgeous, tiger lily face to his.

  Bells set up a sonorous clanging in his head.

  Wistfully she said to him, "Sometimes I almost wish I could turn back the years. We were poor and ignorant, but were we not happy?"

  Francho scarcely heard her. He was watching her wide, sensuous, full-lipped mouth, and he realized that the high, pointed bosom whose secret valley he'd had a stolen glimpse of before was pressed up against him, that he held in his arms one of the most desirable women in all Spain, and one of the most unusual. His good sense began to spin. Thus she had caught him in her net when he was fifteen, with her touch of innocence mingled with sheer, female magnetism, intensified now a hundredfold by beauty blossomed into irresistible seductiveness.

  But the quickening in his groin dismayed him. She had come to meet him as a sister, as a friend, and he, God help him, he wanted to ravish her. He stood up, but still with his arms around her, and boldly supported her as she slipped down his body the small distance until her feet touched the floor, knowing she could feel his physical response to her. Her hands yet rested lightly against his chest, but her eyes were huge, deep pools of quicksilver drawing him in, nor would she take her gaze from his. Wordless, stricken, they stared at each other. Her generous mouth trembled slightly. Her lips parted.

  "Francho..."

  What ran through his head was the memory that he had been her first lover, the first to deflower this beautiful siren, and this awareness conspired against him; he suddenly felt a jealous sense of ownership—totally unfounded, totally unreasonable, but he felt it. She had given him that precious part of her she could never give away again, and so in some way she belonged to him. It wasn't love. He felt an affection for her, but he loved Leonora de Zuniga and only that sweet lady held his heart. Nevertheless, right now he wanted Dolores.

  His face must have mirrored his galloping desire, for the light hands tensed on his chest. He felt her shiver, heard her quick indrawn breath, saw the throb of pulse in her neck. He could feel the warmth of her body through the silk of her gown, her sensuous body which curved so perfectly into his. Her perfume rose up and drowned him.

  "Señor..." she whispered. Yet she did not push him away.

  The whole chamber seemed to revolve and funnel down to that lily face lifted up to his and to the satiny, half-exposed bosom rising and falling under the glinting necklace. He was overwhelmed by the need to kiss her. Just one kiss, just one taste of those mobile, pink lips.

  Swooping his head he took her mouth, and it seemed like nectar spreading under his lips. For a moment she was passive, allowing him to press his lips against the moist softness of hers, and his mouth fit on hers as if they had both been traced of one pattern. And then she responded, returning the pressure, and a shock wave ran through his body; he breathed in her breath, like the scent of clover, and he felt he was drinking deeply, greedily, from a honeyed cup that was pouring fire into his veins. Passion flooded through him. In a second what had begun gentle was turning to raging hunger.

  Roughly he forced open her lips with a hard, thrusting tongue, ignoring her sudden struggle, holding her to him with arms like iron bands. She writhed in his grasp and unsuccessfully tried to push him away. She made squeaking, smothered, indignant noises. But then, gradually, she succumbed. Her arms locked about his neck and she clung to him, accepting his demanding, searching tongue, returning his kiss with a sudden ardor of her own. Not even the trumps of Gabriel could make him take his mouth from hers now, although his heart beat so madly he thought it would jump from his chest.

  Dolores couldn't breathe but she cared
nothing for it. The first touch of his lips seemed to have burned away a cocoon that had tight enclosed her, and now she was rising off the earth on wings she had never imagined. She gave him her lips, she molded her body to his muscled frame, she wanted to melt into him, and she did not even care for her abandon. From the moment he'd taken her into his arms to comfort her, from the shocking thrill that had run up her spine, she knew with crystal clarity that what had begun years ago was not yet finished. She knew it as she found herself unable to look away from the flare of craving in his vivid blue eyes, eyes that excited her, eyes that both caressed her and undressed her, erased her will, made her want to offer all of herself up to him like a priestess in a pagan temple.

  His hard, demanding kiss poured fire into her belly. She could see against her closed eyelids the strong, square underlip on which her gaze had lingered all the time they talked, and now as she kissed him back and clung to him she wanted to suck at that lip and bite it, and she was not even astounded with herself. What was driving her to destruction was a strange, enticing, musky male scent, a natural perfume that seemed to exude from his breath, from his skin, that turned her limbs into jelly and made her faint with need. Her head reeled. She tried to resist, to pull away, but there was no strength in her. When he forced her mouth open with his driving desire she easily gave up. Instinctively she met his restless, thrusting tongue with her own and tasted him in a deep kiss, inhaling that strange, compelling scent that was turning her delirious.

  He released her mouth and lifted his head to breathe for a moment, his blue stare, half-lidded now, raking her face with an expression almost like pain. She felt his hands sliding warmly down to the small of her back and then lower, to her rounded bottom, to press her hips closer against him, so close the male hardness in his loins bruised her. She felt besotted. She was aware passion drooped her own lids too, that she breathed in pants. Somewhere inside her she was stunned with her wantonness and knew she was mad, mad, and yet she welcomed his mouth again because she was consumed by him. Her hand went under the curling dark hair to sensuously hold the back of his taut neck. Again he pulled his mouth from her clinging lips, but this time to place it burning on her thrown-back throat, on her delicate collarbones, descending, descending, and finally to press it ardently against the naked rise of her breast so that she gasped and quivered in his arms, and strained up against the hot mouth on her flesh.