Hart, Mallory Dorn

by Jasmine on the Wind

  "Is she gone already?" Francho gaped.

  "At the first light of dawn. And she did not seem happy." He stolidly contemplated his friend.

  "I love her," Francho said.

  "I know. She loves you too. But you have hurt her."

  "I'll fix that," Francho muttered, jumping up to shoulder his way into the leather jerkin and knot the thongs that closed it.

  From his sitting position Carlos punched him in the calf. "Wait. Sit down, hombre, I have something to tell you," he rasped, "and a few more minutes won't ruin your life. It might help it. She swore me to secrecy but what honor does a robber have? And my sister has grown a peculiar sense of pride, one she thinks should go with her title. I don't agree with her."

  Francho obliged him in spite of his sense of haste. In this place Carlos was obeyed, and besides, he had rarely heard the man say so many sentences all at once.

  "My sister was not mistress to the Duke of Medina-Sidonia. He is impotent from an arrow wound received in the battle for Ronda. She made a business arrangement with him, something to do with the lands she took over, and also, because there was land but no money, she agreed to ornament his arm and salve his pride by suggesting proof of his continuing virility, and for this she was paid well. He never more than kissed her hand, in public or private, she insists. A wild tale. But I believe her." Carlos slipped a small dagger from his belt and began cleaning his fingernails with the tip of it, avoiding Francho's rapt stare for the moment. "She says she has lain with no one in her life but you, no one, and that if she was mistress to anyone it was to you." Now he looked up to meet Francho's gaze with his own hard one-eyed stare. "I believe that too."

  "Then why didn't she tell me? All the time we were together in Granada, sharing everything, not just passion..."

  "She says she wanted you to love her so much nothing else mattered. Women!" Carlos spat sideways. "They think crazy. Sure. Can you imagine her running here after you, when even before she was dragged to Granada the great Duke had begged her to marry him when his sick wife died?" A lascivious chortle accompanied his half-smile. "She has the man lusting for her even though his dong doesn't work. But she doesn't choose him, more the fool, she, to give up a Duke! Now she is traveling back at all speed to accept the honorable marriage proposal of a younger man, I do not recall his title, not a memorable one, but he has much money and all his teeth..."

  Francho had had enough. "The Devil she is!" he swore, jumping up again to collect his guembri and stuff a few items into his saddlebag. "She loves me," he muttered adamantly.

  "From her parting remarks it would seem she hates you."

  "If she hates me she'll have to prove it another way than by traveling a hundred leagues to call me a cursed fool."

  Carlos scrambled to his feet, scooped up from the floor a belt on which hung a huge and ugly sword, and handed it to Francho. He watched him feverishly buckle it on. "Pepi says she's got a dozen guards with her. Take enough of my men with you to handle them while you handle her; you'll have plenty to do to convince the wench you aren't the rascal she makes you. And I hope you'll not forget to keep a strap handy in your house, my lord Marquis."

  They clasped hands strongly. "Adiós, Carlos, my friend, and gramercy," Francho said huskily. "If you ever need a favor of any kind, you know whom to find. Of any kind. And you will come to the baptismal of your first nephew even if you have to sneak in dressed as Caratid's mother." They both chuckled. "San Bismas keep the path smooth under your feet."

  "Go with God, amigo." The angular highwayman smiled. He turned to cry down to the bandits scratching before their caves, "Ho, Julio, Manuel, I want twenty men to follow El Moro on an urgent mission. See they're saddled and ready in ten swings of the gallow's rope. Move!"

  He watched Francho lope down the path to the clearing where his horse was tethered and saw him turn back and look up for a minute. "Give Teresa the loot in my cave," Francho called out and then spied the tousle-haired girl coming from her den. "Use it for a dowry," he bawled at her.

  "Cut around to the Slitnose pass," Carlos shouted. "If you ride fast you can come around and get ahead of her, catch her just below Pepi's."

  He watched the little troop, bristling with plundered weapons, ride off into the pine belt, Francho in the lead. "And I would never have told you what I did had you not first said you loved her, Marquis," he grunted. "She is my sister. I care for her, too."

  ***

  Below, the road made several twists before plunging into a dense wood that marked for a number of leagues the edge of the plain before Montero. Dolores was glad they had made such good time for she would be happy to be out of the shadowy forest and well into Montero before dark. She was looking forward to the comfort of the good inn there to raise her spirits a little. If anything could. It was strange how one could breathe and see and hear and yet be dead inside. Everything inside her was eaten away, leaving a hollowness so empty even the hurt was lost. But not the anger. The anger seemed to sit on the surface of her skin like a sheen of perspiration; it at least gave her the appearance of being alive, she thought.

  Her sergeant of the guard rode at her side; the other men, outfitted in antelope tabards over leather armor, rode in double file behind them, pennants attached to their lances, and a baggage donkey plodded along in the rear. From time to time the sergeant glanced sideways at his employer from under his metal casque as if measuring her inclination to a little conversation. A stocky, Andalusian-born mercenary, he liked to talk, but his lady seemed more withdrawn coming down the mountain than on the trip up.

  Dolores dabbed at her face with a bit of lace. It was cursed hot for June in these highlands. She had donned a more appropriate gown of embroidered linen with a low, brooch-clasped neckline that left her shoulders bare under the minimal covering of an airy scarf, and the wide skirt of her gown was draped over her sidesaddle and the horse's flanks. She wore no coif except a cool, circlet-bound square of floating pink chiffon which, although it contrived to shade her eyes, allowed the sun to shine warmly on the auburn coil of hair at her nape. She comforted herself by thinking that just this one more bend and they would enter the coolness of the forest, and in Montero she would certainly buy one of those straw hats the peasants used in the fields.

  Confidently they cantered around the blind curve. "Hold!" her guard yelled out, and she found herself yanking on the reins, sawing at the horse's mouth to pull him up hastily, as did the soldier at her side. A lone horseman sat firmly astride the road, deliberately blocking them from going forward. The heart Dolores thought beat no longer jumped to her throat. So did her anger.

  The sergeant barked out, "You there! Fall back and let us pass."

  Ignoring the order the rider spurred up and silently advanced toward them. The sergeant reached for his sword. Dolores knew what he saw; a broad-shouldered brute in yeoman's leather wearing a heathen earring, a broadsword, and a smile menacing for its insolence. He was carrying a long, heavy staff. Swiftly she placed a restraining hand on the sergeant's arm, causing him to stare at her in surprise. She hoped the guard noticed there was no warmth in her narrowed eyes. "Let him come, sergeant. He's only one man and we are ten."

  "But my Lady..." the man objected, and was ignored.

  "What do you want?" Dolores challenged Francho curtly.

  The white smile broadened. "You."

  Her back stiffened. "Give way and let us go on, brigand, before my men run you down."

  "I'll have a word with you first, doña—"

  "I do not speak to common louts. Do you give way?" And when Francho's grin never wavered nor did his stance barring their progress, she ordered grimly, "Sergeant. Clear him away."

  The soldier went for his sword, the guards behind him lowered their pikes, but at that moment the scoundrel reared up his horse and yelled, "Santiago and San Bismas!" and from the close quarters of the high boulders squeezing the road on either side twenty menacing bows and arquebuses, cocked and aimed and ready to sing death, sprang into view, top
ped by twenty surly, weather-beaten faces. Dolores's hired guards froze, knowing the cutthroats above them had the advantage and would not hesitate to kill.

  But the sergeant proved he was worth his pay. He dug spurs into his mount, swung his sword about his head, and launched a courageous attack upon the leader of the scurrilous bunch, not even hearing Dolores's weak cry. But his valor was greater than his skill; nor had he ever dueled against the staff the highwayman used to defend himself.

  Francho parried several of the man's sword cuts with his stout pole, the vigor of the guard's blows shooting pain down his arm and shoulder. Then his opening came suddenly and swiftly; he reversed his grip and cracked the lengthy pole against the sergeant's helmet with just enough force that the man tumbled stunned from his horse. Francho tossed the pole to the ground.

  "You've killed my guard, you villain!" Dolores screeched out. He cantered quickly up to her and avoiding her hands that were trying to claw his eyes out dragged her kicking onto his mount. Grunting, he dumped her face down across the front of his saddle and whacked her hard on the rear to stop her squirming. "Dungpicker! Filthy whoreson goat-headed swine!" she screamed, beating on the horse's withers.

  "Softly, my noble lady," he laughed. "Your muleteer curses will shock the ears of my men."

  To escape the bitter scowls of Dolores's helpless guards and the leering interest of his own men, he galloped forward along the road a way and into a thick stand of trees that thoroughly screened them from prying eyes and ears. He swung off the horse and lifted her down, holding her steady as she recovered the breath that had been jounced out of her—and caught by the wrist the furious slap that, breath or not, she swung at him. In fact she took his own breath away standing before him with her dignity disheveled, pin-bereft locks of hair tumbling wantonly over cheeks the high color of a sun-ripened peach, a disarrayed scarf displaying the moist, gleaming smoothness of her clefted bosom heaving now with spite and the rough handling. Her eyes flashed silver lightning at him, her wide lips were pulled back stiffly over gleaming teeth as if she wanted to bite him, and in the middle of everything it occurred to him that she was not only beautiful, she was—infinitely interesting.

  "Ay, gatamontes, stop battling," he shook her by the shoulders. "I'm not going to rape you. I just want you to listen as you made me listen yesterday. I am returning to Granada, here and now."

  "That concerns me not the least bit! Take your hands off me, ruffian," she spat out, struggling.

  "Listen to me, hear what I am saying. If you love me come with me, help me to build afresh, Dolores—"

  "I despise you! I've already found a gentleman who will give me a contented life and I'm going to wed him. He isn't handsome, he isn't dashing; he's a petty nobleman who is kind and selfless and he loves me dearly. He is all I want and you can find some other foolish woman's heart to wring. Now let me go!"

  "Not while I live will you marry such paragon as that, hermanita. I won't allow it."

  Her hands gripped into fists. "You won't allow... and just how do you think you are going to stop it?"

  He grinned down at her because she was so transparent. "Simple. I will tell the gentleman in whose bed you were warming your backside—and other things—for so many months in Granada."

  "Oh! You vilest of vile dogs! You would not, you could not do such a thing."

  "Oh yes I could and would. Because you love me."

  "I don't love you. I never did. You just seemed better than Reduan and I was a helpless woman trying to survive."

  "Helpless?" He choked back a laugh.

  "I don't love you. Make your mind up to that."

  "You do. And if you marry it will be only to me."

  "I don't love you, I don't, I don't. And if you drive away all my suitors and force me to marry you I shall never again speak to you!"

  "Good. Do you promise that?"

  "Oh!" Dolores cried, exasperated beyond endurance with this lout whose only aim in life seemed to be to humiliate and torment her, and she pushed fiercely at his chest to escape his hard grasp. Then suddenly something seeped through into her addled brain. She stiffened and left off her struggles. "What did you say?" she gasped. She lifted her head, finally seeing beyond her battered pride into the intensity of his gaze, where amusement and tenderness fought for precedence, emotional currents visible in the blue depths that bathed her with a warmth she had thought she would never feel again.

  "I said I love you, Dolores. I love you, I love you, I adore you, and you are absolutely right, I am an estúpido who betrayed his own heart by not wanting to hear its song. Forgive me. Some way, somehow I will make it up to you."

  "B—but Leonora?"

  "She has nothing to do with this. She has become merely a symbol to me—probably from the moment I first laid eyes on you in Toledo. See, I brought her letter." He pulled the crumpled paper from his jerkin. "Read it. She wants me to return to her. She is as charming of face and form as when I thought I loved her, and her name still as proud. But I do not want her. My dreams as I gathered my thoughts together here in the mountains were haunted by your face, not hers. The happiest months of my life I spent in Granada with you, and they were happy because of you, mi alma. You loved me once, Dolores; love me still, I beg you. I offer this blind and witless soul for what it's worth and I humbly ask you to be my wife and to marry me. And to forgive my incredible wrongheadedness."

  She suddenly felt overwhelmed. "You are a lord of the realm. You want me? Daughter of a rascal tavernkeep? A bogus lady whom the Court will always suspect was the mistress of Enrique de Guzman? And whose brother is a common highwayman wanted by the Crown?"

  "Papa el Mono's daughter is as much a lady as I am a Marquis, my love." He cupped her face in his hands and turned it up to him. "I want her for her beauty and intelligence and spirit. Her father and brother and the entire Court can chase their tails. I'm not marrying them."

  Dolores tried to catch hold of her dwindling sanity. "Indeed, sir, you take much for granted," she protested. "I have not said I would be your wife. I have other plans, you forget—"

  "I didn't forget..." he growled, and his mouth came down on hers, hard at first as if to make an irrevocable imprint, his fingers slanted across her cheeks, and then, as she didn't stir, his lips softened and moved on hers. He raised his head, his heart in his eyes, and then tenderly, lovingly, once, twice more, he kissed her.

  She thought little birds were fluttering on feathery wings inside of her. She opened her eyes as he slowly dropped his hands. She raised her own and with a trembling fingertip she traced the smile circles that edged the corners of his mouth and the thin, rough scar that ran to it, traced the strong, square underlip and curled her finger back quickly as he nibbled at it. "You could have lost me," she whispered. "I might have married without even seeking you. You would never have known."

  "I may be stupid and craven, but I'm not quite crazy." He smiled down at her. "Esteban Ebarra knows where I holed up. The least little public move you made I would have known it in time."

  "You would have?" she breathed, eyes widening with childlike wonder.

  For answer he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against him, burying his face in her loosened hair and inhaling as if he were breathing her in, holding her that way long enough so that she could feel his heartbeat accelerating through the rough, heavy leather of his jerkin, clamoring as hard as hers was. But he made no move to claim from her any further embrace commensurate with the limitless passion they had shared. With wonder again she realized he wouldn't, for now he understood he loved her; now she was precious, fragile as jade.

  Shaitan take that. She flung her arms around his neck and pulled his head back by the dark, thick hair at his nape. "Well, I don't believe you," she laughed in a flutelike trill, although she did, but she pulled his mouth down to her and fastened her own onto it, joyously thrusting her tongue against his startled lips until they opened and let her in, searching his mouth, clinging to him, kissing
him deeply and thoroughly and passionately and intimately until her breasts swelled and her legs turned to butter and she smelled on his breath the exciting musk of his desire that drove her mad. She pressed her body erotically against the tensed muscles of his, and she didn't care if he pushed her to the ground and took her then and there with the throbbing male hardness that she loved, that was hers and that she craved. She squirmed, she wanted him; she was lost, he was all of her world, had always been—

  But with heroic strength he peeled her off of him and jumped back, holding her away with one arm. In spite of the blue flame of desire burning in his eyes his face had gone pale under its tan as he fought against himself. "Pecaminosa!" he laughed shakily, restraining her. "Wanton tease! You are trying to seduce me. You offend my virtue, woman."

  "Francho..." she began.

  "No! Not without sanction," he roared. He saw the direction of her gaze and her shoulders begin to shake. "At least not until we reach a proper bed," he added helplessly, looking down at himself.

  Laughter spurted out of her, exploded out of him, and, mirth drowning out their frustration, they staggered against each other weak with happiness, knowing the wait was not long but that their love was.

  Presently they mounted his horse again and cantered back to where their men waited, she sitting haughtily before him. What was even funnier to both their eyes was seeing both brigands and dispirited guards, wilted in place like heat-melted statues, struggle quickly to alert stances as their employers came upon them. Dolores held her hand up to keep her guards in place while, with a few quiet words and a salute, Francho dismissed his companions and they disappeared behind the rocks. When he came back to her she was smiling at him and together they wheeled their mounts and rode on most serenely to continue the journey. This time it was Francho's signal that ordered the guards to follow behind them.