Bride of the Baja

by Jane Toombs

  His fingers left her body. When he entered her, she felt a stab of pain and she moaned. Suddenly frightened, she pushed him away and he drew back. After a moment she reached hesitantly for him, guiding him into her, enclosing him with her legs, and now her pain was mingled with her desire.

  He thrust within her. At first she lay still, but then her body responded to his, her nipples hardening beneath his kisses. She reached down, guiding his lips up to hers. She felt his tongue probe into her mouth. Her tongue joined his, intertwined with his, and again she felt the throbbing beat of passion fill her body as she strained to him, trembling beneath him. He gasped and she felt him quiver and then he lay quiet in her arms and she could hear nothing except the beat of his heart next to hers and the insistent pounding of the surf. Later he pressed her onto the sand, his body half over hers. She clung to him but he pulled back and gently spread her legs with his hands. Still kissing her breasts, his tongue going from one to the other, he slid his hand between her legs, touching her, caressing her, and she felt the warmth grow in her until it became a swelling need, a frightening, ecstatic rush of joy building in her legs and sweeping through her body.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "House," Maria said, pointing down the hill toward the cluster of adobe buildings.

  "That was the first word I learned," Alitha told her. "Casa."

  "Garden." From where they sat on a grassy knoll, they could see an Indian hoeing the rows of Mendoza tomato plants.

  "Jardin," Alitha said.

  Maria smiled. "Family."

  "Familia."

  "Friend."

  "Amigo."

  "That, as you know, is a man friend. If it was a woman?"

  "Amiga."

  "Bueno. Good. Now ask me English words and I will tell you how to say them in Spanish."

  "Gentleman."

  "Caballero. The word means horseman. Caballo is horse." She nodded to their two horses grazing a short distance away.

  "Ship." Alitha looked down to the harbor from which the American ship, loaded with Santa Barbara hides, had sailed the week before.

  "Barco."

  "Journey."

  "Viaje," Maria told her. "A long journey, such as your journey to the Sandwich Islands, is un viaje grande."

  "Marriage."

  "Matrimonio."

  "California seems to have so many more men than women," Alitha said.

  "Because this is the frontier of New Spain. Men come to the new lands first, then civilization comes with the women. Later."

  "I hope you don't think me too personal, but I've wondered why you've never married again, Maria. After all these years."

  "I do not take offense," Maria said, smiling. "I have thought of marriage many times, as what unmarried woman does not? There are many reasons I have not remarried. First, and most important, there is no man I love. I loved once and there can be no other for me—not that I have not been asked to marry many times. The man, however, must be of my station, and there are few who are in Alta California. The man must be someone like--" She paused. "Like Don Esteban."

  Alitha glanced curiously at the other woman. Had she reddened slightly? It was difficult to tell. She had said Esteban's name fondly, as a lover might. As Alitha herself might.

  She looked at Maria more closely. Speculatively. Was the other woman as old as Alitha had first thought? She must be thirty-five at least, for she probably hadn't married before she was fifteen, but she was attractive, with her dark eyes and jet black hair. Though decidedly plump. She couldn't be too much older than Esteban, though. Alitha had heard of men marrying their brother's widow.

  Maria sighed. "A man like Don Tomas is what I should have said. But you did not know him. Also, there is the matter of children. Spanish men wish to carry on the family name—our families are very important—so they want children, especially boys, and unfortunately I cannot have children."

  Alitha covered Maria's hand with hers. "You're in love with Don Esteban, aren't you?" she asked softly.

  Maria drew her hand away and straightened her reboso, the shawl she wore over her head.

  "Don Esteban is a most attractive man," she said. "In many ways he resembles my husband Tomas, as Tomas was as a young man, when we married. The Mendoza men were all much alike, so I cannot help seeing Tomas in Esteban. I am much too old to ever think of marrying Don Esteban, even if it were possible."

  Alitha noticed that Maria hadn't denied loving Esteban. Not directly.

  "Almost the first words you spoke to me," Alitha said, "were to tell me that Don Esteban was not for me. Why did you say such a thing?"

  "Do you believe I told you that because I wanted him for myself? No, no, not at all. I said that not because of me, but because it is the truth. Don Esteban is already promised to another. The marriage contract between the families has been signed and the dowry agreed to."

  "He's to marry another?" Alitha heard her voice rising. How could he have lied to her when he asked her to marry him and journey with him to Mexico? Although he hadn't mentioned marriage in so many words. But wasn't that what he'd meant? How could she go to Mexico with him otherwise?

  "Are you well?" Maria asked. "I can see I have upset you. Didn't you know he was committed to marry?"

  Alitha shook her head.

  "He will marry Ines Gutierrez. The Gutierrez rancho is some three leagues to the east of Santa Barbara. They are a fine Castillian family."

  Gutierrez, Ines Gutierrez Alitha had never heard her name before. The name Gutierrez was familiar, though, there had been a Don Ramon Gutierrez in the raiding party that burned the Indian village. Not an older man, but a caballero Esteban's age. Perhaps he was Ines's brother. But why hadn't Ines been at the banquet if she lived only a short distance away?

  Alitha stood up "I—I—" she began, not really knowing what she wanted to say. She was overwhelmed by anger and humiliation. Esteban had deceived her!

  She ran to her horse, untied the bay and swung herself into the saddle. She heard Maria's footsteps behind her.

  "Senorita," the Spanish woman said. "Alitha, wait."

  Alitha, sitting side saddle, swung her quirt and the bay started down the hill She swung the quirt again and again wanting to ride as fast and as hard as she could The horse galloped across a field gold with poppies, leaped a ditch and plunged through a grove of trees, making for the Mendoza stables. She let the bay have his head, feeling the wind sting her face as she exulted in the thrill of a fast horse under her. The horse slowed and trotted into the stable area behind the adobe casa. A stable boy, an Indian no older than Chia, ran out to take the reins, and she slid to the ground, her exultation fading, replaced by despair. What a fool she'd been! She watched the boy lead the stallion to the barn, where he would unsaddle and brush him down. The Californios rode only stallions, Esteban had told her, or geldings. Never mares. A female of the species wasn't good enough for them.

  Just as women themselves weren't good enough, Alitha thought as she dabbed at the tears in her eyes. She flicked the quirt against her riding dress, then stopped, remembering seeing Esteban flick his quirt in the same way. She didn't want to emulate him in anything.

  She'd confront Esteban and make him tell her the truth. She had hardly been alone with him since the night on the beach. Every time she thought they would have a few moments together, Maria had appeared from out of nowhere.

  Did Maria suspect there was something between them? Maria loved Esteban, despite her denials--loved her own brother-in-law, Alitha told herself. No wonder she's suspicious of me and tries to keep us apart.

  But why blame Maria? If Esteban was engaged to marry Ines Gutierrez, it would be his doing, not Maria's. If. Could Maria have been lying to her? She had only to ask Esteban to find out, but knew she couldn't bear to face him. Not now. Not after he had humiliated her by offering to take her to Mexico when he was bound to another.

  How she yearned to go with him! Even now she caught herself looking about her, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
For the hundredth time she remembered the thrill of his lips on hers, the feel of his hands and lips caressing her breasts, his bare flesh hard against hers.

  Alitha felt herself reddening. How could she be so wanton, she wondered, the same question she had asked herself after they had lain together on the beach. Torn by doubts and second thoughts, she had been unable to sleep, finally watching from the window of her room as the sun rose over the ocean. What she had done was wrong, she told herself, for she was promised to another, to Thomas. Still, it had seemed so right at the time, so inevitable, so foreordained.

  It must have been wrong, a sin. If she hadn't sinned, why was she being punished? And she was being punished—Ines Gutierrez was her punishment. What kind of woman was this mysterious Ines? Probably one of those docile butterflies with long fluttering eyelashes anxious to marry so she could bear a grateful husband thirteen children in the span of fifteen years.

  Alitha paused in the kitchen doorway. She had to see Ines Gutierrez for herself, find out what she was like.

  She had to do something, anything, to calm the fever raging in her blood, a fever every bit as virulent as the one she'd had when she first came to the rancho. All her thoughts turned to Esteban, were of Esteban. Nothing else mattered to her, only Esteban. She knew she was being wrong-headed, that her desires defied all reason, but there was nothing she could do to change the way she felt, nothing at all.

  She returned to the stable and asked the Indian boy to resaddle the bay. As she rode from the rancho, she passed Maria.

  "I'm going to the mission," Alitha told her, riding on before Maria could question her.

  She rode through the village of Santa Barbara and past the mission and to the road leading east, her mind in a turmoil, torn between her anger at Esteban and her need for him. If she chanced to meet him now, she would fly from him, though at the same time she couldn't bear the idea of never seeing him again once he left for Mexico.

  When, after more than an hour's ride, she saw Indians working in a nearby field, she stopped.

  "Gutierrez?" she called to them.

  The laborers stared at her and then one of them nodded and pointed along the road. She went on, at last coming to a low adobe casa where, accompanied by barking dogs, she rode into the courtyard. Roses bloomed on trellises, sweetening the air with their fragrance—the same shade of rose, she noted ruefully, that Esteban had given her. The Gutierrez house, only one story high, was much smaller than the Mendoza rancho.

  An Indian boy took the reins, and Alitha dismounted just as a woman came from the house. She was about thirty, fair-skinned and dark-haired with a reboso over her shoulders. Surely this wasn't Ines Gutierrez—this woman was heavy with child.

  "Buenos dias," Alitha said. "I'm Alitha Bradford, a guest at the Mendoza rancho," she added in halting Spanish. The woman smiled and nodded her head.

  "Senora Josef a Gutierrez." The woman motioned Alitha to follow her inside.

  "I was riding in the hills and lost my way," Alitha said in English, crossing her fingers behind her back as she had as a child when she told a white lie.

  "Si, si," Josefa said. They walked down a long, cool corridor to a room opening onto an outdoor patio where children played on a tiled floor. Alitha counted four girls in all, guessing their ages as two, four, six and eight.

  "You have beautiful children," Alitha said, admiring the girls' bright faces and laughing eyes.

  "Si, si," Josefa said, still nodding and smiling. She spoke in Spanish to a gray-haired Indian woman, and in a few minutes a bowl of chili beans and a mug of steaming coffee were placed in front of Alitha.

  "I'm really not hungry," Alitha said.

  "Si si," Josefa said, smiling happily.

  Alitha began eating the beans while she wondered how she could tactfully ask about Ines. She glanced through the archways leading into the other rooms of the house, hoping to catch sight of Esteban's elusive fiancée, but saw only an Indian servant girl carrying a basket of clothes on her hip. When she finished eating, Alitha smiled and stood up.

  "Gracias," she said.

  "De nada. Mi casa es su casa."

  Still smiling, Alitha had started walking toward the corridor when she saw the oldest of the four girls standing in the doorway from the patio watching her. Though the girl's hair was black, her eyes were a startling blue.

  "Muy bonita," she said to the girl's mother. "Como se llama usted? What is your name?" she asked the girl.

  "Ines Gutierrez, senorita."

  Ines! No, this couldn't be Esteban's intended, the girl was scarcely eight years old. Or was it possible? There was a scarcity of women and a lack of eligible mates in California; Maria had said so only a few hours before. Perhaps Spaniards thought of family first, the appropriateness of a union, and let love come later if at all.

  "Ines and Don Esteban?" Alitha asked.

  Josef a broke into a broad smile, nodding vigorously as she answered in voluble Spanish. Though Alitha couldn't understand all the other woman's words, Josefa's meaning was clear enough. Yes, Ines was the intended bride of Don Esteban Mendoza who, Josefa fervently believed, had no equal among the gentlemen of this or any other world.

  Alitha walked quickly to Ines, leaned down and kissed the girl on the forehead. Ines smiled shyly and curtsied. Amid protestations of mutual regard in English and Spanish, Alitha retreated from the Gutierrez casa and mounted her horse for the journey back to Santa Barbara.

  So her rival was an eight-year-old, she thought as she rode into the setting sun. All at once Alitha smiled. Of course, she told herself, she should have realized the truth of the matter before this. The reason Esteban had not mentioned marriage, had not already married her here in Santa Barbara, was because of his friendship with the Gutierrez family. Esteban would wait until he and Alitha were in Mexico before he told Don Gutierrez he wouldn't marry Ines. Time and distance would soften the blow to the Gutierrez pride.

  How could she have thought even for a moment that Esteban might feel bound to a wedding contract with an eight-year-old when he loved her, Alitha? And he did love her, Alitha assured herself, for he had told her so time and again.

  She herself was at fault for even considering the possibility of Esteban wanting to take her to Mexico as his—she winced at the word—mistress. That was impossible no matter how much she loved and wanted him. Not only was it wrong—and it was—but she would be foolish to commit herself to any man with no assurance about the future. How little Esteban understood her! He had tried to shield her from all knowledge of Ines so that she, Alitha, wouldn't be hurt. Smiling, she closed her eyes, picturing a great cathedral, hearing the organ music swelling with the first bars of the wedding march, seeing herself gowned in radiant white.

  Alitha shook her head impatiently, opening her eyes. She must clear up the confusion. She would tell Esteban she knew of Ines and that he no longer had to hide his agreement to marry the girl. And then Esteban would be free to ask her to marry him and to tell her the future he envisioned for them both.

  Looking around herself, she realized that the sun had set and shadows were gathering darkly under the trees along the road. From ahead of her she heard the bells of the Santa Barbara Mission. How wildly they rang! The tolling went on and on, almost without pause, and Alitha urged her horse on, anxious to discover the reason.

  When she reached Santa Barbara, she found the village astir, with men riding frantically to and fro and heavily laden carts rumbling along the roads leading to the beach. Looking out to sea, Alitha spied a ship riding at anchor. She couldn't believe that all this hubbub had been caused by the arrival in the harbor of one merchant ship.

  As she passed the mission, she saw a large group of Indians marching in front of the church, then disappearing behind it only to reappear on the other side. Talk of traveling in circles, she thought. Puzzled, Alitha urged her horse on to the Mendoza Rancho, leaving the lathered bay with the stable boy.

  Just as she entered the main courtyard, Don Esteban rode up
from the direction of the village and dismounted beside her. "Alitha." Despite his frown, she saw his eyes glinting with excitement. "Where have you been?"

  "I went for a ride." Though she felt guilty about her clandestine trip, she thought of adding, "To the Gutierrez rancho to visit your fiancé," but didn't. "What's happening?" she asked.

  "That's Bouchard's ship you see anchored offshore," Esteban told her. "They're renegades who have come here, they say, for provisions. I signed an agreement to provide them foodstuffs in exchange for any prisoners they captured in California. I think at first they intended to raid Santa Barbara, but we've been marching the Indians around and around the mission until Bouchard must think we have a full-sized army here."

  "Did they tell you who these prisoners were?"

  "No, I met with them only an hour ago and they refused to say. We'll soon know." He raised her chin with his forefinger and kissed her, a quick promise of a kiss, his lips meeting hers so swiftly she didn't have a chance to draw away. Nor the will, she admitted to herself.

  Esteban ate hurriedly and rode off. After she had eaten her own dinner, Alitha went to her room. From the window she saw lights coming and going along the road and heard men calling to one another. Hoofbeats pounded in the courtyard as messengers arrived and departed. At long last Esteban returned, and still later—it must have been nearing midnight—she saw a procession of torches advancing up the hill from the beach and, when the flaming pine brands drew closer, she made out riders escorting a closed carriage.