Spellbound Trilogy: The Wind Casts No Shadow, Heart of the Jaguar, Shadows in the Mirror

by Jeanne Rose

  Spellbound Book 1:

  THE WIND CASTS NO SHADOW

  Paranormal Historical Romance

  Patricia Rosemoor & Linda Marquis

  Copyright © 2011 Patricia Rosemoor & Linda Marquis

  THE WIND CASTS NO SHADOW

  was originally print-published by HarperCollins

  under the pseudonym Roslynn Griffith

  Book 2: HEART OF THE JAGUAR

  Book 3: SHADOWS IN THE MIRROR

  With more than six million books in print, Patricia Rosemoor has written eighty-some novels, mostly romantic suspense, paranormal romantic suspense or urban fantasy thrillers. Look for HOT TRICK, coming from Carina Press in Fall 2011. Her latest Harlequin Intrigues are BRAZEN and DEAL BREAKER. http://PatriciaRosemoor.com

  Linda Marquis wrote more than twenty books with Patricia Rosemoor for Harlequin, Silhouette, HarperCollins, Dell and other publishers. Linda is a professor and reading specialist whose research focuses on using popular culture, especially movies, to enhance the literacy process.

  Dedicated to Edward Majeski, Patricia’s late husband and Linda’s friend. Edward assisted with research for the novel, including accompanying the authors to New Mexico.

  THE WIND CASTS NO SHADOW

  Patricia Rosemoor & Linda Marquis

  PROLOGUE

  Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, 1880

  CHACO JONES tossed and turned in his bed, a top berth in the best bunkhouse on the Ralston Double-Bar Ranch. Though built of adobe, the structure had a real store-bought window, two corner fireplaces and a columned, open portal across the front. Thankfully, the well-patched roof didn't leak when sudden thunderstorms came pounding down from the mountains.

  But tonight he hadn't been able to sleep for hours, had lain awake long after the rain had stopped and a restless wind began moaning through the copse of pinon pines out front. His sixth sense, the instinct that set him apart from others and sometimes spooked people, told him something was wrong.

  Something was going to happen.

  Something as elusive as the wind...

  Still fully dressed, he lay on his side, face toward the window, hand on the Colt .45 beneath his pillow.

  Even so, he finally dozed off and dreamed of wandering across a gray mesa in the white moonlight, of tracking shadows that flitted and danced just beyond his reach. Wind wailing around him, he followed, refusing to give up until the specters led him back to the ghostly bunkhouse. Once there he entered and climbed into his bed, where he stared at the glowing curtainless window on the opposite wall.

  The wind dropped, though he thought he heard a skittering sound, soft clicks that seemed to be coming closer, as if a creature with claws were running lightly along the planks of the portal.

  Then a dark form glided into view.

  Four-footed.

  Predatory.

  The beast paused before rising on its back legs to place its paws on the deep window sill and stare directly at him with open jaws and glittering eyes.

  A wolf...yet not.

  Surely no natural creature had such a searching gaze.

  With a start, Chaco suddenly realized he wasn't dreaming. His eyes were wide open and he was fully awake. All senses alert, he rose to his elbows, cold chills creeping up his spine.

  The wolf watched him expectantly, its muscles tensing as if getting ready to leap.

  From somewhere deep within, Chaco drew forth an Apache curse, "Go, leave this place, run into the night, evil one!"

  Barely a hiss and a whisper.

  But the beast dropped to all fours and was gone.

  Grabbing his gun, he rolled out of the bunk, hitting the floor with a soft thunk that didn't awaken the other wranglers. In two strides, he was at the door and flung it open, his finger on the trigger of the Colt.

  The portal was empty but in the distance, a large sleek shadow slipped into the junipers.

  His breath came fast and shallow as he strode to the end of the porch. He sniffed the pinon-scented air, then searched for a match in the pocket of his denim pants. Striking it, he squatted to examine the nearby ground for prints. Another chill crept up his spine and made his hair stand on end.

  No animal had left its mark in the damp red clay. Instead, he saw indentations made by narrow, high-heeled boots.

  The footprints of a woman.

  He relaxed his finger from the Colt's trigger, let his arm drop to his side. The weapon was of little use.

  Bullets wouldn't stop a skinwalker.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Boston

  MISS LLEWELLYN'S SCHOOL for Girls offered board and private education for young females, ages twelve through seventeen. Frances MacDonnell had been a scant two years older than some of her students when she'd begun teaching English Composition and Hygiene there a decade before.

  Frances sometimes felt so old, perhaps because she was expected to dress and act soberly, to set a sterling example for her young charges. Getting ready to start the day, she secured her thick brown hair in a tight knot and straightened the white lace collar of her dark green dress.

  The small room she called home offered few amenities – a narrow bed, an old dresser and some wall pegs for hanging clothing. A single window looked down on the courtyard that lay between the teachers' quarters and the other buildings – the massive brick mansion that served as the girls' dormitory, the school itself and Miss Grace Llewellyn's private home.

  With a sigh, she turned from the window, picked up the text book she'd laid on top of the dresser, and made for the door. Outside, the corridor was quiet, the other teachers still at breakfast, the usual sparse meal of porridge and tea served in Miss Llewellyn's personal dining room. Frances herself hadn't been hungry this morning. As she swept down the corridor, she turned her eyes away when she passed Emily Bradley's room. Her good friend and fellow teacher had been dismissed several months before for having married, but Frances continued to miss her.

  Descending a narrow staircase and opening the outer door, she entered the courtyard. Dressed in blue skirts with matching blouses, ribbed black cotton stockings and ankle-high black shoes, several students turned to look at her.

  "Good morning, Miss MacDonnell," called a twelve year old.

  "Good morning, Tilly," France said before being surprised by raised voices coming from a huddle of girls.

  "So you admit you are a savage?" demanded someone so shrill and loud, she could only be sixteen-year old Amy Dandridge.

  "I am half Comanche."

  Louisa Janks. Frances had suspected the girl's ancestry and knew that trouble had been brewing since Louisa had arrived after Easter. She squeezed through the tightly packed group so she could see the opponents. Amy was a porcelain blonde with a pouty mouth and the arrogant attitude of a child born to wealthy parents; Louisa was a black-haired beauty with lightly-bronzed features and a proud bearing, though she never spoke of her own family in New Mexico Territory.

  "You're a Comanche!" cried Amy accusingly. The blonde glanced about at her audience as if to gather support. A self-appointed leader, she'd been jealous of the other girl from the first. "Comanches are heathens who kill white people!"

  Louisa's dark eyes snapped. "White people knew the Indians were there before they invaded their territory. And white people kill plenty of Indians, even women and little children!"

  With a pang, memories of the missionary reserve camp came to Frances. A desperate mother's face still haunted her two decades after the tragedy.

  "Girls, this is no w
ay to speak to one another." Frances met Louisa's gaze, hoping to calm her, then addressed Amy in particular, "We are all creatures of God."

  Amy scowled and addressed her disrespectfully. "Savages aren't creatures of God. They scalp people – cut off their hair."

  "And part of their heads along with it," Louisa added angrily. "Would you like me to show you?"

  The crowd ah-h-hed and retreated as one, including Amy.

  "Go ahead, run away!" Louisa looked as fierce as any warrior Frances remembered.

  "Godless heathen!" shouted Amy, her voice quivering.

  The situation was far out of control. Frances grabbed each of the girls by an arm. "Enough! Make peace and go inside!"

  Amy shook her off, once more shocking Frances. "I don't have to make peace with a savage!" she hissed. "And I don't have to listen to an Injun-lover!"

  "How dare you speak to her like that!" Louisa pushed at Amy. "Maybe I should show you another Comanche trick. Drag you behind a horse until you're a bloody carcass!"

  "Louisa!" Frances stared, appalled.

  "You don't belong here or any civilized place," cried Amy. "You should be on a reservation with the other filthy savages." She slapped Louisa across the face. "Stay away from me!"

  Dark eyes blazing, Louisa struck the other girl with her closed fist. The blonde fell to the ground. And chaos erupted as several friends came to Amy's aid in a scratching, screaming, hair-pulling free-for-all.

  "I order you to stop!" Frances waded into the fray and pulled a girl from Louisa's back. "Remember you are ladies!" Then she wrestled with Louisa herself, though the angry sixteen-year old was as strong as she was. "Stop it, right now!" Even as she spoke, reason overtook the fury burning in Louisa's eyes. Intent on fending off another attack, Frances thrust the girl behind her. "You should be ashamed of yourselves!"

  But the other girls were already backing away. Frances suddenly realized several other teachers had appeared. One of them grasped a little girl by the pigtails and scolded her. Miss Llewellyn herself stood on the rear steps of the mansion.

  "Take the girls to their rooms," ordered the elderly headmistress. "Miss MacDonnell...to my office!"

  Frances watched Louisa being escorted into the mansion and hoped the other teachers wouldn't blame the girl. At least she herself could give a true report of the incident. But she had to wait nearly a half hour before the headmistress was ready to see her. Then she took the supplicant's seat on the straight-backed chair before the great mahogany desk that had belonged to the Llewellyn family for generations. Miss Llewellyn, unmarried and the last of her line, had chosen to use her remaining fortune and estate for the education of young members of the fairer sex.

  The headmistress wasn't smiling. Her faded blue eyes were cold behind her silver spectacles and her thin lips pursed disapprovingly. The funereal black she always wore gave her pale, wrinkled skin an icy cast.

  "What exactly do you have to say for yourself?" Miss Llewellyn began.

  "Myself?" The accusatory tone didn't bode well. "Amy Dandridge said appalling things to Louisa Janks." And to her as well. "I tried to stop the ensuing battle to no avail."

  "The report I received said that the Indian girl was the attacker and that you defended her."

  "Someone else heard the argument?" she asked. "And why is this other person's opinion more believable than mine?"

  "Exactly who heard what and saw whom is not the subject of this interview! I am far more concerned with your proclaiming savages to be creatures of God!"

  Frances was stunned, both with Miss Llewellyn's obvious fury and with the elderly woman's stance, the same as her minister father's. "But you are an educator and a Christian."

  "I most certainly am!" the headmistress stated hotly. "And if I'd known that Louisa was a heathen, rather than a Spaniard or a Mexican...which would have been bad enough...I would never have taken her! The girl was intentionally devious." Miss Llewellyn's voice and lace cap trembled. "More animal than human being. Why, those savages massacred General Custer and his troops only four years ago."

  To some, Indians weren't considered men. Instead, they were animals, heathens, savages. Frances focused on the past, her throat tightening. She saw the Indian woman's face when her children were torn away from her, never to return. The woman hadn't wept but Frances knew she had wanted to die.

  Miss Llewellyn adjusted her spectacles. "There were problems concerning Louisa before this day. I had heard that you were befriending her after lessons."

  "I helped Louisa, but no more so than some of the others." And Frances had enjoyed introducing the bright girl to her favorite stories and poems. In return, she'd been rewarded with tales of wild New Mexico.

  "Nevertheless, I have heard you were decidedly partial to Louisa. I don't know why you have taken this course, after serving here for so many years. Perhaps it is the result of the vile books you keep hidden in your room."

  Startled, Frances cried, "Someone invaded my privacy?" The cheap novels were harmless entertainment. "Surely it isn't a sin to read about romance and adventure."

  Miss Llewellyn wagged her finger at Frances. "It is not your place to say what is sin and what is not. Such books are the works of the devil. And you a minister's daughter! Those horrid texts have obviously poisoned your mind." She took a deep breath. "We can't have your sort teaching young ones at my school."

  Frances flushed, her reaction a combination of fear and anger. "What are you saying?"

  "The Dandridges are an upstanding, God-fearing family. We can't have them withdrawing their daughter because a teacher allowed a savage to attack her. You are dismissed!"

  "Dismissed!" Frances rose from her chair. "That is unfair! Outrageous!"

  Miss Llewellyn rose as well. "Must we call a policeman to escort you from the premises?"

  "Of course not, but – "

  "Then see to your bags." The headmistress pointed at the door. "You shall leave the school this very night."

  Shocked to her core, Frances could not think what she would do now. Having existed on so small a salary, she had been able to buy a few books and articles of clothing but had very little savings.

  The thought of being on the street, penniless, was enough to make her normal mettle crumble.

  New Mexico

  DON ARMANDO DE ARGUELLO had never been a man to spend much time praying. A hard-riding caballero in his youth, the scion of an old Hidalgo family who had lived in northern New Mexico for more than two centuries, he had passed his time in more amusing, earthy pleasures.

  But after the death of his only remaining legitimate child a month ago, a grown daughter who had succumbed to difficult childbirth, Don Armando had started visiting the modest oratorio of his estancia every morning.

  Today he lit a votive on the altar of the Virgin and crossed himself before allowing his accompanying servant to help him sink to his knees. There he prayed for the soul of the son who had been savaged and killed by a horse a year before, and for the souls of both his daughter and stillborn grandson. Would the de Arguello bloodline survive? Armando worried. His second wife, the beautiful and much younger Ynez, seemed to be barren after three years of marriage.

  Would he himself survive much longer?

  At seventy, Don Armando expected aching bones but not the constant digestive problems he had been experiencing of late. Perhaps his days on earth were numbered. Perhaps his house and vast landholdings would go to some stranger...unless he took an action he considered questionable.

  Above all, Don Armando feared mortality.

  That was why he prayed, God forgive him.

  And that was why he wanted his land to go to someone of his own blood.

  Not to mention that Ynez would need a strong person to take care of her after he was gone. Don Armando's final prayer was for his modest wife, a woman who had long ago asked him to represent her to the Virgin and the Saints. She did not feel capable of doing so herself and never entered the oratorio or any church except for Sunday mass.
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br />   Crossing himself one last time, Don Armando motioned for the servant to help him rise again. Once on his feet, however, he pushed the man away and took up the staff he used for walking. He hated being weak.

  Outside, he stood for a moment, enjoying the spring sunshine in the placita, a welcome open-air space inside the sprawling wings of the estancia's great house. Two cheerful kitchen maids gossiped and ground corn near the great well in the center.

  And Ynez herself approached. Always aware of the sunlight's effect on her delicate skin, she had draped a black silk shawl over her upswept hair.

  "Good morning, Dona Ynez," he greeted her politely, his wife having always preferred formality to forms of endearment.

  "Good morning, Don Armando." She was tall for a Spanish woman and had arresting dark eyes which could make her appear severe at times. But, as usual, unassuming, she lowered her gaze, her lashes rich and black against her cheeks. "Are you feeling better? I have been worried about the illness you suffered last night."

  "I am recovering."

  "Have you eaten yet today?" Her eyes flicked over him. "If not, I shall bring you some eggs and tortillas hot from the oven."

  "I would like both very much." She was kind and liked to serve him food when she could, whenever his housekeeper Mercedes did not do so first. He suggested, "Let us eat outside."

  She made no objection and walked toward the kitchen. Armando followed, intending to sit at the little table some yards from the well and near the newly blooming wisteria.

  The cook had left the door of the kitchen open to the air. Ynez stopped with a gasp at the threshold.

  Don Armando frowned and moved nearer. "Is something wrong?"

  "Nothing to worry you, Husband."

  But now he could see the crude cross drawn on the kitchen wall. Yellowish-brown, the peon's sign against witchcraft had been sketched with ground mustard plant.