Veiled Joy

by Reece, Colleen L.

  “Oh yes!” Quiet Sadie gasped. Her cheeks pinkened. “I. . .I want to wear the white gown I wore for my wedding.”

  “Si, the beautiful gown in which you became the señora of Carlos Montoya,” Carlos quickly agreed. His eyes sparkled. “Mama and Papa, even the beautiful Dolores, will say, ‘Carlos, how could such a flower let one like you pluck her?’ I will say, ‘I think the good God must have made it happen.’ ”

  “Joyous?” Brit turned to her, standing silent among them.

  “I, too, wish to change into another gown.” Her wan face smote Brit to the heart. While Sadie looked forward to entering the hacienda as its son’s bride, Joy was dependent on whatever welcome the Montoyas offered. She seemed so alone, so troubled.

  “My gown will not be white,” she added. “But I purchased a dark one in Carson City. It isn’t very nice, but it’s all I have.”

  “And you with a fortune,” Brit teased.

  Soft color stole to her hair. “I haven’t become accustomed to having money to buy things,” she confessed.

  A little later the men of the party established their ladies in comfortable rooms in a well-known inn and strolled outside. Carlos grinned. “Like Señorita Joyous, I, too, wish to change.” He fondly looked at his shabby clothes. “I will keep these garments to remind me how hard a man must work and how good God is. If we had not gone to Virginia City. . .” He let his voice trail off.

  Brit found himself silently echoing his friend’s sentiments. He broke his reverie by clapping Carlos on the back. “Let’s go find the best this town has to offer, for us and for Joyous.”

  “Si.” Carlos’s eyes glistened. “She must wear black and respect the memory of her father, but how gorgeous a black lace mantilla would be on her sunset hair.”

  They found it in a small shop, delicate as spider webs, glistening with dew, black as jet. “It is made by hand, señors,” the eager merchant told them. “Very costly, though.” He eyed his customers dubiously but became all smiles when Carlos magnificently pulled out a wealth of money. “Ah, but señor knows quality.”

  “Si.” Carlos carelessly tossed him the price, and Brit fingered the cobwebby mantilla. “She should like this.”

  “Señor!” The outraged proprietor fairly tore his hair. “I cut out my tongue, I throw myself into the sea, should your señorita not say this is the finest mantilla she had ever owned.”

  They left before the man could promise other bodily harm to himself, and when they got away, Carlos wickedly added, “Of course, this will be the finest; it is the first mantilla la señorita has owned. That gray stuff she hid behind in Virginia City is a rag compared with our gift.”

  ❧

  Joyous found it hard to hold back tears when Carlos triumphantly pulled the exquisite black mantilla from its brown paper wrapping and dangled it from a slim forefinger. Ever since she had unwittingly stumbled into hearing Brit’s scorching rebuke to Carlos, something inside felt dead. “I am Joyous McFarlane’s guardian, nothing more. You insult both of us when you think differently,” Brit had said in a voice colder than the Sierra Nevadas in January. Not even a trace of friendship lightened the statement.

  “What did you expect?” Joy flayed herself a dozen times. “You’ve always known Dolores is the only woman in the world Brit can see.” Why, then, did her sad heart long for warm comradeship that seemed strangely missing on the latter part of their journey?

  She raised her head after trying on the mantilla and saw an unreadable expression in Brit’s eyes. Kindness? Surely. Guardians were usually kind to their wards, novels to the contrary. Admiration? Perhaps. He would want her to make a good impression on the Montoyas.

  Joy gave up trying to identify what else flickered in his gaze and turned to Sadie, who clapped her hands and said, “It’s perfect!” In her naive way she rushed on, “and so effective—you all in black and me in white.” Pretty color came to her face when the others laughed, but she soon joined in. Sadie might still be a child in many ways, but she had already developed the womanly ability to laugh at herself.

  Carlos stepped into the little pool of silence following the merriment. “One hour from this time we will return for you,” he solemnly promised, black eyes alive with anticipation and excitement.

  “We will be ready.” Joy removed the mantilla and smiled at the young man who had truly become the younger brother she never had. A wave of affection swept over her. Regardless of Brit, Carlos would always be her friend. The Millses were near and God walked daily with her. Still, she watched out the window of the inn, peering through lacy ironwork and hanging flowers of incredible reds and pinks and purples until the two went out of sight.

  Before donning their new clothes, Brit and Carlos had carefully groomed King and Shamrock until they shone.

  “Quite the dandies.” Brit grinned at their reflections in the mirror of the room they had taken for a few hours. Carlos, resplendent in the black and silver he had put aside for so many months, was enough to turn any girl’s head. Brit’s eyes shone with fun. “You’ll have to let your señoritas know you have a wife,” he teased.

  “Poof for the señoritas.” He disposed of them with a snap of his fingers. “You are the one they will admire.”

  “Hmm.” Brit adjusted the lapel of his new suit. He had steadfastly refused to purchase Carlos’s type of clothing, but his tanned face contrasted nicely with the stark white shirt and dark suit. “Since when are colleens being for admiring a swallow when it flies with a peacock?”

  Carlos didn’t respond, and Brit glanced at him. He looked as young and frightened as the fateful day more than two years before when Sol’s saddle slipped and the spiked fence threatened. “What is it, Carlos?”

  “I. . .what are Papa and Mama going to say?” The young man who had faced danger and death now trembled at the thought of what lay ahead as the Montoya hacienda.

  “What can they say? Sadie is charming and your wife.” Brit grinned. “You are always quick-tongued. Why not take the offense and charge right in, maybe calling that we have come back rich?”

  The sparkle came back to Carlos’s mischievous face. “Si!” He fell silent, riding from the inn to the hacienda in deep plans, while Brit rode as one bewitched, longing yet dreading the reunion with Dolores.

  By the time they reached their destination, all of Carlos’s aplomb had returned. The Montoyas did not know just when the travelers would arrive and were just sitting down to dinner at the long, dark table. True to his promise, Carlos motioned aside the serving maids, cautioned them to silence with a finger over his lips and a dreadful scowl, then adjusted his face into a smile, threw open the great doors, and posed in the doorway.

  “We are here, Mama, Papa, Dolores—and we bring riches enough to buy all the haciendas taken from us and many more!”

  His bombshell had the desired effect. Don Carlos leaped from his place, eyes ashine. Although he had known the mines were doing well, he hadn’t been told how well or the gigantic sum for which they sold. His dark eyes so like his son’s gleamed. Brit could almost see the thoughts racing through his head, of a return to power as well as wealth.

  Señora Inez did not move, but her face reflected her husband’s reaction. Satisfaction fairly oozed from her still lovely features.

  Only Dolores poured a drop of acid into the sweetness of their triumphant homecoming. Gowned in white, incredibly more beautiful even than she had been at eighteen, she rose with the mien of royalty, Spanish to the core. “So you have come back bearing gold and silver. Tell me, Señor O’Donnell, where is the bride you also found?” Her question slashed the air like a well-thrown knife. “Or is it that so soon she has deserted you, this woman you have made your señora?”

  Brit couldn’t decide whether thwarted love or wounded pride was uppermost in her disdain. Neither could he answer. Finding her here wearing white and a red rose had robbed him of speech as effectively as ruthless men stole other’s gold.

  “Well?” Dolores never once took her blazing ga
ze away from the man who loved her.

  A peal of laughter shattered the growing tension. Secure in his welcome home because of the good financial news, Carlos seized his sister around the waist and swept her unbending body into a wild fandango. “Dolores, Papa, Mama, it is not Señor Brit who brings the bride. It is I, Carlos Montoya, who has won the hand of the most beautiful señorita in the world except for my sister and Joyous, who share that honor.”

  Don Carlos dropped back into his chair, shocked.

  His wife clasped her hands and turned pale.

  Dolores wrenched free and stared at him with accusing, midnight eyes. “You! You? Why did you not tell me?” She demanded. “We. . .I thought—” She turned toward Brit. “Señor, I have wronged you because of my wicked brother.” She gathered her fluffy skirts about her and ran from the room. The sound of her sobs floated back to the frozen group near the table.

  Brit took an impulsive step toward her, but Carlos intercepted him. “It is for me to go.” He wheeled and followed in the direction Dolores had taken, leaving Brit to face the older Montoyas and their accusing eyes.

  eleven

  Just like Carlos, to vanish and leave him to explain, Brit thought resignedly. Excited voices speaking Spanish in the courtyard told him his young friend was having no easy time with his sister, however. The thought brought a cheerful smile to Brit’s lips and hope to his heart. The change in Dolores’s attitude in a twinkle of time spoke well for her feelings regarding a certain Irish suitor.

  “Well, who is she, this señorita my son has married?” The same hauteur that marked Dolores’s speech underscored every word in Don Carlos’s question.

  Brit weighted his words carefully, then told the Montoyas, “She is beautiful, charming, and young. She will give your son exquisite children. Her father had holdings in Virginia City and has recently purchased the largest mercantile there.” He didn’t add that Bishop also patronized the local saloons and radiated the good will sometimes generated by whiskey.

  A feeling of relaxation ran from Don Carlos to Inez. “Why did you not bring her here with you?”

  Brit didn’t give an inch. Irish stubbornness could stand up to Spanish arrogance. “Carlos didn’t tell me the wording of his message to you until a few days ago. I realized then you could be misunderstanding the message. We agreed it best to come ahead and tell you the news, then return to the inn for the ladies.”

  “Ladies!” Inez lifted her patrician chin. “Does my son’s wife have a chaperone?”

  “No.” Brit shook his head and silently prayed for guidance. “We are accompanied by a young woman, the daughter of our partner, Angus McFarlane, who died not long ago. He made me her guardian as she is young.” He never once considered that Joy must be just slightly younger than Dolores.

  The pupils of Inez’s eyes dwindled to needle points. The welcome Brit had hoped would include Joy didn’t materialize. “Señora Mills spoke of her, the waif from the desert. I must refuse her the hospitality of my home, señor.”

  “What?” Brit could feel his temper rise but checked it. “You don’t understand. She is a wonderful girl, a Christian who—”

  “Enough.” Don Carlos didn’t raise his voice but the tone warned that he agreed fully with his wife.

  “It is not enough.” Brit’s eyes darkened and he faced them, ready to fight for the innocent girl-woman whose blue eyes shone with goodness. “When you know her you will see—”

  “A girl who lived in a place with rough men, who unveiled her face, and sang to bandidos and gamblers,” Don Carlos said silkily. “Such a creature is not a fit companion for Dolores, or for one interested in our daughter,” he added significantly.

  He reminded Brit of a long, slim dagger, harmless in its case but highly dangerous when unsheathed.

  “But. . .but she saved our lives,” Brit protested. Were these proud Montoyas mad? “Both Carlos and I would have bled to death if she and her prospector father had not cared for us.”

  “Commendable. She shall be suitably rewarded.” Don Carlos shrugged pious shoulders. “Such creatures can always use gold and silver.”

  The repetition of the word creature knocked the lid off Brit’s boiling anger. “Joyous McFarlane is every much a lady as your daughter, sir.” He folded his arms and tightened his lips into a grim line. “Whoever her real parents are, they must have been God-fearing and quality. As for Angus, who saved her life and raised her as his own, no finer man ever walked the West.” A rush of emotion, gratitude, and love for the old Scotsman gave him courage to continue. “If Betsy Mills told you about Joyous, she must have told you the men of Virginia City looked on her as they do the angels.”

  Don Carlos lifted a peaked eyebrow and looked bored. Inez retreated behind her fan, as if this guest’s ravings transgressed all the laws of good taste.

  Sensing the hopelessness of continuing the argument, Brit longed to hurl in their smug faces that if Joyous were not welcome at the Montoya hacienda then neither would he remain. The entrance of Carlos, bright-eyed and eager, stilled the words, but the keen young man could not help feeling the tension in the room.

  “Don’t blame Señor Brit,” he pleaded, with a furtive glance over his shoulder at the now silent courtyard. “Only Dios could have kept me from my Sadie. When He did not. . .” His satisfied smile and slight hunching of his shoulders finished the sentence. His smile vanished when his parents did not respond. “What is it?”

  “Your parents have made it clear that Joyous is not welcome here.” Brit couldn’t have kept the bitterness from his voice if his love depended on it, which it did.

  “Papa, Mama, what are you saying?” Carlos stared aghast, every trace of happiness erased from his white face. “Señorita Joyous, she is an angel. She—”

  “Enough!” This time Don Carlos’s bland mask slipped and he actually roared. “Your own sister has suffered much on account of this woman. Ever since Señora Mills praised her, Dolores has borne an aching heart.” Venom turned his words to a hiss. “When the message came, Dolores grew ill with worry that her brother and her friend,” he stressed the word, “that they should be in the company of a nameless, homeless one dependent on the charity of a prospector, a common peon who—”

  “You shall not speak of him that way!” Carlos cut into his father’s diatribe. “Nor of Señorita Joyous. She is pure and good. She saved life.”

  “So we have been told.”

  “And you still refuse to meet her, to lead her into the hacienda, bowing and burning candles because I, Carlos, do not lie dead?” Incredulity and disillusionment mingled with disbelief. “Without her, there would be no restoring of haciendas, no gold or silver or jewels and new gowns for Mama and Dolores.”

  “I have said she shall be rewarded.” Don Carlos tapped the polished table, so shiny it reflected his fingers.

  Carlos held his father’s gaze for a single moment then with a disgusted snort turned on his shiny boot heel and strode toward the door. Brit followed.

  “Where are you going? Why do you so rudely leave our presence?” Don Carlos’s face turned purple and he shoved back his chair and beat the two men to the doorway. “Is it not enough that you came here with news of a wife?”

  “And of gold and possessions,” Carlos reminded with a curl of his fine lips. “At least Dolores is happy enough it is I who have a señora, and not Señor Brit.” He brushed past his father and out the door with Brit right behind him.

  “We will expect you and your bride to return immediately,” Don Carlos called after the stiff, retreating figures. When they didn’t look back or answer, he added with obvious reluctance, “And you Señor O’Donnell.”

  Carlos stopped and turned. “The day you welcome Señorita McFarlane will be the day I, Carlos, return with my bride.”

  Such a heavy front door as that on the Montoya mansion couldn’t slam but it did close with a dull thud that hardened Carlos’s features and chiseled Brit’s lips of stone. They mounted their faithful horses and rode back to
ward the inn. Not until they had stabled King and Shamrock did Carlos ask in a desolate voice, “What will we say to my Sadie and Señorita Joyous?”

  “I don’t know. I wish my family were here. We would all be welcome in their home.”

  Carlos visibly flinched and his face blanched. “She must never know what happened this night.” His flat and lifeless voice hurt Brit, and he blindly reached out a hand to the man who had cared for him for the past two years. “I can never forgive them, even though they are what they are.”

  Brit said nothing. This was no time to preach about honoring parents and the need to forgive, not when his hotheaded friend had been attacked by family tradition and narrow-mindedness. “It’s been a lot longer than an hour since we left the inn,” he mused. “Carlos, can’t you think of anything we can say that will keep the truth from Joyous and yet not be false?”

  Carlos despondently shook his head, but a few minutes later he muttered, “I have an idea, but you must help me.” In a few quick sentences he outlined his plan. Faulty though it was, Brit had no better suggestion.

  “Carlos, you’d better be for acting like you’ve never done before,” he warned when they knocked on the door and Sadie threw it open. A pang went through him. Radiant in her white bridal finery, Sadie’s face looked pinched, her eyes haunted. Behind her, Joy’s reddish-gold hair gleamed against the black of the mantilla, but every gilt freckle stood out on her pale face.

  Carlos didn’t wait for questions but tossed his heavily trimmed sombrero to a chair and encircled Sadie with his arms. Brit marveled at the way he smiled even while misery peeked from his eyes. “Oh, but Mama and Papa were angry!” He laughed and the sound grated on Brit’s ears but drew an answering smile from Sadie and Joy.

  “The heir and son of the Montoyas has chosen his own bride,” Carlos announced dramatically. He released Sadie and smote his breast. “Such a thing always causes anger in Spanish papas and mamas. Always they fume and sizzle, and when all is forgiven they beam and say, ‘Ah, our son has chosen well.’ ” He rolled his eyes and laughed again. “It is better not to visit them until this happens, si? Señor Brit and I have a so smart idea. We will take a little trip and see the good Reverend Mills and Señora Betsy until this storm from the ocean blows away and becomes desert sand.”