Katherine tried not to show her exasperation. These dark-haired aristocrats were fascinated with her blond hair. No matter how diligently she pinned it, no matter how expansive the headgear that covered it, when she encountered a group of men or women, her hair always ended up around her arms and her pins disappeared onto the floor.
It had become a game, she suspected, one that began when her hair slipped loose and ended when she blushed. They'd found she blushed easily. They'd found that she was unused to compliments. They'd found it a combination too irresistible to ignore.
The women observed benevolently while the men complimented her on her eyes. The green of the sea at sunrise, one said. The still serenity of a mountain pool, said another.
They complimented her on her skin. Like the golden kiss of the sun, said one. Warmed by the sweet sprinkle of freckles, agreed another.
And everyone, men, women and children, commented with admiration on her figure. Of little more than average height in Boston, here she stood out among the shorter, plumper Spanish women. They made her feel as if her long arms and coltish legs were fluid as a ballet dancer's. It astonished her to find how avidly she had begun to listen to the plaudits—and how much she wanted to believe them. Yet she found herself at a loss to deal with their informality. She couldn't understand how they could dismantle her coiffure and stroke it with their fingers while maintaining a civilized demeanor.
“Why don't you wear the lace mantilla I gave you?” Doña Xaviera asked. “It's black, but it's romantic and feminine.”
In stern reproof, Katherine replied, “That's why I never wear it.”
Her response brought nothing but a husky laugh and a kind pat on the cheek. “The time will come when you wish to flirt, to smile, to put off the worn black dresses. Your year of mourning is almost over.”
“I'm aware of that, señora,” Katherine agreed stiffly.
“The gentlemen who so admire your beauty will soon be released from the constraint of propriety and flock to your side.” Señora Medina passed her fan in front of her face with lazy assurance. “Your creamy skin will glow from beneath the black lace. Keep the mantilla.”
“Yes, señora.” Katherine didn't trust herself to move, to reach up and bind her hair without another fainting spell, so she looked at Doña Xaviera without turning her head. “Thank you for helping me,” she said. “I can't stand the sight of blood.”
“Poor child.” Doña Xaviera touched her arm. “No wonder.”
Wanting to change the subject, not wanting to dwell on the memory of her grief, Katherine offered, “I have never seen anything like this before.”
“This?”
“This fiesta. 1 would think half of California has come.”
“The other half sent their regrets,” Doña Xaviera agreed.
“In Boston,” Katherine waved an arm, “we have nothing to compare to this.”
“How boring you Americans are,” Doña Xaviera said with indulgent humor.
Katherine gave it some thought. A melange of parties and feasts, games and displays, the fiesta celebrated Damian's feast day. The tradition of celebrating the eldest son's feast day was a custom brought from the old world. The feeling of tradition, of an unbroken chain that reached back into the mists of time thrilled her, and she agreed, “Yes, I suppose we are dull. At my uncle's table, there were only Americans. Here there are the Spaniards whose families settled California seventy-five years ago. There are Americans, who come to California to trade. There are Russians, Germans, and Englishmen.”
With a calm authority, Doña Xaviera claimed, “You like it here.”
“Very much.”
“Good . That will make your life so much easier.”
Doña Xaviera chuckled, a deep, soft sound, and Katherine raised an eyebrow. She hadn't meant to amuse, yet her inbred reserve made it impossible for her to question such a venerable lady. Instead, she asked, “All the other men who fought bulls did so on horseback. Why did Don Damian dismount?”
Don Lucian shook his head. “To give this old man some grey hairs.”
Señora Medina protested, “No t you, Lucian. Your hair is a distinguished silver.”
He smiled at her but spoke to Katherine. “In Spain and Mexico, they fight the bull on foot, and in the end, when the bull is wise—”
“Wise?” Katherine raised the other eyebrow.
“The bull improved. Couldn't you tell?”
“I thought so, but how could a stupid animal know?” Appalled, Don Lucian raised a finger to stop her. “Bulls are not stupid. They're powerful and wily and courageous, an opponent worthy of a man. A bull is only fought once. Only once, for they realize the cape is illusion and they never make the mistake of attacking it again. In Spain, in Mexico, when this happens the torero takes a sword and kills the bull. Here in California, we're not so foolish. Our cattle are our lives, our most precious resource. We fight the bull on horseback, to give our men some small advantage against the dynamic, clever beast.”
Doña Xaviera sighed. “Your son had to make a show.”
“His woman was watching.” Startled, Katherine looked around, expecting to see this woman, but Don Lucian continued, “He acts like a peacock faced with a chance to display himself.”
“Where did he learn to jump the bull?” the older woman asked. “I tell you, Lucian, my heart stopped when he stood while the bull rushed him.”
“I taught him.” Lucian shrugged at her horrified moue. “My family has practiced it time out of mind. But only in the dark of night, for fear our wives would catch us.”
Xaviera nodded with serene amusement.
“And with heifers. God knows, they're tricky enough. When he faced that bull and I realized . . .” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his short jacket. “I hope he lives through the courting.”
“Ah, he will.” The lady opened her fan and began a languid waving before her face. “I believe he has his dear one's attention at last.”
“Absolutely. I'll be interested to observe the courtship ritual. It promises to be unusual.”
Katherine felt rather like a china doll: on display but easily ignored. She took the time to look around, to see if she could discover this woman Damian courted with such intensity.
Only one señorita was a stranger. A tall girl, young and shy, hovered behind Doña Xaviera, and Katherine felt sure this must be the candidate for Damian's hand. Masses of blue-black hair streamed down her back, seeming to be too great a weight for the delicate neck. Her shoulders were rounded, like the shoulders of a girl who'd outgrown her contemporaries and slumped to make up the difference. Her pale skin was untouched by the blazing California sun. Her eyelids quivered shyly as Katherine surveyed her with a forthright gaze, and her birdlike hands fluttered.
“Vietta.” Doña Xaviera noticed her and called her forth. “How good to see you here. Are you over your illness?”
The girl Vietta limped over, listing to one side in obvious distress. Katherine felt a great compassion, and an admiration for Damian. What a noble man, to love a girl so handicapped by birth or misfortune!
“Doña Xaviera.” Vietta acknowledged her greeting, and when she spoke her voice chimed like mission bells. “I'm feeling better, gracias, and I couldn't stay away from Damian . . . from his celebration one more day.”
Doña Xaviera slid to one side of the bench in invitation, but Vietta ignored her, moving closer to Katherine. She wasn't as young as she appeared from a distance, Katherine realized. Her eyes burned with some kind of fervor, and tiny lines emphasized her frown. Her turned-down mouth gave her a pinched look of petulance, but there was, too, such an obvious intelligence that Katherine felt an immediate kinship.
Katherine waited until Doña Xaviera performed the courtesies. “Katherine, this is Vietta Gregorio, the daughter of one of our oldest and most noble families. Until her family moved to Monterey, she was a neighbor of the de la Solas. Remember, Lucian, how she used to trail around after Damian and Julio and try to do whatever
they did?”
“Indeed I do,” he said.
Katherine gave a little seated bow, murmuring, “Tengo mucho gusto en conocerla.”
Doña Xaviera continued, “Vietta, this is Katherine Maxwell.”
“You're in mourning,” Vietta interrupted, with abrupt disrespect for her manners and the señora.
This was not what Katherine had come to expect from the Californios, with their never-ending courtesies and their kindness, but she answered mildly, “Yes, I'm a widow.”
“Recent?”
“Vietta!” Doña Xaviera admonished.
“It's all right,” Katherine soothed, and then replied to Vietta, “Less than a year.”
“Why are you here?”
Ah, Katherine reasoned. That explains it. She's jealous, unsure of Damian, and Katherine thought to reassure her. “I'm Don Damian's housekeeper. I make sure the house is run efficiently during the time he's away, so when he comes back, he'll be comfortable.”
“He's here almost all the time.”
“I assure you, he isn't.”
“This is his favorite hacienda.”
Katherine smiled, but with restraint. “I've seen no evidence of that.”
Vietta tapped her nervous fingers on her waist. “He's always here.”
Katherine couldn't help the stab of hurt that came with Vietta's insistence. She'd devoted herself to making this house welcoming, prepared at all times for Damian's infrequent visits. Holding in the embarrassment, she replied, “After he settled me here, he left for his rancho in the Central Valley. He visited infrequently, and I saw him for the evening meals. During the days, he rode with his vaqueros or ordered the stocking of the barns.”
“That's all?”
“He hardly wiped his boots on the veranda.”
“Then why did he hire you?” Vietta said. “You're an outsider, an Americana, and we all know what Damian thinks of Americanos.”
“Ah , child.” Doña Xaviera groaned, but Don Lucian set Vietta in her place.
“He hired her for her charm.” He smiled and bowed, took Katherine's hand and led her away.
“Poor girl,” Katherine murmured as they walked. “How was she crippled?”
“They say she took a fall . . . let's see, last August, while resting in the mountains. In my opinion, she needs to rest her tongue.”
Surprised at the anger in his voice, Katherine stopped him with her hand on his arm. “Why do you say? . . . Oh , her rudeness. Don Lucian, she spoke Spanish so rapidly, I had trouble following all she said. As to why she said it, you must pay no attention. She's young, and afraid she can't hold her man.”
“Young?” He snorted. “She's older than you.”
“Surely not,” she said mildly. “I'm twenty-four. Quite the old woman.”
“Vietta's much older than you. And she hasn't got a man, no man will have her. She's too . . . too . . .”
“Intelligent?”
“I would have said cranky, but yes, she's intelligent, too. Far too intelligent for her own good.”
“That's what men always say about women who are less decorative than clever.”
He raised her hand in his and pressed his lips to the back. “Lucky for you, you are both.”
Amused, she smiled at him. “Gracias. You are ever the gentleman.”
“And you are ever the sleeping beauty.”
Katherine lay on the feather bed and stared at the ceiling. The night air cooled rapidly, bringing a chill temperature to the third-story attic bedroom. The wind blew the curtains, and she knew she should rise and shut the window, but she was tired with the kind of bone weariness that hard work brings.
Unfortunately, that weariness couldn't shut down her mind. The apprehensions she'd kept at bay during the day leaped about her head now, and she seemed to have no control.
Visions of Damian: vaulting the bull, raising his hands in revel. Visions of Damian: looking like a god, staring into her eyes.
He was handsome.
It had taken her this long to notice. She'd been in a state of shock for too long, and she blamed that for her lack of attention. That, and the fact that she wasn't used to seeking beauty in the swarthy complexions and dark eyes of the Spaniards. Today she'd noticed Damian, and it had been an upheaval that jarred her to her roots.
She'd regained control of herself immediately, of course. A lady of Boston never betrayed her emotions by word or deed. When she glimpsed Damian later, moving among his guests, speaking to Vietta, she'd been able to admire him as one would a statue, or any work of art.
But now, tonight, it wasn't so easy.
He'd laughed at her. Why had he laughed at her?
Two weeks ago, he'd returned to prepare for his birthday fiesta. He'd stayed at the house and she'd seen how intimately he'd been involved with his servants, his family. She admired a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. He handled people with a finely honed instinct she valued, soothing tempers, easing mistakes, making every person an important cog in the planning and execution.
Sometimes she wondered why he never extended his charm and his skill to her, but she was an honest woman.
She was an outsider. Damian had done what was honorable to care for her, and no more. The smile he gave to his aging, toothless nanny, he would never waste on Katherine Chamberlain Maxwell. The hugs he handed out to the Indian children, he would never extend to Katherine Anne. He treated her differently because she was different, and she'd do well to keep it in mind.
A gust of wind blew out her candle, and she jumped at the sudden darkness. A black night, the clouds raced past on the breeze and a tiny moon peeked in and out timidly. Restless, she turned on her side and tucked her hand under her cheek. With a little willpower, she could block these thoughts of Damian and his enigmatic actions and go to sleep. She'd never had trouble sleeping before last year; she was too sensible for such nonsense.
So sleep, she commanded herself, and dream of anything but Damian.
She dropped into sleep like a rock into a well, a long, dark descent.
Rain wet her face. Fog obstructed her vision. She knelt in the dirt of the street.
She could hear the roar of the ocean muted by distance. She could hear people, murmuring around her, and a woman screaming. She could really hear it. She was there.
She could smell the horse feces under her knee, but it couldn't mask that other smell. The smell of blood.
She could see him. Face up, he lay in the mud, his mouth open, his jaw cocked askew. She couldn't see his features well. They were obscured by fog and a great rhythmic spurting of blood. A woman's hands pushed against his throat, trying to hold the blood inside. The hands jerked with each stream that gushed out.
The sound of the waves seemed to be the sound of that blood, but the blood stopped, and the waves did not.
Those hands lifted away, and they were her hands. She turned them over and over, and she could feel it. All that blood, so slippery. All that blood, so sticky. She didn't want to wash it away, because it was his.
And then she couldn't wash it away. It wouldn't come off.
Blood seeped in so deep she could taste it.
21 May, in the year of our Lord, 1777
The Indians who roam the mountains of the interior and live in the great central valley are wild and savage. Our mission was established to convert them to the true Christ and bring salvation to their souls. I led the mission, for God had planted the idea in my mind I am a strong man, healthy, determined, and well trained in the arts of medicine. Among the Franciscan brothers in California, I am considered to be the ablest curandero. The grace of God sends healing through my fingers, and only the poorest wretches are beyond my help. Fray Amadis speaks the Indian’s heathen language. Like our Lord Jesus, Fray Patricio is a carpenter. Luis Miguel, Joaquin de Cordoba, Lorenzo Infante: they all performed their special purpose. Frail as he is, Fray Lucio begged to come, also, and Pedro de Jesus convinced me to bring him.
Now only four of us remai
n: Amadis, Patricio, Lucio and I.
—from the diary of Fray Juan Estévan de Bautista
Chapter 2
Katherine groped down the stairs through the dark with her wool cape clutched tight around her. Feeling her way along the hall to the door, she knew when she'd found Damian's study; she smelled the smoky cigar scent that permeated the room. Slipping through the open door, she breathed that warm, sweet odor, and she began to relax.
She didn't like cigars; she thought they were extravagant and messy, but the smell of these particular cigars symbolized safety to her. Reaching into the darkness, she stretched until her fingertips grazed the desk. With one finger on the whorled edge, she inched along until she could see the French doors, their windows lighter than the rest of the wall. She knew that outside hung the second-story balcony. That was where she wanted to be.
In two big, careful steps she was against the doors. Her hand scrabbled for the knob; she turned it and pushed. As she expected, the wind rushed into the gap, trying to tear the door from her grasp. She eased it open and stepped out. In the moonlight, California spread out before her. Clouds scuttled across the sky, passing dark bands over the narrow, flat valley of the Salinas River.
She shut her nightmares in the house behind her and leaned her elbows on the rail. She inhaled a deep, shuddery breath. That terror, that remembrance hadn't come to her in a long time. She had hoped it would never come back again. What had happened a year ago had changed her life, destroyed her aspirations. Aunt Narcissa's prediction of disaster had been correct; how that woman would have enjoyed knowing.
From behind her she heard the click of the latch, and she whirled around. Damian shut the door behind him and came to rest his arms beside hers on the rail, a smoky scent about him. He, too, stared out at Rancho Donoso, at the Salinas River, a mere trickle of silver, and at the plain hemmed in by mountains on either side. “Can't sleep, Katherine?”
He spoke English, as he always did on those rare occasions they were alone. His voice tolled deep and kind, exactly like the controlled Damian she'd always known. No trace of the magnificent warrior of the afternoon lingered.
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