While Passion Sleeps

by Shirlee Busbee

  Crossing quickly to Colonel Fisher when Piava and the woman left, Rafael said, "I'd send out some of the best Rangers you have and have them scout out the Comanche encampment. For myself, I wouldn't believe one word he said."

  Fisher took Rafael's advice and some of the more daring Rangers scouted out the Comanche camp, returning to report that they saw few, if any, whites. Looking at Colonel Fisher Rafael said bluntly, "I warned you—give up any hope of captives, they are all long since dead."

  It seemed Rafael was wrong. On Saturday, April the fourth, Piava brought in a Mexican captive and an adopted five-year-old girl by the name of Putnam. The white child had been as hideously abused as poor Matilda Lockhart, her face horribly scarred. She could speak no English and cried piteously for her Comanche "mother."

  Looking hard at Piava, the soldiers with their rifles cocked and ready behind him, Fisher demanded, "And the others? You said you had many."

  Piava and the braves who accompanied him stared back with arrogance and hatred. Several of the warriors had their bowstrings notched as they sat on their ponies, ready to attack at the first sign of aggression by the Texans.

  Piava would not answer Fisher's questions and he just gazed impassively at the white men. Angry and beginning to show it, Fisher probed for more information about the captives, but to no avail. Piava refused to discuss the other captives, but admitted that he did have one more white child to exchange.

  The Comanches were allowed to take two of the Indians held by the Texans, and Fisher angrily agreed that if they brought in the white child, they could have their choice of a Comanche prisoner.

  It was when Piava returned with another Mexican captive and a white boy, Booker Webster, that the Texans learned the fate of the remaining captives. Once Piava had chosen his exchange prisoner and ridden off in great haste, the Texans questioned the boy; it was then they heard of the final fate of the white captives.

  Booker was about ten years old. His eyes haunted with remembered horror, his voice breaking as he choked back tears, he told the tale. "They tortured them, every one, to death!" he cried.

  Rafael listened to that high, frightened voice, and his stomach muscles crawled. He had known what would happen, but it was far more chilling to hear it from a mere child, a child who had been spared only because he had been adopted by a Comanche family.

  Booker glanced around the room at the rigid faces and said with a gulp and a stammer, "Th-they stripped them n-n-naked. They was... was staked out spread-eagle and...!" He stopped, unable to continue and sobbed. Someone patted him kindly on the shoulder and there was a murmur of comforting words and one man passed him a glass of water.

  Despite the kindness, he shuddered, remembering what he had seen and heard. "Me and that little girl that was exchanged was the only ones that didn't get killed. No matter what... b-b-baby or w-w-woman... they tortured them all. Th-th-they kept them alive so they could burn th-th-them to death at the end."

  Rafael heard the tale without comment. Looking at Fisher's shocked face, he said bitterly, "It could have ended differently. I trust you are satisfied with the results." Too angry to remain, he spun on his heels and walked away.

  Chapter 21

  Rafael returned to a quiet house. Don Miguel and his wife had left early that morning for an overnight visit with some of Dona Madelina's relatives, who lived several miles from San Antonio. Rafael had been dubious of the scheme for a number of reasons, the main one being the possibility of attack by the Comanches. But Don Miguel was insistent, and when he pointed out that they would be traveling with a well-armed escort, Rafael was forced to drop his objections. Of course the other reason was Beth Ridgeway.

  Senora Lopez had stayed behind to keep proprieties, but Rafael still didn't like it. There would only be the two women in the house besides the servants until Don Miguel and Dona Madelina returned, once he left in the morning. He might have qualms about leaving Beth alone without a male protector, but he was adamant that he would leave in the morning rather than postpone his trip another day or two until Don Miguel came back. He had already said his farewell to his father when Don Miguel had departed for the short visit.

  "You're certain you won't wait until we return?" Don Miguel asked.

  Suspecting the purpose of the visit was to delay his departure, he sent his father an amused look. "You knew I was leaving on Wednesday before you planned this sudden trip. I'm sorry, mi padre, but everything is ready; we pull out tomorrow at dawn for Enchantress."

  His handsome face disgruntled, Don Miguel snorted, "Enchantress! I'd like to know what Abel Hawkins was thinking about when he chose that fanciful name."

  The gray eyes steady on his father's face, Rafael said, "Perhaps he had his wife in mind—she was an Enchantress, wasn't she? Just as her daughter was?"

  Don Miguel's features softened. "Yes," he admitted in a husky voice. "Your mother was indeed an Enchantress."

  At loose ends, Rafael found that time dragged. After a solitary early-afternoon meal in the dining room, Beth and Senora Lopez having ordered trays, Rafael busied himself in going over all his arrangements, but to his annoyance he discovered that his thoughts had a decided tendency to stray to the forbidden subject of English.

  He had purposely not said anything to her about his trip to Enchantress, but he was certain she knew that he would be leaving in the morning—she couldn't help but know, considering how Don Miguel had grumbled about nothing else since he had learned of the plan. He had said his good-byes to everyone, including Senora Lopez, but when night fell he had still said nothing to Beth.

  He had seen little of her, taken up with the preparations for departure, and she spent an excessive amount of time in her room. Rafael didn't like it, but he made no attempt to shake her from her lethargy, feeling she needed the time to come to grips with the tragedy that had widowed her so unexpectedly. But his patience was growing thin. Nathan had been dead now for over two weeks, and he thought it time Beth stopped hiding herself away from people and that she attempt to pick up the broken threads of her life. He wasn't certain he wanted Beth making any decisions at this time—but he damn well wanted the pale little ghost with the sad eyes gone. He wanted her back again, back from the haunted world she had retreated to, even if it meant she was spitting abuse at him and fighting with him.

  That night, long after the last whale-oil lamp had been extinguished and the last servant had sought out his quarters, as he lay sleepless in his bed, Rafael knew that he couldn't leave without having a private word with Beth. There were things that needed to be said between them and this was as good a time as any. They were alone in the house except for Senora Lopez, and she was a heavy sleeper and half deaf in the bargain, so it was unlikely that any argument he and Beth had would be overheard.

  Slipping naked from his bed, he shrugged on a wine-red silk robe and knotted the tasseled belt loosely about his lean waist. There was no need to dress—what he had to say to Beth wouldn't take long.

  Beth too had found sleep elusive, and she was fighting against the oblivion that the laudanum would give her. The past few nights she had managed to sleep without its soothing properties and she had hoped she was no longer dependent upon it. Not so, she decided gloomily when she gave up and vacated her tangled bed, the rumpled sheets and blankets proof of her twisting and turning.

  It was a pleasant night, the air cool but not chilly and, crossing to the double doors that led to the little balcony which overlooked the creek, Beth stepped out onto the balcony, drinking in the silence of the night. She was wearing a soft, diaphanous nightgown in pale rose and the full moon shining overhead outlined the slender whiteness of her body, the rosy nipples of her small breasts obvious through the sheerness of the delicate material, the slim hips and the lovely legs—all silhouetted by the moonlight.

  Rafael tapped softly on her door, but Beth, lost in her own unhappy thoughts, didn't hear his knock. Standing in the hallway, Rafael frowned and considered returning to his own rooms. Something stronge
r than convention was riding him and, giving in to a nameless urge to see her once again, he opened the door and walked into the moonlit room.

  The sound of the door shutting behind him was the first inkling that Beth had that Rafael was in her room. Startled that anyone would enter her rooms unannounced and at this hour of the night, she whirled around, her heart thumping wildly in her breast when she recognized the tall, dark figure striding toward her.

  The moonlight behind her gave Rafael an unobstructed view of her slender loveliness, hiding nothing of her body, and the sudden fierce desire that shot through his body drove every thought but one from his mind. A man of primitive passions, he had neither the inclination nor the willpower to stop his body from hardening with sexual arousal.

  Beth watched his approach with wide, half-wary eyes, the moonlight making them pools of purple. She wanted to run, she wanted to scream, yet she also wanted, with an intensity that frightened her, to stand where she was and let the passion so clearly defined on Rafael's dark face envelop them both.

  He halted a few feet from her, his face a contrast of silver and black—the haughty eyebrows were black as always, the arrogant nose silver, the wide reckless mouth with its frankly sensual curve silver too. The wine-red robe was dark, so dark in the moonlight that its color was barely guessed at. The V which formed where it met almost at his waist reflected back gleaming silvery skin, but no light penetrated the blue-black hair; it remained dark, dark as midnight.

  They stared wordlessly at one another. Knowing that if she didn't break the silence she would be lost, Beth demanded, "What are you doing in my room at this hour of the night? Have you gone mad?"

  Rafael smiled; a twist of his lips with no humor in it. "Most likely. But I wanted to speak with you before I left in the morning. Since you don't rise at dawn, this seemed as good a time as any." His face sardonic, he added, "You do know that I'm leaving for several weeks in the morning?"

  Beth nodded, pushing aside the emptiness she felt at that knowledge. The guilt and remorse Nathan's death had caused flooded through her body, reminding her that Rafael Santana's movements had nothing to do with her. If she'd never met him none of this would have happened—Nathan would be alive, not dead and buried, killed by a Comanche lance in the back. It was his fault, she thought with the twisted logic of someone consumed with grief and guilt.

  Rafael's presence in her room was a spark to the smoldering remorse that had lain in her breast these past weeks, and uncaringly, actually hating him at the moment, she said recklessly, "Have you come to gloat, senor? Now that my husband is dead, do you think that I am helpless against you?" Her voice rising with increasing hysteria, she cried, "Think again, you black-hearted devil! I have nothing to say to you, not now, not at any time. If you're not out of my room in the next instant, I'll... I'll..." She stopped, her mind blank as she searched for the vilest thing she could say to him.

  "You'll do what?" Rafael inquired softly. "Shoot me? Stab me?" His eyes on her soft mouth, he whispered, "Or love me to death?" as he swept her into his arms.

  His mouth was hungry on hers, and the feel of that barely clad body against the thin barrier of his robe was more than Rafael could bear. Urgently his lips parted hers and his tongue filled her mouth, demanding a response as deep and driving as the one that coursed through his body.

  For one mad, wild moment Beth gave into it, drowning in the sensuous thrusting of his tongue and the pleasurable pain of being crushed again in those strong arms. She could feel his arousal, it was there hard against her stomach, almost with a life of its own as the heat and size of it nudged her. But with a small cry of fury she broke from his arms and her eyes spitting sparks, she said hotly, "How can you dare? My husband not dead but two weeks and, and...!" Her breasts heaving with emotion, she voiced the thought that she had never admitted to. "You wanted him dead!" she accused. "You did! You did! You even said so that dreadful day." Losing her temper, she flew at him, her fists striking his face and chest, the tears that had never surfaced before flooding her eyes. "You wanted him dead!" she cried over and over again. "You did!"

  Rafael was bigger and stronger than Beth, but her fury gave her strength that surprised them both, and she managed to land several painful and bruising blows on his face and neck before he subdued her. Finally, though, both of them breathing heavily, he held her in front of him, both her wrists captured in his hands.

  She glared up at him, the sheen of tears giving her eyes a luminous glow. Staring into the lovely flushed features, Rafael admitted harshly, "I wanted him out of your life! Not dead."

  "Why?" she flashed. "So that you could make me your mistress? Did you really think I would be such an easy conquest?" Like quicksilver she slipped from his grasp and, looking up at him, she said in a voice shaking with outrage, "Never! Never, never, never! Do you hear me? I hate you! I hate you and I'd die before I'd let your dirty Comanche hands touch me!" It was the worst thing she could have said to him, but she was driven by devils that Rafael couldn't guess at; she was hurting herself as much as she was hurting him, one part of her standing back and staring, appalled, at the creature before him.

  His expression remained unchanged and goaded beyond reason, Beth swung at him, the open palm of her hand striking him across the mouth and cheek. Rafael regarded her for one moment longer, and then he struck her. Not hard, but hard enough, the sound of the slap ringing out like a pistol shot in the room. With a small, broken whimper Beth ran from him and flung herself face down on the bed—the sobs, the tears, the crying that had not fallen when Nathan died or when he was buried unleashed like a broken dam. She cried for a long time, and Rafael, his passion gone, his face empty, watched her until he could stand it no longer.

  Not a gentle man or a tender one, he was all of those things when, unable to bear the sight of her distress, he sank down on the bed beside her and gathered her sobbing, shaking form into his arms. For timeless seconds they clung to each other, Beth crying all the bitter, guilty tears that had been locked inside of her and Rafael gently and tenderly holding her in his arms, his mouth brushing the bright hair that tickled his chin, his hands tenderly caressing her arms, all the while murmuring soft words of comfort, perhaps even words of love.

  Gradually the tears were spent and Beth was left weak and exhausted, her tear-damp cheek leaning against the warm wall of Rafael's bare chest. She was empty inside, all the anguish she had kept tamped down having been expelled, leaving her with nothing but an aimless, lonely future. As coherent thought came creeping back, she suddenly conscious of the intimacy between her and Rafael.

  They were lying together on her bed, his arms holding her loosely, her face pressed to his chest where his robe parted, and one of his hands was lightly and impersonally caressing her hip and thigh, just a light touch but one that, now that she was aware of it, seemed to burn like a flame through the thinness of her nightgown. His other hand was gently moving over her head and shoulders, pushing back the tumbled heavy swathe of thick, silvery hair, his mouth pressing soft, comforting kisses on her temple and forehead. She lay very still, wanting to treasure this moment and keep it forever—she was in his arms and he was showing her all the tenderness and gentleness, all the care and comfort any woman could ever wish for.

  Just when he stopped comforting her, just when the touch became more than impersonal, Beth would always remember. She looked up into his face, intending to apologize for her loss of control, but the expression in the gray eyes staring intently into hers took her breath away and made her heart beat with thick strokes. Mesmerized, she stared back up at his dark, lean face, loving the way his heavy black eyebrows curved over those gray eyes and the crease that appeared in each cheek when he smiled.

  Rafael wasn't smiling—he was memorizing the delicate features before him. Beth was one of those fortunate women whose beauty was enhanced by tears rather than diminished. Her eyes were a clear, luminous violet; the golden-brown lashes, spiky from the tears, made her look like a wide-eyed kitten; her chee
ks were tinted a rosy hue; and her mouth was a temptation that no man could resist. With an effort Rafael tore his gaze from them, but his eyes slipped lower to where the V of her gown met the small valley between her breasts, her pink-tipped nipples thrusting against the nearly transparent material—and he knew he wouldn't be able to put her from him.

  He did try, but everything was against him. She was soft and warm in his arms, and when he reluctantly eased away from her, more of her charms were revealed by the not-so-modest nightgown—the lovely line of her hips and the slender shapeliness of her thighs were revealed through the misty material. Like a beggar in a counting house, he stared at the slim body so tantalizingly displayed, his eyes stopping for an endless moment at the junction of those white thighs as he stared fixedly at the barely discernible triangle of golden hair that grew there. With a groan he gathered her back against him, his mouth compulsively seeking hers, his touch not impersonal any longer.

  The other times that Rafael had made love to her there had been an element of violence about it, but not tonight. Tonight he was the exciting dream lover that every woman yearns for, his touch an exquisite caress like nothing else in the world.

  Despite the urgency of his own body, Rafael took his time, his hands slowly removing the flimsy scrap of nightwear that clouded all the beauties of Beth's body from his hungry eyes. Beth, hypnotized by the naked desire in the gray eyes, made no move to stop him, her body arching up, begging for the touch of his dark hand against her pale skin.

  But he didn't touch her immediately. Instead, lifting his head, he stared at the fragile body before him, the small breasts swollen with passion, the enticing curve of the slim waist, the white, white skin of her stomach and the slender thighs. She was incredibly desirable to him, her body an alabaster-and-pink altar that he paid homage to, his own body hardening and tightening with delicious hunger to lose himself again in the hot, satiny sheath of her.