by tiffy
Santiago, like his brother, is on our side. Among our people he isʺ
ʺThe Red Eagle,ʺ Elise interjected. ʺI have been told such by the men on the pack train. The Osage call him the White Apache. Yet you, who are Apache, dress in Spanish clothes. Is it because you would please the white side of his nature? He is Spanish and Irish, not truly Apache.ʺ
Anaʹs face hardened, and her voice cracked with suppressed fury. ʺHe has chosen to be one of usa thing most whites like you could never understand.
And he has none of his fatherʹs evil blood in him. None!ʺ
ʺI apologize, Ana. I know of Conal Quinn and did not mean Now it was Ana who cut off Elise. ʺYou already know too much about us, white woman. Return to your own kind as soon as you are able.ʺ Her eyes narrowed with venomous hatred. ʺThis I swear to you. If you betray Santiago, I shall kill you as an Apache does his enemies.ʺ
Chapter Eighteen
Elise tried to rest for an hour or so after Ana left, then gave up, deciding she was too upset by the striking Lipan womanʹs words. Ana loves Santiago and would make him a good and loyal wife. Something Elise Louvois certainly could not do. But did she love the renegade? The question haunted her. For weeks, perhaps ever since their first tempestuous kiss, she had pushed the idea to the back of her mind.
After she had finally surrendered to their mutual passion, she was even more unwilling to face the issue, reasoning that he had given her the only gift she could in conscience accept from himfreedom from Edouardʹs taunts about her frigid inadequacy as a woman.
ʹʹIʹm too confused to think straight. What I need is a good hot bath to wash away the trail grime.ʺ She reached for the bell pull and Lupe quickly appeared. Within an hour, she sat soaking in a tub of heavenly warm water. Orlena had poured in violet‐scented oil, saying she knew the perfume would suit Elise. Had Santiago told her?
She laid her head against the tub and turned over in her mind the chaotic pieces of her life. Samuel had to be her first priority. She must locate him, and together they could then work to keep the fragile peace between Spain and the United States. After that . . . surely her confused feelings about Santiago would sort themselves out.
Possibly he would deliver her to Santa Fe as they had agreed and ride off with never a backward glance, but some feminine instinct told her he would not.
Orlena had said he rode True Blood half to death getting her here and then sat up all night with her. He had almost revealed his feelings the day they nearly died during the tornado, but she had stopped him. How much longer would he respect her wishes, especially when she no longer was at all certain what her wishes were?
Determined to hold such thoughts at bay, she picked up the bar of soap and began to bathe her face and neck, but when she reached up to suds her hair, the pain in her lower arm throbbed wickedly. Cursing in French, she persevered, succeeding in getting soap in her eyes. She dunked her face beneath the water and blinked back burning tears.
ʺI suspected you might need some help, and that youʹd do something this foolish scarcely twenty‐four hours after a brush with death.ʺ
Elise jerked upright, pulling sopping masses of black hair over her breasts as she tried to focus her eyes on Santiago. He was leaning indolently in the doorway, his green eyes devouring her wet, naked body. He had obviously already had the opportunity to bathe and shave away several daysʹ growth of beard. ʺClose that door! Anyone couldʺ He did so, stepping inside. She angrily corrected herself, ʺClose it as you leave! Anyone who walked in and saw us like thisʺ
ʺNo one will walk in.ʺ He slid the bolt on the door and slowly walked toward the tub.
ʺSantiago, please. What will your sister think of me.?ʺ
He shrugged. ʺThis is my room. And you are my woman. Orlena knows when to be discreet. Anyway, with a large ranch to run and four children to care for, she has more than enough to occupy her. Except for a few servants, everyone has left the house until dinner time.ʺ
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. ʺYou planned this.ʺ
ʺPerhaps I did.ʺ He continued stalking around the tub. ʺYou cannot wash all that heavy hair with your injured arm.ʺ
ʺThere are other things I cannot do with an injured arm, as well,ʺ she snapped back.
Santiago laughed as he knelt by the edge of the tub and began to work a thick lather through her masses of night‐dark hair. ʺFor such an educated female, you show a deplorable lack of imagination, querida.ʺ
He finished with her hair and poured a large clay ewer of water over her head to rinse it. While she held the heavy coil of wet hair with her good arm, he began sensuously working the slick soap across her body. When he reached her breasts, she could not hide her response to the tingling pleasure, especially as he rinsed the hard nubby points by cupping them with water‐filled hands.
Santiago held both perfect spheres in his palms, lifting one, then the other, as if comparing two rare works of art. ʺSo beautiful,ʺ he murmured, then again took the soap and began to move lower, sensing that she was powerless to protest any further. Her body trembled in anticipation of his every touch.
Since Santiago had first laid eyes on her, he had witnessed Elise survive many brushes with death, but not until he rode through the mountains holding her fever‐wracked body in his arms had he admitted to himself what he now did.
Orlena had seen it at once. He loved Elise Louvois. No matter if he could trust her or not, he must have her. With utmost gentleness and soft erotic caresses, he completed the seductive bathing, massaging her sleek long legs, slender ankles, and small, delicately shaped feet.
ʺI think you are quite clean enough,ʺ he said in a passion‐roughened voice. He used a piece of soft white cotton cloth to rinse her. Recalling how he had used similar cloths yesterday to cool her feverish body, he swallowed. What if he had lost her?
Elise surrendered to his tender ministrations, so unlike their passionate couplings in the wilderness. Here, in this beautiful house, surrounded by the amenities of civilization, Santiago Quinn had become a different man, yet one she desired no less than she did the fiercely savage renegade.
Taking her cue from his soft, gentle wooing, she traced her fingertips over the contours of his beautifully sculpted face, the prominent straight nose and arched reddish eyebrows, then down the angular slant of his cheekbones, lingering on the fine white scar which only served to accent his masculine beauty. ʺHow did you come to have this?ʺ she whispered.
He did not answer, but took her mouth in a soft lingering kiss, rimming her lips with the tip of his tongue. When she opened to him, he laved inside as gently and thoroughly as he had laved her outer body. ʺI want to taste all of you,ʺ he said as he lifted her from the tub and set her on the polished wood floor.
ʺIʹll ruin the wood,ʺ she protested, but he quickly seized a pile of soft linen toweling and began to dry her, working up from her feet and legs to her hips.
He skirted past the soft black curls at the juncture of her thighs, whispering, ʺIʹll leave the outside as wet as the inside.ʺ Then he massaged her spine and her breasts until she clung to him, still weak from her brush with death, but drugged even more by his touch.
When he carried her to the bed and sat her in the center of it, he used one last towel to rub dry her long heavy hair. Through the linen, she could feel the kneading of his fingers on her scalp. Elise closed her eyes in bliss and heard herself whisper his name. ʺSantiago.ʺ How beautiful the Spanish word felt on her tongue.
When he laid her back against the pillows, every fiber of her being felt as liquid as the warm, oiled bathwater. She watched with unabashed pleasure while he stood over her, kicking off his moccasins, slipping the open linen shirt over his head, and peeling down the soft buckskin breeches. The play of lean, sinuous muscles beneath his bronzed skin was poetry in motion. She traced the thick russet hair on his chest as the cunning pattern narrowed to an arrow‐thin line, leading directly down past his flat, hard belly to where his sex stood proudly erect. Leaning forward, she took the
hot velvety hardness in her hand and stroked it.
He knelt on the bed, her prisoner now, shaking with the pleasure her lightest touch evoked. His hands found her breasts and lifted them, teasing the nipples until she arched against his thighs. He squeezed her breasts against his staff, imprisoning it between them, then groaned in pure bliss. When she began to writhe, her movements nearly drove him over the edge. He pulled away from the luscious embrace.
Then Elise felt the pressure of his hands on her shoulders, pushing her gently back onto the bed. ʺNo exertion for you, querida. Only lie still and let me love you.ʺ He knelt at her side and began to rain soft wet kisses from her face to her throat, then over her breasts to her belly.
When his mouth moved lower yet and nuzzled the raven curls, she remembered his earlier words, I want to taste all of you. He could not possibly mean . . . men did not do that to women . . . did they?
Quickly she learned that they did. He eased himself between her thighs and spread them; then his hot, seeking lips and tongue found her. And he was right.
She was wet inside as well as outside. Her hands poised on his shoulders as if to push him away, but already he was working such delicate and intense magic that she was powerless to stop him. Gradually her hands slid up the nape of his neck, and her fingers tangled in his thick, russet hair.
Santiago felt her initial resistance melt into a passionate assent. Soon he felt her fingers tugging on his hair, pulling him yet closer as her breath came in small ragged gasps and moans. When he felt spasmotic tremors begin to wrack her slender body, he rose over her and quickly plunged into her quivering sheath.
Gritting his teeth, he held still, buried deep inside her, letting the first waves of orgasm wash over her before he began to slowly rock her in the age‐old rhythm.
ʺEasy, Elise, slow, just lie still and allow me . . .ʺ His own words strangled in his throat when she arched up to meet him. Seizing her pelvis in his hands, he stilled her, gentling their mating dance, cupping her hips until he felt her crest a second time.
Then he relinquished his control, not in fierce grinding passion but in a slow, deliberate homecoming that stole upon him like the dawn breaking over the horizon, slowly at first, then culminating in a fierce, multicolored explosion of brilliant light, flooding all his senses.
Elise held him as he spent himself and then rolled them carefully to lie on their sides, deliberately sparing her injured arm, which he held across his chest protectively. ʺThis was different,ʺ she said softly, then realized the double entendre and blushed fiercely. ʺII meant the ending . . . so soft and gentle.ʺ
He smiled and tucked a wayward raven curl behind her ear. ʺYes, it was. We usually tear at each other like mating wildcats. Perhaps Iʹve learned something in the last two daysor finally admitted it to myself.ʺ He kissed her with heartrending tenderness, then rolled away from her and off the bed.
Her heart felt squeezed so painfully in her chest that she could not utter a sound as she rose and began to dress. He had brought her a fresh change of clothing from Orlena, which he had tossed onto the chair by the door. One of the beautiful camisas and a skirt of deep purple linen lay soft and fresh beside some daintily sewn batiste undergarments.
He finished dressing first and walked to the door. ʺIʹll bring us some wine from the kitchen. My brother receives fine vintages from the City of Mexico.ʺ
She inspected herself in the large oval mirror hanging on one whitewashed wall.
Orlena had chosen well. The embroidery in the blouse matched the color of the full skirt. Simply cut clothing suited to this strange foreign land, they flattered her, clinging to every curve. The violet color highlighted her eyes while the pure white of the blouse contrasted with her golden tanned skin. ʺI could be a Spanish woman.ʺ No. Her thoughts were interrupted when Santiago returned with a bottle and two lovely crystal goblets.
He poured and handed her a glass, his bright emerald eyes studying her pensively. After taking a swallow for courage, he said, ʺElise, when I rode here with you unconscious in my arms, I realized my feelings toward you had changed.ʺ He added darkly, ʺIn ways I didnʹt want to admit.ʺ
Elise listened intently, afraid of what he was going to say, but knowing there was no way to prevent it. Their relationship had gone too far now to turn it back to the simple passion they had discovered along the trail. No, what is between us has never been simple, she forced herself to admit as she sipped the sweet wine.
ʺI love you, Elise. I never thought to speak those words to another woman as long as I lived, a vow made nearly a decade ago and well kept . . . until you.ʺ
ʺYou know nothing about me, Santiagoyou donʹt even trust me.ʺ
He smiled wryly and shrugged in that careless, graceful manner she had grown to love. ʺI suppose I can learn to trust, if you can. Iʹll give up this reckless lifefor you. Will you marry me, Elise?ʺ
Her heart felt as if it had shattered in minute fragments. The pain was more than she could bear. Unable to stop herself, Elise sat down her wine, spilling it onto the polished oak table. She stepped toward him, her hands clenched in the folds of her dress as she choked on the words she had to say. ʺI cannot marry you, Santiago. I am still wed to Edouard Louvois.ʺ
He stiffened, then reached out and seized her shoulders, his fingers like bands of steel, holding her fast. ʺYou said you were a widow.ʺ
ʺII lied. Weʹve lived apart for yearsʺ
ʺHow convenient for you,ʺ he replied coldly, releasing her and turning away.
She watched the anger drain slowly from his face, replaced by the emotionless mask of Quinn the renegade. ʺI suppose the deception is related to your mission to rescue your brother in Sante Fe?ʺ His voice was ice cold. ʺIs this mysterious sibling really your husband? Or perhaps another lover?ʺ The sting of betrayal cut deeply, far more than it had with Juliette.
ʺSantiago, please donʹtʺ
ʺDonʹt what? Ask questions you cannot or will not answer? Who is this supposed brother?ʺ
ʺLieutenant Samuel Shelby. He was with Pikeʹs expedition. You were right about that, but Pike is working for General Wilkinson and my brother is trying to stop him.ʺ
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her with glacial green eyes, his expression as hard and cynical as she had ever seen it. ʺSo, you and this brother are out to prevent a war. How noble. Who in the hell are you, madam? Ever since the night I met you on the St. Louis riverfront, men have been trying to kill you.ʺ
ʺI . . . I cannot tell you everything, only thatʺ
ʺForgive me! I donʹt wish to hear any more of your clever lies or half truths. I was willing to trust you, Elise, but you wonʹt ever trust a renegade like me, will you?
Maybe youʹve never trusted anyone. A lesson I too thought Iʹd learned in my youth. I was a fool to forget it.ʺ He turned from her and stormed through the door, slamming it behind him as he said, ʺIʹll send Spybuck to escort you to Santa Fe as soon as youʹre able to travel.ʺ
The silence echoed around her. Elise stood alone in the center of the room, surrounded by all the memories of their lovethe subtle musky smell of sex, the rumpled bedsheets, the tub of bathwater, now gone cold . . . cold as her heart. ʺIf I still have a heart. Why didnʹt I let the president secure my freedom from Edouard?ʺ
A foolish question now. The decision had been made many years ago when she was certain she could never fall in love. ʺNow itʹs too late.ʺ The walls seemed to close in on her as she collapsed on the bed, clutching the sheets to staunch her tears. She inhaled the faint essence of leather, tobacco, and the spicy male scent that was uniquely his.
Santiago went to the room he had been sleeping in and threw a few toilet articles in his pack, then swung it over his shoulder and headed toward the sala. He could hear Bartoloméʹs and Orlenaʹs voices.
ʺHow do you know you can trust her? I do not like an American knowing about the rifles.ʺ
Before she could reply, Orlena heard Santiagoʹs footfalls on the polished wooden floor and looked up to see him s
tanding grim‐faced in the doorway with his saddle pack slung over his shoulder. ʺAre you leaving? What has happened?ʺ
ʺI go to meet Spybuck. He is to take Elise to Santa Fe.ʺ He quickly turned to his nephew. ʺWhat is this about Elise knowing of the weapons we brought?ʺ
Bartoloméʹs green eyes hardened. ʺYou did not tell her of it. I thought not. She must be a spy.ʺ
ʺA spy for whom? Santiago, what is going on?ʺ Orlena asked, impatiently ignoring her hot‐tempered young son. ʺElise knew about the weapons for our people, but she thought you were selling them for profit. I explained the truth of the matter. If she were a spythe Blessed Virgin only knows for whomwhy would she reveal such knowledge by openly asking? She mistrusted you, Santiago, but she does no longer.ʹʹ
His face was expressionless now. ʺShe had better mistrust meand fear me.ʺ He cursed himself for all the times he and his men had spoken Spanish in front of her. Her husband had beenno, he corrected himself was a diplomat. They traveled across Europe. If she spoke French and English, why not Spanish as well? ʺShe must have overheard us speaking in Spanish about the weapons.ʺ
Orlena placed her hand on his arm. ʺSurely you do not think she is a Spanish agent? I cannot believe it.ʺ
ʺShe says she is here to prevent a war between the Americans and the Spanish.
Frankly, I do not know what she might do.ʺ
ʺShe loves you,ʺ Orlena insisted.
He raised one eyebrow cynically. ʺReally? A pity the lady can do little to regularize our relationship. She already has a husband. Her French diplomat is very much alive.ʺ
ʺThat does not mean she is a French spywhat have they to gain in the wilds of New Mexico? The French emperor cares naught for us,ʺ Orlena reasoned.
ʺShe knows the American Wilkinson is in Spanish payperhaps because she is, too. The weapons have all been disbursed to our Lipan brothers. She cannot prevent or betray that, but she might also know about this last raid of the Night Wind. I must ride to intercept Joaquin.ʺ
Orlenaʹs face paled now. ʺSurely she would not know where he takes the children!ʺ ʺI am not certain, but there is one way we might find out. She wrote in a diary nearly every day of our journey. It is with her baggage at the rendezvous point where I am to meet Spybuck. I will read it closely. If there is no evidence, I will send Spybuck to escort her to Santa Fe and watch her. If she plans betrayal of our cause . . . I will return to deal with her.ʺ
