“You do have a problem.”
“Yes, and it is this, the gun or the knife?”
“Am I supposed to ask you why?” the colonel inquired with a lift of his brow.
“But yes, amigo. This problem, he concerns you greatly. Colonel Henry is one formidable hombre, the most immortal of the Immortals! He would be hard to kill even with his arm in a sling, and the plump blonde woman, this Mazie, it would not be so rewarding to fight for her as for the woman on your arm, the woman they are calling in the plazas the red-haired witch.”
How much of what Luis said was banter, how much serious, Eleanora could not tell. She only knew that his words, coming so close upon Grant Farrell’s explanation, gave her a feeling curiously like guilt. She could not help the color of her hair or the fact that her fairness was a rarity here in this country of dark-skinned, dark-haired people. She only knew with a fearful sureness that she should never have come.
“You think,” Colonel Farrell asked, “that I would be easier to kill?”
“No, no, my friend, only a little less willing to kill me.”
“Forgive me, gentlemen,” Eleanora said, “but I think I ought to warn you that I do not automatically go to the victor.”
“No, Eleanora, don’t say so. You take the challenge from life,” Luis said mournfully.
“Good,” was her heartless reply. “I believe — Grant, the general is trying to get your attention.”
President Rivas had left the reception early, almost immediately following the ordeal of the receiving line. The next to go was Minister Wheeler. Finally it was Walker’s turn, the signal that the reception was over and all could retire in order.
Taking his leave of the colonel and Eleanora, the general had been a most gracious host, presenting Niña Maria and insisting that Eleanora and Colonel Farrell join them in their private apartment for dinner some evening. What could Eleanora do but express her delight at the prospect? At the same time, she was aware of a growing sense of unreality. The events of this day, this night, could not be happening to her. She was desperately tired, her sensibilities bludgeoned into apathy, and yet her nerves felt flayed, quivering with the anticipation of yet another blow. What she would do when it came she did not know.
5
There were no street lamps in Granada. The open expanse of the central plaza was dark except for the faint glimmer of a lighted window here and there and the firefly flicker of linkboys lighting the way of the guests home with their lanterns of pierced tin. The colonel threw a coin to one of the waiting boys, and with a softly murmured gracias he started off, silent in his bare feet, looking back often to be certain they were following.
It was slightly cooler outside than in, but the air was heavy, with a sulfurous smell. Low on the horizon to the southeast there was the shimmer of heat lightning, a steady pulsation that seemed to intensify the darkness around them. As they passed the rear of the cathedral they heard the disturbed murmur of pigeons from the cote kept by the holy fathers and the croak of a tree frog, a monotonous sound from a tree in the garden.
A torch burned brightly on either side of the palacio doorway, illuminating the street for some distance and picking out the intricate iron grilles that covered all the windows along the front of the house. The sight was a reminder of Eleanora’s close confinement in the upstairs bedroom. Setting her lips, she preceded the colonel into the entrance corridor. She could not, she would not, be locked in again.
A single lantern, hanging from a crossbeam at the foot of the stairs, illuminated the patio. Eleanora stopped beneath it and turned. “Colonel Farrell—”
The commanding lift of his head stopped her, and then she grew angry with herself for being intimidated. “Why must I call you Grant? The masquerade is done, over.”
“Is it?”
“Of course it is. I have done what you wanted. Now you must let me go.”
“Go? Where? To what?”
The sneer in his voice was all too apparent. Eleanora stiffened. “I don’t see that it concerns you. I have resources—”
“I’m sure. You can just as easily put them to use here.”
As the probable meaning of his words penetrated, Eleanora flushed. “You don’t understand. I can’t stay here with you, I can’t.”
“Because you don’t particularly like me? You should have considered that before you made yourself so pleasant to the general, and before you tried to promote a feud between Luis and me. Both maneuvers only served to make it necessary to keep you close to me. Uncle Billy wants to see you again. That is, in effect, a royal command, since whether you realize it or not, he is head of the government here. Add to that Luis is one of my best officers. I will not have you playing him off against all comers.”
“I did no such thing” Eleanora exclaimed in indignation when she could catch her breath. “Lieutenant Colonel de Laredo spoke only in jest.”
“Not a healthy thing to do in Granada. Why would he speak at all unless you encouraged him?”
“If you have such a low opinion of me I’m surprised you can tolerate my presence!”
His smile was grim as he moved in closer. “You do very well, as long as your mouth is shut.”
She stepped backward but the newel of the stair was behind her and she was brought up short against it. The metals on his chest cut into her shoulder as she was dragged against his long length. His fingers sank into the soft curls at the back of her head, tightening, holding her motionless for the warm descent of his lips, firm, consuming, destroying thought or resistance. She could not move under the controlled savagery of his passion, and for her involuntary quiescence she was rewarded by a lethal tenderness. His grip loosened, his mouth moved to the quivering corner of hers. A bell pealed, and startled into awareness by its reverberations, she tore her mouth away, twisting out of his arms, half-falling as his boot trod upon the edge of her dipping hoop skirt. He caught her arm, but in the instant of balance she wrenched free, plunging for the dark tunnel of the entranceway.
Once more the bell clanged. It was the pull-bell hanging beside the great front door. That portal had not been barred. Eleanora grasped the handle and pulled it open, then checked, panting, as she saw the uniformed man who stood before her. That instant of hesitation was enough. The colonel was beside her, his fingers closing like a vise about her wrist.
“Yes?” he rapped.
With an obvious effort, the soldier on the threshold conquered his curiosity, schooling his face to impassivity. “Beg pardon, sir. The general requests your presence at the Government House at once. Urgent business.”
“Urgent?”
“It’s the prisoner, Colonel, the man caught sneaking into General Walker’s quarters. He’s dead.”
“Under questioning?” the colonel asked, his voice sharp.
“No, sir. The Nicaraguans never got a thing out of him. Looks like he was killed to keep him from talking.”
“Inform the general I will be with him shortly.”
Without waiting for a reply, Colonel Farrell closed the door in the man’s face. His voice rasped across the dark space between them with a harsh impatience. “You can walk to your room, or you can go over my shoulder like a sack of horse rations. Take your pick.”
Principle should prevent her from cooperating even to that extent, but what did principle matter compared to the prospect of indignity? There was always the hope, however frail, that he would be satisfied with baiting her, with presenting the outward appearance of possession.
“Well?”
“I prefer to walk,” she replied in a stifled tone that turned abruptly vicious, “if I must go.”
“You must,” he said, and it was not only the hollow echo of the stone passageway that gave his words the timbre of grim disappointment.
The heat was a fierce presence in the closed room, an enemy that drew the smell of dust and ancient mildew from the dry and creaking walls and scorched the breath in Eleanora’s nostrils. A slow dew of perspiration formed upon her face, trickling into he
r hair. Stripped to chemise and one petticoat, discarding even her ankle-length pantalettes, she lay upon the bed, listlessly fanning with her handkerchief, thinking with longing of her grandmother’s evening fan of pleated lace with mother-of-pearl sticks which had been in her trunk. Gone. Irretrievable, like so much else.
She would not think of that. Try as she might, she could change nothing. Explain? Plead? How? How was she to find the words to make the essential truth plain? And having found them, how could she hope to have the colonel believe her against the evidence of his own eyes? And yet, she must try. She was not a fool. She knew it was imperative that she try.
In agitation she swung her feet off the bed and stood up. There was water in the pitcher on the washstand beside the bed. By touch in the night-black room she wet her handkerchief and held it to her flushed face. With her hand trailing upon the high mattress for guidance, she moved about the room. Now and then from beyond the curtained French doors came the glimmer of distant lightning. Perhaps Mazie had been right, perhaps the rainy season was not over.
Lifting the heavy weight of her loosened hair, she pressed the damp cloth to the back of her neck. The beginning of a headache was forming between her temples. It was the oppressive atmosphere in the tightly shut room. She needed air. It was ridiculous to cower here in misery. There was no safety behind those shut doors when the key to the grille beyond was not in her possession. And what good did it do to protect even her modesty when Grant Farrell could come striding into her room at any time he chose?
The table had been shoved out of the way against the wall. Pushing aside the thin muslin curtain, she released the latch and threw the double frames wide. The night air crept around her, not perceptibly cooler but charged with an ozone freshness that was a great improvement. She stood for a time clinging to the cool metal of the grille, watching the heat flashes light the lower edge of the black night sky to gray-blue. Tiredness trembled along her nerves, but she could not compose her mind to sleep. When would Colonel Farrell return, and in what mood?
After a time the trembling communicated itself to her fingers. Relaxing their cramped hold, she turned away. Her petticoat dragged at her waist, a constricting weight that flopped limply around her ankles as she walked. In sudden annoyance she jerked the bow in the tapes undone and stepped out of it, flinging it at the bed.
It was much cooler in her thigh-length chemise. The torn ribbon strap allowed the neckline to gape, showing the soft fullness of one breast nearly to the pink aureole, but it could not be helped. She had nothing with which to make repairs, and nothing else to use for a nightgown.
If only the bed was in front of the window. She might be able to sleep in that slight draft. The whole room might have been pleasant enough if she could have opened the door to the inner galería for cross ventilation. That was denied to her, of course. The next best thing then was to place a pallet on the floor, something she had often done as a child in New Orleans. It was cooler at that lower level, cooler without the smothering softness of a mattress. A sheet spread over one of the rugs strewn over the floor would make an acceptable substitute.
She had not been stretched out upon the floor long before the silent current of a breeze stirred her hair. Sighing, she turned on her side, moving her hair from under her face, spreading it out around her with a sweep of her arm. She closed her eyes.
Alarm, insistent, jangling, woke her. Wind, chilling in its rush, swirled over her. It had torn the curtains from where she had draped them, billowing the gauzy material toward the ceiling. Outside, it scoured the stone face of the palacio with a whining rush, rattling the grilles beneath the overhang of the galerías, and, in the distance, setting the cathedral bell to swinging so that it announced the storm with a mournful and discordant chime.
Eleanora sat up, hugging her arms, her gaze going automatically to the window opening. Lightning streaked molten silver across the blue-velvet night sky. It was followed by the rumbling roar of thunder, but she did not hear it. Her concentration was focused on the man who stood on the galería outside, her window. The wind tore at his dark hair but had no other visible effect on the bare-chested figure planted with his back to the railing, the bronze muscles of his shoulders and forearms etched in silver fire against the skyline.
It was Grant Farrell, his eyes unreadable and his teeth bared in a ferocious smile as he stared at her. How long had he been there, how long had he watched, gloating, over her near-nakedness?
Scrambling to her feet, Eleanora ducked under the blowing curtain, reaching for the leaves of the French doors. With an almost casual movement, the colonel reached out and stripped the chain, already unlocked, from the grille. The wrought-iron barrier creaked open, he shouldered through, and with upraised palms blocked the closing doors. Eleanora braced, straining, against them, but she was no match for either the colonel or his battering ally, the wind.
The doors gave way, crashing against the wall. Eleanora stumbled back, then kept retreating, watching with exaggerated care the lithe and sure advance of the man silhouetted now in darkness.
“Wait,” she said breathlessly, one hand going out in an unconsciously supplicating gesture.
“Wait for what? You knew it would come to this in the end.” His voice was soft, not gloating, not coaxing, just quietly unrelenting.
“No,” she denied, her voice strained. “If you do this — I will never forgive you.”
“I have no use for forgiveness.”
It was useless. Words could not reach him, still she had to try. “You will regret this. I am not—”
“Regret it?” he cut across her faltering attempt at an explanation. “Are you threatening me? Fair enough. I never mind paying for what I want.”
The shock of anger rippled through Eleanora. In a flash of blue-white lightning she saw the cynical twist of his lips and, without conscious intent struck out at him. Her wrist was captured, twisted, pinned behind her back. She was dragged against him, her breasts pressed to the board hardness of his naked chest. Eleanora gasped as the breath left her lungs, but she brought her free hand up, clawing instinctively for his eyes. He snapped his head back, letting her rake his neck before he wrenched that arm down and behind her also. Her hands were numb, her shoulders straining in their sockets as he lifted her, still she jerked her head forward. With satisfaction she felt his lip split against his teeth, heard his muffled oath. And then she was swung violently, dizzily so that for a panic-stricken instant she was still, accepting the iron-bound circle of his arms.
They landed on the bed with a force that jarred it against the wall and set the rope supports to jouncing. Her knee came up, and in burning determination, she thrust herself away from him, arching her back. With a surge of triumph she felt the grip of his fingers loosen and break on her left wrist, and setting her teeth, she redoubled her efforts. But using his free hand he gripped the lawn of her chemise between her heaving breasts and pulled, rending it from neckline to hem. The blood rushed to Eleanora’s head. She stiffened. And then as she felt his warm hand cup the soft ripeness of her breast, she brought the heel of her hand up, flailing at him with frantic strength, wriggling, sliding, letting her weight drag her over the side of the bed. What was left of the chemise rode up about her shoulders baring her lower body, but she did not care. Nothing mattered except escaping Grant Farrell’s merciless embrace.
She could not. The ends of her hair were caught under his elbow. The bones of her right wrist ground together as he retained that hold. He reached for her, his hand sliding over her bare hip before catching the back of her thighs and heaving her upward. He rolled upon her, clamping her arms to her sides, pushing his knee between her legs. Lightning crackled. Panting, they stared into each other’s eyes, she with a wild despair, he with baffled ardor. Slowly he lowered his blood-stained mouth to her trembling lips. Long and deep he kissed her, taking full advantage of her exhaustion. Tears of pain and frustration rose, overflowing in wet tracks across her temples, running into her hair. Outside th
e first shafts of rain struck the house, blowing onto the floor of the galería with the wet splutter of ridiculing laughter.
He explored the moist corners of her eyelids, the curve of her cheek, and the line of her jaw where it merged with the tender curve of her neck. His quickening breath seared her skin, touching off a prickling reaction of gooseflesh that became an uncontrollable shudder as his lips trailed fiery kisses to the valley between the white globes of her breasts. As he chose one of them for closer attention she felt an explosion of such helpless wrath that she lunged under him, hands spread, braced on the mattress, every muscle straining to throw him off. The effort served only to whet his desire. He shifted, divesting himself of his breeches in a few swift movements before she could renew the attack. And then he was upon her once more, his hardness, the ridged muscles of his legs, pressing into her thighs. He possessed her mouth, his hands ravaging her flesh with an intimacy she could not prevent. From deep inside she felt the acid spread of a growing weakness, a primitive impulse toward surrender that had nothing to do with her will. She fought it, moving her head in a faint negation, but the heat of his body, his every touch added to the destruction of her defenses. The vulnerability of her loins became an ache needful of assuagement. Still she resisted that final pillage — resisted, and her writhing helped his implacable, burning entry. Her indrawn breath was trapped, bursting, in her chest while her every muscle and nerve tensed in rejection. He released her hands as he changed position, and immediately she clutched his shoulders, digging her nails into the skin in a mindless effort to communicate her extremity to him. His lips caressed the taut skin of her neck below her ear. His whisper was a soft rustle of reassurance. Slowly, insidiously, her distress was soothed; she began to relax. Then came the tumult of his pleasure. She could only cling to him, accommodating him in his passion as he wished because it was less hurtful, until it was over.
He withdrew from her abruptly to lie, raised on one elbow, staring in her direction through the dark. Gradually her breathing slowed. She could hear the rain, drumming on the roof. Turning her head, she could just make out the muslin curtain flapping wetly in the mist-laden wind.
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2 Page 54
