The bed creaked as Grant Farrell swung off the side. There was the scratch of a sulfur match, and light bloomed atop the candle on the washstand. She made a swift attempt to cover her nakedness, pulling at the rag of her chemise, her eyes wide and deep, dark green. Shaking out the match, he tossed it to the washstand, then like the release of a tightly wound spring he reached for her, dragging her from the bed to stand beside him. Together they stared at the red stain smeared on the sheets. His hands tightening on her arms, he swung her to face him.
“Why?” he demanded, a shadow that might have been bewilderment clouding his eyes.
The coldness of angry pride invaded her face, smoothing her features to a bitter contempt. Slowly, almost gently, she removed herself from his grasp. Shrugging out of her torn garment, she let it fall to the floor, then took up her petticoat that had fallen over the foot of the bed. Its wide width wrapped about her like a cloak, she moved to the window, and stepping around the wet floor and sodden curtain, stood leaning against the frame, staring out over the red roofs of the town, glistening under the last fitful flares of lightning, toward the cloud-shrouded cones of Ometepe.
“You sound,” she said at last, “as if I am to be the accused.”
He stepped to the foot of the bed, his hand resting on one of the upright posts. “I don’t rape virgins,” he said grimly.
“Don’t you? Well, no, perhaps not, not the ones who are properly guarded. Those who aren’t must, of course, be fair game.”
“You have a tongue in your head, you could have told me.”
“Yes, and I might have if I had realized it would make a difference. You could have made certain before mistaking me for a — a woman of the streets.”
“There was ample reason to take that for granted,” he grated.
“Indeed? But then, it doesn’t matter, does it? I have your word for it that a woman, any woman, may not be forced, in Nicaragua, that she must be paid or cajoled.” Slowly she turned to face him. “For what you have done, Colonel Grant Farrell, the penalty is death.”
No flicker of expression crossed his face for a long moment, then a wolfish light blazed in his eyes. He advanced upon her, and bending, scooped her high into his arms. His gaze raked her stiff face and the soft swell of her breasts where she held the material across them.
“Then,” he said, his voice holding a rough edge in its softness, “I will have something more to make it worth presenting my back to a firing squad.”
Fists, pounding on a door, jerked Eleanora from the deep sleep of exhaustion. She was instantly aware of many things, the flood of sunlight in the room, her nakedness under a thin sheet, the warm abrasiveness of a man’s body against her, soreness, the wild tangle of her hair, and a deep mental malaise.
The knocking was coming from the door to her room which overlooked the patio. Above the noise came the sound of women’s voices raised in altercation. The colonel lay still beside her, but he was not asleep. She could feel the tension of alertness in his muscles. The knob of the door was shaken viciously, and then the voices began to fade.
Throwing back the sheet, Colonel Farrell sat up and, from the sound, began to pull on his breeches. Eleanora closed her eyes, a slow flush moving painfully to her hairline. Perhaps he would leave without speaking. She had nothing to say to him, no wish to look into his face ever again. His easy mastery of the responses of her body was like a canker hidden deep inside her. She thought she had kept the full knowledge of it from him under the mantle of darkness, but she was not certain her powers of dissembling would be proof against the bright glare of morning.
In the next room a door opened. Footsteps crossed the board floor and clattered nearer along the galería. They could hear the voice of Señora Paredes in unusual agitation, coming nearer. “Wait, Juanita! No! This is stupid, a madness.”
Suddenly the muslin curtain, dried in the morning breeze from the lake, was swept aside. A woman, dark, Spanish, stepped into the room. Her face was aristocratic with thin, arching brows and an imperious nose, the thin nostrils flaring with anger. Her sherry-colored eyes narrowed as she surveyed Eleanora in her tangle of sheets, and she tossed back the mane of dark hair that hung between her shoulder blades. Beneath the low neck of the thin white blouse, such as the peasant women wore, her honey-colored breasts rose and fell with the swiftness of her breathing. Her feet were bare and spattered with mud from the street. She wore no petticoat under her tiered skirt of red and blue and green, for the sun shone through it, outlining her sturdy limbs.
“Your pardon, Colonel,” Señora Paredes said from the doorway. “I could not stop her.”
“That’s all right. You can go.” His voice was curt. He did not take his eyes from the woman called Juanita.
The señora effaced herself at once. Juanita took a step forward, her hands on her hips. “So. I heard it in the plaza, but I did not believe it. The iron soledad has taken a woman, a norteamericana, into his house to warm his bed. Why, amor mio? Did you grow tired of coming to me? I would have come to you. You had only to ask.”
“But I did not ask, did I?”
His distaste for the scene she was enacting was plain in the deadly quiet comment. In Juanita’s place, Eleanora thought, she would have been too mortified to continue, even if she could have brought herself to descend to such self-abasement in the first place. Feeling at a disadvantage, she struggled to a sitting position, hugging the sheet to her chest, her gaze on Juanita.
The Spanish girl flushed a dusky carmine. Her eyes began to glitter. “Do you think I am some side-street puta to be cast aside when you are done? I am Juanita! Half the Falangistas are wild for me.”
“Then go to them.”
“You — you are a devil, Grant,” the girl said, changing her tactics abruptly. “Why? Why do you do this to me? Why have you replaced me with this pasty-faced weakling with no blood in her veins? She is a frail reed, she will break in your arms. You will have to take your pleasure, for she can give you none.”
Eleanora stirred restively. Glancing at her, Grant smiled for the first time. “You’re wrong,” he told the other girl.
Juanita controlled her temper with an effort. Her hands dropped to her sides, the fingers curling into claws. “Then I am to be nothing to you, to have nothing.”
An added hardness crept into Grant’s face at that last mercenary suggestion. “What did you expect?”
“Something more than to be left for such a one as this — this shadow of a woman. See her sitting there? She cares not what you do. She has no feelings for you or she would curse me, she would fight me for you.”
“Maybe she knows there is no need.”
That remark struck Eleanora as exquisitely humorous under the circumstances. She tried to keep from smiling, but she could not.
“Hah! You dare to laugh at me,” Juanita screamed. “I’ll scratch your grinning face to ribbons, you thieving she-dog!” Her teeth bared, she threw herself across the bed at Eleanora, tearing at the sheet, reaching for her hair with talonlike fingers. Eleanora evaded her by reflex alone, flinging out a warding hand that caught Juanita full across the bridge of her nose. The other girl’s nails raked down the inside of her forearm in long, bloody stripes while she mouthed curses through tears of pain.
An instant later, it was over. Grant dragged Juanita shrieking from the bed with an arm about her waist. His clasp none too gentle, he carried her out onto the galería. As he hoisted the girl over the railing, Juanita’s screams of anger turned to pleas for mercy and she twisted against him, clinging with both arms around his neck. Alarmed, Eleanora left the bed in time to see him drop the woman’s legs, and reaching up, pry her hands loose. Holding her wrists, he let her hang, dangling at arm’s length, for a long moment, then he let her go.
She fell with an ear-splitting cry, landing with a thud in the muddy street below. A flood of shrill invective proclaimed her unhurt. Within seconds she appeared in the middle of the street, her skirt plastered with mud, and her dirt-streaked fac
e contorted with rage. “You will pay for this, Colonel Farrell, you and your red-haired bitch! You will pay!”
Without answering Grant turned and stepped back into the room. He paused as he saw Eleanora standing just inside, her green-gold eyes wide in her pale face, sheet gripped in her hand as if for protection, then he pushed past her. Moving to the armoire, he opened the door and took from it her three dresses, her petticoats and pantalettes, and the collapsed cage of the hoop Mazie had given her. With these under his arm, he stepped from the room, clanged the iron grille shut, and locked it. He stared at her through the arabesque intricacies of its design, as if waiting for her protest. When she made none, he swung on his heel and walked away.
Breakfast of hot coffee, fruit, and a pastry much like a French beignet though made of corn meal was brought to her with a bath and a change of linens. With each trip Señora Paredes carefully unlocked the door and locked it again behind her. Since the woman did nothing without consulting the colonel, Eleanora supposed she had him to thank for the attention to her comfort. The thought did not incline her to charity toward him. Nothing could do that.
The hot meal cakes were fried light and crisp, the coffee, diluted with warm milk, was fragrant. Eleanora had little appetite, but it would be ridiculous to starve herself for the sake of her vanished chastity. Who would know, or care? Later, as she lay in the tin tub with her hair draped over the side to keep it dry, she had to admit to a certain sense of well-being. If she was not being kept a prisoner, she thought, idly squeezing water from her bathcloth over her knees, she might have felt well indeed.
The sound of a key in the lock roused her. She turned her head, expecting to see the señora once more. It was Grant Farrell, militarily correct in his uniform, who entered. In his hand he carried a small box of polished wood, which he opened and placed upon the bed. The interior was lined with maroon velvet and divided into compartments. From one of these he took a small glass bottle and a square of cloth. Holding these in his hand he straightened and issued a one-word command. “Out.”
“What is it?” she asked without troubling to hide her suspicion.
“Carbolic for your scratches,” he answered, moving closer.
“Leave it and I’ll attend to them.”
He stared at her a considering moment before shaking his head. “I want to know it’s done. Scratches can lead to blood poisoning in this climate. Are you coming out, or will this have to be the hard way too?”
“If you try it,” Eleanora said, tilting her head, “you are going to get wet.”
He did not smile, but in some peculiar way his face lightened. “If I do you won’t enjoy it. I’ll have to take off my uniform, and while it dries I will be in need of — entertainment.”
Eleanora was the first to look away. “How can you — when you know how much I dislike this, and you?”
“Dislike? That’s an improvement. Yesterday you hated me. Who knows how you will feel a week from now?”
She glared at him before asking, “Will you hand me the towel?”
“With pleasure,” he replied, and tucking the carbolic and cloth under his arm, picked up the linen cloth from the end of the bed and held it wide, inviting her to be wrapped in its softness.
Holding out her hand for it did no good; Eleanora let it fall. She sat biting the inside of her lip, then with the dignity of an ancient princess passing into the hands of her menials, she rose and stepped from the tub. He enfolded her, his hands moving over the curves of her body. She tried to move away, but he would not release her until she stood still within the circle of his arms.
“My scratches?” she reminded him, her color high and a trace of sarcasm in her tone as she gained possession of the towel.
“Scratches. Yes.”
He removed the stopper from the glass bottle and poured the pungent solution on the cloth. Taking her arm, he swabbed the long, raw stripes with swift efficiency, paying no heed to her involuntary wince of stinging pain. From under her lashes, Eleanora watched his frown of concentration. She could see the bluish bruise on his bottom lip and the small cut where she had struck him. The sight was most satisfactory, yet at the same time, it made her feel a little ill. Her fingers curling, she remembered the feel of her own nails tearing his flesh. There was, above the collar of his tunic, an abrasion of the skin. Was that her doing? Had he put anything on it, she wondered, but would not ask.
He put the disinfectant away and fastened the box. Flicking a glance up at her, he said, “You haven’t asked why I took your clothes.”
“I doubt I will like the answer. I am more interested in when you intend to bring them back.”
“You’ll get them back when I’m ready to let you go.”
“I am to be your — guest — indefinitely, then?”
“Exactly.” Inclining his head, he picked up the medicine chest and started toward the door.
“You can’t leave me here again with nothing to do,” Eleanora said. “I’ll — I’ll go mad.”
He paused, looking back at the appealing picture she made clothed in the satin mantle of her russet tresses and the linen cloth that barely came to the tops of her thighs. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Sewing. Books, newspapers.”
“Don’t tell me you mean to accept your prison?”
“What choice have I?”
His blue gaze turned disconcertingly intent. “None,” he said shortly.
She let him get as far as the door before she spoke again. “Grant?”
He swung back, waiting.
“Is my brother all right? Does he need anything? Food? Clothing?”
“Nothing you can give him,” he answered, and let himself out the door, locking it behind him.
The smell of carbolic lingered on the air, a potent reminder of their exchange. To escape it, Eleanora picked up her hairbrush from the washstand and moved to stand in the shadows to one side of the window, staring out.
Men with pushcarts cried their wares up and down the streets. Servants carrying market baskets moved toward the plaza. From the direction of the cathedral came a widow from early mass, her mantilla dripping with black jet tears of mourning. Behind her moved two government clerks in yellowing white jackets. A nun, shepherding several pigtailed girls with gold earrings flashing in their ears, passed. The religieuse looked incredibly hot in her black habit even though she, like the rest, kept to the shady side of the street opposite.
Eleanora’s throat ached with the need to call out to the people moving past for help. But what was the use? They would not dare defy the authority of the head of the military police. And if they did, then what? Even if she had a place to go and work to sustain herself, she could not leave Jean-Paul to the dubious mercy of Colonel Farrell.
Ruined. Her mind rejected both the thought and her position. Still, in the bright light of morning, she realized how useless was her implied threat to see Grant Farrell pay for what he had done. Who would believe it, and if they did, who would arrest him? General Walker? Hardly, when she had allowed herself to be presented to him in the role, if not in fact, of the colonel’s mistress.
Beneath her window a door slammed. Grant Farrell moved from under the overhang of the galería. He stood for an instant placing his hat on his head, then strode purposefully away, heading up the street to the plaza.
Eleanora watched his receding back out of sight. Her hand on the door frame trembled faintly, and doubling it into a fist, she pressed it to her mouth. The numbness of disbelief lingered at the back of her mind. This could not be happening. It could not.
Swinging from the window, she stared about the small room that was her prison. In the corner between the bed and the French doors was the cuadro. The sun illuminated the dark colors of the painting. Crudely done, there was still a feeling of compassion in the bowed head and tearstained cheek depicted on the canvas. Eleanora would not cry, but moving carefully in her towel wrap, she struck a match and held it to one of the candles beneath the li
keness of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow.
6
The morning crept by with infinite slowness. Only two events provided diversion. Shortly after the colonel left Juanita returned and was admitted. Eleanora expected the woman to come to her room, perhaps to resume her taunts or her attack, but she did not. Once she heard the sound of breathing outside her door and the rustle of clothing as someone stooped to the keyhole, but they went away when a handkerchief was stuffed into the slot. The bell rang again later. The second visitor was not allowed to enter, however, and Eleanora moved to the window in time to see Mazie retreating, her skirts held high as she crossed the muddy thoroughfare below on pattens. She called after her, but a mule-drawn cart with a furiously screeching wheel intervened and Mazie did not hear.
Colonel Farrell failed to return for the midday meal as Eleanora had half expected. A bowl of chili con carne, corncakes covered with melted goat’s cheese, and fruit was served to her through the grille. When she had finished, she pushed the dishes back out onto the galería for the señora to collect, but they sat there through the afternoon, attracting a buzzing horde of flies. Heat-drugged, they flew into the room, bumbling about between the walls and ceiling with a maddening sound that destroyed sleep. For a time Eleanora closed the French doors against them, but the airless heat was worse than the flies. She was forced to open them again.
Sometime after three o’clock the clang of the bell resounded through the house once more. Eleanora lay still. She had realized finally that the señora had orders to turn away visitors. On consideration it was not surprising. Even if the colonel did not fear reprisal, it could not add to his credit to have it known that he had to use force to keep a woman.
She had nearly forgotten the visitor when a thumping noise came from the far end of the galería. A board creaked under the weight of a tread. Beyond the iron grille loomed a shadow form, and then as Eleanora raised on one elbow, a man peered into the room.
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2 Page 55
