Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  Her blouse was torn, hanging halfway down one shoulder. Her skirt dangled in shreds over her tattered petticoat. She had removed her makeshift slipper-boots for the night, so that she stood in her bare feet, cornered, at bay.

  “St. Michael protect you.” Luis had invoked the aid of the archangel, patron saint of warriors, to her cause, and now, surrounded by the sea of grinning, brutal faces, she found a prayer heard once in some distant, childhood year running through her mind. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle ... and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls—

  The answer, if answer it was, came with shocking unexpectedness. The sound of a shot exploded in the room, hushing the babble of obscenities and shouts of encouragement to silence. Across that sea of vacant, startled faces she saw the broad-shouldered form of Major Crawford. The smoking pistol in his hand still pointed toward the ceiling as he searched the crowd for any sign of an inclination to argue with his authority. There was none. Totally cowed, the men backed away and let him come forward.

  As he approached, he extended his hand, his face grave and his pale blue eyes somber with concern. Eleanora’s first inclination was to draw back, to stand on her dignity, refusing to traffic with a man she considered her enemy. But she was in no position to stand on pride. Moreover, the advice Luis had given came back to her, the remembrance of his hauntingly soft tone carrying a greater authority than any order could have done.

  Moving like a sleepwalker, she gave the major her hand. His fingers closed large, warm, and supportive around it, as she stepped down. Feeling the trembling that shook her, he reached to scoop her into his arms. Making nothing of her weight, he bore her out of the cubicle, through the darkness of the common room and the corridor, and into the hot and precious sunlight.

  Eleanora lay in the long copper tub, her face tightlipped and cold. Major Neville Crawford had been all concern, ordering a deep, hot bath for her with a supply of linen towels and pure Castile soap. He had even borrowed a wrapper of white lawn lined with silk for her from the wardrobe of the wife of the fort’s commandant, a circumstance Eleanora viewed warily. These courtesies, the luxury in which the major was living here in Honduras, the room allotted him in one corner of the official palacio, his ordering of its servants, the tub fit for a royal governor, the niceties he could command at will, indicated that he was someone of importance. It tended also to confirm what she suspected. She frowned. There had been as yet no indication of his intent toward her. If it was his purpose to carry her back to stand trial in Granada there was no occasion for this attention to her comfort. She could have gone back in her dirt and rags as easily as not. On the other hand, if his interest was personal there had been no suggestion of that either. He puzzled her, but in her present malaise she had no energy to expend on riddles.

  Easing deeper into the water, she soaped herself with precision. When the water began to cool, she washed her hair, lathering it again and again in the effort to remove the prison stench. She rinsed one final time with the can of clear water provided, and then to avoid the gray scum forming as the water grew cold, she struggled to her feet and stepped out.

  Despite the gathering heat of the morning, she felt chilled, so that she dried hurriedly, wound the towel about her hair, and slipped into the wrapper which lay across the bed. The only comb in sight on the heavy dark-oak dressing table belonged to the major, and with a faint flicker of a smile she picked it up. If he had not intended that she should avail herself of it, he should not have left it there.

  Lifting the tortoiseshell comb to her hair, she paused, stabbed by a memory of Luis, combing her tangled curls with his fingers, braiding it, such a short time before. For an instant she could not breathe, then, with an effort, she pushed the image from her, closing her mind against it.

  When at last her hair hung wet and sleek down her back, she walked out onto the small, stone-balustrade balcony attached to the room. The sun shining down upon it felt good upon her face, and combined with a trade wind from the gulf washing blue in the distance, it soon dried her hair.

  She was still standing there when the major returned. Hearing the door close behind him and his quick footsteps, she swung slowly around, taking the two short steps to the doorway.

  He was not alone. A young maid with shy brown eyes, hair severely dressed, covered by a cap, and wearing the fine materials of a superior ladies maid, entered behind him. She set a tray down upon the dressing table, and bobbing a curtsy in Eleanora’s direction, took from over her arm a full red skirt with deep ruffles cascading from the knees, a petticoat and matching camisole of eyelet shot with black ribbons, and a white blouse with sleeves of ruffled eyelet. A black mantilla and black kid slippers with satin ties completed the ensemble. Setting the slippers on the floor, taking up Eleanora’s discarded rags, the maid curtsied once more and moved with delicate dignity from the room.

  The major had not spoken. He stood with an arrested look on his features, staring at Eleanora. In the bright rays of the sun she had a gilded look. Her hair, bleached by the elements, rioted around her with a look of gold-tipped flames. Her skin, after the long weeks of imprisonment, had faded to a soft gold perfection that gave her eyes the look of emeralds shining with inner fire in the head of some ancient Mayan idol. After weeks of privation, her form was so slender as to appear ethereal, and there was about her the appearance of such fine-honed suffering that a look of extreme doubt came into his eyes.

  A muscle in his face moved as his jaw tightened. “How are you?” he asked.

  “Very well,” she replied in her coolest tones. “I must thank you for seeing to my comfort.”

  “It was the least I could do,” he answered shortly. “Won’t you come in and sit down?”

  She obeyed, taking the seat he indicated, one of a pair of brocaded armchairs with a small table between them. Relaxing was impossible, however, and she sat straight on the edge with her hands folded in her lap.

  The major took the opposite chair. Seemingly at a loss for words, he searched in his frockcoat pocket for a panatela, and receiving her permission to smoke, lit it with a sulfur match. The scent of the smoke invaded the room, gradually overcoming the smell of soap. When the red coal on the end of the cigar was glowing to his satisfaction, he glanced at her through thick, sandy lashes.

  “The first thing I expect you will want to know,” he said abruptly, “is that the charges against you have been dropped. Juanita Santamaria, the woman who accused you, is, as you may know, dead. Her story has been discredited. General Walker, on his return last month from Rivas, made a thorough investigation of the matter, and you have been exonerated.”

  Eleanora lifted her head. “The general — and the phalanx — have returned safely?”

  He gave a short nod. “One more time.”

  “They were victorious?”

  “After the general’s peculiar fashion,” he admitted. “I don’t know if you are aware that he retreated from Rivas without directly engaging the Costa Ricans on his first attempt in early March because of rumors of a Honduran invasion. When the rumors proved to be without foundation, he marched on Rivas again. He forced his way through the Costa Rican line to capture the center of the town, but the Costa Ricans far outnumbered Walker’s men, and he was surrounded. The position was untenable, and he had no recourse but to retreat under cover of darkness, leaving his wounded behind in a church near the plaza.”

  “That was a victory?” Eleanora said in bewilderment.

  “It proved to be. The fools of Costa Ricans entered the church and butchered the wounded, then threw their bodies out with the rest of the fallen on the edge of town. Afterward, they proceeded to go on a week-long celebration of their defeat of the Immortals. As was entirely natural under the circumstances, cholera broke cut, and the pestilence did a far more effective job of eradicating the Costa Rican army than Walker could have dreamed. The stupi
d idiots died like flies, and then, instead of quarantining themselves and containing the disease, they fled in a rout back to Costa Rica, carrying it with them. They say ten thousand have died down there, with more to come. It will be a miracle if they are able to put another army into the field within the next two years.”

  “You are very hard on them,” she suggested, her eyes narrowing.

  He barely looked at her. “I hate bungling.”

  “You would have preferred that the Costa Ricans had showed more judgment, even enough to defeat General Walker?”

  A sardonic look entered his pale blue eyes. “Perceptive of you to guess,” he said. “However, I had every intention of making you familiar with the secret of my sympathies. It is, you see, necessary for my plans.”

  Eleanora regarded him with care. She must not allow herself to be intimidated. She said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

  The major drew on his panatela, letting the blue smoke shield his expression. Then, as if finding the cigar distasteful, he got to his feet, walked to the window, and tossed it out. With one arm propped on the frame, he said over his shoulder, “From what I have told you, you should realize that you are free to return to Granada. It should not be hard, once you are there, to regain your former position with Colonel Farrell — and even your place in the affections of Uncle Billy. They will be anxious to make up to you for what you have suffered.”

  “I don’t—” she began, but he cut across her words.

  “It isn’t a question of what you want. What I have suggested is exactly what you will do. Once entrenched again, you will keep your eyes and ears open, and every bit of information you discover concerning the plans of the Democrático government you will report to me personally.”

  “You are asking me to — spy for you?”

  “Not asking, telling you.”

  “And what makes you think I will agree?” she demanded, her voice rising.

  “You have excellent reason for a grudge. You have been falsely accused, hounded, subjected to hardship, imprisoned, seen your friends killed. And then there is the question of reimbursement. You will be paid, paid well, for this service.”

  “No doubt. By Vanderbilt.”

  “Indirectly, yes,” he agreed, a wary look appearing in his eyes as he turned to face her.

  “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I feel no malice against William Walker. He, I am convinced, had no part in what happened to me. It is his mistress who has earned my hate.”

  “Niña Maria?” he asked with a pretense of doubt.

  “The same. Tell me, if you can, that it wasn’t she who arranged for you to come to Honduras.”

  He was silent, his face revealing nothing as he held her jewel-green gaze. In sudden decision, he nodded. “You are right. We received an offer to exchange you and your brother for a Honduran officer, the son of a rich planter who was captured in a raid across the border and is now being held prisoner in Granada. For some reason the officials here seemed to think Walker would value you at least as highly as one of their officers. They were right. The decision was made to agree to their terms. Niña Maria suggested at the last moment that I be sent to identify you, and, if the offer was legitimate, effect the exchange.”

  Eleanora’s eyelids flicked down as she wondered why Grant could not have volunteered to come — if he was interested in her return. “It — must have been an excellent opportunity to meet with Vanderbilt’s representatives,” she managed to say.

  “Excellent,” he agreed with candor.

  “It is too bad then that the secondary part of your mission is doomed to failure. Niña Maria will not, I sincerely hope, be pleased with you.”

  “I understand your sentiments,” he said unexpectedly, his expression troubled. “But I am afraid I cannot risk displeasing any of my employers. If you will not accept my suggestion willingly, you will only force me to find a way of persuading you.”

  “Simper and flirt my way back into Colonel Farrell’s bed just so I can rifle his correspondence and eavesdrop on his conversations?” she said tensely. “No amount of money, nothing you can possibly say, will persuade me.”

  Pushing away from the door, he walked to the luncheon tray sitting on the dressing table. Beneath the linen cloth that covered it he discovered breast of chicken, yeasty white bread, peaches, grapes, and a bottle of cool white wine between a pair of crystal goblets. Uncorking the wine, he filled the goblets and brought one to her, pushing it into her hands. Automatically she raised it to her lips. A little sour, but good enough, she thought abstractedly, and watched while Neville Crawford drained his glass.

  With his back to her, he filled it once more. “You haven’t asked about your brother,” he said quietly.

  Eleanora went still. “You — know where Jean-Paul is? You know what they have done to him?”

  “They haven’t done anything — yet. He is here in this house in a room much like this.”

  “You know it for certain?”

  “As I stand here. I give you my word.”

  Eleanora looked down into her glass. The liquid within it trembled, and she was aware, suddenly, of the pounding of her heart. Carefully, she set the wine glass on the table at her elbow. “It was kind of you to tell me,” she said in a colorless tone.

  “Not at all. I have to tell you that when you return to Granada your brother will not be leaving here. For all purposes, he will have died before the firing squad. He will remain behind, a prisoner, a — what is the phrase? — hostage to your good conduct.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that if you do not follow my instructions to the letter your brother will be executed, like the others, as an enemy of Honduras.”

  Eleanora could feel her face going blank with shock. Clenching her teeth, she raised an eyebrow. “Charming people you have aligned yourself with, Major Crawford. People who kill the wounded and prisoners of war.”

  “I find a most positive charm in winning,” he replied without rancor. “Make no mistake about it, eventually these people will win.”

  She held his sober regard as the slow poison of her plight sank into her mind. She must do this thing; there was no other choice. Luis had feared she would be ravished — and so she would be, though not, perhaps, in the way he had envisioned. Was it really so unusual? Hadn’t they all, Luis, Grant, Jean-Paul, Mazie, even Neville Crawford, been ravished by life? And in an ever-widening circle, Grant’s mother, Consuelo, and many, so many others. They were born with confidence, self-respect, idealism, a dream of happiness. And the very act of living stripped these things away, leaving their souls naked and shivering with pain.

  Taking a breath so deep it struck like a knife through her chest, she sighed, shaking back her hair. “All right,” she said, her voice dull with resignation. “First I would like to see Jean-Paul. Then you can tell me when, and how, I must return to Nicaragua.”

  18

  Eleanora stepped down from the pony cart. The instant her feet touched the ground she drew her hand from Major Neville Crawford’s supporting arm, and squaring her shoulders, stood waiting until her guard detail had formed around her. A barked order, and they began to move, keeping to the stately pace the officer in charge considered suited to the occasion. The glare of the morning sun was in her eyes, making it hard to see the group of men advancing toward her. A gulf breeze, warm, heavy with the smell of salt, caressed her face and tugged at her mantilla, swirling it around her. It lifted the ruffles of her tiered skirt, and catching the sand disturbed by her footsteps, sent it flying. High in the blue sky a pair of gulls swooped, their cries sounding in her ears with an underlying note of desperation. The soft wet roar of the incoming tide throbbed on her left, while far out on the purple-green waves a ship rose and fell at anchor. It was the Nicaraguan sloop-of-war Granada.

  The Mosquito Coast, neutral ground to a degree, had been chosen as the place to exchange Eleanora for the Honduran officer. To return alone to that stretch of hot, brown sand where she and the ot
hers had been captured was an ordeal for her. She tried not to think, to remember, but was only partially successful. The heat waves rising from the rumpled sand unreached by the sea were peopled with wavering figures drawn from her imagination, sunburned, tattered figures with anguished eyes.

  Blinking quickly, Eleanora stared hard at the approaching men in their red shirts. There was a tall man in the tunic of an officer in the lead. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment and her heart began to pound. Then she recognized the craggy features of one of Grant’s good friends and fellow officers, another of the Immortals, Colonel Thomas Henry. He walked with a decided limp, leaning on a cane; a memento perhaps of the victory at Rivas.

  Eleanora stumbled, weak, suddenly, with relief. Major Crawford reached for her arm to steady her, keeping his hand under her elbow. She did not resist. Her knees, after her fright, felt like jelly, and her fingers trembled so that she clasped them together in front of her. She was not ready to face Grant. The terrible necessity of offering herself to him once more paralyzed every feeling of joy or anticipation at the prospect. What was she to do, what was she to say, to persuade him to take her back into his bed? Should she seduce him, or should she appeal to his sympathies by a pathetic recital of what she had suffered? Either was loathsome to contemplate, either would demean the love she had nurtured, holding it tightly within her, in the months just past. Yet, somehow, some way, she must return to a position of intimacy with Colonel Grant Farrell inside the palacio. Jean-Paul’s life depended on it.

  She had not liked the way her brother had looked when she had left him. He had heard her explanations through without interruption. Then staring at her with dull eyes, he had said, “I should have died with the others.” When she had looked at him speechlessly, he had continued. “That would have been right and fitting. I would not have to endure this living death, knowing how little I deserve to live, knowing my existence forces you to prostitute yourself, even put yourself in danger.”