The Carranzas and the Iturbides were hereditary enemies in a feud that had been going on for four generations. Don Esteban, it was said, had hired assassins to kill Vicente's father. More, Don Esteban's son, the young man who was to have wed Pilar, had abducted and violated Vicente's sister, after which the girl had committed suicide. When Vicente's older brother, Refugio, had challenged Don Esteban's son to a duel for the crime against their sister, then spitted him on his sword during the fight, Don Esteban had used his recently gained court connections to have Refugio charged with murder. Refugio's refusal to surrender to the men sent with the guardia civil by Don Esteban for his arrest had resulted in a fight: in which three of Don Esteban's hirelings were killed. Refugio had become an outcast, a brigand with a stronghold in the mountains who was called El Leon, the lion, after the big and deadly wildcats that roamed the hills, and also for his mother's surname, which meant the same. The hatred of Refugio de Carranza y Leon for Don Esteban at least equaled Pilar's own.
The next time Pilar saw Vicente standing outside the church, she walked quickly toward him. She outdistanced the duenna who hurried after her through the early morning crowds. As Pilar neared Vicente de Carranza, she looked into his thin, earnest face then let her shawl slip from her shoulders and slide to the ground. Vicente knelt to pick it up. She did the same. She murmured a few words as she took the shawl he offered. He gave her a sharp look from dark, expressive eyes before he inclined his head in a bow, but the young man made no answer. Pilar turned away as her duenna joined her, and walked into the church.
Had Vicente understood her? There had been so little time and no chance to be certain. Did he know who she was, know anything about her? Or if he did not know, would he trouble to find out? If he found out, would he do as she asked, or would he shrug off the incident as being of no importance? So much depended on that one short encounter.
Of course, even supposing Vicente passed on her plea to his brother to meet her in the garden of Don Esteban's house in the midnight hours, there was no guarantee that El Leon would come. It would take a rare combination of hatred, curiosity, and daring to bring him.
The hours of darkness were slipping past. Pilar's footsteps dragged. She was weary from her three-night vigil, yes, but it was the waning of hope that pressed hardest upon her shoulders. She had been so sure she could evade Don Esteban's plans for her, so positive she could best him. She would do it yet, with or without El Leon; still, she had placed so much dependence on the aid of Refugio de Carranza that it was disheartening to think she must find another way.
How she wished that she were a man! She would defy her stepfather with sword in hand, then demand an accounting for her mother's death and the looting of her heritage. What a pleasure it would be to run Don Esteban through with a steel blade and watch the sneer on his features give way to shocked surprise. Odious, strutting, vicious little man! To be forced to bow to his dictates would be beyond endurance. She would do anything, anything at all, to escape it.
A soft sound came from behind her, like the rustle of cloth. She started to turn. There was a single, swift movement, and she was caught from behind in a firm grasp, with an arm clamped like a band of Toledo steel around her ribs and a hand sealing her mouth. She drew in her breath, instinctively thrusting backward with an elbow. She connected with the folds of a cloak and, under it, a belly like a wall of stone. The hold upon her tightened abruptly, driving the air from her lungs. Her back was pressed tight against a hard male form while the warmth of his body and the soft wool of his cloak enveloped her.
“Be still,” came a voice quiet and deep against her hair. “As much satisfaction as it might give me to defile a woman of Don Esteban's house on his own patio tiles, I'm not at present in the mood. Provoke me, and that may well change.”
It was El Leon; it could be no one else. Anger for his distrust and his close, hard hold burgeoned inside Pilar, banishing fear. She shook her head, trying to dislodge his hand from her mouth.
“You want to speak, do you? Now that's encouraging, for I want nothing more than to hear you. But I would advise that the words be as soft and dulcet as the dove.”
The hand on her mouth was lifted by degrees. She waited until it had been completely removed before she spoke, and the words were low and scathing. “Let me go. You're breaking my ribs.”
“And shall I also lay my life at your feet all tied up with ribbons and faded roses? Thank you, no. Besides, I'm still entertaining the idea of reprisal. Intimate, of course.”
“You wouldn't!”
“Tell me why I should not,” he said, his voice suddenly losing its soft tone, becoming harsh. “The last rape was by an Iturbide upon a Carranza. It must be our turn.”
“I'm not an Iturbide, nor do I have anything to do with your quarrel!”
“You are in the house of Iturbide, and therefore of it.” The words were uncompromising.
“Not of my own will. Besides, it was once my father's house.” Pilar could feel the firm beat of El Leon's heart against her back. His implacable strength, his scent compounded of wool and horse, of fresh night air and his own maleness, crept in upon her senses. She wanted to turn to look at him, but could not move.
“I am aware of that, just as I know your name and station and recent history. I have made it my business to know, being neither an idiot nor a quixotic fool. What I don't know is what you want of me.”
He released her waist in a sudden movement, then caught her wrist, spinning her around to face him. Pilar, off balance, put out a hand, bracing against his chest. She could feel the bands of muscle that sheathed it, sense the overpowering solidity of his presence. She stared up at him with her voice caught somewhere in her throat, stifled by doubt.
He was tall and broad, his shape exaggerated by the length and fullness of his black wool cloak. The features of his face were firm and regular and precisely molded, sun-bronzed even in the moonlight, but his eyes were no more than dark sockets shadowed by the wide brim of his hat. There was about him an air of stringent control coupled with an edge of danger. There was not a shred of sympathy.
Refugio de Carranza looked at the woman he held, and felt as if a hand had squeezed his heart inside his chest. He had come to this rendezvous out of purest wanton curiosity, to see what manner of woman could rouse Vicente from his studies and persuade him to use methods of communication that were reserved, usually, for direst emergencies. He saw. She was beautiful, with the fair skin and hail that spoke of the blood of Visigoth invaders in her veins, coloring that was common in northern Spain where he was born, but more rare here in the Andalus. There was pride in the tilt of her head and the set of her shoulders, and also determined bravery. Remembering the softness of her, the fragrance of her skin and silkiness of her hair against his cheek, he found it necessary to subdue a strong need to gather her close once more. He had thought himself invulnerable to the allure of her kind. It was incensing to be proven wrong.
“Well?” he said when she made no sound. “Did you have a purpose, or is it a game? Shall I seek to relieve your tedium, or would it be best if I guard my back?”
“I—I would never betray you.”
“Your assurance eases my mind. That, and my inspection of this fine garden. I can only suppose that if there's an assassin present, it must be you.”
“No!”
“It's a tryst, then. And here I am a laggard lover, behind in my embraces. Come and let me taste your sweet lips.”
She gave an abrupt shake of her head, resisting the pull on her wrist that he still held. “It pleases you to make fun of me, though why it should I have no idea.”
“Why not? There's little enough fun in the world for me and mine. But it would please me more to be told why I was bid to come.”
“I want—” She stopped, horribly uncertain of the wisdom of what she meant to say.
“Yes, you want…? Everyone wants something. Shall I complete what you are too bashful to say?”
“No!” she said in ha
ste. “I want you—”
“I knew it.”
She glared at him in annoyance and embarrassment.
Then she saw, projecting over one shoulder, the neck of a guitar that he carried slung across his back by its shoulder strap. It came to her abruptly that he was the serenader she had heard; the timbre of the voice, its soft power, was the same. The knowledge eased the doubts inside her, though she could not have explained why. She drew a shallow breath and spoke quickly and a little too loudly.
“I want you to abduct me.”
His grasp slackened. Pilar twisted her wrist free and stepped back. That she had surprised him gave her a fleeting satisfaction.
It was premature.
“By all means,” he said, sweeping his hat from his head as he bowed with consummate grace. “I am at your service. Shall it be now?”
“I wish it might, but I have no means to pay you at this minute. If you will wait and take me as I am being escorted back to the convent, there will be a chest of gold, the endowment to be paid in my name. You may have it as your reward.”
His stillness was complete, like that of a stalking cat before it strikes. When he spoke, the words had a slicing edge. “I am to be rewarded? Surely to have you would be enough?”
Angry confusion washed over her in a wave of heat. “You — You won't have me,” she said. “You will deliver me at once to my aunt in Cordoba.”
“Will I?” The question was softly suggestive.
The man in front of her had once been a grandee of wealth and title, with all the instincts and manners of his class. Now he was a bandit, an outcast who made his way by preying on his fellow men. He was El Leon, a leader of thieves and outlaws who could only have gained his position by being stronger and harder than the men he led. How could she trust him?
How could she not?
“You must help me, Refugio de Carranza!” she cried, stepping toward him and clutching the edges of his cloak in her hands. “I'm saying this all wrong, but I had no idea how it would be. I meant no insult; I only thought that you would have use for gold. I don't doubt that if you agree to do as I ask, it will be for the sake of striking a blow against Don Esteban. It would be a great injury to his pride to have his stepdaughter abducted from under his nose. And if it happens in the open countryside, as the caravan takes me to the convent, there will be no way he can hide it, no way he can deny it.”
He said nothing for a long moment. Finally, he spoke. “Don Esteban himself will be with the caravan?”
“So I understand. He wants to make certain that I am safely locked away again.”
“You realize,” he said, lifting his hands to close them on her clutching fists and loosen their hold, clasping them with impersonal firmness, “that what you ask will mean your ruin? There isn't a person in Spain who will believe that your chastity survived this abduction, no matter how short the span of time you remain in my company. The enmity between my family and that of your stepfather is too well known for it to be otherwise.”
She lifted her chin as she met the dark glitter of his eyes. “I don't care, if you don't. I have already been compromised, so more talk can't harm me.” She told him quickly of her stepfather's scheme.
Refugio listened to the young woman in front of him with only half his attention. He had heard something of what she was saying already, and knew enough of Don Esteban to guess the rest. He was much more aware of the clear sound of her voice, of the translucent purity of her skin in the moonlight and the flashing life in her night-black eyes. The feel of her slender hands in his, the memory of her curves against him, clouded his thoughts, creating inside him a slow-growing need to know more of her. Aligned with it, however, was compunction as uncomfortable as it was inevitable.
“That may be how it was,” he said, “but will your aunt believe what you say and take you in?”
“I believe she will, pray she will.”
“Even if she should give you shelter, will she protect you from whatever Don Esteban may do afterward?”
“I can only trust that she may. There's no one else.”
“Not even the church, the convent?”
The tenor of his questions, the evidence they gave of his swift consideration of her plight, gave Pilar hope. Her voice rang as she answered. “Never. I was not born to be a nun, and refuse to be forced to become one at Don Esteban's bidding.”
“And will you be content to be a spinster, a dowerless female spurned by men who want a wife they can be certain is chaste?”
“If they are fools enough to want me only for my money or judge me from no more than rumor, then I have no use for them.”
“Proudly spoken, but pride won't keep your feet warm on a long winter's night.”
The doubts he expressed were more than familiar to Pilar. However, she had counted the cost of what she was about to do already and would not turn back. She lifted her chin, staring him straight in the face. “Will you take me or not?”
“Oh, yes,” Refugio, Carranza y Leon said softly as he watched her there in the moonlit stillness. “I'll take you.”
2
THE CARAVAN TAKING PILAR to the convent was not a large one. It consisted of the old and cumbersome carriage in which she was shut up with her duenna, Don Esteban cantering alongside upon an Arabian stallion, and eight lackeys riding guard, four before and four behind. It would have been even smaller, Pilar was sure, but for considerations of safety. Don Esteban was not a coward, but neither was he a fool. He muttered about the thieves and brigands who prowled the roads and his fears for the gold, in its chest strapped on the back of the carriage beside the trunk holding Pilar's meager possessions. Regardless, she suspected that the outriders had been hired against his enemy, Refugio de Carranza, for there was no safety from El Leon once they began to climb into the hills. Her stepfather's vigilance troubled Pilar, but there was nothing she could do about it. She could only trust that Refugio knew Don Esteban's habits and would take them into consideration as he made his plan of attack.
Don Esteban had insisted on an early start and permitted few stops along the way. He wanted to get this journey behind him. If they made good time, they would reach the hill village where the convent was located before dark. Then, after a night spent at the village inn, he could return the following day to Seville. Even if he had not been wary of trespassing overlong on El Leon's territory, he had no time to waste. He had received orders from the king's minister to proceed immediately to Cadiz, where a ship for Louisiana was making ready to sail.
The carriage jolted and bounced along the dusty, rutted roads. The countryside around them, which in summer was a soft green highlighted by the red of poppies and the yellow of wattle, lay brown and barren under the winter sky. Now and then there were the gray shapes of olive trees or a patch of silver-green weeds, but the only other color was in the hills that spread in long sweeps of blue and lavender against the horizon. Now and then they passed a farmer plodding along, leading a donkey piled high with sticks for firewood, or else a boy herding a few sheep or goats. Scarcely anything else moved except the wind blowing over plowed fields and stirring up the little whirlwinds of loose soil known as dust devils.
The afternoon was waning. They had turned off the main road some time ago to follow a track winding into the hills. Soon the spires of the village church would appear, the church that sat beside the convent. Where was El Leon?
He had given his word he would come. Pilar dared not let herself think he might fail her, but she could not prevent herself from drawing aside the leather carriage curtain every few minutes to peer out the window.
“What is it, señorita?” the duenna asked at last. “Is something amiss?”
Pilar let the curtain fall. “Not at all. I'm just . . . anxious to catch sight of the convent.”
“You will see enough of it, I'm sure,” the woman answered with an edge of irritation in her voice.
“Only the inside,” Pilar said, her own tone subdued.
Her role of
quiet submissiveness was beginning to wear on Pilar. She longed to shout her defiance and announce her approaching freedom to the woman who had been set to watch over her. She could not permit herself that luxury. She must bear with the restraint a little longer before she could escape Don Esteban. How surprised he would be. His ego was so great that he could not conceive of her finding the will, much less the means, to do so. How she would love to see his face when he realized he could not bend her to his will.
She had done everything she could think of to ensure that all went well. The day gown she wore was of wool in a gray-blue color without stripes or figures, ruffles or lace to attract attention, and her cape was chestnut-brown, trimmed only with a bit of braiding. Both were such as befitted a novice, but they were also warm. More than that, she had left off her cul de Paris, the crinolined bustle used to add fullness to skirts, since it might make riding horseback awkward. Her shoes were of sturdy leather and without buckles, in case she had to walk over rough ground. Her hair was perfectly innocent of a hairdresser's skill since there had been no opportunity to have the services of one either in the convent or in Don Esteban's house. She had done no more than draw it back into a neat knot at the crown of her head. At least it would not be a bother if she had to move hastily.
The caravan rounded a bend. Directly in front of it was a flock of sheep. The coachman shouted and swore, applying the brake as he sawed on the lines. The animals leaped here and there, bawling in alarm as the carriage rocked to a stop in the middle of the flock. A dog of uncertain breed nipped at the heels of the milling sheep, barking in excitement and throwing looks at his master, the shepherd. This last was an old man, bent and hobbling and carrying a crook, and dressed in faded rags and a hooded cloak. He crept along in the midst of the sea of dirty wool, but seemed to pay no heed to sheep or dog. He appeared not to hear the shouts of the coachman nor the commands of Don Esteban that he clear the way. In truth, there was no place for him to move his flock, for the hillsides rose steep on either side.
Spanish Serenade Page 2
