“It's bearable.”
“More than that, I think.”
He inclined his head, as if in recognition of her insight. “To be restricted to the hills of Spain and to the places that have been made safe by money or loyalty is a kind of imprisonment. Prisons are notoriously dreary. To break free even for a day is gratifying.”
“But dangerous.”
“The prospect of weeks, even months, at large is a gift from the gods. Such gifts are best accepted without counting the cost.”
“That's all very well,” she said, her brown eyes cool with condemnation, “but there are some of us who don't enjoy fear. Or walking into possible traps.”
He tilted his head. “Such as?”
“This room. I have the strangest feeling that you are waiting with anticipation for the moment when I must concede that a man's mistress usually shares his quarters.”
“Hardly anticipation. More like considered interest. What took you so long?”
She gave him a tight smile. “I thought you usually slept alone and preferred it that way. I thought that the supposed eccentricity of your nobleman would surely extend to separate cabins. Failing either, I thought sharing accommodations with all your followers might be so ingrained a habit that you would not think of doing otherwise. I thought a great many things, none of them, it seems, quite correct.”
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said softly.
“You have held me against my will, threatened me, and forced your attentions on me. Tell me why I should believe you.”
“My attentions,” he repeated, the words musing.
“Do you deny it?”
“By no means. But you might realize that the attentions you mention were an exercise in restraint compared to what I could have done.”
It was true, that much she would admit. She transferred her gaze to the wood grain of the door behind his right shoulder. “That doesn't make them acceptable.”
I repeat, you have nothing to fear. All that's required is the appearance of intimacy.”
“I don't like it.” The statement was bold with strain.
“Why? Even if those for whom the masquerade is being played out found out who you are, it could not harm a name already damaged beyond reckoning. As it is, why should a new-made Venus care?”
“Don't call me that,” she snapped.
“Then trust me,” he returned, the reasonable quality dying out of his tone to be replaced by light acerbity. “If I were breathing prayers and pleas to taste your sweet favors, you might have reason for complaint. I am not.”
“For the moment.”
“Oh, agreed. Is that the objection?”
“Not at all!” She could feel the heat of the hot flush that made its way to her hairline. It was sheer rage that caused it, and not the mental images his words conjured up in her mind.
“Proving that you are not pining to nestle at my side with gentle cooing and soft, intrepid explorations? If there is neither dread nor yearning between us, what can trouble our slumbers?”
“We are forced to travel together. We are not forced to sleep together!”
His gaze narrowed and his voice grew quieter, both warning signs. “Oh, but we are. Unless you prefer to change places with Enrique. Charro I refuse to have for a berth-mate; he wears his spurs to bed.”
“You mean—”
“That's the choice.”
“What of Isabel?”
“Baltasar is unlikely to agree to her leaving him alone. She might exchange places with you, however, and Baltasar might permit it, but the question is whether you would find the arrangement an improvement.”
“You think I should prefer you?” There was derision in the challenge. It hid the sudden flutter near her heart that the words brought.
“Oh, I'm sure of it,” he answered in unimpaired self-esteem. “You see, I don't snore.”
“I am not proposing to sleep with Baltasar!”
“No? Neither am I.”
She swung away from him, moving to stand at the porthole with its small, thick, salt-smeared panes of glass. From that position in the stem of the ship, she could see the stretch of the dock with its milling activity and, beyond that, the curve of land that would be her last view of Spain for a long time, possibly forever.
“You think it's easy,” she said over her shoulder in a voice that was uneven with weariness and the anxiety she was trying valiantly to hide. “You don't mind setting out for a colony on the other side of the world. You are used to being thrown together with Baltasar and Enrique and the others. The prospect of being crammed together with another person in a space hardly bigger than a nun's single cell for weeks on end is, to you, only an inconvenience. I can't be that way.”
“You misjudge me. I have never shared a space this small with another human being, and the thought affects me with doubt amounting to terror. I am aware, you see, that this cabin is not, and never will be, a nun's cell.”
His choice of words was odd. For Refugio, the oddity could only be deliberate. She swung to face him.
There was no one there. The door panel was just closing. It shut with a brittle snap.
They sailed within the hour. The backs of the men who bent to the oars of the boats that pulled them from the bay glistened in the sun. Drops of water, dripping from the straining ropes, fell glittering like lost diamonds. Cadiz receded in the glare, shimmering above the water as if dancing a farewell bolero. The ocean beyond the harbor greeted them with swells. The sea birds following, crying above the ship's topmost sails, tipped their wings and glided back shoreward with the tender boats. The ocher and gray green of the land that nestled gently against the pure blue of the sky turned misty. It faded into purple, became a gray haze, then vanished in an instant. The turquoise of the sea deepened and darkened and became the color of new-made ink. Twilight approached from behind them and became night.
Pilar was reluctant to leave the cabin. She deplored the apprehension that held her there, but could not deny it. The small room had become a refuge where she was safe from weighing, judging eyes. She felt the urge to gather them all, Isabel and Baltasar, Enrique and Charro, and especially Refugio, inside, as if that would protect them. The consequences if Refugio or any of his men were recognized seemed too dire to risk moving around, exposing themselves to passengers and crew. For herself, she had little concern. The likelihood that she would see anyone who knew her was remote; she had been shut away in the convent too long for that. And yet, her safety depended on the others remaining safe also.
She knew the sense of security in the room was false, knew that to remain hidden would be the surest way of attracting attention. She couldn't help it. She needed time to adjust to this new danger and to her new position.
It felt strange, knowing that people thought she was Refugio's woman. The idea aroused such a host of feelings inside her that she could not separate them all. That she had not objected more strongly was peculiar, even to herself. The reason, she thought, was that somewhere inside herself she trusted that it was merely a subterfuge. Added to that was the need to belong. She had no one, neither father nor mother, relative nor friend. She would grow used to that, fact given time, but for now there was comfort in being a part of Refugio's band, in sharing the warmth and the jokes as well as the hardships. She need not be alone. Moreover, there was someone else who understood her aims, needs, and enmities, someone who would come to her aid if need be. She might resent the fact that Refugio meant to keep her with him against her will, might be incensed that he would use her for his ends, but she depended on the strength of his intention. That she also resented that dependence was natural.
The way Refugio made her feel, her sheer physical reaction to him as a man, troubled her. She could not seem to control it, which distressed her even more. No good could come of succumbing to an infatuation with a brigand, a man whose most likely future was an ignoble death. Whatever he might once have been, that much was clear. Added to it was his own resolve
to avoid all entanglements except those without emotional complications. To love such a man could only bring pain. Her own future was uncertain enough without that burden.
Pilar did not join the others for dinner, but pleaded exhaustion as an excuse to keep to the cabin. Refugio dined with pomp and affectations of grandeur, and with Baltasar standing behind his chair to taste each morsel on command. Enrique was voluble and charming, talking of his jaunts about Europe, though without mention of the acrobat troupe. Charro spoke a great deal about the Tejas country and his father's holdings there near the northern capital of New Spain known as San Antonio de Baltasar. He held forth in particular about the men who worked the cattle, roping, throwing them by twisting their great long horns, branding these beasts descended from Spanish ancestors.
Isabel, when she brought Pilar her evening meal on a tray, told her about the ordeal. Pilar was just as happy not to have been there. Inviting Isabel to share her dessert, she plied the girl with questions about the other passengers.
They were five in number, Isabel said. They included a young and handsome priest going to report to his bishop in Mexico City, a merchant who owned a tannery in Havana and was traveling home with his giddy new wife, just fifteen years old, and also his wife's mother. There was, in addition, a wealthy young widow who, like themselves, was en route to Louisiana.
The last lady seemed to have earned Isabel's dislike. The woman dressed herself in silk and lace, though it was colored the black of mourning. She had intended to depart on the ship taken by Don Esteban, but had been prevented from making the sailing by an accident on the road from Madrid. The widow was going out to oversee the dissolving of an estate left her by her late husband. She had married him, an older man, some five years before while he was in Spain, and had intended to join him in the colony. She had, she said, been prevented from this aim by a long string of difficulties too tedious to mention. Isabel, however, thought the whole tale less than truthful. The widow was a poser of the first order, Isabel declared, a frivolous woman most likely delayed in joining her husband by parties and other amusements at court. Why, the widow had taken off her black veil for the sole purpose of flirting with Refugio across the table. She was shameless!
Refugio was late returning to the cabin. He did not light the lantern swinging from its hook overhead, but disrobed in the darkness. Pilar shut her eyes as she saw what he was doing; though the cabin was dim, there was the glow of moonlight on the sea coming through the porthole. She could tell from the soft rustling and quiet thuds when he removed his coat and tossed it aside, when he took off his shirt and removed his boots. As the sounds faded she clenched her teeth, waiting for him to approach the berth.
There was only silence. She opened her eyes by degrees to see him at the porthole. He was silhouetted against the glass while shifting silver gleams outlined the width of his bare shoulders and slid along the muscles of his arms and downward over his lightly furred chest to the narrow flatness of his belly. He had retained his breeches, for the gleam of his skin ended at the waist.
He thought himself unobserved, it appeared. Lifting a hand, he pressed it to the glass and, spreading the fingers, slowly bent his head to rest it on his wrist. He pressed his eyelids tightly together, his breathing even, noiseless though compressed, as if it was an effort to keep it that way.
The minutes ticked away. Pilar fought an urge to sit up, to ask if he was in pain, to offer help, consolation, something. However, it would be an intrusion upon an intensely private moment, she knew, and so lay still.
At last Refugio moved. He stepped to one of the boxes and, going to one knee, lifted the lid. He reached inside and took out a bottle; after drawing its cork, he raised it to his lips. He drank again, then replaced the bottle and took out a blanket. Wrapping this around him, he lay down against the wall.
Pilar had thought Refugio de Carranza invulnerable, his strength and endurance endless. It was not so. Everyone, it seemed, carried around with them their pains and their griefs. Some allowed theirs to be seen, others didn't. If they chose the latter course, it didn't mean they felt less, perhaps even the opposite.
It was sometime later when Pilar finally closed her eyes, later still when she slept.
The widow was present on the afterdeck when Refugio, rejuvenated and gorgeous in lime-green, escorted Pilar up to take the air. He introduced the two of them with all courtliness. The widow was Luisa Elguezabal. She was in her early thirties, with red-brown hair and eyes of bright hazel that saw everything and were avid for more. Short in stature, rounded in form, she carried herself in a manner that thrust her bosom outward, like a pigeon. Her gaze as it rested on Refugio was hungry mid amused and slyly arch. She had no attention to spare for Pilar, but smiled up at the brigand in his gentleman's clothing.
“I've been waiting for you,” she said, her voice low but lilting.
Refugio's bow was polite, though Pilar thought she saw a flicker of wariness in his eyes. He said, “This is a boon, one surely undeserved. Had we known you would display such graciousness, my companion and I would have made haste to join you.”
The other woman ignored that reference to his semi-attached state. Her voice low, she said, “How very gallant a sentiment, my brave man. And a total lie. You knew I would be waiting. The truth is, you knew me the instant you saw me last night, Refugio de Carranza. Admit it, you did. How could you think I would not know you, or that I would let our meeting pass unacknowledged?”
“There must be some mistake.”
“No, none. It isn't every day that I discover an old lover I thought never to see again — or that I am presented with the opportunity to beard a lion, the great El Leon.”
Refugio remained the unperturbed grandee. His face was still, a mask for the cogent thought passing behind it. Pilar inhaled the scent of musk and hyacinths that wafted from the other woman and felt the rise of sick, baffling dislike inside her. She wanted to slap the widow for putting them in jeopardy, though she was sure she need not exert herself. Refugio, was not surprised; he must have recognized the woman, also. Pilar waited with confidence for his annihilation of the widow. It would be swift and complete, and verbal, of course. Regrettably.
Refugio, laughed, a sound of rich amusement and rueful pleasure. “Was there ever such felicity as this meeting? I feared you meant to deny me, Doña Luisa. Puerile romance can be forgotten, and ours was long ago.”
“Not so long.”
“And you look as nubile now as then, in spite of the widow's trappings.” The compliment rose easily, without apparent effort, to his lips.
“What a charmer you were,” the widow said, fingering her black veil as she sighed.
“May I charm you now?” Refugio offered his arm to Luisa Elguezabal, his dark gray gaze sweeping sightlessly over Pilar as he deserted her.
It was a surrender, a capitulation without skirmish or defense and under the most vulgar of terms. There were reasons for it. If Doña Luisa recognized Refugio, then she could harm them all, and he must prevent that if he could. The lady had, apparently, decided on the price she required for her silence. Refugio had no choice except to pay it.
Pilar watched the other two walk away, watched Refugio bend his head toward the widow with a guileless and gentle smile. She watched, and accepted the necessity, and even understood it.
Understanding did not prevent the desolation that assailed her. Or explain it.
7
THE NARROW ROOM WHERE the passengers, as well as the captain and officers of the Celestina, took their meals was used between times as a salon. Toward afternoon of their third day at sea, Pilar found the widow Elguezabal ensconced there. Doña Luisa had every appearance of a lady ready to receive visitors; her hair was elaborately coiffed and covered by a fine muslin cap edged with black lace, her day gown as fresh as if she had just changed. There was a plate of bonbons at her elbow, and in her hands was a piece of embroidery to while away the time. She was, however, alone.
Pilar's first impulse was t
o go away at once. She overcame it with an effort. Her manner casual, she moved to take a seat near the woman. She essayed a pleasantry, and it was answered with a comment both bland and banal. She tried again.
“Please accept my sympathy on the death of your husband. His loss before you had the time to know him must have been a great blow.”
The widow smiled piously with lashes lowered. “Indeed, yes. So sad.”
“What an irony it is that you must now travel out to the Louisiana to attend his affairs when you could not before.”
“These things happen,” came the answer, though it was accompanied by a sharp glance.
“But to have such a choice forced upon you at this time is terrible. I wonder you support it so well.”
“We do what we must,” the widow agreed, her tone acid. “There was, you see, an unexpected encumbrance upon the estate, the matter of my husband's mulatto mistress and her two daughters, quadroons, of course.”
Pilar felt the rise of a flush. A part of it was embarrassment, but a part was also annoyance, for she knew very well that the widow meant her to be nonplussed. “How unfortunate,” was all she could find to say.
“Isn't it? The daughters are twelve and fourteen. One feels sorry for them, of course, but they can't be allowed to interfere with what should be mine.”
“I see. The arrangement seems to have predated your marriage. Did you not know of it?” Since Doña Luisa had introduced the subject, there could be nothing wrong in pursuing it.
“Of course I knew. It would be folly to contract an alliance without inquiring into the circumstances of the prospective groom.”
The words were blandly condescending, while the look in the woman's hazel eyes mocked Pilar's delicate attempt to discomfort her. Pilar pretended not to notice. The hostility she felt toward the woman had good cause, she thought. Doña Luisa seemed to be enjoying her position of power among them. She had taken to ordering Isabel about when the girl was present, and had appropriated Enrique and Charro for her amusement, keeping them in attendance upon her with demands that they play at cards with her, or regale her with tales of El Leon couched as fables.
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