Spanish Serenade

by Jennifer Blake

  “Impossible.”

  Charro cleared his throat. His face as he spoke was troubled but earnest. “Why should Pilar not come with us? She's proven her usefulness before.”

  Refugio turned slowly to face the other man. His voice as he spoke was softly savage. “Because it's my will as your leader, and that is reason enough. Unless you would like to take my place.”

  The silence was suddenly thick with unspoken warnings. Charro held his leader's gaze for long moments while the blood suffused his lean face. At last he looked away.

  The difference between Refugio's tone to her and the one he used with Charro was an indication of his unusual forbearance toward her. She could not allow it to matter, however. She met the gray steel of his regard, her own gaze clear and steady though her blood thrummed in her veins and her hands were clenched on the arms of her chair. “You will understand, then,” she said, “if I make my own arrangements.”

  “Before the arrival of the street vendor, of course?”

  “It seems necessary.”

  “Realizing that any visit from you will put Don Esteban on his guard, that it will jeopardize our assault on his house?”

  “What of mine? I have no way to live without the money owed to me by Don Esteban.”

  “You have been living for these many weeks without it.”

  “On your sufferance,” she said tightly. “It can't last forever.”

  “Can't it?”

  She refused to answer the quiet question. “Anyway, it isn't just the money. The don has taken everything I had, my home, my way of life, as well as the ones I loved. I refuse to let him keep what he has gained by his cruelty. It's mine and I want it.”

  “And you will put Vicente in danger to get it?” Refugio's voice was distant, immutable.

  Down the table Isabel made a soft sound of distress, but no one else spoke or gave any sign that they noticed the disagreement. They avoided catching the eye of either Refugio or Pilar, and did their best to pretend that they were deaf.

  “Of course not, not by choice,” Pilar said with a tired sigh. “But the alternative is obvious. You can take me with you.”

  Refugio's face was like hammered bronze in the afternoon light coming through the open floor-to-ceiling windows of the dining room. “I have given you my answer.”

  “And you have mine.”

  “It would be a pity,” he said, “if it became necessary to prevent you by force.”

  Pilar got to her feet, pushing back her chair. “It would be worse than that; it would be criminal. But I should have expected no less.”

  If the taunt touched him, he did not flinch from it, but neither did he attempt to stop her as she turned and left the table.

  He walked outside the house, moving along the side gallery to the far end, well away from the dining room. The day was warm, with a soft wind out of the south. A honeysuckle vine twining around one of the columns of the house was laden with small white and yellow blossoms that spread their perfume on the air. In the yard below was a red and brown hen surrounded by chicks like yellow puffballs that ran hither and yon among the decaying leaves of the previous winter and the clumps of dark green spring grass. She stood for long moments, breathing deep of the soft air as she tried to control the erratic pounding of her heart.

  The peaceful scene before her turned suddenly grim as the long blade of shadow, of a hawk came sweeping over the ground. The hen squawked and the baby chicks came running to shelter under her spread wings. The hen crouched low and motionless except for a faint trembling. The hawk flitted on past. It circled and passed again. Finally, it swept away. Pilar stood clenching the gallery railing, watching the flight of the hawk until it disappeared over the treetops. It was some time before she left the gallery and went to her room.

  Refugio made no immediate effort to carry out his threat. He and the others remained in the dining room for hours; the sound of their voices could be heard, a low rumble, as they made their plans. As the time crept by, Pilar began to wish she had not been so impetuous. She was so used to being involved in all their discussions and plotting; she did not like feeling left out in this way.

  Refugio was being so unreasonable. Why would he not permit her to lend her help? He pretended that it was concern for her that was at the bottom of his refusal, but was it? Or was it simply that he did not want her in his way?

  She should not have spoken as she had, should not have suggested that he was a criminal. But his implacable attitude, his calm assumption that he had the right to dictate her actions, was infuriating. The fact that she had shared his bed did not make him her master. She was her own person, and must act for her own benefit. She could depend on no one else.

  The men left the house again toward the middle of the afternoon. A short time later Pilar heard Isabel moving about in the next room and went to join her.

  She had grown to like Isabel, in spite of the disjointed history of her past, and had done her best to befriend the girl on the long voyage. However, her purpose in seeking her out now was a shameless quest for information.

  The other girl could tell her little. She had left the table shortly after Pilar to go and inspect the kitchen with Doña Luisa. She did say that Refugio had assigned Enrique the task of hanging around the taverns and drinking houses near the river levee in order to discover when the next ship would be sailing for Spain. Enrique was also to search out a contact with the smugglers said to operate among the bayous and bays of the gulf, importing goods into New Orleans without paying the official tariffs. These contacts could be important since it might be necessary to make a hasty departure once they had Vicente safe. Governor Miro could not be depended on to see the justice of their attack on his newest regidor, especially if the governor came to accept Don Esteban's word for Refugio's identity.

  It was far into the night when Refugio and the others returned, and then they came with the squeak of cartwheels and the braying of mules. It gave Pilar a certain grim pleasure to realize that they had been out collecting the means to use her idea for entry to Don Esteban's house. She lay listening as they led the animals to a shed on the back of the property. A short time later they returned to the house.

  The door of the bedchamber creaked a little as it swung open. Refugio carried no candle, but moved with soft, sure footsteps in the dark. There came the rustle of his clothing as he undressed, then the bed yielded to his weight as he settled upon it.

  Pilar lay stiff and still and well on her side of the mattress. She kept her eyes tightly closed and breathed in a slow, steady rhythm, in and out, in and out. She need not have bothered. He made no move to reach for her. Within minutes his own breathing grew deep and regular. By degrees she allowed her muscles to relax. She was relieved. Of course she was. At last she slept.

  When she awoke, he was gone.

  It was difficult to realize that the holy season of Easter was upon them. The time spent at sea had drifted past, hardly seeming to count, and yet the winter was gone. It was Good Friday. Doña Luisa was going to morning mass at the church of St. Louis, after which she would see the governor as arranged. A rather worn cabriolet had been found in the back of the shed, and a horse had been discovered pastured behind the ramshackle building. She meant to have herself driven into town. Pilar, she said, might join her if she wished.

  Pilar was delighted at the opportunity. She dressed circumspectly in a gown of gray with a white bodice and threw a white mantilla over her head. With her face set in lines of determination, she climbed into the two-wheeled carriage beside Doña Luisa.

  There were no church bells ringing to draw the faithful to mass on this day; by hallowed custom, they were silent in reverence for its holiness. Pilar said her prayers with due devotion but could not concentrate on the sanctity of the occasion. She hardly heard the words of the service, scarcely noticed the rather primitive interior of the church except for the carved figures decorated in the French manner, which seemed too brightly colored, too overblown and worldly to her ey
es.

  As they left the church, Pilar parted from Doña Luisa. She had a few errands to take care of, she told her, and would see the other woman back at her house, in time for a late luncheon. Doña Luisa was inclined to protest, demanding to know precisely where Pilar was going. Pilar only shook her head and walked away with a cheerful wave.

  It was good to be doing something, finally, about her stepfather. At the same time, it felt strange to be nearing the end of her quest after so long a time spent traveling toward it. It was peculiar, but she wasn't afraid to confront him. Don Esteban had committed many crimes and had ordered others done, but he had never offered her violence with his own hands. It was not that he was incapable of it, she thought, but merely that he was prudent. He preferred that someone else perform such chores requiring violence, and do it well away from him. He had no taste for physical danger to himself, but most of all, he meant to provide no evidence of his direct involvement in the crimes. The merest hint of such a thing could be ruinous to his chances for advancement; this was why he had been at such pains to remove Pilar and those who might help her prove the cause of her mother's death. Pilar trusted that such wariness would be her protection still.

  His house, pointed out to her by a passerby, was much as Refugio, had said, with whitewashed walls, a roof of weathered wood shingles, and shutters at the windows painted green. The street in front of it was a quagmire of mud, centered by a gutter filled with water in which floated kitchen refuse and the emptyings of chamber pots. There was no sign of Don Esteban, and the window shutters that were firmly closed against the fresh and balmy south wind seemed to indicate no one was at home.

  Pilar walked slowly past the house along the raised wooden sidewalk as she considered what she must do. She must move with care for, in spite of what Refugio had said, she had no intention of endangering Vicente. Not again.

  Just down from the house of the don she had to pause as a man emerged from a doorway. He was obviously a town official of some importance, for he not only bore himself with immense dignity, but carried in his hand the tall gold-headed cane that was his badge of office. He turned back to speak to a woman who must have been his wife, from her velvet dress, fine lace cap, and the rings on her fingers. Behind the plump housewife and to the right could be glimpsed the doorway leading to a small private chapel. Inside it, in honor of the holy day, the altar was laid with a cloth of lace. Tall wax, candles in candelabras of silver burned there, while behind it was a fine crucifix of carved and painted wood framed on either side by lace curtains. This was plainly the more wealthy section of the town.

  Regardless, just a little farther along the street was an apothecary shop with its mortar and pestles and bottles of odd mixtures. Beyond it Pilar skirted the tables that spilled out of a wine shop where bottles were ranked against a back wall that contained Catalonian wine, the Cuban brandy called aguardiente, and also the French brandy known as eau-de-vie. Next to the wine shop was the window of a jeweler.

  She wandered inside to look at a tray displaying buttons in bone and gold and ivory, fans with ivory and gold sticks, rings and earrings with stones that the shopkeeper swore were from Thrace, and also point-lace veils and walking sticks with gold heads. Most of the shopkeepers lived either behind or above their businesses, for from these quarters came the cries of babies and raised voices of mothers calling to playing children. Between the buildings could just be seen the gardens in the rear, where trees lifted new green leaves to the sun and plots of flowers, herbs, and vegetables flourished in the dark, moist soil.

  The language heard everywhere was French, with only a smattering of Spanish filtering through now and then. Shop signs were in French, the music that came from street musicians or drifted from open windows was French, and the food that could be smelled cooking for the noon meal had a distinctly French aroma. The reason for the lack of Spanish influence was not difficult to comprehend. Three-quarters of the population were, even after twenty-five years of Spanish dominion, still of French extraction. The majority of those of Spanish blood who had come to the colony were men, men who had since married French women; even the governor had a French wife. Children in their cradles were taught French, fed French food, sent to schools with French teachers. Added to this was the fact that the Spanish regime had begun with a revolution of the French populace that had been put down with bloody force. In order to prevent the same thing happening again, and to keep peace in this distant yet strategic outpost, the Spanish had adopted a policy of benevolence, going to unusual extremes to placate the people. The fiery residents descended from the original adventurers and malcontents who had settled Louisiana, feeling their French pride was at stake, had made little effort to adapt themselves to Spanish ways. The result was an entirely different kind of Spanish colonial town. Certainly New Orleans bore little resemblance to Havana.

  As she came to the end of the street called Chartres, Pilar could see little ahead of her. In one direction was what she took to be the powder magazine, while in the other was the custom house. Directly opposite where she stood was the palisade, the thick pole walls that surrounded the town on three sides, but left the riverfront open. The street that she must cross to reach any of these other points was standing in muddy ooze. She tarried for a long moment, enjoying the warmth of the day and the strong south wind that caressed her face, fluttered her lashes, and tugged fine tendrils of hair loose from her tight chignon. It brought the smell of flowers blooming and green growing things, a fecund miasma straight from the swamps about the town, one that was foreign yet enticing. She breathed deep of it and felt an easing somewhere deep inside.

  There was no point in going on, she decided; she had seen enough. She turned and began to retrace her steps.

  As she neared the house of the town official again, she saw a familiar figure approaching. Her stepfather was dressed in black and wore a bag wig that shone with powder, and his coat buttons and shoe buckles gleamed silver in the sun. He strode along, giving way to none, his face set in grim and haughty lines.

  He had not seen her, but he would at any moment.

  An odd dismay gripped Pilar. She was not ready. She was assailed by a sudden doubt that she was doing the right thing, by a conviction that once she stood before her stepfather, she would find nothing to say to him and the whole interview would go wrong. So great was the feeling of impending disaster that she stopped where she stood. Ahead of her lay a cross street, the last before the block where Don Esteban's house was located. Forcing herself to move with normal strides, she walked toward that thoroughfare, then swung quickly to the left, crossing the muddy intersection and heading the opposite way from the house.

  The relief at being out of sight was so great that she took several deep breaths and wiped at the perspiration on her forehead with the back of one hand. She could not linger, however. At any moment Don Esteban would reach the cross street also and might look down it in her direction. Picking up her skirts, she walked on at a faster pace. If she could reach the next street, or even an alleyway between the houses, she would be all right. There was one of the latter ahead of her.

  She looked back over her shoulder at the intersection some yards behind her. Any moment now her stepfather would appear. There were only a few more steps to go. A few more. There he was!

  Hard hands closed on her arm. She was whirled around and half dragged, half thrown into the alleyway between two houses. She came up against a plastered wall. The jolt scraped her shoulder blades and caused bright fragments of golden light to flare behind her closed eyelids. A cry rose in her throat but was trapped by a firm hand over her mouth. A man's body pressed against hers.

  “Curse me quietly,” Refugio said against her ear, “and I'll do the same for you.”

  14

  ANGER SURGED UP INSIDE Pilar. She shoved at Refugio with both hands, bracing her shoulders against the building wall for purchase. He stepped back, but retained her wrists in a loose clasp, standing balanced and ready to forestall any attempt at e
scape.

  “What do you think you're doing?” she cried. “You nearly frightened me to death.”

  “You had every appearance of trying to avoid Don Esteban, and I sought only to aid the cause. If I was wrong, I can withdraw.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said bitterly, “you were aiding the cause. Your own! I was not quite ready to meet the don, but that doesn't mean that you can stop me from seeing him. My reasons are as compelling as yours, and you can't make me stand aside.”

  “Stand aside? Oh, no, I would not dream of asking that.”

  She stared at him with suspicion rising in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “My hope, my dream, is that you see Don Esteban. Imagine my joy to find you still intend to do it.”

  “I am trying to do that,” she said in heavy irony.

  He released her, giving her a taut smile. “Never mind. Come let us put our heads together like a pair of thieves, and decide how you are to deliver yourself to our enemy.”

  She stared at him as comprehension seeped into her face.

  “You're going to let me help you?”

  “Help me? No, no, my love, how could I be so unfair? It's I who am going to help you.”

  She raised her chin, never taking her gaze from his face. “Why?”

  Why, indeed, Refugio asked himself. The decision had been sudden and instinctive, and caused by fear. He was afraid of what might happen to this woman if she were not with him. He had refused her help before because he wanted to keep her safe. Tom now between a desire to strangle her and the need to close her in his arms and banish the lingering fear behind her eyes, he recognized his defeat and dismissed it. Changing his plans and intentions toward Don Esteban at speed, he smiled.

  “Why not?” he said.

  The explanations did not take long. Within minutes Pilar was standing alone before the front door of Don Esteban's house. It opened to her knock, and a manservant, her stepfather's majordomo, appeared in the opening. The man's eyes widened as he saw her, but he invited her to step inside. From a room not too far away came the clink of silver and glassware and the murmur of familiar voices, as if her stepfather was at his noon meal. No doubt he had been returning home for that purpose.