by Martha Hix
Come face to face with the man who, upon no more than the sight of him, had made Alejandra realize she was a lonely woman? She couldn’t. Just couldn’t. Rising from the table, she stepped back. “Find someone else. Adios.”
She departed the café and hastened to her carriage that waited near the city ramparts. On the opposite side of the wall, the French fleet lay siege. Damn her father’s countrymen for creating an opportunity for the despicable and ambitious Santa Anna!
The driver handed her into the carriage’s interior. Not three seconds later, a voice boomed from the street, “I am ashamed of you.”
Erasmo. Alejandra had two choices. Tap on the roof for her driver to depart or get out of the conveyance. Before she could decide, the choice was taken away from her.
Chapter Three
Alejandra’s burly friend hauled himself into her carriage, dropped onto the seat next to her and yelled to the driver, “Campos de Palmas.”
She glared at Erasmo de Guzman as the coach headed toward her home. Speaking with a frankness impossible in front of the elderly grandee, she asked, “Whose idea was it, that scheme?”
“Don Valentin’s. When he arrived from Merida, he asked if I knew anyone who could help. I’d heard rumors about Montgomery so I, uh, I told the don—Please don’t be angry with me.”
“Oh, ’Rasmo, I’m not. But I . . . I’m just, well—”
“Scared.” Moving a shoulder against the seat back, Erasmo crossed his arms. “I’d say you’re scared of Reece Montgomery.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she lied.
“Exactly how do you know him?”
The carriage took a corner before she replied, “I think I saw him on the street, just before I met with you and the don.” She chuckled. “You know, the peculiar thing is, I thought he might be French. Now I know he’s much worse.”
“That he is,” Erasmo returned dryly. “Tell me, Alejandra, do you find Montgomery attractive? Is that why you ran like a spooked rabbit from the café?”
She could have answered in the affirmative to both questions. “Dear friend, can’t you just accept that I’ve said no? I want Mexico to be free of Santa Anna forever, but I must be in control of what I do. Can you understand that?”
“One cannot be in control, not when the good of the nation is at stake. No one has that privilege. A dictator lurks, waiting to pounce. We must stop Santa Anna, in the guise of fighting the French, from making a move against our people.”
A half minute passed before Erasmo continued. “If Santa Anna is allowed to return to power, the whole of Mexico will suffer much more so than from any French bombardment. Think on that, amiga. On Miguel’s grave can you dust your hands?”
His words chipped at Alejandra’s defenses. “You’re not playing fair.”
“I hope you understand why.”
She sighed. “ ’Rasmo, I don’t know what to think. Mainly, I’m wary. As for Señor Montgomery, if he is the man I saw in the square, I don’t know what to think of him, either. He was ever so kind to a little girl who needed a strong shoulder, yet you and the Yucatecan sketched a horrific picture of his true character. I don’t want to get involved.”
Erasmo laced his fingers with hers. “You needn’t commit your heart. Such as a soldier facing an ememy, you should think of the outcome, not the battle.” He tightened the pressure. “The Tejano has Santa Anna’s ear. He knows his plans ahead of time. Let your charm and our money stop that despot. ”
A carriage wheel hit a rut and jostled the occupants, the motion matching Alejandra’s anxieties. “What if I get caught? Santa Anna might—”
“I’ll be there,” Erasmo promised quickly. “Never will I be far away. I’ll make certain nothing happens to you.”
“Yours is a chivalrous pledge that would be difficult to live up to. Señor Montgomery doesn’t sound as if he . . . Well, I imagine he’s not a man to be toyed with.”
“You needn’t worry. His attraction to you is but an entree to his mercenary streak.” Erasmo ran his thumb across the seat’s rich-grained squabs. “With all haste he’ll agree to spy on his master. Then your duty will be done.”
Erasmo twisted in the carriage seat, facing Alejandra. “I offer my life to Mexico, to you, for the future. What will you give, Alejandra?”
Her eyes closed. Once, she’d wanted nothing more than a long marriage and many children. Those dreams had been wrenched away. Agreeing to the conspiracy wouldn’t return Miguel to her empty arms, of course, nor was it any assurance the former dictator would stay an exile.
But if she didn’t try to do something that might keep Santa Anna at bay, she must live with the guilt of knowing she had done nothing to bring honor to her husband’s inglorious death.
Rectifying Miguel’s honor was of supreme importance. At least in her soul. To do so, she must sacrifice propriety. A small enough price to pay to ensure that no other Mexican suffered under Santa Anna’s demonic orders.
“All right,” she conceded, not opening her eyes. “Tell me what I should do.”
“First of all, be cautious. Be certain you can trust Montgomery before you take him into your confidence. He is called El Cazador by some. He has a hunter’s cunning.”
“I fear not hunters.”
“Don’t be over sure of El Cazador, Alejandra. And if you get the least indication that something is amiss, back off. Don’t tarry in the doing. Montgomery is capable of anything, the least of which is treason. He is dangerous.”
Her muscles stiffened momentarily, but for some strange reason she found humor in the situation. Opening one eye to Erasmo, she laughed. “In one breath you tell me to make certain of his trustworthiness, then you caution me to be careful. You might’ve mentioned the danger before I said yes.”
“A man plays but one card at a time, amiga. And he doesn’t renege. Now, listen closely, because we can’t waste a moment, not with Baudin threatening to attack. You should . . .”
When he finished, she planted her palm on the carriage seat. “That will never work! No one would be that gullible.”
“El Cazador will be so pleased to see you, he won’t think to be suspicious. Call on him, Alejandra. Today.”
It took two more days of his cajoling, but she finally agreed.
Breezes ruffled his hair. The sun waned. Waves crashed ashore in the black sands separating the Gulf of Mexico from Casa Montgomery, a waterfront house outside the city gates and in clear view of San Juan de Ulúa.
Grasping the patio’s wrought-iron fence, Reece Montgomery gazed across the waters. His thoughts weren’t on the exotic seaport of Vera Cruz, nor were they on the Néréide and the other French warships dotting the harbor.
Dark hair, hazel eyes, and the Mexican beauty of his yearnings filled those thoughts.
Was it only day before yesterday that he’d come within a hairsbreadth of making Alejandra Sierra’s acquaintance? Why hadn’t he gone after her when she’d turned from him? He had been ready to further breach Mexican etiquette and demand to know why she was so cool and disinterested. But something had stopped him. It was the frightened look in her beguiling eyes.
“You must stop brooding over the señora,” said a man in Spanish from behind him. “A woman is a woman is a woman. And they’re all soft in the dark.”
His study broken, Reece chuckled and turned away from the harbor view to eye his manservant who spoke nary a word of English.
Pepe Zecatl smiled toothily and rocked on his huaraches. “We could travel to my village, and I will introduce you to my cousin Rosario. She is a widow and very beautiful. Hot as a chiltipiquín and soft as a tortilla. Mm-mm! You wouldn’t need to wait for gray of night.”
Reece rolled his eyes. Pepe was more than a mere mozo. They were pals, and the younger man was the closest person Reece had to a confidant since his brother had vanished into the political cauldron of this country.
That painful thought clipped, Reece eyed his servant.
Short of stature but long on advice and hum
or, Pepe stood waiting for a reply. Reece wondered where this young mestizo, whose face bore the proud visage of his Totonac mother, had gotten such a jovial spirit. Well, Reece decided, the Spanish were a happy people, and Pepe’s veins flowed with a bit of that blood, too.
“About Rosario . . .” Pepe wiggled his brows.
“Thanks but no thanks.”
“Rosario could make you forget the señora. Oooh, she can make a man forget! It’s only a couple hour’s ride to my village, and there’ll be plenty of pulque to drink. Oh, our heads will be as big as a mountain in the morning!” He pulled a face. “But you’ll thank me anyway.”
As a rule Reece enjoyed joking around, but he was in no mood at the moment. “Conversation closed on the cousin, my friend. I don’t want to forget the doña. She’s all I can think of. She’s the sun on the water at dawn and the mist of sunset. She’s—”
“She’s a sore you can’t get rid of,” Pepe interrupted and shook his head in exasperation. “She’s the woman who turned her back on you. You are smitten because she’s unattainable, that’s all. And—”
The front door’s heavy knocker rapped, cutting off Pepe’s words. He rushed past clay pots of bougainvillea and hibiscus to answer the summons.
From his point near the patio’s edge, Reece heard muffled words. Not an unusual occurrence, since only the sitting room separated this area from the front entrance. The white-plastered house was built U-shaped around the patio—rather like three New Orleans shotgun houses shoved edge to edge. The patio jutted beyond the house walls, for flower garden purposes and to give a commanding view of the waters. Where Charles Baudin and his men waited to collect their due.
Reece heard laughter. Curiosity caught him.
Entering the sitting room’s door, he heard a uniformed driver speaking with Pepe. Apparently a carriage was broken down on the other side of Casa Montgomery’s gate. Nothing serious, just a harness trace come apart. Could the good Señor provide a spare? Could the gracious lady rest inside while repairs were under way?
Pepe rose on his toes to crane his neck out the door. He chuckled. “I think we can find something in the shed to do for a trace. And your gracious lady . . . oh yes, she is most welcome!”
Reece scowled. The last thing he wanted was a visit from some tiresome Veracruzana chatterbox. A swish of skirts drew his regard. Pique vanished.
His heart beat clicked into double-time.
Exotic and gorgeous, Alejandra Sierra stood before him. For six long weeks, since the first time he gazed upon her beauty as she alighted from her carriage in front of San Fernando Church, he had been lusting after her. Each time he visited the city, he’d searched for those eyes. Those bewitching eyes.
“We meet again,” she said in English, her voice husky.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me again.”
“I assure you, I am. And I shall introduce myself, since the broken-down carriage precludes proper introductions. I am Doña Alejandra Sierra of Campos de Palmas. It’s a pleasure to meet you, although the situation could be better. Thank you for the lend of a trace.”
Her calm comeback had Reece puzzled. Yet pleased for this meeting, he cast caution to the breezes. “Welcome.”
He looked into her eyes. They were gorgeous, flat-out gorgeous. Hazel irises, almost green, almost burnt almond, were like a leaf turning in autumn. Gorgeous.
“Reece Montgomery at your service, ma’am,” he said, escorting her to a cushioned chair on the patio.
The sight and nearness of her, the faint scent of flowery perfume, that rich tone to her voice—these things closed around Reece’s heart. Somehow he managed to pour two glasses of orange juice, to take his own chair not three feet from hers and to answer her traditionally Veracruzana introductory chatter. As goggle-eyed as a lad in front of a sweets shop, though he hoped she didn’t notice, he stared at the black-haired enchantress.
Rose-colored bougainvillea grew up the wrought-iron trellis behind Alejandra Sierra, framing her dark beauty in the best of light. Reece knew she was twenty-two, just right for his thirty. Taller than most Mexican women, five-six, he’d guess. Her figure? It curved in all the right places. Holding a fan, her hands were slender and well-shaped. She wore black, both in dress and in mantilla. Red was probably her best color. But, hell, even black looked good on her. She had an exquisite face, oval in shape and ivory in complexion. Lips neither too full nor too thin were infinitely kissable. Parted in the middle, pulled back in a chignon, her raven hair gleamed with bluish highlights. Every inch the proper lady was Doña Alejandra Sierra of Campos de Palmas.
He yearned to muss all that perfection, all that propriety.
If he had been a gentleman, he might have worried over lascivious thoughts about an upstanding lady in Mexican society. But he wasn’t to the manor born, and experience had taught him the high-born ladies could be just as hot-blooded, or could get that way, just the same as any other woman. He got the impression it would take some heating up with this particular lady.
“Señor Montgomery? Is something wrong?” Alejandra asked when he forgot to reply to one of her niceties.
“Nothing’s wrong. Nothing could be better.”
That was true. Almost. Here he was in a tropical paradise—in the best and coolest part of the year—with every amenity a man needed for the good life. He had more money than he could spend, had a seaside home, and his health and youth. And now Alejandra was sitting right here in one of his chairs. What more could he need?
Well, for one thing, he needed to complete his mission. And that was no mere addendum to his raison d’être.
His attention was captured by a hand that fluttered to a creamy throat. . . and by Alejandra’s mellifluous voice as she purred, “Señor Montgomery, I’d like to thank you for helping me and my driver. Would you be free to join my party for dinner, say tomorrow night?”
“I might be free.”
He swallowed a smug grin. Imagine, after all this wondering just how to go about meeting her, Alejandra was inviting him to dinner. Giving him a chance with the finest lady in the state of Veracruz. He was glad for his five years in New Orleans, where he’d been introduced to clipped hair, shaven face, and fine clothing. And he knew how to act gallant.
Grinning, rubbing his jaw, and wishing for a fresh shave, he recalled all he knew about her. Educated on the Continent, entertained by the first families of America, Alejandra Sierra was born to comfort and advantage. Her French-born papa was a rich sugar planter even before marrying an Español land baroness and adding her Veracruz lands to his. Alejandra had married well, too. But none of that mattered to Reece. He wasn’t a fortune hunter.
“I’m very free,” he said, watching her lips. “But why make a party of it? A dinner for two is more to my liking.”
Her mouth straightened. What with his training to read people’s expressions, Reece saw something in hers. It might have been offense, but he got the impression there was more to it than that. Recalling her lack of surprise at seeing him, he decided this happenstance meeting didn’t ring true.
It was a lousy feeling, the suspicion gnawing at him.
From the shed no more than fifty feet to the right, Pepe, his voice elevated, said, “I am not a carriage driver, amigo, but I have worked with leather enough to know this is a funny break to a trace. I’d say it’s been sliced.”
Reece honed in on a flicker in Alejandra’s eyes. A flicker of guilt at being caught. Why was she here? What did she want? And why did she want it?
It was a good thing His Highness, François of Joinville, had left before she showed up. Reece couldn’t be too cautious—and should have been more so from the moment Alejandra walked through his door. He was surrounded by enemies and few allies, being that he was an agent for the Republic of Texas in collusion with his mother’s hereditary countryman, Charles Baudin.
“Seems as if you have a lax stable boy,” Reece commented, probing. “Or someone means you harm.”
She wet her lips befor
e saying offhandedly, “I’ll look into it.”
“You aren’t concerned for your safety?”
“I’m sure your mozo is making too much of a broken trace. Didn’t we both hear him say he isn’t an expert at driving?” She rushed on. “Do you find Mexico to your liking, Señor Montgomery?”
Striving for a taste of sanity in a stewpot of inner conflict, Reece leaned back to cross his leather-booted ankles. “Tell me, Alejandra,” he said, much too familiar, “how do you know I haven’t lived here all my life?”
“Your presence hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
“In connection with what?”
“Why, our hostesses . . . It’s just that you’ve been . . .” She waved her fan in front of her face. “Really, Señor Montgomery, you are much too forward!”
“Yes, ma’am, I reckon I am.” He leaned to rest his forearms on his spread knees. “Since you don’t seem to have a problem speaking to me now, why’d you turn your back last Monday?”
“Speaking to you wouldn’t have been proper.” She hurried on with, “It was kind of you, helping the little girl.”
“And it was sweet of you to give her a coin. And the shrimp.”
Not a murmur passed her lips. The only sounds came from the sea, from birds, from a family of monkeys playing in a nearby poinciana tree.
Reece scratched the edge of his mustache. “What brings you here?”
“The trace . . .”
“That trace didn’t break, and you know it.”
Her hazel eyes darkened. “Surely a man of your esteemed calibre isn’t suggesting that I am a liar.”
“Let’s get something straight. My calibre is not esteemed. I’m a frontier ruffian. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Fifteen seconds passed before she uttered a word. “And what frontier would that be?”
“St. Louis.”
“Is that where you came to be called El Cazador?”
Personally he didn’t cotton to that moniker. It made him seem predatory, which he wasn’t. No, that wasn’t true. Circumstances had made him that way.
