Sweet Savage Love

by Rosemary Rogers

  His sudden change in manner took her completely by surprise and kept her silent. A sudden shaft of moonlight came palely through a dusty window, as if the moon had come out from behind a cloud, and Ginny started, her eyes widening with shock.

  “We’re in the family chapel. It seemed a suitably private place, and I don’t think they’ll think of looking here just yet. What’s the matter, does the thought of being here upset you?”

  “It’s silly of course,” Ginny murmured, “but it almost seems sacrilegious.” She turned her head, searching the darkness for some expression on his face. “Steve—what are you doing here? What has happened?”

  “As you must have noticed already, my love, I seem to have walked into a hornet’s nest!” His voice was abrupt, offhand, but the pressure of his fingers tightened on hers. “Beal knows I’m here—Devereaux knows who I am—and my watchdogs keep trailing me to see I don’t put on a gun or try to run away! So you see, it’s all liable to burst about my ears very shortly.” Almost unconsciously, his voice had taken on a slightly bitter note that stirred her strangely. She was not used to hearing an admission of defeat from this man—not even that time when he had been surrounded by French troops, and she had held his life in her hands. Why didn’t he escape now? She almost began to say so.

  “But you’ve eluded them already. You can…”

  “Yes, I can run away. But you see, I gave my grandfather my word that I would not attempt to escape until I’d fulfilled my obligations, at least—and I’ve had time enough to realize that he’s right. If you’ll agree, Ginny, we can be married tonight. Diego’s gone off to fetch Renaldo and the priest; they should return shortly.”

  Again, Ginny was seized by the feeling that she was dreaming. She felt incapable of speech, as if he’d dealt her a sudden, stunning blow. With a jerk she pulled her hands from his grasp, and would have jumped to her feet and run from him if he hadn’t seized her arm and pulled her down beside him again with an impatient exclamation.

  “Will you stop jumping to conclusions so fast! Hold still, you little wildcat, and let me finish!”

  “I don’t want to hear more!” she gasped, almost sobbing with angry humiliation. “I’ve changed my mind—nothing on earth would make me marry you now! You’re free to go, Steve Morgan—go on, run away! I’m no longer an obligation you have to take care of!”

  “Ginny, shut up! You sounded so fierce and so practical this afternoon, what’s the matter with you now?” His voice hardened and he gripped her wrists. “Stop acting so hysterical, as if I’d offered you the worst possible insult—I’m only thinking of your future, dammit!” Still holding her wrists, he pulled her closer. The mask of civility, of controlled patience had dropped away, and she had the impression that he was himself again—savage, ruthless, determined to take what he wanted. “Be silent now, and listen. I’ve no intention of running away—at least, not until I’m sure how much they know—Beal, and your friend Colonel Devereaux. But in case—just in case something happens, by marrying you, I can be sure you’ll be taken care of. Maybe I don’t have much of a conscience, and no sense of honor, but you didn’t deserve what I did to you. In fact, my love, it was too bad for us both that we ever set eyes on each other, I’m sure you’ll agree! But that’s beside the point—you had better stop acting like a spoiled child and accept things the way they are—just as you accepted matters when you and my grandfather first hatched this plot between yourselves. Pull yourself together. Goddammit—what are you crying about?”

  The note of exasperated disgust in his voice forced her head up defiantly.

  “I’m crying with—with rage! What do you think? I’m sure no other woman can boast of such a—a vastly romantic proposal! You’re suddenly very anxious to marry me, just so that you can make me a widow!”

  “Well, once you’ve gotten used to the prospect, I’m sure you’ll find it quite alluring!” he said dryly. “However, I should warn you that I don’t intend to commit suicide either. I’ve been in worse scrapes than this, but then…”

  “But you didn’t have a wife to worry about, did you?” Ginny put as much scorn as she could muster into her voice. “Well, you needn’t worry about me—even if I must marry you to hold my head up in society, I certainly don’t intend to concern myself about you—you can be very sure of that! What a choice you offer me—either I’m to be the widow of a criminal, or the wife of a hunted outlaw! But don’t expect me to bury myself away to hide my shame,” she continued furiously, “I mean every word I told you earlier—I shall go back to France, and I shall…”

  The chapel door opened silently and she gasped, but Steve was already drawing her to her feet.

  “Since you’ve agreed to marry me, sweet, let’s get it over with first, shall we? No doubt, after it’s over, we shall be rid of each other—in one way or another! Come on—let’s not keep Padre Benito waiting.”

  32

  They were married—the brief ceremony, conducted in hushed tones was over at last. When Steve bent over her his lips merely grazed Ginny’s in a cold and dutiful kiss—she felt as cold as ice, as if she were still in a trance.

  How unreal it had all been, after all; she could hardly believe, so soon after, that it had happened at all! She was married, surrounded by strangers—even the man who had given her away, a seemingly colorless American friend of Diego’s, was a complete stranger. Ginny had found herself wondering vaguely whether he could possibly be mixed up with the Juarists too—even Father Benito was a revolutionary. An emaciated, stooped old man in a shabby cassock, he had been hiding out in Renaldo’s house for over a month because he had once led a small village in revolt against the Mexican Irregulars.

  Against the light of the two flickering candles on the altar Father Benito’s thin, stooped figure had appeared mysterious and in some way frightening. In contrast with his appearance, his voice, though low, was sonorous—his Latin pure and unaccented. Ginny remembered afterwards that at some points in the ceremony Steve’s hand had held hers—how warm his fingers had been, how cold the feel of the ring he had slipped over her finger. She had not even asked him from where he had obtained it; certainly it was too small to be his…

  In any case, she was married. She bore a name that was no longer her own but belonged to a man she still disliked and mistrusted. It was almost with relief that she lifted her face to accept the kisses of the other men. Diego, as irrepressible as ever, kissed her the longest, announcing that it was his privilege as the one who had rescued her. Renaldo’s kiss was somehow searching, almost sad. Afterwards he gripped her hands tightly and told her he would always be her friend—she could turn to him for anything, at any time.

  When Renaldo had disappeared into the darkness with the priest, Ginny felt somehow forlorn. She followed him with her eyes, feeling that he was her only real friend in all the world, until Steve slipped an arm round her waist.

  “I’m beginning to think you are in love with Renaldo!” he whispered to her a trifle sarcastically. “Just think, you might have married him instead. As it is,” he added, his tone still mocking, “you’ll have to settle for pot luck, I’m afraid. But don’t look so tragic my sweet—I’m not going to make any more impossible demands of you. I’m sure you’ll prefer being a wife to being my mistress.”

  They began to walk back towards the house, with Diego and his American friend talking in low voices behind them. For once, Ginny did not feel inclined to embark on another battle of words with Steve—she felt so strange, so empty inside! She no longer even cared what would happen when they got back to the others, or what Steve planned to do.

  In the moonlight, Steve’s face looked as if it was carved out of granite. His features wore the cold, implacable look that she had learned to recognize so well, but for once it did not frighten her. She wondered only how he was going to explain all this to Don Francisco—and how she could explain her willingness to go along with such a sudden, unplanned marriage. Why had she done it? Why had she let herself be manipulated? The
thought suddenly struck her that as Steve’s wife, she could no longer give evidence against him. No doubt, that was why he has rushed things. How disappointing for poor Colonel Devereaux! And now she need not even telegraph her father, unless it was to announce that she was married.

  “You’re very silent.” The words sounded harsh and grating, as if they had been forced out of him. Indeed, the sight of Ginny’s white, strained face in the ghostly light had given him a hateful, unfamiliar pang.

  Really! One would think that she’d forgotten all her firm resolutions to marry him in order to punish him and make his life miserable. One would think it was the other way around, and that she was the one who was being tormented. He remembered that even when he’d attempted to make her lose her temper again, soon after the wedding, she’d refused to say a word. Now she looked like a tragedy queen! What was the matter with her?

  Now she looked up and said, in a calm, oddly-withdrawn voice, “What is there to talk about? In any case, I’ve nothing to say.”

  He had the angry, crazy impulse to stop dead in the middle of the path and shake her—to bruise her shoulders and send her hair spilling loose, flying around her face—to shatter her calm and hear her cry out with rage. How dare she act this way? After all, he was the one who had been forced into this peculiar arrangement in the beginning, and now she was playing martyr. What an unreasonable, impossible woman she was!

  It was only the memory of Bishop’s unemotional voice, murmuring that he might need to take an enforced vacation—that women had a way of clouding a man’s judgment, occupying his mind when he most needed to think clearly, that prevented him from snatching her into his arms—wiping that cold and tragic expression from her face.

  Controlling himself with difficulty, Steve dropped his arm from around Ginny’s waist and began to stride on ahead of her, his face dark with anger.

  “If you have any regrets now, you’d best try to hide them,” he said, speaking over his shoulder. “It’s too late for qualms now, my pet, and you had better get used to the idea before we come face to face with my grandfather. I have the feeling he’s probably in one of his worse moods right now.”

  Feeling suddenly deserted Ginny had almost to run a few steps forward to catch up with his long, pantherlike strides. She clutched at his arm, slowing him down.

  “What on earth is the matter with you?” she demanded, panting, “What got into you suddenly? One moment you’re asking questions as if you were really concerned about my silence, and the next you become sarcastic and—and horrible! Don’t you want my protection when you face Don Francisco?” she went on, enraged by the look he gave her, just as if she was suddenly beneath contempt. “After all, he seems to be the only person you’re afraid of! And now, of course, you’ve made certain that I won’t be able to say anything about you—so you’re safe from Devereaux, at least. That ought to please you!”

  She was amazed when he gave a sudden shout of laughter.

  “So you’re back to normal again, aren’t you? It didn’t take you long!”

  He caught her hand and swung it between them playfully, and she saw that the closed look had left his face, he was smiling down at her teasingly. Her surprise at the sudden change in his mood was too great for her to find an adequately cutting reply yet, and he forestalled it by remarking that he did indeed need to be protected from his grandfather’s wrath.

  “But of course I’ll put all the blame on you—I shall tell him that you didn’t want any of the fuss connected with a big wedding—that you couldn’t wait to crawl into bed with me with the full blessing of the church—”

  Ginny’s cheeks flushed scarlet when she heard a smothered laugh behind her, which Diego promptly turned into a cough.

  “Steve Morgan,” she began in a furious whisper, “you are…” She broke off suddenly as they emerged from the shelter of the trees into a lighted area at the side of the sprawling house. Here too there was a wide, shaded verandah, with shallow steps leading down to a smaller, more private patio. There were chairs and a few tables scattered around here too, and in the shade of one of the big oak trees three mariachi players provided the music for a girl with swirling red skirts and an ivory comb in her hair. The small circle of men and women who surrounded her clapped their hands rhythmically in counterpoint to the incessant clicking of her castanets. She was beautiful, the red rose she wore over one ear emphasizing her jet black hair, and she danced with graceful, unstudied concentration. A man suddenly leaped into the circle to join her, his short black jacket open to reveal a dazzlingly white shirt—the silver ornamentation lining sleeves and lapels catching the flickering torchlight.

  Ginny’s breath caught in her throat and she forgot what she had been going to say. Something about the primitive, earthy quality of this dance captured her whole attention. Here was passion without words, the age-old man/woman relationship; the barnyard sex and the romantic flirtation; retold in dance form.

  “Her name is Concepción—she’s a gypsy. Dancing comes naturally to them—those are her brothers who play the guitar—it’s probably her lover who dances with her. The fierce-looking man over there, with the large mustachios is her father—he’s their leader. It’s said they’re Comancheros.”

  Diego and his friend had come up behind them, and his usually expressive voice sounded almost dreamy as he explained softly to Ginny. She had the feeling, without even turning, that his eyes were fixed hypnotically on the gypsy girl.

  Since they were here, it would not be good manners to leave now—they must at least wait until the dance was over, Diego went on. With Steve fallen silent for a change, but still holding Ginny’s hand, they edged up to the outskirts of the circle of fascinated, admiring aficionados and stood watching.

  After a while, Ginny felt Steve’s arm go around her shoulders, but he did it absentmindedly. When she glanced at him, he was gazing fixedly at the dancers, with a strange half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  Oh, to be able to dance like that! The woman portrayed all women—alternately she teased and taunted, displayed passion and coldness; came so close to her partner that her breasts brushed his shirtfront, and then turned her back on him. She played with him, alternately leading him on and repulsing him. Sometimes she smiled, her teeth sparkling like pearls, and sometimes she assumed a haughty, touch-me-not air.

  The dance leaped to a climax with a crescendo of chords, the guitars thrumming dissonantly. The woman leaned towards her lover, face upturned, her arms like white stalks twining around his neck. But only for an instant—in the next she had whirled away, repudiating him. He stepped backwards, melting into the circle of watchers and the girl danced alone again, her smile this time for every other man in the audience. The music became slower, more plaintive; she seemed to offer herself to every man there. The castanets were silent now and her body moved like a willow in the wind, this way and that. Her hands went up to her hair, held up in a shining mass by the comb, and suddenly it tumbled down her back, long and straight and gleaming—then whipped around her face as her head moved back and forth. She held the rose between her teeth, and as the dance ended abruptly, she plucked it out and threw it, straight and violently, at Steve’s face.

  This is ridiculous, Ginny was thinking a few minutes later. How many women are there in his past? And how many more will there be in the future? her treacherous mind answered her. She didn’t know what to think, whether she was more amazed or angry.

  After the gypsy girl had flung the rose she’d followed it herself, her stride as purposeful as any man’s, her hair swinging about her shoulders like a mane. There was a sudden silence and the crowd parted for her—for a moment Ginny had actually wondered if this crazy female was going to do something violent, and she had instinctively shrunk backwards. She had felt Steve’s arm drop from around her shoulders—somehow, he had caught the rose, and he was actually grinning. How well she knew that teasing, mocking note in his voice—she was inexplicably resentful that this time it was there for s
omeone else.

  “You dance as well as ever, Concepción. And you’re still a beauty. But where’s your husband?”

  The girl’s eyes slitted like an angry cat’s, and she looked ready to claw as she stood before Steve with her bare feet.

  “Hah! And you, my fine caballero! Since when have you let a little thing like a husband stop you from visiting old friends? Husband!” She put a wealth of contempt into the words, “You know very well I only marry him because I am so mad at you—you…” the girl broke into a string of obvious epithets in dialect that made Ginny’s ears burn, and caused Diego to burst out laughing. But surprisingly enough, even as she continued to berate him Concepción flung herself against Steve, her arms going upward, hands pulling his head greedily down to meet her mouth. And he kissed her back, very thoroughly too.

  Seething with a fury she was barely able to contain, Ginny found her hands clenching into fists at her sides, she must have made some motion, or emitted some sound that warned Diego, for suddenly he was holding her by the elbow, whispering to her that she must understand that Esteban had known Concepción since childhood…they were merely old friends…

  “Oh, yes,” she insisted, “I can see what kind of friends they are—he has been kissing her for over two minutes now, what kind of a stupid ninny do you take me for?” She turned on the hapless Diego with her green eyes slashing him like daggers. “And you, Señor—will you kindly stop defending that despicable man you call your friend? Let him defend himself for a change! Look at him, far from being embarrassed he’s enjoying it. Ooh!” She stopped to draw breath, and happened to notice the small, silent knot of men who were converging on Steve and the girl like a band of avenging angels. One of them, she saw with satisfaction, was the girl’s father—he of the large mustachios.