by Henke, Shirl
She watched him don a blue cotton shirt, covering up that hard hairy chest with all its mysterious and sensual scars. A disturbing heat began to build deep in her belly. She struggled to concentrate on his words. “What time will you return tonight?”
“Not until dark, I expect. Have Angelina leave a plate for me on the kitchen hearth.”
“I'll be working with Juan Morales today.”
“The old gardener? What the devil for—we can't spare men for growing flowers.”
“Of course not,” she replied indignantly. “He and a dozen or so of the older servants are helping me with vegetable gardens. We've planted our own fields of corn as well as beans, chilies, tomatoes, yams—just about everything that can be dried or preserved for winter. Your father thought it demeaning that I muck in the mud with the peons, but we can't afford to buy staple foodstuffs even if they were readily available, which they are not.”
“If my father disapproved, I can imagine what my mother had to say,” he replied dryly, walking over to the bed and unclenching one of her hands from the cover. He held it, examining the calluses, then kissed them. His eyes met hers. “Don't work too hard while I'm away, Mercedes.”
At the tender gesture a shiver of warmth coursed through her. He replaced her hand on the cover, then walked over to where his weapons lay on the large dressing table beside the window. Strapping the knife to his thigh, he slung the gun belt over his shoulder, then picked up his Henry rifle and left the room as she sat bemused by their homey exchange of plans for the day.
* * * *
Mercedes spent the cool early morning hours out in the fields, weeding alongside the peons. Finally she leaned on her hoe and looked out at the green rows of young corn struggling to grow in the dry, hard soil. Wiping the perspiration from her brow, she grew pensive.
“The crops need water, Doña Mercedes,” Juan said as he, too, stopped his labors.
“I've been thinking about that. A branch of the Yaqui River flows past the fields to the east, on the higher ground.
If we could divert part of that, it would flow down to where most of the cleared fields are planted. I've read about such irrigation in books.”
Juan's expression remained respectfully impassive. “It has always been said that the Indians to the south in the great valleys of Mexico irrigated fields so vast the eye could not span them. They even built pipes of clay to carry the water for hundreds of leagues.”
“The aqueducts, yes,” she murmured, looking at the wizened little Indian in baggy white calzones. Fathomless black eyes were set deeply in a flat face that seemed somehow ancient yet ageless, the way she often thought of Mexico itself. Had he sprung from such illustrious ancestors as the fabled Aztecs? At times this harsh and beautiful land remained alien to her even though she had spent almost all of her life in it. She was a gachupín, born in Spain, in some ways still an outsider. But she loved the land, her land, with a passion born of hard labor and the struggle to survive the turbulent times in which they lived.
“Do you think we can dig so far, Dona?”
Mercedes stared out at the parched earth. “We'll have to, Juan. This afternoon we'll walk the banks of the tributary and decide the best place to start.”
By the time she returned to the house, the sun was high overhead. Rosario had most probably already eaten breakfast and been sent to play around the kitchen. She had given the child to Angelina and Lupe's charge, but both women had many chores. Perhaps it would be better to bring Rosario with her to the fields, but it was hot and dusty with scant shade close by.
A smile touched her lips as she thought of Father Salvador, who did little around the household after morning mass but pray and read religious tracts. She would have to discuss Rosario's tutoring with Lucero. The stern old priest had always intensely disliked her husband. Lucero might not want him teaching his daughter. Yet there was no one else unless she did it herself, a task she would ordinarily have relished if not for the heavy burden of responsibility she bore for running Gran Sangre.
Perhaps Lucero would really be able to make a difference now that he was home. She was not certain she wanted to give over her hard-won position of command to a man who came from a long line of wastrels. Yet he seemed to have been honed by war into a disciplined and mature man. Remembering his examination of her work-roughened hands earlier that morning, she felt her heart skip a beat.
After stopping outside the kitchen to wash the worst of the dust from her feet in a bucket of water kept just for that purpose, she started toward the kitchen. Suddenly a loud screech and a string of oaths rent the warm air, followed by furious barking. The hubbub was coming from the courtyard on the opposite side of the kitchen. Cutting through the big room, Mercedes saw Angelina in the doorway to the courtyard, yelling at someone.
“Stop this at once, Innocencia,” the old cook commanded.
“Look what the child and her cur have done! All my morning's work ruined! My hands are red as a fishwife's and for what?” She turned to Rosario. “You rotten little bastard!”
Mercedes flew past Angelina and crossed the flagstone patio in a trice. Rosario was huddled in the mud beside an overturned tub filled with white table linens, her eyes huge with fright, small hiccupping sobs rending her thin little chest. The big dog sat protectively by her side. Reaching down to the child, the patrona took her in her arms and glared at the murderous look in the slattern's black eyes. “Don't you ever speak that word aloud again in this house, or I will banish you forever!”
“You cannot banish me. Only Don Lucero may dismiss a servant and you know he will never let me go.” She smirked insolently at her mistress, then turned her wrath back at Rosario. “Look at the mess. She is the one who should go,” she said, pointing at the quivering child. “Her and that hound from hell you keep!”
“I did not mean to be bad,” Rosario choked out. “Please, neither did Bufón!”
“It's all right,” Mercedes said, stroking a lock of inky hair from Rosario's forehead. “Tell me what happened.”
“We...we were playing with Bufón's yarn ball, the big blue one,” the child began, pointing to the soggy blue wool toy that lay atop the spilled linens, its dye leaching a pale grayish stain onto a once snowy white tablecloth. “I threw the ball to him but…” Tears clogged her voice and she began to sob harder. “It landed in the laundry tub. I ran to pull it out...”
“But that big rascal beat you to it and overturned the tub in his eagerness to reclaim his prize,” Mercedes supplied for her.
“There is no real harm done,” Angelina said cheerfully, hefting the tub onto the high wooden bench as if the vat weighed nothing. “We will bleach out the dye with lemon juice in no time.” She turned to Innocencia. “You fetch the jug of lemon juice, then begin refilling the tub with clean water from the well. I will wring out the linens.”
Innocencia stamped her foot. “We'll be all afternoon redoing this wash—it was never my job to begin with. I am no washerwoman,” she said, daring the patrona to do anything about her defiance.
Bufón growled low in his throat and shook his head, spraying mud on the hem of her brightly colored skirts. Innocencia began another shrieking diatribe and jumped away, only to slip in the mud and fall on her amply padded backside. She struggled to scoot backward in the ooze, her earlier rage now transformed into fright.
Mercedes smothered a chuckle as she set Rosario down and commanded Bufón to be still, then turned her attention to the cowering tart. “You're right—you're not a washerwoman—or a cook or a maid. You're a harlot...an unemployed harlot; and if you say one more word to me or ever again threaten the patrón's daughter, you won't even have a roof over your head!”
Innocencia's dark complexion blanched. For the first time she really looked at the little girl, seeing the finely chiseled Alvarado features and signature black and silver eyes set in the swarthier face of an Indian mother. Realization of what she had done slammed into her. “I...I did not know she was his daughter. I only thought
—”
“You thought she was one of the serving girls' children and could be bullied as you always try to bully people,” Mercedes cut in angrily. “Now get up and get to work. If I hear you speak one cross word to Angelina, I'll personally rip every hair out of your head, then let Bufón use you for his play ball. Is that clear?”
Nodding sullenly, Innocencia slipped and scrambled to her feet, then trudged over to the well and began to draw up water. Mercedes heard a soft giggle of laughter and looked down at Rosario, who was watching her nemesis wade like a duck through the muck.
“She looks like the brown milk cow Mother Superior had at the convent.”
A grin spread across Mercedes’ lips. “Yes, she rather does, doesn't she?”
While she and Lupe washed the mud from Rosario and then tackled Bufón—always a formidable task—Mercedes considered how her husband might feel about her threats to his old mistress. True, he had not bedded her since returning home. At least she had seen no evidence that he had done so. But she had usurped his authority in a manner that could displease him. Then thinking of the puta's cruel words to his daughter she reassured herself that he would never allow anyone, even his mistress, to abuse the child. Still, as the day wore on, she fretted about what Innocencia might do.
* * * *
Nicholas came in from the range at twilight, covered with dust, sweat-soaked and saddle sore. All his thoughts centered on a bath—a long, lovely soak in a big tub of warm clean water. He walked into the arched entry hall and headed toward the kitchen, expecting Angelina to be busy cleaning up from dinner. There was probably a feast set out for him if he knew the old cook, but at this point, he was too tired to even be hungry. All he wanted was that bath.
Before he got halfway down the hall, Lupe emerged from one of the side doors and curtsied shyly for the patrón. She was a small young woman with a round face and merry brown eyes. “We were expecting you late, Don Lucero. Your dinner—”
“That's all right, Lupe. Dinner can wait. Please have Lazaro fetch bathwater to the bathing room and then have Baltazar bring me my razor, soap and some fresh towels along with a change of clothes.”
She nodded in acquiescence and he began to stroll across the courtyard, feeling too dirty and foul-smelling to remain indoors to search for Mercedes and Rosario. He ambled by the fountain and loitered in the shadows of a fig tree while Lazaro filled the tub with fresh water. Then he went into the long narrow room reserved for bathing, stripped off his clothes and slipped into the large tub. It was specially made of copper with a porcelain interior, large enough for two.
In the unadorned adobe room with simple plank floors and tiny windows, the tub was rather out of place. His father had ordered it from Spain with plans to build an elaborate bathing room on the second floor of the family's private quarters but after the war started, Don Anselmo quickly lost interest. Besides, it was more discreet for him to philander with serving wenches here at the opposite end of the courtyard rather than to do so near the angry disapproval emanating from Doña Sofia's room just across the hall.
Nicholas sank beneath the heavenly water and laid his head back on the rim of the tub, remembering all Lucero had told him about his family, their family. Much of it was not pleasant, although the picture of decadent wealth his brother painted seemed to overshadow any problems to a boy raised in a series of succeedingly more sleazy brothels.
Luce had hated his cold mother but doted upon his wild carousing father. Although Nicholas empathized with what it meant to miss a mother's love, he hated Don Anselmo even more than his brother hated Doña Sofia. Don Anselmo had planted his seed and carelessly walked away from the foolish young mistress he had kept for a passing amusement.
Suddenly his troubling reverie was interrupted by the low purring voice of Innocencia. “I see the war has scarred that perfect stallion's body. I only pray one vital part of you has not been wounded.”
She licked her carmined lips provocatively and swished into the room, carrying an armful of towels. Having overheard his directions to Lupe, she had quickly decided this was her perfect opportunity to appeal to Lucero before his bitch of a wife further poisoned his opinion of his old mistress. Blessed Virgin, if only she had noticed that the brat was his child before acting so foolishly!
He watched her deposit the towels beside the tub, then pose seductively at the edge. She leaned forward to give him a better view of her heavy breasts which hung almost out of a low-cut blouse. He smiled wearily at her posturing. “That part of me is no longer your concern, Cenci.”
She pouted. “I do not believe you will say so in a few weeks when you tire of that shrew you married. Let me see how she has been taking care of you,” she said as she reached beneath the water and seized hold of his staff with quick clever fingers.
He clenched his teeth and cursed as her unexpected ministrations had the natural effect on his body.
“I am good for you, no?” By now she had pulled free the drawstring at the neckline of her camisa and one large pendulous breast with its dark brown nipple spilled free.
“You are no good for me,” he whispered, reaching down to disengage her hand from his private parts. When he pried her fingers loose and raised her hand from beneath the water, she tangled her other hand in his hair and leaned forward over the tub in an attempt to push her bare breast against his mouth.
“Baltazar said you wanted—” Mercedes’ breath caught in her throat as she saw the steamy tableau when she opened the door. Throwing his clean clothes and toilet articles on the floor, she said in an icy voice, “Now I can see very clearly what you want.”
Chapter Nine
Mercedes turned and walked out of the room, refusing to give in to her impulse to run into the night. She kept her back rigidly straight and blinked back the tears stinging her eyes, trying not to think of the humiliation. Again. Just like it was when I first saw them. She forced herself to stop. Focusing on the anger was easier. And she was very, very angry.
Lucero had ever been a gamester and this whole new seduction ritual was only a bedroom game to amuse him. Bitterly she wondered if he had described to Innocencia his wife's maidenly modesty, her awkwardness, her coldness. A grim smile twisted her lips. She hoped he had thought her cold. How they would be laughing at her if he suspected she was weakening and beginning to desire him. She had come much too close to revealing those feelings. Never again would she risk making a fool of herself.
She walked across the courtyard and entered the family's side of the house, heading to Don Anselmo's study where she knew he had kept his guns.
Nicholas shoved Innocencia away with a vile oath and climbed out of the tub. “Get out of my sight before I snap your filthy little neck. I've told you it's finished between us, Cenci, and I meant it.”
The water that had splashed on her blouse had turned the sheer fabric translucent. She pulled it tightly over her nipples so they stood out, dark and large. Her mouth formed a pout as she watched him dry off with swift angry movements. “Surely the will not run after his skinny little convent girl? After all, she cannot refuse you her bed, even if she is so frigid and foolish as to try.”
He looked at his brother's mistress with utter contempt. What could Luce have seen in the slut? He had allowed her to grow exceedingly bold for one of her low station. “What is between me and my lady is of no concern to you, Cenci,” he said in a silken tone that was all the more deadly for its seeming civility. “I am the patrón and she is my wife. You are a servant—a servant in grave danger of banishment from Gran Sangre if you ever do anything like this again. Do I make myself clear?” His eyes bored into her, sharp as French bayonets.
Innocencia stepped back, her expression fearful. “Yes, yes, patrón. I don't wish to be sent away.” She let her eyes tear and her voice quiver as she added, “I have nowhere to go, no family, no one.” She did have family in Guyamas, but they were desperately poor fishermen. The thought of cleaning fish for a living was infinitely worse than any household chores.<
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She did not understand what was happening. Before Lucero had left, everything had been so wonderful. The sloe-eyed beauty studied him from beneath thick black lashes as he jerked on his clothes, turning his back on her. She had the urge to reach out and caress the scars on his body but intuitively knew to do so when he was this angry would be a dangerous blunder. Her expression hardened as she slipped silently from the room, vowing to have the master back in her bed and to have revenge against the pale little gachupín who had robbed her of his attentions.
Nicholas walked across the courtyard, pausing beneath the fig trees by the fountain to collect his thoughts. Luce would never run after his wife or offer explanations for his infidelities. Just when he was beginning to make headway with her, she had been given more reason to mistrust him. Shit, he wasn't even guilty of anything! He damn well could tell her that. And she damn well would listen. But it would be totally out of character to rush after her immediately. Cenci had set the whole artful little scene up to connive her way back into his affections and it had hurt Mercedes.
A drink would give him time to calm his nerves and give his wife time to cool down. If he knew Mercedes—and he was beginning to know her pretty well—she was spitting mad about now, fashioning her hurt into anger. He grinned in the darkness. Ah, what fun they would have making up tonight.
Nicholas stopped by the kitchen and found Angelina scrubbing pots and pans. “I smell something heavenly. After the day I've put in, I could eat a wolf!” he said.
“No wolf, , but roasted lamb. We were able to hide a few of the sheep and their spring lambs when the last soldiers came. I have saved this finest delicacy for you. Your favorite, the macho.” Her wide face was split with a prideful smile as she set before him the fatty intestines from the lamb, looped and tied in a ball, then roasted until the whole mass was brown and crispy. Alongside a fresh stack of steaming hot tortillas and the platter with the macho on it, she set down a bowl of chilies and tomatoes.
