“Alice?” said someone in the very rear of the crowd. “Did you say Alice? Here, let me through. Dadgummit, sister, out of the way!”
The crowd moved and shifted and the hands of the witch that Benny had kicked stiffened into claws of rage. “Blast it, Betsy, what are you playing at? This is serious business!”
A slender, less colorful edition of the leader pushed between two others and halted, breathing heavily, a few paces away. “Alice. By all that’s great and good, it is you! Alice Chalmers!”
Alice stared. Her mouth fell open. “Great Caesar’s ghost. Betsy Trelawney, is that you?”
The girl darted forward. “It’s me!” And before Alice could even move, she’d grabbed her in a bony hug. One arm was held stiffly from when that rat Bert Blake had broke it one night when she wouldn’t do what he wanted down at the Desert Rose. Alice had splinted that arm herself.
“Well dang, Betsy, this is a fine fix. Would you please explain to the lady here that we mean no harm to any of you?”
The girl turned to her leader. “Mother Mary, it’s true. This is Alice Chalmers, Ned Mose’s girl. But she ain’t like him. She’s a friend to us—a friend to all witches, ain’t you?” She appealed to Alice over her shoulder.
“I certainly am.” The large personage that Betsy had called Mother Mary didn’t seem convinced, so Alice threw all her cards on the table. “In fact, I’ve been trying to find you. My hold is stuffed full of the Californios’ mechanicals and weapons that we stole from them. We know there’s going to be a war, and we want you to arm yourselves so you’re ready for it.”
Mother Mary stood stock still. “A war.”
“Also true,” said Ian from above. “The Texicans do not believe it, but we came all the way here to stop it.”
“You ain’t the only one. Dang.” Mother Mary shook her head, and in the dying light, the silk roses twined in her graying black hair looked as though they were glowing. “And here I thought that girl was as crazy as a jackrabbit, but maybe she ain’t.”
Jake clutched Alice’s arm hard enough to make her wince. “What girl?” he said harshly. “Who are you talking about?”
“That Meriwether-Astor girl, who gave her name as Meredith Aster. But whatever handle she goes by, she says exactly the same as you. And I expect them mechanicals you say you have in there—” She jerked her chin at Swan. “—are the ones she was trying to keep out of the Viceroy’s hands. So you’ve done her a good turn, if you’re telling true.”
“Gloria Meriwether-Astor,” Jake repeated. “You’ve seen her. Where is she? We thought she was dead.”
“Oh, she ain’t dead,” Betsy said helpfully. “In fact, she was married yesterday morning. We were all there. Our very first wedding.”
“Married?” Jake’s voice cracked.
Under this second shock, Alice’s voice came back. “Married? Who to? Not Evan Douglas—is he alive, too?”
“Don’t know any Evan Douglas. But Meredith—Gloria, I should say—married our Captain Stan in Santa Croce church yesterday. They’ll be almost to Nuestra Señora la Reyna de los Ángeles by now.”
This was making no sense. “Why would she go to Reyna de los Ángeles—deeper into the Royal Kingdom? She could be killed.”
“Well, now, that’s why she married Captain Stan. So she wouldn’t be.”
“But why? What is she doing?” Between the twin forces of incredulity and fear, Alice could hardly breathe.
“She’s going to San Francisco de Asis, the capital, to talk the Viceroy out of his war.” Betsy took her arm, as friends did. “Why, Alice, what is wrong? You’ve gone white as paint.”
Chapter 9
Gloria had been to the Moorish coast of the Royal Kingdom of Spain and seen the white plastered houses with their curvy tiled roofs, draped in bougainvillea. It was a distinctly odd sensation to see that same architecture replicated here on another continent with such loving exactitude that it had to have been the result either of law or a kind of civic homesickness. The mission at Nuestra Señora la Reyna de los Ángeles was a massive example of the same, with the addition of a huge stained-glass window at the end of the nave that recalled the rose windows of Chartres or Notre Dame.
By the end of the second day of her married life, they had registered the certificate Padre Emilio had given them, and were as officially bound together as it was possible for a couple to be.
Except for one detail that Gloria was determined not to think about.
“There is a caravan leaving for San Gregorio in the morning,” her husband said, coming along the lavender walk in the shady cloister of the mission. “We can be among its number—I have already sent Riley to make the arrangements.” He sat beside her on the bench under a myrtle dripping purple flowers all over the walk. “Does that meet with your approval?”
“Of course.” She moved to make room for him. “Isn’t this a lovely spot?”
He glanced about him, taking in the unglazed windows in the colonnade, and the two gates leading in and out of the garden. “If you say so. Please don’t wander off alone like this, Gloria. Even in the mission, it isn’t safe.”
“Is there any safe place for a woman in this country, if the mission is not?” She wasn’t being ironic or sarcastic. She really wanted to know.
“On the ranchos, if one is the owner’s wife or daughter, I imagine there is.”
“So only a handful of women may truly feel secure—as long as they are in their own houses?” She sighed and drew in a breath of lavender. “How terribly sad and … dreadful. These caravans, then, are groups of people who must band together to travel?”
“Yes. Between thirty and forty, usually. They travel up the King’s Road by horse and wagon from mission to mission if they are on pilgrimage, or by train from rancho to rancho if they have more secular errands, as we do.”
“That seems awkward for the people on the ranchos, doesn’t it? To always be playing host to bands of strangers?”
“It’s part of the culture. Travelers, I am told, don’t stay with the family, but at inns. One of the monks here told me the ranchos are like small towns, with hostelries, stables, markets, and each with its own train station. Travelers can be invited to socialize, too, if it is appropriate. That is the point of it all. Hospitality, the exchange of news, that kind of thing. The rancho families make a life of it, you know, traveling from one hacienda to another to celebrate fiestas … and, I suppose, to get their children acquainted with one another so that they may marry when they are old enough.”
She could not imagine a life constrained to the properties along a single road or railway line. How could their women not die of suffocation? “How very strange.”
“Speaking of news, I picked up a tidbit that might affect us at some point or another. Apparently the Viceroy is not well.”
Gloria shifted on the bench to look at him more directly. “Is it serious?”
“Difficult to say. Who knows how long the rumor has taken to reach them here in the south. The priest said he was ‘beset by visions,’ whatever that means.”
“Dear me.” That didn’t sound very serious. She had been beset by quite a number of visions herself during the night before she made up her mind to accept the captain’s proposal. “But as you say, if they do not have pigeons or mail tubes, then news might take quite a while to travel. He could be recovered by now.”
A silence fell. Then, “Since we do not leave until dawn, I took rooms at an inn close to the station. I hope that is satisfactory?”
“Of course. I’m sure Ella and I will be quite comfortable.”
“Ella … and you?”
“Yes.” She turned a limpid gaze upon him. “She and I can share a bed, if there is only one.”
His lashes flickered, as if he had been quite taken aback. “Once one has registered one’s marriage, it is customary for husband and wife to share a bed, you know, dear.”
She settled her skirts about her, and smoothed the ruffle on the front of her secondhan
d dress. “But we are not husband and wife in the conventional sense. We are more like … companions in arms. Of course, when we are in public I will behave as wifely as you like. But I see no need to take the ruse in which we are engaged to … such an extreme.”
He exhaled. “I do not agree. We are married, Gloria.”
Her cheeks burned with the impropriety of conversing about such a subject, but she straightened her spine. “I made it clear from the beginning that this is a marriage of convenience. A—a battle strategy. We have only known each other less than a week, Captain. It is simply not possible to manufacture the feelings that lead to—to the intimacy of marriage in so short a time.”
“Then you concede it might be possible, given more time and better acquaintance?”
She slanted a glance at him. “I cannot see that happening, can you?”
It took him a moment to reply, so rapt was he in contemplation of … something. Perhaps she had smuts on her cheek from that wretched train. It would not be surprising. She had splashed her face in the fountain, but there were probably still quite a number in her hair, and burning tiny holes in her hat.
“I am not in the habit of predicting the future,” he said at last, “but yes, I could see the degree of liking between us progressing to something more, given time.”
“I am glad you think so. But it won’t do, you know. Once our task is concluded and I go back to Philadelphia, you may divorce me as quickly as you like.”
“Oh, I may?” he said in quite a changed tone.
“Yes, certainly. Unless—that is—you would prefer that I do so?” She hadn’t actually thought this through, and yet words were pouring out of her mouth that she wasn’t convinced she meant. “Perhaps on grounds of—of adultery, or some such?”
Now his mouth fell open and it was a moment before he could speak. “Adultery!”
Her own mouth primmed up in spite of herself. Really, this was the most distasteful conversation she had ever had. It was almost as though some other woman were saying these things, using words that had never crossed her lips before.
But … she was some other woman now. She was Mrs. Stanford Fremont, and there were subjects which that lady must discuss without delay.
“I am sorry to be indelicate. I might have had a sheltered upbringing, but I am not unaware of the ways of the world. Mother Mary was quick to tell me that you’d had plenty of practice … er, between the sheets. I should not blame you if you looked elsewhere.” She swallowed. “I do hope, however, that you would be discreet, and not shame me in front of our companions.”
He had been leaning away from her by degrees, and at this he leaped up and took a few short, jerky steps across the gravel path. “Do I understand you correctly? You are denying me a husband’s prerogative and giving me permission to break my marriage vows instead?”
“Well … I would not put it quite so bluntly, but yes. I suppose I am.”
“Good God!” He spun away, and his bowler hat fell into the box hedge. He didn’t seem to notice, clutching his hair as though in a paroxysm of distress.
“Captain, I … have I upset you?” Goodness, his eyes seemed almost wild.
But in a moment, his back turned to her and his hands on his hips, he seemed to regain control of himself. After a few deep, cleansing breaths of the lavender-scented air, he was able to face her again.
“I have never in all my life heard such a proposal—and that is saying something, let me tell you.”
She did not know whether or not she ought to apologize, so she merely folded her hands in silence. She had heard that men placed a much greater importance on the marriage bed than did women, but she had been nothing but honest with him about her reasons for accepting him. If one were getting down to brass tacks, she had much more to find objectionable in this conversation than he did.
“Do you—” He clenched his jaw and then forcibly relaxed it. “Do you honestly believe me capable of breaking my vows so quickly and so—so cavalierly as that?”
“I do not know you well enough to entertain beliefs about anything.”
“Except for what Mother Mary says, evidently.”
“She has known you for much longer than I. And while I understand that she was passing on hearsay—” And suddenly she saw where her error lay. On an indrawn breath, she touched her fingers to her lips. “Oh, dear.”
“Now what? More gossip to judge me by?”
“No, only your own words. Captain, I am so dreadfully sorry. Your father … he is the one who broke his vows ‘so quickly and cavalierly,’ isn’t he?”
He glared at her as though she had betrayed him by bringing it up.
“You have disavowed your father and his behavior just as I have disavowed mine. Of course you would never behave as he did.” She felt ill at how badly she had misjudged him, and how foolish had been those thoughtless words. “Please forgive me for suggesting that you would.” He did not look very forgiving. She tried once more. “I shall never say or even think such a thing again.”
“You can hardly control your thoughts.”
“No, but I shall not let them run away with me on no evidence.”
His shoulders relaxed a fraction, and he shook back his hair. She got up and reached into the hedge for his hat, dusting it off and handing it to him. “Am I forgiven?”
“Does it matter to you?”
“Of course. I want the air to be completely clear between us. Particularly if it is scented with lavender. Though in this case it may not apply, since the language of flowers would have us believe it stands for serenity … and enchantment.” Goodness, now she was babbling. She really ought to find Ella and then the room at the inn he had reserved for them.
“The language of flowers, eh? That’s one I don’t speak.”
“Never mind, then. Will you show me the inn?” He offered her his arm, and she took it. “We have not yet resolved the question of the sleeping arrangements.”
They strolled up the walk. “All moral considerations aside,” he said, “I believe it best that we begin as we mean to go on. The first time someone sees us go into separate rooms, the questions will begin, and that is the last thing we want. We must be so circumspect as to be nearly invisible, particularly on the ranchos. The farther north we go and the closer to the capital, the more we are likely to encounter those who wish to prevent you from succeeding in your mission.”
There was certainly no arguing with his logic.
“I must confess that I have never shared a bed with anyone save a governess or maid,” she said, a little shyly.
“I am quite capable of assisting you in a maid’s capacity, if that would help.”
Her eyes widened in shock and chagrin. “That is hardly proper!”
When he laughed, she felt almost as shocked, but for a different reason. Real, unaffected laughter transformed that sardonic face, lightening its planes and showing her that the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes might have come from humor as well as squinting into the sun on the river.
“And besides, I am quite capable of dressing and undressing myself. My corset is a front-fastener, and I possess no waists of the kind that button down the back.”
“An opportunity lost,” he said with mock regret. “Perhaps you will be called upon to valet me, for I am not in the habit of wearing these confounded string ties that it appears one must put on in public to seem respectable in these parts.”
“I think that tie looks nice on you. As does the waistcoat.”
“One more compliment and I shall be quite overcome, Mrs. Fremont. I may not be responsible for my actions.”
“Oh, I think that of all the men I have met in the past week, you are the most responsible for your actions of any. I value that in a man.”
But they had reached the arched door into the mission proper, and there was no more opportunity for conversation of the conjugal kind. Nor was there later, over dinner in the inn’s public room with Ella and Riley and the two crewmen who had joined their
party to make it look more impressive—and who consequently carried an astonishing number of concealed weapons. Gloria wondered that they did not clank when they sat down.
Ella had found a room upstairs with one of the barmaids, and the men were to sleep in the bunkhouse behind the inn, with their ears open for any gossip that might further their purposes. Ella paused on the stairs when Gloria turned off at the corridor to the room she was to share with her husband.
“You’ll be all right, won’t you, Mer—I mean, Gloria?” She lifted her chin in the direction of the room. “With Captain Stan? For if you’re not, you could always come bunk with me. I won’t mind.”
Gloria smiled and gave her a one-armed hug, then rested her head against that of her friend. “You are a dear to be concerned, but the captain and I have come to an understanding.”
“You have?” Ella did not pull away. Which was just as well, since this was the kind of conversation best held in whispers anyway.
“He understands the purpose of our marriage. That it … you know … is not like other marriages formed under more … conventional circumstances.”
“What does that mean?” Ella whispered back, looking puzzled. “He doesn’t have the clap, does he?”
Gloria gaped at her. “What on earth is that?”
In a few brief words, Ella enlightened her. “Dear me. I do not know. I certainly hope not. The point is—that is not the point. There will be no … er, activity of that kind.”
“There won’t?” Ella looked as though Gloria had just delivered the happiest of news, and it suddenly struck her like two notes on a gong—that one should not discuss such matters with a girl who was in love with one’s husband, and that the fewer people who knew about this, the better.
“But you must not tell anyone,” she said urgently. “Not a soul, Ella. We must appear to be exactly who we are—even in the dark.”
“Oh, to be sure,” Ella said eagerly. “Not a word.”
“Not even to Riley and the others.”
“I promise.”
“Good night, my dear friend.” Gloria gave her a squeeze. “We shall see each other at breakfast in the morning.”
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