by Jane Toombs
"It looks more like a fortress than a summer retreat—isn't that what you told me it was intended for?" she asked.
"An early viceroy, Count Galvez, claimed he had such in mind. His superiors in Spain did not believe him and, as you can see, the castle was never finished."
"Dona Anise told me that according to the talk in the cafes, your present Spanish governor, Viceroy Apodaca, will soon be forced to return to Spain, and the government will be seized by the people of New Spain—the revolutionaries."
Don Benito shrugged. "Quien sabe? Of a certainty we have many able men in Mexico, but they fight among themselves. Ah, but you must know all this. They whisper about Don Esteban in the cafes, also. I shall be extremely sorry to see you sail for Spain."
"Spain? I'm not going to Spain."
"No? Perhaps the talk is wrong. Because of Don Esteban's friendship with old-guard monarchists, he is naturally suspected of being in on the plots.”
She stared at him. "What plots?"
He shrugged. "It is nothing. Mere cafe gossip, which one should never listen to, much less repeat. There has always been talk of a secret place where Moctezuma's treasure is hidden. The monarchists intrigue to obtain this gold for King Ferdinand. But enough of politics." He waved his hand. "You are far more interesting."
When they had climbed to the terrace around the castle, she saw that the building was falling to ruin. No glass was in the windows, and the doors were warped and weathered. From the terrace she stared out over the valley toward the two snow-capped volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Ixtachuatl.
"What an unbelievable view!" she exclaimed. "I shall never forget being here."
Don Benito took her hand. "I shall never forget being here with you."
She disengaged her hand and moved away. "You haven't told me all of the history of Chapultepec Hill, have you?" she asked brightly. "Perhaps you could do so while we walk back to the carriage." She started toward the stairs.
After a moment he followed. "The beginning of the Aztec civilization was on this hill," he said. "The Indians who first settled here were nomadic barbarians who dressed in skins and ate their meat raw."
"I thought the Aztecs were highly civilized when Cortes arrived."
"So they were. Though they never lost the hideous habit of making sacrifices to their gods. They skinned human beings and performed their devil dances while wearing the skins."
Alitha grimaced. Don Benito handed her into the carriage, then climbed in beside her and the driver started down the hill.
"The other Indian tribes in the area hated such practices, even as you do, so the Aztecs were hunted and killed," he said. "Eventually the survivors built Tenochtitlan on an island in Lake Texcoco, the beginning of our city. Their legend has it that they founded the city on that spot because they saw an eagle perched on a nopal, a prickly pear cactus, with a snake in his beak, and that was their prophetic sign."
"You are very knowledgeable," she said as the carriage pulled up beneath the giant cypresses. She looked at Don Benito.
"We have yet to breakfast," he said. "I thought we would eat in the garden."
"I should return home."
"It is early," he said, getting out.
Alitha stared down at him for a moment, then accepted his hand. She had grown surprisingly hungry, and surely she could discourage any advances Don Benito might make. He'd always behaved courteously.
He led her along a wide path bordered by wild and tangled shrubs to a garden where flowers bloomed. There he spread a cloth for her to sit on and opened the basket of food.
After they had finished breakfast Alitha's head drooped. She had scarcely slept at all last night, and now could barely keep her eyes open.
Don Benito waved his arm. "All this belonged to Moctezuma," he said. "He had gardens, aviaries, fish ponds. Even tanks for bathing. From the hill where the castle now stands, he looked out over his great Aztec city with its many lakes and its mighty temples to his gods. The mightiest of the gods was Huitzilopochtli, the armed protector."
Alitha only half-listened to the drone of his voice, hearing the strange Aztec words drift in and out of her consciousness. Sleep, she needed to sleep. She must tell Don Benito she had to leave...A man's arms held her close, his mouth on hers. His hand fumbled at the buttons on her dress and she opened her eyes. Suddenly very much awake, she found herself on her back, staring up at
Don Benito. She tried to pull away.
"No," she gasped. "No!"
"My lovely fair-haired flower," he murmured, bending his head to her bared breast.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A shadow fell across the struggling pair. Both Alitha and Don Benito froze, then looked up. A man stood beside them, a mocking smile on his lips. For a moment Alitha thought he was a stranger, but then with a start she recognized him.
"Your lecture on the Aztecs was most entertaining," Jordan Quinn said. "What you're doing now isn't."
Don Benito scrambled to his feet as Alitha, reddening, rebuttoned her dress. Jordan walked across the grass and bowed to her.
"Miss Bradford, if I may." He reached down and helped Alitha to her feet.
Don Benito dropped to one knee in front of her. "I was overwhelmed by my admiration for you," he said. "Senorita, if you will only forgive me. How could I help myself? Seeing you here in all your loveliness, being with you today, how could I resist my admittedly baser impulses? Can you ever forgive me? Will you ever forgive me?"
Alitha stared down at him, speechless. Don Benito seemed ludicrous with his disheveled hair and his flushed face as he protested his innocence. She didn't feel like laughing, though, for she realized too well what might have happened if Jordan Quinn hadn't intervened.
"I think you'd best leave," Jordan said to Don Benito, "while I escort Miss Bradford home. That is your carriage under the cypresses, isn't it?"
"My carriage?" Don Benito struggled to his feet. "No, not actually mine, I rented it for the day. I hope you'll have pity, sir, on a poor scholar who receives very little remuneration for his work. If it weren't for Dona Anise, my more than generous cousin, I would be forced to enter trade to earn my livelihood. Forgive me my circumlocution--it's the curse of the scholar to be less than direct. I beg you not to let Don Esteban know what occurred here today." Don Benito looked apprehensively from Jordan to Alitha.
Embarrassed, Alitha turned her head aside. Don Benito was not only ludicrous, he was making a complete fool of himself. How could she have ever thought him distinguished?
"I don't intend to tell Don Esteban," Alitha said.
Jordan nodded. "I suggest we all forget that this unfortunate scene ever took place," he said.
Don Benito took a large lace handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. "You, sir, are a gentleman," he told Jordan. "When I was a younger man, I would have challenged Don Esteban to meet me on the field of honor. However, when a man grows older ..." He sighed.
"I think I hear your horses pawing the ground with impatience," Jordan said.
"My horses?"
"Your hired carriage, Don Benito. The longer you delay returning to the stable, the more pesos your carriage will cost you."
"Of a certainty, you are right." He bowed stiffly to Jordan, then took Alitha's hand and raised it to his lips before she knew what he intended. Hasta luego, senorita," he said.
"No," she said, pulling her hand away. "Adios, senor."
Don Benito turned and hurried from the garden. A few minutes later they heard the cry of the coachman and the sound of receding hoofbeats.
"Hasta luego," Jordan repeated. "Until later. I'll say this for your amorous friend, he's wonderfully optimistic."
Alitha straightened her dress, her mind still in a whirl. She had last seen Jordan Quinn in the fog at Santa Barbara as she had begun her journey south with Esteban. Now he was clean-shaven and dressed like a Spanish gentleman. What could Jordan be doing here in Mexico City? Not only in Mexico City but at Chapultepec Castle?
"I came he
re to see Chapultepec Hill," she said to cover her confusion. "I thought—that is, he really is most knowledgeable about the sights of Mexico City."
"I noticed his interest in sightseeing." Jordan glanced meaningfully at her breasts.
Alitha's face flamed.
"Captain Quinn," she said softly as she walked to him. Without warning she swung her hand and struck him full in the face. Jordan stepped back, and she saw his hands clench at his sides. With an obvious effort he smiled and swept off his hat.
"My humblest apologies," he said. "I spoke without thinking, as usual. Your loveliness makes a man forget himself. You are a beautiful woman, Miss Bradford. I've admired you ever since that day in Valparaiso."
Without answering, she walked past him, out of the garden and along the roadway. When she heard him following her, at first on foot and then on horseback, she ignored him. The guards at the castle gates bowed to her as she walked quickly by them down the hill.
Don Esteban. Don Benito. Jordan Quinn. Damn each and every one of them, she thought.
Last night at the ball Esteban had abandoned her for his dancer--there was no doubt in her mind about that. Did Esteban expect her to wait quietly at home, ready to throw herself in his arms on his return? And Don Benito. What must he, a man she hardly knew, think of her to try to force his attentions on her as he had? And Jordan Quinn, a man she knew not at all, to insult her?
She slowed her pace as her slippers began to pinch her feet.
Jordan immediately rode up beside her. "May I offer you a ride?" he asked.
Still ignoring him, she walked quickly on, thinking that somehow, somewhere, she had let her life go horribly awry. All because I loved Esteban, she told herself. Am I to be punished forever for loving him?
She came to an intersection and was looking around her, uncertain as to what direction to take, when a man with curled mustaches and wearing a frock coat approached, raised his hat and asked her a question in Spanish that she didn't understand. She shook her head as his eyes roved down her body, lingering at her breasts and hips. Alitha hurried on, feeling his gaze following her as she crossed the street.
At the next corner she stopped again. Carriages rattled by, street vendors called their wares and across the way men played dice on a makeshift table. She was hopelessly lost.
"I'm impressed by your outraged virtue," Jordan said from behind her. "Now if you'll but allow me, I'd be most happy to accompany you home."
She turned to find him standing with the reins of his horse in his hand.
"I'm lost," she said, "and very tired." She drew in her breath and raised her head defiantly. "Although I don't forgive you, Captain Quinn, I do appreciate your offer of a ride."
He lifted her to the saddle and swung himself up behind her. When the horse whinnied and stepped sideways, Jordan tugged awkwardly at the reins to redirect him along the street.
"Damn all horses," he muttered. Alitha noticed that he rode stiffly erect as though expecting the horse to try to throw him to the pavement at any moment.
"Would you like me to handle him for you?" she asked.
Jordan didn't answer. She felt him urge the horse ahead with his knees, and in a few minutes they were making their way at a brisk walk along the avenue. She sighed, trying not to let herself relax against him—she was so tired, so terribly tired. When she got home, she'd go to bed and sleep for days.
Men. They were the problem, she told herself. If a woman could only do without them, what a wonderful world this would be. Or if only the good traits of several men could be combined into one. The gentleness, the tenderness of Thomas, the dashing grace of Esteban, the interest in learning of Don Benito, Jordan's tragic past. How terrible he must have felt, losing Margarita as he had . . .
"Here we are." Jordan looked down at Alitha and saw that she was asleep on his shoulder. Dismounting, he lifted her from the horse, looped the reins on a hitching ring and carried her from the side street to the front of her house. I must tell her, he thought, of Heath. Jordan had left Thomas seriously ill with yellow fever in Acapulco. The poor bastard, Jordan thought, might even be dead by now.
He climbed the steps with Alitha in his arms, pausing at the front door and reaching for the bell pull. At the last moment he drew his hand back and tried the door, and found it unlocked. Alitha stirred in his arms as he carried her inside and shut the door behind him.
He glanced at the chandelier over his head, at the ornately carved moldings and the gilt-framed portraits. On the wall beside him a full-length mirror reflected a man in black with a golden-haired, blue-gowned woman in his arms.
The house seemed deserted. How like Mexican servants, he thought, always underfoot except when you needed them. He started to call out, checked himself and walked up the curving staircase. At the top of the stairs, Jordan stopped when he found himself facing a corridor of closed doors.
Gently, he shook Alitha. She stirred but didn't waken. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, his lips barely brushing her glowing skin. She was so lovely, he thought. At that moment his good intentions of telling her of Thomas Heath's journey to Mexico weakened. The news would only distress her. No, he decided, it would be best to say nothing.
"Where . . . ?" Alitha asked groggily, opening her eyes to stare at him in amazement.
"Which is your room?" Jordan asked. "They all look alike." She gasped, twisting in his arms until he lowered her feet to the floor. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"You were asleep, Alitha. It seemed a shame to wake you. Besides ..."
"Listen!"
They heard the clatter of hoofbeats outside. The sounds grew louder and then suddenly stopped.
"It's Don Esteban," she said frantically. "If he finds you here he'll kill you. Your horse—he'll see your horse."
"I didn't leave him by the house," he told her.
Below them the front door opened.
Jordan strode past her to the first door on his right and hurried inside.
"No," Alitha whispered, "this is my bedroom."
As he crossed the room, Jordan was conscious of many shades of blue—in the wallpaper, the upholstered chairs, the canopy over the bed. He opened the French doors and stepped outside onto a balcony, closing the doors behind him. Alitha, who had run after him, turned just in time to see Esteban stride into the bedroom.
"Why did you leave?" he demanded.
"Leave?" she repeated, wondering how Esteban had so quickly discovered her trip with Don Benito to Chapultepec Hill.
"You left the ball last night without telling me. Without me." Esteban threw his hat onto a table.
How like him, she thought, to be questioning her angrily before she'd had a chance to ask him where he'd spent the night.
Alitha felt rage rise in her. "I suppose you don't care that I waited all night? Why do you think I left the ball? You know very well."
"To humiliate me, was that your reason?" Esteban flung himself into a chair. "First you shame me by your choice of a costume, the dress of a peasant, then you leave with another man. Had it been anyone but that fool Don Benito, I should have been forced to kill him. Of course you will never see him again, nor that simpering cousin of his."
Alitha started toward him, her fists clenched. "Dona Anise is my only ..." she began, then stopped as she passed the curtained doors leading to the balcony. One of them was ajar. Hadn't Jordan closed them both behind him? She looked away immediately, not daring to call attention to the balcony. "Dona Anise is my friend," she finished lamely.
"You will do as I say. Since you have no sense yourself of what is right and proper, I shall expect you to ask me before you ..."
"Ask you?" Alitha marched up to his chair and stood over him. "How can I ask you anything when you don't come home all night? Don't try to shift the blame to me like you always do. What am I supposed to think about your conduct?"
"I had important business to discuss," he said stiffly, rising.
Alitha moved back, involuntarily glan
cing at the door to the balcony.
"We were awaiting the arrival of a gentleman from Vera Cruz who was delayed," Esteban went on. "You realize I tell you this only because I care for you, my Alitha. I do not have to justify what I do."
"Ha!" she exclaimed. "A gentleman from Vera Cruz. A gentleman wearing veils perhaps."
He gripped her arm. "Do not mock me."
Was that perfume she smelled on his jacket? Alitha jerked away. "You were with La Coralilla, weren't you? That—" the word whore came to her lips but she couldn't bring herself to say it. "That . . . trollop," she finished lamely.
"And you?" Esteban asked. "What do you call yourself?"
Alitha recoiled, hurt and angry. Stunned. Was that really how Esteban saw her? She had given him her love, and in return he treated her like his chattel or worse. He would not make her lose her temper, she vowed, stifling an embittered reply.
"Perhaps, as you say, I'm not acquainted with the customs of Mexico City." Her voice dripped honey laced with venom. "Maybe here dalliance is referred to as business."
"I do not know the meaning of this word dalliance, nor do I wish to. If I tell you I had important business matters to attend to, then that is what I was doing."
Alitha sighed. "All right, Esteban, tell me about this business. You've deliberately kept everything from me since we arrived here. Anyone would think you didn't trust me."
"What has trust to do with it? You are a woman and do not need to know. But, yes, you are right. The time for action is near and you must be told what will happen, what has been planned."
Alitha looked beyond him at the balcony door. "No, Esteban," she said. "Not now. I—I'm terribly tired. Do you know I hardly slept last night?"
He took her by the arm and led her to a chair, where he gently but firmly seated her.
"Women," he said, "I will never understand them. 'Tell me, Esteban.' 'No, don't tell me, Esteban.'"
"My love, I will tell you and I will tell you now."
"Why don't we go downstairs? I'd so like a cup of chocolate."
