Megan Mulry

by Bound to Be a Bride

  The German stood up again. “Now, sir, if the lady—”

  “Silence!” Javier barked in German, but his meaning was clear enough in any language.

  “Where did you get this, you lying thief?!” Javier growled the words at Isabella.

  Isabella looked over her right shoulder, as if he must have been speaking in such a vicious, accusatory way to someone else.

  “Who are you looking for? Your accomplice? Tell me!” His voice became crueler and quieter the angrier he became. His grip on her wrist was so tight, she suspected the bones were about to crack.

  Isabella felt her blood turning to ice. “It is mine. I swear it.” Tears were rolling down her ashen face. She turned to the German. “Do you have a Bible? I will swear on the Bible. I will swear on my soul.”

  Javier continued to stare at her, speechless at last. His hand loosened a tiny bit on her wrist, but not enough to free her. The German got up from his seat, going to retrieve the requested book.

  “There’s no need for a Bible,” Javier said, never taking his eyes off Isabella. The German sat back down.

  “What is your full name, Isabella?” Javier demanded.

  “Why? It’s not a name I will ever use. I hate my name.” It was the first time he had ever seen her speak with real venom.

  “I will never ask you to repeat it, but this once, you must. I have to know how you came to possess this cross.” He held the heavy gold cross in his free hand and shook it twice in her face, too close, threatening her.

  She stood tall and firm, her chin slightly raised as her father had taught her, despising every familiar syllable. “I am Doña Isabella de Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba, daughter of the Duke of Feria and granddaughter of the Duke of Medinaceli.”

  The jeweler’s monocle slipped from his eye and clattered to the surface of his workbench, punctuating the silence that surrounded them.

  Javier released her wrist too quickly, making her feel filthy or diseased, as if he could not even bear to touch her wretched aristocratic skin.

  “You find me despicable,” she whispered. “I knew it. I knew you would hate me if you knew. You think I am weak and pampered.” She collapsed onto the stool. She felt small and defeated. Then the anger she had repressed for the past seven years in the convent rose through her. Conviction—that she deserved to have at least a fighting chance at her own happiness—bubbled up then boiled over.

  She stood too fast, knocking the stool over and nearly tripping on her too-long dress. “Give it to me!” she demanded, extending her hand to him with the palm flat and open to receive it. “It belongs to me. I have worked for it—you could not possibly begin to understand how hard I have worked. To obey. To abide. To accept. To comply! You bastard!” She snapped her fingers in his face, right in front of his eyes. “Now!” She was crying, but they were tears of rage. Glorious, righteous indignation. For herself. For Anna. For her mother. For every woman who had ever had to see that look of scrutiny in a man’s eyes when he beheld her.

  Javier reached into his coat and she thought he was reaching for his sword. She took a quick step back and realized she had nowhere to maneuver. She went flush up against the grimy wall behind her. “Javier—”

  “This cross has been in my father’s family for seven generations.” He spoke like a teacher, but one explaining something that he himself was only beginning to grasp. “Only the Condesa de la Mina has ever worn it. Or ever will.”

  “Mina—?!” Isabella felt the blood drain from her face. “No—” She took two rough swipes at her face to swat away the tears. “No—it’s not—it cannot be—”

  When Javier removed his hand from inside his jacket, he was holding a red satin pouch. He offered it to her. “I believe this belongs to you.”

  She stared at his hand, afraid to believe the truth. Her father’s crest was woven into the red satin. In impatience bordering on disgust, Isabella had watched Sol make those stitches several weeks ago, the older woman boasting all the while about what an honor it would be to serve out her life in the company of the Conde and Condesa de la Mina.

  “But I hate you,” Isabella whispered.

  “And I you.”

  “You were supposed to be mean and have fleshy, perfumed hands and think you were above everyone…”

  “And you were supposed to be rigid and weak and cold…” He was moving toward her, closing the distance between them with each slow word. Then his smile bloomed across his splendid face and Isabella felt the world shift around her. “But I think, perhaps, we may have been misinformed.”

  He grabbed her by the back of her neck. The cross was still in his hand and it dug into her flesh as he kissed her—for the third time, she thought happily—with brutal abandon. She felt like he might rip her dress off and have his way with her right there in front of the German jeweler, and that she would not mind very much if he did.

  “Javi… is that even your name?” she asked quietly when he pulled away. “Of course it is,” she continued. “Francisco Javier de la Mina y de la Lerrea… how could I have forgotten?” She pressed her forehead against his. “I love you, whoever you are.”

  “And I love you, Isabella.”

  The German cleared his throat as he sat back down at his workbench.

  Javier turned to him and smiled, then said something conciliatory in the other man’s language.

  The jeweler shrugged, put his monocle carefully into the folds of skin around his eye, and went back to repairing the pocket watch he had been working on when they had entered his shop a lifetime ago.

  Javier turned his attention back to Isabella. “I am going to make you mine tonight,” he whispered into her ear. He pulled her into a quick embrace, then led her out of the shop.

  “Let’s go quickly to catch up with the others,” Javier said as they were moving at a rapid pace toward the docks.

  “We are still going?!” Isabella asked through a giddy laugh.

  He pulled them both up short. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I just thought—” She looked around them. “I don’t know, I thought you’d want to stay in Spain, since I wasn’t so despicable after all.”

  “Do you want to stay in Spain, Isabella?”

  She looked to the heavens. Did she? Now that she would actually be this glorious man’s wife, it no longer seemed such a dire alternative. Maybe she could make good on her promise to rescue Anna. Maybe she could begin to rectify some of her father’s injustices, to which Javier had alluded. She tipped her head slowly back down, facing him squarely. “I believe I shall be happy anywhere on this earth, as long as I am with you. But…”

  “But?” He touched her bottom lip with his little finger.

  “But… before, I felt like I was running to something, and now I feel more like I am running from something. That we are taking the coward’s way out.”

  Javier scowled at her. “Coward?” If she had been a man, he might have called her out.

  She pressed her palm against his lapel. “I am not saying you are a coward, my love.” She looked again toward the bay, now in clear view after they’d walked the few blocks from the jeweler’s shop. The Sappho bobbed patiently, waiting for its renegade passengers. “But don’t you think it is a miracle that we found each other? Despite every impediment?”

  Javier sighed with apparent impatience and dragged his hand through his black wavy hair. “Isabella. We found each other, as you say, because we both happened to be in the forest—”

  “My father’s forest—”

  “Your father’s forest—”

  “On the very same path—”

  “Stop!” He smiled quickly, then shook his head as if he did not have time for smiles just then. “My wanting to kiss you all the time is very distracting.”

  “I hope that is always true,” Isabella said softly.

  “I suspect it
always will be. But for now, we must address a few other pressing issues. If we stay, I might be in grave danger. You do not know the extent of my… activities here in Spain and to whom I might present a threat.”

  “You are strong.” She grabbed his upper arm as proof.

  “Oh, dear girl. Please, always think so. But I am not stronger than a bullet.”

  Her face paled. “Someone has tried to shoot you?”

  “Many people, I am afraid.”

  “Oh. My.”

  “Yes, oh my.”

  She looked around again as if someone might be about to take aim right then.

  “Isabella, look at me.”

  She turned to do his bidding.

  “I am not going to get shot today.”

  “As if you could know such a thing,” she snapped.

  “It’s much more than that.” He leaned in close and she thought he was going to kiss her again. She flushed with embarrassment when she turned her lips to be kissed and he shifted her head sideways so he could speak quietly, directly into her ear, without being overheard by any passersby. “I cannot go into every detail,” he began, “but I am part of a much larger organization that is working to overthrow the invader, Napoleon. Many of us believe that victory must come from an overthrow of every layer of his empire, from the highest halls of power to the lowliest colony.” He pulled away briefly to check her eyes, to make sure she was listening.

  She nodded solemnly and turned her ear back to him.

  “I have been chosen to assist the revolutionary forces in Mexico that are already in place to repel the despot.” He pulled away again and spoke directly this time. “Do you understand the consequences of what I am suggesting?”

  “Yes,” she answered too quickly.

  “You must think, Isabella. You can take all the jewels back to Badajoz and say that I captured you in the forest, that I held you hostage until I was safely aboard the Sappho, and then had one of my officers escort you back to your father’s castle. You will be safe. I should make you do that, if I were a selfless man.”

  She leaned into him, breathed him in. “But you are a selfless man.”

  He stiffened, misconstruing the direction of her thoughts.

  “In all things but me.”

  He pulled her away to look into her sparkling black eyes.

  “I hope you are always devilishly selfish when it comes to me,” she said, taking hold of his lapels with a fierce, possessive grip. “Because if you ever said you could live without me for even one day, I would hate you for loving me less than I love you.” She shook his jacket for emphasis.

  “Then we go down together.” He gave her a quick kiss.

  “Or up,” she winked.

  He checked the angle of the sun. “Now that you mention it, I think we have just enough time to marry before we board the ship.”

  “What?!” Isabella cried as he pulled her in the direction of the Convent of Jesus.

  “Let us go visit your heroine. The tomb of Saint Joan is there, I believe. I probably have just enough coin to bribe a priest.”

  “Impossible! How could you possibly bribe a priest?” Isabella asked with pure innocence.

  Javi picked up the pace and tried to stifle a laugh. “Quite easily, as it turns out.”

  Within fifteen minutes, they were in a shadowy back chapel of the monastery with a very cheerful and suddenly richer priest eager to formalize their union.

  He licked his thumb and began flipping through the pages of the Bible. “Do you have a preference about the passage?”

  Javier translated the priest’s words from Portuguese to Spanish.

  “Well,” Isabella began, “I have always been fond of the Song of Solomon but there is also that—”

  “Please ignore her and get on with it,” Javier told the priest in Portuguese.

  “Javier! Really! I may not speak the language, but I understood that.”

  “I meant that in the most respectful way, Isabella,” he continued in soft Spanish. “Please. We might be under attack shortly and I need to be able to present you as my lawful wife if any of us are going to survive.”

  She screwed up her mouth for a few seconds. “Oh, fine. Just marry us any old way.”

  The priest stared at them. “Are you really wanting to get married, then?”

  “Sí!” they both cried simultaneously.

  “All right then…” The priest deepened his voice for the occasion. “My dear friends, you have come together in this church so that the Lord may seal and strengthen your love in the presence of the Church’s minister…”

  Isabella knew the words in Spanish and followed along well enough. The priest spoke at a rapid clip, racing to complete the words of the ceremony with an unintelligible garble that seemed to suit Javier just fine. When the breathless man finally finished, maybe fifteen minutes after he had started, Javier pulled Isabella into his arms and bent her backward at the waist, one strong arm supporting her lower back. He kissed her soundly, then pulled her just as swiftly back to a standing position.

  “A good afternoon to you, Doña de la Mina,” he said with more than a hint of mischief.

  She was reeling from that kiss, especially with a man of the cloth in such close proximity, but she found her voice. “It doesn’t sound nearly as bad as I thought it would. In fact, it is quite a sturdy, reliable name.”

  ***

  Within a few minutes, the silhouettes of Marco and Sebastián were clear against the crystalline blue of the sea. When the two men made out that Javier was not alone, Isabella watched as Sebastián tore his cap off and whipped it against his thigh in outrage.

  “It’s all right. I will talk to him.” Javier pulled her closer.

  They were all standing together a few minutes later. The calls and shouts of fishermen, dockworkers, and sailors flew around them.

  Sebastián was furious.

  “Isabella and I are married,” Javier declared.

  Marco’s mouth flew open, then shut just as quickly.

  Sebastián spoke to Javier as if Isabella were not there. “Is she with child?”

  Javier slapped him across the face before Isabella realized what Sebastián had said. Several dockworkers slowed in their labors to see if a brawl was about to be served up as the afternoon’s entertainment.

  Marco looked at his two best friends. “That is quite enough.”

  Neither man looked away from the other’s glare. Javier had removed his glove and was slapping it with taunting menace against the palm of his other hand.

  “Are you going to keep slapping it or throw it down, you bastard?” Sebastián baited.

  Javier lunged at him, but Marco was able to step between them before either could connect a blow.

  “Basta!” It was Isabella’s voice that stopped them all. “That is enough. I hardly have any honor left for you to defend, Javi. Back away from your friend.” She pulled at her husband’s arm, squeezing the strong muscles to pull him back to his senses. He turned to look at her with blind eyes. “Please,” she added softly.

  He took two steps away from Marco and Sebastián. “Either she comes or I don’t go.”

  Sebastián answered quickly, “Well, that’s easy enough. Fare thee well.” He turned on his heel and made to leave them.

  “Sebastián!” Isabella called.

  He stopped but did not grant her the courtesy of turning around.

  “Damn him,” Javier growled. “I will kill him.”

  “No, you won’t!” Isabella chided in a harsh whisper. She left Javier where he stood, motioning for Marco to keep him in place, then walked the few yards to where Sebastián stood with his back to her. She circled around to face him and began speaking, too softly for Javier and Marco to hear. After a few moments, he slapped his hat against his thigh again, but Javier could tell it was with
resignation this time. After Isabella was apparently finished, Sebastián remained still for a long moment, then swept into a low bow of courtly obedience. Javier stared in disbelief. Isabella offered him her hand, then smiled when he kissed her gloved knuckles and she told him to rise.

  She came back to her husband’s side with a smug set to her luscious lips.

  “What was that?” Javier asked, jutting his chin toward Sebastián in revulsion.

  Isabella was beginning to enjoy the soothing (or agitating) effect she had on her husband. It was a thrilling sort of power, to unnerve such a powerful man. She looped her arm through his and smiled. “Are we not expected aboard the Sappho?”

  Javier knew he was being played, but she had the advantage of being right. The four of them walked down the dock to the north, where they had arranged to get a launch to take them out to the Sappho.

  After a few minutes, Isabella began speaking. “I have been trying to recall why Sebastián’s name sounded so familiar, and then it came to me this morning when we barreled down that hill into this beautiful city.”

  “Go on,” Javier said, his anger finally beginning to cool.

  “He yelled the battle cry of his family and I realized we are related. Our great-grandmothers were sisters, and the de Montizóns were forced to declare fealty to the de la Vegas ever since the two sisters married arch rivals.” Isabella smiled up at Javier with a look of pitiless victory. “Is that not delicious? He is my sworn servant!”

  “I believe we all are, my dear, lady wife.”

  “Oh, he might be”—she blushed—”but I think you are my master, are you not?”

  “I might have thought so, but now I am not convinced. If you continue to look at me with that invitation in your eyes, I believe I will do anything you ask.” His voice had grown husky.

  Her blush deepened. “Javi. Stop that.”

  He smiled and patted her hand over his arm. “You will not be saying that again anytime soon.”

  She swallowed her gasp at his impertinence and allowed herself to enjoy the hot flow of desire that those words caused in her.