Midnight Fire

by Linda Ladd

  At that, Senora Alvarez relaxed visibly. "Sí, Senor Perez, I will help you watch your sister. And if I may say so, it is refreshing to find a young caballero who respects the old ways."

  She moved a step or two away, but Carlisle noticed that she continued to watch them closely.

  "I'm sorry, Javier. This whole thing is so ridiculous. I'm a grown woman, not a child."

  "I'm well used to duennas, Carlita. Arantxa has had one ever since she was a little girl. And perhaps it will be safer for you," he said as his eyes met Chase Lancasters and the two men nodded a greeting. "I wouldn't want you to be alone in Senor Lancaster's house. He looks at you in a way that makes me want to kill him."

  Until that moment, Carlisle had fully intended to tell Javier about Chase's kiss, but she heard the bitterness in his voice when he spoke Chase's name. Secretly, she was pleased he was jealous.

  Strapped securely in the boarding swing suspended by ropes and pulleys to the railing, Arantxa was hoisted slowly to the deck a moment later. When she joined them, she accepted Senora Alvarez's presence with the same cheerful resignation that her brother had displayed.

  "We'll find ways to escape her vigilance," she whispered conspiratorially to Carlisle. "I've done it many times with my poor Dona Consuela!"

  Carlisle laughed, relieved now that her friends were aboard and they were ready to depart. Happy and excited, she stood on the top promenade deck with Javier and Arantxa, her duenna close beside them. She knew Chase was in the stern with Captain Martinez, but she ignored him as the anchor was hauled up and the ship slowly began the journey down the wide, brown Mississippi, past great plantations with magnificent pillar-supported galleries and lawns dotted by giant live oaks. Farther along, strange, gloomy bayous appeared, with tangled vines and long, gray Spanish moss waving spectrally in the wind.

  Later that night, after an excellent supper of Cornish hens and rice in the large dining saloon, they retired to the adjoining lounge where small wooden tables had been bolted to the floor for card games or letter writing.

  Senora Alvarez took out her sewing basket and a length of white lace she had been crocheting, then seated herself in a deep, high-backed armchair very close to Carlisle's place at a card table with the Perez twins. They pretended to enjoy monte, a Mexican gambling game Arantxa had taught Carlisle late at night in the convent after the nuns had gone to bed.

  "How soon do you think I can join you in the mountains?" Carlisle whispered, furtively watching Chase, who stood with one elbow propped on the long mahogany bar at the far end of the saloon. He smoked a cheroot while listening to the group of Mexican businessmen surrounding him, but Carlisle had caught his blue gaze on her more than once during the supper hour. He glanced in her direction yet again while she watched, but she pretended she didn't notice. He was probably making sure her duenna was nearby, she decided, then gladly turned her attention back to Javier.

  "We're pleased you've agreed to help us, Carlita." His voice lowered, and he continued to deal the cards as if intent on their game. "We've tried for several years to position a spy near one of Juarez's advisors, but he picks his followers well—all are devoted to him, especially Lancaster. I don't understand it. Chase Lancaster's grandfather was a great hacendado, Senor Juan Morelos, an aristocrat and a gachupín, a man of pure Spanish blood. Yet Senor Lancaster is blindly loyal to Juarez, a mere Indian lawyer from Oaxaca."

  Carlisle watched him as he spoke, hearing the harsh resentment underlying each word, recognizing the look of hatred that appeared on Javier's face each time he glanced in Chase's direction. For a moment, she felt a fierce foreboding; then she remembered San Miguel and how Javier's brother had died there. No wonder Javier was so embittered.

  "You must be very careful, Carlita. He must not suspect you," Arantxa said softly as she picked up her cards. "He is a very brutal man."

  "I sensed he could be dangerous," Carlisle replied. "There's a look in his eyes sometimes."

  "I don't want anything to happen to you," Javier insisted. "You mustn't appear too eager to become his friend. Instead you should encourage his trust in small ways, comprendes?"

  "Yes," Carlisle answered impatiently. "But when will I be able to join you?"

  "Soon, I promise. But you must go to his hacienda as if you are in no hurry to join us. You must be patient and find out all you can about him. We'll come one night when you least expect it, and then you'll fight by our side for Santa Anna's triumph."

  "Do you think there will be another war?" Carlisle asked, vividly remembering how Atlanta was burned to the ground; how many died in the War Between the States. Both her brothers had fought to preserve the Union, but even though the North had won, they had not escaped the suffering. Her brother Stone had been incarcerated in the terrible Confederate prison in Andersonville, Georgia. He hadn't been the same since he returned, and he was still driven by an awful thirst for revenge against Emerson Clan, the man who'd betrayed him.

  But she intended to help him find Clan. Tyler had given her a wonderful idea. She'd said that her uncle Burl had once swindled a man by sending him notification that he had inherited a large sum of money. Carlisle was sure the same idea would work with Emerson Clan. If she could get him to go to Chicago, Stone could capture him and put him in jail where he belonged. All she had to do was work out the details, she thought, then write a legal-looking letter to Emerson Clan. She would do so while aboard the Mayan, and then write Tyler to let her know what she'd done. Perhaps Javier would help her. He had studied law while in New Orleans.

  "Sí, there will be war," Javier was saying, "but many Mexicans want Santa Anna as presidente. They'll join us by the thousands to fight for the Holy Church once we strike against the Juarez government."

  Carlisle glanced again at Chase Lancaster. She didn't like him, but neither did she wish him any real harm. After all, he was her brother's good friend, and Tyler's cousin.

  "Chase won't be harmed, will he?" she asked timidly.

  "Do not feel sorry for him, amiga," Arantxa said coldly. "He had no compassion for those of San Miguel."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You remember what I told you about the massacre?" Javier answered. "About the women and children being murdered?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Chase Lancaster was the one who ordered it done."

  Truly horrified, Carlisle sought Chase again. War was a terrible, senseless thing, she thought, but how could he have ordered the murder of children? Surely the Juaristas didn't belong in power in Mexico if they killed the peasants and drove out the priests. Surely God was on the side of Javier and Santa Anna, because even Mother Andrea Mary at Sacred Heart had spoken against the evil of the reform laws of Benito Juarez and explained how the Juaristas had cast out whole orders of nuns and priests. Carlisle suddenly felt she was doing the right thing by spying on Chase Lancaster. Whenever she had doubts, she would remember his crimes against the people of San Miguel.

  For Chase Lancaster, the short voyage across the Gulf to the port of Matamoros was uneventful. He'd spent most of his time alone or with a couple of acquaintances, government officials on their way home to the capital, and as far away from Carlisle Kincaid as he could get. She hadn't seemed to mind much, he thought as he stood near the gangplank, impatient for her to finish her farewells to the Perezes, who were sailing on to Veracruz aboard the Mayan.

  Against his will, he turned slightly so that he would have a better view of Carlisle. Her golden-red hair shone like polished copper in the sun, and she wore a fancy white dress that was totally unsuitable for traveling. He had told her so when she'd come up on deck, but she'd ignored him. He muttered a low oath when Carlisle put her hand on Javier Perez's arm and tilted her face up to him as if for a good-bye kiss, but Senora Alvarez wasted no time in coming between them.

  Chase laughed to himself, but he'd been surprised at how readily Carlisle had accepted the eagle-eyed Senora Alvarez. He'd expected her to protest loudly, but instead she'd shared her cabin and taken
her meals with her elderly companion without complaint. Perhaps that was because Carlisle had managed to flirt with every male passenger aboard the Mayan in spite of the old lady's presence.

  Chase felt anger surge inside him. Damn her green eyes! He should have kept his distance from her from the very beginning. She was trouble, the devil's temptation with the face of an angel and the soft, sensuous body of a cortesana, as yet unawakened and unpossessed. He wondered if she understood the power she wielded over men, if she knew how many longed to make her tremble and writhe with passion in their arms.

  Scowling, Chase looked at Carlisle again, where she still fawned over Javier Perez. He thought of the night in the carriage when she'd more or less invited him to kiss her. That was when he'd become painfully aware of how much he desired her. Dios, he wouldn't have believed himself capable of such adolescent behavior, not in a hundred years. But he'd been as affected by that kiss as she. It galled him to think that a little slip of a virgin like her, a girl who despised him and made no bones about her feelings, had gotten to him. That's why he'd lashed out at her the way he had, why he was so angry with her now, and why he meant to make sure she kept hating him. Her contempt would make their relationship safer for both of them.

  Chase had a hell of a lot more important problems than Carlisle Kincaid to occupy his mind. He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. Dios, would Mexico never stand strong and united like the United States now did, six years after the American War Between the States? He'd fought and killed to reinstate Juarez as the rightful, elected President of Mexico, and thought that when they'd finally driven out the French and executed the usurper, Maximilian, the turmoil would end. But it continued. Why couldn't the people see what Benito was trying to do? Why couldn't they see that the Catholic Church had held the land and wealth of Mexico in its stranglehold for too long?

  He didn't want to fight anymore, not against his own people. He was tired of the blood, of the killing. He'd seen enough death to last him a lifetime.

  By the rail, Carlisle and her friends still chatted gaily. Annoyed with her, he yelled curtly for her to hurry up. She glanced up, looked faintly surprised, then warmly embraced first Arantxa, then Javier, despite Senora Alvarez's frown of disapproval.

  Chase looked back at the docks, eager for Esteban to arrive. He'd not seen his compadre in several months, and he'd missed him. They'd been friends since childhood, and Chase felt a closer kinship with Esteban than he did with anyone in his own family. Esteban was like a brother. He would help get Carlisle Kincaid safely settled at the Hacienda de los Toros and out of Chase's hair.

  Once Carlisle was at the ranch, Chase's mother could worry about her while Chase journeyed on to Mexico City and reported his findings to Benito. El Presidente would not like the rumors about increasing rebel support for Santa Anna. It had been Santa Anna who had sent Benito into exile in the early years, before the French had invaded their country.

  "There was no call for you to be so rude." Carlisle's voice was furious, though she kept her tone low. "I have every right to say good-bye to my friends."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Chase meant it mockingly, and she took it that way, because her green eyes narrowed with annoyance. At times he believed he argued with Carlisle just to make her angry. Enraged, she was nothing less than magnificent, with her color high and her eyes flashing. At the moment, her small chin was set at a defiant angle.

  "I've decided not to let you bother me anymore, Mr. Lancaster, because I think you're actually low enough to enjoy seeing me angry," she said, uncannily exposing his own thoughts.

  "Yes, ma'am, glad to hear it, ma'am. But I think we'd get along better if you could just keep that quick temper of yours in check."

  "Oh, quit calling me ma'am. I don't like it. You're the most antagonizing man I've ever met."

  "Please allow me to take your arm. The gangplank is steep."

  "I am capable of disembarking by myself," Carlisle retorted, showing her fury despite her earlier resolution.

  Waving again to Arantxa and Javier, she ignored Chase, who had rudely left her side to speak to Senora Alvarez. Then she lifted the billowing skirt of her white organdie dress and made her way carefully down to the dock below, where her trunks and bags had been deposited earlier.

  And there she stood, for half an hour, the noonday sun broiling down upon her head until she was forced to snap up her white ruffled parasol. Inside, she seethed and cursed the day Chase Lancaster was born. He was insufferable, embarrassing her in front of the captain and other passengers by yelling for her to hurry, and now leaving her standing alone on the dock like some sailor's trollop.

  Oh, why had Gray insisted she travel with the lout? Why hadn't he seen what a cad Chase really was? She wasn't sure she could put up with his mockery and hatefulness long enough to find out the things Javier wanted to know. It rankled, too, that Chase was always such a gentleman around everyone but her. He was even nice to Arantxa.

  Thank God he'd stayed away from her while they'd been at sea. Not that he hadn't kept a close eye on her. And she knew the reason why. He'd expected her to steal off and do something immoral with Javier like some loose hussy. His fears just went to show what kind of man he was, always expecting the worst of her and other men, probably because his own behavior left so much to be desired.

  She felt the uncomfortable sensation of sweat trickling down the small of her back beneath the fine white fabric of her dress. She retrieved her dainty lace handkerchief and dabbed at the perspiration beaded at her temples. From the ship, Matamoros had looked beautiful and welcoming with its flat-topped white houses and graceful church spires rising against the blue sky. But now, as she glanced around the busy dock, the Mexican town did not seem so inviting. Several dock workers with swarthy skin and dirty clothes, sharing a bottle of tequila, returned her glance with leers.

  One, the dirtiest creature Carlisle had ever laid eyes on, gestured toward her, then made a remark in an unfamiliar Spanish dialect. She couldn't understand the words, but the way his companions guffawed made it fairly obvious that his observation was insulting. Never before had she been left standing by herself in a public place frequented by ruffians! Her brothers had always insisted she take her maid along when she went to Marshall Field's store or driving in Lincoln Park. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Chase sauntering toward her, apparently unconcerned about her safety or her long wait.

  "Where have you been?" she demanded. "I'm burning up out here in the sun! And those men over there have been calling out rude things to me!"

  Chase glanced at the trio, then shrugged. "I thought you liked men to notice you.

  "They're hoodlums! Or worse!"

  He ignored her, grinning as he surveyed the far end of the cobbled street that ran parallel to the water-front. She followed his gaze to the contingent of horsemen and closed carnage now clattering toward them.

  "There's our ride now," he said, taking hold of her arm. "Esteban's right on time."

  "Who's Esteban?" she asked, half running to keep up with his long, hurried strides. He didn't deign to answer, and Carlisle had suddenly had enough of his incivility. She jerked her arm away from him and stood her ground.

  Chase frowned down at her. "Now what's the matter?"

  "I will not be dragged about by you and treated like some prisoner you're towing off to jail! I refuse to go another step until you tell me who that man is." She stopped, suddenly remembering that her duenna was nowhere to be seen. She looked back at the ship. "And where is Senora Alvarez?"

  Chase's deep blue eyes raked over her flushed face. "Esteban's an old friend of mine, and the foreman of my ranch. He's come to escort us there. As for the senora, she decided to sail on to Tampico, where she's to visit her son's family."

  Carlisle was stunned. "But I thought you said it was necessary for me to have a duenna while I was in Mexico!"

  "No, that's not what I said," he answered, a rakish grin curving his lips. "What I said was you needed a
duenna while Javier Perez was around. There'll be no need now that you're traveling with me and my friends."

  "Well, I happen to think differently," she returned furiously. "You're a lot more dangerous and ill-mannered than Javier. At least he's never taken advantage of me."

  "Glad to hear it, Senorita Kincaid. But you have no reason to fear me. Once we get to the ranch, my mother will take you under her wing. The two of you should get along fine, since she disapproves of my manners as much as you do."

  When he took her elbow, Carlisle had no choice but to be pulled along with him. She pressed her lips into a tight line, deciding that being alone with him was even worse than she'd imagined. As they crossed the cobbled wharf, the man leading the armed riders halted those behind him with a raised right arm, then swung off his horse and strode toward them, grinning widely.

  "Esteban!" Chase called out, obviously overjoyed to see his friend. He released Carlisle and greeted the other man with a warm abrazo.

  "It's been too long this time, amigo!" Esteban answered.

  "Sí, compadre. I wondered if you'd tear yourself away from that beautiful wife of yours long enough to come meet me!"

  "Caramba, your ugly face is little comfort after three nights away from my hot-blooded Conchita. She is visiting her kin near the river while I'm away. They're camped in their usual spot. Here, I have brought your riding clothes."

  "Gracias." Chase took the worn saddlebag Esteban handed to him, laughing and slapping his Mexican friend on the back.

  "How's Mother and Tomas? Did they come with you?"

  "Your mother, she has gone home to Mexico City. Your brother, Tomas, thought only of the toros, so she took him away to where he'd carry the school-books instead of the cape. He is as eager to fight the bulls as we were in the old days, eh, amigo?"

  Chase laughed again, clapping his friend's shoulder. "Sí, but he is already much better than we were. I have the scars to prove it!"

  As the two men continued to joke and reminisce, Carlisle bristled at how incredibly rude Chase Lancaster could be. She felt like an utter fool, standing to one side like an unwanted stepchild. She flushed with heat and anger. He probably would never have presented her if his friend, Esteban, hadn't looked curiously at her.