Bride of the Baja (27 page)

"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 here 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 glancing 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 you
rself?"

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."

"Downstairs? Where all the servants can overhear?" He crossed the room and pulled the bell cord. "What's wrong with you today, Alitha?" He smiled. "Is there, perhaps, a man hiding in your room?" She held her breath as he looked around him, playing the cuckold, finally dropping to one knee to look under the bed. "No," he said, "I was wrong. There is no one there."

Esteban rose to his feet and was brushing himself off when there was a tapping on the door.

"Chocolate for the senorita,
por favor
," Esteban told Concepcion The maid curtsied and went out.

"All right, Esteban," Alitha said. "If you're through playacting, tell me what your business was all about."

"You may have heard that we were planning to sail to Spain."

"As a matter of fact, I have. Why am I the last to know? I've heard that it's common gossip in the cafes."

"It is common gossip because I want it to be common gossip." As he lowered his voice, she glanced toward the balcony. Did she see Jordan's shadow on the curtain?

"In three days' time we leave Mexico for Vera Cruz," Esteban told her, "with our original party of five
vaqueros
. A ship sails from Vera Cruz in two weeks, bound for Havana and Spain."

"And we'll be on board?"

"No, the trip is a ruse to catch the rebels off guard. You see, the viceroy had bad news last week from the south, something the cafe gossips don't know as yet. General Iturbide, who was sent to fight the revolutionaries, is meeting with the rebel Guerrero instead. Viceroy Apodaca fears he's attempting to reach an understanding with him to combine their forces against the government. If this is true, it means Spanish rule in Mexico is almost at an end."

"What has that to do with us?"

"The Spaniards here in the capital have a great horde of gold hidden at the mint. They want to send that gold out of the country before it's too late."

"Montezuma's gold."