Coming Home for Christmas (3 page)

T
homas couldn't have heard Father Hilario correctly. What the man had said must be an idiom he had never encountered before.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, his voice really low now.

“Marry her. She has nowhere to live. For unknown reasons, you have just purchased some of her clothing and much of her furniture. She will thank you for the prie-dieu—we call it a
reclinatorio.
Your own quarters are rather sparse and could use some nice furniture, if I may say.”

“You may not,” Thomas snapped. He felt light-headed, but he was damned if he'd take his own pulse in front of the Franciscan. “That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. She doesn't even
like
me.”

“Ah! So you have thought of it!” the priest chortled, pouncing.

“I have not!” Thomas whispered back furiously. “Well, only a little.”

“I could ask why you purchased so many of her possessions, but I know how easy it is to get caught up in the spirit of a bargain,” the priest said generously, with only a hint of a smile.

“Um, yes.”

“You English,” the priest said, his voice kind.

“Scot. Scot,” Thomas said weakly.

The auction was over. His mind traveling in all directions at once, Thomas went to the auctioneer and paid what he owed.

“Shall we deliver this tonight to your quarters?” the man asked.

“Of course not! Find Doña Laura Ortiz and give it back to her,” Thomas declared.

The auctioneer pressed his lips together in a thin line, disapproval etched deep. “That child of a cheat and a gambler has no home now. I do not know where she is.” He waved his hand at Thomas's new possessions. “This is now yours and it is going to your quarters. And that is that.” He turned on his heel in the way only a Spaniard could—or would—and left the surgeon standing there.

“Do it, then, man, damn your eyes,” Thomas muttered in English. He turned to the priest, his voice low. “Marry her? That is out of the question.”

Father Hilario only nodded. “Find her and see what she says.”

“I know what she will say!”

“Are you so certain?” Father Hilario murmured. “Good night, lad. Go with God. Find her.”

 

“A fat lot of help you are,” Thomas had muttered to himself as he returned to the fort. In another moment he was seated beside Ralph Gooding. The carpenter's
constant fever always burned brighter in the evening, so he wiped the man's face and neck.

Ralph didn't open his eyes. “Did you go to the auction?”

“Aye, more fool me,” Thomas replied. “Out of the goodness of my heart I bought some of Laura's things. Just to return them to her, mind you. Father Hilario thinks I should marry her!”

Even at the worst of times, Ralph Gooding had a sense of humor. Thomas expected him to laugh, but he was disappointed. The carpenter opened his eyes and his expression was thoughtful.

“Oh, no, not you, too,” the surgeon said, holding up his hands to ward off this odd contagion that had spread from the Franciscan to the English patient.

“It's an excellent idea. She's so pretty, and who knows how long you will be stuck here in paradise? I don't intend to live forever, you know. She'll make you happier than I will.”

Thomas smiled in spite of himself. “Ralph, you are an antidote, but this is no joking matter.”

“I never thought it was.” Ralph's eyes were closing. “I'm tired. Would you snuff that wick and let me sleep? Go find that pretty lady.” He sighed and tugged at his blanket. “Father Hilario is so clever. He can probably find a million ways to marry a Roman Catholic to a Presbyterian in Alta California.” He smiled. “Some of them might even be legal. G'night.”

“I don't know where she is,” Thomas protested, as he tucked Ralph's blanket higher.

“Don't you?” was Ralph's drowsy reply.

“Why would I?” Thomas said. Even as he said it, he
did know where she was—at any rate, where he would be, in similar circumstances.

 

Obtaining permission to visit the cells was easily granted by the turnkey in charge, whose twins he had recently delivered. There she was, sitting on the floor by the iron bars, her hand looped through and resting on her father's shoulder. Thomas squatted beside her, saying nothing because there was nothing to say. He glanced at Laura, admiring her creamy complexion. He had been close to her before, but maybe the way the light from a single torch glinted off her hair brought out the auburn highlights. The dungeon stank as usual, but she smelled sweetly of lavender.

She was moving her deliciously lovely lips just slightly and he thought she might be praying. Then she sighed and sat back, looking at him with the intense gaze he was familiar with, but with something more besides. He wouldn't have thought it possible earlier, but he saw shame and humiliation in her expression.

“I did not think that you, of all people, would come to gloat.”

Startled, he frowned. “Laura, you know I would never do that.”

He had spoken just as quietly. Her eyes filled with tears. “I'm sorry. I should never have said that. This is hard.”

Thomas understood hard. He nodded and looked at her father, who, in his shame, looked away. Tentatively, the surgeon reached his hand through the bars and grasped the accountant's shoulder. The man began to weep.

Thomas decided it was a good thing that he was
there, and not someone unfamiliar with tears. He kept his hand on the man's shoulder, thinking of the times his instructors had told their students that often a kind touch was the sum total of their medical arsenal, when all else was gone.

“She wants to go with me to Mexico City,” Señor Ortiz said finally. “It is nearly a six-month journey, so hard, and through Apachería. I fear the trip alone would be a death sentence.” He raised his eyes to Thomas's then. “But I have shamed us both and no one here will take her in.”

“I will,” Thomas heard himself saying. When Laura gasped, he hadn't the courage to look at her. “I will,” he said again. “Señor, may I have your permission to marry her? She'll be safe. No one will harm her, because I am valuable to this garrison.”

“She comes with no dowry,” the Spaniard said, the mortification of a proud man almost palpable.

“Not precisely,” Thomas said, still not brave enough to look at the woman seated beside him on the floor. “I…uh…I purchased quite a few of her possessions at the auction. That would count for something in Scotland.”

Whether that was true or not, he didn't care. Here he was, sitting by a man who did not think he—or his daughter, if she accompanied him—would survive the trip to Mexico City. He glanced at Laura, who was looking at him, but without her usual intense gaze. She seemed unsure of herself, a far cry from the capable lass with the superior air who had only to look in his direction to intimidate him. Suddenly she looked young, vulnerable and desperate. And lovely, so lovely, even in this extremity.

He hadn't quite enough courage to hold out his hand to her. “Laura, you will be safe as houses with me.”

That must not have been a familiar simile in Spanish, because her expression became more quizzical than fearful.

“You will be safe,” he amended. “Marry me.”

He expected an immediate refusal, but she surprised him. “No one will receive me, or speak to me,
señor,
” she told him. “You will be ruined, the same as me.”

At least she was considering his impulsive offer. “No, I will not,” he contradicted. “This
presidio
needs me. The people will not dare to ruin me, because I am probably the only surgeon between Los Angeles and Tucson.” He chuckled, aware of his own pride. “At least, the only good one.”

“I know what you mean,” she told him, then leaned close to her father. “Papa?”

Thomas got to his feet and stood in the doorway of the dungeon, allowing them a moment of privacy. Father and daughter whispered together, both cried, and then Laura stood up. She looked at him, then glanced away, her lovely face pale.

There wasn't time to think about what he had done; no time to consider how foolish it probably was; no time to reflect on how it might actually affect his life here, or in the future; no time to do anything except square his shoulders and take whatever came. Whether that was the refusal he expected or acceptance, which would complicate his life in Alta California, at the very least.

The turnkey was standing by him in the doorway. “Did…did I hear you right,
señor
?” he whispered.

“You probably did, Emilio,” Thomas whispered back.

“She's awfully superior,” the turnkey warned.

“Not now,” Thomas said, and his heart went out to the young woman seated on the floor of the filthy prison, in tears. “Not now.”

He held his breath as Laura looked at him. The tears slid down her face. She glanced at her father for reassurance, then gracefully stood up, smoothed down her dress and squared her shoulders. To his everlasting pity, she glided across the floor in that magical way he had observed before and knelt at his feet.

“No, no,” he said, reaching for her.

She raised her hands to his and he helped her up.

She could barely lift her eyes to meet his gaze. “I will marry you,” she said, her voice soft. “Only, please treat me well.”

Thomas knew he could promise that. If there was one lesson he had learned in life, at sea and in school, it was to do precisely that. But a wife? Thirty minutes ago, he had been a little foolish at an auction. Now he was about to become a husband.

“Of course I will treat you well. I could never do anything else, Laura,” he told her.

She nodded. “I will find Father Hilario,” she whispered and left him standing there, wondering what he had just got himself into.

R
alph Gooding was right: Father Hilario was perfectly capable of finding a way for a Presbyterian to marry a Roman Catholic in the royal
presidio
of San Diego. The matter was accomplished the next day, with nary a cried bann in sight. A bit dazed by the whole and the speed of the proceedings, Thomas signed a document in Latin, the gist of which revolved mainly around his agreement to raise any children as Catholic.

He blushed and signed, even as Laura did the same. He didn't dare meet her eyes; a quick glance assured him that she no longer wore a superior air. To his dismay, she looked worn down and weary beyond her years, which made him wonder whether she had slept at all last night.

He knew he hadn't. True to his word, the auctioneer had delivered Laura's possessions to his modest quarters, located just off the small hospital's ward. He had nothing more than a bed and a chest of drawers in one room, and a few chairs and a table in the other.
Since there was less furniture in his sleeping chamber, Thomas had directed the men to put Laura's bed in with his.
She won't like this,
he thought, as he tossed and turned all night. Still, better here than in the other room, where patients from the town sometimes came for consultations.

Her prie-dieu, table and chairs and cabinet went in his consulting/sitting room. The bright blue table and chairs made him smile, which was a good thing, because nothing else did. He who was known fleet-wide as a careful man, one who weighed all options, was about to plunge into marriage. While cooling his heels in the small antechamber at the garrison chapel, he consoled himself by acknowledging that no one in the entire Royal Navy knew what he was about to do.

His next thought was one of shame at his callous nature. He might have been uncharacteristically impulsive, but it didn't follow that he would abandon Laura Ortiz de la Garza, soon-to-be Wilkie, as soon as the first Royal Navy vessel hove into view. No. He was to be married, and married he would stay. One didn't rescue a damsel in distress, only to show a clean pair of heels when times were better. He was in for the long haul. Whether Laura knew that or not was the unknown quantity.

They were married before noon, but after the disgraced accountant was chained into an oxcart and driven with an armed escort from the
presidio.
A few whispered words with the
presidio
's captain left Thomas feeling less than sanguine about Señor Ortiz's future. The plan was to avoid Apachería after all. The military caravan would travel south to Baja California, gathering felons along the way who were deemed
important enough to bind over for trial in Mexico City. A short crossing of the Sea of Cortez would land them in Puerto Vallarta, and then across to Durango, and down to Mexico City, where a long prison sentence awaited.

“If he lives that long,” the captain said. “It's a long trip, and much can happen.”

And probably would,
was the implication. Thomas had no inkling that the captain would be much disturbed if justice along the king's road was a bit rough on his former royal accountant. Perhaps he had lost money to Señor Ortiz's gambling. At least he did not try to discourage Thomas from marrying the man's daughter.

Thomas did not know where Laura had spent the night, but from the look of her rumpled dress, it was probably on the floor by her father's cell. No matter—she could sleep well in her own bed tonight, under his protection.

He watched her as the melancholy oxcart procession left the
presidio,
skirted the town square at the foot of the hill and disappeared down the king's road. She stood alone on the porch of the garrison church, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped together in that way of Spanish gentlewomen. He thought she was crying and wanted to go to her, which made him different from most of his sex, who tended to run from a woman's tears. The difference was his profession; he knew he could comfort.

But he hesitated. Depending on how long these matters took, he would be married to her in less than an hour. He knew it wasn't the moment to be shy, but he wanted to give her room to grieve. Whether she was
mourning the loss of her father, or the upcoming loss of her freedom, he couldn't have said.

She couldn't see him as he stood in the shadows by his quarters off the hospital, so he watched her, touched by her air of calm, when he suspected she was feeling anything but. After a moment, she raised her eyes from their contemplation of the tile and dabbed at them with a lace handkerchief that looked like one of the items he had bought back for her at yesterday's auction.

Her quiet beauty took his breath away, as he wondered just when, in the past years of knowing her, she had turned into such a lovely lady. While it was true she was much slimmer than Cora McClean, his faithless fiancée, she had a figure that was beginning to make him warm under his shirt.

She stood alone, without a friend in sight. He watched as she looked heavenward, as though seeking aid. Seeing none, she sighed—he couldn't hear her, but her breast rose and fell eloquently. Then she squared her shoulders and straightened her back, as if preparing herself for another ordeal: the ordeal of marriage to a stranded surgeon in the Royal Navy, because not one of her own would take her in.

“I won't be so bad,” Thomas whispered. “I promise you, lass.”

If Ralph Gooding hadn't insisted on being carried across the courtyard on a stretcher, there would have been no guests at their wedding. The effort made Gooding's fevered cheeks even brighter. When Thomas rose and took a step toward him, the carpenter shook his head.

“As you were, laddie,” he managed to say, with a
touch of his humor that even consumption couldn't steal away.

Thomas nodded and resumed his place at the altar on his knees beside his bride. He had brushed his uniform into submission, but he had lost weight and now it hung on him. Lately, he had been going about in Spanish trousers and linen shirts, and the worn blue wool felt almost alien. Laura had changed into another dress, one not so wrinkled and smelling of the dungeon, but plain and dark green with a crocheted collar. She had coiled her pretty hair around her head like a coronet. He wondered how long it actually was and grew a little warm, thinking that he might actually find out in a few hours. Her black-lace mantilla hid her hair, but not her face, and certainly not her frightened eyes.

He had a ring, a little silver bauble given in payment several years ago by a fisherman after he extracted a hook from the man's lip. Thomas was too cynical to believe the man's tale of treasure from a Spanish galleon of the Philippines trade, but it was a pretty ring so he had kept it, rather than bartering it for something else.

This was the ring he slid on Laura's finger, surprising them both because it fit. For the only time in the ceremony, she looked him in the eye and smiled slightly, before dropping her gaze to the tile floor again.

The service was in Latin, of course, and Thomas had no idea what Father Hilario was saying. He supposed it was something about loving, honoring and obeying. He imagined his ancestors looking down on the two of them with Presbyterian disapproval, but it bothered him less than he would have thought. They were dead and he was not, and they had probably known as much as he did about the general uncertainty of life.

He knew, by marrying Laura Ortiz, that he was doing a kind thing. Whether it was a wise thing remained to be seen. Still, the whole matter had quite wiped away his disgruntlement at the sailing of the
Almost Splendid
without him. He had more pressing concerns now.

 

Ralph Gooding had taxed himself sore by attending the wedding, and then signing the wedding book as one of two witnesses—the other was the sexton. With a smile at his new bride and a nod to Father Hilario, Thomas had seen to his patient's return to his bed, and then sat with him for part of the afternoon as the man coughed and hemorrhaged. Ralph slept finally, exhausted, and Thomas had nowhere to go except his quarters, located off the ward. He hoped Laura would be there.

She was, just sitting in that still way of hers, hands clasped on her table this time. He looked around appreciatively. Laura had removed a colorful tablecloth from her trunk of possessions that he had purchased at the auction and spread it on the table. He had made a settee of sorts out of a discarded packing case. She had found two embroidered pillows and placed them on his makeshift sofa. A saint now looked at him benevolently from a small alcove, which had probably been waiting for such an occupant a few years, rather than the tin cup and grog bottle he usually kept there.

“Who's she?” he asked his new wife.

“St Cecilia,” Laura replied. The sudden bloom in her cheeks gave him ample proof that she was just as frightened and shy as he was. “She is the patron saint of music.” She swallowed, and he knew what an effort she was making. “My mother's name was Cecilia.”
She looked at him then, and, with a pang, he wondered where the confident, imperious Laura had gone. “I thought I had lost her, but you bought so many of my things. Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” he replied, touched. “May…may I sit down?”

There was just the hint of her former spark. “Of course you may! This is your house.”

He sat down opposite her, feeling suddenly large and clumsy and red-faced, so unlike the people she was used to. He wanted to assure her that he was a kind man who would never hurt or frighten her, but a sudden pounding on the door took him out of his quarters. A garrison bull had gored one of the soldiers and he was needed at once.

A goring, what a relief,
he thought.

Without a word, he picked up his remedy bag and slung it over his shoulder. Laura was standing by the table now, her eyes full of concern. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

“You're a dear to ask,” he said in English. “Yes, there is,” he said in Spanish. “I don't know how long I will be. The garrison cook always delivers dinner to my quarters and food for Señor Gooding. Will you see that he is fed?”

She nodded, her expressive eyes filled with purpose now. “Will he eat much?”

“I doubt it. He had a bad spell this afternoon. If he does not want to eat, just sit with him, will you?”

Laura nodded again. He couldn't help himself. He reached out and touched her arm. “Don't be afraid if he starts to hemorrhage. Just raise up his head and keep his mouth clear. Will you do that? I am asking a lot.”

“No, you are not,” she replied. She hesitated. “And may I eat, too? It has been a long day.”

“Laura, everything I have is yours now,” he said simply. “Even the beans and tortillas.”

He smiled to show it was a joke, but she was looking at him in that serious way he was more familiar with. “Of course you may eat. Just save me something and put it in that cupboard.”

She nodded. Her cheeks blossomed with pink again. “Should I wait up for you?”

“No. Just go to bed, Laura. I'll be quiet when I come in.”

She took a deep breath. “In which bed?”

“Yours, of course. We need to talk…first.”

The tears in her eyes surprised him. He didn't have time to think about it, not with something as interesting as a goring waiting for him in the stable, a problem he might actually be able to solve. Wives were probably different, especially a wife on such short notice. Did she think he didn't want her? Was she relieved? Nervous?

Thomas Wilkie prided himself on being a man of science. Too bad he had no idea what to do next.