LAVENDER BLUE (historical romance) (20 page)

His dark, flat face looking savage, Solis stood in the doorway. He was panting with the dash he had made from the beach, through the streets rife with crossfire, and up the staircase to her room. The words that had been on his tongue—about how the
Revenge
had just put in, the sight of the smoke hanging like a pall over the city, Alejandro’s confirmation of the French invasion—the words and the overwhelming fear for her safety faded at the sight of the aristocratic young woman whose beauty was inadequately concealed by the thin sheet.

“
Solis,” she breathed.

Her sleep-tumbled, spun-gold hair curled over one shoulder; her pale hazel eyes
, lined by thick, sun-tipped lashes, were wide with fear—and pride. A goddess, he thought, bemused.

Then he saw the red splotch that stained the sheet, just above her breast. Without thinking, he crossed the room in two strides and yanked the sheet from he
r. She screamed. Fists pummeled at his face and shoulders. “No!
Dios
, no! Not again!” she cried.

He understood. Her fear of rape. He tried to catch her flailing hands. “
Sssh!” he murmured. “It’s all right,
mi amor
.”

But she would not be quieted. Hysteria c
ontorted her delicate features. It wasn’t the hysteria but the blood that he saw pouring from the wound in her arm that made his palm snap across her face. Her head jerked with the impact and her body splayed across the bed.

Immediately Solis crawled over
to kneel at her side. He could see by the glazed pupils that her hysteria had been replaced by a numbed curiosity. He forced himself to forget the small, exposed milk-white breasts that rose and fell rapidly, contrasting so with the swarthy pendulous ones of the Indian women he had known. For the briefest of seconds his observant gaze skimmed over the apex of her legs mounded by a golden moss. Then he turned his attention to the wound in her arm that looked as if it had been gouged by a slicing rapier.

He r
ipped the sheet down one edge, saying softly, “The French will soon occupy Bagdad.” Talking, maybe it would calm her. “If not by tonight, then tomorrow most certainly. ” He lifted the dead weight of her arm and began to wrap the wound with the muslin strip. “You can’t stay here. Sooner or later you’ll be identified as working with the Juaristas. Kitt can take you on the next run out—to Bermuda, Cuba, the Bahamas—anywhere you wish.”

Her eyes blinked. Sanity restored? “
No. I belong here.  I was born in Mexico. My daughter was born here. And died here. I will die here, Solis.”

A child? How had her daughter died? Some fatal childhood disease like the pox? It took eighty-six percent of the infants in the Indian villages like his. He knotted the strip, and she win
ced. “You will live to be a very old lady and tell about the French intervention before you die,” he said gently. “But in the meantime you must leave. You can come back after the fighting is over.”

“
Will Mexico’s fighting ever end?” she asked in a distant voice. Then her eyes focused on his intense face, just above hers. Unconsciously her hand slipped up to stroke the hollow beneath one high cheekbone. “No, I will fight in my own way, Solis. These wars—these revolutions—the guerrilla
bandidos
—they must come to an end one day. So families can live peacefully.”

Without thinking what he was doing, he turned his face so that his lips brushed the fingertips of the grand lady. Afraid to see her response, her repugnance at the audacity of his intimate action, he ro
se and went to the door. With distance between them, he trusted himself to look back at her. There was a curious look in her eyes. He could not identify it. But at least her lips, naturally pink without the adornment of the rouge pot, did not curl with their contempt. They were parted—and soft.

“
I’ll be outside the door until dusk,” he told her. “Kitt is with the Juarista commander now. But at nightfall he’ll return. We’re leaving then. All three of us.”

“Sweet Mary in Heaven, but you look bad!”

Cristobal paused in the bedroom doorway and rubbed his unshaven chin ruefully. His pinstriped trousers were streaked with dust where he had elbowed his way across a dusty street with bullets winging over him. “
I had the misfortune to be visiting a—”

“
Don’t tell me,” Jeanette said from the bed, “a brothel.” She laid aside the newspaper she had been reading. It carried the latest news of General Sherman’s devastating march through Georgia, his Federal troops destroying everything like a plague of locusts. Atlanta, the Confederacy’s military depot, lay in his way. The question was how long the city could hold out against Sherman. How long could Brownsville hold out against General Morgan? How long could Matamoros hold out against the French?

How long could sh
e hold out against the Frenchman?

“
Well, yes,” Cristobal drawled, “as a matter of fact, it was a brothel. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

He paused, and she raised a brow. “
Yes?”

“
Why the devil don’t you wear a nightcap, Jen?”

Self-consciously her hand went up to her hair where it lay upon the shoulder of her soft pink nightdress. She shoved it back behind her shoulder. “
That’s totally irrelevant to our conversation.”

“
Right, of course. Well, curse it, Jen, this is a highly irregular conversation. But, this brothel’s across the river in Mexico.” He glanced sheepishly at his scuffed boots. “And I was—uh, there when the French overran it this morning. You heard the fighting?”

“
Yes. Do get on with it, Cristobal. I’m tired.”

“
It’s my friend—”

“
A woman, no doubt.”

“
Well, yes—anyway, Jen, I’m concerned about her safety.”

“
I would think your friend would be thrilled about the fortune she could make servicing the French soldiers.”

An unholy light flickered in Cristobal
’s eyes. A demonic grin played on his lips. “Indeed, Jen, Frenchmen are rumored to make marvelous lovers, aren’t they?”

She blanched. Did he know about the blockade runner? “
Are they?”

“
Armand was a Frenchman.” He stepped into the room. “You tell me.”

At his approach she pull
ed the bedcovers up to her chin. “That’s none of your business!”

He halted next to the bed. “
So it is.” His fingers played with a tendril that had strayed from her hair. “As I was saying,” he murmured softly, “I’m concerned for my friend’s safety. I would like to bring her here for a few weeks, until everything settles down.”

“
What?” She sprang upright in the bed. “Install your doxy in my house? Have her here for the two of you to— to—”

‘‘
To parrot you—what we do is none of your business.”

Her fists crimped
the sheets. “It’s my house, and I won’t have—”

He caught one of her fists and, with the slightest pressure at the underside of her wrist, forced her to release the sheet. She tried to yank her hand away, but he brought it to his lips. “
I seem to recall that nicely folded billet Mark Thompson passed you in front of Kleiber’s Drugstore. If I don’t mind you meeting with your paramour, you certainly shouldn’t—”

“
He’s not my—there’s a difference.” That conceited bore and his ridiculous note suggesting an assignation! “I don’t meet him in my house. Any more than I’ll allow you to—

“
Jen, dearest, it’s only for a few weeks. It’s her safety I’m concerned about—more than her body. I thought you were above being small-minded. Don’t tell me I have married another Elizabeth Crabbe.”

He released her hand, and she rubbed her wrist, as if his grip had hurt her. That was something he never wanted to do. Hurt her. But he knew he was doing so, and she would know it, too, when the war between the French and Juaristas was over and his masquerade was revealed. Alas, at the moment he had more important things to worry about. First Rubia’s safety. Then Alejandro. In no time the French would track down the boy who had aided the Juaristas. He would make Alejandro his cabin boy. But Rubia—he was counting on Jen’s innate generosity.

“
All right,” she said grudgingly. “But there must be a hundred whores in Matamoros. Surely you aren’t going to bring all of them here, are you?”

“
Of course not. And she’s from Bagdad. Said she’s been aiding the Juaristas in some way. I couldn’t help but offer Rubia asylum, could I?”

“
Rubia?” Jeanette gasped.

Cristobal lifted a brow. “
You know her? Surely not.”

“
No . . . no,” she stuttered. “It’s just a rare name for a Mexican.”

“
Oh, she’s quite blond, I can assure you that.”

“
I’m certain you can,” Jeanette said drily. She should have realized that Cristobal would eventually bed one of the most beautiful prostitutes in the Valley! Rubia could identify her as the boy blockade runner. And if Rubia was working for the Mexican liberals, the Juaristas, then she was in actuality aligned with the Yankees—and against the Confederacy. Which made the two women enemies.

Yet somehow Jeanette knew she could trust her. Instinctively she liked her, despit
e the irony that Rubia shared the embraces of the two men in Jeanette’s life.

“
Yes, you may bring her,” she agreed, unable to fathom her reluctance. Surely it did not bother her—that Rubia shared Kitt’s bed. Certainly no more than it bothered her that Rubia shared Cristobal’s bed!

“Even a pelican has better manners than you, Washington.”

Sitting in the wing-back chair, Jeanette lifted her gaze from the altar cloth she embroidered to fix on Cristobal. With the utmost unconcern for his nipped fin
ger, he once more inserted his hand through the cage’s open door. “That’s it, Washington,” he gently coaxed. “Step aboard. Walk ye ol’ gangplank.”

The badly knotted embroidery work dropped to her lap while she watched in surprise as the macaw actually perm
itted Cristobal to remove him from the cage. Traitorous bird, she thought. The macaw pecked her hand into a sieve whenever she tried to remove him from his cage.

Cristobal, wearing the elegant plum-colored jacket that he had donned earlier for dinner, set
the bird on his shoulder. If only Washington would leave bird droppings on the jacket. Jeanette still smarted from Rubia’s installation at Columbia earlier that afternoon. Oh, the young woman was polite and gracious and, judging by the idle conversation at dinner, seemed well educated. Not at all what one would expect from a—

Jeanette blinked and tried to return her attention to the embroidered mess. She wished she wasn
’t so small-minded about Rubia. She knew that under other circumstances she would have liked her very much. And the woman had not betrayed her recognition of Jeanette; rather, she had given her a reassuring wink at the introduction.

Jeanette told herself that it was simply all the attention being paid the lovely wounded refugee. Both Trinidad
and Tia Juana hovered over Rubia, awaiting the slightest wish from the soft-spoken woman. And the woman was not really a cousin—not really related in any way to Trinidad Cervantes.

Why, Trinidad and Tia Juana had never showered that much concern on her! It
was bad enough that her husband devoted an inordinate amount of attention to Rubia. Even now—with the ungodly bird perched on his shoulder—he swept a bow before Rubia, who reclined on the sofa. With a delighted laugh she clapped her hands, murmuring, “
Bravissimo
!”

That was the core of the problem. Rubia was involved with both Cristobal and the Frenchman. Jeanette jabbed at the altar cloth, tangling the thread. She was jealous of Rubia! Now shame did wash over her. Why couldn
’t she be different? Why couldn’t she be content to be a lady? A true lady. A grand lady, as she intuitively suspected Rubia was.

The door knocker interrupted her thoughts, and Tia Juana waddled over to the door. A moment later Mark Thompson appeared in the parlor
’s doorway, his hat tucked courteously beneath his arm, his military bearing ramrod stiff.

“
Help!” cried Washington, poking his beak in the special agent’s direction.

Mark ignored the macaw. Instead his keen-eyed glance took in Cristobal sitting on the sofa
’s arm near Rubia. “You seemed surprised to see me, Agent Thompson,” Cristobal drawled.

Mark arched one contemptuous brow. “
Quite, Mr. Cavazos. We were under the impression that you spent your leisure time elsewhere.”

“
And doubtlessly you came to keep my wife company?”

Jeanette
glanced sharply at Cristobal, not quite certain she had interpreted correctly the saber edge in his voice. Before Mark could reply, Cristobal continued, “I do wish you would check on Jen now and then. I worry about her being alone in my absence—I write articles, you know, and perforce must travel.”

“
And I’m sure you do an extraordinary amount of research,” Mark said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

“
Oh, yes. If I could tell you all the places my research takes—”

“
Cristobal,” Jeanette intervened before he could launch into some colorful account of his afternoons spent in cantinas and cathouses. She knew very well that he would take great delight in discomforting the man. She laid aside her embroidery, saying, “We have a guest who should be introduced to Mark.”

In the midst of making the introductions, she missed Cristobal
’s narrow-eyed reaction to her free use of the agent’s given name. Mark bent over Rubia’s fingertips with a polite phrase of acknowledgment, then turned to Jeanette. “Madam, one of our units—the Thirty-seventh Illinois Infantry—has decided on the spur of the moment to have a starvation party tomorrow night.”

More parties. The starvation parties were the latest fad of the elite who had sacrificed luxuries since the war
’s inception. With rumors and reports of losses and defeats on both sides flying like birds of omen, people seemed obsessed with gaiety, very much like Paris at the height of the French Revolution.

“
I would like to invite you,” Mark finished. His glance swept over Cristobal. “And your husband and guest, of course.”

Something perverse made Jeanette hasten to reply, “
How marvelous! But I’m afraid Rubia has been ill. And, naturally, my husband has other plans. Isn’t Tuesday night your—er, card night, dear?”

“
Quite so,” Cristobal replied carelessly. ‘‘But do enjoy yourself, Jen. Whatever do you serve as refreshments at a starvation party—water from the Rio Grande?” His chortle made Jeanette wince.

“
Hardly,” Mark said, relaxing now, his smile contemptuous. “We’ve managed to secure several kegs of bay rum.”

Cristobal stroked the bird, who nervously walked the length of his shoulder. “
No doubt from the stores of blockade runners your ships have captured.”

Jeanette knew that the thirst of Southern politicians waxed gre
ater those days. Meat destined for starving Southern families was allowed to spoil on island wharves and wounded soldiers went without quinine and chloroform, while blockade-running captains carried sherry and cigars and silks.

“
Captured—and confiscated,” the special agent stated. Sensing more verbal combat was underway, Jeanette took Mark’s arm, steering him toward the door. “Do count on me to come, Mark.” She leaned closer into the man, adding softly, “It seems months since I’ve danced.”

She might glean m
uch from the starvation party. She would like to know how soon before the Union soldiers finished the narrow-gauged railroad they were building from Brazos Santiago to ease their transportation problems.

When she returned to the parlor Cristobal was busy t
alking to Rubia while he stroked and petted the irascible macaw. Despite her husband’s surface charm, he really was detestable. What Rubia saw in Cristobal was beyond her.