The Dancer (11 page)

"The hell she is!" Davis balled up the Los Angeles Examiner and flung it across the room. "She'll marry that Spanish bastard over my dead body!"

Stella raised her eyebrows. "How unpleasant for her."

Davis glared at her.

"What did you expect Elena to do?" Stella demanded.

Davis sprang up from his chair and began pacing. "I thought she'd come back."

"I warned you she was a stiff-necked Californio but you wouldn't listen. Pride's making her marry the man--a count is he?--and I doubt anyone will talk her out of it."

"I swore I wouldn't run after her," he muttered.

Stella shrugged. "Countess Sevillano--it has a nice ring."

"Why is she marrying him?" he demanded. "What did I do wrong?"

"Took too much for granted, is my guess. Exactly like your papa. Did you ever ask Elena to marry you?"

He never had. But after the night they'd spent together she must have known how he felt. How could she have gone away without a word?

"Don't forget, as far as Elena knew, you were engaged to another woman," Stella reminded him.

He'd broken off with Lois. But not until after the night with Elena. He'd never gotten the chance to tell her.

"Women need to hear that a man loves them and wants to marry them." Stella smiled a bit sadly. "We can get along without those words being said but it isn't easy."

He'd never told Elena, not in words, because he believed she knew. As for marriage--he just hadn't thought that far ahead before she'd up and left. His father had never married Stella, though it was obvious how fond he was of her and how much he depended on her. Had his father ever told Stella he loved her?

Davis hesitated, then strode over to Stella, pulled her to her feet and hugged her, something he hadn't done since he was a small boy. The words came easier than he thought. "I love you," he told her. "As much as if you really had been my mother."

"You think I don't know that?" Stella spoke gruffly but when he let her go he saw her eyes were wet with tears. "Why waste time with me when you could be on your way to Spain?"

In her dressing room backstage at the Real, Elena sat at her dressing table surrounded by flowers and other gifts from admirers. This had been her last performance before her wedding. She smiled as she picked up a small gold box with a flower engraved onto the lid. Luis simply couldn't believe she wouldn't accept jewels from him until they were married. Except for the emerald and diamond engagement ring, of course. She started to set the box back on the table unopened but paused, frowning as she examined the flower engraving more carefully. Her heart began to thud, beating faster and harder. Holding her breath, she lifted the hinged lid.

A poppy nestled on a tiny green velvet cushion, a poppy artfully fashioned from golden topazes set into gold. A California poppy. She plucked a folded note from beside it.

"I love you. Meet me at Plaza Mayor before midnight tonight," the note said.

He hadn't signed it but he didn't need to. Even if she hadn't recognized his writing, here in Spain, where everyone thought of her as being from Mexico, who else but Davis would send her a California poppy?

She lifted out the golden poppy and cradled it in her hands. All the magnificent jewels in their ornate settings that Luis had offered her weren't half so beautiful to her as this simple poppy.

Davis loved her. Elena closed her eyes, smiling. They popped open almost immediately. Luis was waiting for her; they were going to an after-theater party given by one of his aristocratic relatives. The king would be there. The huge square-cut emerald surrounded by smaller diamonds gleamed on her finger, the ring so heavy it weighed down her hand. Luis loved her, too, and she'd promised to marry him.

In the mirror Elena saw her dresser, Rosita, waiting for her to stand so the long black velvet evening cape could be placed over her shoulders. Elena was suddenly reminded of the black cloak Meg had worn to meet her lover Rory, the same cloak Elena had worn when Mike Dugald abducted her and baby Patrick.

What good had ever come from her association with the Burwashes? Her friendship for Meg but precious little else. If she met Davis in the plaza wouldn't she be inviting pain and heartache anew?

"The count awaits, senorita," Rosita reminded her.

Elena's fingers closed over the poppy so hard its pin pricked her hand. She still clasped it as she rose and allowed Rosita to settle the cape on her shoulders. Because she held the poppy and because the large stone of the ring made it difficult, she carried her gloves instead of pulling them on. Her mirror reflected a brilliant image, the elegant velvet gown of scarlet enhanced by gold braid and set off by the black cape. La Coralilla's colors.

The plaza was very near the Real but soon Luis's carriage would transport her across Madrid to his cousin's palacio. They'd arrive sometime after eleven, too late for her to return to the Plaza Mayor by midnight, even if she wished to.

The old Davis would have barged backstage, never mind who objected, and forced his way inside her dressing room. Instead, he was offering her the choice of coming to him or not. Elena took a deep breath and walked to the door. She'd made up her mind, she'd given her word, she'd not change it.

Luis handed her into his carriage with its crested door. He had a motor car as well but preferred the carriage at night.

"A marvelous performance tonight, my dear," he told her. "You quite outdid yourself."

She hardly heard him, she was hardly aware of anything except the poppy pin inside her closed hand. The driver clucked to the horses and started off, the carriage moving slowly because traffic was heavy near the theater. She willed the carriage to move faster, to speed her across the city. Once she arrived at the palacio, it would be too late, the decision would be made for her once and for all.

Luis spoke to her but she couldn't respond, she was coiled so tight that a single word might send her spinning out of control. The driver turned off onto a less-traveled street, hoping, she supposed, to detour around the busiest avenues. To her dismay, she realized he'd chosen the street leading to the plaza.

She knew she should face Luis and not look from the window again until they were well past the plaza but she couldn't help herself.

You won't see him, it's too early, he won't be there yet, she thought. And, even if he is, what use is it to catch a glimpse of him as you pass by?

She caught her breath. A man stood under the street lamp and she knew by his wide-brimmed hat he wasn't a Spaniard. The carriage rolled closer, spun past and she clenched her hand around the pin so that it stabbed her again. The hurt was nothing compared to the dagger of pain piercing her heart.

"Stop!" she called to the driver.

As he pulled the horses to a halt, she tugged the heavy emerald off her finger and dropped it in Luis's lap. "I'm sorry," she said, flinging open the door, leaping to the cobbled street and, holding her skirts hiked up, ran toward the man under the lamp. And then she was in Davis's arms and nothing else in the world mattered. She’d come home.

Chapter Eight

The tenth of July, Davis thought, looking around the foyer of his house in satisfaction. A date he'd never forget, one he'd happily remember forever. If he'd had any sense he'd have swept Elena off her feet five years ago, after their first meeting, and married her then. No other woman had ever really meant anything to him once he'd seen Elena.

Flowers graced the foyer, not in the usual wedding whites and muted pinks but, at Elena's request, in what she called "California colors"--brilliant reds and purples and fuchsias and oranges. As Meg had said a few minutes ago--the old place sang with color.

He liked the song. Their wedding was to be at the El Doblez church but the reception would be here--again, as Elena had wished. She'd asked that Antonio, Felicia's boy, be allowed to be a ring bearer along with Patrick, since theirs was to be a double ring ceremony. Davis was aware some of the guests would raise an eyebrow but he didn't care. He might not be able to give Elena the title of countess but anything else she wanted was hers.

Now that she'd finally consented to be his wife, she'd never escape him again. "Elena," Meg had told him this morning, "is one of a kind. The stubborn kind. Do you know she insists on wearing that poppy pin you gave her? She says she wouldn't dream of being married without it. I managed to persuade her into pinning it onto her glove instead of, Lord forbid, on her wedding gown. But I couldn't talk her out of donning that old family locket of hers."

Davis smiled. Something old, something new. He had no quarrel with her Gabaldon ancestors and he was touched because the poppy pin meant so much to her. God knows it had been a gift from his heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jane Toombs, the Viking from her past and their calico grandcat, Kinko, live on the south shore of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness. Here they enjoy refreshing Springs, beautiful Summers, colorful Falls and tolerate miserable Winters. Jane is edging toward ninety with her published books and has over twenty-five novellas and short stories to her credit. She’s been published in every genre except men’s action and erotica, but paranormal is her favorite. She’s a member of a closed twelve author promo group called Jewels Of The Quill, where she’s “Dame Turquoise” at

Also from Books We Love Publishing, Hallow House, Books I and II, and Ten Past Midnight. Six stories and three poems on the dark side of paranormal. Everything from ghouls to the heart-eating Egyptian beast who decides one's fate. Even the touches of romance are definitely different. But what traveler can expect the norm when on the wrong side of midnight? Ten past midnight All's not well. Every road leads right To hell..

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