The Valiant Women (52 page)

Talitha nodded and snuggled under the covers. She wouldn't want to do this very often, but the admiration of vital, energetic men was just as intoxicating as the mescal in Colonel Poston's punch and eggnog! Sighing blissfully, she was asleep before Leonore blew out the candle.

XXVII

Talitha and Leonore, still in bed, sipped the chocolate brought them by the Indian girl who built up the fire so the chill would be off the air before they were ready to dress.

Talitha felt lazy to the point of wickedness, but her head throbbed slightly from unaccustomed potations and she wiggled her toes luxuriously and determined to enjoy this opportunity for decadence since she might never have another.

Leonore was exclaiming on the problems of American ambassadors abroad where a plain citizen's garb, recently ordained by the Secretary of State, might be considered an insult at court functions, and an inflammatory reminder of the United States' origins.

“Poor Mr. Buchanan—he'll be our new president, you know—Pierce lost the renomination because Northern Democrats couldn't stomach his proslavery stand on Kansas—well, Mr. Buchanan didn't know what to wear to the Court of St. James, so he missed the opening of Parliament and the way the newspapers, court and even the House of Commons carried on, one would never have guessed England on the brink of war with Russia!” Her laughter chimed like small bells. “Papa says the minister thought of arraying himself like George Washington! Fortunately, he had the wit to know he'd look ridiculous and appeared at Queen Victoria's levee in plain garb. She received him graciously, which settled the matter, at least in England, but after all, Victoria's so
dowdy
she can scarcely cavil at anyone! Empress Eugénie sets style for all civilized society.”

“But you don't like her hoops,” Talitha objected.

“No, and I pray they are out of fashion before ever I return east! But,” sighed Leonore, “how I'd love to see her dressing room at the Tuileries! Revolving mirrors! Separate rooms for hats and bonnets, footwear, parasols and cloaks. Each morning a doll of the Empress's size is dressed to the last detail and sent down in the lift for her approval. It's very seldom that she accepts the costume without much altering and trying of various accessories.”

If that was what sipping chocolate in bed could lead to, Talitha wanted none of it! Jumping up, she turned her back to Leonore and dressed quickly in the gaberdine.

“The French have rulers like that again, after the Revolution?”

Leonore shrugged her slim shoulders. “After the Terror and a strong dose of Bonaparte, I think they welcomed the Bourbons.” She patted back a yawn. “Would I rather sleep or have breakfast? Breakfast, I think!”

Since it was decided, after a leisurely breakfast, to ride over to Tumacácori and see the ruins, Talitha suggested to Marc that they might as well continue from there on to the ranch.

“Oh, I'll miss you!” Leonore cried, but nodded understandingly when Talitha explained that she didn't want to be away longer from Caterina. “My dear, you must come visit us in Tucson! Promise you will, and bring the little girl with you! She sounds adorable!”

“Sometimes she is,” laughed Talitha. “But I can't imagine Shea letting her go on a visit for many years to come!”

“Ah, I'll see to him!” said Leonore confidently.

Looking at the gay sparkling young woman, so like yet so different from Socorro, Talitha felt a sense of warning. She was going to tell Shea how remarkably Leonore resembled Socorro but would that make him more or less eager to meet her? The similarity was a chance of common Spanish heritage, but it was no accident that Judah Frost had married this particular Washington belle.

As they walked about the ruins of Tumacácori—the church roof fallen in though the dome was in reasonable repair—and gazed up at the crumbling bell tower, Talitha told the story Tjúni had given her about the mission. Early in the century the Indians, Pima and Papago, living about the mission received title to four
sitios
of land nearby for grazing and farming, though if they abandoned the region for three years, they lost claim. This was a common provision for grants along the frontier.

During the sale of secular lands, Gándara had acquired the mission property though the Indians were rightfully owners of it and the surrounding lands. Officials had asked to see their title and had kept it. Then, in that Apache-beleaguered winter of 1848, the inhabitants took their
santos
and church furnishings to San Xavier where they were inventoried and kept separate.

“Gándara treats the land as his,” Talitha finished. “And since the Indians had to abandon the place, he probably has some legal standing, but it's still a cheat!”

Shortly afterward, she thanked Colonel Poston for his hospitality and said her farewells to Leonore who kissed her and again insisted that she visit Tucson. Frost only bowed, eyes unreadable, and Talitha turned Ladorada sharply away, glad to escape his constant surveillance, which, in a way, made her jumpier than a direct onslaught since she didn't know what he intended.

As they passed Calabazas Marc said, “Did you find Dr. Irwin as interesting as he obviously found you?”

“He's very nice.” Her cool tone was betrayed by a blush.

Marc gave a short hard laugh. “And he's very near the Socorro, damn him!”

“I've already told you—”

“I know what you've told me!” His tone was savage. “The more I think about it, Talitha, the less I know whom to feel sorrier for, you or me! Shea will never see you as anything but a daughter.”

“Then I'll be his daughter.”

Marc reined in his horse and stared at her. His eyes smoldered. Springing down from his horse, he tossed the reins around a jutting broken limb, took Talitha's from her astonished hands and did the same. He brought her out of the saddle, holding her as she slid to the earth so that his whole body pressed hard against her.

She had no strength, nor did she truly wish to stop him. It was as if this was something that had to pass between them. He held the back of her head in his hand, kissed her forehead and eyes and throat, taking her mouth last.

Embraced by his whole being, swept with fire, she felt her lips soften under his. He groaned and gathered her closer till her breasts ached and her legs melted. She was dizzier, much dizzier, than she had been from the punch and eggnogs.

“I could take you!” he breathed. “Maybe I should. It might put all this eternal daughter nonsense out of your head, or more to my purpose, out of your body!”

Sweat stood out on his face in spite of the chill breeze. Roused for the first time, she pulsed with hunger for his kiss, for more, more of that rough sweetness, whatever would be its end. She thought, too, that if he had her, it would tame his longing, quench his impossible wish for marriage.

“Marc, if you want me—”

“Want you?” His voice was strained, husky, before, gazing at her, he moved his head back and forth as if he were deeply, secretly wounded. “My God, Talitha, you think that would make me stop loving you? Can you really believe that I could have you and then go away?”

Shamed, she couldn't answer. Face set, he helped her mount, gave her the reins, and was swiftly back in the saddle. Talitha was mortified at the way she'd responded to him, but as they neared the ranch and she began to think of how it would be never to see him, her misery deepened. Marc was her dear friend who had taught her to read, opened a different world. He was special, not like anyone else.

“Marc,” she said, just above the sound of the horses. “Won't you ever come back?”

He regarded her somberly for a moment. Then the lines about his eyes crinkled and he smiled. “I'll be back. Unless you marry or die, Talitha, you may depend on it that every year or two or three, I'll come back to see if you've changed your mind.”

“You will be careful?”

“Absolutely! Life with you would be rapturous—some of the time, at least—but I find it sweet, anyway.” As they stopped by the corral, he helped her down, hands tightening before he let her go. “If you need me, Talitha, send word. If I'm alive, I'll come.”

Shea was with them then, and the twins, pouncing on the chewy nut candy she'd saved for them. Caterina, in her own cashmere cape, hugged her about the legs till Shea swung his daughter to his shoulders.

“Have a good time, lass?” he inquired, eyes searching.

Talitha forced herself to meet his gaze. Could he guess what had almost happened on the way home? Blessing Marc for his restraint, she hugged the boys and started for the house since Chuey was taking care of Ladorada.

“It was wonderful, Shea! There was a nice Irish doctor from Camp Moore and Pete Kitchen and Mr. Schuchard and—oh, well, you'll have to go yourself!”

“And that I will!” Shea said. “Even if I do have to rub elbows with some blue-belly Yankees! Will you be riding back with me, Marc?”

“Yes, if I can have some coffee first.”

“And some of whatever there is to eat,” Talitha insisted.

She fixed him a plate of turkey and ham left over from the Christmas feast, mashed beans and tamales, trying to think how to warn Shea. At last, unable to think of any subtle method and with time short, she said, “Mrs. Frost, Shea—she's beautiful! And I couldn't believe my eyes! She could be Socorro's twin.”

He paled. She went on rather wildly, “It's the Spanish blood. Of course, when you talk with her, the likeness fades, they're so different. But it's startling at first glance.”

“Then she's a very lovely lady,” Shea said, recovered. His eyes thanked her. He ran a hand over his clean-shaven jaw, lingered a moment at the blotted brand. “Even if there's anyone from my old outfit at Camp Moore, I doubt we'd know each other after ten years. An Irish doctor, is it? Now him I'd like to meet!”

When Marc was ready, the two set off. Marc's goodbye to Talitha was curt but as he turned to mount, he said softly, “I will be back.”

Talitha had been gone only one day, yet it seemed years. Caterina looked much bigger and the twins seemed to have grown by inches. Then, gradually, the excitement wore off, and Tubac became unreal, the officers with their sabers and epaulets, Leonore's chatter of empress and queen, Poston's eggnog, the dancing.

It was like a brightly colored dream. That Shea moved in it kept it in Talitha's mind. It was as if their life, real life, was suspended till he came back. She'd miss Marc, but life at the ranch would settle into its accustomed rhythm and things would be as they were before.

She was wrong. Just as Socorro's passing had marked the end of one time, and Santiago's departure another, those holidays that opened into the year of 1857 were the start of Shea's drinking.

Not as before, after Socorro's death, when he'd drunk himself into insensibility. He was controlled about it now, drinking only after the children were in bed, working the same as usual, though he had been drunk that day Judah Frost brought him home from Tubac, so drunk that Frost half-carried him into the house.

“I'll put him to bed, let him sleep it off,” Frost said as Shea weaved and smiled foolishly. “He was all right when we left Tubac but started nipping at Calabazas.”

Caterina was frowning up at her father and the twins looked puzzled. Belen scooped up Caterina, wrapping her small serape around her. “Come,
niña
, let's see what horse you're going to ride this summer! Patrick, Miguel, advise us,
por favor!
”

He hustled the children out. Frost's mouth twisted. “The good servant, protecting his master from ignominy.”

Talitha said nothing. Sick at heart, she turned back the covers and pulled off Shea's boots, leaving Frost to help him undress. She had no mind to let Frost catch her alone. Slipping into her serape, she hurried outside, intending to join Belen and the children at the big corral. Frost caught up with her before she was out of the courtyard.

“I'm sorry, Talitha. Truly, this isn't the effect I'd planned for my charming wife to have on Shea.”

“Effect?” Talitha stopped, looking up at him. She drew the serape closer against the biting cold, but there was no protection from the ice-gray chill of this man's eyes. “Planned?”

“You don't think I married Leonore solely because her father is a power in banking and can push legislation favorable to my interests, do you?”

“You—you might love her!”

His sculptured lips curved down. “She's ornamental. A pleasant enough bedmate. She'll serve till I have you; in fact, she may help considerably in that acquisition.”

“You—you're crazy!”

He shook his head, smiling. “Saner than your beloved Irisher! Ah, you didn't think I'd seen that?”

She turned toward the mountains. His words struck sharp and cruel as the wind. “I thought my senses, so finely tuned where you're concerned, my dear, were playing tricks. When observation convinced me they weren't, I pondered for some way to make this unfortunate predisposition less of an obstacle.” His chuckle grated on Talitha's nerves. “So when I went to Washington, what should I see there? A girl who looked like Socorro would have if she'd enjoyed a life of ease and time and money to preen.”

It was so cold-blooded and calculating that for a moment all Talitha could think of was what this knowledge would do to sweet, generous, bubbling Leonore. Perhaps she'd never have to know, but Talitha's feelings rebelled at her friend's being used like a puppet by this ruthless man. She'd better learn all she could of what twisted scheme he had in mind.

“But you've married her. How does Shea come in?”

“I can't foresee exactly. Leonore's a romantic little goose and full of sympathy. Should they fall in love, I'd expect Shea to struggle nobly for a time. Then, discovering the truth, I could magnanimously arrange a divorce.”