Savage Enchantment (3 page)

Later that afternoon, after Kathleen had awakened and satisfied her hunger with fruit and a delicate onion soup served by quietly gliding Indians, she allowed the abbot to show her the mission -- its peach orchard, the lavishly ornamented friary, and the flower-covered graveyard enclosed by high walls behind the mission.

She found it strange, the great number of Indian names that marked the small wooden crosses at each grave. "Ah, my daughter," Father Gaona replied to her question, "there were unfortunately more deaths than births among our converts -- sanitation problems, diseases, things like that. But the Church has accomplished much," he went on, pride beaming in his protruding eyes. "In the few decades we've been here, we've not only converted the Indians -- we converted the land." The plump hand stretched out to indicate the orchards, with dozens of varieties of trees, and the acres of gardens. "With the
acequias
-- irrigation ditches -- the Digger Indians built, we've been able to make this into a prosperous land the Lord has given us."

Kathleen paused in the courtyard at a stone well. "I was under the impression that the land originally belonged to the Indians," she said, leaning over the well's rim to see her reflection.

"You're correct, of course," the padre said. His unlined face puckered in a flustered look. "But the Indians didn't know how to care for their land. We taught our neophytes -- our converted Indians, that is -- how to work the gardens, sow our crops, and tend our cattle and sheep -- what's left of our herds, since Mexico began secularizing the Church.
Gracias a Dios, el gobernador,
Micheltorena, is restoring some of our lands to us -- the Church, that is," he added hastily.

"And reading and writing -- did the Church teach the Indians how to do these skills also?"

The usually complacent countenance frowned under Kathleen's questioning, and he looked down at the wooden crucifix his pudgy fingers continually rubbed.

My daughter, you have to understand these primitive children. Before, they only knew how to gather seeds and nuts for their survival. You must see that they need to know more how to cultivate the land and such trades as tanning and blacksmithing than they need to learn such unessential instructions as reading and writing."

The abbot's bovine attitude annoyed Kathleen, and she begged off touring the rest of the mission, saying she wished to change and wash up for dinner.

That evening Father Gaona and anther padre, old, gaunt Father Marcos, presided over the guests at the dinner table. Besides a dashing Russian officer, Dimitri Karamazan, who all but ignored the mousy-looking Kathleen, there was a Catilian family returning to Spain after a lengthy visit with relatives. The middle-aged Doña Inez, who was much younger than her austere husband, Don Felipe Feito, kept the conversation flowing with gossip of her cousin Lucia's daughter.

"Francesca is truly a beauty," she said between samplings of the succulent chile stew. "Like her mother, Lucia. Francesca's skin is paler than a pearl -- and her eyes --
Madre de Dios,
they're as black as coals! Why, 'tis said that every single male between San Diego and Yerba Buena is vying for her hand. Of course," she added with a knowing smile, "the fact that her father is one of the wealthiest rancheros about is an extra plum to the man who wins her hand."

"I believe, my dearest," Don Felipe said dryly, picking at his wooden teeth, "that your cousin's daughter has already decided who shall have that 'extra plum,' as you call it."

"Can you blame her for wanting Simon Reyes as her husband -- even if his wealth doesn't quite equal her father's?"

"The young lady is still unengaged?" the Russian Karamazan asked at the same time Kathleen said, "Señor Reyes?" more sharply than she intended.

"Why, my daughter?" Father Gaona interposed. "Do you know him?"

"No." Kathleen looked around the room at the expectant faces turned on her. "I've never met the man ... but I've heard his name ... if it is the same man."

"It is." Don Felipe replied. "Though there's an unhealthy mystery about the man. No one seems to know for certain anything about him. Who he is -- from whence he comes."

"I believe," Father Marcos said quietly, "that the man was formerly a scout in Texas. That he was taken prisoner at some place there called Goliad -- by Mexico's president, Santa Anna himself."

"Then he's hnot a California?" Kathleen asked.

"Undoubtedly not!" Doña Inez said. Her eyes took on a wicked gleam. "Unlike the Californios, Simon Reyes is a man who doesn't have time for flattery and flirtation. There's something savage about him -- primitive. You can imagine, my dear," she said to Kathleen, "after the excessive attentions of the Californios, how a woman could find the man's indifference extremely stimulating."

"Bah!" Don Felipe said, rejoining the conversation. "I'm quite sure Doña Delores also thought the man a savage ... finding herself suddenly dispossessed of Hacienda del Bravo. And that Reyes arrogantly claiming the land was granted him by the Mexican government."

"He had the papers to back up his claim." Doña Inez protested. "At least, that's what Lucia says. She told me, quite confidentially you understand, that Santa Anna's wife, Maria Tosta, was rumored to be Simon's mistress -- and that's how he came by his land grant."

Father Gaona made a grunt of shocked disapproval, but Kathleen caught the expression of amusement gleaming in Father Marcos's hollowed eyes.

"That's neither here nor there, my dearest," Don Felipe said. "If Spain still ruled the Californios, you could be certain something as outrageous as the dispossession of Doña Delores's land would have never occurred!"

"But Don Felipe," Kathleen said, "I thought that Spain also made land grants when it ruled Californios. Except, in Spain's case, the grants would have been dispossessing the Indians, would they have not? So this, Señor Reyes, hasn't really done anything so outrageous, has he?" Why she felt compelled to defend Simon Reyes, who wasn't even concerned enough to meet his tutor, was beyond her.

"Actually," Father Marcos said, "I understand Simon Reyes didn't dispossess Doña Delores. That when he arrived here a year ago he allowed her to continue living at del Bravo until her death, some months back."

Father Gaona's placid expression changed to a scandalized look. "How Doña Delores could have suffered the scoundrel in the very house her husband built for her can only be attributed to her fine religious upbringing."

"Doña Delore," Father Marcos explained to the guests, "was reputed to be the most beautiful girl in the California province, the daughter of an
alcalde
of pure Castilian blood."

The father nodded at Don Felipe, acknowledging the gentlemen's own Castilian blood, and continued. "Andrew King, an Englishman, came to the province on one of the whaling ships that frequented the coast before Mexico forbade it. Andrew saw Doña Delores one day in the plaza and, of course, fell instantly in love with her. I married them myself. Unfortunately, the good Lord did not bless their union with children."

"So you can imagine," Father Gaona broke in, "how upset Doña Delores must have been to have someone else own the house meant for her longed-for children. This man is a curse to our --"

"You've met this man, then?" Kathleen asked.

"No," Father Gaona admitted. "But his uncivilized actions are common knowledge. A rakehell, he's called. It's even whispered that he killed a man in a duel over a daughter of Don Juan Bandini -- San Diego's former
comandante.
Simon Reyes has been a thorn in the Church's side since he arrived. A crude heathen trying to play the
caballero
-- no better than the pagan Indian renegades!"

Kathleen glanced at the older padre, but Father Marcos's expression remained mild beneath the ivory brows as Father Gaona continued his diatribe:

"And the Indians!
Dios mío,
I'll wager one day they'll revolt en masse -- murder every one of us in our beds!
Por Dios,
between the renegade Indians and the growing horde of bandits that ride the roads, it's unsafe to leave one's home these days. Let me tell you, more than one wealthy
hacendado
has recently been waylaid and relieved of his purse."

"I hear," Karamzazn said, fingering his black goatee, "that several times lately your military has been forced to yield the wagon shipments of silver from the mines they guard."

"Quite true, my son!" Father Gaona said.

"Well, I can only say that I'm glad we're leaving this place," Don Felipe said. He stifled a yawn with the back of his veined hand and turned to his wife. "We must sail on the tide the morrow. Shall we retire, my love?"

Kathleen would have dearly liked to learn more about Simon Reyes, but she bade the Spanish couple good evening and murmured a polite response to Dimitri Karamazan's courtly bow of farewell. When she had thanked the fathers for the dinner, she sought out her own rooms, just as the bells rang out their Ave Maria.

It seemed to her that night that her nerves were strung as tightly as the ropes that held the five copper bells. For months she had waged open warfare on her father -- and then Edmund -- fighting, then retreating, only to fight again. She felt drained mentally and physically and sought the refuge of sleep in her cell's rawhide-thonged bed.

But sleep did not come quickly that night for her. She tossed and turned as if she were still aboard the storm-besieged
Tempest.
Dreams plagued her. Sweat-drenched dreams of the vaquero's cold eyes ... and nightmares -- that her father would find her ... and horrible visions that her employer, Señor Simon Reyes, would not.

The latter found her. And she wondered later which would have been the worse.

Dusty streamers of light from the single window played on the tiled floor of the abbot's study, where Father Azcona told Kathleen she would find her visitor.

The tall -- well over six feet, Kathleen judged -- slim-flanked man, dressed in the black, braided bollero and tight breeches of the ranchero, stood near the grilled window watching something outside. As she softly shut the door behind her, he turned to confront her.

Above the square, clean-shaven jaw line and high, jutting cheekbones, half-closed eyes ran over her lazily. Kathleen returned his blod look, noting that the powerful nose, which flared sensuously at the nostrils, looked as if it had once been broken, and that the arching line of the left brow was sharply curtailed by the white slash of an old scar.

It was a face of angles and planes, and was saved from harshness only by the startling, light green eyes, which contrasted with the sun-bronzed skin and the thick, walnut-colored hair that ended in unruly curls just below the ears.

The eyes, made to seem even lighter than they actually were by the comparative darkness of long lashes, narrowed for a moment with a flicker of -- it couldn't be surprise, Kathleen thought. Surprise that she wasn't a male. Surely Nathan would have told him his new tutor was a woman.

No, she would swear it was something else that flashed like a spark in their green depths.

A slow half-smile parted the well-carved, mobile lips, displaying the ranchero's only perfect feature -- even, white teeth that gleamed diabolically in the semidarkness of the musty office.

"You aren't exactly what I had in mind when I sent the passage fare -- to a Robert Patton, if I remember rightly." The voice, spoken in the drawled English of the Southwest, was deep and surprisingly quiet in the hust of the room.

So this was the notorious Simon Reyes. Kathleen lifted her chin. She wouldn't be intimidated by him. "Certain circumstances forced Mr. Patton to forgo the post you offered him. But I believe I'm equally qualified to teach English and reading and writing to your children."

"There are no children of mine to be taught, Miss --"

"Summers," she lied. "Kathleen Summers." Of course there would be no children, she thought, remembering Doña Inez's gossip of Francesca's infatuation with this man.

"There are only Indians to be taught -- which makes you most unsuitable for the post, ma'am."

His overbearing manner, his sarcastic attitude, irritated her. "Then may I say you are certainly not suitable for an employer? A worthwhile employer would have had the common decency to have met his employee when the brig anchored in the bay."

His hands hooked in his belt, the man walked slowly in a circle about Kathleen, his narrowed eyes raking over her as if she were a piece of merchandise. Kathleen remained standing as she was.

When he was once more before her, he looked down at her with an insolent smile. "Maybe you were expecting someone like the handsome Lieutenant Aguila?
Su amante
does not seem to make easy conquests."

Kathleen gasped. "He is not my lover!" she spat without thinking, in Spanish. How did he know of Aguila? she wondered wildly. Was her name already on every tongue in Santa Barbara?

So, you speak Spanish in addition to your other --" His gaze rested on her breasts, which heaved beneath Amanda's coarse gown. "-- qualifications," he finished derisively.

"Un poco."
Why tell the ill-mannered boor she had been raised in Spain? The interview was going worse than she had anticipated. Dear Lord, what if he didn't hire her? Where would she go? What kind of work could she find?

As if reading her thoughts, he said, "I'm afraid you won't do, Miss Summers -- even if you do speak Spanish. If you'll excuse me ..." He made an impatient move toward the door.

Gambling in desperation, Kathleen stepped directly in his path, planting fists on her hips. One slim, winged brow lifted in mockery as she looked up into the rough-hewn countenance.

"What?" she taunted. "Don't tell me you're afraid to deal with a woman, Señor Reyes. I wouldn't have thought it, by --"

In one rapid movement he caught her up against him, inhaling her subtle scent of jasmine while tasting the soft provocativeness of her lips.

Kathleen tried to push the man from her, to escape the hateful embrace, but he only crushed her to him the tighter. One of her hands freed itself, and she raked his cheek with her long nails. Like a buzzing in her ears, she heard his low laughter even as his hard mouth bruised hers, parting her lips in an intimate manner that made her weak, so that her struggling ceased. A strange lethargy crept over her.

"Ahhhemmm!"

Both whirled to face Father Gaona, his tonsured head shining in the lighted doorway. Kathleen could see the shock that whitened the poor man's round face.

"You'll forgive us," Simon said quite carelessly. "It's been so long since we've seen one another." He took Kathleen's flinching hand in his. "Are you ready to go,
mi vida?"

She glared up into the cool eyes that dared her to deny she was his sweetheart. Knowing that he had intentionally placed her in the compromising situation, she could only not her head as she straightened the eyeglasses that had been knocked askew in her struggle.

"With the
bandidos
on the roads again, Padre," Simon continued, "I carry little money. But you'll find an ample amount in your donation box this Sunday -- in gratitude for accommodating
mi novia."

The plump abbot was servile in his thanks.
"Muchísimas gracias,
Don --"

"Señor. Señor Simon Reyes, Padre."

The padre's protruding eyes looked as if they would fall from their sockets, and, in spite of her anger, a dimple formed in Kathleen's chin, deepening the cleft.

But when her valise had been loaded into the boot of Simon's private coach and she was alone with the ranchero, she could only hiss her disgust. "How dare you presume!
Su novia!
I'd rather be in a nunnery than engaged to you!"

Simon chuckled, lighting up the thin cigar, glad that the
Tempest
had brought him a new supply. The Virginian tabacco outranked the flaky, black Mexican tobacco any day. He exhaled slowly, savoring its flavor, before replying.

"You're not exactly levelheaded, are you, Miss Summers? Seems to me someone as badly in need of emplyment as you appear to be should have a more biddable nature." He smiled. "More like a docile mare, ma'am, than a spirited filly."

Kathleen bristled. "You aren't so levelheaded yourself, Señor Reyes!"

The slashed brow raised questioningly, giving him a savage look.

"Who will you find to replace me as tutor for your Indians?" she explained.

Simon frowned. Damn, what was wrong with him? ... kissing the little minx like he hadn't seen a woman in a month. He should've known better than to drink all night at La Palacia. Of course, he might blame the last few nights' state of intoxication on the strain and tension of recent days -- in addition to the little sleep he had had. Gemma had been acting like a woman possessed, demanding more, until he had left her in the early hours of the morning, finally satiated.

There was a dull throbbing at his temples, no doubt made worse by the tangle with the bespectacled woman who sat across from him. One brown hand came up to gingerly rpbe the fresh marks scraped along one cheekbone. A hellcat, she was. Well, he certainly asked for the mess she got herself in. Now, what in God's name would he do with her?

Across from him, Kathleen saw the finely chisled lips curve in a smile that did not match the cold harshness of the green eyes; green like she had never seen before -- green like the odd vegetation that dotted either side of El Camino Real. "Chollo cactus," Father Marcos had called the spiny plant.

"I don't like getting something other than what I paid for, ma'am -- and I did pay for your passage out here. However, as you've so cleverly pointed out, I'm now without a tutor -- and, for some insane reason, you want the post. You'll therefore work out your passage fare for me ... until another tutor can be brought out. And I expect you to obey me just like my other employees do, or --" He shrugged.

"Or what, Señor Reyes?"

"I've never had to threaten my employees, ma'am. They're smart enough to know my word is law at del Bravo. I hope you're just as smart."

For one wild moment Kathleen repented her precipitous action in exchanging places with Robert. Yet she was free of her father's authority and Edmund's narcissism. And she had survived that hideous night at La Palacia. Surely she could survive anything now. At least she would have a roof over her head and food in her stomach. She only needed to endure the ranchero's autocratic demeanor for a half year. Six months was little time to wait.

"I understand you perfectly," she replied at last. She turned away to gaze out the window, determined to say nothing as the coach hurtled on its way south toward the next mission, a day's journey away.

Sometimes, as the coach rounded a hairpin curve, it seemed to Kathleen that the wheels were only a breath away from a headlong fall to the sea-swept rocks below. And when the coach swayed precariously, she would have to catch the window sash to keep from tumbling into the arms of the man across from her. But the rough ride seemed not to bother him in the least.

He stretched out his legs on the seat opposite, so that beneath the
calzoneras
-- the fitted trousers that flared out when unbuttoned to lend themselves to riding -- brown leather boots rested indolently on the plush seat of the Concord-made coach, only inches from her.

Kathleen pretended to watch the rolling breakers of the Pacific, which, as the coach descended once again to the shoreline, rolled up almost to the edge of the King's Highway. But occasionally her eyes slid over to the arrogant man dozing across from her.

There was something about him ... but then, it was really difficult to say what, to judge him with the flat-brimmed, tow-crowned hat pulled low over his closed eyes. Except that he was younger than she had at first supposed -- perhaps nearer thirty. And there was an aura of danger about him -- confirmed by the flintlock pistol thrust into the waist of the pants, gleaming as diabolically in the dimness of the coach as had his green-flecked eyes gleamed in the dimness of the abbot's study.

The long eyes opened at that moment, catching Kathleen's gaze on him. Instantly she looked away toward the coastal mountains that lay along the shoreline like some sleeping giant, dark and formidable-looking, as was the man across from her. Vexed, she bit her lower lip. It would be insufferable for the man to believe mistakenly that he interested her!

"I suppose you can ride a horse?" he asked, in a half-lazy drawl.

"Of course!" she snapped. She could also tell him that she had been told she had an excellent seat by her riding instructor, the best in Boston. Everything had been the best -- for she had been a marketable commodity. Her father had been grooming her to take her place in society as Edmund's wife for nearly fourteen years. Fourteen years of suffering Edmund's malignant glances and soft hands.

"Good. Since you were foolish enough to want the post offered to a man, I'm sure you won't mind if we skip the night's rest in San Buenaventura. We'll leave my coach at the rancho station there and ride on to del Bravo. I can't afford to be away too long."

"That would suit me perfectly. Spending the night in the same room with you would be the last thing I want."

She saw the reckless slant of his lips and could have bitten her tongue.

"Oh?" he drawled. "I had the distinct impression, Miss Summers, you somehow enjoyed my presence back there at Santa Barbara."

Kathleen's purple eyes were as frosty as chilled grapes. "You're detestable! You're-your're no gentleman!"

His own eyes hardened, and he said, "I never did claim to be one, if I remember rightly. And you're making a mistake, ma'am, if you try to play the lady with me. Do you deny that you're running away from a lover? That you've hardly docked and your name's already the scandal of Santa Barbara?"

Oh, dear God, why had she ever told those two busybodies such a tale? She had only meant to shock them with the story that she was a politician's mistress -- to keep the old maids from prying further. But now that she was confronted by the lie, she'd choke to death on it before she'd deny it. Let him think the worst of her!

"I find this conversation tedious," she said, turning back again to the window and fixing her attention on the seagulls crying stridently overhead.

Simon exhaled the smoke of the cheroot, so that the smoke drifted in a mystical haze between them. "I admire your aplomb, ma'am. I just hope your performance as a tutor is as good."

Kathleen's gaze flickered to the green eyes that studied her. There was no mistaking his meaning. The ranchero would dismiss her without a qualm, should she not prove herself.

If she didn't succeed there, could she truly bear the life she would face should she be forced to return to her father ... the revulsive pawing of a perverted husband ... or worse, if she refused to marry Edmund, the fate her mother had suffered ... to spend the rest of her days shut away in solitary confinement?

The vision of her mother, the last time she had been permitted to see her, rose like a specter before Kathleen's eyes. The vacant stare from eyes like marbles -- eyes that had once been full of gentleness. The saliva that dribbled from lips that once must have been soft and passionate ... passionate enough to welcome a Spanish lover as a buffer against the cold, calculated cruelty of her husband.

Involuntarily, Kathleen shivered. "You'll find me quite capable, señor," she replied mechanically.

Simon frowned, his dark brows drawing together to meet in a straight line above the high bridge of his nose. Damn it! Why should he be disappointed that she hadn't risen to his bait? What had he been expecting, anyway? Certainly not that distant aloofness following on the heels of her fiery outburst. He should never have agreed to hire her.

No matter ... she'd be on her way with the arrival of the next tutor.