Savage Enchantment (7 page)

Gone were Kathleen's seat-soaked nightmares. But they were replaced by hate-induced daydreams of revenge. There would yet be some way she could wreak her vengeance!

If Simon did not hand her over to the Mexican authorities first. But since that night three days ago, he had done nothing to indicate what his intentions were. If he did not intend to turn her in (and he certainly did not need the reward money), then did he plan to use her as he had that night at La Palacia?

Just let him try, Kathleen thought. The kitchen knife she kept beneath her bodice would at least make the rogue think twice. Unconsciously she crumpled in her hand a paper one of her students had copied from a religious tract.

Dear God, how long could she continue to play this cat-and-mouse game, careful to always keep within earshot of one of the house servants during the day, laying awake at night, her ears straining to catch the fall of footsteps?

Her nerves were near to snapping, and in the tumultuous days that were to follow there was only the one moment of peace -- like the calm before the storm.

That moment of calm came the same afternoon, as Kathleen sat on the veranda going over the students' papers. There came the sound of a horse cantering down the palm-tree-lined road toward the hacienda. But the hot, dry desert winds had begun to pick up, and the swirling dust concealed the rider's identity. However, Kathleen could tell, by the inexperienced way the rider sat the horse, that it was not one of the
vaqueros
-- nor was it Simon.

She laid her papers aside and crossed to the railing, calling out in surprise as the rider approached and dismounted. "Nathan!"

Her hands gripped the railing in a paralysis of fear. Had Nathan, too, learned of her identity? Had he come to bring her back?

Nathan climbed the veranda's shallow steps in one stride. "Kathleen," he said warmly, taking one of her hands. "How nice to see you again!"

"You know -- you're a friend of Simon's?"

The sea-blue eyes were solemn. "Simon and I met a year ago. When the
Tempest
took him on, off San Blas, Mexico."

"Then why didn't you tell me in --"

"You didn't tell me your employer was Simon Reyes until the morning I left you at the mission."

Kathleen nodded, with a wan smile. "Of course. You visit Simon often?"

"Simon and I are partners in a trading venture. I buy his hides and tallow, and he buys silks, furniture, farm implements, and the like from me."

"Oh," she said, her breath easing from her lungs in relief. That explained the visit. And if Nathan didn't know her true identity, maybe no one else did either.

At once she felt light-hearted, tremendously glad that Nathan had come. His presence would soften her loneliness, would serve as a buffer against the hostility that existed between herself and Simon.

Like a schoolgirl, she tugged at the hand that held hers. "Come along, Nathan. We'll stable your horse. There's something I have to show you."

Unaware that the blue eyes rested on her with thoughtfulness, she led Nathan toward the rear of the hacienda. Near the stables was a small arena where the bulls were run. "Look," she said, climbing on the slats of one of the stalls.

A great bear, of perhaps nine hundred pounds or more, lumbered restlessly about the arena. His cinnamon-colored coat shone with a deep luster in the late afternoon sun.

"Diego said it's a grizzly bear, Nathan. Isn't it a beautiful creature? The vaqueros brought him in yesterday."

Standing on the slat, Kathleen was nearly the same height as Nathan, and when he looked back to her, she saw the sadness in his eyes.

"Within the month he may be dead."

Kathleen's own eyes widened. "Why?"

"When the roundup comes, lass, the vaqueros have a bear-bait. They match the grizzly in a fight with a bull, goading them until one of the animals kills the other. It's not a pretty sight."

"No! They can't do that!" In her indignation, Kathleen lost her balance and toppled from her perch on the slat. Immediately Nathan caught her in his arms.

It was this intimate-appearing scene that Simon first saw when he rode up, reining in sharply. Simultaneously, Kathleen and Nathan looked up into the dark, unfathomable face.

"There were rumors that a garrison of soldiers was attacked last week," Nathan said, swallowing the last bite of wine pudding. "And that the customshouse in Monterey was razed ... caught fire, they say."

Simon set his wine glass down. "Probably because of the dry season. Or do the officials think otherwise?"

Kathleen saw Nathan glance in her direction. Did he think her silence rude? But then, he could not know about Simon -- about the rape. How could he guess that the dashing, wealthy ranchero found his amusement by masquerading as a common vaquero, taking his pleasure regardless of what his victims suffered? As she suffered now, gracing the dining table -- at Simon's command.

"The officials think it's the work of Indian renegades," Nathan said, turning back to Simon. "Posters are already being nailed around. Offering rewards to anyone that can give information."

Simon shrugged and pulled out a cigar. "If it isn't the Indians, it'd be the Californios revolting again. Though, obviously, nothing ever comes of it."

"Then you think the time is ripe for another revolt?" Nathan asked, leaning closer over the table.

"I doubt that the Californios will stand much longer for Mexico's high revenue laws -- or being excluded from sending representatives to the Mexican Congress. I think one day the Californios will successfully revolt against Mexico -- like your American colonies did against Great Britain. And then the cargoes you bring me will be in even greater demand."

"And, in turn, we'll turn a pretty profit," Nathan said, lifting his wine glass to Simon in tribute.

Kathleen stood up. Her hands held the table's edge to steady her trembling legs. "Excuse me, please, gentlemen," she said stiffly. "I'm rather tired. I'll leave you to your conversation."

She dearly wanted to tell the two men she found their avarice disgusting. But she found her own lack of courage even more so.

It had taken only one mention of reward posters, and she had gone as weak as a prisoner facing a firing squad.

Dear God, would she always feel haunted -- followed -- trapped? How long would she have to wait before her father died? Before she was free of Edmund Woodsworth?

And what if her father lived another ten years?

"Why'd you force her to sup with us, Simon?" Nathan asked after Kathleen had fled the room. "Especially when you knew there were plans to discuss. You realize you humiliate her, don't you?"

"What's it to you, Nathan ... or do you hold some special feeling for the girl?" The icy green eyes held the sea-blue ones.

"Good God, Simon! Did you have to rape her? Is no woman safe from you?"

Simon's eyes narrowed. "Did she tell you that?"

"Do you think that's the kind of thing she could tell someone? Hell, all you have to do is look at her, Simon, and you can see the wariness creep into her eyes ... Nay, it wasn't the lass who told me. When I returned from Monterey, Gemma was fit to be tied. The girl's torn undergarment was found in your room. If the girl had been there, Gemma probably would have tired to tear her eyes out. It was the pistol with the Whatley name engraved on it that told me who your night-of-love was. You already know, I suppose, that the posters are everywhere for information about her."

"Saw them on my last trip in. Who-all suspects Kathleen's identity?"

Nathan produced the pistol from a pocket in the denim jacket. "As far as I know, only the two of us. Now I'll ask you -- is she something to you? With your scorn for women, this will certainly be a change."

Simon took the pistol and pocketed it. "You might say we tolerate each other. She detests me ... and I find her no different than the other women I've known."

"There's no comparison, Simon! You know it as well as I do."

"You're fooling yourself, my romantic friend, if you think that. The fact that she slept with our fine Castilian lieutenant the same night merely proves my point. Or did she neglect to tell you that when you found her in the lobby that morning?" Simon asked, with a contemptuous sneer.

The desert winds at last arrived -- and with them the end of Kathleen's respite. The Santa Ana was even worse than Simon had described. Day and night there was the clashing and clattering of the palm fronds as the wind played them like cylbals. Each time Kathleen ventured outdoors her throat and eyes burned as if exposed to the open blast of a furnace, and her skirts lashed about her frame like the sails against a ship's masts in a hurricane.

Yet that day the sting of the wind did not bother her as she braved its plast in search of Simon. When Diego informed her earlier that morning that Simon had suspended her teaching duties, her caution was overcome by a wrath as fierce as the winds.

She found him as he strode toward the corrals. "Simon!" she yelled, grabbing at his sleeve to get his attention. He turned, and Kathleen was petrified. The harsh wind whirled about them, isolating the two of them from everything but their own thoughts.

And Kathleen remembered with terror -- the mouth that had brutally possessed her, the hands that had ravaged her, the mocking words that had tormented her.

"Simon," she said, gathering courage, "you can't suspend the classes! If it's the wind, the classes could be held indoors. But the students, they have a right to --"

The slashed eyebrow lifted in the mocking way she so detested. "One would think you actually are a tutor ... instead of a -- what is it -- murderess, thief ... or prostitute?"

Kathleen's hand swung upward in an angry arc. But Simon was quicker and caught her wrist in a cruel grip.

"Careful, Kathleen. Don't try my patience. Or I'll be tempted to forget my need for a tutor -- and remember the posters offering a reward for a fair-haired woman of twenty years."

"I hate you, Simon Reyes! And I'll make you sorry you ever --"

Kathleen broke off with a start as the long fingers of one buckskin gloved hand reached toward her and caught a thick strand of sunlit curls that the wind had whipped about her neck.

"You've already told me how you feel about me, and I'm tired of listening to your tirades," he said softly as he tugged on the curling strand of hair so that Kathleen was forced to move nearer.

She looked up into the green eyes that blazed as hotly as the wind about them. Her skirts swept around Simon's long legs. From a distance the two appeared to be lovers in a tryst.

"Maybe I should make you change your mind."

Kathleen pulled away with a wild laugh. "Hell'd go up in smoke first, Simon Reyes!"

Simon's lips tightened in a thin line. "You'll get your students back." He pulled his hat low over his eyes. "After spring roundup. Every hand is going to be needed till then." He swung away, and then turned back. "And get rid of those spectacles. If you can spot a pierced ear,
bebé,
you sure don't need glasses.

With a wry grin at her indignant "Ohh!" he left her, heading toward the corral, where several vaqueros were gathered to watch the breaking of the penned mustangs.

Kathleen should have returned to the house, but she stood rooted by her hate as she watched Simon swing easily over the top bar of the corral. And while he gently cornered one of the wilder horses, which snorted and reared at his approach, she weaved vicious plots of revenge.

She could wait until the servants had retired and then shoot the man outright -- if she had her pistol. Of course, she could always use the knife she carried. But as lightly as Simon slept, he would probably turn the blade on her first. And even if she did succeed, she would only be a hunted animal once again. No, better to suffer his taunts and hope he did not find another tutor before her father died.

When Simon finally mounted the nervous horse, all the while whispering calm words she could not hear, Kathleen thought how it would solve everything if the mustang threw Simon, pounding the man to death beneath flailing hooves.

But even in that, Simon defeated her. One sure hand gripped the animal's mane, and gleaming spurs drove into the heaving, sweaty flanks each time the great animal reared, viciously bucking and twisting in an attempt to throw the rider. Dust swirled about the man and the beast as they dueled for supremacy. Then it was over. At last, spent and frothy at the mouth, the mustang hung its head. It had been mastered.

And when Simon gently stroked the horse, Kathleen abruptly turned away. Simon would never master her. No man would master her. If she had to run for the rest of her life!

Her purple eyes as stormy as California seas during a sou'easter, Kathleen stalked back to the hacienda. She might be deprived of giving her lessons, but she would at least ride during her enforced idleness.

Quickly she changed into the
calzones
and
camisa
that Simon had once forced her to wear. She would have dearly liked to flout Simon's orders and continue to wear the glasses, but they were a nuisance. On her way out, she dropped them in the chest at the foot of her bed, glad to be rid of them.

At the kitchen door, she stopped at the bench where Diego sat napping. Even the hot wind racing down the
portales
did not disturb him. She hesitated there, hating to awaken him. But one rheumy old eye opened in a squint.

"Qué quieres, hija?"

She stooped to his side. "Diego," she shouted above the wind. "I'd like to go riding. May I borrow your sombrero,
por favor?"

"Simon has said it would be all right to ride out in the Santa Ana? Only Diego had the audacity to use Simon's given name.

"No!" she said more sharply to the old man than she intended. "But I'm sure what I do or where I go is of little concern to
el patrón
as long as his tutor is available when he decides the lessons may resume."

"Do not judge him harshly,
hija,"
Diego said, and handed her his sombrero before closing his eyes again. "There are things even a tutor does not know."

The brown, wrinkled face wore an inscrutable expression, and when Kathleen would have touched the stooped shoulder to ask Diego what he meant, she realized he was already asleep again.

Both puzzled and offended, she pulled on the gray, floppy hat with its worn braids of silver ornamentation and made her way, leaning against the wind, to the stables.

"Have you missed me riding you, Estrellita?" Kathleen asked as she heaved the saddle over the mare's back. "Then take me somewhere, little star, where I can ride free and fast -- like California's wild winds."

Obeying her mistress's request, Estrellita galloped from the hacienda grounds, unrestrained and frisky, down the tree-lined road and out through a field of wild, rank mustard. Its thick stalks were bright with sispy yellow flowers, the only color in the parched landscape. All about Kathleen, the hills were as brown as umber, and up along one ridge a brush fire burned.

Kathleen let Estrellita have her lead, and the mare followed a path that led through the pasture-lands, where a Durham calf ran bellowing after its mother at Kathleen's approach. Kathleen laughed aloud at the mother's indignant brown-eyed glare and spurred Estrellita away from the milling herd up into the foothills of the Pine Mountains. There the wind was not as harsh or fierce. Kathleen threw back her sombrero so that it dangled from her neck by its cords, and let the breeze rumple her damp curls.

Pausing beneath the black shade of a live oak, she savored the moment of peace. Across the valley from her she spotted a line of trudging figures, shrouded and shapeless, that she knew must be Indian women. It made her feel suppressed just to look at them, to contrast them to herself.

She wondered what kind of lives they led, if they ever rebelled against the drudgery and restraints, if they ever yearned for the freedom that was now hers. Or were their traditions so strong that those women had no idea that anything existed other than the confining life they led?

The very thought of leading that kind of life repulsed Kathleen. The image of what marriage constituted -- submission to the debasing intimacy, fettered to the will of one man, a mere servant of his passion -- made her tremble with revulsion so that she swung her hand forcefully across Estrellita's rump.

The mare reared and sprang forward along the foothills. Dejectedly, Kathleen turned the animal back toward the hacienda. When she once again encountered the road that wound its way like a snake toward the hacienda, Kathleen found she was not the only traveler using the track.

Apparently Simon had had visitors in her absence, for a black carriage pulled by a bay rumbled slowly down the road toward Kathleen. At the carriage's side cantered a lone horse, whose rider sat like a giant in the saddle. At first, Kathleen thought the man whose face was shadowed by the wide brim was Simon, and her breathing quickened.

But the man, a battered-faced Mexican, was presumably a guard, with a pistol strapped to his hip and a rifle sheathed at the saddle.

Kathleen reined Estrellita to the side of the road as the carriage drew near. She was curious to see the occupant, who obviously disdained riding horseback. However, instead of continuing, the woman in the carriage pulled the bay to a halt.

Chocolate-brown eyes looked Kathleen over with condescending amusement, and Kathleen's lips tightened with chagrin, realizing how unappealing she must look at the moment, with her hair tangled in a mass about her shoulders and her boy's clothing clinging to her body, wet with perspiration that even the wind, which was dying somewhat with the end of the day, did not dry.

The finely plucked brows in the magnolia-white face arched. "So you're working for Simon now?" Gemma asked.

Kathleen stiffened in the saddle. La Palacia's proprietress recognized her -- from the brief meeting at the bordello, or from the reward posters? Kathleen inclined her head as royally as an empress. "I'm the tutor for Valle del Bravo."

Gemma smiled coldly. "Oh, then the bed is not the only place you earn your livelihood, señorita?"

Kathleen heard the guard's snort of laughter, but she continued to gaze evenly at the woman. "How one earns a living is no measure of good manners. And I must say yours are an excellent example of the manners of a
puta."

She saw the woman's eyes blaze and heard the hissing intake of her breath and knew she now faced an enemy. But she did not cower.

"No wonder Simon prefers to bed another woman." Kathleen added, with a contemptuous smile. "A lady of quality."

The guard's uproarious laughter was cut short by the woman's sharp command of
"Cállate!"

Calmly, Kathleen urged Estrellita past the furious woman, towards the hacienda.
Lady of quality!
she thought bitterly.

She certainly had not behaved like one. Her gentle-bred mother would have blushed with shame at her daughter's brazen conduct. She could not imagine what had prompted her to act so rudely. Unless it was just to dent the woman's haughty self-assuredness. She wondered what Gemma had been doing there. And if Simon learned of her own atrocious behavior -- would he dismiss her?

As Kathleen dismounted, she realized that her hands trembled with anger. And she knew her anger was not for Gemma -- for she herself was no better than the proprietress, now that Simon had had his way with her. No, her anger, her hatred, was reserved for SImon Reyes. May God damn his black soul!