Savage Enchantment (9 page)

Like some ghoulish fiend in a nightmare, Edmund moved down the veranda steps toward Kathleen. The dolorous strains of "Ojos Negros" died away. One by one the guests turned toward the stranger.

Kathleen wondered abstracted, even as she cringed unknowingly against Simon, whether curiosity about the stranger had interrupted the fiesta or if the guests felt, as she did, the subtle presence of something malignant.

Simon took her arm to steady her. "What is it, Kathleen?" In the wide burgundy-colored eyes he saw a fear that had not been there even on the night he so brutally took her.

Kathleen's head shook wordlessly, and Simon, following her glazed look, saw the thin, elegantly dressed man moving languidly toward them. But it was the soldier beyond, who stood menacingly on the veranda, that caught Simon's attention. What mischief was Aguila bent on now? Simon wondered.

The stranger, dressed in nankeen pantaloons and a claret coat, which did not conceal the gleam of the sword at the waist, brought Simon's thoughtful gaze back to the moment at hand.

Edmund bowed low before Kathleen. "My heart has been slowly dying since the moment you left," he said with a chilling smile.

She would have laughed at the affect words of endearment had not stark fear gripped her. "You don't have a heart, Edmund!" she whispered hoarsely, struggling to retain some semblance of composure.

Edmund drew himself up in feigned righteousness. "How can you accuse me so unjustly? Have I not followed you halfway across the globe ... just to be at your side again?"

"Don't pretend with me. You know I don't want you as my husband!" Her words tumbled on in a rush. "I wouldn't have you near me for all the money in the world! Your touch is repulsive -- as slimy as a viper's!"

Kathleen's hands clenche dthe delicate lace fan, and it broke with a brittle snap in the silence of the courtyard.

Edmund's eyes glittered with rage. He said, in a silky, soft voice full of threat, "I'm afraid you've no choice, my dearest. You are my fiancée, are you not?"

"I don't believe you understood the lady." Simon's voice was just as soft and low, but its very lack of emotion lent a lethal tone to it.

Edmund turned pale blue eyes on Simon. "And what business, my dear sir, is this matter of yours?"

Simon's eyes narrowed, their color changing like a chameleon's from the cactus-hued green to a deadly gunmetal gray. "I'm the owner of the land on which you presently stand -- without an invitation."

The guests shuffled about uneasily, and from the edge of the crowd Kathleen saw Don Pio Pico, followed by Aguila, push his way through the crowd toward her and the two men who faced each other like duelists.

"What's going on here, gentlemen?" Don Pico asked in his troll-like voice.

Edmund looked at the leathery ranchero. "And you are?" he asked with a disdainful lift of fair brows.

Simon's lips curved in a mirthless smile. "A former representative of the Mexican government -- Don Pio Pico."

Edmund sketched an elegant bow. "In that case, Don Pio, I shall address myself to you."

He withdrew wrinkled papers from his waistcoat and handed them to the older man. "I'm Edmund Woodsworth, Don Pio. Miss Whatley, my intended" -- he smiled thinly at Kathleen -- "decided to leave Boston prior to our wedding. Through the passenger list of one of the ships I traced her to Santa Barbara, but was unable to find her."

Edmund's slim white finger pointed at the top sheaf. "I had this reward posted" -- he looked directly at Simon -- "and an informant told me I could find my fiancée here."

Kathleen whirled on Simon. "You! You --
Judas!
You turned me in!"

Dear God, and she had almost turned to Simon for protection! His concern for her, his anger at Edmund, had been so convincing. But it had all been a charade. A trick.

Kathleen's hands came up as if to claw Simon's eyes. But his betrayal, coming on the heels of Edmund's arrival, so numbed her that her attack resembled more a beseechment as she swayed in helpless fury toward him.

"Come along, Kathleen," Edmund said, and he moved as if to take her.

"No!" she cried, shrinking back against Simon.

"I would not do that if I were you," Simon said with a deceptive softness.

Edmund's hand fell to his side to grasp the hilt of his sword.

Nathan stepped forward. "Just a moment here, Woodsworth. You can't just walk in, claiming the lass is your intended, and whisk her away."

"If you'll look at the other papers, Don Pio," Edmund said imperiously, "you'll find documents from James Whatley, making me his daughter's legal guardian and requesting that I escort her back to Boston."

As Pico held the papers up to catch the light of the lanterns, his somber expression changing to a frown as he read. Nathan moved to Simon's side, and Kathleen heard Simon whisper briefly to the sea-captain before Pico handed the papers back to Edmund.

"The documents look in order, Simon. And Miss Summers -- Whatley -- is not of legal age yet. So I see no other --"

"Gentlemen," Simon said, "as you can see, my wife is weak with shock. If --"

"Your wife?" Edmund snarled with disbelief.

"If you'll be so good as to excuse us," Simon continued with exaggerated patience. "I'll take my wife to our room -- and return to clear up this unpleasant manner."

Kathleen's lips parted in dismay. "You can't be --"

Simon's iron grasp about her waist crushed off her words in a gasp even as startled shispers at his revelation passed among the group gathered there.

Aguila stepped in front of Simon as if to block his way. Simon growled low, "Move aside, Aguila."

As if for acknowledgment, the lieutenant looked to Edmund, but Pico interrupted. "Get out of the way, damn you, Aguila! Can't you see the lady's ill?"

Edmund nodded his head with a slight motion, and the officer stepped back as Simon swept Kathleen up in his arms and moved forward. There was a confused rush of talk when the ranchero and the woman he carried in his arms and called his wife disappeared within.

But Kathleen was unaware of the words tha tlept from tongue to tongue of the guests outside. "Are you insane?" she demanded. "Do you think I'd marry you either? You're as despicable as --"

Simon kicked open the bedroom door with one booted foot and unceremoniously dropped Kathleen on the four-poster bed. At the same moment that Kathleen gasped in outrage, she heard smothered words from the other side of the room and turned to see Nathan frowning and behind him Padre Marcos.

Padre Marcos moved past Nathan. "Are you ready, my children?" he asked Simon. "We must hurry with the ceremony!"

"The ceremony?" Kathleen asked.

"I had Nathan tell the father that we wished to be united in holy matrimony."

Kathleen bounded to her feet. Her eyes blazed as hotly as mountain brush fires. "I'll not be wed with you!"

Simon folded his arms akimbo. "As I see it, Kathleen, you only have one choice ... Edmund Woodsworth or myself. Which is it going to be?"

"That's no choice. Either way, it's a sentence of living death!"

Simon shrugged. "Do as you wish, then."

Kathleen's eyes narrowed to purple slits. "I don't trust you, Simon! You dislike me as heartily as I do you. Why are you doing this?"

"That's my business," Simon replied. He took her wrist and pulled her toward the padre. "If you will, Father Marcos, we are ready to be wed. Nathan, you'll be our witness."

"Even for you, my son," Father Marcos said, "I cannot bless this marriage before God without her freely given consent."

"Well?" Simon asked, facing Kathleen with his fists at his hips. "What's it to be?"

Kathleen looked to Nathan. His ruddy face was bland. Numbed, she nodded with a submissive inclination of her head.

"Do you have a ring?" Father Marcos asked Simon.

"You should know, after all this time, Father, that I wear no jewelry. Nathan, you've a ring?"

Nathan shook his head. "Nay, Simon."

The whole situation seemed ludicrous to Kathleen but for the sudden smile of irony that curved Simon's long lips.

He crossed to the
tastero
that sat on the bureau. Opening the cupboard's door, he reached into a small drawer. When he returned, there lay in the palm of his hand a ring-shaped object.

As he passed it to Nathan, the gleam of copper caught Kathleen's eye. The earring Simon had worn that night at La Palacia!

"No!" she spat. But Simon was already taking her hand, his skin warm against Kathleen's frozen fingers.
This can't be happening,
she kept thinking.
This can't be happening!

But it did, the simple ceremony being short -- with only one pause, when Father Marcos asked her, "Do you, Kathleen Whatley, take Simon Reyes for your husband ... forever?" -- and the word "forever" rang in her mind like the repetitive call of the mission bells.

As Father Marcos went to the bureau to write out the marriage papers, Simon's hands grasped her by the shoulders, and his dark head bent low over hers. "No!" she whispered fiercely and turned her face away so that his lips lightly brushed her ear instead.

"My blushing bride is unduly modest."

Her head swept upwards, her gaze as intense as his. "I'll make you sorry you ever took me as your wife!"

"So you're always threatening me -- Señora Reyes," he replied with a wicked grin.

"Ohhh!" Kathleen stamped a satin-slippered foot, feeling as helpless as a child.

Nathan cleared his throat. "They're waiting outside, Simon."

Father Marcos sanded the papers and held out a pen freshly dipped in ink. "If you'll sign these papers, my children."

Simon took the pen and affixed his signature before handing the pen to her, "Kathleen?"

Kathleen hesitated for a moment, looked to Father Marcos. The compassion she saw on the gaunt face told her what she already knew. She had no recourse. Silently she took the pen and wrote her name beneath the heavy scrawl of her husband's. A drop of ink fell from the pen and splotched the parchment. She stared at it, wondering if, like the marriage paper, her life would be splotched from that moment forward.

Simon took the documents and slid them inside one of the bureau drawers. "I'll convey to our guests," he told Kathleen with a thin smile, "your regrets at missing the rest of the fiesta."

"No," she said, as he opened the bedroom door to leave.

She did not trust Simon. Nor Edmund and him together. The curtain, she was certain, had yet to fall on the final act of the night's performance.

"I'll come with you," she said, crossing to him.

"Have it your way," he said with a shrug, though his eyes watched her closely as he stepped back, allowing her to precede him.

When the two of them, followed by Nathan and Father Marcos, reached the
sala,
they found that all the guests had gathered there as if anticipating something unexpected. The atmosphere was electric with the tension that ushers in a storm.

Edmund and Aguila stood in the foreground together, talking with intensity. Behind them Kathleen saw Dimitri and Francesca. The Spanish beauty's face mirrored both disbelief and bitterness, and Kathleen thought with her own bitter resentment how gladly she would change places with Francesca.

Kathleen looked up into Simon's expressionless face as he came to stand beside her, resting one arm lightly about her waist in such a way that clearly proclaimed she belonged to him.

"My wife is feeling somewhat better," he told the crowd, "and insists the fiesta continue."

Edmund's lipless mouth stretched downward in a sneer. "I don't believe Kathleen's your wife, Reyes. Why else did no one know of your wedding?"

"That's really no longer your business, Woodsworth," Simon replied coolly.

He turned to the crowd of expectant faces. "But, for the benefit of my guests," he told them, "this was to be a double celebration tonight. Kathleen and I were married in secret by Padre Marcos some time ago. We planned to make the announcement tonight."

Simon's smile was tender as, pulling Kathleen closer to his side, he gazed down at her. But she alone saw the mockery in his eyes. "Our love," Simon said, addressing the guests again, "was too great to wait for the roundup fiesta."

"Do you have any proof of this so-called marriage?" Edmund snarled.

"Do you think I'd be so careless?" Simon's lids lowered lazily, as if he were bored by the discussion. "However, if your curiosity is not satisfied, Woodsworth, I'll have my majordomo bring the marriage documents."

"That shouldn't be necessary," Don Pio Pico told Edmund, his hooked nose wrinkling in disgust. "Padre Marcos can easily confirm our host's statement and cler up this boorish matter. Can you not, Father?"

The padre nodded at Don Pio with a twinkle in his eye that faded to a benign gaze as he turned to Edmund. "What Simon says is the truth."

"There," Don Pio said. "As an ex-
gobernador,
I find this untidy matter settled from a legal standpoint -- and that should satisfy all concerned." His hawklike eyes beneath the great bushy brows looked pointedly at Edmund before coming to rest on Simon. "Shall we go on with the celebration, Simon?"

"No yet," Aguila said, stepping forward. "There are other matters to see to first."

"I was wondering what the Mexican military was doing in my home uninvited," Simon said dryly. "I'm sure you'll soon enlighten me, Lieutenant."

"My pleasure, Señor Reyes," Aguila snapped. "My men and I are here to search for a band of insurrectionists." His scorning smile turned on Simon. "And in particular their leader -- the renegade Indian known as El Cóndor."

There were gasps of fear from several of the guests. The wife of General Castro, Doña Modeste, looked as if she would swoon. "You think that murderous band is near here?" she cried.

"You want to tell us what makes you believe this El Cóndor is at del Bravo?" Simon asked in a soft, lazy voice that did not match the watchful glint in the narrowed eyes.

"Merely that several weeks ago one of my men wounded the band's leader in the shoulder. We're inspecting every hacienda in the vicinity."

There ws a sharp intake of breath, and Aguila's scrutiny switched to Kathleen, whose hand clutched at her throat. "What is it, señora?" he asked, stressing the proper form of address with a sneer. "Do you know of this man's presence?"

Kathleen's eyes flickered upwards to meet Simon's hard green gaze. She saw something there she had never been before. A purpose -- a single purpose -- that would brook no interference, that would let nothing stand in its way. She shuddered. And by her silence acknowledged the precedence of that steely purpose -- as the tree acknowledges the precedence of the wind.

Aguila watched the silent exchange between the two. "Reyes is El Cóndor, isn't he?" he said with a triumphant grin.

Simon laughed lightly, taking Kathleen's hand in his, in an affectionate gesture. But Kathleen knew the slight pressure of his fingertips was not a sign of husbandly adoration but one of clear warning. "You should know, Lieutenant, that even if your preposterous claim were true, a wife can't give evidence against her husband."

"You go too far, Reyes!" Aguila thundered, his confidence gone.

"No, Lieutenant. You do. To enter my house without a warrant may be permissible under our Mexican government. But to accuse me without proof is another matter ... a personal one -- which I shall be more than glad to answer at another time. Nathan Plummer will serve as my second. Choose your weapon and send him word of the time and place."

Edmund's eyes glittered with the opportunity presente dhim. "If I may," he said smoothly, "I shall be more than glad to represent Lieutenant Aguila in the duel -- my choice of weapons, of course, being the sword."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Don Pio Pico cried. "You know that dueling is forbidden." He fixed Aguila and Edmund with a reproachful look. "This is a party, señores. Certainly you can conduct your business at a later time!"

Aguila's jaw clenched in impotent fury, and he wheeled about to leave. But Edmund's pale gaze claimed Kathleen. "My business is not finished with you," he said in an icy calm that Kathleen did not doubt.