Stronger Than Passion (26 page)

The distant recollection swam in and out of focus in her mind. She had consumed something, then; some potion forced on her by Michael Brett. She had been introduced to this Indian and had discovered later that he was Antoinette Torrance’s adopted son.

What was he doing here? Why had he killed Manzanal? Was it an act of charity, or a deliberate intention? And, most important: where was Michael Brett?

Concentrate on the questions. Don’t worry about what just happened. Don’t think about the dead man lying only a few feet away. Or the future - a terrifying blank.

A large bundle dropped to the ground beside her. Her saddlebags; and the clothes she had removed earlier, before going to bed. A dark brown skirt, a silk blouse and a jacket. Her high leather boots. Everything but her gun. Looking up, she saw the Indian examining her gun and half-smiling.

“This didn’t seem to do you much good,” he said in English; British-accented English, startlingly oblique.

“I couldn’t reach it.” Her voice was terse and scratchy.

He shook his head in mock sympathy, one eyebrow raised. He reminded her of Michael. She thought she hated him.

He put her gun into a saddlebag draped across a big dark horse with a white blaze. He turned to study her. The amusement was gone from his harsh face.

“Put on your clothes,” he ordered her.

She looked down at herself, she still wore her sleep shift. It was ripped and bloody. Most of her breasts and all of her legs were exposed. Yes, she must dress. But she would not go back into that tent. Not ever.

She glanced around dully. The other men were all occupied, looking and snooping, including the one who had brought her clothes. No one was paying her the slightest bit of attention. Except Torrance. He was watching her, as though following her thoughts with those hawkish black eyes.

“Do it here,” he said softly.

She mentally shrugged. Michael Brett had seen her nude; so had Angel Manzanal. Why not Julian Torrance? Why not anyone else? Who was she, anyway?

The Patrona of a great Mexican estate. The daughter of a Spanish marquès. The cousin of most of the immediate Spanish ruling family.

And a whore? A puta who has known too many men, and too few.

She pulled the shift over her head and threw it away. She jerked on her skirt, her blouse, and the silk stockings she found rolled inside her boots. She put on the boots and her jacket. She wore nothing else except loose drawstring underpants. She avoided stepping in her own vomit.

She faced Torrance, her back stiff despite the shaking of her knees, her long hair streaming over one shoulder.

He stood beside his horse, his stance alert yet concentrated on her. Assessing her, figuring her. Weighing her importance. Deciding what to do with her?

He wore pale leather breeches, but there were no pockets for him to thrust his hands inside, as Michael sometimes liked to do. Instead he folded his arms across his gray-shirted chest.

His voice was deep and clipped, but she sensed the eloquence that might have been there. He could be an expressive man, a persuasive one, if he cared to . . . it was in his smooth tones, the definite way his lips formed words. In his somewhat mesmerizing eyes.

But now he had no need to cajole. No need to persuade. She was his, wasn’t she, by the law of possession? Michael’s law, even Manzanal’s. But did he intend to keep her?

He did.

She would ride with him now, he informed her. At least for a few days. After that, they would see.

He said it to her harshly, almost provocatively, waiting for her resistance. Hoping for it?

She disappointed him. She was passive. She asked only that her companion, Penny, be found and allowed to accompany her.

He was suspicious of her. She knew he wondered why she didn’t fight. He remembered her arrogance from before. Was she trying to trick him?

No, she was not. She didn’t care anymore what happened to her.

He knew already which of the corralled horses was hers. (How long had he been watching the party?) But when the dusty black mare was led to her by a short, scowling Indian, her own side-saddle was gone. In its place was a man’s saddle, which she would have to straddle. Again, what difference did it make?

Torrance hoisted her up into the saddle without bothering to ask if she needed the help. He adjusted her left stirrup without looking at it, long, brown fingers working while his eyes remained fixed on her.

His gaze was measuring and faintly curious. She met it with a steady, empty one of her own. No, she would not resist his will, not yet. She would do whatever he told her to. There was no strength left in her for anything else.

“Are you glad I killed him, the stupid bastard who was on top of you?” He asked, as though it mattered what she said.

“He was worse than stupid, he was loco, I think.” She pulled at her hair and stared in the direction of the village. There was a muffled noise coming toward them; horses. “But I do not like death.” Still glancing around aimlessly, putting away the ridiculous, bloody image of Manzanal, she asked him the question that had begun to chafe her with its silent repetition inside her head. “Where is Michael?”

He paused for several seconds. She could feel him studying her. Then he jerked the stirrup higher, went around to the other side, and began fiddling with that one.

“He is around somewhere. It is a big country, si?” Then he reached out with rough fingers to grasp her chin and turn it to him. His dark eyes now showed anger and contempt and they spoke of his dislike. “But I do not think you will be pleased to see him, Señora, when he catches up with us. Miguel is not at all happy with you, I’m afraid. It seems that he told you to stay put in Washington, and instead of obeying him, you ran off with that Mexican dog. Is this true?”

He still held her face in his hand, and his grip was painful. But she began to feel a spark of something, some emotion, that was trying to cut through her dream-like apathy. Heat, a long, slow flush, washed over her skin, bringing with it color and a new kind of hurt Her eyes turned a deep greenish-bronze as the wave of feeling finally reached her brain.

“Si.” It was all she said, though capable of more.

“Was the Colonel your lover? Aside from tonight?”

“No.”

“I do not understand you, Señora.” The fingers moved to caress her chin her throat. But for all the seeming gentleness in his strong hand, his eyes remained cold, black stones. “My cousin Miguel is not the man to mistreat a beautiful woman - unless he is severely provoked, of course. And I was sure, until recently, that you were too sensible a lady to provoke him. It seems I was mistaken. However - if Miguel did not beat you or starve you, and did in fact take you into his home and offer you every luxury, which he was in no way obliged to do - and if Colonel Manzanal was not your lover, as you say - then why in hell were you so foolish to leave the security of Washington with such a weak man? Do you have a death wish?”

Torrance’s hand was still at variance with his words and his harsh expression as it played through her hair, combing the thick strands almost tenderly. It was unnerving her, as no doubt it was meant to.

She said vaguely, “I wanted to go home.”

“Miguel swore he would escort you, when it was safe to do so. You had only to wait a few months.”

“No. I couldn’t wait any longer!”

“Why not? Was he cruel to you? Was my mother Antoinette unkind?”

“No. Everyone was - ”

“Why did you leave Washington the moment Miguel was out of sight? Was it because you knew it was the perfect opportunity to escape and deliver the information you have been collecting all this time for Santa Anna? Did you and Manzanal plan the entire thing - that you would be taken captive and brought into the enemy camp, so to speak - in order to spy for Mexico? Where have you concealed the information you are carrying? Or did you simply memorize it?”

His rapid-fire interrogation stunned her, and the now painful grip in her hair brought water to her eyes. But she didn’t protest, not at first. She sensed he expected her to hysterically deny everything, and for some unknown reason he would use the excuse to really hurt her. He wanted to damage her, perhaps even kill her, and he needed some plausible rationale. His men were watching; more had ridden up, but she hadn’t dared glance at them. Her horse moved restlessly beneath her.

She looked directly in his hellish eyes. “That is absurd.”

He was still and silent, but his hand did not slacken its hold on her hair. His face was dangerous and unreadable and did not betray his thoughts. She knew her fate teetered on his whim.

Then he spoke.

“What is truly absurd is that Miguel took you with him at all.” The normal, almost conversational tone of voice startled her. His hand relaxed and began to smooth the hair it had tangled. His eyes were indifferent again. “I told him to kill you. I even offered to do it for him Who knows? It’s never too late. Perhaps he agrees with me now.”

He turned away, taking a firm hold on her reins, and proceeded to ignore her while he asked questions of his men.

Christina sank back in the big saddle, shifting her spread legs in an absent attempt to ease her strained muscles. She tried to forget the pain. She was lucky to be alive, for what life was worth at this point; and a little soreness from Manzanal’s aborted rape compared in no way with a slit throat from Julian Torrance’s knife.

He interrogated one of the men in a voice which was low and heavy with sarcasm, and which reminded her of his cousin. She stared at him.

The half-breed Indian was a disconcerting, deviled man, that much was certain. He seemed to have no compunctions at all about killing; and she knew without a doubt that he had meant it when he hinted he would kill her if Michael wished it done. Yet Michael was close to this strange man, and Antoinette regarded him with immense affection. Perhaps it was the man’s honesty and conviction which drew them. Antoinette had mentioned once that Julian had suffered at the death of her husband, his stepfather; and she was afraid that revenge now ruled his life. If that was true, and he was determined to bring down Santa Anna, then wouldn’t he use any means at his disposal to do it? Including striking at him through his cousin, the Señora de Sainz?

How much influence did Michael Brett hold over Torrance? And how long would it be before that influence began to wane?

But also: would Michael continue to want her alive, now that she was in Mexico and a threat to them all?

She was in danger. She knew it, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. The past weeks of listlessness and dreaming, which had ultimately led her to think she might have been mistaken in leaving Washington at all, had ended in violence and fear and shock. Now she had come full circle and was at the beginning; a prisoner of the enemy, in Mexico, with her life in question. But at least
there was a sense of fate to it all, of submittance to a higher will. She had resisted; only to be humbled once more. So be it.

She would see Michael again, at least. Even if he killed her.

Another lathered horse rode up, and on its back sat a big, long-haired white man and, held tightly in front of him, Penny; eyes dazed and glassy and lifeless. Her red hair hung down around her tear-stained face, and her dress was torn at the shoulders. She stared ahead of her unseeingly.

Christina straightened, and her abrupt movement caused the horse to shy. The mare’s head raised back, and she whinnied; causing a chorus of replies to emit from the other restless beasts. Torrance, feeling the reins nearly jerked out of his hand, turned and impaled Christina with his suspicious eyes.

But before he could speak, she said, “That girl is my companion. Let her ride with me.”

She pointed to Penny, and there was both demand and entreaty on her face.

Torrance’s hand swung around, and he lifted his eyebrows at Will Jersey, who had claimed her.

“Now hold on a minute, Torrance. This here is a white girl, and I aim to take her to some friends of mine and sell her. She’s probably worth a hundred dollars or more - to the right people - and I aim to collect. I took her fairly, you can ask Bear Paw or Paco, they saw me.”

Torrance glanced to his right, at a slender Mexican. The man grinned and shrugged. An Indian on the ground behind him came forward and began a long, involved explanation in some form of dialect. Julian listened and, when the Indian was through, turned back to Jersey.

“I told you we weren’t dealing in women, Jersey,” Torrance said softly, in English. “Women interfere with business.”

“But this is a white girl, she’s worth a hundred dollars, and I can be rid of her in three days. I ain’t giving her up.” Jersey’s eyes narrowed, and one hand dropped toward the hilt of a knife, which protruded from a hip sheath. “Besides - ain’t you got one yourself there, Captain?”

Torrance didn’t acknowledge that, but Penny let out a loud gasping sob. There was movement behind Torrance, on the horse, and then Christina called out,” I will buy her from you With these.”

Torrance turned, and his gaze and everyone else’s took in the picture of the white-faced but determined Señora holding aloft a long, gleaming necklace of large perfect pearls. The self-same pearls that had once belonged to a princess, and which Christina had protected through all of her travels. The symbol of Felipe’s and her own noble, dead ancestors, who would not be pleased with her at this moment.