Stronger Than Passion (47 page)

She broke it. “I won’t try to justify coming here and intruding on you. I did it because I wanted to. I felt that Julian would wish it - would expect it.”

Michael remained still during her words, his face an emotionless mask. Even when he spoke, it seemed that his lips hardly moved. “Oddly enough, he probably would. It’s just the kind of perversity he would enjoy. Of course, anything to do with you was a favorite game of his. He thought of you as a kind of toy.”

“He considered me a friend! And I returned his friendship. You know that.”

“You’ve made your point. Now why don’t you go?”

“Not yet.” She fought to keep the frustration from her voice. “I came to tell you how sorry I am, how very sorry, that he is gone. At least have the courtesy to listen to me.”

“I’m all out of courtesy where you are concerned, lady. All out.” He stood now, slowly, giving the impression that he was struggling to control an intense urge to damage something. His face, which seemed drawn to her, its lines harsher, wore an expression of dislike so strong as to be called hate. “As I’ve just said, you’ve made your point, hypocritical though it may be. Now get the hell out of here before I forget that Julian liked you, for all your treacherous ways, and give you the beating which is the least you deserve for your part in his death!”

She flinched at his words and his anger, which was so sharp and so corrosive that it turned his body into a lambent weapon, ready to strike. But then a sense of outrage and ill-use swept her. Her chin rose and she stepped even closer.

“I had nothing to do with his death! Remember that I warned you Luis was about to find out everything, that he wanted your guerilla band captured or killed. Why didn’t you stay away from Luis’s silver? Why didn’t you listen to me?”

“I did.” he said. “I covered all our tracks. There was no way that Arredondo could have surprised us like he did, unless you told him who we were, and what our habits were.”

“Why would I do that, when I’ve lied for months to Luis and everyone else in Mexico about you and Julian? Why betray you now, and have Luis wonder why I didn’t tell him the truth before? That doesn’t make any sense, Michael!”

“There’s no other answer.”

“There is! There must be! Because I did not tell Luis anything. I didn’t want Julian hurt, or you, either . . . ” She turned her back on him for a minute, tears of incredulity and unwanted feeling that he must not see pooling in her eyes.

“Julian said as much.” His words came unexpectedly. Were they a capitulation? “His theory was that we had at traitor in the troop. Who knows, maybe its true. He was usually right about those things.” Or, Michael thought again, he really had been followed on his way of Arredondo’s house that last night with Christina. He had been tired then, and disgusted with a lot of things. Maybe he had missed spotting a watcher. Maybe the watcher had trailed him out of town, to Julian’s camp, which was ridiculously close. But then, why hadn’t he been seen going into Arredondo’s house, as well?

Christina wiped her eyes, surreptitiously and turned around. Michael appeared to be thinking hard, staring off. She wished then that she could go to him; could simply walk the few steps that separated them, and lean into him and on him, and cry her heart out for his loss, which was their loss. Neither of them would ever see Julian again; why couldn’t they soothe their grief in each other?

However, when Michael did turn his full, uncompromising attention on her again, she knew that her vague hope was useless. The distaste was back in his pale blue eyes; the twisted smile was as mocking as ever, and as meaningless.

“I will find out who betrayed us, Señora. I promise you that. And I will have payment for Julian’s death. I’ll have it from Arredondo, too. So if I were you, I shouldn’t count on a long marriage.”

“He was only protecting his property . . .” she replied in a whisper.

“I thought you said you were sorry about Julian.” His voice was hateful.

“I am! But how many men have you killed, or Julian? Aren’t you fighting a war? How can you take it personally?”

Michael stared down at her face, white and defiant and troubled, and he remembered that Julian had said almost the same thing, before he died. And they were both right; it was war. But it could never be impersonal, not to him. This war that he fought was in many ways a vendetta - against Santa Anna, for ordering his uncle’s death at Goliad . . . against Mexico in general, for disrupting the peaceful lives of Texans, his own included. And now, against Luis Arredondo. For Julian’s death, and possibly more, Michael would continue to fight and kill for these reasons. For himself, personally.

“I guess I’m just selfish,” he finally replied. “And I believe in revenge. Now, don’t you think you should be getting back home to your fiancè? His days are numbered, after all.”

“Luis might have discovered by now that you were in Julian’s troop; he’s spent the past few days investigating. He’ll be angry - he’ll question me. . .’

“Tell him anything you want. I don’t care anymore.”

“He’ll be watching for you. If you appear in Mexico City again . . .”

“Just leave that to me. I’ve already made too damn many mistakes; there won’t be anymore.”

“Forget about killing Luis!”

“Get out of here and go home. Before I decide it might be more profitable to keep you, and make Arredondo pay your weight in silver to get you back.”

They faced each other angrily, bitterness in him and regret in her, both of them determined that there was to be no touching, no tenderness. If there was a war, then they were on opposite sides now, for good. There would be no more truces or exchanges of any kind.

“Then I suppose it is fortunate that I have your friend Señor Locklyn waiting for me outside, to ensure that you don’t try holding me prisoner again.”

“If I wanted to badly enough, John couldn’t stop me. Fortunately for you, I don’t.”

He said it with contempt, rejecting her on all levels. She took his hatefulness inside her, letting it push out the lingering traces of love. “Thank God for that. I’m going now.”

She turned from him and strode toward the door, jerking it open and continuing outside without a single look back.

She mounted her horse unseeingly and rode westward, leaving Locklyn and his men rushing to catch up. The tears that fell from her eyes were taken by the wind and dispersed in moist droplets on the ground.

Before she had gone two miles she encountered a small pack of Indians on horseback, riding in the direction of the village. They stared at her impassively as they went by, and she would have looked away had she not recognized the only woman in the group. A fierce-eyed girl who spat as their gazes met - who’s voice trembled in grief and hatred as she cursed the one whom she blamed for her man’s death.

“Puta! You and your Santanista lover have taken Truth-Speaker from me, and you will both die, no matter what Miguel says! When the Americans come into Mexico City, I will be there, too, and you will die . . .”

One of Renata’s Indian compatriots reached over to slap the rump of her horse, which broke into a fast trot and carried her out of view.

But in Christina’s mind her words lingered, and Christina almost wished that her threat would soon come true. There could be no life ahead of her now that did not contain loneliness and regrets and other emotions too difficult to bear. Perhaps Renata’s lethal desire would be the best solution, after all.

If only the Americans would hurry.

Luis was waiting for Christina when she arrived back at the casa. He had returned from his journey three hours before, only to find her gone, and in her stead a note, giving no explanations for her absence, only an approximately time when she might come home. Knowing the whole truth now about Julian Torrance and Michael Brett and Christina, he was impatient and angry, suspecting where she might have gone. But he would know that soon, as well. Arturo would not fail him again.

Christina was in no mood to lie or mince words. She was tired and frustrated and depressed. She had a headache and a nauseated stomach. If Luis had already discovered part of the truth about Michael and Julian, she would be glad to tell him the rest.

Luis had, indeed, discovered quite a lot. One of the supposedly “dead men” was still alive when he arrived at the camp that his men had set up near the scene of the battle, and Luis was able to convince the man to talk. In detail. About everything he knew or had heard regarding Torrance and the rest of his troop. Until the man did actually die.

Michael Brett figured prominently in the tale. So had the “Señora,” a beautiful young lady who had been a friend to both the Captain and Brett and who had ridden with them for a while. Luis had not neglected to guess just who that Señora might be. Or that there must have been some sort of intimate triangle going on between her and the troop leaders.

Luis accused Christina of lying to him, in a clipped and aristocratic voice. She replied in the same manner - denying nothing.

“Yes. I lied to you, Luis. I didn’t want you or anyone else to know about Julian’s guerilla work, or Michael’s involvement with him. Julian had become my friend, you see, and I did not intend to betray him.”

“Instead you betrayed Mexico. You hurt your own country’s chances of winning this war!”

“Perhaps. But I had grown fond of the Texans I met. They saved me from harm more than once. They supported me.”

“Are your sympathies now with them?”

“Partly. But I would not be here in Mexico if I were not on her side. My loyalty has not changed.”

Luis looked skeptical. “What about Brett?”

“I loved him.”

As she said it, she turned away, fighting the myriad aches in her body with a strength that seemed suddenly diminished. Her voice was strained now as she continued, holding onto a high chair back for support.
“I loved him, I don’t know why! But I knew that we could never marry, nor have anything more than a casual relationship. So did he. I wanted to return home, and he brought me.”

“And you agreed to marry me, loving another man. Aside from Santa Anna’s threats, I wonder why?”

“Because I thought you were a friend! I thought you would help me . . . Dios, it doesn’t matter anymore. Our engagement is over, of course. I will pack my things and move out directly.”

She walked away, but he stopped her. He grabbed her with hands that for some reason clutched her to him, hard against him, in a desperate grip.

“You will not go - I won’t let you go! Madré de Dios, how you’ve disappointed me . . . but I still want you. I will still marry you.”

“No Luis. That is impossible. I will not marry again. I am going home, to my own hacienda - through the American army, if need be!”

“You can’t do that and you know it. Santa Anna forbids it and I forbid it, too.” He shook her, and there was leashed-in determination in his hands. “You will stay here. You will rethink your future. You will accustom yourself to the benefits of being my wife.”

“I know them already,” she said. They are an honor meant for someone else, not me.”

Luis held her from him, so he could look straight into her green-gold eyes. “Did you go to Brett today?”

“Yes. To pay my respects on behalf of his cousin and friend, Julian Torrance. Whom you killed.”

“His death was completely justified,” he said. “He was a thief.”

“He was a soldier!”

Luis saw the anger flash dangerously in her eyes, and switched subjects. “What about Brett?”

“He did not wish to see me.”

“I suppose that is understandable. But he did see you, I have no doubt. Tell me Christina. Do you still imagine yourself in love with him?”

“No.”

“Then time is what you need now, time to rest and recover your good sense.” He smiled then, compassionately. “Stay here, on any terms that you like. We will go on as always, and merely put off the date of our marriage. My dear, you must remember that Santa Anna mistrusts your loyalty to Mexico . . . and now, more than ever, you need my protection.”

His tone was reasonable, his words sensible and calming. But his fingers still pinched her arms, and there was a certain coldness in his eyes; neither of which bothered her, at the moment. She felt stupefied with headache and exhaustion.

Let Luis, and Michael, and the rest of the world be damned. She was going upstairs to bed.

“Very well, Luis. For now I agree. We are friends, and nothing more. But you must excuse me - I would like to rest for an hour or so.”

“Of course. I will have a tray of food brought up to you, if you wish.”

“No. I couldn’t eat now. Later, perhaps.”

She stepped back and he released her. She inclined her head in a parting gesture and turned to leave the room.

Luis watched her go. Then he strode to the door and into the hall, motioning to his porter. His face had hardened. “Send for Captain Ramirez, at the Posado del Tres Hombres. I wish to see him at once.”

His porter nodded, and moved to obey. Luis went down the hall to his library to wait. It was time, he was thinking savagely, that he acquired a permanent mercenary troop of his own. Men whom he would employ on a long-term basis, as guards if the Americans came, or as counter-guerillas for his interests alone . . . men of no conscience, like this Captain Ramirez whom he had recently met, but who had performed more than adequately in organizing the neat destruction of those Americans that had plagued him. Yes, Ramirez was a shrewd man, a thinker, as well as a fighter. He had been a successful bandido at one point in his life; now, he worked for the state. Luis would pay him well and see him well.