Texas Lily (39 page)

Tentatively, she placed the mouth of the instrument to her lips and blew across it. The sound was sweet and pure and full of promise.

In a fury of self-pity, Lily flung it across the room.

Unable to wear the washed and folded trousers placed by her bedside, Lily donned the mourning gown she had worn the day before and set out in search of Juanita. It didn't take long to discover that both Cade and Travis had ridden off at dawn. Juanita's tight-lipped expression mimicked Lily's own.

They should have known this was coming. Men loved war. They would do anything rather than stay home and be domesticated. It really was no surprise.

But as Lily went through the days feeling Cade's child kick more strongly inside her, listening to Roy and Serena prattle Cade's words back at her, watching Antonio for those similarities of feature and expression that so resembled Cade's, Lily knew it was more than anger that she felt.

She didn't want to feel more than anger. Anger could be dealt with. She could slam doors, scream at the children, scrub down her room, uproot a garden and start over. But none of these activities could relieve the gnawing emptiness and fear that filled her nights and spilled over into her days.

Lily couldn't believe she feared for the savage who had walked into her life and turned it upside down. He was a monster, just as Juanita had warned. She ought to be glad he was gone. Except that she mourned his absence as much as or more so than she did her father's.

She blamed her melancholy on her father's death and the loss of her home. She blamed it on her lack of anything constructive to do in this household where women knew their places and didn't venture out to the barns and stable unescorted. She blamed it on loneliness for familiar neighbors in this sea of strangers. But when she went to bed, it wasn't Jim's quiescent presence that she missed. It was Cade's passionate caresses.

Lily shoved the flute into a drawer with her few articles of clothing and ignored it. She was entering her sixth month of pregnancy and certainly didn't need thoughts of lust. She needed something to occupy her mind and hands while she awaited the child's arrival.

Cade had been gone well over a week and the sun had begun to dot the prairie with the first April wildflowers when the horrifying news of Goliad arrived.

Lily had discovered the hard way that her Spanish host and his hired help believed women should be seen and not heard. So she had learned to work in the courtyard garden while Antonio entertained visitors in the salon, often leaving the doors and windows open to spring breezes. Her Spanish was increasing daily with her concentration on these male conversations, and she gained more knowledge than the men ever suspected.

She had heard of the capture of Fannin's army in Goliad days after Cade had left. She didn't know how old the news was or if it had been the reason for Cade's departure. She only knew that Cade had said he meant to join Houston, and therefore he couldn't have been in on the disaster that befell Goliad.

Still, Lily cringed as she heard the whispered words of horror describing how Santa Anna had ordered his hundreds of Texan prisoners released only to deliberately slaughter them while they thought they were on the way home. The man was mad, as Cade had said. Even Antonio's visitors agreed. Santa Anna meant to destroy all that the settlers had done in these last ten years. With the American settlers gone, the Indians would return. What hope was there for the Tejanos in that?

Lily suspected it was no coincidence that Antonio de Suela had returned from Mexico to his lands in Texas after a twenty-five-year absence at a time when his presence here could lend a steadying influence to a country at war. He made no secret of his distaste for Santa Anna, and the men who came and went from the newly repaired fortress-like walls of the hacienda often spoke of their desire for democracy. Even Lily could translate that word.

Cade's grandfather was a wily old mand, and she gave him the respect he deserved, but she couldn't deny her frustration at being treated like a china doll. She could almost sympathize with Cade's mother for staying with the Apache warrior who had stolen her. Knowing what she did of Cade's Indian family, Lily suspected his mother had enjoyed being mentally and physically challenged by the Indian way of life more than being suffocated in the hacienda.

But with the world outside these walls collapsing in blood and chaos, and the child inside her womb making its demands known, Lily could do nothing but wait for freedom. She taught Roy and Serena their lessons. She worked in the courtyard garden. She sewed new baby clothes to replace the ones lost in the fire. And she waited for word from Cade.

None came.

It was the day that Ricardo arrived that Lily realized she could wait no longer.

She heard the noise of a stranger's arrival, the tramping of dozens of horses as the gates opened, the shouts and yells of men as they brought their beasts under control. She knew at once that the new arrivals weren't the furtive men from Bexar with their news of the war. With hope in her heart, Lily hurried through the house to a darkened salon overlooking the front entrance.

She could make out nothing from the scene other than that they were a mixture of Tejanos and Americans. She saw no one resembling Cade or Travis, recognized none of the horses. Her hopes plummeting, she returned to her room to freshen herself before the guests entered.

She was even beginning to think like a cosseted female with no other concerns but her appearance.

Scowling at that thought, Lily tucked a straying hair into her chignon and adjusted the black mantilla Cade's grandfather had given her. The flowing lace had a multitude of uses, the best of which was to hide her recalcitrant hair. Checking her image in the cheval mirror, Lily smoothed the wide row of ruffles over her abdomen and examined the extent of the bulge. There was no disguising Cade's child any longer. She looked more like she was in her ninth month than her sixth.

Finding that thought comforting, Lily went to greet their guests. So far, Antonio had not been able to persuade Lily to keep to her room until she was summoned. If their guests had news of the war, she would hear of it.

When she entered the salon and found Ricardo insolently smoking a large cigar and sitting in Antonio's favorite chair, Lily regretted her impulsiveness. At sight of the other booted and spurred strangers sprawling across the heavy old furniture, she considered walking out.

Only Antonio's gaunt figure prevented her from fleeing as he gestured with his hand in welcome and introduced her.

"Senora, my stepson, Ricardo. Ricardo, this is my grandson's bride, Lily."

Looking up, Ricardo gave a malevolent grin.
"Buenos dias,
Mrs. Brown." His eyes dropped to her protruding stomach. "Another Apache bastard. How interesting."

Even without the epithet, she could see the danger in his eyes and knew the threat this man represented to Cade, to her child, to them all. He would see them all dead, if he could.

Lily knew in that moment what Cade and Juanita meant when they said evil walked on two legs.

With a shiver of fear, she turned her back on Ricardo and left, but her mouth tasted of ashes as she sought the safety of her room.

A man who could hate an unborn child was more than evil; he was without a soul.

Cade wanted her to reside with his grandfather, and Lily struggled to reconcile her instincts with his wishes, but the two were irreconcilable. The threat of Ricardo's presence hung over the hacienda like a thick pall. Lily watched as Juanita retreated to her locked room and refused to come out. She held her tongue when the children clung to her skirts whenever Ricardo appeared. But when Antonio de Suela no longer left his chamber or entertained his friends, Lily let her instincts be her guide.

Placed between the devil and the deep blue sea, she chose the vagaries of the sea.

Chapter 31

"How can we do this? It is mad," Juanita whispered as they slipped into the paddock where only the rustling, nickering noises of the animals could be heard.

"What choice do we have?" Resolutely, Lily searched for the placid animals that had brought them here among the restless, half-wild beasts that Ricardo had brought with him.

Juanita had no answer to that. Joining in the search, she helped locate the mules and ponies they needed, leading them out of the paddock with muttered imprecations. Roy waited there, holding hastily packed saddlebags and stolen harness. Wrapped in a blanket near his feet, Serena slept quietly.

At least the weather had improved. The night was clear and mild as they loaded the animals. Lily had feared the horses would be guarded, but Ricardo was too sure of himself to waste manpower inside the hacienda walls. The guarded gate would be their difficulty.

Juanita resolved the problem easily. Slipping into the shadows along the wall, she located the man responsible for manning the gate, and holding out one of the silver bracelets Travis had bought for her, she bribed him into complacency. The gates opened, and they rode out without hindrance.

It was too easy. They had surprise on their side, Lily knew. The men never expected a handful of women and children to boldly ride away from the hacienda's protection. Lily was quite certain that Ricardo considered them prisoners as surely as he did his grandfather. The guards posted on the walls could mean no less, and he would not have made his contempt and hatred so plain elsewise. That he was so confident of his power that he did not lock them in their rooms was the only reason Lily could find for the ease of their escape.

As they rode into the dangers of the night, two women and two children, with no guide but the moon and stars, Lily couldn't help but wonder if they had not fallen into Ricardo's trap after all.

* * *

April 21, 1836

The noon sun heated the thick magnolia leaves overhead, and the fetid odors of decaying foliage from the rain-swollen bayous stifled the senses as the army buzzed angrily in its hiding place among the trees.

"Santa Anna's whole damned army is moving in, and Houston lies there sleeping! What are we waiting for?"

"We should've gone at dawn and caught them all napping. I'm tired of runnin'. It's time to fight!"

Cade sat silently on his horse and listened to the ceaseless complaints murmuring around him. His gaze, like everyone else's, was fixed on the enemy encampment waiting across the grassy plain, less than a mile away. At dawn the Mexican army had been waiting for them behind hastily erected barricades. By mid-morning, reinforcements had begun to arrive. Now, at noon, the Mexican camp was settling down for siestas in the lazy afternoon sun. A few figures were still stirring, but the men who had marched all night would be sound asleep.

Cade was tired of running, too. He wanted this battle over with. He had never lifted a gun to harm another man before. Something in his nature found it repellent to take life needlessly. Ricardo had that reticence to thank for his life now. But Cade knew, for the future of Lily and his child, that he had to make a stand. The line had been drawn and sometime, somehow, someone had to cross it. He wasn't a coward. He knew how to fight. He just didn't know if he could kill.

Cade's thoughts drifted back to that day with Ricardo and the rattlesnake. It would have been better for everyone if he had ended Ricardo's life that day. But even then, even before the priests had taken him in and taught him the wisdom of turning the other cheek, Cade had been reluctant to make what was in reality God's decision. Had Ricardo kicked the box with the snake, it would have been of his own volition. He would have been responsible for his own death.

What had happened at the Alamo and Goliad had been horrendous and inhuman, and Santa Anna deserved to die for that. Houston's army would be slaughtered in the same manner if they did not fight to win. Cade understood that. But he wished he was home with Lily.

He had spent thirty-two years surviving. He wanted to live for a change. Lily was the first person to offer him that opportunity, and instead of building a life with her, he was here, prepared to destroy the lives of others. It didn't make sense, but Cade knew he had to do it.

He glanced at Travis, who was nervously smoking a crudely rolled cigarillo. Travis barely knew how to shoot a gun. This wasn't even his war. He didn't have land here. But he was prepared to fight for a cause he thought just. They were all mad.