The Tiger Lily (35 page)

Breathlessly
Sabrina allowed Brett to guide her into the concealing arms of the forest where
it grew near the hacienda, and there, under the leafy branches of a gnarled oak
tree, he pulled her next to his warm body, his mouth hungrily finding hers. He
kissed her urgently, compulsively, his lips hard and demanding on hers.

Pressed
tightly against him, she kissed him back eagerly, their bodies straining
together, her arms creeping around his strong neck, and all doubts and
suspicions fled. It was such heaven to be in his embrace, to feel his passion
rising up hard and powerful between their locked bodies.

Eventually
he raised his head. "I've been mad with longing to do that since Saturday,"
he muttered huskily, "but something or someone kept getting in the way. I
couldn't wait another moment. I either had to have you to myself or do
something violent."

Shyly
she replied, "I wondered if you had changed your mind."

"Not
a chance, sweetheart! I want you too badly." His eyes met hers gravely, a
curious intentness about him. "I wondered perhaps if you might have
changed your mind." An odd smile twisted his chiseled mouth. "Women
have been known to do so."

With
mocking affront Sabrina surveyed him. "Not this woman!" She was
strangely light-headed, full of a warm, burgeoning ecstasy. All she had needed
to banish her unhappy thoughts was to be in his arms, and dreamily she curled
next to him, offering her mouth to him.

Groaning,
Brett captured her lips, kissing her more deeply, even more passionately this
time, his hands caressing her back and hips. The blood thundering in his brain,
he reluctantly pushed her slightly away from him. "We keep this up,"
he said with a frankly sensuous cast to his mouth, "and I'm afraid I'll
compromise you again—a dozen times before we are married."

Possessed
of the same driving, elemental needs, she said daringly, "And would that
be so very terrible?"

His
eyes darkened with desire, but with an effort he resisted the lure of her
tempting mouth and body. Ruefully he admitted, "No, except that even if I
didn't make you pregnant the other night, if we make love too many times before
marriage, Alejandro is definitely going to be very embarrassed at the arrival
of his first grandchild an indecently short time after our wedding."

Startled,
Sabrina stared at him. "Pregnant?" she breathed blankly.
"Me?"

"It's
possible," Brett said with a strangely tender smile.

Wonderingly
Sabrina glanced down at her slim stomach, a wave of intense pleasure surging
through her. "Our child," she said reverently.

"Mmmm,
yes," Brett agreed softly, pulling her gently next to him, resting her
pliant body against his. His lips brushed her temple, and he murmured,
"I'm afraid I didn't take any precautions that last night—all I could
think of was you. A child would please me, but selfishly, I don't want to start
sharing you too soon!"

There
was a companionable silence between them, both lost in their own happy thoughts
of the future, each completely unaware of how closely those thoughts paralleled
the other's. Sabrina's head rested on Brett's shoulder, his arms were about her
waist, and for the moment there was no passion between them, only an engulfing
sensation of tenderness, a sweet promise of what would come.

Night
slowly enveloped the forest, and suddenly becoming aware that Alejandro was
calling them from the hacienda, Brett stirred and shouted back a reply. He
stared down at Sabrina's face in the gloom, thinking he had never seen a more
lovely, entrancing sight in his life. The fiery hair was muted, tumbling in
gorgeous disarray around her bewitching features, and the look in those dreamy
amber-gold eyes made his breath catch painfully in his chest.

Almost
as if mesmerized, his lips slowly found hers again, kissing her with such
tenderness and gentleness that Sabrina felt tears sting her eyes. He must love
her! He could not act as he did and not love her!

Arm
in arm they walked slowly back toward the hacienda, and it was only when they
neared the entrance to the courtyard that Brett spoke. "About the date of
our wedding," he said abruptly, a slight frown creasing his forehead.
"I think that in view of what happened the other night, we had better not
have a lengthy betrothal. You could very well be pregnant, and if you are, we
shouldn't delay too long in marrying." He suddenly grinned. "Besides,
I don't know how long I can behave myself where you are concerned!"

Engulfed
in a warm, hazy glow, Sabrina drifted dreamily through the following hours. And
it was only the next afternoon, as two o'clock drew near, that some of the glow
left her. Wishing now that she had never agreed to meet with Constanza, she
almost decided to send a note to the gazebo stating that she had changed her
mind. But her conscience would not let her.

She
had just risen to her feet from the chair she had been sitting in on the patio
when Brett and Alejandro appeared. Brett held a piece of paper in his hand, and
from the expression on both men's faces, she knew that something was wrong.

"What
is it?" she asked instantly. "Is something wrong?"

"Well,
it is not good news," Alejandro said quietly. "But it could have been
worse."

Brett
lifted his eyes from the paper, a curiously speculative gleam in his gaze.
"This letter from my agent in New Orleans just arrived. It appears that in
June a hurricane leveled my plantation in Louisiana."

A
gasp of dismay escaped Sabrina. "Leveled? Can nothing be salvaged?"

He
shook his head, a waiting air about him.

"How
dreadful for you!" she exclaimed helplessly, deep sympathy for him rushing
through her. "What will you do? What can you do?"

Brett
shrugged negligently. "I suppose I could sell it. Or, with enough money, a
lot of money, I could probably bring it back into production again."

"Oh!"
Sabrina said in a small voice.

Watching
her closely, trying to gauge the effect of his news on her, Brett said slowly,
"It is not a complete disaster. The plantation was in deplorable condition
when I first acquired it, but I made it productive once and I'm certain I shall
do so again. The crop was destroyed, it is true, as well as several
outbuildings, but apparently the levees held, although the house itself was
badly damaged."

"Well,
I wouldn't worry about it now," Alejandro said heartily. "Besides,
when you marry Sabrina you gain the Rancho del Torres—you may never want to do
anything about that piece of property but sell it. For selfish reasons, it
would delight me if you settled here. As far as I'm concerned, the destruction
of the plantation in Louisiana could be quite a blessing."

Sabrina
smiled sickly, and Brett's eyes narrowed, her reaction not going unnoticed.
Conscious of a fierce urge to throw caution to the winds, wanting desperately
to reassure her about their future, about his own wealth, Brett almost blurted
out the truth about his finances, but pride stilled his tongue. That and
suspicion. Was she already having second thoughts about marrying him? he
wondered with a queer feeling. Could he bear it if she proved to be false and
treacherous? He didn't think he could, suddenly realizing with a frightening
intensity that Sabrina meant more to him than anything else in the world.

Feeling
as if she were being driven mercilessly toward conclusions that were only going
to bring her pain and misery, Sabrina couldn't look at Brett. Instead she
glanced at her father and with over-bright eyes, muttered, "I feel a
little faint. If you don't mind, I'll leave you two to discuss this unsettling
news." And then, not waiting for a reply, she bolted from the courtyard.

Constanza
was waiting for Sabrina at the gazebo, and still distressed and shaken by the
uncertainties that were battering at her fragile peace, Sabrina was totally
unprepared for the older woman's assault.

Sabrina
had run through the forest when she left Alejandro and Brett, and consequently
she was a little out of breath when she entered the gazebo. Constanza had her
back to the door, and when she heard Sabrina's entrance, she glanced over her
shoulder.

"You
came," Constanza said simply.

Mutely
Sabrina nodded, wishing she were anywhere but here, wishing she were back at
the hacienda, wishing Brett were holding her in his arms. She was suddenly
afraid, afraid of this woman, afraid of what Constanza would tell her.

And
a moment later she knew she had good reason to be afraid; Constanza's condition
was evident the instant she turned to face Sabrina. Numb, her mind frozen,
Sabrina stared at Constanza's gently swollen belly, saw the pity and misery in
the dark eyes that watched her so intently.

She
became aware that someone was crying. At first she assumed it was she, but then
she realized with a shock that it was Constanza. Constanza was weeping softly,
heartrendingly, the tears sliding dolefully down her cheeks, and despite the
sharp agony that was clawing its way through her own body, Sabrina was moved by
the other woman's misery.

"Don't
cry," she begged. "Please stop. Tell me what is troubling you."

"Brett
Dangermond," Constanza said sadly. "I carry his child. He promised to
marry me—I would never have given myself to him otherwise. I trusted him—he
told me he loved me, and yet not three days ago I hear he is to marry
you." Mournfully she added, "What is to become of me? Of our
child?"

Pain
like she had never imagined pierced Sabrina's heart. She had known of his
involvement with Constanza, but the reality of it had never hit her. It did
now, agonizingly, shatteringly. This woman had lain in Brett's arms, had known
his caresses, and now she was carrying his child. . . .

Sabrina
was barely aware of Constanza standing in front of her, didn't see the
calculating expression that crossed the other woman's face before Constanza
threw herself to her knees and sobbed, "You must give him up! You must! If
it weren't for your fortune he would marry me. I know he would! He said he
would! It is your money that is keeping my child from having a father; your
money that is keeping the man I love from me."

"What
do you mean?" Sabrina asked dully.

Her
sobbing reduced to a pitiful hiccuping, Constanza begged, "Promise you
will never tell that you saw me? Promise you will never let him know what I
have said? He would beat me if he knew."

Tiredly
Sabrina nodded her head.

"He
said that he wants to marry me, but that he needs your fortune more—that with
your fortune he would better be able to provide for me and our child. Your
money doesn't mean anything to me, but he is obsessed by it." Constanza's
voice was filled with pleading as she implored, "Oh, please give him up!
If you refuse him, he will marry me. I know he will. He loves me—it is only
your money that he wants. Please, you must release him."

Possessed
by an odd serenity, Sabrina gently touched Constanza's shoulder. Nothing
mattered anymore; she felt nothing, only a blessed numbness. "I
will," she promised simply. "You have nothing to fear. I will not
marry him"—her voice shook slightly—"not now."

Vaguely
Sabrina realized that it wasn't that Brett had made love to Constanza that she
found so unforgivable—he was a sophisticated man, and there were bound to have
been many women in his past, even his most recent past. But to seduce Constanza
with promises of marriage, to father a child and then refuse to do the
honorable thing because he wanted her fortune, that she could not forgive! Earlier
in the year, when he had been seeing Constanza, she had been jealous when she'd
had no real right to be, but she had thought that their association had been
finished for some time. To discover that such was not the case, that these past
weeks when she had been falling deeply in love with him he had still been
seeing another woman, still promising love to Constanza, was shattering.

How
she returned to the hacienda Sabrina never knew; one minute she was
unconsciously patting Constanza's shoulder and the next she was in the
courtyard. Alejandro and Brett were still there. They were seated at the iron table;
tall glasses half-filled with liquid sat in front of them.