Bride of Fortune (31 page)

      
Mercedes.

      
“Admit it,” he muttered to himself with a slurred oath. “It isn't what she did to Luce that's really eating you—it's what you're doing to Mercedes.”

      
If Hilario and Bart McQueen knew his secret and Doña Sofia had guessed it, how long would it be before his wife—no, his
brother's
wife—guessed it, too? How would she feel, having given herself to a man who was not her husband? A nameless bastard with blood on his hands? What if there were a child? She might already be carrying his seed. No matter if it bore the Alvarado name, it would still be as much a bastard as he was.

      
And Mercedes, by lying with her husband's brother, had committed incest in the eyes of her church. Nicholas had been raised outside the Roman faith but when he lived in Italy and Mexico, he had picked up enough of Canon Law to understand the ramifications of his deception. Luce had even explained it to him when he instructed his brother about how to handle Father Salvador and any religious observances he might be forced to attend.

      
Fortune had long ago abandoned hope for his own soul, but he was becoming increasingly concerned about anything that could hurt Mercedes. She was everything Sofia was not, a true Christian who practiced her faith devoutly. Damn! It had all seemed so easy, this exchange agreed upon by two hardened men. Now they had drawn innocents into their web of deception. Mercedes. Rosario. Perhaps an unborn child.

      
But Nicholas would not give them up. Certainly their lives would be far worse if his brother had returned instead of him. Even that twisted old woman had admitted as much. He was ensnared in the web he himself had helped to spin. There was no answer.

* * * *

      
Mercedes lay in the big bed alone. The hour was late and still Lucero had not come upstairs to his room. She had long ago abandoned waiting in her own quarters for him to claim her. He had made it clear that he would do so every night. The humiliation had been worse when he strode through her door and arrogantly commanded her to follow him.

      
If nothing else, she had been certain that he desired her body. Until tonight. Was he with Innocencia or one of the other servant girls? She had observed the way women looked at him, devouring his dark dangerous virility, seducing him with slumberous eyes and often in even less subtle ways. Sweet merciful heavens, she sounded jealous—after all the anguished nights of praying he would stop making love to her before she succumbed to his skillful touch!

      
Her troubling reverie was suddenly interrupted by the sound of footfalls coming down the hallway. Lucero's steps, yet they sounded erratic—almost as if he were...drunk! Brandy fumes preceded him as he opened the door and walked into the moonlit room, weaving slightly, then stumbling against the heavy oak wardrobe. With a muffled oath he began to strip off his clothes, throwing them carelessly hither and yon, not at all his usual tidy way, but more like she would have expected the old Lucero to respond.

      
Accustomed to the darkness, her eyes watched the play of his muscles as he shed shirt and pants. He was a splendid male animal whose hard, hairy torso and long sinuous limbs were made even more virile and appealing by the mysterious scars that marred what would otherwise have been unreal perfection. It was dangerous to dwell on such thoughts, but she could not seem to tear her eyes from him as he climbed into bed beside her.

      
She tensed expectantly as he lay down, wondering if he would reach for her. Instead of drawing her possessively into his embrace, he simply lay spread-eagle across the wide bed and fell fast asleep. Soft male snoring quickly fell into a steady low rhythm.

      
Never since his return had she known Lucero to get drunk, although he had when they were first wed. Somehow she sensed that this was different. Could it be related to her husband's morning visit with his mother, about which Father Salvador had told her? There had been no time during the busy day to talk with him in private with a house full of guests.

      
Mercedes feared Lucero and his mother would never make peace. As a child who had enjoyed a loving relationship with both parents and mourned their loss, Mercedes had always felt the bitterness between Lucero and Doña Sofia was tragic and inexplicable and that it must have begun when he was very young. Perhaps at the moment of conception.

      
She leaned up on her elbow and tentatively reached one hand out, her fingers itching to brush the errant lock of dark hair from his brow. He muttered in his sleep, something low that she could not understand, then tossed his head restlessly, as if having a bad dream.

      
“Shh, don't let her trouble you. You need not pay for your father's sins.” She smiled sadly, realizing he had enough sins of his own for which to atone.

* * * *

      
The Fletcher party left just after daybreak, in route to Durango. The small caravan, now riding rested and well-fed mounts, vanished in the distance. Mercedes watched Lucero pensively stare after them. “Do you think they'll make it?”

      
“To Durango? I suppose so,” he replied absently. His head pounded so badly from the excess of brandy last night that he scarcely heard her question. He had been wondering how he would implement Bart McQueen's orders, glad to have the unnerving man gone from Gran Sangre. Then he continued, “If you mean will they survive resettlement in the valley and become assimilated as Mexicans, no. They're Americans. Hell, they don't even speak enough Spanish to communicate.”

      
“What about the emperor's new immigration plan? You don't believe it will succeed anywhere, do you?”

      
“Not with people like those,” he snapped irritably.

      
“You act as if you've known many Americans.”

      
“More than a fair share fought with the
contre-guerrillas
” he replied guardedly. “You don't want to know about the war, Mercedes.”
You don't want to know about me.

      
She could see he was not feeling well but hesitated to bring up his solitary drinking binge last night or the possible cause for it. Worry about the survival of Fletcher's party was the least of his concerns. She was certain of that much.

      
He stalked off toward the stables, leaving her standing alone in the courtyard, perplexed.

      
“Why should I care what's troubling him?” she murmured to herself.
He is your husband,
the voice of duty reminded her.

      
The only way to find the answer lay in asking her husband's mother, something she was loath to do.

Chapter Thirteen

      
Mercedes went through her morning chores, still preoccupied with Lucero's troubling behavior. As noon drew near, she grew eager for Rosario to finish her lessons and join her in the kitchen as was their routine. The child had been blossoming, overcoming her shyness and growing into a bubbly curious five-year-old girl.

      
When she entered the kitchen, Angelina set down her heavy stirring ladle with a worried expression on her face. “My lady, Rosario is late. Did Father Salvador keep her because she did not recite her lessons properly?”

      
“She isn't here?” Mercedes chewed her lip. “I'll go see, but she's been doing so well, I doubt it. He seems quite pleased with her progress.”

      
The priest had dismissed Rosario at the usual time and knew nothing of where she might be found. Now he, too, was concerned and they instituted a search of the house. Mercedes, remembering the little girl's love of the flower beds, found her a short while later huddled in between the high rows of hollyhocks by the trellises. The child was sobbing forlornly.

      
“Tell me what's happened,” she said after sending Lupe to call off the search. Mercedes stroked the small dark head and held her close.

      
Rosario hiccupped, then dug two small fists into her eyes. “I'm s-sorry. I did not mean to make her angry.”

      
“Who, sweet one?” Mercedes asked, thinking that if Innocencia had again spoken harshly to Rosario, she would personally flog the nasty whore.

      
“She...she is my papa's mother, isn't she?”

      
The question took Mercedes completely by surprise. “You mean Doña Sofia?” A sudden ugly suspicion began to form. At the child's woebegone nod, she asked, “Did you go into her quarters?”

      
“I only wanted to see her...to ask her if...if...”

      
Mercedes hugged Rosario. “Ask her what?”

      
“If she was my grandmother. My mother is dead but I have my papa now and I have you. He said we were a family...but I overheard Lupe and Angelina talking about his mother who is so sick she never leaves her room. I thought she might be lonely so I brought my new primer. I wanted to read to her, to cheer her up. I only wanted her to like me.”

      
Mercedes’ chest tightened painfully as she imagined the scene unfolding—a small waif in search of her long-lost grandmother, wanting to show her she was worthy, to belong. And Sofia, enraged at the temerity of a bastard with no right to the vaunted Alvarado name daring to approach her.

      
Mercedes held Rosario tightly and rocked her back and forth, crooning as the child sobbed, offering assurances that Grandmother Sofia was too ill to know what she had said and it was not Rosario's fault that the old woman had been angry.

      
Everything the twisted old woman touched withered with her hate. Lucero had come away from his last conversation with her so upset he tried to drown himself in liquor. Now even this innocent child had been hurt. “Come, let us get you some lunch. Angelina has made sopapilla. I think there is some fresh honey to go with it Would you like that?”

      
Rosario nodded sadly.

      
In a few minutes Mercedes had climbed the stairs and approached the door to her mother-in-law's room. Without even knocking she opened it and stepped inside, too angry for any pretense at amenities. “I wish to speak with you, Doña Sofia,” she said, striding across the room to where the old woman sat in her high-backed chair, facing the window.

      
Something in her daughter-in-law's tone of voice alerted the old
patrona
even before Sofia saw the blazing anger pinkening her cheeks and darkening Mercedes’ amber eyes. Surely that fool had not confessed to her—but no, of course not. If so the chit would have come to her with incredulous tears, not mantled in righteous indignation. It must have been that damnable child. “What has so beset you that you barge in rudely unannounced?” she asked, taking the offensive.

      
“I am most beset, yes,” Mercedes replied, pacing agitatedly by the window, trying to marshal her scattered thoughts. “Rosario isn't even five years old. I regret that she disturbed you, but she only wanted to meet you—”

      
“She is not even your child,” Sofia scoffed.

      
“She is my husband's daughter—your granddaughter.”

      
“I do not acknowledge his indiscretions any more than I did those of his father. You would be well advised to heed my example. Provide Lucero with legitimate heirs as is your duty. And pray you do not prove barren, else he would be forced to seek an annulment.”

      
Her words fell like chips of ice, dispassionate, yet threatening in a veiled sort of way. Mercedes stood in front of the chair, her head held proudly as she looked down at the cold shell of a woman. “If there is one thing I know, it is that my husband will never put me aside, barren or not.” He had sworn it to her in the heat of passion. Was it really true?

      
Intuiting Mercedes’ underlying uncertainties, Sofia replied, “Do not be so certain. Barren wives are easily dealt with in a noble house such as Alvarado. If God does not bless your union with fertility, then it is a sign that there was no true marriage.”

      
Beneath the sanctimonious platitudes, Mercedes sensed the viciousness, brutal as a slap. “I know my husband better than you know your son. I've seen him with his child. If we have no children, he will make Rosario his heir.”
Let her choke on that!

      
Sofia's small black eyes studied the haughty Sebastián woman with malice. “You are a fool if you believe that. Admittedly he has grown bizarrely fond of the child, but he will never let her inherit Gran Sangre. The estate has become his passion. Do not deny that you have seen it. I myself have watched him ride out every morning. He is rebuilding this place to be as glorious as it was in the days of old Don Bartólome. He will wish a son of his loins—a legal heir recognized by
criollo
society—to become the next master of Gran Sangre.”