Bride of the Baja (18 page)

             
                            CHAPTER TWELVE

"House," Maria said, pointing down the hill toward the cluster of adobe buildings.

"That was the first word I learned," Alitha told her. "
Casa
."

"Garden." From where they sat on a grassy knoll, they could see an Indian hoeing the rows of Mendoza tomato plants.

"
Jardin
," Alitha said.

Maria smiled. "Family."

"
Familia
."

"Friend."

"
Amigo
."

"That, as you know, is a man friend. If it was a woman?"

"
Amiga
."

"
Bueno
. Good. Now ask me English words and I will tell you how to say them in Spanish."

"Gentleman."

"
Caballero
. The word means horseman.
Caballo
is horse." She nodded to their two horses grazing a short distance away.

"
Ship." Alitha looked down to the harbor from which the American ship, loaded with Santa Barbara hides, had sailed the week before.

"
Barco
."

"Journey."

"
Viaje
," Maria told her. "A long journey, such as your journey to the Sandwich Islands, is
un viaje grande
."

"Marriage."

"
Matrimonio
."

"California seems to have so many more men than women," Alitha said.

"Because this is the frontier of New Spain. Men come to the new lands first, then civilization comes with the women. Later."

"I hope you don't think me too personal, but I've wondered why you've never married again, Maria. After all these years."

"I do not take offense," Maria said, smiling. "I have thought of marriage many times, as what unmarried woman does not? There are many reasons I have not remarried. First, and most important, there is no man I love. I loved once and there can be no other for me—not that I have not been asked to marry many times. The man, however, must be of my station, and there are few who are in Alta California. The man must be someone like--" She paused. "Like Don Esteban."

Alitha glanced curiously at the other woman. Had she reddened slightly? It was difficult to tell. She had said Esteban's name fondly, as a lover might. As Alitha herself might.

She looked at Maria more closely. Speculatively. Was the other woman as old as Alitha had first thought? She must be thirty-five at least, for she probably hadn't married before she was fifteen, but she was attractive, with her dark eyes and jet black hair. Though decidedly plump. She couldn't be too much older than Esteban, though. Alitha had heard of men marrying their brother's widow.

Maria sighed. "A man like Don Tomas is what I should have said. But you did not know him. Also, there is the matter of children. Spanish men wish to carry on the family name—our families are very important—so they want children, especially boys, and unfortunately I cannot have children."

Alitha covered Maria's hand with hers. "You're in love with Don Esteban, aren't you?" she asked softly.

Maria drew her hand away and straightened her
reboso
, the shawl she wore over her head.

"Don Esteban is a most attractive man," she said. "In many ways he resembles my husband Tomas, as Tomas was as a young man, when we married. The Mendoza men were all much alike, so I cannot help seeing Tomas in Esteban. I am much too old to ever think of marrying Don Esteban, even if it were possible."

Alitha noticed that Maria hadn't denied loving Esteban. Not directly.

"Almost the first words you spoke to me," Alitha said, "were to tell me that Don Esteban was not for me. Why did you say such a thing?"

"Do you believe I told you that because I wanted him for myself? No, no, not at all. I said that not because of me, but because it is the truth. Don Esteban is already promised to another. The marriage contract between the families has been signed and the dowry agreed to."

"He's to marry another?" Alitha heard her voice rising. How could he have lied to her when he asked her to marry him and journey with him to Mexico? Although he hadn't mentioned marriage in so many words. But wasn't that what he'd meant? How could she go to Mexico with him otherwise?

"Are you well?" Maria asked. "I can see I have upset you. Didn't you know he was committed to marry?"

Alitha shook her head.

"He will marry Ines Gutierrez. The Gutierrez rancho is some three leagues to the east of Santa Barbara. They are a fine Castillian family."

Gutierrez, Ines Gutierrez Alitha had never heard her name before. The name Gutierrez was familiar, though, there had been a Don Ramon Gutierrez in the raiding party that burned the Indian village. Not an older man, but a
caballero
Esteban's age. Perhaps he was Ines's brother. But why hadn't Ines been at the banquet if she lived only a short distance away?

Alitha stood up "I—I—" she began, not really knowing what she wanted to say. She was overwhelmed by anger and humiliation. Esteban had deceived her!

She ran to her horse, untied the bay and swung herself into the saddle. She heard Maria's footsteps behind her.

"Senorita," the Spanish woman said. "Alitha, wait."

Alitha, sitting side saddle, swung her quirt and the bay started down the hill She swung the quirt again and again wanting to ride as fast and as hard as she could The horse galloped across a field gold with poppies, leaped a ditch and plunged through a grove of trees, making for the Mendoza stables. She let the bay have his head, feeling the wind sting her face as she exulted in the thrill of a fast horse under her. The horse slowed and trotted into the stable area behind the adobe casa. A stable boy, an Indian no older than Chia, ran out to take the reins, and she slid to the ground, her exultation fading, replaced by despair. What a fool she'd been! She watched the boy lead the stallion to the barn, where he would unsaddle and brush him down. The Californios rode only stallions, Esteban had told her, or geldings. Never mares. A female of the species wasn't good enough for them.

Just as women themselves weren't good enough, Alitha thought as she dabbed at the tears in her eyes. She flicked the quirt against her riding dress, then stopped, remembering seeing Esteban flick his quirt in the same way. She didn't want to emulate him in anything.

She'd confront Esteban and make him tell her the truth. She had hardly been alone with him since the night on the beach. Every time she thought they would have a few moments together, Maria had appeared from out of nowhere.

Did Maria suspect there was something between them? Maria loved Esteban, despite her denials--loved her own brother-in-law, Alitha told herself. No wonder she's suspicious of me and tries to keep us apart.

But why blame Maria? If Esteban was engaged to marry Ines Gutierrez, it would be his doing, not Maria's. If. Could Maria have been lying to her? She had only to ask Esteban to find out, but knew she couldn't bear to face him. Not now. Not after he had humiliated her by offering to take her to Mexico when he was bound to another.

How she yearned to go with him! Even now she caught herself looking about her, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. For the hundredth time she remembered the thrill of his lips on hers, the feel of his hands and lips caressing her breasts, his bare flesh hard against hers.

Alitha felt herself reddening. How could she be so wanton, she wondered, the same question she had asked herself after they had lain together on the beach. Torn by doubts and second thoughts, she had been unable to sleep, finally watching from the window of her room as the sun rose over the ocean. What she had done was wrong, she told herself, for she was promised to another, to Thomas. Still, it had seemed so right at the time, so inevitable, so foreordained.

It must have been wrong, a sin. If she hadn't sinned, why was she being punished? And she was being punished—Ines Gutierrez was her punishment. What kind of woman was this mysterious Ines? Probably one of those docile butterflies with long fluttering eyelashes anxious to marry so she could bear a grateful husband thirteen children in the span of fifteen years.

Alitha paused in the kitchen doorway. She had to see Ines Gutierrez for herself, find out what she was like.

She had to do something, anything, to calm the fever raging in her blood, a fever every bit as virulent as the one she'd had when she first came to the rancho. All her thoughts turned to Esteban, were of Esteban. Nothing else mattered to her, only Esteban. She knew she was being wrong-headed, that her desires defied all reason, but there was nothing she could do to change the way she felt, nothing at all.

She returned to the stable and asked the Indian boy to resaddle the bay. As she rode from the rancho, she passed Maria.

"I'm going to the mission," Alitha told her, riding on before Maria could question her.

She rode through the village of Santa Barbara and past the mission and to the road leading east, her mind in a turmoil, torn between her anger at Esteban and her need for him. If she chanced to meet him now, she would fly from him, though at the same time she couldn't bear the idea of never seeing him again once he left for Mexico.

When, after more than an hour's ride, she saw Indians working in a nearby field, she stopped.

"Gutierrez?" she called to them.

The laborers stared at her and then one of them nodded and pointed along the road. She went on, at last coming to a low adobe casa where, accompanied by barking dogs, she rode into the courtyard. Roses bloomed on trellises, sweetening the air with their fragrance—the same shade of rose, she noted ruefully, that Esteban had given her. The Gutierrez house, only one story high, was much smaller than the Mendoza rancho.

An Indian boy took the reins, and Alitha dismounted just as a woman came from the house. She was about thirty, fair-skinned and dark-haired with a
reboso
over her shoulders. Surely this wasn't Ines Gutierrez—this woman was heavy with child.

"
Buenos dias
," Alitha said. "I'm Alitha Bradford, a guest at the Mendoza rancho," she added in halting Spanish. The woman smiled and nodded her head.

"Senora Josef a Gutierrez." The woman motioned Alitha to follow her inside.

"I was riding in the hills and lost my way," Alitha said in English, crossing her fingers behind her back as she had as a child when she told a white lie.

"
Si, si
," Josefa said. They walked down a long, cool corridor to a room opening onto an outdoor patio where children played on a tiled floor. Alitha counted four girls in all, guessing their ages as two, four, six and eight.

"You have beautiful children," Alitha said, admiring the girls' bright faces and laughing eyes.

"
Si, si
," Josefa said, still nodding and smiling. She spoke in Spanish to a gray-haired Indian woman, and in a few minutes a bowl of chili beans and a mug of steaming coffee were placed in front of Alitha.

"I'm really not hungry," Alitha said.

"
Si si,"
Josefa said, smiling happily.

Alitha began eating the beans while she wondered how she could tactfully ask about Ines. She glanced through the archways leading into the other rooms of the house, hoping to catch sight of Esteban's elusive
fiancée, but saw only an Indian servant girl carrying a basket of clothes on her hip. When she finished eating, Alitha smiled and stood up.

"
Gracias
," she said.

"
De nada. Mi casa es su casa
."

Still smiling, Alitha had started walking toward the corridor when she saw the oldest of the four girls standing in the doorway from the patio watching her. Though the girl's hair was black, her eyes were a startling blue.

"
Muy bonita
," she said to the girl's mother. "
Como se llama usted
? What is your name?" she asked the girl.

"Ines Gutierrez, senorita."

Ines! No, this couldn't be Esteban's intended, the girl was scarcely eight years old. Or was it possible? There was a scarcity of women and a lack of eligible mates in California; Maria had said so only a few hours before. Perhaps Spaniards thought of family first, the appropriateness of a union, and let love come later if at all.

"Ines and Don Esteban?" Alitha asked.

Josef a broke into a broad smile, nodding vigorously as she answered in voluble Spanish. Though Alitha couldn't understand all the other woman's words, Josefa's meaning was clear enough. Yes, Ines was the intended bride of Don Esteban Mendoza who, Josefa fervently believed, had no equal among the gentlemen of this or any other world.

Alitha walked quickly to Ines, leaned down and kissed the girl on the forehead. Ines smiled shyly and curtsied. Amid protestations of mutual regard in English and Spanish, Alitha retreated from the Gutierrez casa and mounted her horse for the journey back to Santa Barbara.