Bride of the Baja (19 page)

So her rival was an eight-year-old, she thought as she rode into the setting sun. All at once Alitha smiled. Of course, she told herself, she should have realized the truth of the matter before this. The reason Esteban had not mentioned marriage, had not already married her here in Santa Barbara, was because of his friendship with the Gutierrez family. Esteban would wait until he and Alitha were in Mexico before he told Don Gutierrez he wouldn't marry Ines. Time and distance would soften the blow to the Gutierrez pride.

How could she have thought even for a moment that Esteban might feel bound to a wedding contract with an eight-year-old when he loved her, Alitha? And he did love her, Alitha assured herself, for he had told her so time and again.

She herself was at fault for even considering the possibility of Esteban wanting to take her to Mexico as his—she winced at the word—mistress. That was impossible no matter how much she loved and wanted him. Not only was it wrong—and it was—but she would be foolish to commit herself to any man with no assurance about the future. How little Esteban understood her! He had tried to shield her from all knowledge of Ines so that she, Alitha, wouldn't be hurt. Smiling, she closed her eyes, picturing a great cathedral, hearing the organ music swelling with the first bars of the wedding march, seeing herself gowned in radiant white.

Alitha shook her head impatiently, opening her eyes. She must clear up the confusion. She would tell Esteban she knew of Ines and that he no longer had to hide his agreement to marry the girl. And then Esteban would be free to ask her to marry him and to tell her the future he envisioned for them both.

Looking around herself, she realized that the sun had set and shadows were gathering darkly under the trees along the road. From ahead of her she heard the bells of the Santa Barbara Mission. How wildly they rang! The tolling went on and on, almost without pause, and Alitha urged her horse on, anxious to discover the reason.

When she reached Santa Barbara, she found the village astir, with men riding frantically to and fro and heavily laden carts rumbling along the roads leading to the beach. Looking out to sea, Alitha spied a ship riding at anchor. She couldn't believe that all this hubbub had been caused by the arrival in the harbor of one merchant ship.

As she passed the mission, she saw a large group of Indians marching in front of the church, then disappearing behind it only to reappear on the other side. Talk of traveling in circles, she thought. Puzzled, Alitha urged her horse on to the Mendoza Rancho, leaving the lathered bay with the stable boy.

Just as she entered the main courtyard, Don Esteban rode up from the direction of the village and dismounted beside her. "Alitha." Despite his frown, she saw his eyes glinting with excitement. "Where have you been?"

"I went for a ride." Though she felt guilty about her clandestine trip, she thought of adding, "To the Gutierrez rancho to visit your fiancé," but didn't. "What's happening?" she asked.

"That's Bouchard's ship you see anchored offshore," Esteban told her. "They're renegades who have come here, they say, for provisions. I signed an agreement to provide them foodstuffs in exchange for any prisoners they captured in California. I think at first they intended to raid Santa Barbara, but we've been marching the Indians around and around the mission until Bouchard must think we have a full-sized army here."

"Did they tell you who these prisoners were?"

"No, I met with them only an hour ago and they refused to say. We'll soon know." He raised her chin with his forefinger and kissed her, a quick promise of a kiss, his lips meeting hers so swiftly she didn't have a chance to draw away. Nor the will, she admitted to herself.

Esteban ate hurriedly and rode off. After she had eaten her own dinner, Alitha went to her room. From the window she saw lights coming and going along the road and heard men calling to one another. Hoofbeats pounded in the courtyard as messengers arrived and departed. At long last Esteban returned, and still later—it must have been nearing midnight—she saw a procession of torches advancing up the hill from the beach and, when the flaming pine brands drew closer, she made out riders escorting a closed carriage.

The horsemen galloped into the Mendoza courtyard, where their neighing horses milled around the carriage. Alitha ran from her room onto the gallery and looked down from the railing just as the door to the carriage swung open and a man stepped out.

She gasped when she saw his black hair and short black beard. Jordan Quinn, captain of the
Kerry Dancer
! She couldn't be mistaken, she knew, though she had seen him but once before.

The men who quickly surrounded Jordan looked about uncertainly until Esteban strode from the house. Taking Jordan by the arm, he led him beneath the gallery. A few moments later the two men reappeared at the top of the stairs, turning away from Alitha without seeing her and entering one of the
salas
. The other men stayed below in the courtyard.

Where was Margarita, Alitha wondered as she made her way cautiously along the gallery until she was beside the sala's curtained entrance. Had Jordan been a prisoner of the pirates? She leaned forward, listening

"… should speak in English," she heard Esteban telling Jordan. 'This house has a thousand ears." There was a long pause. Alitha held her breath.

"You wished to speak to me alone." Esteban's voice was like ice. "Now we are alone. Where is Margarita?"

"Your sister is dead." Alitha could read no emotion in Captain Quinn's voice. "Despite all I could do, she killed herself aboard Bouchard's ship."

To Alitha the silence seemed to stretch interminably.

"You have killed my only sister," Esteban said at last, "a woman I loved with all my heart. Not only is she dead, her suicide denies her a Christian burial. She is doomed to burn in hell for all eternity. I will never see Margarita again in this life or in the life beyond the grave."

"I did all I could," Jordan insisted.

Alitha heard a sliding sound as of a drawer opening.

"I must challenge you to a duel to the death," Esteban said.

How melodramatic he sounded, Alitha thought, yet she knew he meant every word.

"I won't fight a duel with you," Jordan told him. "If you must kill me, kill me, but I won't fight you. I know you loved Margarita, but by God, I loved her too and I mean to avenge her death."

"You may have loved her in your way," Esteban admitted. "However, I have no choice; honor demands I kill you. If you refuse to meet me on the field of honor, then I must kill you here."

Alitha heard the click of a pistol being cocked. She pushed aside the curtains to see Esteban standing behind his desk, a pistol in his hand, with Jordan facing him from five feet away. The two men stared at her in surprise.

She ran to Jordan and flung herself in front of him. "No," she cried to Esteban, "don't kill him. You mustn't."

"Stand aside," Esteban told her. "This is between Capitan Quinn and myself. It does not concern you."

"There's no reason for you to kill him. If you do, his blood will be on your hands for the rest of your life."

"You told me you did not know Capitan Quinn," Esteban said, "and yet you plead for his life. Did you lie to me?"

"No, no, he means nothing to me." She took a step toward Esteban. "I'm trying to stop you because I love you. Don't you know that by now? All I ask is that you spare him. For me. Not for his sake, for mine."

"You ask a great deal, my Alitha," Esteban said.

She put her hand on his arm and gazed entreatingly into his eyes. "I've never asked you for anything before," she said, "and if you spare him I never will again."

Esteban lowered the pistol and turned to Jordan. "If I ever see you again," he told him. "
No power on earth will be able to save you."

Jordan wheeled about without a word. From the doorway he glanced at Alitha. His eyes met and held hers for an instant, but she could not read his look.

When he heard Jordan's retreating footsteps on
the gallery, Esteban returned the pistol to the desk drawer, He took Alitha in his arms, and she felt all the passion of the anger raging in him as he kissed her, his mouth hard on hers, his tongue seeking and finding a its way between her lips.

As she surrendered herself to his kiss, she could think of nothing except Esteban, his arms gripping her and holding her to him, his body against hers from her thighs to her breasts. When his lips left hers and she felt his hands come up along her sides, she broke away and walked to the window, trying to quell the wild beating of her heart.

"Is something the matter, my Alitha?" he asked.

She looked from the window at a row of orange trees. Their blooms were gone, replaced by small green oranges. In time the fruit would ripen and become sweet, but now it was still hard and bitter.

"I know about Ines Gutierrez, Alitha said without looking at him.

"Who told you of Ines?"

"Maria. She said you intend to marry her when Ines is old enough."

"Ines Guierrez has never been a secret." She could picture Esteban's shrug. "She does not concern us, my Alitha. Ines is only a child."

"A child, yes, but one you've agreed to marry." Alitha swung about, her eyes flashing. "You do intend to marry her, don't you?" she asked.

Esteban gazed into her eye
and she saw his mouth tighten. As I said, she does not concern us."

"In Boston," Alitha told him, "it's not customary for a man who's engaged to be married to ask another woman to accompany him on a journey."

"Your Boston is a strange city with strange customs. Someday I plan to visit this New England of yours to find out for myself if all the tales I hear of it can possibly be true."

"In Boston—" she began.

"Damn Boston." His anger silenced her.

Alitha stared at him, for an instant half-expecting him to stride to her, sweep her into his arms and bear her away with him. She was alarmed, but even as she stepped back, she longed to feel his arms around her. A muscle twitched in Esteban's jaw, and then he seemed to make an effort to control his rage.

"To me," he said more quietly, "this matter is so simple. I do not see why you wish to make it so complicated. I love you with all my heart. You say you love me—"

"I do love you, Esteban," she protested.

"So, you love me. I must go to Mexico. We have a chance to be with one another there for many months, to love one another, to be as one. Life is short, my Alitha, shorter here in California than in your New England. I have lived the greater part of my life already. Who knows what the future holds for me or for you? Only today I discovered that my sister, my beloved Margarita, was dead. She was so young. My mother and father are dead, as is my brother. We Mendozas live life to the full, and we suffer for it. We die young."

"Í couldn't bear it if anything happened to you, Esteban." Alitha crossed the room and put her hand on his sleeve, her fingers caressing his flesh through the cloth. He enfolded her in his arms, holding her gently, his cheek to hers, and as he talked, she felt his breath stirring her hair.

"We have been given one of the rarest gifts God in heaven has the power to bestow," he said, "and you talk of hurling it aside because of some puritan custom in this Boston of yours. If you truly love me, Alitha, you will ride with me to Mexico, where I will be your champion, your protector, your lover. I will garland you with roses. I will kill any man who dares to lift his eyes to gaze on you with desire. What more could any woman want from a man?"

She was tempted to say, "Nothing," but she could not because there was more a woman could want. She wanted more. She held Esteban at arm's length. "And still you can say you intend to marry Ines Gutierrez."

He swung away from her and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. "Ines Gutierrez, Ines Gutierrez. I never want to hear her name from your lips again. Never." He turned suddenly, grasping her arms even as she tried to draw back. "A few minutes ago," he said, "when you were pleading for the life of Capitan Quinn, you said you had never asked me for anything before and would never ask me for anything again. Already you are breaking your pledge."

"That's not true!" she cried.

She tore herself from his grasp and ran along the gallery to her room, where she threw herself on her bed, tears welling in her eyes. Hearing footsteps on the gallery, she looked to the doorway, half-expecting to find Esteban there. Her door, though, remained closed. Through the open window se heard his steps descending to the stairs to the courtyard.
Alitha pounded the pillow with her fist, hating him. Then she drew in her breath and clasped the pillow to her, wondering how she could feel such hate for the man she loved.

                                                                      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A week later Alitha was tossing restlessly on her bed when she heard the strumming of a guitar and a man's voice singing. The music was slow, funereal, almost a dirge. She put on her slippers, drew a shawl around her shoulders and went onto the balcony. The music seemed to come from a nearby orchard. She had never heard such a sad song. All the cruelty and misery of the world seemed to be echoed by the singer's voice.