Bride of Thunder (31 page)

“I'd rather …” Mercy began.

Those cold eyes touched her. “Sweet Mercy, learn at once that your ‘rathers' have nothing to do with what happens. If you'd accepted me in Mérida, if I could have thought you cared for me, no doubt I'd have been softly indulgent so long as you pleased me.” His voice dropped to a purring. “You chose Falconer over me, preferred being a servant in his house rather than mistress in mine. I am obsessed with you, I will have you, but you've no power.”

The pupils of his eyes seemed to spread, darkening the strange quicksilver of the irises. “Write,” he commanded. “And since I don't know what you ordinarily called him, best dispense with a salutation. ‘
Eric Kensington has been kind enough to escort me to Belize, where he will pay for my passage to New Orleans in return for certain favors. This seems a small price to escape the wars and revolutions of this unhappy country. Thanking you for the courtesies you have shown me, I remain your appreciative but homesick Mercy.
'”

Mercy scratched off the last word. Eric came to look down at the page, then nodded with satisfaction. “Rather good, if I do say so. ‘Courtesies' could cover anything that passed between you. I'd enjoy trying to make him think you'd fallen in love with me, but this quiet, practical tone's more convincing, don't you think?”

When Mercy didn't answer, Eric tilted up her chin. “You will answer when I speak.”

“You may not like what you hear.”

He smiled. “If I don't, you'll like it less. Can the housekeeper read?”

“No.”

“But Jolie can.” He pondered a moment. “It should suffice to tell her you've found a way to go back to your own country. You may, if you wish, express your affection and say you'll miss her.”

Writing a few sentences, Mercy ended by asking Jolie to give Chepa her thanks for many kindnesses and to give her love and farewells to Mayel and Salvador. “
Please forgive me for going away like this,
” she ended, while Eric towered above her. “
I'll always love and remember you
.”

“Touching,” Eric said, taking the letters and folding them. “I'd believe it myself if I didn't know better. Now Thomas will take these back to your room and exchange them for the note you left when you thought you were going to your lover.”

Too despairing to respond to the jeer, Mercy stared at the candle. Eric gave the letters to the lithe black man, who went quickly out. Dropping to one knee, Eric brought Mercy around to face him.

“
Was
he your lover?”

“Yes!” With a wild surge of hope, Mercy raised her head and unflinchingly endured Eric's gaze. Perhaps he wouldn't want another man's mistress. “I was his, and I'm glad of it! I love him …”

“And you hate me,” Kensington finished, his eyes smoldering like white-hot ash. “That should make your training interesting.” They stared at each other, hunter and quarry. Eric's voice thickened. “Take off your clothes.”

Mercy didn't move. Her bones seemed to have melted; she was surprised she didn't collapse in a soft, formless mass. Eric set his hands on the high collar of her old gabardine dress and ripped it to the waist. As she raised her arms to shield herself, he gripped both wrists and held them behind her as he tore off her camisole.

Half-fainting, she moaned and struggled as his fingers cupped her breasts, then toyed with her nipples. His teeth nipped her from breasts to belly. He tossed her garments aside, put her down on a couch of blankets spread on fragrant leaves in the corner, wrenched off his own clothing, and held her arms above her head while he thrust and battered his way into her tightly constricting body.

Deep within her, he moved back and forth on his knees astride her, his free hand stroking her as if claiming, branding.

“Narrow as a virgin,” he said. “At least it'd seem you've had no one since Falconer chose to play the noble ass and go join Peraza. Open your eyes.”

She kept them closed, turning her head as far as she could to one side. Eric's grasp closed over the bottom part of her face, bringing it around. “Look. I want you to see me on top of you, to get it through your skull that I'm your master.”

When she still defied him, he lowered himself and rammed savagely in and out. Each thrust of his swollen, pulsing hardness made her want to scream with pain. Would he tear her apart? As suddenly as it had begun, the staccato lunging smoothed into lazy, almost contemplative, strokes.

“Look at me,” he whispered.

She couldn't bear another onslaught without crumbling. She opened her eyes and slowly met his. He was bronzed to the waist, as if he was often without a shirt, and the crisp, curling hair on his chest was even brighter than that on his head.

“Feel me inside you,” he told her. “You must want me. You must be ready to receive me.”

As if he derived great excitement from her upturned gaze, he increased his tempo till he paused with a violent shuddering. Her bruised vitals felt the pumping flow drain rigidity from that part of him that had driven into her so cruelly.

And all the time he simply watched her.

Mercy awoke in a hammock, not remembering where she was till the aching between her thighs brought back in a stabbing rush all that had happened. Gray light showed that the hut was empty.

Sitting up in a rush, a trapped creature discovering its tormentor was at least momentarily gone, Mercy gnawed her lip as she stood, wincing, and gripped the blanket closer as she saw her torn clothes crumpled by the bench.

The wan light was choked off as Eric filled the doorway. “There's a dress for you on that peg in the corner. I picked it from the things Thomas brought. It would seem odd for you to leave your belongings, so I had him bring your clothes and personal items. Your hairbrush is on the stump. If you need anything else, we'll dig it out of the packs tonight.”

Bending to avoid the ceiling, he reached her in one long step and kissed her deeply, as if he drew from her some rich, subtle nourishment. He put his hands on her beneath the blanket and caressed her till she trembled in dread and shame.

“What, my dear, so eager?” he mocked, raising his lips slightly from hers, “Control yourself. When we rest at noon, you may show me what you enjoy. I'm certain I can introduce you to some new pleasures.” He pressed the heel of his hand hard against her stomach. “Inside you feel like wet, warm velvet. I can scarcely wait to be there again, but I'm also eager to get you home, where we can have a proper bed.”

Taking the blanket from her protesting hands, he sucked in his breath as he looked at her.

“It seems I can't wait.”

He forced her to the fallen blanket.

Mounted on a glossy black little mare, Mercy had to crouch against its mane most of the time to keep from being caught by vines and low branches. Eric, ahead of her, led his big bay thoroughbred, which he told her he'd gone to Kentucky to examine and buy.

“I'm particular about what carries me,” he'd said as he lifted her into her saddle. “It takes stamina to bear my weight and pace. Add to that my being hard to please and you might see why I think no journey's too long or price too high for what I've determined suits me.”

Mercy couldn't answer and was thankful when he moved ahead to take the reins of his horse. Excruciatingly sore and nauseated, she'd forced down the hot tea Eric insisted she have and had eaten a bite or two of sweet bread. Eric had tried that morning to woo her a bit, but he quickly lost patience with her rigid body and took her swiftly.

“At the House of Quetzals, there'll be baths, lotions—all the luxuries that make loving an art,” he'd said while she was dressing. “By the time we get there, you should appreciate them.”

She longed to say that nothing would make her welcome his passion, but she was fast learning that angering him was a costly gesture. If she was to preserve her sanity and health for the time that must surely come when she could escape, she'd do well to spare herself.

Thomas walked ahead of Eric, clearly on alert. The other men followed behind Mercy. They kept to a narrow jungle track that finally came out on what Mercy judged to be the road to Tekax.

How wonderful it would be if Zane and his score of armed men came trooping along it! But he was probably in the north helping his old commander plan the capture of often-besieged Mérida. Mercy sighed. When he read her letter, and that might not be for months, would he hate and despise her? Or would his heart make some excuse for her and leave him sad?

Eric looked back at her with that uncanny way he had of seeming to guess her thoughts. “Peraza's massing men for a push on Mérida,” he said. “But the men who remember Carlota, danced with her, and received decorations will fight for the empire with more conviction than usual in Yucatán's purely political joustings. Until the War of the Castes, when butchery became the rule, political prisoners were seldom shot, but there'll be executions after this revolution, whichever side wins.” He chuckled while Mercy tried to keep all expression from her face, hiding the fear for Zane that her captor's mocking words stirred in her. “How would you choose, Mercy,
mia?
For Falconer to return and read your message, or that he have a heroic death sweetened by the memory of you?”

Her scorn must have shown clearly on her face.

“Actually,” Eric said, shrugging, “if he dies, it'll probably be from dysentery or yellow fever. I can't imagine why, having soldiered as a pup and knowing the danger of it, he let himself be urged away from you and that plantation he takes such pains in running. Lucky for him he's rich enough to be considered eccentric, or he wouldn't be received in society.”

Mercy couldn't restrain an incredulous laugh. “Society he mixes with a few days a year after a hundred-mile journey?”

“In your eyes, of course, he's far too superior to mind what people say.” Eric made a deprecatory flourish with a hand surprisingly graceful and well shaped for such a big man. “But when he wishes to marry again, my dear, the opinions of the
mamas
and
dueñas
of Mérida will have paramount importance if he wants one of their daughters. For all he's the son of a pirate, Falconer knows that.”

“He was going to marry me!” Mercy couldn't keep from crying.

“Ah,” mused Eric in a tone of sympathy. “Is that how he breached you?”

“It wasn't like that!”

“No? It's curious, then, if his intentions were so lofty, that he went off to war without going through the ceremony. What if you had a child, especially should the father be killed?”

Mercy disdained to tell Eric that she and Zane had come together only after, and because of, his decision to join Peraza.

“Especially if Zane dies, I should want his baby,” she retorted.

Eric stopped in his tracks and faced swiftly around. “Are you in that condition?”

Strange that she hadn't even thought of that before. It
was
possible, but after last night she didn't think any beginning life could have survived. “I don't know,” she said, pleased to goad him.

He turned and strode onward. “I wouldn't mind getting a child from you, though naturally I won't marry another man's mistress. If you give birth, we'll have to check dates to see whether to keep it or give it to a wet nurse.”

“I'll keep any baby I have!”

“Get it first and then we'll argue,” he advised.

They went on and on till the aching where he'd used her merged with saddle weariness and a drumming headache. When they stopped at noon, she was so plainly ill that Eric swore, slung a hammock for her between two breadfruit trees, and gave her a mug of tea before he had any himself.

“Once we're into British territory, I don't care how indolent you are,” he said. “But I pray to heaven that you don't prove to be a delicate wench!”

“I suppose you could always feed me to the crocodiles.”

His eyes narrowed. “I should get a doctor and see that you did what he advised,” he said grimly. “Don't try to play fragile with me, Mercy, for if I find you're shamming, I'll take it out of your lovely hide.”

He set Thomas to making broth from doves one of the men had shot and compelled Mercy to sip that and eat an orange before he let her sleep.

14

It would be six days till they reached the Rio Hondo, a calm jungle river dividing Yucatán from Belize and Guatemala and which would put them within miles of Eric's plantation. They swung south before reaching Tekax or Peto and took a wide detour around Chan Santa Cruz, the holy city where the Talking Cross gave orders through the
tatich
.

“He's a mestizo, Bonifacio Novelo,” explained Eric. “And though Yucatán is constantly protesting, the British have little choice but to treat the Cruzob as a
de facto
nation. Besides, what are these squabbles and wranglings to us? We don't care whether those with wood to sell or money to buy our guns are
ladinos,
mestizos, Indians, or Creoles.”

“They aren't English,” summed up Mercy caustically.

“How well you put it,” said Eric. “But whatever your opinion of British condescension, the population of Belize is tremendously varied and free-shifting, with color no barrier to marriage and position. Whites are only a small fraction, far outnumbered by Negroes, mulattos, and Carib Indians who revolted against their French masters and fled here, close to five hundred Amoy coolies who were brought here last June to work in lumbering, some sepoys deported from India after their rebellion failed, and even some Confederates like your late husband.

“Then there are perhaps ten thousand refugees from the War of the Castes, some
ladinos,
some Cruzob, with every range in between. Most of them live in the Corozal region, which has been raided frequently during the last few years by Cruzob and Icaiche Mayas. The Icaiches are supposed to help fight the Cruzob, but they'd rather plunder across the Hondo.”