Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (27 page)

      
“I trust your word, Aaron. But you must realize the very reasons necessitating the marriage also call for your appearance with your wife here in the settlement before you make a return visit to your old home among the Taino,” Cristobal said gravely.

      
Aaron's smile broadened but still did not reach his eyes. “So, in but a week, Magdalena has managed to wreak as much havoc among the men of Ysabel as she did the men of Seville.”

      
“She is headstrong, beautiful and, yes,” Cristobal agreed, grudgingly, “prone to accidents.”

      
“Such as?” Aaron prompted.

      
“She wished to help Dr. Chanca at the hospital and while crossing the plaza was set upon by two drunken soldiers,” Bartolome interposed. “It was no fault of the lady's.”

      
Aaron threw back his head and laughed mirthlessly. “When first I met her, two worthless pups from the marshlands of the Guadalquiver were attacking her. I was forced to kill them,” he added grimly. “Mayhap I should have let them have her!”

      
“I understand she gave good account of herself with her dagger before Bartolome, here, came charging to her rescue,” Cristobal said, recalling the bedraggled but fiery girl and the two cowering, blood-spattered men still languishing in the settlement's jail. A faint smile crossed his face in spite of himself. His intuition, always strong when he was sailing, now seemed especially positive here on land. The match between these two was right.

* * * *

      
Fray Ramon Pane, of the Jeronymite Order, was a simple, scholarly man, fascinated by Indian culture and, perhaps because of his empathy with them, a failure at the task of converting the Tainos from their
zemis
to the Christian God. He was conveniently at hand to perform the marriage between Aaron and Magdalena, which the nervous little priest immediately sensed was in accord with the admiral's wishes, not the participants'. Only Cristobal and Bartolome Colon were present for the brief ceremony. The ink was scarce dry on the contracts when he was dismissed. Puzzled, he departed the governor's residence to resume his studies of primitive religious and social customs among Ysabel's Taino residents.

      
The admiral gave the pale-faced bride a fatherly salute on the forehead and then bade her return to her room while he spoke for a moment with her grim-faced new husband.

      
Magdalena looked at Aaron, so forbidding and formal, as if a stranger had taken his place inside the much beloved, laughing golden man she had so long loved.
He hates me and yet I love him.
She forced a tremulous smile for the Admiral and Bartolome, then quit the hall to await her new husband's pleasure in her lonely room.

      
Once inside the door, she crumpled against its massive wooden surface for support, willing herself not to cry. “You have made your bargain,” she whispered to herself, “now you must live with it.” But would Aaron Torres live with her? Or would he turn his back on her and flee to the interior as others, such as Francisco Roldan, had done? As she dwelled on the dismal choices, Magdalena was torn, not wanting to live out a travesty of a marriage with a man who held her in contempt, yet desperate to hold on to him. “I must be his wife in deed or my father can yet wall me up in a convent,” she rationalized. Her heart cried out,
You would have him truly love you. Naught else matters.

      
She walked over to the much-battered leather trunk that had crossed the wide Atlantic with her. Kneeling on the rough stone floor, heedless of her lovely pale-gold gown, she opened it and dug among the meager treasures she had been able to smuggle from Castile. Her hands lingered on a volume of Latin poetry, a beloved gift from Benjamin, then ran quickly through a pile of silk and brocade cloaks and gowns, linen under-tunics and lace hair coverings. She dug deeply to the bottom of the chest and extracted a carefully rolled and sealed document. Written in Benjamin's own hand, it attested to her innocence, innocence she had given so foolishly and wantonly to his son. This could prove to Aaron that she was not like her mother. He had believed from the first that she was cheap and tainted. Here lay proof of his misjudgment.

      
Turning it over in her hands, Magdalena pondered what to do. He had refused to believe how she had come by the signet ring. He had even accused her of witchery in deceiving his father. Well might a man as proud and stubborn as Aaron Torres throw this back at her and accuse her again of deceiving Benjamin into writing it. Yet longing so desperately as she did to win his love and trust, Magdalena knew she had to try to convince him that she belonged to him and no other. Nor in truth could she ever consider letting another man touch her as he had.

      
Shuddering, she remembered King Fernando’s loathsome hands, roughly pawing her, his voice chuckling and coaxing when she pleaded with him to dismiss her. Even earnest suitors such as Diego Colon, men who offered marriage, had been unthinkable alternatives to her. “I will have Aaron or I will have none, damn him!” She stood up and carried the document to the small table near the window to await her husband.

      
Magdalena heard the door latch lift with a slight creak in the damp evening air. Aaron stepped inside the room without the courtesy of a knock or a word of greeting. He inspected his new bride of scarce an hour, noting the lovely gown of gold tissue and her hair, that curling red-black mass, the color of sweet dark cherries in the Andalusian spring. That world was lost forever to him, yet here stood its embodiment, all the witching soft allure, the corruption of it. He tried to fix on his hatred of her father, her family name, everything he had vowed to destroy. Still he desired her. And damned her for it.

      
“Gather what you would have the servants take to our new home. The admiral's
adelantado
, Bartolome, has graciously given us his house—and a private feast to celebrate the consummation of our marriage. It would seem appearances are all. We are to make peace among your squabbling suitors by acting the loving bridal couple on the morrow. Do you think we can manage, lady?” He stood by the door, across the room from her.

      
“Twill serve naught if you are afraid to come near me, Aaron,” she whispered, trying to break through the invisible barriers separating them. Her words were spoken lightly, yet she quailed inside.

      
“You are single-minded, Magdalena. I will give you my admiration for that. You have pursued me since that encounter on the marshes—nay, even before that, at the royal court when we were both but children. Why? Why me?” he asked as he strode across the room and stood facing her, smelling her sweet orange-blossom perfume. “Once my family was wealthy and powerful, but now...” His voice trailed off in perplexity.

      
“Perhaps it is quite simple, Aaron,” Magdalena said, her voice ragged and breathy. She raised one small hand and placed it on his doublet, working up her courage to speak.

      
The words died in her throat when he said, “Your pursuit of me is as bold and unnatural as Aliyah's. At least she had the customs of her people as an excuse.”

      
“Your mistress, so beloved that you became a naked savage for her?” Magdalena asked, stung bitterly. Every sailor had women in primitive lands far from home. There was no reason to expect Aaron to be different from other men, yet some self-punishing instinct forced her to continue her questioning. “You say I am an unnatural woman like her. What virtue does she possess that I do not, since you seem to prefer her? Is she beautiful?”

      
He could sense her jealousy, and his own anger at her scheming and manipulation of his life led him to smile coldly and say, “In her way, Aliyah is as beautiful as you, although at present she is not so lithesome, being great with child.”

      
Magdalena felt her blood freeze. “She carries your child?”

      
He shrugged in feigned indifference. “I will not know for certain until it is born. She took two Taino lovers while I was away.”

      
Rage began to thaw her frozen blood, now pounding hotly through her veins. “You still live with a woman who betrayed you while you were away—who carries a child and you know not if it is even yours?” she cried furiously.

      
“You, Magdalena, are a poor one to disparage Aliyah. Her people do not value chastity in women as do ours.” He saw her hands curl into claws and imprisoned both slim wrists just as she would have raised them to his face. “You do not like reminders of whom you were spawned by, do you?”

      
She struggled against his hold on her and cursed him as she had heard stable boys do to mules and oxen in the streets of Seville.

      
He took her wrists and wrenched them behind her back, gripping them with one hand while he pulled her tightly against his body and held her fast. “Perhaps that is the answer to my riddle. Were you so disgraced at court with your whoring that no nobleman of worth would take you? Did you deceive Bartolome as a means to escape some diseased old lecher?”

      
“Any man—diseased, old, ugly as a toad, smelly as a goat—any man would be less repellent than you,” she shrieked, kicking at him with her soft brocade slippers and struggling mightily not to betray herself with tears. Tears! He was worth not a one. “I will kill you and be widowed. That will satisfy the admiral's accursed propriety!”

      
“I think not. I am still fond of my life, although this past year causes me to wonder upon the reason.”

      
“Then send me back to Seville—I will go gladly to the convent!”

      
He scoffed. “That fairy tale again. Leave off your tales of woe. I am not Bartolome, nor that conceited stripling Diego.”

      
She ceased her struggles. “You do not believe the queen banished me?” she asked in amazement. “The utter density of a man forced to do something against his will is staggering. I had always believed you passing bright. I would not lie, Aaron. Only send me back to court. Queen Ysabel will relieve you of any further burden!”

      
“Now you finally realize that I will not be ruled by guile and you cry off. It is too late to repent of your bargain, Magdalena. The admiral would never allow you to sail and you have lost all other opportunities by remaining here to ensnare me. Well,” he gritted out, “if I am saddled with a wife, I will act the husband.”

      
With that he swooped down and kissed her, holding her in a bone-breaking grip as he savaged her mouth.

* * * *

Marseilles, France, Summer 1494

      
Isaac Torres sat behind the huge slab of polished walnut that served him as desk and table, oblivious of the lavish appointments of the vast room. He crumpled the letter, grinding the waxed seal upon it to powder. The seal had borne the crest of Los Reyes Católicos, as they were now .designated. With a furious oath he threw the letter against a heavy tapestry hanging on the far wall, rose from his seat, and began to pace the room.

      
Just then Ruth entered, carrying Olivia, Ana's small daughter, whom they had paid a fortune to have smuggled from Seville while her father Lorenzo was at court. The child's curly golden hair was tousled and she looked wide-eyed with wonder to see her beloved Great Uncle Isaac in such an angry humor. Ruth turned and handed Olivia to a servant, shushing the child with a gentle kiss and a promise of sweets later. Then she closed the door and turned to her husband. “What distresses you so? Have we word of Mateo's son? Our agent in Barcelona has not reported in many weeks,” she said worriedly.

      
Isaac sat down in one of two large chairs positioned on either side of a small brass table in one corner of the room. He motioned for her to come join him, and she did so, sinking into the chair opposite him as he spoke.

      
“We have no word, good or ill, of my brother's grandson, but this—this perfidy!” He glared at the crumpled letter on the floor, his blue eyes glowing with rage and calculation. “I must find a way to put that Trastamara bastard's greed to my use.”

      
“It is from the King of Aragon?” Ruth asked, her face turning waxen. “Can he harm us here? I thought we were safe.”

      
He reached out and patted her hand. “We are as safe as Jews ever are. No, as long as we have wealth enough, we will be undisturbed in King Charles's turbulent land. He and our previous sovereign are always at each other's throats.”

      
“Then why does King Fernando send to you?” Her voice was still weak with fear.

      
Isaac stood up and once more began to pace, smashing a meaty fist into his other palm. “He wishes his just share of my brother's estates! It seems the Holy Office and its minions have been cheating him. King Fernando would have fair accounting,” he said with steely sarcasm.

      
Ruth's hand stole to her throat, where she was certain her heart had leaped. “How can he do such a monstrous thing?”

      
“Ha!” Isaac sneered at the crumbled wax lying on his desk. “I have heard from several of our friends who fled, some in Naples, others here in France. The Trastamara is upset with Torquemada's instrument of death—it cheats him of his share of the wealth! But,” he added, running his stubby strong fingers through his hair, “this can work for us. I can tell him where every maravedi Benjamin owned was laid—for a price.”

      
He looked at Ruth. “You have worried overmuch about Aaron, so far off in the Indies with the Genoese. I—I did not tell you, but I received a letter from him through my agents a month past. I wished not to disturb you. He is well,” Isaac added quickly when she paled, “but he plans to gather wealth enough in the Indies to return and kill Bernardo Valdés.”