Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (7 page)

* * * *

      
“I tell you, Benjamin, I like it not. The Valdés family is hand-in-glove with the Inquisitors,” Serafina said as she wrung her pale hands in agitation.

      
Benjamin put his arm about her as they walked toward the gateway to their friends' home. They were dining with the Ruiz family, New Christians like themselves.
      
“Magdalena is nothing like her father—or her mother. Ah, yes,” he said with a twinkle, “I have heard court gossip about Dona Estrella, which I am certain has filtered back to Seville. The girl is winsome and bright. She has grown up ignored by her parents, raised by servants and tutors. She is lonely, Serafina.”

      
“All the more reason to beware. If she attaches herself more closely to our household, she might inadvertently let slip some bit of information to her father's Dominican friends. You know how little it takes to convict a
converso
of judaizing.”

      
“Pah! We go to mass regularly and abstain from eating meat on Fridays. What more is asked of us? You are only upset because the expulsion date draws near and our son sails with the Genoese.”

      
“At least Aaron will be safe—oh, I must call him Diego, not Aaron! You see, even our names betray us. I fear even the walls have ears, and the daughter of a Crossbearer...” Serafina ran her hands over her silvered hair, smoothing it into her stiffly embroidered headdress. “When will this end, Benjamin? When?”

      
Across the city Aaron Torres reined in his mount at the Torres palace, letting the warm, golden sunlight and sweetly burbling fountain in the courtyard welcome him. “Soon I will be far away at sea. I will miss this place,” he murmured to Andaluz, forcing himself not to think of how much he would miss his parents and Ana and her baby daughter. Bidding farewell to Isaac and Ruth had nearly broken his heart.

      
A deep bitterness welled up inside him as he recalled the final leave-taking on that bleak mountain road high in the Pyrenees. At least his aunt and uncle were safe, along with much of their hard-earned gold. Yet tens of thousands of other Jews would not be so fortunate. In mid-July, with only weeks before the final expulsion deadline, they clogged the roads in a stream of human misery that stretched from the high plateaus of Castile to the rocky promontories of Catalonia. Aaron had seen merchants and bankers, physicians and skilled tradesmen, all forced to sell priceless family heirlooms, thousands of acres of land, magnificent palaces, and blooded livestock for a pittance.

      
In Lerida he had seen a wool merchant sell his warehouse for less than a thousand maravedis, which Aaron knew, would barely pay his way from Barcelona to Naples in a leaky, worm-eaten trading vessel. The fortunate ones were highly placed politically, men who had planned ahead pragmatically. Few Jews had believed the monarchs would expel them from their ancient home and now the majority of the doubters were paying a bitter price.

      
The noonday heat was drugging as he dismounted. A groom took Andaluz and headed toward the stables to give the splendid beast a thorough rubdown. A wide grin suddenly slashed Aaron's face as he entered the shade of the spacious courtyard. Mama always had a fit when he had done it as a boy, but now—how could he resist the fountain? He had ridden the length of Aragon and Castile far south into Andalusia, spending weeks in the saddle. Dust coated his sweat-soaked skin beneath layers of clothing. Aaron unbuckled his sword belt and let it fall with a clatter, then tossed his cape atop it and began to peel his tunic over broad muscular shoulders. He knelt beside the fountain and then plunged his head beneath the cool, sparkling water.

      
Magdalena stood rooted on the porch watching in rapt fascination as Diego appeared at the opposite end of the courtyard, striding purposefully toward the central fountain. Her eyes widened in amazement as he stripped to the waist and dunked himself in the water. Entranced, she drew nearer, her silk skirts rustling softly as she approached.

      
Years of survival on the battlefield had honed Aaron's instincts. He stood up and turned with blurring speed to confront the silent intruder, shaking long shaggy golden hair from his eyes. “Who—you are the Valdés girl! What by all the saints has brought you to my home?” His scowl was as fierce as if he faced a Moorish soldier instead of a mere slip of a girl.

      
As he turned toward her, Magdalena watched the water that darkened his hair fly in a spray about his head and her eyes followed the path of the glistening droplets as they rolled over the muscles of his chest and arms. She could smell the faint aroma of male musk and horse that still clung to him. He had journeyed a great distance. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth and her hand mutely reached out to touch one lightly furred forearm. He was splendid and golden...and almost naked! Her glance swept from his broad chest to his skin-tight woolen hose and soft leather boots, then back up his long legs to fasten on a reddish scar that cut across his side and vanished beneath the waist of his hose.
 

      
“That scar is new,” she blurted out, then gasped at her stupidity.

      
“Yes, it is, but since we met only once last year on the Seville road, how can you know that?” His eyes narrowed speculatively on her pink-tinged cheeks and wide green eyes. The bedraggled waif of Bernardo Valdés had grown into a lush little beauty. Then he realized how she knew about the new scar! “It would seem I was bathing off trail dust both times we met.” He answered his own question and was rewarded by her guilty expression and a step backward. He took a step forward to see if she would retreat again.

      
She did, clutching a volume from his father's library in her hand like a shield. His smile became predatory. “Have you become mute since last year? If an attack by two brigands could not daunt you, little she-cat, surely seeing me only half naked can strike no terror...or can it?”

      
“I am not afraid, merely surprised to see you returned home after so long an absence,” she said resolutely. “Benjamin has been worried for you.” Magdalena stood her ground, letting him run one long-fingered hand up the tightly fitted sleeve of her pale green silk gown. The warmth of his touch was like the Andalusian sun. She fought the urge to move closer to him.

      
“Benjamin, it is now? How come you to know my father? And to have leave to walk through our home and use our library?”

      
“If you stayed home more, you would know,” she snapped as he snatched the book from her nerveless fingers.

      
His brows arched. “Ovid's love poetry. You can read Latin?” Frank incredulity was etched across his handsome face.

      
“Yes, I can read Latin,” she replied, trying to be haughty about her erudite accomplishments while battling her mortification at being caught with such erotic reading material. Should she have denied the truth and said the book was for her mother or married sister?

      
He opened the volume and flipped through the pages, pausing over a few fondly remembered passages. “So, a lover of poetry who spies on men in their baths.” His eyes were merry but assessing.

      
“If you bathed in more private places, I might not have encountered you. Is it your usual habit to pull off your clothes at every stream and fountain in Andalusia?” She felt the cool stones of the wall against her back as he pressed his advantage, stalking her, book in hand.

      
Aaron surprised her by throwing back his head and laughing. As he combed his fingers through the curly golden locks, brushing them off his forehead, he replied, “Some streams and fountains in the south of Castile have proven dangerous over the years, but I had assumed my own courtyard was safe.”

      
“I am unarmed, sir, but for my poet,” she teased boldly, eyeing the volume in his hand. She loved him most of all when he laughed.

      
“How do you know my father?”

      
“I was his patient. I suffered a fall from my horse and he cared for me.”
It was all part of a ruse that turned on me. All I have ever wanted was to get close to you, Aaron!
she thought desperately. “When Benjamin learned I was able to read Castilian and Latin he kindly offered me the use of his library. I have come here often in recent months.” She studied the veiled expression on his face.

      
Aaron ran his fingers up her arm and lightly across her collarbone. He could feel her pulse racing. An answering surge of lust throbbed to life in his body, so long starved for a woman. He had always been fastidious about his choice of bedmates, having learned from his father's medical practice what could happen to a man who was careless. She was young and clean and very obviously attracted to him. She was also Estrella Valdés's daughter, and that meant she no doubt possessed the morals of his gardener's pet cat. Still, there was a vulnerability about her. Experimentally, he reached up and touched the silk of her cheek. Her eyes opened wide, then closed in breathless languor.

      
Magdalena could sense he was going to kiss her, here in the courtyard, while he was half dressed, where anyone could interrupt them. What would Benjamin or Serafina think? She drew back and raised her hand, her eyes once more wide open. “You must not—”

      
He felt her small, soft hand push ineffectually against his chest as he pulled her to him, the book forgotten in his hand as his arm held her fast. Ignoring her feeble protest, he tilted her chin up and fastened his mouth on her slightly parted lips. She smelled of jasmine and tasted of honey. Aaron deepened the kiss, his tongue rimming her lips, then lightly darting between them, teasing and tormenting until he could feel her softly muffled moan. She would be his, but first he must greet his parents and assure them that all had gone as planned with Isaac. Slowly, savoring, he broke off the kiss, his mind racing to form a plan on how to set up an assignation.

      
“I must show my mother and father that I am well returned from my journey and then—”

      
“They are not home,” she said breathlessly. “They have gone to share a meal with friends across the city. Your doorman told me.” Why had she spoken the words that sealed her fate?

      
“And you come and go from here, freely using the library,” he murmured low, once more tasting her lips. She did not protest when he resumed his embrace. Aaron Torres vowed to learn why the daughter of a Crossbearer had befriended a Jewish
converso
, but first there was a most pressing hunger to be assuaged. He swept her up into his arms and headed upstairs toward his private quarters.

Chapter Four

      
Magdalena clung to Aaron, her mind in a whirlpool of confusion. Guilt and doubt warred with six years of languishing, unrequited infatuation. It seemed that she had loved this man forever with all her young heart, and now, for the very first time, he saw her as a desirable woman, not a child hiding behind her mother's skirts or a muddy waif to be rescued on the roadside.
I am beautiful for you, Aaron...and I will marry you...only you.

      
He opened the massive oak door to his apartments and then pushed it closed behind him with one booted foot. The thick Persian carpets muted the sound of his footfalls as he crossed the large outer sala with its low couches and brass tables. Only the harsh rasp of their breathing was audible as he carried her across the room and through a ten-foot-high doorway.

      
As his warm lips brushed whisper-soft across her closed eyelids, Magdalena clung to his bare shoulders, her nails biting into the hard, satiny muscles of his back. Then he nipped with sure strong teeth at her earlobe and curled his tongue inside the small opening. She gasped with surprise and delight. Before she knew what was happening, he had tossed her onto a fluffy mound of pillows atop an enormous circular bed. As her drugged, breathless body sank into the silken surface, he stood over her, fixing her with passion-glazed blue eyes.

      
Staring into those fathomless eyes, Magdalena was held in thrall, falling deeper and deeper beneath his spell. She watched his gaze move from her wide jade eyes down her throat to her heaving breasts, then travel lower yet to where her skirts were bunched up and her slim ankles and slippered feet were visible.

      
“So young, so perfect,” he murmured softly as he inspected her beauty, following her down onto the lush bed. One knee supported his weight as he leaned over, placing a hand on either side of her arms. Slowly, like a man afraid to drink too quickly after a long desert journey, he lowered his head to taste of her once more. “Place your arms about me,” he commanded as his lips and tongue slid in sensuous trails down her slender throat, then back up to center on her mouth. She obeyed his order, clasping her arms about his bare waist as she opened her lips to meet his kiss. With a groan, he let his control slip, deepening the kiss as he lowered his full weight atop her.

      
Magdalena could feel every inch of him, even through the layers of her silk surcoat and gown. His hard flesh pressed her deeply into the enveloping bedcovers. Then he moved to his side and gently eased his hand beneath her skirts. His deft fingers worked their way up from her tiny ankle to trace the sleek curve of calf and the velvet softness of her inner thigh. Instinctively she arched toward him, holding him tightly as he stroked her, igniting fires she had never in her wildest fantasy imagined.

      
Aaron felt her respond to his touch and knew he could wait no longer, savor no more. He must have her now. With catlike grace he sat up and turned his back to her to pull off his boots. Then he stood and peeled down the tight, soft woolen hose that had revealed his desire even while covering it. He watched her eyes widen and her mouth form a small “o” of frightened wonder.
Such a consummate performer,
he thought, chuckling. “You have seen me unclothed before. I claim the right to see you the same,” he said hoarsely, stretching his hand out to clasp her wrist and pull her from the bed.