Tears of Gold (28 page)

Mara felt her skin burning as if it were on fire as his hateful words struck her in her most vulnerable place, and a venom-tipped arrow could not have pierced her heart more deeply or fatally. But Mara dared not show this inner turmoil to Nicholas, and so her face remained unmoved even as Nicholas’s penetrating gaze searched it for some sign of emotion, a flicker of hatred or a shadow of tears in her eyes, but there was nothing except the cold mask.

“How does it feel to know that I’ve made a fool out of you, Mara O’Flynn?” Nicholas asked curiously. “You’ve always held yourself aloof from the men you’ve tormented, until now. I still find it hard to believe that you were an innocent. Does it hurt to know that the man you finally gave yourself to would turn out to despise your very name? Ironic, isn’t it, that you should lose your virginity to me, Nicholas Chantale, a man who had cursed your name, gazed on your face with nothing but loathing, and felt only revenge in his heart. I’ve stolen something from you that can be given only once. I’m only sorry I wasn’t sure at the time you really were Mara O’Flynn, or I wouldn’t have been nearly so gentle,” Nicholas said coldly.

Neither of them had seen the door open, or a figure enter stealthily and creep up behind the broad shoulders of the Creole. Too late Mara cried out as she saw the heavy butt of the pistol come down forcefully on the back of Nicholas’s head. There was a stunned look of surprise on his face before he fell into Mara’s arms, pulling her down with him as he hit the floor.

“Dirty swine,” Brendan spat as he stared down at the unconscious body of Nicholas Chantale. “You may have deserved some of his hatred, but no one treats an O’Flynn like dirt beneath his feet,” Brendan spoke in a hard voice, his eyes softening slightly as he saw the stricken look on Mara’s face. “I think you’ve been through enough, mavournin. Come on, ’tis time we were leaving.”

Mara stared down at Nicholas’s pale face and touched the back of his head with trembling fingers. As she withdrew them, she felt the sticky wetness and then saw the bright red blood.

“Oh, God, Brendan, you’ve killed him,” she breathed as she looked up in horror.

Brendan frowned. “To be sure, I just tapped him,” he denied the accusation, but a worried look had entered his dark eyes. He bent down on one knee and felt Nicholas’s wide chest for a heartbeat. “He’s alive, but he’ll have one hell of a headache when he wakes up,” Brendan said, sighing in relief, “and I’d rather not be around when he does.”

Mara lightly touched Nicholas’s face with her fingers, tracing the line of his lips and feeling the softness of his lashes as she memorized his every feature.

“Come on, Mara,” Brendan urged her, his eyes narrowing as he noticed for the first time the red velvet dress she wore. “What the divil d’ye have on?”

Brendan helped her to her feet as she tried to pull the skirt of the dress from beneath Nicholas’s heavy body. “I’ll change as fast as I can, Brendan,” she told him raggedly.

Brendan swore beneath his breath as Mara struggled to unhook herself, his hands pushing hers aside as he quickly unfastened her, freeing her. “I don’t know what’s going on around here,” he complained as he stepped back, “but I’m thinkin’ everyone’s gone crazy in the confusion.” Brendan looked around thoughtfully, then took the sash from Mara’s robe and with quick efficiency tied Nicholas’s hands behind his back. “Don Luís practically knocked me down as he ran into the stable yard. He was staggering and holding his chest, dramatizing the situation for sure, and I don’t even think he knew who I was. I was going to ask him to pay us. It wasn’t any fault of ours that his scheme fell through,” Brendan defended himself at Mara’s look of disbelief. “But I didn’t. In fact, I was just as glad he didn’t see me, for he had a murderous look in his eye as he called for a groom. Ready?” Brendan demanded as Mara pulled on her riding jacket.

“I’ll be right with you,” she told him breathlessly. She sat down to pull on her boots. “You go and get Paddy and Jamie. I’ll meet you in just a minute.”

Brendan frowned. “Well, hurry up with it before the whole damned rancho knows we’re impostors. And don’t worry about him,” he said, casting the prone form of Nicholas a contemptuous look, “he won’t be bothering anyone for a while.”

After Brendan departed, Mara quickly finished dressing. Closing the tapestried bag, she looked around the room, her eyes lingering on Nicholas, who still lay quietly on the floor. “Oh, Nicholas,” Mara whispered, her eyes mirroring her pain now that there was no one to witness it, “if you only knew how well you succeeded in your revenge, how deeply you have hurt me. I love you. But you will never know that.”

Without a backward glance Mara opened the door, closing it softly behind her as she started along the passage. She didn’t see Brendan, or Paddy and Jamie, and assumed they had already left for the outer courtyard. Mara walked across the stable yard, looking cool and unflustered in her severely tailored riding habit, the tapestried bag carried easily at her side. But as she entered the stable, her step faltered slightly. She saw a sullen Brendan standing with an uncomfortable-looking Jamie and curious Paddy, while Don Andres and several of his vaqueros stood nearby.

“Don Andres,” Mara said with no sign of discomfiture at his inopportune appearance.

“You are leaving, Ama—” Don Andres began, only to correct himself with a forced smile of apology that didn’t reach his eyes. “Forgive me, it is not Amaya, is it? I believe your real name is Mara?”

“Yes, Mara O’Flynn,” Mara admitted, lifting her head proudly as she tried to gather together the pride that had been stripped from her by Nicholas only minutes before.

“It is best that you and your party leave the rancho before my family and friends discover this deception,” he surprised Mara, his voice cold. “I suppose I cannot really place the blame on you. It was Don Luís’s plan, and he was the only one who could have benefited from it. Unless of course,” he added bitterly, “you would have accepted my proposal. But I think that was not in the plan, sí? I am afraid that you will not be receiving any payment for your performance. You see, Don Luís has collapsed. That is why I was called to the stables, and how I discovered your rather sudden plans for departure. It is over now, and Don Luís has paid a higher price for his folly than he could ever have imagined. I accept part of the responsibility for this tragedy as well. I am not only dishonored by what has happened to Don Luís’s land, but ashamed of my feelings for you. Dios, what a fool I have been.”

Mara bit her lip at the pained embarrassment revealed in his voice. “You had little chance against the combined efforts of Don Luís and myself. You expected no trickery. Do not blame yourself too harshly. And what you felt for me, well, ’twas just a brief fascination. I’m an actress by profession. It’s my job to fool people. You found me beautiful and alluring, as you were meant to. After a while you would have grown tired of the glamour and discovered that it is Feliciana you truly love. I saw the way you looked at her the night of the fire. You care for her, genuinely care, and she loves you. Don’t shun that, Andres. Forget me and the unhappiness I’ve brought to your house,” Mara told him honestly. “I’ve lost my chance at happiness. Take care you do not lose yours, Andres.”

Don Andres stared deeply into Mara’s eyes, seeing a vulnerable softness he had never seen in them before, and a breathtaking beauty that was perfectly natural. And one that Mara was completely unaware of herself, Don Andres realized. His wounded pride and anger, mixed with his grief, warred with the attraction he still felt for this strange woman.

“Even if I had not already decided to allow you to leave the rancho, I do owe you a debt, as your brother has reminded me. So you are free to leave. Horses and several vaqueros will ride with you to guide you from the valley and safely to wherever it is you go. I will see that your baggage is sent.”

Mara heard Brendan’s audible sigh of relief, and with a nod of farewell, she followed Brendan to her mount. Jamie was helped onto the back of a sturdy but docile-looking pony, while Paddy was placed with Brendan on his mount.

Don Andres himself helped Mara to mount her horse. For a moment he stood silently staring up at her, his thoughts unreadable. Then, with a slight bow, he stepped back and gave her horse a gentle tap on the rump.

As they rode from the stable yard, through the wide gates of the rancho, Mara glanced back and saw Don Andres standing alone. Then he raised his arm slowly in farewell and Mara thought she caught his words floating to her through the dust.

“
!Vaya con Dios!
”

May God go with you
, he had wished them even after all the misery they had caused him. The devil would be a more likely partner, Mara thought, as they followed the vaqueros across the dusty hills and left the Valle d’Oro behind them. It was no longer a peaceful valley, no longer untouched by time.

After a hard day’s riding, the Californians never seeming to tire, they reached Sonoma, where they took rooms at the Blue Wing Inn. It was a thick-walled adobe structure, two-storied, with a gallery on the second floor with rooms opening off it and a railing with wisteria clinging to it running along its length. The hostelry overlooked the main plaza, which was lined with other tile-roofed adobe buildings.

Mara was unpacking her tapestried bag when Brendan entered the room, and she could have sworn that he seemed uncomfortable as he paced restlessly around the room.

“I was wondering how we’re going to pay for our rooms,” Mara said as she folded a shawl and placed it on the bed.

“For once I had enough to pay for our stay. You needn’t worry about that,” Brendan reassured her. “I won a few hands of poker against Raoul, so we’ll have enough for a few days.” Brendan paused, then coughed, clearing his throat nervously. “At least there will be enough to see you and Paddy and Jamie to San Francisco.”

Mara stopped her unpacking, feeling a shiver of apprehension shoot through her. “And what does that mean?” she asked outright.

“It means that I’m going up into the Sierra Nevada, where I should have gone in the first place. I’ll manage someway to get enough money to buy equipment. Hell,” Brendan spoke with excitement, “all I need is a tin pan to wash some gold nuggets from a stream bed. Then I’ll have enough profit from that to buy some real equipment.”

“And what are we supposed to do while you’re up in the mountains somewhere?” Mara demanded in a cold voice that couldn’t hide the anxiety she was feeling.

“You’ll be fine in San Francisco,” Brendan said easily, adding persuasively, “the mining camps are no place for the three of you. Life is damned rough up there, and you wouldn’t want to subject Paddy to such an unsavory place. He’d never survive the winter up there. Why, they have snow drifts twenty feet high.”

“And you expect to find gold beneath all that snow?” Mara asked. “Why don’t you wait until the spring?”

“It’ll be too late by then. I’ve got several months until winter comes on, and I intend to strike it rich before the first snowflake falls,” Brendan promised. “Listen, mavournin, ’tis the only way. I can’t take you and Paddy with me. I’m sorry I haven’t more money to give you than this,” he said, actually flushing in embarrassment as he handed a small pouch over to Mara. “It’s all I have. I’ve already made arrangements for you to stay here until our baggage arrives and I’ve paid your way to San Francisco as well.”

Mara stared down dumbly at the not very heavy pouch of leather. She couldn’t believe it. Brendan was abandoning them. Mara looked up into Brendan’s anxious eyes. She knew he’d already made up his mind. He would leave regardless of whatever protestations she made. “When?”

“Tomorrow at dawn,” he told her, his voice trembling with excitement, “You wait for me in San Francisco, and as soon as I strike it rich, I’ll join you there. Find some lodgings and I’ll find you when I get there.”

“How?” Mara asked quietly.

“Mara, me little love,” Brendan spoke with a twinkle in his dark brown eyes, “you’ve never been one to go without notice. Should you not have made yourself famous in San Francisco by the time I arrive, then I’ll just pay a visit to every boardinghouse in town. Eventually I’ll find you.”

“Try to stay out of trouble, will ye, Brendan?” Mara said softly.

Brendan had walked to the door, but he turned as she spoke, and coming back he gave her a quick, awkward hug. Then, an irrepressible dimple in his cheek, he winked at Mara and walked jauntily out the door, leaving her standing in the early twilight filtering in from the window of the silent room.

Mara sat down on the edge of the bed, her shoulders sagging tiredly under her dispirited thoughts. Everything had gone wrong. It’d been a venture doomed to failure from its very conception. And had they never gone to the rancho, she might never have met Nicholas.

Nicholas. Why should she love him? She who had been so contemptuous of others who she had assumed were weak, had fallen irrevocably in love with a man who cared nothing for her. Well, Mara thought, she had let herself live, and now she was hurting. Nicholas had been successful in administering retributive justice. And now she couldn’t escape her memories. She wondered if he was all right. What was he doing now?

***

Nicholas rode eastward from the Rancho Villareale as he made his way back to Sacramento City. His thoughts lingered on the past and his expression was grim.

He had awakened from unconsciousness to find himself trussed up like a holiday turkey, a throbbing lump on the back of his skull, his pockets picked clean and the O’Flynns having taken to their heels. He’d managed to free his swollen wrists and, rubbing them to get the circulation back, had stumbled to the door. He found the hacienda in a state of uproar. Servants ran to and fro while the guests milled around the courtyard in small, whispering groups. Some of the women were weeping, and every so often one of the mourners’ voices could be heard above the others raised in anger and grief. Then a hushed silence would envelop them once again. Nicholas walked along the corridor to his room unnoticed as the Californians remained absorbed in each other and their grief.