Woman of Three Worlds (31 page)

Brittany had discussed the general design of the clothes with Panchita, and though much of this had been done with gestures, Brittany was sure she couldn't have been so misunderstood. Swallowing hard to get control of her voice, for there was no use in lashing out at Panchita, Brittany studied the dresses for possible ways to change them from facsimiles and picked up the riding habit.

Though sorry for the way a troubled expression replaced Panchita's pleased expectancy, Brittany used motions and a few words of Spanish to indicate that the black velvet trim should come off, the sleeves be narrowed, and the regal, turned-up collar replaced with a plain one.

Panchita's eyes widened with alarm. “Don Roque told me—” she began in Spanish, broke off, and brought some sketches out of a basket of laces, trims, and other sewing items. In mute appeal, she put the drawings in Brittany's hands.

They confirmed what Brittany was already sure of. The similarity of style was owing not to underlying basic Spanish fashions or Panchita's copying the dresses she saw Brittany wearing. Roque had detailed the wardrobe; and it was Francisca's.

“
Mil gracias
,” she said quietly. “
Pero no es possible
.” “A thousand thanks but it is not possible.”

Opening the door, she held it firmly till the unhappy Panchita murmured to the seamstresses and all withdrew. Shaking with outrage, Brittany unbuttoned the lovely dress she was wearing and hung it in the armoire. Scooping up the buckskins, still redolent of woodsmoke, she put them on, scuffed off the soft kid slippers, and pulled on the moccasins.

She snatched silver combs from her hair, gave it a furious brushing, and plaited it into long braids, securing them with bits of thongs she had in the rolled tops of her moccasins. Staring into the mirror at a gray-eyed Apache, a surge of power hummed through her.

She was Blanca, who had planned only weeks ago to make her way north alone! The distance was longer now, but she could do it. What was the matter with her, waiting tamely for merchants who were evidently afraid of their shadows?

Each day Roque's seductive company and the comforts of this life domesticated her a trifle more, made her softer, less able to fend for herself. She would go to him right now, thank him for his kindness, and say that, train or no, she was leaving.

She had almost reached the door when it swung open. Roque stared at her, eyes yellow aflame. “What,” he grated, “are you doing in those filthy hides?”

Proud confidence ebbing, she kept her head high and unflinchingly met his gaze. “They are mine.”

“So were the garments you refused.”

“No,” she hurled. “Those were Francisca's.”

His hands clenched. She thought he would hit her before he put them behind his back. “I will tell you how it is,” he said in the tone she imagined he would use for executions. “You will resume the gown you were wearing or I will strip you naked. You will not wear those vile skins in my house.”

“I don't want to! I wish to leave this very day! If you won't give me a horse on credit, I'll go on foot.”

He caught her wrist. “You'll do no such thing! That barbaric garb unhinges your reason! Little fool, if armed trains can't travel, do you think you can?”

“I do, and anyway, it's none of your concern! I won't stay any longer!”

She tried to wrest free, but he took both her hands. “Brittany, stop! We are acting like lunatics.” The muscles in his broad jaw hardened. “Forgive what I said. Panchita will alter the gowns as you direct. But you must promise to give up any ridiculous notion of going to Arizona alone.”

It must be one of the few times he had ever curbed that
hidalgo
temper. Calming in turn, Brittany knew it was madness to attempt a journey of over four hundred miles where she might encounter not only rampaging Yaquis and Apaches but bandits, Mexican and American.

“If no train leaves by Easter,” she said slowly, “will you swear to escort me yourself?”

He kissed her hands and beamed down at her. “At Easter, my Brittany, I will take you wheresoever you wish. And now,
por favor
, will you change from those hides, which turn you into a veritable Apache and, to be frank, stink to high heaven?”

“All right, if you'll send Panchita back. And don't blame her, Don Roque! She tried to follow your orders.”

“I knew that.” He studied Brittany, brown-gold eyebrows furrowed. “You are
not
like Francisca. She was my rose with no thorns. You are surrounded with them!”

“A good thing,” she said lightly. “I have no wish to be plucked.”

“Do you not?” Eyes darkening, he touched her cheek, let his fingers trail in slow caress to her throat. The pulse leaped. She felt exposed to him, almost as much as if he had stripped her.

“A rose on the bush withers,” he said, voice husky.

It took great effort to move away from him. “So does one in a silver vase.”

He smiled. “But first it fulfills its destiny, sweetens the air, lends grace and beauty to this rough world, and is cherished.” He turned, said over his shoulder, “I'll send Panchita. You'd better get out of that rig or you'll scare her. Her village was raided by Apaches when she was a girl. She hid in a cornfield, but she saw her father and brother killed.”

What a region of blood, this vast stretch of mountains and plains that was northwest Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico! For centuries Apaches and Mexicans had pillaged each other, and now the United States had joined in the mutual slaughters and retaliations.

It wouldn't go on much longer. Major Erskine had estimated that no more than five hundred Apaches, mostly women and children, were still at large, dodging into the United States and then refuging in the mazes of the Sierra Madre. It was only a question of time, and not much of that, before they were all either killed or put on the hated reservation.

And then?

Mexicans and Americans would travel and work their fields without fear of attack. But the proud, free people who had ranged from where White-Painted Woman ascended to Ussen as far as the Colorado, the Mogollon Rim, jagged blue wave after wave of Mexican mountains? They had been one with that wilderness, their lives and rituals tuned to its cycles.

For the first time Brittany thought of Kah-Tay's band without wanting to weep. Perhaps, dying swiftly in liberty, they were the lucky ones.

The fate of a people made her ashamed of showing so little fortitude in her own troubles. She slipped out of the buckskins, folded them away, and was patient and friendly when Panchita reappeared.

Roque might have warned Panchita that Brittany was unbalanced and must be humored. The whole thing must seem mad to her: first, to model a wardrobe on fine, existing clothes that needed only tiny alterations; now, to work the new gowns over to suit the
Americana
's fevered whimsies!

Brittany feared it was too complicated to explain in her rudimentary Spanish, but when she held up the wine riding habit, pointed to the trim and said, “
De Doña Francisca
,” then tucking the velvet under, giving it a new neckline, said, “
De mí!
” understanding shot over Panchita's sweet features.

She nodded in vigorous approval. “Sí, señorita. You are not the Doña Francisca—may she rest in peace!”

After that she aided and abetted Brittany in devising ways to individualize the gowns, altering sleeves, necklines, buttons, and trims. At the end of the session she gathered up the dresses and paused in the doorway.

“That Doña Lisette, she is a mean woman.” Brittany could follow the gist of most conversations now if the speaker formed words as slowly as Panchita did. “Mateo says she is always after Don Roque to order me and the children away. I know I am not good enough for him in the city, but she would be no good here.” Her dark eyes met Brittany's in appeal. “If—if you become his woman, both for Alamos and Los Caciques, you will not force Don Roque to send his children away and forget them?”

So, behind her pleasant calm, this worry had been nagging. Brittany touched the other woman's hand. “I'm not going to be the woman of Don Roque,” she promised. “And he loves Trini and Chuey. I don't think he'd send them—or you—away for anyone.”

Panchita's eyes widened. “You believe that? Doña Lisette—”

“Doña Lisette makes him angry. She wants more than he cares to give her.”

Panchita sighed. “I want only to be near him and have the children know him as their father. I think Doña Francisca is glad that I take care of him.”

“She must be,” Brittany agreed.

After the door closed, she fought back tears. In a world where love was so desperately needed, what a shame it was often wasted! If Roque gave Panchita a tithe of the devotion he had for a dead woman—From that, it followed to wonder why she couldn't love Roque instead of Zach, who in turn might pine after Regina, who didn't love him.

It was all a muddle. But at least she wouldn't add to the confusion by dressing so that Roque could fancy she was Francisca.

Days passed in a leisured but agreeable fashion. She rode, played chess, and talked on a hundred subjects with Don Roque, chatted with Panchita and Concha as she helped with cooking and sewing, took Chuey and Trini for rides on La Dorada.

Lived as it came, without looking forward or back, it would have been a tranquil, even happy existence, but Brittany was worried that other soldiers had died in searching for her, like Michael O'Shea. She was haunted by the fate of Jody and Pretty Eyes, tormented by the possibility that Zach hadn't recovered, that he'd succumbed to his wound and lay buried near the mining camp.

Besides, though fear that she might go plunging off into the wilds had chastened Roque into temporary circumspection, she could not mistake the tension mounting between them, nor could she deny the quivering shock that ran through her when their hands brushed at the chessboard, the melting weakness that suffused her when he paused in lifting her from the saddle so that she was almost in his arms, almost able to feel and hear the pounding of his heart.

She loved Zach. But she sensed the power in this man, the controlled passion, and it drew her. Somehow she knew that he would seize the faintest signal from her. Then she would be lost. Even if after being swept away she still had the will to leave him, she understood with deep, primal knowledge that he'd never let her go.

Once, when he beat her at chess, he chided, “You could have stopped me. Why do you forget, Brittany, that your queen can move in any direction?”

“Perhaps it's because I can't.”

His eyes held hers. He smiled slowly and shook his head. “More likely, it's that you aren't sure where you should move. But that will come clear in time.”

How long, living in his house, constantly with him, could she keep from some involuntary look or motion that would snap his restraint, turn this silent, undeclared siege into a conquest?

Brittany had no answer to that. Each day that passed settled her more naturally into this simple but enchanted life. She knew what was happening, as Roque used no force; she was bound by her word to wait for safe transport.

It was on a morning about a month after she'd come to the
hacienda
that she was sitting with Trini and Chuey on either side, reading to them from a homemade picture book with easy Spanish verses she had composed with Roque's help, when there was a clattering on the patio stones.

Panchita hurried to the door, but before she could open it, it swung ponderously ajar. Lisette McDonald stood panting there.

XXIII

Scornfully ignoring Panchita, the silver-haired woman swept across the room to Brittany. “I might have known I'd find you cuddling Roque's
mestizo
brats and raising yourself ever higher in his doting estimation!”

The children gaped, hazel and dark gazes going wide and frightened at this tall
gringa
, who glared at them from wintry eyes. Brittany gave them a reassuring hug, handed them the book to hold between them, and got to her feet.

“Have you ridden all this way to abuse children?”

Lisette's harsh laughter made it clear whom she'd like to abuse, but she eyed Brittany warily for a moment before she spoke. “Have you an interest in a tall blue-eyed American named Zachary Tyrell?”

Brittany caught the back of a chair. “Zach!”

“You know him, then.” Lisette gave a satisfied nod. “He's going to need a friend. It seems he assaulted Tranquilino and Anselmo de Haro after breaking into Anselmo's house. He's in jail, waiting to be shot.”

Stunned, Brittany shook off a wave of blackness that threatened to engulf her. “Shot? They can't do that! He's an American citizen!”

“So were Crabb's filibusterers,” derided Lisette. “That didn't keep them from being shot after they surrendered and Crabb's head cut off to go on exhibit.” Stepping closer, she gripped Brittany's shoulder and said between her teeth, “Mexicans hate us for taking away so much of their territory! You're a fool if you think they won't welcome a chance to execute a
gringo
.”

“I—I can't believe Zach would attack the de Haros without a reason! Or break into a house unless they refused to see him—”

“That's just how it happened,” Lisette shrugged. “He came hunting you, first to Roque's mansion, where apparently Tomás had been ordered to play dumb in case such a thing happened. So Tyrell then stormed over to Anselmo's house, was refused admission, and knocked a few heads together to get in. When Anselmo called servants to wrestle your big friend down, he wrecked the
sala
and half a dozen men, including Roque's brothers.” She gave an admiring laugh. “Much man, that Tyrell. I bribed my way in to see him. Even with blacked eyes and a bruised, cut face, he's a handsome devil.”

“Was he hurt?” Brittany thought fearfully of the shoulder wound.