Bride of Fortune (38 page)

      
She rinsed her mouth, careful not to swallow any of the water until her roiling stomach abated. After bathing her face with a cool compress, she donned a robe and sat down at her dressing table to consider the matter. This was the third time in the past ten days this had happened. Both other occasions had taken place after Lucero had left early in the morning, although not quite this early. As she thought, she ran the brush through her tangled hair, distractedly remembering how it had become such a mess. Lucero had unplaited it last night, burying his face in it, holding great fistfuls of it, pulling her to him.

      
Their lovemaking had become something she looked forward to with eager anticipation now. She was glad when dinner was over and Rosario had been tucked in. The two of them would exchange heated glances, making excuses to touch each other all through the interminable evenings. And to think she had once dreaded her marital duties. Now everything had changed so dramatically between them.

      
And it was about to change again. She rose restlessly, set the brush aside and walked over to the window. The sun was just rising above the distant edge of the Sierra Madre Occidental, outlining the mountains in a blaze of golden light tinged with deep fire orange and slashed through with purple and magenta. The birth of a new day.

      
If she had read the signs right, Gran Sangre would see the birth of its new heir early in the spring, the child Lucero had come home to give her. Would he be pleased? Once she had feared that becoming heavy with child would provide excuse enough for him to turn once again to his whore, humiliating her and leaving her alone now that he had performed his duty. She tried hard to believe he would not do that. This man loved her and loved children. He adored Rosario and would be overjoyed to have more brothers and sisters for her.

      
But will he still want to make love to you when you grow fat and shapeless?
She massaged her temples with her fingers, willing the nagging fear to abate. At least they could go to the Vargas fiesta before her waistline began to thicken. Should she tell him before that?

      
“I must be absolutely sure,” she murmured to herself as she began to dress.

      
But she knew the signs were almost certain. A month after Lucero had left Gran Sangre four years ago, old Don Anselmo had summoned the bride to his study and interrogated her in humiliating detail about her intimate bodily functions and dismissed her, furious to learn that she was not breeding. Mercedes had become forcibly acquainted, to her maidenly dismay, with all the symptoms of pregnancy at the tender age of seventeen.

      
When she entered the dining room, Lucero was already halfway through his breakfast. He looked up at her with a warm smile. “You're up early today. You've been sleeping later. I didn't expect you so soon or I'd have waited for you.” His eyes studied her with concern as he pulled out her chair. “Are you feeling all right?”

      
“I'm fine. It was such a lovely morning I couldn't sleep any longer. You left earlier than usual.” She waited expectantly for him to offer some explanation, but before he could, Angelina came bustling in from the kitchen with a pot of steaming fragrant coffee and a platter of fried eggs with spicy red sauce.

      
“Sit and eat,
patrona
. You look pale this morning. You need more flesh on your bones—does she not, ?” she asked, setting the platter in front of Mercedes.

      
Nicholas looked at her with concern. “You are a bit peaked, love. Are you sure there's nothing wrong?”

      
The rich oily aroma of the coffee filled her nostrils, combined with the spicy tomatoes and before Mercedes could reply, another wave of nausea struck her. Leaping up she gulped an excuse, nearly overturning her chair in her rush for the kitchen door.

      
In a flash Nicholas followed, finding her bent over the slop pail by the door. He knelt beside her, holding her shoulders as she was racked by a series of dry heaves. When they subsided, he handed her his handkerchief and helped her stand, then ushered her to a chair. Interestingly enough, Angelina had not come after him into her domain.

      
“Now,” he said gently, pulling another heavy kitchen chair up beside hers, “don't you think you'd better tell me what's wrong?” He had a pretty good idea but was afraid to jump to conclusions, knowing how his father and Doña Sofia had hounded Mercedes about her possible barrenness.

      
Mercedes looked into his eyes, those dark magnetic wolf's eyes. Once she had thought them cold and predatory. Now they glowed with warmth, concern, love. Taking a swallow for courage, she said, “I was going to wait until I was more certain...but it would seem I am carrying your child, Lucero.”

      
That name again. He must get used to it. She could never learn to call him by his real one, he knew. But at a moment like this, it hurt. He stood up and pulled her into his arms. “Beloved, I am overjoyed.” Then he raised her bowed head and looked into her eyes. “Are you?”

      
She had sensed something bothering him. If he wanted the child, could he actually believe she did not? “Oh yes, yes, my love. I'm truly happy.”

      
He studied her, a faint frown creasing his brow. She did seem genuinely pleased. “When is our child to arrive?”

      
“In the spring...early I think.” She could tell he was figuring the date of conception and blushed at the broad knowing smile that followed.

      
In all probability she had conceived the day he had been injured saving her from the mountain lion.

Chapter Sixteen

November 1866

      
Rather than be rattled like a maraca, Mercedes pleaded with her husband to leave the
hacienda
's ancient, ornate coach to gather dust in the stables. The journey on horseback would be infinitely more pleasant, an argument to which Nicholas “indulgently” bowed. After all, as a dutiful husband, he would be forced to ride in the coach and “rattle” along with his wife.

      
Six armed vaqueros accompanied Nicholas and Mercedes in route to Rancho Vargas, leading pack mules laden with finery for the days of feasting and dancing.

      
“Have you ever met Don Encarnación?” Nicholas asked Mercedes as they rode.

      
“Once,” she replied. A wary expression crossed her face as she looked at her husband. “Just before we were married. He rode to Gran Sangre to bring us a wedding gift, that ugly silver tea service gathering dust and tarnish in your mother's sitting room.”

      
“I'd forgotten. It seems so long ago now, after the war and all that's happened,” he added as smoothly as he could. Luce had told him nothing about her meeting with the old man, but he did know something about him. “Don Encarnación probably sent the silver wedding gift because he owns the largest silver mine in Chihuahua.”

      
“I've heard he's fabulously wealthy.”

      
He grinned. “Wait until you see
Hacienda
Vargas.”

      
“He and your father were quite close once,” she prompted.

      
He could feel her eyes studying him. Damn, there was no way to know everything about Luce's past! “They had a falling out many years ago,” he said with more assurance, recalling that rather unsavory tale from his brother. “I think it was over Encarnación's wife.”

      
“Dona Teresa? She's been dead for years.”

      
“She was a real beauty in her youth. Apparently she caught my father's eye. I doubt she encouraged him, but it certainly placed a strain on the friendship. They had little to do with each other since.”

      
“No wonder he was so grave and austere when he came to visit us,” she said grimly.

      
“He was always a severe old goat. I'm surprised he invited us to this celebration.”

      
“You're not responsible for Anselmo's sins, Lucero. Perhaps this is his way of bridging the rift in an old family friendship.”

      
“I doubt it. More likely he wants every
hacendado
in Sonora and Chihuahua to turn out for his special guests. Encarnación was always full of himself, even more arrogantly class conscious than my father, who was too debauched and self-indulgent to ever be a
criollo
purist. On the other hand, I suspect that Encarnación might fight and die for a cause. I doubt my father ever would have forsaken his vices long enough to become involved.”

      
“He certainly was angry when you left for the war,” she said thoughtfully.

      
“Only because I hadn't done my duty by getting you with child first—once that matter had been attended to, I would’ve been quite expendable, I'm certain.”

      
She had never before heard this bitterness toward his father. It startled her. Lucero had always been angry with his mother for her rejection of him, but he had worshipped the old don. “You used to imitate him. He was your idol.”

      
“Idols have feet of clay. Sometimes a man has to grow up himself before he's able to see that.”

      
Before she could comment further, Gregorio signaled that riders were approaching over the distant rise. Everyone reined in as Nicholas quickly scanned the surrounding open brushy area for cover. Little was to be had. Worriedly, he left his wife surrounded by the other men and rode ahead, pulling the glass from its case on his saddle and looking through it.

      
A dozen men quickly came into focus, well armed and superbly mounted. “We for damn sure aren't going to outrun them,” he muttered beneath his breath. Then he raised the glass and looked again. He gave an oath of pure relief. “Leave it to old Encarnación to pull out all the stops for that Prussian and his wife.” He rode back to Mercedes to explain there was no danger, chuckling. “Those aren't uniforms. They're wearing livery...private military livery!”

      
In a few minutes the patrol arrived to escort the guests into the broad valley where the
Hacienda
Vargas was situated.

      
“This is truly amazing,” Mercedes said as they approached the enormous two-story adobe fortress.

      
The chapel alone was nearly two times the size of Gran Sangre's house. The compound had towers at each corner and the heavy wooden gate at the entrance bore the Vargas crest, a pretentious affair with Castillian lions on it. The whitewashed adobe walls and red tile roof were traditional for most northern
hacienda
s, but this complex of buildings looked more like a miniature city than one man's estate.

      
“It's built like a fortress,” Mercedes said.

      
“Encarnación's great-great-grandfather built most of it back in the seventeenth century. At the time it was the farthest outpost in the province of Nueva Viscaya,” Nicholas replied.

      
A vigilant sentry in the corner tower observed the paramilitary escort as it approached with the
hacienda
's guests, then signaled for the massive mesquite wood gate to be opened. They filed into an enormous courtyard with three fountains and enough flowering shrubs and palm trees to cover half a dozen village plazas. Arched porticos ran the length of the interior buildings facing out on the courtyard.

      
Birds in brilliant plumage swung in cages from the porticos fronting the great house and hammocks were strung along the wall so the family and guests could while away warm afternoons in pleasant relaxation. Above the porticos a tiled verandah ran the length of the house, affording a splendid view of the interior of the Vargas domain. A huge gate opened at the opposite end of the courtyard leading into Don Encarnación's private bullring. Stables, corrals and tradesmen's shops lined the rest of the interior.

      
“It looks like something out of medieval Granada,” Mercedes said as they rode across the courtyard.

      
Nicholas’ eyes were on the welcoming committee standing at the main archway that was the entrance of the house. “I told you it was something to behold.”

      
A slim old man with ramrod straight posture that lent his scant five-foot-four an illusion of height, stood on the stone portico shadowed by a frangipani tree. His face was deeply tanned, scoured by the desert wind, his hair thin and silver-white. The corners of a narrow mustache turned up as he smiled ever so slightly in a welcome that did not extend to his wintry blue-gray eyes. Don Encarnación Vargas was a Spartan man in appearance and outlook.

      
“Welcome, Don Lucero. You've grown to be the very image of your father. I would recognize you always, even though we have not met in many years. I trust your journey was uneventful,” he said, bowing stiffly to the younger man.

      
“We experienced no problems, sir, but were grateful for your escort.”