Bride of Fortune (54 page)

      
Father Salvador refused to acknowledge Lucero's dangerous drunken ramblings. “This is an ill time for us to speak. I'll return tomorrow.”

      
“I'll not be changed tomorrow or ever, priest. You know that. And if you want me to return to Mercedes’ bed, best you ask her why she refuses to perform her marital duties,” he dared, relishing the horror the old man would feel when he had to face the truth.

      
“I did not come to speak of your wife,” Father Salvador said sadly, knowing the breach between Lucero and Mercedes was irreconcilable now. He turned to go but Lucero's purring words stopped him.

      
“If not the young
patrona
, then it must be the old one who brings you to beard me in my den.”

      
“We will discuss it on the morrow.” The priest reached for the doorknob.

      
“No need. I've neglected my beloved
mamacita
even more than I have my wife. I should remedy the matter at once, lest it weigh too heavily on my conscience,” he added sardonically.

      
“You have no conscience,” the priest replied gravely. “May our Lord and his Holy Mother forgive you.”

      
“I doubt they will. What hope is there for a son whose own mother could never forgive him?” he asked raggedly, then cursed and turned back to the liquor cabinet. He did not look around until the door closed softly behind Father Salvador.

      
When she heard the booted footfalls on the polished slate of the hallway floor, Sofia knew it was him, coming in response to Father Salvador's request. She had half hoped he would refuse. Interviews with Lucero or that other one were always quite taxing for her. And now her strength was waning so quickly. Be careful what you pray for lest you receive it, the old maxim said. How true.

      
Lucero opened the door without knocking and entered the room, blinking to accustom his eyes to the dim light of candles. “God's bones, but it stinks of religion and death in here.” He studied the shriveled old woman whose emaciated body was almost swallowed up in the pile of pillows. “Your prodigal has returned,
Mamacita
. Aren't you glad to see me?”

      
Her lips thinned in a feral grimace. “Now I understand. From the day of your misbegotten birth, I have never been glad to see you.”

      
A cold flat light glowed in his dark eyes as he neared the bed. “Then you know it is me this time, not my brother. When did you realize he was an impostor?”

      
She gave him a withering look. “He loves Gran Sangre. And he proved a more attentive husband to your wife than ever you did.”

      
The barb struck home, which surprised him. He had cared nothing for his pale, frightened little bride, but after seeing her now, he felt a completely unnatural anger with Nick for making her passion blossom. “A wife I was shackled to for a dynastic alliance. I have no interest in her,” he lied.

      
Sofia struggled to sit up. “You gave your own wife to a bastard—allowed him to sire his own bastard on her. The heir of Gran Sangre will be the product of a foul incest, forever cursed.” She fought to regain her breath, then continued, “How do you think your adored father will feel about that?”

      
There was a bright flame of madness surging in her once-faded eyes. They glowed with pure malice. Lucero studied her in amazement for a moment. “You wanted Mercedes to lie with him, to have his child—just to spite our father.”

      
Then the utter irony of the whole situation struck him. He laughed. “Your husband's dead and can know nothing of Gran Sangre's fate. Your obsessive hatred of papa has always been your weakness,
Mamacita
. You can see nothing else because of it. You never could. Do you know what is transpiring outside the narrow confines of this little world? Juarez and his republicans have won the war.”

      
“Then Gran Sangre is lost,” she said without much interest. “That, too, would distress Anselmo.”

      
“No, I don't think so. As you said, my brother loves the land—more than either of us did—and he's a survivor. You don't know him as I do. He'll stab men in their backs, cut their throats, do whatever it takes to hold onto this wretched birthright of his. The birthright I've given him. He wants to belong to it as much as I wanted to be free of it. And he will succeed. Whatever Nick sets his eyes on, he takes and he holds.”
Even Mercedes
, some inner voice taunted him.

      
Sofia watched his expression as he talked about his brother. “You seem to care for Anselmo's bastard,” she said curiously. “To love him?”

      
Lucero shook his head. “No, I don't love anybody. I'm not capable of it. You saw to that. But I do admire him, yes.”

      
“Then he is your weakness. Beware, for he will prove your undoing.”

      
A chill danced up and down his spine as he stared at her. “Best you have your lap-dog priest start lighting candles for your way to whatever reward you think you'll find in the next world. In this world, once that damnable Indian assumes power, Mexico will no longer be under the sway of Holy Mother Church.”

      
She crossed herself. “God will never permit it,” she said arrogantly, denying the unthinkable.

      
He laughed again, harshly, bitterly. “Oh, he has permitted it, believe me. Why else do you think I've come back to this hellishly boring hideaway? The emperor is surrounded at Querétaro, fighting his last battle. The imperial cause is doomed and the church with it.”

      
“At least you've lost your war, too,” she gritted out.

      
“Not quite.” Now it was his turn to gloat. He placed his hands on the edge of the mattress, leaning down to meet her harsh glare head-on. “I've merely been biding my time here until the capital is left unguarded—and the imperial treasury along with it. General Marquez and I will loot it and sail for South America. Think of me when you gasp your last. I'll be living in sin with millions in Mexican silver to support my debauched lifestyle. How papa would have adored the Argentine ladies,” he added spitefully. “Too bad he didn't live to see that!”

      
Sofia felt the impact of his words like an avalanche, careening down on her, crushing the life from her. He was telling the truth. Her homeland was lost. Her church would be destroyed. The proper social order was being overturned. Savages and riffraff were lording it over their betters. And Lucero, who cared for nothing but himself, would betray his class and his church. He would flourish when all else was destroyed just as he said Anselmo's other son would. “Damn you to the same hell in which Anselmo roasts—damn...you...d-damn...”

      
Lucero stood up now, his arms crossed over his chest, impassively watching her eyelids flutter and her chest heave as she lost her battle to breathe. Soft choking gasps of ragged pain wheezed from her as she went into her death throes. He had waited a long time for this moment. Since his earliest childhood. Odd that when her head rolled lifelessly against the pillows he did not feel the satisfaction he had expected.

      
He reached out for the bell pull and gave it a yank, then walked silently from her chambers.

* * * *

March 1867

      
Just to prove he could do it, Nicholas walked across the room in the army hospital in Chihuahua City. At least he could stand up straight when he took a step now, a feat he had been unable to perform for the past two weeks. He had been limping, hunched over as a Zocolo beggar.

      
“I see your recuperation is coming along nicely,” Dr. Ramirez said as he entered the austere hospital room. He was a quiet young physician with a thin serious face and expressive blue eyes, another
criollo
who had given his allegiance to the republican cause. He had also saved Nicholas’ life, digging Hernan Ruiz's slug out of his side. “After weeks of watching you hover between life and death, it's good to see some color back in your face.”

      
“I should have color to spare. All you've let me do since I regained consciousness is eat and laze about the hospital courtyard. I only wish I could’ve sent my wife word that I'm still alive. She'll fear I've been killed.”

      
“You almost were. If that bullet had hit an inch higher or to the left, you would be dead,” the doctor reminded him.

      
“Well, it didn't and I'm ready to get out of here at last. My
hacienda
and Mercedes need me.”

      
“I don't think that would be wise after all you've been through. It's a long treacherous ride from Chihuahua City into the Yaqui River country of Sonora.”

      
“I've been shot before. I know my own limits and I can make it.”

      
“I realize you've been through a great deal in this war—but as a soldier you must know how unstable conditions are. The republican armies control the state capitals here in the north but they have yet to regain Mexico City or to deal with Maximilian and the remnants of his army. Bands of
contre-guerrillas
are still on the loose and brigands are pillaging everywhere.”

      
“All the more reason for me to get home as fast as I can ride.”

      
“That's precisely my point,” the young physician said in exasperation. “You can't ride fast. Why, I'd expect you to last no more than three or four hours in the saddle before you passed out, fell off your horse and broke your neck.”

      
Fortune shrugged. “I hate to appear an ingrate to the man who saved my life, but it is my neck, Doctor.”

      
“You'll find he's a most stubborn man as well as a very poor patient,” Bart McQueen said from the doorway. He stepped into the room, eyeing the bare whitewashed walls and hard-packed earthen floor. Besides the simple rope bed, a pine chair and a washstand with a chipped water pitcher and glass on it, the room was utterly bare. “I can see how a fellow used to the niceties of Gran Sangre would want to return, but don't you think it's a bit premature?”

      
Fortune's eyes narrowed on the bland-looking
gringo
who spoke such perfectly idiomatic Spanish anyone would have taken him for a Mexican. “My work for you is finished, McQueen. Hell, from what I've heard, the whole bloody mess should be over in a few weeks. How long can the emperor's forces hold out?”

      
McQueen shrugged, nodding to the young doctor who excused himself to continue his hospital rounds. Once they were alone, the American pulled up a chair and motioned for Fortune to sit down as well, then began to speak in English. “Maximilian's defeat is only a matter of time now that the French are gone.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Do you know they blew up their ammunition dumps rather than trust giving them over to the imperials?”

      
“Small wonder there. The reactionary Mexicans Maximilian has surrounded himself with aren't exactly reliable,” Nicholas replied dryly.

      
“The imperial army is deserting him piecemeal since the siege began. Last week Marquez broke out and made a run for Mexico City.”

      
Fortune's eyebrows lifted in cynical disgust. “To loot whatever's left before Juarez's General Díaz gets there?” he asked rhetorically. “Who's remained with the emperor?” He had a fleeting thought for Prince Salm-Salm and his plucky American wife.

      
“Most of his court favorites have stayed with Maximilian. For all he's a bumbling fool as a politician—not to mention military leader—he does seem to inspire surprising devotion and loyalty in his subordinates...with a few notable exceptions.”

      
“Leonardo Marquez being one. He's no surprise. The Tiger of Tacubaya would sell his own mother for the fun of watching the Juaristas tear her to pieces. Who else has come, willingly or unwillingly, into your net, McQueen?”

      
Bart McQueen came as near as he ever did to spontaneous laughter. “How well you know me, Mr. Fortune. Actually, it isn't my net but the president's. His newest ‘recruit’ is an ambitious young colonel from a fine old
criollo
family, Miguel Lopez. Right now he's on the inside with Maximilian.”

      
“And Escobedo's soldiers will soon follow?”

      
McQueen nodded.

      
“Then it's over,” Fortune said fervently. As a professional soldier, he had never before been so glad of impending peace.

      
“All but the disposition of the royal personage. Everyone expects Juarez will put him on the first boat for Europe.”

      
Nicholas shook his head. “No chance. You know how methodical
el presidente's
mind is—rather like the mills of the gods—it may grind slow but it grinds exceeding fine. He'll execute the Austrian.”

      
McQueen's expression betrayed not a whit of surprise at Fortune's bald statement, although he knew shocked protests would pour out of Washington when news of the trial of an Austrian archduke was released. “No one should dare to execute a Hapsburg,” he said without a trace of regret.