Bride of Fortune (56 page)

* * * *

      
Lucero had been gone for nearly a week when the rider arrived with a letter from Nicholas. Mercedes was working in her flower garden with Rosario when Angelina hurried out to hand her the message. The seal on it indicated it came from Durango. With a sense of foreboding, she opened it and began to read. Angelina stood beside her with a worried look creasing her usually serene face.

      
“Is it from Papa? What does he say?” Rosario asked excitedly.

      
Pinpoints of light danced before Mercedes’ eyes, then everything faded to black. Angelina's strong arms reached out to steady her when she crumpled the paper in her hands and blanched. Dear merciful God, he might die! And she had let him ride away feeling her anger. All over politics. What did that matter now? Let Benito Juarez rule Mexico and welcome, if only Nicholas lived!

      
“Are you all right,
patrona
? Come, sit down.”

      
Mercedes let the old cook assist her in sitting beneath the shade of a sumac tree. Rosario huddled beside her in wide-eyed fright. “He's been imprisoned by the Juaristas in Durango. They think he's
El Diablo
, a
contre-guerrilla
raider who's done terrible things.”

      
“But that was Don Luc—” Angelina stopped short, looking down at Rosario with a horrified expression on her face.

      
“The bad man who said he was my Papa? I knew he was lying even though he looked like Papa,” Rosario said, then turned to Mercedes.

      
Mercedes held onto Rosario, stroking the child's head. “They're going to execute him, Angelina, unless we can reach an American named Bart McQueen. It may already be too late.” She bit back the sob of hysteria rising like bile in her throat.

      
“I will fetch Hilario. He will know how to do this thing,” the old cook said and scurried off in search of the majordomo whom she knew to be a Juarista agent.

      
By the time she had located the old vaquero and young Gregorio Sanchez, Mercedes was calmly seated in the library, drawing up a list of instructions for running the household in her absence. She handed them to Angelina when the cook ushered in the two men. “See that Father Salvador receives this. He'll be in charge of Rosario's education and overseeing the big house while I'm away.”

      
“But,
patrona
—the babe—you cannot—”

      
“I cannot leave Nicholas to die without going to him!” She turned from the cook to her faithful old majordomo. “Angelina told you Nicholas has been arrested for Lucero's crimes,” she said without preamble, too frightened for her lover's life to even think of the propriety of openly admitting she had taken two men into her bed and carried the child of the one to whom she was not wed. “Do you know how to reach this Bart McQueen?”

      
“We will try,
patrona
,`` Hilario replied gravely. “I will ride to San Ramos and wire Chihuahua City. There are men in the republican army who may know how to find the
gringo
.”

      
Gregorio listened as they discussed the situation with an expression of dawning horror on his face. “I think Innocencia may know where Don Lucero has gone. It was she who betrayed him to me. I'm going to speak with her—wring the truth out of her, if need be! I will bring the real
El Diablo
to face that firing squad.”

      
Hilario crossed himself. “Pray God he can do it. I'll wire Chihuahua about McQueen. He has great influence with President Juarez's generals.”

      
“Nicholas rode north to warn Juarez about Mariano Vargas’ plot to assassinate him. Surely your president can stop this travesty,” she said desperately.

      
“He would if he could be reached, but he has ridden into the south where heavy fighting goes on now. His location is a well-guarded secret after the last attempt on his life. The American may be easier to locate through our spies.”

      
“Who is McQueen, Hilario? How did Nicholas meet him?”

      
The old man looked uncomfortable, not knowing how much the
patrona
knew about the man to whom she had given her heart. “McQueen works for the American president, who wishes to see the Europeans out of Mexico. He has a system of spies across the country. Little goes on, even here in Sonora, that Bart McQueen does not know about.”

      
“What hold has McQueen over Nicholas? Lucero told me Nicholas had been a mercenary fighting for the emperor.”

      
An unreadable look came over Hilario's dark visage. “Perhaps nothing at all. A man can have a change of heart...the same as a woman, no?” The old man seemed to study the toe of his boot.

      
Mercedes felt the heat stealing into her cheeks. “Yes, I imagine that is true.”

* * * *

      
Within an hour, Mercedes was dressed for the long ride to Durango. She had bid a tearful good-bye to Rosario and received Angelina's pledge to watch over the child. Clutching a small travel valise in her hand, she headed across the courtyard toward the stables. She could see Father Salvador rushing to intercept her midway, a confused look on his face.

      
In the weeks Lucero spent at Gran Sangre, her love's trusted vaqueros and old Angelina knew that the man who had been so good to them was not the real
patrón.

      
She was uncertain just when—or if—the priest had discovered the truth. The circumstances of Doña Sofia's death had upset Father Salvador so greatly that he spent most of his time saying masses and praying for her soul. When Mercedes had ceased coming to confession and receiving the sacrament after her mother-in-law's death, he had made no attempt to censure her. Rather, the two of them had avoided each other, not a difficult feat in a house as large as Gran Sangre.

      
“Angelina gave me this,” he said, stopping in front of her and holding the list of instructions for managing the household in her absence. “Where are you going, Doña Mercedes?”

      
She swallowed, willing herself to have courage.
How can I tell him I'm in love with my husband's brother?
“My child's father is being held in prison in Durango—the Juaristas blame him for Lucero's crimes. I'm going to tell them the truth.”

      
The priest looked aghast. “And brand the child in your womb a bastard? You cannot!”

      
“Would you rather I let Nicholas die?” she asked in furious desperation.

      
Father Salvador sighed. “He was a good man, far better than his brother. Even Doña Sofia recognized it.”

      
Mercedes gasped. “So, you
do
know!”

      
He smiled sadly. “How could I not? He had the Alvarado eyes. That was what blinded me to the truth at first. They looked so much alike in spite of their different behavior. I tried to tell myself that Lucero had to be the same man who left here five months ago. But after my lady's death—and the way the one provoked it, I knew there were two men. Also that the other was Anselmo's illegitimate son.”

      
“I will not confess a sin for having loved Nicholas,” she said, choking back tears, realizing he already spoke of her love in the past tense.

      
“You are overwrought now. Best you rest for the sake of the child.”

      
“I will not rest until Nicholas is free. Please see that Rosario does her lessons.” She rushed past him without looking back and entered the stable. A dozen armed vaqueros waited to escort her on the long grueling ride to Durango.

* * * *

      
Nicholas paced in the cold gray cell, careful not to raise his bowed head lest he strike it on the cobweb-infested rafters. The ancient dungeon of a prison dated from the early colonization of New Spain. It had been built during a time when men seldom reached a height greater than five-foot-four. The dark, lichen-covered stone walls oozed moisture in the dank, vile-smelling heat. One tiny window in the corner let a feeble ray of sunlight in to illuminate a filthy straw pallet on the floor, which he shared with the cockroaches and other vermin. The first night he had awakened to find a rat skittering across his foot. After that, he slept with his boots on.

      
He had lost track of how many days he had been incarcerated. If not for the window, he would have no sense of day or night. It seemed ages since he had sent the letter to Mercedes. It was the only outside communication he had been allowed and he'd had to bribe a guard with his good gold watch to get it sent, at that. He had parted with his love in anger. She felt betrayed when he had left her without explaining his reasons. He had feared speaking openly about his identity, but now his one slim chance for survival was to have McQueen vouch for him, and the only means of searching for the American was through Hilario and Gregorio. He had been forced to explain in a letter what he had wanted to tell her in person.

      
Would she understand? Would she forgive him? The questions haunted him far more than the thought of his own death. As a professional soldier, he had come face-to-face with death many times over the past fifteen years. Chasing down Vargas, he had come within a hairsbreadth of losing his life. But the possibility that he could go to his grave with the woman he loved hating him because he was an impostor and a traitor terrified him.

      
Damn, where was McQueen? The illusive bastard had seemed to materialize everywhere over the past eight months. Why did he have to drop off the edge of the earth now? The answer, of course, lay in the very fact that Nicholas was being held in a Juarista prison. The republic was saved and the empire doomed. The fate of mercenaries, regardless of their special “talents,” was now of little concern. Soon, if he knew Benito Juarez—and Nicholas had grown to know him well during their brief acquaintance—Maximilian of Hapsburg, too, would stand before a firing squad.

      
“Small comfort in that,” he said wryly. Just then the loud clank of the outer door being unlocked interrupted his melancholy reverie. A soft sound like the rustle of a woman's skirts drew near, followed by the guard's voice.

      
“You have half an hour, then I'll be back.” He turned the rusty lock to Nicholas’ cell door and swung it open. The heavy iron made a loud screeching protest, echoing off the dank stillness of the stone walls.

      
Mercedes’ voice was soft as she thanked the man and stepped inside the cell. Dressed in an elegant violet riding habit which had been let out at the waist to accommodate her pregnancy, she looked lovely in spite of being dusty from the long ride. Her face was pale in the darkness and her eyes enormous as she strained to see him through the gloom. “Nicholas?”

      
Hearing his own name on her lips at last, even if her voice was hesitant and trembling, broke the trance of disbelief. She was here, the golden lady of his fantasies, warm, alive, calling to him. “Mercedes—you shouldn't be here,” he protested.

      
“What have they done to you?” She was horrified. He was gauntly thin, with days of grizzled beard on his face. His clothes hung in filthy tatters and his eyes, Sweet Virgin, those glowing black wolf’s eyes seemed somehow dim, clouded. Before her own fright and uncertainty could gain hold, she flung herself into his arms. “Oh, my love, are you all right?”

      
He could smell the sweet lavender fragrance of her hair, feel her soft body pressed against his, her hands fluttering over his shoulders and chest, her fingertips grazing his face as she examined him for wounds. He put her at arm's length, saying, “I haven't bathed in weeks. I'll foul you with my touch.”
I already have
.

      
“Don't speak foolishness,” she replied, her voice an anguished cry. “I was terrified you'd already been executed.”

      
“If I'd had any way to reach McQueen without involving you, I'd have done it. If I'd known you'd do something as rash as come here in person, I wouldn't have written to you. The ride is long and dangerous, especially for a woman in your condition.” He could see the swelling of her belly now. “How soon?” he asked as his hand pressed against her soft roundness in wonder. This was
his
child!

      
She shook her head, clinging to his arms. “The baby isn't due for several months yet. I'm fine. It's you—Oh, Nicholas, Innocencia did this! She turned in Lucero and they caught you instead of him.”

      
“You know my name,” he said softly, causing her to pause breathlessly. Her whole body stilled as her eyes searched his face.

      
“Lucero told me. You're Nicholas Fortune, an American mercenary he met in the war.” She could feel his body stiffen. His hold on her shoulders tightened.

      
“Luce returned to Gran Sangre?”
Your rightful husband, who gave you to me as casually as he gave me Peltre.