Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (29 page)

      
Feeling utterly bereft, Charlee threw off the covers and leaped out of bed, startling the cat awake. The sheet fluttered over him when she tossed it carelessly to the foot of the bed. Like a mole emerging from a hole, Hellfire tunneled out from beneath it, his fringed ear and balefully glowing green eyes visible. He sat in his white shroud, watching Charlee bustle about in the dim morning light.

      
“Hellfire, old boy, how'd you like to see New Orleans?” With that she gave the protruding ear a scratch and began to dress. So intent was she on packing that she did not notice when the cat slithered from beneath the bed coverings and slipped silently out the open window.

      
She had washed her face, plaited her hair into a thick, serviceable pigtail and donned a cotton blouse and sturdy skirt, split down the center to allow for riding astride. Charlee felt ready for her undertaking.

      
“I'll just have to leave some of my cash money to pay the rest of what I owe for Patchwork.” She sighed. “I'll tell Deborah to give it to him in my note to her.” Leaving all her friends here in Texas would be difficult, but if she stayed, her situation would be impossible. Sitting down at the small table across from her bed, Charlee thought of Richard Lee for the first time in a long while. If only he were alive the two of them could start over again. She wouldn't be so alone. Resolutely, she forced the bittersweet fancy from her mind and pulled some paper and a pen from the drawer. The letter must of necessity be brief, for she had to make good her escape before anyone else was awake and stirring.

      
After several hasty and inadequate tries, she penned a succinct note to Deborah, thanking her for all her kindnesses and assuring her that she must leave rather than return to Bluebonnet with Slade. She felt certain her friend would surmise the reasons for that decision.

      
Placing the note and the payment for her horse in an envelope, Charlee grabbed her possible sack and looked for Hellfíre. “Damblasted critter. He's probably in the kitchen. I'll leave the note for Deborah there and collect him.”

      
When she made her stealthy exit from her room, the halls were deserted. The only one at all likely to be up was Sadie, and Charlee felt confident she could swear the old woman to secrecy. However, when she tiptoed into the kitchen, neither Sadie nor Hellfire was around. She swore to herself about feline perversity and moved toward the back door, the forgotten note still clutched in her hand. Knowing she dare not call aloud this close to the house, Charlee decided to walk toward the livery and hoped the cat would be near enough to respond to her call from that distance. She began to descend the creaking stairs. Balanced in mid-stride on the first step, she was brought up short by a sarcastic gravel voice.

      
“Well, up so early, all packed and ready to go. Thoughtful of you, my little Cactus Flower, but we really should eat breakfast and say goodbye to Deborah first.”
      
Slade had come around the veranda from the side porch and was leaning indolently against a banister column. Hellfire was twining around his legs, with matching indolence.

      
“Why you, you pusillanimous hunk of moldy flea-bitten fur, you...you traitor, you...you...
tom
cat!”

      
“Is that any way to speak to the cat who saved your life?” He pointed his finger at her accusingly and in a couple of long-legged strides was beside her, relieving her of the possible sack. He eyed the note clutched in her hand but made no move to take it. “Don't think you'll need that,” was all he said.

      
They went back into the kitchen and Slade helped her begin breakfast for the large household. Shortly, they were joined by Sadie, who, if she thought it odd for the pair to be in the kitchen starting the cook fire, said nothing.

      
By the time Deborah, Lee, and the boarders made their appearance, Charlee had several pots of fragrant black coffee brewed, a mountain of fluffy eggs scrambled, six dozen crusty biscuits browning, and two heaping platters of spicy pork sausage fried.

      
Watching her economic and graceful movements in the kitchen, Slade said, “Asa'll sure be glad to see you back, Charlee. Weevils can't boil coffee and talk at the same time, much less get a digestible meal on the table.”

      
“Asa won't be the only one glad for this kind of food,” Lee sang out, snatching a piece of sausage from the platter as she carried it into the dining room.

      
Charlee did not deign to reply to either man.

      
By the time the horses were saddled and Lee and Jim were ready to leave, Deborah came out to say goodbye. Standing on the porch, Charlee glared at the assembly. When she saw Hellfire sprawled limply across Slade's saddle, she clenched her jaw. The cat eyed her with characteristic feline indifference, as if to say in a bored tone, “Well, aren't you coming?”

      
Her eyes narrowed to green slits as she saw her luggage tied onto a pack horse. “Who—?”

      
“Jim asked me to pack the rest of your things while you were making breakfast, Charlee,” Deborah replied. She walked over and put an arm about the young woman's shoulders. “It's not that far to Bluebonnet. We'll be able to visit often.” Then she gave her young friend a hug and whispered so that only she could hear. “Don't give up so easily. Tomasina hasn't won yet!”

      
With a sigh of resignation, Charlee bid Deborah farewell, and strode down the steps. When she mounted Patchwork, Slade nudged Polvo next to her horse and transferred the cat to Charlee's saddle. Hellfire gave her hand a few rough licks and settled down, purring loudly.

      
“Just like a male,” she snapped. “Get your own way and you're happy as a drunk in a moonshine still.”

Chapter Twelve

      
“And I say, my love, that it's time to cut our losses and escape with our whole skins. My government will assign me elsewhere, someplace my escapades aren't so...er...well publicized.” Markham's polished black boots and faultlessly tailored cream suit were out of place in the frontier parlor of Jake Carver's old ranch house with its hideously clashing rose and maroon upholstered furniture. Tomasina had always hated Jake's house, so she had never attempted to redecorate it, only to escape it.

      
Looking down on the immaculately attired man with his perfectly barbered hair, Tomasina wondered how he had managed to ride all the way from town without getting a lock out of place. He was neither dusty nor wrinkled. Did he ever sweat? If so, the memory failed her. He was draped rather effetely over the atrocious sofa. Tomasina turned her back on him and looked out the window at the desolation of the Texas landscape, whipped by the hot morning wind.

      
“Where would we go, Ashley?” she asked wearily. God knew she was sick of the frontier and longed for civilization, but
her
civilization, where Spanish was spoken, an unlikely probability with Ashley Markham. “It's not likely your government will reassign you now with General Woll so close to invasion. If he takes San Antonio and moves east to the Gulf while the Comanche rise in the northwest, Houston's government will crumble.”

      
Ashley threw back his head and laughed, a brittle, unnerving sound that lashed her frayed nerves. “General Woll, indeed. What the hell do you think he is—another ‘Napoleon of the West’?” He scoffed at the title Santa Anna had claimed for himself. “Well, at least Woll is a Frenchman; but don't forget, dear heart, we defeated the original article. I suspect Sam Houston can handle El Presidente and his French mercenary.”

      
“How can you sit there and say such a thing? This is a full-scale invasion. Your own government has sunk millions into it.” Tomasina's black eyes blazed as she stood glaring down at him.

      
Once more he laughed. “I'd never realized the depth of your patriotism, my darling, or the extent of your political naïveté! Christ, no wonder we've been exposed by a stupid chit of a kitchen maid! Bloody incompetence.”

      
“Your incompetence, not mine! I did not want to meet you there. Anyway, I told you, no one believes the girl. She is just a servant in love with Diego. He thinks she made up the whole story in a fit of jealousy over me.”

      
“Including her abduction by Brady?” Markham looked cynical and bemused. “I only wonder what fox-lynx game Slade's playing.” He stroked his chin contemplatively.

      
Tomasina's eyes narrowed. “Forget the girl and Slade. What do you mean by ‘my political naïveté’? I've been in touch with the highest sources in Mexico City. You and other British agents have circulated a fortune across Texas, sowing counterrevolution.”

      
Markham sighed and looked at her, half in fondness, half in frustration, as if she were a favorite child who had just failed to perform adequately in front of visiting relations. “Tomasina, really, be realistic. General Woll will make an incursion, a raid just like Vasquez's in March. It's a simple act of defiance, a fishing expedition by wishful, doomed dream spinners back in Mexico City. They hope to spark a popular uprising of the
Tejanos
. Rubbish! That clever French mercenary won't hold San Antonio a week, much less march to the Gulf! And as to the ‘millions’ Lord Aberdeen has supposedly spent arming Mexico, remember the source of those reports—inflammatory American newspapers, scarcely the most reliable sources,” he said with heavy irony.

      
“You've given me thousands to pass along to the Mexican partisans, even more for your Indian allies,” she insisted, with rising anger.

      
“Little enough for Her Majesty's government to spend containing Yankee avarice in North America,” he sniffed blandly.

      
With an icy chill, Tomasina realized his words had a familiar ring. What had Slade said to her only a few days ago about the balance of power, Mexico versus the United States?

      
“You don't expect us ever to reconquer Texas, do you?” Her tone lent a cutting edge to the question. “You never intended that we would. You wanted only to placate my government and maintain favorable relations with us.”

      
“Well, darling, your compatriots do owe British banking interests rather a large sum of money. They'd hate to see the Mexican government topple. Nasty business, that.” He regarded his nails idly. “As long as your Mexicans are playing soldier games in Texas, they aren't cutting one another to pieces at home; and with our good offices mediating between Texas and Mexico, the Americans are held at bay as well. Not exactly neat and orderly, but a plan of sorts, nonetheless. One does what one can.”

      
Markham stood up and walked over to Tomasina, who had turned once more, this time to stare at the portrait of Jake still hanging over the mantel. She and Ashley used to joke about him. Now it seemed the joke had turned on them.

      
“Tomasina, my beautiful, fiery little patriot, let go. It's over. We can return to Europe. I'm sure my brother in London can find me a decent post somewhere on the Continent. Perhaps…even Spain.” He placed his hands on her tense shoulders and began to massage deftly, interspersing his strokes with soft, light kisses across the nape of her neck.

      
Tomasina took long, deep breaths, trying desperately to remain calm, not to turn on the man behind her and rend his handsome, cynical face to shreds, as he had just done to her dreams. Used. She had been used, her body, her mind, her hopes of returning to Mexico City to live in triumph… Ashley had begun his game with her seven years ago. Was it really her idea to marry Jacob Carver, or his? Her idea to contact old family friends in Mexico City, or his? Every step of the way, since she was an infatuated schoolgirl sneaking away from her
dueña
, Ashley had coached her, seduced her, manipulated her!

      
With a brittle smile, she turned to his embrace. She would let him use her once more, use her body at least, but only once more. “If you really think we must leave,
querido
, I suppose we must, but first you will have to meet your Comanchero friends one last time. After all, you cannot leave your superiors in the lurch. They will expect that diversion just before General Woll's attack.”

      
“Hmm, I suppose so. Such devotion to duty, my lovely firebrand...” His mouth claimed hers in a fierce kiss.

* * * *

      
“I'm beginnin' to think Weevils put some of them dangblasted home remedies of his into the cookin' 'n that's why it tasted like it did, Charlee.” Asa sat in the large cool kitchen at Bluebonnet and watched the late afternoon sun's faint rays cast rich bronze-and-red highlights on Charlee's hair as she stood by the window kneading bread.

      
She rubbed her nose with her wrist and wrinkled up its flour-dabbed tip in a bubble of laughter. “He is a dickens for folk medicine. ‘Good slab o' raw bacon'll cure near ever'thin',” she averred, mimicking Weevils’ accent perfectly.

      
“Wal, it's purely true, fer yore infermation,” a high, wheezing voice cut in as the obese old man came in the back door, struggling under the load of a full flour sack. “I do like wheaten bread a damn sight better'n cornbread, but hellfire 'n damnation, this stuffs expensive, not ta say heavy 'nough ta give a body a hernia.” He sat down as Asa relieved him of his burden.

      
“You got any cures fer the hernia, Weevils?” Asa asked gravely.

      
The old cook snorted in disbelief. “Course I have. Any fool knows ya let a big summer onion set out in th' sun fer a couple o' days, till it's nice and soft. Soak it with cow piss 'n tie it ta th' lower belly fer ‘bout three days.”