Treasure of the Sun (16 page)

She could hear him, but she couldn't comprehend him. She wouldn't comprehend him.

One winged eyebrow rose in cynical disdain. "Bah, you're too immature to know. Let me know when you can see me. Let me know when you know me. Call me by my name when you want me.”

He rolled off the bed and stalked to the window, and tears rose in her eyes. She didn't know this Damian. She didn't know him at all.

When her eyes opened, a grey light permeated the room, yet it wasn't early. Dawn had slipped by, masked by the clouds and a slow, steady drip of rain. As if he'd never moved all the night long, Damian stood leaning against the window sill, looking out over his land. A curl of smoke drifted in on the wind, and she knew a lighted cigar rested between two fingers.

He was naked.

His dark hair lay ragged against his shoulders. His back tapered down to a . . . a hinderpart that was so muscled the sides of his cheeks were concave. His legs were the legs of a rider. She blushed and closed her eyes at the comparison.

After all, she was a sensible woman. Looking at him solved nothing and most certainly wasn't the act of a lady.

On the other hand, she would probably never look on another naked man, and if she did, he couldn't be as pleasant to the eye as Damian. She preferred to think of herself as sensible; logical was another adjective she applied. Temptation, she realized glumly, was something she'd never encountered before.

Opening her eyes, she got the full frontal view.

She didn't blink. He leaned against the wall, his cigar in his hand, watching her with the same possessive challenge he would a fractious horse.

She looked him over. In for a penny, in for a pound, her father always said. After all, he'd come to her last night. He'd never left the room. She'd been asleep, curled into a little ball of misery when he lay down, yet she'd known he rested there. He'd pulled her quilt over him, keeping the blanket between their bodies, and she'd snuggled tight to his shoulder. She wouldn't speak of his tenderness in the daylight, yet the dark would always bring the memory.

"Why did you guard my chamber every night?" she asked, picking up the conversation just as if they were seated in a parlor and she'd interrupted him to serve him tea.

He raised his cigar to his lips and took a long pull. His eyes half closed with the pleasure, and he relaxed as he let out the smoke in a steady stream. "Because I didn't know if your life was in danger. It was a possibility, although I'd taken every precaution to ensure that no one, except the servants, knew where you were."

A thrill at his protectiveness flustered her, and she willed it away. "Did you think the murderer was interested in me?"

"Probably not, but since there was no obvious motivation for the killing of Tobias, I had to ensure your safety. You were in no condition to ensure it for yourself. My vaqueros patrolled every night; my servants watched over you. When nothing happened we released the information of your whereabouts and I left, making a great noise, for the Sacramento Valley."

"Why?" she asked, startled.

"To bait the trap. It was as guarded as I could make it, yet we had to draw out the murderer, if he were interested in you."

"I can't believe you would abandon the hacienda when-" "I did not." He smiled grimly. "I lived with the vaqueros." Knowing the rough conditions of the cowboys, she objected,

"Why would you live such a life, when comfort was so close?"

"It gave me something to distract me." "From what?" she asked, unthinking.

His steady gaze answered the question before he said, "From the death of my best friend. From the thought of his wife, sleeping in my house and bedeviled with nightmares."

She found herself looking at the walls, the bedposts, the chair, the pitcher. Anything was better than looking at him. She didn't want to contemplate what she'd learned about his passions last night. Not yet; she wasn't ready.

Turning to lean on his shoulder, he stared out the window.

"No one came after you, though. Eventually, I really did go to the Sacramento Valley. My rancho needed attention, and I'd been neglecting it. Still, you didn't see me every time I came back to check on you."

"Oh."

"You've depended on me for a long time."

"So it would appear." She didn't like his insinuation, and she sat up, tucking the sheet beneath her armpits briskly. That air of efficiency was one of her best-loved and most effective masks; she wore it now with determination. "Well, it's not necessary any longer." Holding her hand up when he would protest, she said, "I assure you, I've been taking responsibility for my own safety and my own actions for many years."

"You don't have to do that anymore. I'll take care of you."

He watched her intently.

"A pleasant euphemism for an unpleasant thing. My uncle said the same thing to the chambermaid, and within a year she was thrown into the streets swollen with his bastard."

He looked disgusted. "A disagreeable term for an innocent baby."

His biting reproof made her feel ashamed. Defensive, she retorted, "The poor girl was bewildered, lost, starving. I'd sneak out with food, but she finally sold her body until she swelled so big no man would buy it. But men aren't finicky, she discovered. She'd made enough to support herself until the babe was born."

"What happened?" he asked.

"The baby, she left in a church. She'd hang around the alleyway outside Uncle Rutherford's, and I'd talk to her." She grinned in lopsided amusement. "Maura was pretty, you understand. That's what attracted dear Uncle Rutherford, of course. She was none too intelligent, either, and that kept her on the streets. But she knew despair when she saw it. She offered me money."

"For what reason?"

"Because I had none. Because I had less than the lowest servant." With the same twisted smile, she looked him straight in the eye. "Because she felt sorry for me."

He didn't smile back or indicate in any way he'd heard or understood what she'd told him. "Did you tell your uncle about the child?"

"When it was born, do you mean?" He nodded and her smile vanished. "When I told Uncle Rutherford he had a son, he never even raised his head. He asked, 'So?' "

"What did you say?"

"I threatened-" her voice cracked, her eyes swam with tears, and she lowered her head to hide them "-I threatened to tell Aunt Narcissa. He asked me how long I thought my mother would survive in the streets like Maura."

His hands clamped onto the sheet on either side of her hips, and she jerked her head up. How had he gotten across the room so quickly? The blaze of fury that ignited his face was answer enough.

"Do you compare me to your Uncle Rutherford?"

"No," she stammered. "That's not what I meant at all. I meant-" She remembered what she'd said and she knew why he roiled with anger. "I didn't mean it that way. I simply meant you can't 'take care of me.' I realize you'd never turn me out onto the streets. I know you'd take care of our children. But even though I'm not one of your Spanish donas, I still have my pride."

His grip on the sheet loosened and he tried to interrupt, but she waved him to silence.

"When I lived with my aunt and uncle, I would sometimes be informed, mostly by the men who were shocked my uncle used my legal services that Cinderella and I had much in common." She grinned, a gamine grin that astonished him, and allowed him his first glimpse of the young troublemaker she had once been. "I found I lacked the gentle resignation that made Cinderella such a popular heroine. When Tobias came to dinner-well, he wasn't the perfect prince, but I knew I could make myself happy with him." Her smile grew wider and her eyes danced. "He was a foreigner, a craftsman who worked with his hands.

Uncle Rutherford and Aunt Narcissa looked down their noble noses at him. They cited their exalted ancestry. They talked about how it ran in an unbroken line back to the Pilgrims of the Mayflower and they reminded me, grudgingly, that my ancestry was theirs."

"Who are these Pilgrims?"

Her smile faded as she realized the gap between them. "They were the beginning of my nation. They were the aristocracy of the English colonies, just as you are the aristocracy of California. It means nothing to you, but regardless of my penniless state, I come from people who are moral and proud. I can't be your mistress. It's demeaning. I couldn't live like that."

"To sleep with me once, then casually turn your back on me -that's less demeaning!"

She blushed. "I didn't sleep with you, not like you mean."

"To all in Alta California, you did just that." He made a place for himself beside her, and-he sat so close the warmth of his hip seemed to melt the sheet. She wanted to look down, but she found the courage that allowed her to gaze on his body evaporated with his proximity. Keeping her gaze firmly attached to his, she concentrated on his words.

"Catriona, I've never asked you to be my mistress. English isn't my first language, and this . . . this 'taking care of' has more than one meaning. I wish to provide you shelter, food, give you children, fight your battles for you." Lifting his hand to her cheek, he stroked it until she was hypnotized. "I want you to be my wife."

28 May, in the year of our Lord, 1777

Fray Amadis found the journey into the mountains too strenuous. He has passed on to glory. We laid him to rest in the dirt of these California mountains with many prayers and the proper rites.

I fear the lack of food and chill of the nights are taking their toll on Fray Lucio, also. He is old and weary. He droops as we walk and moans in his sleep. God grant him strength. If he should go to his reward,' there would be only Fray Patricio and me. Fray Patricio stands as tall and as broad as the oak trees of the interior, with a hearty attitude and a cheerful belief in our mission, but the chest we carry weighs greatly. We must find somewhere to hide this gold until we can return for it.

-from the diary of Fray Juan Estevan de Bautista

Chapter 8

"Your wife?" Katherine skittered out of the sheet, over the pillow. She stopped only when she felt the headboard against her spine, then she molded each vertebra flat against the wood. Her chemise and pantalettes provided inadequate cover, but she used her hands to conceal what she could.

"Yes." Damian's voice was gentle. "My wife."

"Your wife?"

This time he said nothing.

A choking indignation filled her, and an unnamed fear. Marriage-indeed, any kind of attachment to this man-would never be the easy relationship she'd shared with Tobias. Damian would demand everything she had to give. He'd hold her in the kind of love that took prisoners and never let them go. "Are you mad?"

Lifting his knee, he perched his elbow atop. One of his fingers stroked his mustache, and he sighed. "Not to my knowledge."

His equanimity calmed her, until he added, "You have no choice."

She jerked the pillow over her chest. Her motions revealed her agitation, she realized, but his composure rattled her. "I admit it. I've needed someone. Now I can't wait to stand on my own two feet again."

"That's fine. As long as you do it in my bed." His mouth quirked. "And keeping your feet while in my bed is unlikely and possibly dangerous."

She wrapped the pillow around her like a suit of armor. "You want me to come to you impoverished, with nothing of value except a mouth that needs feeding and a body that needs shelter. You're not mad. You think I am."

He stared coldly down his nose. "Perhaps that's how an American man considers his wife, but a Californio sees more than a hungry mouth and a demanding body."

"I've had experience with this situation and its disadvantages.

I never want to be the poor relative again."

"Perhaps for an American man."

"For you, there is the obstacle of my nationality."

"Pardon?"

She put her face at eye level with his. "I'm an American. An American, descended from the English settlers two hundred years ago."

She glared right in his eyes, and he glared back. "Do you perceive a problem?"

"You're a pure Castilian Spaniard. Proud as the devil, bragging about your lineage, telling the world about your Moorish ancestors and ignoring any others. Do you want an American to be the mother of your children?"

"Why not?"

"Because my nationality would be a stain on your pure blood line. Do you deny it?"