6

There were four great doors opening into the house, each carved with a tree, and an arched center entrance of wrought iron leading to a narrow courtyard that ran back to a joining wall at the end. Doors opened off this garden court, and as Zane motioned for Mercy to precede him through the gate, a stately woman stepped from the last door on the right.

Appetizing cooking aromas came with her. Graying hair was plaited into a thick, single braid, and her loose white dress was spotless, worked with green at the neck and hem. Her broad face lighted up at the sight of Zane, who swept her close and kissed her cheek, speaking a few sentences in Spanish before he turned to Mercy.

“Chepa was my nurse. She’s housekeeper now and oversees all the running of the house, though she also does most of the cooking herself. She’ll take you to your room and see that you have whatever you need. We’ll dine in an hour.” He spoke slowly to the older woman. “Chepa, this is Doña Mercy.”

Chepa’s black eyes flicked to Jolie’s annoyed face, then rested on Mercy with vigilant intentness. What will you be to us? inquired that anxious, though wise and steady, gaze. Do you bring La Quinta a blessing or a curse?

“Welcome,” she said and crossed the tree-shaded court to a door next to the one Zane was now opening, with Jolie still clinging to him.

The room was exactly right for its furniture, large enough to hold without crowding a tall chest, an armoire, a velvet cushioned chair with a matching footstool set near a small bookshelf with a reading lamp, a washstand behind a red-and-gold-lacquered screen that also sheltered a copper hip bath, and the most beautiful bed Mercy had ever seen.

The headboard’s deep Oriental curves built to a graceful peak, and the red lacquer was designed with intricately delicate golden tendrils, flowers, and birds. The coverlet was crimson, quilted with golden leaves. There were no pictures, but a large oval mirror framed in red and gold hung over the washstand, and gold and red flowers were painted in a border around the doors, one large window, and at the top of the white walls, the colors mellowed with age.

“Water,” said Chepa, signaling that she would have it brought for the tub and stand. “You … want … what?”

“Gracias. Agua is todos.”

There was going to be a weird mix of Spanish, English, and Mayan around here, but instead of sniggering at her effort, Chepa looked pleased and seemed to search for words.

“Welcome,” she said at last, again.

“Gracias,” said Mercy.

A boy came with her packs just as two young women brought pails of water. They filled the porcelain ewer on the stand and poured the rest of their sparkling burden into the tub, standing so they could watch Mercy from beneath their eyelashes. Both wore flowers in their shining hair and looked like flowers themselves, with bright embroidery edging their white shifts.

The moment they were outside the door, Mercy could hear them giggling and chattering. No doubt she looked strange and hampered to them in her full skirts and long sleeves. Also grubby! she thought, catching her reflection in the mirror. She took her dresses and one cloak from the pack, hung them in the armoire in the hope that some wrinkles would fall out before dinner, and, with a sigh of anticipation, stepped behind the screen to undress.

Glowingly clean after soaping, rinsing and toweling, Mercy put on her last clean drawers, chemise, and petticoat. One of her first sewing tasks must be to make new underthings. Hers were patched and mended till patches and thread, not the original cloth, held them together.

The blue calico dress was less wrinkled than her gray poplin. She slipped into it and wore her old black shoes, because any of the fine new footwear Zane had purchased would make the gown look even more faded. She brushed her hair, promising to wash the travel dust out of it tomorrow, coiled it high on her head, and told herself that at least she was clean and neat.

It didn’t take long to put away her things. She hesitated over the little carvings, then ruefully tucked the pheasant, deer, and jaguar into a drawer. Jolie would scorn presents now and any clear overtures. Her confidence would be painfully won, if at all.

Mercy didn’t know where dinner would be served, but she decided there was nothing wrong in exploring a bit. Opening the other door, she found herself in a hall that ended with a door just beyond her room. There was another door between her room and a wide arch leading to what appeared to be a large and spacious sitting room. Across the hall were two other doors. Mercy neither saw nor heard anything. Stepping back inside her room, she went out through the courtyard.

Good cooking aromas tantalized her. Those, along with a hum of muffled laughter and talk, must have come from the kitchen. Mercy knew this wasn’t the time to get acquainted there. She walked to the entrance and stood on the long porch. It was twilight. The storerooms and commissary were dark, but lamps shone from the opposite row of buildings. Like a guardian, the great ceiba bulked against the distant walls and gate.

“Are you glad the journey’s over?”

Mercy whirled at Zane’s voice. He stood in the entrance of the right side of the house, silhouetted against the glow of a lamp on a desk. Bookshelves lined the walls, there was a long trestle table littered with books and periodicals, a huge leather chair, and a jumble of pipes on the stand beside it. It was clearly Zane’s lair, his office and place of relaxation.

She couldn’t see his expression, but his tone had a note of sympathy, or Mercy’s need made her imagine it did. So far from home, from her people, language, and places she understood—but she’d been betrayed by her husband, her last link to the past. And it was past. Elkanah lay in Pennsylvania’s soil, their land was sold—there was nothing to go back to.

Yet she missed the common history, shared opinions, and familiar places. If Philip had been willing, they could have made a future, forged strong again the links broken by war. That was over now, though. She was bound to this man she couldn’t see, whose face was hidden in the shadows, but whose body called to her, this man who seemed to have only bitterness and contempt for women he might desire.

She loved this man.

But he mustn’t know that—not now. He would use her and throw her aside. Someday, perhaps, if he came to trust her, she might win something from him beyond casual lust. If he loved her, she wouldn’t care that much about marriage vows. What she couldn’t endure would be for him to use her till he grew tired of her, only to defuse sexual need, and deny her any part of his thoughts and heart.

“I’m glad the traveling’s over,” she said, then risked some of the truth with a shaky laugh. “It’s like falling down a well and hitting bottom. I’m a little dazed.”

She knew the moment she’d said it that it was an unfortunate simile. “So you’re trying to find a way out?”

“No! I just meant that I’m groping, trying to find out where I am, what I can do.”

“You needn’t fly into it all at once.” He sounded almost kind. “Get acquainted with Jolie and Chepa, have the women start sewing those dresses, and look over my books and see what can be used for Jolie. For a classroom, you might want to have what was my room when I was a boy. It’s right across the hall from yours, and there’s a globe, atlas, and many of my old books.”

“Did you have a tutor?”

“Father sent me to a Virginia military academy for two years starting when I was twelve. I couldn’t stand it any longer than that, so I made sure my teachers couldn’t, either.” He grinned and the light from the window caught his turned face, giving her a heart-stabbing glimpse of the handsome, high-spirited boy he had been. “I got most of my education from a staved-up prelate friend of my father’s, a renegade priest who taught me Latin and Greek and history when he wasn’t clutching a bottle or a woman.”

“What a preceptor!”

“He married a mestizo beauty in Valladolid and died defending her and their baby during the first sacking of the town.”

There was nothing to say to that. It seemed that all things here came back sooner or later to the war, just as in her own country. At least a generation would have to die before some of the horror and grief and hatred could subside.

Zane changed the subject, as if he, too, wanted to forget constant looming threats and bitterly mourned losses. “If you need help with your little waif, Chepa can talk to her, but, of course, the sooner you can speak both Mayan and Spanish, the better. I’ve put Mayel in a small room next to Chepa’s behind the kitchen so she’ll be available when you want her.”

If Mercy was fearful and uncertain, what must Mayel be? She knew the language and Chepa seemed kind, but such a young girl must surely feel lost and very alone. Mercy resolved to look in on her after dinner and let her know someone cared about her.

“Thank you,” Mercy said.

Silence deepened between them. She grew tremblingly aware of the magnetism—the male energy and force—that radiated from him in an aura that touched her own. Did he feel it, too? Surely he must! And though it was primitively physical, there was more to it than that—a wild elemental clash of powers seeking to fulfill themselves, seeking to merge, to create a new identity.

“When I’ve seen to urgent matters, I could show you some of the countryside,” he said. “There’s a little village not far from here with a Mayan priestess and quite a remarkable hidden wellspring known for its virgin water.”

“Virgin water?”

“Water from cave drippings or deep, secret sources. It’s hard to find, so, like blood, it makes an acceptable offering to the spirits.”

Zane strode to the edge of the tiled porch and looked out over his inheritance, hands behind his back, shoulders hunched slightly forward. “What,” he said abruptly, “do you think of Jolie?”

Startled, Mercy searched for an honest but inoffensive reply. “She’s beautiful.”

A gesture of his hand dismissed that. “I know well enough how she looks.”

“She seems to have a high intelligence.”

He nodded encouragingly. “You’ll find she does.” He waited. There’d be no dodging his intent.

Mercy lifted her chin and took a few deliberate breaths. “Jolie seems spoiled, selfish, and absolutely of no mind to learn anything from me!”

Spinning around, Zane caught Mercy’s hands and brought them to his lips in a laughing salute. “Good! If you can be both tough-minded and truthful, you have a chance with the little imp! She can twist me around her little finger in spite of my resolves, and Chepa is as helpless.”

“I can’t do much with her if you don’t support my authority.”

“I’ll support you.” His tone was surprisingly grim. “If she doesn’t learn some discipline and patience, she’ll be just like …” He broke off, but Mercy was sure he feared the child might be like her self-indulgent and faithless mother.

A bell rang and he motioned for her to precede him into the courtyard.

Dinner was served on a terrace at the back of the house, entered from the center court. The paving extended to four large trees, reaching in crescents halfway around them. A door from the kitchen opened onto this porch and another was at the far end, but there was a long expanse of white plastered wall and on it was a fresco, lit now with twining leaf sconces.

In brightly painted relief, a tree gripped a fearful monster in its roots, while its trunk was level with men hunting and planting corn and women spinning cotton and patting tortillas while children played among flowers and butterflies. Above this terrestrial scene, the branches spread and on either side were patron figures with a great sun above all.

“That represents the Mayan creation myths,” said Zane.

“It’s lovely,” Mercy responded, utterly beguiled.

“It’s silly fairytales and super … superstition!” Jolie tugged at her father’s arm. “Let’s eat, Papa! I got so hungry, but I waited for you!”

“You’ve gone to bones!” he gasped, squeezing a chubby arm. “Quick, then! Sit down before you faint!”

He assisted her into a chair scaled to her size, chuckling, but her golden eyebrows knit furiously and she looked on the verge of tears.

“Don’t treat me like a baby!” She darted Mercy an edged glance. “I don’t like it in front of strangers!”

Zane’s indulgent smile faded. “Doña Mercy isn’t a stranger, Jolie.”

“To me she is!”

Except for coloring, father and daughter looked very much alike as their wills clashed. Their mouths hooked down in the same fashion and the angle of their eyebrows was identical.

“I knew you needed someone to teach you manners,” Zane said to the small mutineer. “I’d no idea how much! Now, you will beg Doña Mercy’s pardon.”

Mercy felt a tug of sympathy for the embattled rebel. “I’m a stranger,” she said, “but I won’t be for long.”

Neither Zane nor Jolie responded to her smile. “Apologize,” ordered Zané.

Jolie hung her head, her lower lip trembling, though it thrust doggedly forward.

“Oh, Zane, it’s not important!” Mercy protested.

“Allow me to decide that. Jolie?”

“What if I don’t?”

“By God!” Zane rocked back, between laughter and exasperation. “You young hellion, you have the gall to sit there and ask?”

“You never spank me,” said Jolie in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you send me to bed without supper, I’ll starve myself all week and you’ll beg me to eat! So what will you do?”

Zane looked thunderstruck at this cool appraisal, but he had the sense to refuse idle threats. “Maybe I’ll do nothing,” he said, “but I’ll be displeased with you, and very much ashamed.”

Her shoulders hunched, Jolie was silent for a long moment.

“Doña Mercy,” she said in a whisper, not looking up, “I beg your pardon.”

Mercy wished she dared to put her arms around the child, but the proudly stubborn set of the whole strong little body forbade any such gesture.

“Please, let’s forget it,” she said. But from the grim look on Zane’s face as he seated her and from the way Jolie kept her eyes lowered, she knew it would be a long time, if ever, before Jolie forgot.

It was an uncomfortable meal. Zane, probably with wisdom, made no effort to woo or make up with his daughter, and he ignored her refusal of all the food except for some delicious-smelling turkey. This, Zane explained to Mercy, was pit-roasted in a native way that was also used with deer, small pigs, and iguanas.

“You may want to watch Chepa make pibil one day,” he said. “It makes even tough meat tender and is a perfect method for cooking on a hunt or journey if one has the time.”

There were yams, small, succulent green-corn tamales, tortillas, and crusty rolls. For dessert they had thin pumpkin seed cakes glazed with honey.

Chepa herself had brought the turkey, still nested on the steamed banana leaves in which it had apparently been cooked.

“How did you know I was coming in time to make pibil?” he had asked her, appreciatively inhaling its fragrance.

“I made deer pibil last night,” Chepa admitted, smiling. “It can be eaten cold, after all. And if you hadn’t come tonight, I had a young pig selected for tomorrow. Shall you, the master, not have a good meal when you return from a journey?”

“The meals are always good,” Zane assured her.

“This bad one doesn’t think so.” Chepa touched Jolie’s golden hair, gave her a sharp glance when the girl stared at her plate, then moved off to the kitchen with a regretful lift of her shoulders. Chepa, evidently, was used to Jolie’s temper.

A graceful young woman Zane called Soledad served the other foods and cleared everything away before fetching the pumpkin seed cakes and foamy hot chocolate. Jolie made up for her earlier abstentions by consuming three cakes and two cups of the rich, spiced hot chocolate.

“Bed for you now,” said Zane, rising.

“Thank you, Papa, but I can go by myself.”

“But …”

“I’m not a young child anymore.” Jolie had a quaint, almost archaic, manner of speech that probably came from living with adults and using three languages. Back straight, arms at her sides, she stiffly offered her cheek to be kissed. “Good night, Papa. Good night, Doña Mercy.”

They both said good night. She vanished through the gate, small, lonely, gripped by a pride and resentment that seemed too fierce for her.

“I’ve most deeply offended Her Highness,” said Zane, forcing a smile. “But I suppose it is time I stopped tucking her in.”

“I’m sorry to have caused trouble.”

Zane shrugged. “Clearly, I should have had a woman here years ago, but at first, I … well, to be blunt about it, I wanted nothing to do with the whole tribe of adult white females. It’s just been the last year, when I had visions of Jolie’s growing out of being a child, that I knew I had to get someone.”

“You could send her away to school.”

“Laugh if you want to, but that would break both our hearts.”

It was indeed time for a woman to be at La Quinta, a woman he could love, have a life with when Jolie married. But he seemed utterly set against his own needs, except for the crudest physical gratification. Mercy despairingly believed she might change the daughter’s blighting attitude long before she did the father’s. He had given all his tenderness and protective love to Jolie. Mercy understood this especially well since her father had done the same with her. As far as she remembered, he’d never thought of remarrying.

Trying to imagine her reaction if Elkanah had brought home a wife, Mercy gave a rueful shake of her head and laughed. “It’s hard for a doted-upon daughter to have another woman in the house, even when it’s her own mother. I’m sure I’d have made life difficult for any lady my father might have brought in, though by the time he went off to war I was beginning to realize that he needed someone his own age. And, of course, if he were still alive, I’d be delighted now for him to marry.”

“There’s no question of my marrying.” Zane’s cold words were a slap.

Mercy flushed. “I … I’m aware of that I only meant that I can sympathize with Jolie.”

“That should help, but it won’t serve to be soft with her. She can be as implacable as a tyrant if she senses irresolution.”

“A family trait?” Mercy asked sweetly.

Zane stared at her, poured out liqueur, and offered her the tiny crystal goblet. “You may do,” he grudged.

“I’ll try.”

Their eyes met and held. His hand closed over her wrist and pressed warmly against the pulsing so that she felt revealed to him, nakedly exposed by the speeding pounding of her blood.

“It’s not too late.” His voice was husky, reaching to her depths.

“Too late for what?”

He drew her to her feet. “Let me show you something.”

Moonlight whitened paving stones through the walled courtyard, past a fountain, and out among trees that had the unmistakable scent of citrus.

“Lemons, limes, and oranges,” said Zane. “In the spring their blossoms perfume everything. Bees go crazy trying to collect all the pollen.”

He’d kept her hand in his, her arm tucked up through the bend of his elbow. It was wonderful to be close like this. But even while she felt herself expanding, flowering like one of those blooms he’d mentioned, she was afraid this shared moment would end in bitterness.

She wouldn’t be his mistress, not unless he loved her.

They passed the orchard, a row of coconut palms, and struck a path leading into thick woodlands where the moon couldn’t reach. Zane knew the way, though, and he drew her along.

In ten minutes they stood in a clearing and Mercy stared at a curious square tower no more than twenty feet high, with dark windows facing them like blind eyes.

“Come,” urged Zane, drawing her across the eerily lit open space and inside the building.

He let go of her, fumbled for a moment, and struck a match, quickly lighting a small Phoebe lamp. The soft yellow glow illuminated a large, low-ceilinged room with a circular staircase winding up the center. There was a fireplace, an open-faced cupboard with a few glazed plates and mugs, a small, flower-carved trestle table and bench, and over by a window were two chairs and footstools.

The round table between them held a lacquered tray with a decanter and lacquered cups. The floor was stone, but bright straw mats softened it. The air was musty but not unpleasantly so, for in the damp smell of disuse lingered a wistful trace of roses.

Zane lit a candle, handed it to Mercy, and indicated the stairs. “Have a look.”

Lifting the hem of her skirt, she ascended with care, for there were no banisters and the stone steps narrowed to a point at the end so that she could step only on the broader part. The staircase was designed to be a support for the second story, around which her candle flickered as she stepped onto solidly hewn planking, caught in a breath of wonder.

The high chamber looked Moorish, sparsely furnished, yet luxurious. Long narrow windows had the squared-off arch distinctive of Mayan architecture, because, Zane had explained, they never learned how to make a full arch and instead built converging sides as close together as possible and then closed the tip with a flat piece. The walls were stark white except for floral traceries around the windows, but the ceiling was painted in brilliant geometric designs, with a predominance of purple, dark green, and azure radiating out from a many-petaled flower in the center.

A couch was positioned directly beneath the flower, covered with purple silk and bolsters and cushions of every color. Spotted hides were scattered around the floor. There were several beautifully carved chests, a stand built to hold a large onyx washbasin and brazen ewer, and an airy, high-backed wicker chair cushioned with turquoise velvet.

The high chamber was for the bed, and the bed was for love. Feeling Zane close behind her, Mercy felt as if her blood were slowing, heavy as molten gold. Her breath came quick and short, seeming not to reach her lungs, turning her dizzy, faintingly weak.

“If you’ll be my woman,” Zane said, and his voice seemed to come from far away, strained and odd, as if he, too, were having trouble with breathing, “you could live here and I’d supply whatever you wanted for a pastime—books, a horse, music, or painting equipment.”

“And Jolie?”

His long mouth tightened. “I’ll find another teacher for her, someone older and plain. Why waste you on her when she’s going to fight you every inch and detest you for the reasons that make you so desirable to me?”

“But you say you haven’t found anyone who’ll come here.”

“I haven’t tried that hard. Now that I see how spoiled Jolie’s getting, I’ll get a suitable dragon if I have to advertise in the New Orleans papers.”

“You wouldn’t want me to see Jolie?”

“You’d have a housekeeper. There’d be no need for you to be at La Quinta.”

“You mean that you don’t want your mistress besmirching your daughter.”

He scowled. “It can’t distress you to avoid a trying and perhaps impossible task. I’m no sentimentalist. My daughter’s behavior can only make her distasteful to you.”

“Working with her was the position I accepted when I refused Mr. Kensington’s proposal.”

“I told you flatly there’s to be no proposal—of marriage—from me.”

“And you promised not to force me into your bed.”

“I’m not forcing you.” He laughed suddenly and his eyes shone incandescent. “You want me. Your breasts hurt, don’t they? I can take that ache away with my mouth; I can pierce that inflamed swelling so you’d be honey-sweet and peaceful and sleep happier and sounder than ever in all your life.” He didn’t touch her, but his voice and eyes burned into her depths. “Why deny what you want, too? You’ll have a luxurious life and I’ll be generous. When you go back to the States, it can be as a well-to-do woman.”

“And I can open an elegant brothel like many a retired whore?”

For a moment she thought he would strike her, and she willed herself not to flinch. “I wouldn’t advise it. Some goaded customer would slit your lovely throat ear to ear!”

Bowing sardonically, he stood back to let her descend. “This is where you lodge your paramours?” She couldn’t keep from asking the question.

“It’s none of your damned business, but I’ve only kept one woman here, and she wasn’t mine.”

Jealousy flared in Mercy. She pictured another woman on that couch, smiling at Zane with outstretched arms and a compliant body. “A nun, I suppose!”

“Very near it. She’s Xia, the priestess in the village that I mentioned before.”

“And you made that tower for her?” Mercy asked in a disbelieving tone.

“In daylight you’ll see how ridiculous that is,” Zane said with a harsh laugh. “The tower is part of an ancient ceremonial site that spread over several miles. My father rebuilt it and kept his concubines there after my mother died, but I’ve had no such use for it myself. Nor, in case you’re wondering, have I used the women of La Quinta. A few nights in Tekax have always cured my restless seasons.”

“Then I wonder why you’d risk the possible difficulties of having a mistress you couldn’t just use, pay, and forget till the next one of your seasons.”

“I’m not a young stallion to go rutting off when the devil drives me. The convenience of having a woman close at hand rather than a day’s ride away is beginning, I’ll admit, to counterbalance my liking for solitude, but not,” he added grimly, “to the extreme that I’ll marry, in case you hope to price yourself up to that!”

If you loved me, that would be enough. Nothing else is, unless you do.

“I’d hate the life you offer,” Mercy said. “I’d be doing nothing useful, existing only for your … diversion. No amount of money or luxury could make such a waste of myself worthwhile.”

He stared at her, shock changing to mockery as his long mouth quirked. “And what was the mystic and high purpose you fulfilled in marriage with Philip Cameron?”

Stung but unsubdued, Mercy snapped, “I learned that I need more than to be some man’s convenience! Wouldn’t the prospect of only”—she cast around for some withering description—“standing at stud disgust you?”

“Doña Mercy!”

“Wouldn’t it?” she pressed.

“I’d enjoy a chance to find out.” His eyes danced, the cleft deepened in his chin, and he looked younger than she’d yet seen him.

“Not if that was all you could do. A married woman at least has a house to take care of, cooking, and usually children. Her time can be full and useful. Your mistress needs to be a stupid, sloth-like creature who could spend all day sleeping or preening. No woman of intelligence or ability would live in such a harem-like manner.”

“You,” he said grimly, “make the virtues of a stupid, sloth-like, but amiable mistress shine by comparison! You stole your tongue from an adder! One might as well take a thorn bush to bed. So go to your virtuous sleep, madam, but take this with you!”

He crushed her to him, ground her breasts cruelly against his hard body, forced his loins against hers, and took her lips savagely, bruisingly, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth. From struggling futilely, she went limp, supported only by his arms, ravished by the onslaught till, if he had thrown her on a bed, she could not have resisted.

As she went softly and yielding, his hands gentled and his lips moved over hers so softly that she trembled. “Good night,” he said, drawing away, steadying her till she had control of herself again. “As soon as you’ve settled in, you may start pursuing your Calvinistic ideal of duty and work. I wish you joy in it!”

He bowed, his dark hair falling over his forehead so that she longed to push it back, turned abruptly, and strode to a door opening off the veranda.

Her hand going to her lips which still felt the force of his, Mercy fought back tears. Why? Why was he so obstinate?

Was he so mulish he’d never admit he craved a single mistress to give him the security and closeness he’d failed to find in marriage but could never find with casual, infrequent couplings?

He wanted closeness without risk, the solace of love with none of the pain. He wanted to be the center and source of a woman’s life, and to pay for that in money and things.

Not with me, Mercy vowed, not with me.

But she knew if he really chose to use a little force, break down her defenses as he had just done minutes ago, he could have her.

Once.

If that does happen, if he does take me—and God knows he can if he’s ruthless, for I love him and my body cries for his—then I must go away. To live as he wants me to in that tower would destroy the person that I want to be. His slave I may be, but I won’t be his body servant!

Mercy thought of going to see how Mayel was, but there were no lights in the rooms behind the kitchen. The girl must be asleep.

And Jolie? Had she cried that night with self-pity and hate for an interloper? What would happen if she remained adamant, refusing to be friends?

Mercy sighed. Journey’s end. She was at the center, the fifth direction, and what would happen now?