Sebastian sat in his study reading the journal for what he thought was the hundredth time. Already he knew the words by heart. He wasn’t a bastard. He was legitimate, a true son. His mother had married the elder Newsome. Carlyle was his brother, half brother. Sebastian Rivera, no, Newsome, was legitimate. He couldn’t believe the words. They were true. It was in black and white. He closed the journal and placed it precisely in the center of his desk. His eyes were riveted on what Royall had called his life. Royall. She had said she had almost died for the journal. She said she wouldn’t be troubling him again, that she was going back to New England. Goddamn it, just when his life was starting to take shape, she had to go and ruin it. Damn fool woman. Leave it up to a woman and you might as well lay down and die.
How cold and aloof she had looked sitting on the gray. How beautiful. Goddamn it, why couldn’t she see how he loved her? Couldn’t she tell? By God, he wouldn’t get on his knees to any woman! Maybe she wanted him to plead with her to stay. I’ll be damned if I do that either. Bitch! What did she want from him? Why was she torturing him like this? Angry at his circumstances, he slugged down a gulp of brandy. His eyes watering at the fiery liquid, he stood up and shook his leg. Damn fool thing to do, it was his throat that was burning not his leg.
He felt like a fool. Another gulp of liquor made him feel better. Royall Banner wasn’t going to torment him much longer. Did she have any idea what a sacrifice it was for him to give up Aloni? Did she have any idea of what it cost him to send the China doll packing? A goddamn fortune, that’s how much. By God, he should demand his money back from her lawyer. The thought amused him, and he threw back his head and roared with laughter. He should just show her the list Aloni had presented to him. Royall Banner with two L’s would sing a different tune when she saw how much he had paid out. Perfume, powder, lip rouge, stockings, dresses for daytime, dresses for nighttime, shoes, unmentionables. By Christ, that was a laugh. Aloni didn’t have an unmentionable to her name. Shoes, lots of shoes, the list had read. Jewels, jewels. A cape for the opera and a cape for day time and a cape to walk to market. By God, he had paid through the nose. And don’t forget the goddamn spinet she demanded. The brandy bottle flew to his lips and he gurgled deeply. Well, he wasn’t going to let her get away with it. Where was darling, beautiful Aloni now, he wondered pitifully. Probably in some garret starving to death, all because of Royall Banner. “My ass she’s starving,” he thundered drunkenly when he suddenly remembered the cash deposit the tiny girl had demanded. And he had just handed it over, glad to be rid of the tiny creature who had shared his townhouse for two years. He had suffered greatly when Aloni pocketed the money and said in her best little girl voice, “It is my pension, Sebastian.” It was goddamn outright thievery, was what it was!
He was drunk. If anyone had a right to get falling down drunk, it was he. He laughed again, a deep, booming sound that brought his foreman on the run. His dark eyes took in the scene, and he smirked. The boss was drunk. Jesus couldn’t wait to tell the others. Something good must have happened. It had been years since he had seen the boss so pie-eyed. It was good to see.
“Jesus, come in here. Fetch me another bottle of brandy and let’s have a drink. I want to make a toast, and I want you to join me.” Jesus grinned as he uncorked the bottle. “No, no, a bottle for you and one for me. We won’t bother with glasses, takes too long to drink that way.”
“What are we drinking to, Senor Rivera?”
“To the biggest damn fool in all of Brazil. Me!” he said triumphantly as he swallowed a hearty gulp of the fiery brandy. “You must have made this rotgut yourself, Jesus. It would take the hide off a water buffalo at fifty paces. Just the stink! The real stuff would kill him.”
Jesus choked on the brandy and it dribbled down his chin. He wiped at the brandy with his shirt sleeve. If he was going to get drunk with the boss, he’d better do it neatly.
“And to ... and to ...” Jesus waited patiently. “What was I saying?” Sebastian demanded. Jesus shrugged. “I remember, we want to toast womanhood. Those goddamn creatures who make our blood boil. Don’t ever look at a woman, Jesus. They can kill you with their eyes. Do you want to hear a story? It’s a sad story but I’m going to tell you anyway. Pay attention, because I don’t want the same thing to happen to you.”
In between sips of brandy, Sebastian unburdened himself. “I tell you, there is no justice. Tell me the truth, Jesus. Do you think I’m a good man?”
Jesus leered drunkenly. “A very good man, Senor.”
“Well, as one man to another, do you think Senora Banner should pay me back for what Aloni cost me? I did it for her. Now she’s going back to New England where they have to wear lots of clothes.”
“For you, Senor, is big problem,” Jesus said knowingly.
“I tried so hard,” Sebastian said pitifully. “I gave up everything. And what does she do, she’s leaving!”
“You have big problem, Senor.”
Sebastian drunkenly agreed.
Sebastian nodded his head. Christ, that was his head bobbing on his shoulders, wasn’t it. Jesus looked strange; he couldn’t have three ears. “I know what I’m going to do, Jesus,” he said slurring his words. “Soon as it’s light, I’m going to the padre and tell him to get my money back. Whatever he confiscates from the ... the ... two L’s he can have half. Isn’t that fair, Jesus?”
“More than fair. The padre will then know of all your wicked ways,” Jesus said toppling from the chair.
“He can pray for my soul. Father Juan loves to pray for all the souls,” Sebastian said virtuously. “Jesus, get up, we have to go to bed.” Loud snores ricocheted around Sebastian as he peered down at his foreman. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a man who can’t hold his liquor,” Sebastian said in disgust.
Elena stared down at her patient. Slurred curses and epithets rumbled from his distorted mouth. Elena’s facial features remained fixed, her gaze unblinking as she listened to his vicious tirade. How terrible he looked, how ugly with his drooping eye and pulled-down lips. He was a caricature of evil, she thought as she continued to hold his gaze. His words didn’t matter now. He could say whatever he wanted and it would no longer affect her. The doctor Sebastian had sent had merely shook his head and cautioned her to be tolerant. He had left a sleeping draught for the bad moments, but that was as much as he could do. It would be dawn in another hour, the beginning of a new day, a new kind of life for the Baron. Would he adjust to his disability, or would he succumb to the inevitable? She shrugged one elegant shoulder and turned to leave the room.
“Skinny old crow, you make me ill with your black dresses and your hair in a roll on top of your head. Ugly witch,” he managed to sputter to her retreating back.
Elena turned abruptly, visibly shaken by the scathing words. The Baron was unrelenting. “Go down to the compound and send me some beautiful young women to grace this death room. You’re old, a hag! Much too old for my tastes. But I can remember when you were young, so young and beautiful.” His good eye glittered with hate and malice in a way that always made her cringe with guilt and memories best forgotten.
“There is no one left to bring. Everyone is gone. Your mind has been affected with your stroke. I’m the only person that you will ever see until the day you die. Pray, Baron, that I do not go to my maker before he is ready for you.”
“Hag! Old crow! Ugly woman,” he rasped in a voice that lacked its previous timbre.
Elena swept down the hall with unseeing determination.
A few moments later Elena returned to the Baron’s room, a startling transformation in her appearance. She was now attired in a low-slung skirt and short bolero, common to the native Indian. Time had been her friend rather than her enemy. Her slim torso was as graceful as a young girl’s, and her unbound breasts were high and softly rounded beneath the light fabric of her bolero. She paused an instant before she opened the door. With an unhurried gesture she opened the door and took two steps into the lamp-lit room. In a throaty whisper she called the Baron by a name that was known only between the two of them.
The Baron turned as though in a dream. Was he dreaming? Elena stood in the half light of the room with a secret smile on her lips, inviting him, a slim arm raised in greeting.
To his eyes she was as beautiful as she had ever been in youth. Sweet honeyed skin that tempted a man’s hand to graze the velvety surface. Supple, clean unhindered lines of her figure promised passionate supplication. She was a girl again and he ...
The Baron’s eyes traveled beyond her to the mirror on his dressing stand. An old man, a crippled man, who would never enjoy the delights this vision of sensuousness was presenting, gazed back at him. And beneath the covers he felt a stirring, a stiffening he had thought he would never know again. The manly prowess he had considered lost, gone, regardless of what woman he was with, had returned for Elena. For the one woman who would never take pity on him.
Now he understood. At last the devious workings of Elena’s hatred for him were clear. Now the tide had turned, and she would make him suffer the way he had made her suffer for the years of unrequited love. His anger moments ago had added additional fuel to her fire. There would be no forgiveness, no amount of begging would ever change things between the two of them. He understood.
Elena would remain at his side, the perfect servant, never more a friend or lover. And while she went about her duties, she would mete out the cruelest of punishments ever inflicted upon a man. She would taunt him with her loveliness, and while her attitude would be subservient, she would accept with a quiet smile all his vile words and inclinations. All the while joy would course through her blood. He would be hers. His loins would ache for the feel of her, and she would deny him. This was to be his punishment.
He read divine revenge in Elena’s eyes.
Elena swayed closer to the bed, careful to stay out of the Baron’s reach. She dropped gracefully to her knees, her long satiny hair spilling down her chest. She locked eyes with the Baron. “I was fearful that you wouldn’t understand,” she said in a throaty whisper.
The Baron struggled for speech, and his face became contorted with the effort. “Why?”
Elena drew herself erect to her full height, a zealous light burning in her eyes. She stared at him for a long moment before she answered his question, and her reply rendered him senseless as he realized the full import of what she said.
“For Jamie.”
As the Baron gasped at her words, Elena glanced through the half-open drapes. Dawn. It was fitting that the past moments had come at such a perfect time. A smile played about her lips when she noticed Sebastian Rivera ride through the gates. Her smile widened, and a spark of pleasure ignited itself within her. The pleasure that leaped in her was for Royall Banner.
Royall woke feeling sweaty and clammy. It hadn’t cooled at all during the long, unbearable night. Soon it would be dawn. Perhaps if she got up and sat on the balcony outside her room she might feel a slight breeze. Hastily, she drew on the scarlet dressing gown and slipped from the bed.
She sat quietly, watching as dawn crept over the jungle to advance on the Casa. Pearl gray shadows cobwebbed the garden as the brilliant blooms woke to life. The jungle itself came to life as birds awakened to another day. Would she ever get used to this place? Perhaps if she made up her mind to stay, she told herself. But that wasn’t likely. The Casa now belonged to Sebastian Rivera, and there was no way she was going to live off his bounty. No, she would go back where she belonged and make a new life for herself. This then was nothing more than an interlude. A time where she had come of age, awakened to her full potential. She had arrived in Brazil a young girl and she would be leaving a woman. She had grown here in the jungles of Brazil, and she would always be thankful for that.
Suddenly, a thunderous shout split the air. Sebastian!
“There you are. I’m calling on you!” Sebastian shouted happily as he teetered on his horse.
Oh, God, not again. He was drunk. Quickly, Royall rose from the chair and raced through the house and out to the courtyard. “You’re drunk!” she shouted.
“Of course I’m drunk, do you think I don’t know that? I have a right to be drunk. I’m”—his mind searched for the right word—“legitimate. That’s worth drinking to, Senora Royall Banner with two L’s.”
“You’re disgusting,” Royall snapped.
“That too,” Sebastian laughed. His eyes were crossing and he felt light-headed. Quickly he removed his hat and swept it in front of him with a wild flourish.
“Why are you wearing that silly hat?”
“The sun,” he answered haughtily.
“It’s dawn, there’s no sun.”
“Rain? Keeps my neck dry.”
“You oaf, the rain was yesterday. Get down off that horse before you fall off and hurt yourself. You look as though you need coffee and something to eat.”
“That’s not what I need,” Sebastian leered at her from the horse.
“Well, that’s what you’re going to get,” Royall said, nervously checking the tiny jeweled buttons on her dressing gown, annoyed to find they were open from the hem to above her knees.
Sebastian swore in disgust as he slipped from the horse and grinned at Royall. “Why do you think I came here?”
“God only knows, but I wish you would get on that horse and go someplace else and torment someone else.”
“God knows and now Father Juan knows. You’re the last, but that’s all right because,” Sebastian enunciated clearly, “you are trespassing on my property.”
“Ha!” Royall snorted. “I should have known. At first light you came to claim what’s yours. Fine, you can have it. I knew it, I just knew you would come here. You want my house and my body. Well, you aren’t—”
“Shhh,” Sebastian said laying a finger to his lips. “Not in that order. I can take the house any time. I want ...” he lurched for her and missed. He righted himself and threw back his head, laughing uproariously.
“Get out of my sight. I can’t bear the sight of you. You can have your plantation and the Baron. He’s your responsibility now. I’m leaving.”
“Not before you pay me the money you owe me,” Sebastian said, wagging a finger under her nose.
“What money?” Royall screeched.
Sebastian rolled his eyes. Both hands dusted the humid air. “The money for the capes, the shoes, the dresses, the spinet, the ... the un ... those things Aloni ... all that stuff you wear under the dresses—those things. Jewels,” he went on undaunted, “and the cash settlement. I want it now!” Sebastian roared.
“What cash settlement?” Royall demanded hotly.
“When I leave here I’m going to Father Juan and tell him you . . . you reneged. Pay up!” he thundered.
“You’re a contemptible bastard. I won’t give you anything! Go to your Aloni, to that infant, and get it from her. Get away from me and go back to your jungle,” Royall spat, as she danced away from his reaching arms.
“Damn fool woman!” Sebastian shouted. “I can’t ask Aloni for the money, I gave it to her. And all those other ... things.”
“That’s your problem. You gave her the money and what did you ever give me? Well, I’ll tell you, Senor Sebastian Rivera, all you ever gave me was a stiff neck and a broken heart. Now, get out of here, you make me sick.”
“Sick?” Sebastian was instantly contrite. “Does that mean you won’t marry me till you’re well. When will that be?”
“Marry you? Marry you?” Royall shrilled. “After what you’ve put me through, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”
Sebastian waved his arms about wildly. “Damn fool woman, you’ll be the death of me yet. Look around you, I am the last man. The Baron doesn’t count,” he said leering at Royall. “Now, what’s your answer?”
“The answer is no. N-O. First, you use me, then you abuse me. You led me on, let me think you cared for me, and all the while it was that . . . that infant in your townhouse that you ran to. She ... she even attacked me and you didn’t do a thing about it. Damn you, you used me. I won’t tolerate that from any man. You are a bastard and I loathe the sight of you. Go ahead, you came here to make all of us ashamed of ourselves. You’re the rightful owner and you can throw us out. Who cares! I’m leaving this godforsaken place anyway, and I’m never coming back. Bastard!” she seethed.
“You’re a bitch!” Sebastian spat harshly. “I came here to ask you to marry me, and you call me a bastard. Damn woman, there’s no pleasing you?”
“Why didn’t you try asking me when you were sober. Oh, no, you have to get drunk and make an ass of yourself. I said I won’t marry you and I mean it. And as for your ‘cash settlement,’ you can just hold your breath. Better yet, I’ll give you my shoes, my dresses, my capes, and my unmentionables! That’s fair. Get the hell out of my way, you drunken lout, before I knock you over and stomp you to death.”
Sebastian backed off. “You would, wouldn’t you?” The thought was so appalling, he backed off another step.
“You’re damn right I would.” Royall gathered up her dressing gown and started around him. A long arm reached out for her and pulled her toward him. Royall screeched angrily.
“For God’s love, will you shut up? You are the goddamnedest noisiest woman I’ve ever come across. Have you no pity for a man’s. ears? Shut up. I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth.”
“Fine, fine, you won’t hear another word from me if you just let me go.”
“Ha! You think I’m so drunk I’ll fall for that little trick. Well, you’re wrong. I’m holding onto you till you shut that mouth of yours.”
“Look, it’s shut,” Royall grimaced as she clamped her lips together.
“It’s temporary,” Sebastian grinned. “I know how to make you be quiet.” Slowly he lowered his head till his lips were but a hairbreadth from hers. “See, you’re all aquiver. Works every time.”
With one mighty shove Royall pushed him away, unmindful of the gaping dressing gown. A long, creamy leg struck out. Momentarily caught off guard, Sebastian felt his heart hammer in his chest. He had forgotten what the sight of her satiny flesh did to him.
“Ha! You son-of-a-bitch! That’s what works every time!” Royall said, dangling one shapely leg in front of Sebastian’s eyes.
“Ladies never curse like that, especially to their intended,” Sebastian said in a pained voice. “Where did you hear such a term?”
“From you,” Royall hissed. “Now this is the last time I’m going to tell you to get away from me.”
Sebastian sobered instantly. He didn’t know whether it was her tone or the words, but he knew that she meant exactly what she said. All signs of inebriation were gone. One quick stride and he had both arms pinned at her sides. “I’m tired of this play-acting. I came here to ask you to marry me because I didn’t have the nerve to do it when I was sober. I’m legitimate now. Before I couldn’t ask you to bear my name. Now I can. As for this Casa, I don’t want it. I never wanted it. It can rot here into the ground for all I care. Carl and Alicia can have it, makes no difference to me. The only thing that makes a difference to me is you.”
Royall was stunned by his words and acted accordingly. “You miserable bastard, you . . . you . . . You tricked me! You weren’t drunk at all. Curse you, why must you torment me like this?” Royall lashed out angrily.
“If you don’t shut up, I swear to all that’s holy that I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Royall taunted.
Before she knew what was happening, the scarlet gown was ripped from her shoulders, exposing her full, rounded breasts. Another ripping sound, and the silky fabric slipped down to her feet. Royall gasped as she tried to cover her bosom. “Now maybe you’ll shut up when you have something else to occupy your mind. I suggest you find something decent to wear. Father Juan will be arriving any second now to marry us. I hardly think a bouquet of flowers will be sufficient.”
An inferno of angry fire ripped through Royall. She forgot her nakedness as she lashed out with both fists. “I’ll show you you can’t treat me like you do one of your whores.” With lightninglike speed she brought up her knee with all the force she could muster. “How do you like that, you lecherous old tom cat. That should quiet you down for a spell. When Father Juan arrives, if he does, I’ll ask him to pray for you.”
“How could you do that to me,” Sebastian gasped as he doubled over in pain.
“How? Like this,” she said bringing up her other leg. This time Sebastian was too quick for her. He grabbed her leg at the ankle. Both of them went down onto the spikey emerald grass. Royall had the advantage as she rolled away from him time and again, only to be pulled back. She was suffering no pain and could make use of all her muscles as she flailed away with both fists. She was finally out of his reach and on her knees. Sebastian was rocking back and forth, his hands holding his groin. Suddenly he laughed, a great, booming sound that stunned Royall. It was probably another one of his damnable tricks. “It hurts like a son-of-a-bitch,” he managed through gritted teeth.
“You deserve that and more,” Royall said standing erect. “How dare you treat me like one of your whores. How dare you!”
“Shut up, Royall. Can’t you let me die in peace. I am going to die. You killed me,” he managed in a trembling voice.
“If you’re dying, why are you talking?”
“Because you deserve to listen to someone besides yourself for a change. You may have crippled me for life. We may never be able to have children. I’ll wager you never thought of that.”
“What children?” Royall asked as she gathered some brilliant scarlet and yellow flowers. Demurely, she held them between her breasts. “I’m ready when you are,” she said quietly.
Sebastian rolled over. His eyes widened. “Where are your clothes?”
A look of disgust washed over Royall’s features. “There,” she pointed, “where you ripped them off my back. You did say Father Juan was coming here to marry us. Make up your damn mind, Sebastian, before I change mine.”
Sebastian grappled for words. “You aren’t ... you wouldn’t ... you can’t ... the padre will ...”
“I’m not budging. You placed me in this condition and I’m staying this way. I’ll leave it up to you to make a suitable explanation to Father Juan.”
“Royall, if you don’t shut your mouth, I swear I’ll ...”
“What will you do, Sebastian?” Royall purred, her voice throaty and inviting. “Don’t tell me, show me. Before Father Juan gets here.”