Bride of Fortune Read Free Page B

had done theirs for decades before him, Father Salvador be damned. His reverie grew troubled thinking of the confrontation to come with Mercedes. What had that old crone and her priest meant when they said Mercedes had “nurtured some foolish notions,” and “far exceeded her station”?
           She obviously had changed over the past four years. No more the meek, terrified virgin—certainly not pallid and plain either. He wondered about how she had acquired her golden complexion and speculated about how far the sun-kissed color extended downward over her seductively soft curves. His body responded to the erotic reverie and he felt his phallus grow rock hard beneath the hot water.
           There had been many women over the years, all sorts from coarse camp followers greedy for his money to highborn ladies titillated by the thrill of lying with a dangerous mercenary. Some had been beauties, some ordinary, and in straits, a few downright ugly. In the past, all cats were gray in the dark. But Mercedes is different.
           Or was she? Did Doña Sofia mean to imply that the young patrona had been unfaithful to her marriage vows? No, surely not. That would be too bitter an irony. But then life was filled with ironies. He leaned back in the tub and considered how he would handle her at dinner.
     
    * * * *
     
           While her husband soaked, Mercedes considered how she would handle him at dinner. A good thing there was so much to do, else her nerves would have snapped worrying about the matter. The kitchen was always shorthanded these days, and with Innocencia gone, it fell to the patrona to help Angelina. While the old woman ground fresh cornmeal for tortillas and chopped chilies, Mercedes basted the fragrant ham, then washed and sliced fresh peaches from the orchard. She would use the last smidgen of Armagnac to marinate the fruit as a dessert in honor of Lucero's homecoming.
           Such an honor! How desperately she wished he had stayed away, playing at being a soldier. She had heard the stories about what the contre-guerrillas did. Butchers and brigands every bit as savage as the republican rabble, perhaps even worse. Lucero was perfectly suited for such a life…or death.
           Do I honestly wish my own husband dead! God forgive me. She squeezed her eyes closed and his beautiful, implacable face flashed in her mind. Shaking her head, she blinked and resumed slicing peaches with the smooth economy of movement that indicated long hours of practice with the paring knife.
           Once such menial tasks would have been beneath a daughter of the House of Sebastián. She had been educated in an exclusive convent in Mexico City that only the most aristocratic gachupíns, those who were born in Spain, attended. She had come to Gran Sangre as a seventeen-year-old bride with a dowry of half a million pesos to preside over one of the wealthiest hacienda s in the country, no matter that it was situated in the wilds of Sonora.
           The war had not touched it then, had not touched the Alvarado family until old Don Anselmo's only son rode off to fight for Mexico's foreign emperor, leaving behind his bride of scarcely three weeks. Then she had thanked God and all His holy angels for the war which lured Lucero away. But that was before the French army reached Hermosillo and sent its patrols to impress soldiers from the surrounding hacienda s. As time passed the fighting raged on and their situation became desperate.
           With a muffled oath she shoved a lock of hair back from her temple and used her forearm to rub away the perspiration beading her forehead. She would need a bath. There was only dried lavender to scent the water and perfume her hair. Once she had used one of the most expensive French bath oils. Now she had learned to improvise. Hah! She had even learned to make soap!
           Her guardian in Mexico City had commissioned an extensive trousseau, most of which