Chapter Sixteen #2
In the lobby below, a grandfather clock ticked softly, breaking into the quiet.
It was well past midnight. No light filtered beneath the closed doors; the hotel guests were sleeping.
Listening for the sound of footfalls but hearing none, he pulled a long, thin piece of wire from the waistband of his buckskin breeches, eased it into the lock on the door, flicked it one way and then the other, and heard the satisfying sound of the lock beginning to turn.
Removing the wire, he quietly turned the knob and shoved open the door, then stepped soundlessly into the room.
He stopped at the foot of the bed. Caralee de la Guerra lay sleeping, her long dark copper hair fanned out across her pillow.
She wore a beautifully embroidered white silk nightgown so sheer he could see the rose aureoles at the crest of her high full breasts.
The sheet and blanket had been shoved down haphazardly past her waist. He noticed how tiny it was above the gentle flaring of her hips.
He was hard already just knowing what he intended, had been since before he had opened the door. Now his shaft was stiff and pulsing, his palms beginning to sweat as he imagined himself pumping into her ripe little body, the taking even sweeter for the fact she belonged to Ramon.
She was sleeping soundly. He quietly stripped off his clothes then eased back the covers and climbed into the bed beside her. She had only stirred once. Now she rolled toward him, resting a small hand on his chest, and in her sleep she smiled.
Angel smiled, too. Easing the nightgown off her shoulder, he bared a pale upturned breast, cupped it with his hand and began to tease the nipple.
Just as it puckered into hardness, her eyes snapped open and she came up off the bed.
He caught her scream in his mouth, slanting his lips over hers as he gripped her wrists and forced her back down on the mattress.
Only the sixth sense he had developed in prison enabled him to hear the door as it swung wide.
He turned in time to see his cousin silhouetted in the frame, his face a black mask of rage. Angel steeled himself. He wouldn’t be bested again.
“Ramon … what are you doing here?”
The bigger man did not move, just stood riveted in the doorway. “I think the question is better asked of you.”
“Ramon…” Carly whispered.
Angel just looked down at her. He released his bruising grip on her wrists. “I am sorry, cousin. I did not know the little whore belonged to you.”
A muscle bunched in Ramon’s hard jaw. “The little whore is my wife.”
Angel swore softly, fluently. “Dios mio, I did not know.” He swung his legs to the side of the bed. “I saw her in the dining room. We spoke briefly and she invited me here. If I had known who she was … por Dios, Ramon—”
“Get out,” he said.
“What … what is he saying?” Carly stared from Ramon to Angel, her body still trembling with anger and fear. “That—that isn’t what happened.”
“I am sorry, cousin.” Angel grabbed his breeches, slid them on, then grabbed his shirt and boots, and started for the door.
“You don’t believe him?” Carly said, finally gathering her wits enough to speak. “He came in here and tried to … tried to … and you’re just going to let him leave?”
Angel closed the door, and Ramon’s dark eyes swung to her face. Fury hardened his features, made him look like the ruthless, brutal man she knew he could be. “Perhaps you would prefer I leave instead, since you and my cousin seemed to be so thoroughly enjoying each other.”
“What!”
“At least have the decency to cover yourself. You may be certain that I am no longer interested in your somewhat tarnished charms—no matter how appealing they might be.”
Carly glanced down, saw that Angel had exposed one of her breasts, and her face flushed crimson. With hands that shook, she hastily pulled her nightgown into place.
“Ramon, please … you can’t possibly believe that what he told you is the truth. I don’t even know how he got in here.”
“But you do know who he is? You met him as he says, downstairs in the dining room?”
“I-I spoke to him only briefly. I didn’t invite him here—how can you possibly believe I would?”
“I am not blind, Cara, as you seem determined to believe. I saw you with him, remember? He was kissing you, caressing your beautiful breasts.” He reached over and jerked the sheet off, leaving her sitting disheveled in the bed, her body trembling, her nightgown riding up to the middle of her thighs.
“Get dressed,” he said roughly. “We are leaving.”
She started to shake even harder. Tears stung her eyes, began to clog her throat. It was only beginning to hit her, what had occurred, and she still couldn’t make herself believe it. “We c-can’t leave now. You’ve been riding all night. You have to get some s-sleep.”
He grabbed her arm and yanked her up from the bed.
“Do what I tell you!” Black rage pumped through him.
It was there in every hard line of his face.
His eyes were as dark as the paths leading to hell.
“I promised you once I would never hurt you again. At this moment, it is a difficult promise to keep.” He let go of her then and she reeled backward till she fell across the bed.
“Do as I say. Pack your things and prepare to leave.”
Carly just stared at him. Her wrists still throbbed where Angel had trapped them. Her lips were bruised from the pressure of his hard, dry lips. Her throat ached with tears and her heart hurt so badly she thought it must surely break in two.
“Why? Why is it so easy for you to believe him and so hard for you to believe me?”
Ramon didn’t answer, just grabbed a handful of her clothes from the wardrobe and tossed them at her on the bed. “Get dressed, my little puta. I should never have brought you here in the first place. I should have known the temptation would be too much for a gringa like you.”
A gringa like me, Carly thought, fresh pain knifing through her.
An Anglo woman, a woman whose word could never stand against that of a de la Guerra.
She blinked and hot salty tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“You and Angel … I thought you were as different as the sun and the moon. Perhaps you are not so different as I believed.”
Ramon said nothing. Just turned away as she dressed in her riding habit and shakily plaited her hair into a long, thick braid.
Leaving several gold reals on the dresser in payment for their room, he hauled her out into the hallway and down the back stairs.
She waited in the alley, the cold air slicing through her, while he went to the stable for their horses.
The white mare was saddled and ready, but he was leading Rey del Sol, the stallion obviously weary from the grueling ride Ramon had just made. Instead his big Spanish saddle rested atop a big bay gelding.
“Wh-what about the mule?” Carly asked.
“I traded it for the saddle horse. Rey needs time to recover his strength, and we will be traveling lighter this time.” He smiled bitterly.
“I find I am eager to be home.” His hands bit into her waist as he lifted her up, set her down hard on the sidesaddle.
He said nothing as he swung himself up in his heavy silver-trimmed saddle, nothing as they rode out through the empty dirt streets, nothing as they started into the hills.
He pushed hard all morning, stopped to water the horses, then they rode on.
Carly didn’t eat and neither did Ramon. She could only imagine how exhausted he must be.
By nightfall, she felt that same exhaustion herself, coupled with the sickening knowledge that in a single long night in Monterey, she had lost her husband forever.
She tried not to cry, but in the long hours of darkness, she couldn’t stop the tears from falling. She had loved him so much. She would have done anything for him. Anything. She had foolishly believed that someday he might love her in return.
Instead he had called her his whore, believed her guilty of sleeping with his cousin. Angel might be a de la Guerra, might be pure Castilian Spanish, but Carly wouldn’t spit on a man like Angel. In fact, if she’d had a gun in her room last night, she probably would have shot him.
And what of Ramon? She had come to admire him.
Now she saw what she hadn’t seen before.
The prejudice he loathed in the Anglos, his hatred of people who persecuted those who were different, was as strong in Ramon as it was in the men he opposed.
It made her heartsick to think it, to know she could never come up to his expectations, never gain his trust because her heritage wasn’t the same as his.
She had known it. He had made it clear from the start, but she hadn’t really believed it. She hadn’t allowed herself to believe it because she loved him too much.
Lying on her bedroll, Carly curled into a tight ball of misery and buried her head in her arms. Her body shook with the tears that poured from her eyes and soaked into her blanket.
She didn’t care if Ramon heard her crying.
She didn’t care about anything anymore. She only knew her life was over, that her heart was broken, that the love she felt for him had begun to seep out of her like water through a piece of broken glass.
She cried until her tears were spent, then lay there staring at the stars.
She didn’t really see them. Her pain was too deep, her heart too full of despair.
Before the sun came up, she crossed the clearing to where the horses had been hobbled, saddled her mare, tied her bedroll on behind, climbed up on a rock, and levered herself into the sidesaddle.
She would have ridden off if Ramon hadn’t stepped forward and caught her horse’s bridle.
“Where do you think you are going?”
She smiled at him bitterly. “Back where I came from. I won’t say home because I no longer have one. I’m returning to Rancho del Robles. If my uncle won’t have me, I’ll go somewhere else. I don’t need you to show me the way.”