Bridge of Fire, page 22
“Oh, Miguel!” She gave him a sweet, tipsy smile, leaning toward him.
“And I don’t particularly like it when you drink more wine than you can carry.”
“You’re scolding me. And I’m not so sure I like that. I’m not a child, you know.”
His eyes went over her, taking in the white curve of breasts that pushed themselves up from her low-cut neckline.
“No, I don’t suppose you are.” He gave her a sudden impish grin, the kind of boyish smile that always melted her heart.
“Miguel…”
He drew her into his arms. “My darling, drink and eat as much as you like. God knows, you deserve to enjoy yourself.”
For the first time since leaving the hacienda, they had a private place of their own. Still feeling the wine, she pushed herself free from Miguel’s arms and began undressing for him. Flirting and coquetting with her eyes and a seductive smile, she slowly undid the looped buttons of her bodice.
Shrugging out of it, she tossed it carelessly over one creamy white shoulder, her provocative gaze never leaving his face.
When he made a move forward, she pushed him into a chair. “Please, sit,” she ordered. “I’m not quite ready. You may observe if you like, but no more.”
Extracting a cigar from the oyster shell case at his elbow, he lit it from the wick of an oil lamp. Then he leaned back, puffing as he watched.
“That’s better,” Francisca acknowledged. Unfastening her voluminous skirt, she pushed it with coy delicacy over her hips, using the tips of her fingers. Stepping out of it, she scooped up the velvet folds and tossed it to Miguel, who sat with it draped about his knees, hardly seeming to notice, so absorbed was he in Francisca’s performance. What a woman! Every day he learned something new about her.
The petticoats came next, the fine lace-trimmed cotton garments the seamstresses in Veracruz had labored over, one following the other, falling in a white froth at her feet. She kicked them aside with exaggerated nonchalance. Then, sitting on the bed, she removed her slippers. With a slight pucker of concentration on her pink mouth, she rolled the stockings from her shapely legs.
She stood up in her silk shift and, lifting her arms, stretched, the silk outlining the nipples of her breasts, the slender curve of her hips.
She saw Miguel’s eyes narrowing through a cloud of smoke, and laughed, a teasing laugh.
“Not yet,” she cautioned.
With a swiftness that startled her, he ground out his cigar, brushed aside the encumbering skirt, and reached for her, pulling her down to his lap, crushing her in his arms, catching her surprised mouth in a hungry, possessive kiss.
“Tempt me, will you?” he growled, his hot breath scalding her cheek.
His hand snaked down between them, gathering the hem of her shift, pushing it upward, his fingers returning to slip between her thighs.
“But Miguel, I haven’t finished. I…But already a pleasant sensation was stealing through her veins.
Stroking, caressing, his fingers crept upward until one found the place and entered, titillating the warm wetness. Francisca swallowed as a growing tension seized her loins, an ache, a longing, a desire that flooded her senses.
“Don’t,” she whispered, even as her arms linked about his neck and she pressed her breasts into the silver medallion he wore about his neck. “Don’t.”
He bent his head and nipped at a flushed pink earlobe while he continued the intimate, unbearable stroking. Don’t! Stop! She was losing her mind, her sanity, all rational thought vanishing in a frenzy of sensual pleasure. Her skin became moist with the fever of rising passion. Suddenly she gasped as the final heady rush of relief shuddered through her.
Miguel separated her legs, curling them about his back. Releasing his turgid erection, he lifted her slightly, then brought her down slowly so that his hard member slid into her sheath. Then, with a rocking motion, he thrust again and again, his fullness probing deep within her, the sweet agony returning fourfold. She held him, bobbing to his rhythm, her cheek pressed to his, his heartbeat under hands laid lovingly on his chest. Together they rode, sharing their ecstasy, two bodies, two souls, merging in one joy and rapture.
Afterward, satiated, their desire banked, they sat, exchanging tender kisses, until Francisca, with a deep sigh, rested her head on Miguel’s shoulder.
“To think,” she said, “that at long last we have a decent bed and didn’t use it.”
“Ah, but the night is young,” he murmured, his hand gently pushing the tumbled hair from her moist brow. “And think of how many more before us.”
Chapter XVIII
If all went well and fair weather held, they would reach Havana in fifteen days. With billowing sails, the flag of Spain flying from the mainmast, Miguel’s pennant with the del Castillo coat of arms fluttering atop the mizzenmast, they cut their way through the azure waters of the Golfo de Campeche.
Even in calm weather the crew was kept busy. Miguel, believing that card play and dicing among the men led to squabbles, if not bloodshed, had instructed the boatswain to see that each man had his duty. The helmsmen took shifts, working two and two together, the carpenter saw to repairs, the cook to meals, the surgeon to the sick. Every morning the decks were scrubbed down and the pumps worked, for even in flat seas, water washed in from the scuppers and gun ports, or leaked in through the seams.
“A wooden vessel is never entirely dry,” Alvaro told Francisca. “Belowdecks is the worst. Dark, dingy, with the reek of bilge. And airless, especially in bad weather, when the gun ports are closed. Once the rain or seas drip down from the upper decks, one learns to go to sleep wet and get up wet. The Espíritu is better than most, for Don Miguel sees to it that each man has a blanket. But I’ve been on many a voyage when all I had for bedding was the jacket I worked in.”
It was the first time Alvaro had spoken of his past. From his accent Francisca had already guessed that he was not of the elite class. Now she wondered how he had risen from the lowly position of a seaman who slept below decks to Miguel’s second-in-command.
“You have known Don Miguel long?” she asked, not wanting to inquire directly, but hoping that a tactful question would elicit some sort of explanation. To her disappointment, his answer was courteous, short, and hardly informative.
“A very long time,” he said.
Later, when Francisca, her curiosity piqued, asked Miguel, he explained, “Alvaro’s a tight-lipped fellow even with me, his closest friend. He has mentioned Cadiz as his birthplace, and that he never knew his father. Apparently he was apprenticed to a cooper at a very early age, a man who beat him regularly. I have the feeling that he killed him before he ran off to sea, for he never disembarks when we anchor at Cadiz, although the deed, if done, must have occurred some twenty-five years ago.”
“And he shipped on with you?”
“Not directly. After knocking about a bit, he came to me ten years ago. He was an ordinary seaman until one day he saved me from the knife of a would-be mutineer. I grasped his intelligence at once. And over the years he has become my right hand. As I told you earlier, I would trust him with my life.”
If Miguel’s life could be trusted to Alvaro, Francisca had her doubts about some of the crew. Though she never ventured to the forecastle, where the men slept and ate, she could watch them at their work. They seemed a motley lot in their salt-encrusted, patched clothing, heavily bearded, their faces cracked with sea wind and sun. Miguel had told her that only the most hardy could survive a life at sea. What with fever, scurvy, cramps, and catarrh, not to speak of the dangers in working aloft in storms, it took luck, a stout heart, and a strong body to carry them from one voyage to another. Miguel had heard that scurvy could be combated with fresh vegetables and oranges, but these were hard to provide on a voyage that might last two months or more.
“It’s true,” Miguel said, “that many are recruited from the gutters of Seville and would as soon cut a man’s throat over a tot of wine as blink. Discipline is the only way to keep them in line.”
She was an inadvertent witness one evening to Miguel’s “discipline.” A seaman had stolen some biscuits from the cook’s galley and, as punishment, was stripped to the waist, tied to the mainmast, and flogged. When Francisca later admonished Miguel for what she thought was too severe a penalty for the purloining of a few pieces of bread, he told her that the stealing of food aboard ship was a serious affair.
“We can only carry so much in the way of provision, a good part subject to spoilage. To steal from a limited supply that must last for long periods of time is more than a misdemeanor, it is a crime.”
Once they entered the Gulf of Mexico, Francisca noticed that some of the men had armed themselves with cutlasses, short, curved, razor-sharp swords they wore tucked in their belts. Alvaro reported that there were murmurings among several of the men that they should have never ventured beyond Veracruz without the flota to protect them.
“They all knew the chances they were taking before we sailed,” Miguel said in disgust. “Why else did they think I offered them extra wages? What a pack of old women.”
Alvaro shrugged. “There are always the few who seem able to stir up the rest.”
“Find them,” Miguel ordered. “I’ll have no cowardly talk. A touch of the lash might cure them.”
Nevertheless, as they neared the island of Negritis to take on fresh water, Francisca could feel the tension aboard ship reflected in the frowns that both Alvaro and Miguel now wore.
“Miguel,” she said one evening after they had retired to their cabin, “I think I should learn how to use a pistol or a musket, perhaps a sword.”
“What?” He was astounded. “A woman has no business with a weapon.”
“There might come a time when I must defend myself,” she pointed out reasonably.
“With me beside you? I cannot see it.”
“All the same, it would amuse me, if nothing else,” she coaxed, smiling. “I’ll make a wager with you. If I cannot handle a sword within a week reasonably well, then I will forfeit…” Forfeit what? She had nothing but the jewelry Miguel had managed to buy for her in the short time they were in Veracruz: a ruby ring and a gold neck piece. “My ruby ring.”
He grinned. “Put that way, why not? As for my bet, what say, a thousand pieces of eight?”
Francisca had always been agile, an excellent dancer, light on her feet, well coordinated, and graceful in motion. Her skirts hampered her a bit, but Miguel said he had seen enough of her in pantaloons; he would give her a handicap.
They practiced with blunted sword points on the aft deck, to the entertainment of the sailors. It was all done in fun with a great deal of merriment, and by the third day Francisca was well on her way to winning her wager.
One afternoon Francisca was sitting in the shadow of the cabin, feeling very housewifely as she mended a pair of Miguel’s hose. Alvaro, who had come up to retrieve a chart, paused to sit beside her while he waited to consult with Miguel.
“He’s gone down to look in on a crewman who is with the surgeon. They feel several of his toes might be gangrenous.” The man’s foot had been crushed by an iron chock that had fallen on it.
“God help him,” Alvaro murmured.
After a small silence Francisca said, “Do you think the other officers mind very much my being on board?”
“Good heavens, why should they?”
“Well, as I understand it, they are forbidden to bring their own wives or…women.”
“It’s up to Don Miguel to set down the rules. He is not only owner, but master and captain as well. As for you, Doña Francisca, you represent a triumph over the Inquisition for Don Miguel.”
“A triumph? I don’t quite understand.”
“Did he not tell you? A favorite quartermaster of his was arrested in Seville by the Holy Office, accused of being a Protestant, and burned at the stake.”
“No, he never told me,” Francisca said slowly, a sudden suspicion creeping into her mind. Why hadn’t he? Why had he kept the incident a secret? “So he obtained his revenge by saving me?”
“Oh, you mustn’t misunderstand, Señora. I have no doubt his love for you is sincere. But it did give him a great deal of pleasure to know he had thwarted the inquisitors.”
They did not speak for a few minutes. Francisca went on plying her needle. A puff of wind billowed the top sails, snapping at the canvas and ruffling her skirts. The ship’s cat sat on an overturned butt nearby, licking her paws.
“Tell me,” Francisca said, “was the quartermaster a Protestant?”
“No. Don Miguel will have no one but Catholics aboard.” And then, realizing his mistake, Alvaro blushed a deep red. “Excepting you, Señora.”
“Of course.” She gave him a forgiving smile. Then, because he seemed vulnerable at this point, she asked him another question. “Have you ever met the Doña Ana, Miguel’s wife?”
“I have not had that pleasure. But I have been given to understand that she is pious to a fault, and virtue in excess is not always pleasing to a man.”
He was playing the diplomat. How else could he describe a wife to a mistress?
“Is she beautiful?” Francisca probed.
“I am told she is very beautiful, indeed.”
Francisca felt as if a dagger had been thrust into her heart, inflicting a sickening wound. She tried to minimize the pain by telling herself that no matter how beautiful Doña Ana was, how Catholic, it was she, Francisca, Miguel loved.
They sighted Negritis on the eighth day. It was a small, wooded island that rose out of the sea like a green crown of leaves circled by white, sandy beaches. Negritis was uninhabited and as yet unused by the marauders who roamed these seas in their pinnaces and shallow-drafted barques.
Within a mile of shore the Espíritu hove to and dropped anchor. Two longboats carrying empty kegs were launched, their rowers heading for a tiny inlet at the mouth of a river. Fresh water, always a problem on a voyage, was their quest. Though they were little more than a week out of Veracruz, their water had already turned brackish, breeding slimy little creatures that made it offensive to drink. Francisca had noted that very few of the men had made use of the spigoted barrel that was kept at the door of the cook house.
“They prefer their ration of wine,” Miguel told her. “And I won’t let them have more lest we have a problem with drunkenness. They’ll get thirsty enough when the fresh meat and fruit gives out to salt fish and dried beef.”
“Will we be living on salt fish and dried beef, too?”
“Not entirely.” He smiled at her. “Would you mind?”
“No,’ she said, linking her arm in his. “I could exist on love alone.”
“What a romantic you are, my sweet Doña Francisca. I have half a mind to instruct the steward to serve you an empty plate tonight to see if you mean it.”
“Of course I do,” she laughed up at him.
* * *
It was the morning of the tenth day. Francisca had been awake since before dawn, her stomach feeling the roll of the ship. Something she ate? She couldn’t understand it. This was the first time she had experienced any seasickness. The weather was calm enough. Why now? Unless…Could she be with child again?
She felt her breasts. They seemed normal enough. She could not remember when she had had her last flux. Sometime on their flight through the mountains, perhaps. That was more than a month ago. Perhaps she was pregnant. If so, she did not know whether she should welcome her condition or not. It would mean another bastard. She hated the word, but there was no escaping it. She was not married, and her offspring had no legitimacy, though Miguel would be happy to have further proof of his virility.
He was happy. “When?” he asked, beaming.
They were still abed, the faint voices of the men at six-o’clock prayer reaching them from the lower deck.
“If my calculations are correct,” Francisca said, “next January.”
“I shall hope for another boy. If he is born in Rome, it will be a great thing to have him baptized there.”
Francisca said nothing for a moment or two. “And what if I should say I don’t approve of baptism, that I don’t want him or Jorge—God bless and keep him—brought up as a Christian?”
“Be reasonable. I am not saying you must convert, but my sons—”
“They are my sons, too!”
“They shall not be Hebrews, not with del Castillo blood in their veins.”
She sat up, eyes blazing. “So! You haven’t changed. You are the same. The ‘del Castillo blood!’ as if mine were tainted.” Her voice trembled with rage. “All is well as long as I remain compliant and docile in your bed, but if I dare—”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” He tossed the covers aside and got to his feet, staring down at her, his face flushed with anger.
“You compliant? You’ve never been compliant when it comes to that damned religion of yours.”
“So my religion is damned and not yours! Why did you ever come to the Flat House to release me? Don’t answer!” Her own fury was so great, she had to pause and swallow spittle. Yet dimly, under all that anger, reason tried to intrude, reason that told her how foolish it was to quarrel about such a matter. But she was too far gone now and could not stop. “I’ll tell you why you rescued me. Because you had a grudge against the Inquisition. You wanted revenge for destroying your shipmate, didn’t you? Admit it!”
His lips tightened into a white line of exasperation. “And because of a grudge you think I risked my life?”
“Yes. It would be like you. You went into it as if you were pacing a dueling field.”
“And what if I did?” He jerked on his pantaloons. “I saved your damned neck, didn’t I?”
Where had love gone? The honeyed words, the sweet promises? They were hurling words at each other they might both regret. But she wasn’t going to submit with a humble apology. Just as she was beginning to think his feelings had altered and that he had accepted her as she had accepted him, he had revealed himself as the same, obdurate, doctrinaire. He still felt that as a Jew of less than noble birth, she was beneath him. What arrogance!
