Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) Read online

“What are you doing, Dulcia, daydreaming about Leandro?” Luz Rodrigues' dark eyes flashed with mirth at her friend's pinkening cheeks. The two young women had just completed a shopping expedition and were riding back to the Velasquez house in Juan Rodrigues' carriage. “If I had a husband as young and handsome as yours, I'd daydream, too,” Luz said in an attempt to ease Dulcia's discomfiture. If only she weren't so shy!

  “Do you really think he is handsome? I—I mean, more handsome than Juan?” Dulcia's delicate porcelain complexion was still flushed.

  Luz's laughter rang like a silver bell. “Of course he is! Juan is forty years old. Oh, he is distinguished, I suppose, if a bit thick about the middle; but he is rich and my parents were ecstatic about the marriage settlement. How I wish I had been like you—able to choose whom I married. Your guardian has been more doting than any father I know.”

  “And generous, taking in an orphaned girl of such distant kinship and providing her the best education.”

  At that, Luz made am indelicate harrumph of disgust. “That convent school may be highly rated by strict parents, but I hated every minute of it! Being married, even to Juan, is better than living with the sisters.”

  “I liked living with the sisters. Sometimes...oh, Luz, sometimes I'm not sure I like being married at all.” Dulcia averted her eyes, her desire to confide in her older and more experienced friend warring with her embarrassment at bringing up such an indelicate topic.

  Luz's face softened, and she took Dulcia's hand in hers and squeezed it. “You agreed to marry Leandro. He is handsome and young, from a fine family, a gentleman. Even if the Velásquezes aren't rich, they are comfortable, and Leandro gives you anything you want. You just ordered three new gowns today.”

  “Oh, no, it's not that he isn't kind to me or generous or anything like that. I had just thought, perhaps with an older husband that you might not have to...you know, submit so often.” She burrowed her face in the folds of her hooded fur cloak.

  Luz nodded, finally understanding the nature of her friend's problem. “Your Tejano is a wild stallion in bed. A quick plunge in and then out satisfies them, but never for long. With practice, he'll learn to go slower for you.”

  Dulcia seemed to cringe. “Oh, Mother of God, I hope not! I mean...he takes forever now, undressing me and touching me all over. I've tried to do what the good sisters said—I try to please him. He is my husband and I do love him. It's my duty, but I pray I'll conceive quickly. Then I can ask him not to...”

  Watching her seventeen-year-old friend's shuddering misery, Luz could have wept for them both. Dulcia had a young, virile lover who apparently wanted to please his wife; and she had a fat, selfish old man whose interest in making love was secondary to finishing quickly so he could go to sleep! Too bad we cannot trade places, little one, she thought sadly as the carriage clattered through the deserted streets at dusk.

  * * * *

  “What do you mean, leave now! How can we do such a thing? Uncle Alfonso is not well. We cannot abandon him. We cannot abandon Mexico. Oh, Leandro, these past few months since leaving the sisters I've learned to love my home in this wonderful city.” Dulcia's slender hands were clasped in supplication.

  Lee looked at her pale, distraught face. Damn, he had dreaded this, knowing how hard it would be for her. Taking her in his arms, he said softly, “We'll build a new home in Texas, Dulcia. Remember, I told you how beautiful the land is. My parents' land is waiting for us. It's where my roots are, where I belong.”

  She stiffened and sobbed, “Your roots are in Mexico where your parents were born, not in some foreign land overrun by Yankees.”

  Lee continued stroking her gleaming chestnut curls. “Dulcia, we talked of this before we were married. You knew I must return to Texas, that I own land there. With the funds Uncle Alfonso has given us, we can build a prosperous ranch.”

  “But you never said we'd have to leave so soon,” she hiccupped.

  “I would have waited if the choice were mine. I know Uncle Alfonso is frail and lonely. He'll miss you, his beautiful little princess.” He smiled down at her cherubic face, so vulnerable and sweet. She's just a child, fresh from convent school, he thought, willing himself to be patient with her fears. “But we can't wait much longer to leave, darling. Uncle Alfonso himself urges us to go now while we can still get a ship.”

  “What do you mean, ‘while we can still get a ship’?” she asked, looking up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes.

  Lee put his arm around her shoulder and led her to the big bed in their spacious sleeping quarters. A warm fire crackled in the grate, and he went over to stoke it. As he knelt and turned the logs on the andiron, he explained carefully to her, “I know this may shock you, princess, but Mexico and the United States may go to war. If that happens, the gulf will be under siege and travel by ship will be restricted. Even if we took a neutral French or English vessel, it might be fired upon.” He stood up at her small gasp of horror and walked quickly over to her.

  “It'll be all right. If we leave now, no one will be shooting, princess. And deep in the interior of Texas, where my ranch is, the war won't touch us. But if we stay here too long, we may not be able to leave for years. I just received another letter from Charlee Slade today. She's so eager to meet you, and she wants us to be there for her son's third birthday.”

  Dulcia wrinkled her nose. “I still think that is a dreadful name for a lady—Charlee. But I do want to meet your friends—the people who raised you,” she added quickly.

  “You'll like Charlee and Jim and Asa. Even Weevils grows on you after a while,” he said. His black eyes sparkled as he envisioned the beloved faces of the only family he had known until Uncle Alfonso had located him.

  Sighing in resignation, Dulcia said timidly, “Well, I can begin to pack tomorrow if both you and Uncle Alfonso feel it is the only thing to do.”

  “Oh, beloved, it will be a whole new adventure for us. Like a second honeymoon.” He sat down on the bed and took her hands in his, raising them to his lips and kissing them as he said, “Speaking of honeymoon, it seems to me we're still on ours....”

  He kissed her lips softly, then trailed warm, moist kisses down her throat and across her collarbone. When he slipped her blue satin dressing gown open, baring a pale ivory shoulder, he could see her pert young breast beneath the thin silk of her night rail. His hand cupped the small peak and his thumb worked delicately over the nipple. Although Dulcia did not resist, neither did she respond. As he peeled off her robe, revealing the slim curves beneath the sheer night rail, she sat very quietly, moving her arms in response to his unspoken directions, letting him slide the sleeves off, untie the sash. When he returned his attention to her breasts, caressing them and working the nipples, they remained unaroused.

  Sighing, he slowly raised his hands to run his fingers through her gleaming chestnut hair, holding her head gently as he kissed her, willing her to open her mouth to him. I must go slowly. She's straight from the convent, shy, modest, a lady. With a muffled groan, he laid her back on the bed, then stood up and walked over to the candelabrum. He blew out the candles, leaving the room in darkness. Dulcia was far more at ease without the light. Only a slight glimmer of moonlight remained to illuminate his path back to the bed. Quickly stripping away his clothes, he lay down beside her and gently worked the night rail up over her hips.

  Dulcia kept her eyes closed tightly, a small part of her dying with each whisper-soft caress of his strong fingers on the most intimate parts of her body. With a silent prayer to the Virgin, she willed herself to be still, relaxing her limbs to let him have his way. It was her duty as his wife. Hadn't Sister Faith told her so?

  Feeling her acquiesce, Lee took her limp resignation for acceptance of his lovemaking. He positioned himself over her and spread her legs, then slowly worked his aching, hardened staff into her soft, unresisting flesh. Dulcia was not wet and gyrating like the putas back in San Antonio or the more sophisticated women of the evening he'd known in Mexico City; but she wa
s his love, his bride, pure, innocent, still virginally tender. He held back, stroking her flesh with his own, trying to override her convent-bred inhibitions. Finally, he felt himself cresting.

  Dulcia's arms, loosely held around his neck, tightened as she knew he neared the end. When he shuddered in release and collapsed on her with labored breath, he whispered hoarsely, “I love you, Dulcia, my wife.”

  She made no response but continued to hold his sweat-soaked body to her, stroking his back as her eyes opened at last to stare past him at the moonlight reflecting on the ceiling.

  * * * *

  “Uncle Alfonso, I am so afraid. Texas is a wild, terrible place with no refinements. There are probably no dressmakers, no theaters, no balls or symphonies. Only savage red Indians and crude Yankees!” Dulcia paced in the study the following morning, hoping to enlist her guardian in dissuading Lee from his plan to go home.

  Taking her by the shoulders, the old man sat her down in a chair by the big window. “Child, my princess, I understand how you feel; and I know it seems an alien and frightening world, but consider this.” His blue eyes twinkled as he tapped his temple. “Lee has been living here in the midst of all the amenities you mentioned, moving in the best intellectual circles, speaking Spanish. But he's had this dream—a legacy if you will, from my wild young brother—Texas. He will not relinquish it until he's had the opportunity to return. Only then will he find where his true home is. Texas will be but an American land full of people he will no longer have anything in common with. Still, he must go and be convinced of this himself. If we could persuade him to stay here, we would gain an empty victory. He would be forever dreaming of Texas.”

  “But if I go with him to Texas and he sees for himself how it is now, he will not want to stay?” Dulcia's eyes lit with dawning comprehension.

  “Bring him home, Dulcia. Home to me, home to Mexico.”

  Chapter Two

  Galveston Harbor, January 1846

  “The bay was named after a Spanish viceroy, Don Bernardo de Gálvez, over sixty years ago,” Lee explained to Dulcia as they stood on the deck of The Red Lion, a British steamship they had taken from Veracruz the previous week. The weather had been raw and turbulent, and Dulcia suffered from terrible mal de mer. Fortunately, as they docked, the day had cleared and warmed. Lee hoped to cheer his despondent bride and distract her with a brief history lesson as he showed her the leading port city in Texas.

  “The port has grown so much. Look at all the ships along the wharves, Dulcia.”

  Dulcia implored, “Please, Leandro, don't even mention ships.” The forest of bobbing masts ringing the harbor made her weakened stomach rebel once more. “I will be so glad to set foot on solid ground.”

  Lee put his arm protectively around her shoulders. “You'll be fine, but I'm afraid the solid ground is just loose sand. I'll carry you up the beach so you don't get any in your slippers,” he said gallantly, eliciting her first smile of the morning as he gazed into her blue eyes.

  Suddenly, he recalled vivid gold-coin eyes, a pouting child with sand in her slippers—Rafe Fleming's daughter, whom he had met so disastrously in Galveston four years ago. I would never have carried that spitting hellion, that's for sure, he thought ruefully to himself.

  As if reading his thoughts, Dulcia broke in on his reverie. “You've been here before, haven't you, Leandro?”

  With a guilty flush he replied, “Just twice—when I left Texas for Mexico over three years ago, and once earlier when Jim Slade sent me to Galveston for some brood mares. It's a booming port town, but we'll only be spending one night here. I'll book steamer passage upriver to Houston tomorrow.”

  “Is all of Texas so flat and open?” she asked timidly, shading her eyes against the surprising brilliance of sunlight reflected up from the water. This land looked primitive and menacing to her; but she held her peace, recalling Uncle Alfonso's admonitions.

  Lee laughed. “First time I saw the gulf plains, I couldn't believe anyplace was this flat. The nearer we get to home, the more the landscape will change. San Antonio's nothing like this, believe me.”

  “Is it very far? I've journeyed more in the past two weeks than I ever did in my whole life,” she said wearily.

  “When we get to Houston, you can rest a few days while I make arrangements for our trip overland. I'm afraid it's almost two hundred miles, but the weather inland is drier during the winter. Once you're off the ocean, you'll be fine, my little sweet.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

  Why do I fear for her fragility and feel guilty for bringing her here? Mexican women colonized Texas over a hundred years ago. They thrive in San Antonio.

  “You are right about the ocean. I will never be a sailor, but I will try to become a good Tejana, darling,” Dulcia said with a tremulous smile that only increased his uneasiness.

  Once disembarked, Lee arranged for their baggage and then began to escort his wife from the pier. He recalled the hotel where he and Melanie Fleming had stayed. It was near the waterfront, but clean, with a very good dining room. The city had grown a great deal and offered many more accommodations now, but he opted for the familiar and convenient.

  As they walked across the creaking wooden planks, Dulcia began to wrinkle her nose. Placing a frothy lace kerchief to it, she coughed delicately. “Whatever is that stench?”

  Lee, too, caught wind of the familiar smell. “Pouldoodies,” he replied with a grimace and a laugh. “Oysters. A favorite Texian delicacy and a sizable refuse problem. The smell is much worse in warmer weather!”

  A few men had gathered near the end of the long pier just as Lee and Dulcia passed by a small sailing craft moored up close to shore. “I pernounce 'm daid. Neck broke clean when he wuz knocked of ‘n th' wharf in th' leetle set-to last ev'nin',” a loud voice proclaimed to the group of men standing on the deck of the boat.

  “We gonna be here all day, Curley?” someone else chimed in. “We dunno who done fer Watkins ‘n me, ‘n Allen here's th' onliest ones whut come forward ta testify.”

  The tall fellow with black curly hair and a long beard of matching texture replied, “Yep. Hank Watkins's daid by th' hand—er fist more likely—o' party or parties unbeknownst. Hearin' dismissed! Abel, yew git a couple o' them niggers ta help ya bury ‘em.” With that, he reached down and casually flipped a filthy piece of gray canvas over the corpse lying in the bottom of the boat.

  There was no way for Lee to escort Dulcia from the pier without passing the grisly drama taking place on the deck of the large flat-bottomed boat. As much as he could, he, shielded her horrified eyes from the grotesque body and rushed her past the gaping onlookers at the “coroner's inquest.”

  “Is this how justice is done in Texas? Is there no law, no court?” Dulcia looked about ready to faint.

  “I'm afraid the judicial system is rather primitive in many ways, especially when it comes to waterfront brawls between sailors. From what I've read, I suspect this kind of thing goes on in seaports from Liverpool to Veracruz,” he answered gently. Eager to take her mind off her unsavory introduction to Texas, Lee scooped Dulcia up in his arms when they reached the beach, just as he had promised he would, and she responded with a delighted laugh.

  That evening Dulcia ate little of the excellent dinner they ordered in the hotel dining room, sliding the rice and freshly caught whitefish around on her plate. Texas was every bit as ghastly as she had feared, filled with unbathed Anglos who were vulgar and loud and chewed tobacco incessantly. The streets were awash with the evil brown stains of their disgusting habit. Why, she had even seen a man engaged in a conversation with a woman whom she would not design to call her a lady—and he was picking his teeth with a penknife as he talked!

  “Are you still ill, little sweet?” Lee noted her lack of appetite and pallor with alarm.

  “Oh, no. Not the seasickness, thank the Blessed Virgin,” she replied. “I am just excited and overtired. I only need a good night's sleep in a real bed on solid land.” Pray the Virgin I will be allow
ed to sleep without any wifely duties tonight, she implored silently. She had high hopes that she was with child, which would explain part of her violent mal de mer It would also free her of all marital duties shortly. Smiling bravely at Lee, she clutched his hand and felt reassured by its strength. I do love you, Leandro, and I will try. But now I'm so weary, so weary....

  * * * *

  Bluebonnet Ranch

  “They should arrive any day now, Charlee. I can hardly wait to meet Lee's bride,” Jim Slade said as he strode across the kitchen from the washstand to the table where he embraced his wife. Tall and lean, golden-haired and hard-looking, he towered over the petite woman.

  Charlee Slade snorted, “Bride! A seventeen-year-old child from a convent. Honestly, Jim, I couldn't believe he'd go and do something so crazy; but, of course, he's only twenty-two himself.” She gave the large glob of bread dough she had been kneading a final swat and rocked back with her hands on her hips.

  When she arched her back wearily, Jim reached over and began to rub it. “You having backaches again, Cat Eyes?” he asked. “You shouldn't be doing this. Lena can bake the bread for you until this little rascal is born.” He reached over and gave her well-rounded abdomen a soft caress.

  Charlee shook her head, and her long tan hair shimmered in the late afternoon sunlight. “I have too much energy to be sitting around doing nothing.”

  Jim said indulgently, “Nothing but fretting about Lee. Ever since we received his letter saying he was coming home with his new wife, you've been as excited as Will was when I gave him his pony. Anyway, why is Lee too young to marry at twenty-two? You were only eighteen when you married me.”

  She turned in his arms and said argumentatively, “I was almost nineteen, and besides, women are more mature than men. You were twenty-six. If you had married at twenty-two, you'd have ended up with someone like your old ladylove Tomasina Carver!”