Sweet Savage Love Page 4

  “Quite clear, sir,” Steve said politely.

  “Well, then!” Bishop actually looked quite pleased. “I think you will find this assignment more—er—suited to your temperament than the one you are just about to vacate.” His voice was bland, but Steve sensed an undercurrent of something close to humor in the man, which surprised him.

  “Well—” Bishop said again, more briskly, “we’ll arrange for your escape tonight. You’ll leave New Orleans on a flatboat. We’ll talk again of details after you’ve breakfasted, and I will meet you myself in Los Angeles, California, in two months’ time.”

  Steve saluted, and had turned to leave when Bishop’s voice halted him.

  “Oh, by the way, Captain Morgan—in case I should forget to mention it later—the bullets they’ll be shooting at you when you escape will be real ones. Do try to be careful.”

  PART TWO

  Beginnings

  4

  Four years certainly brought many changes. Pierre Dumont, dining with some of his friends at Maxim’s in Paris, sounded rather melancholy as he lamented the fact.

  “He’s still pining for his little cousine,” Jean-Jacques Arnaud commented, winking at the Viscomte De la Reve, who sat on his right.

  “Well—but in spite of her obstinate ways I suppose I do miss her,” Pierre confessed.

  “Ha! Of course he misses her!” René du Carre laughed. “‘Face of a demi-mondaine, body of a woman—’ you see, I remember what you told us four years ago.”

  “That was true enough then! And you’ll remember, when my chère maman insisted that I escort Virginie to her first ball, I added that she had the mind of a child, excited by small pleasures. Yes, but alas, she grew too clever for me.”

  “And heartless, too,” the Viscomte stated self-pityingly. He flashed a quick, apologetic look at his friend’s reddening face. “No need to look so annoyed, my old one. You know very well that I offered for her in all honor, and she turned me down. Told me she had only been practicing on me, in order to learn how to be a flirt—because someone had told her she was becoming too much of a bluestocking to be appealing to a man.”

  “I plead guilty!” Pierre admitted. “I was afraid, you see, that her success at all the smart salons my esteemed papa dragged her to would spoil her. But—well—she turned me down too, although I knew, of course, that it would never do—for we are cousins.”

  “Quite so—but you fell in love with her, and she twisted you around her little finger!” René said slyly. “Remember that time she teased you into taking her to dine in one of those discreet little rooms upstairs, because she wanted to find out how it would feel to play at being a demi-mondaine?”

  “Dieu!” Pierre said, clutching his head in mock-anguish, “why do you have to remind me? She embarrassed me with all the—very searching questions she asked—and when the waiter came in she sat on my knee with her arms about my neck, so that she would not embarrass me, she said. Thank God my parents never found out!”

  “You never did tell me that story before,” his friend the Viscomte said, frowning. “Damn—I wish she had not been your cousin, Pierre!”

  “Well—it is of no consequence now, is it?” Jean-Jacques interposed lazily. “She’s left France—she’ll probably marry some rough, crude Americaine with lots of money in the end. Where did you say she was going to live, with her papa?”

  “Oh, in some Godforsaken place they call California—they discovered much gold there some years ago, you remember. A very rough place, and crawling with wild Indians, I’ve heard.”

  “Ah, yes—also they fight duels with pistols in the very streets, and every man carries a pistol on his hip…”

  They started on a lively discussion of life on the American frontier, while Pierre stared dourly into his wine. Why had they started to speak about Virginie? Damn, but De la Reve had spoken truly. If only she hadn’t been his cousin, and he hadn’t discovered her charms so late—he might have made the chit fall in love with him—why, at sixteen she had obviously adored him! How she’d blushed whenever he teased her or looked at her long enough.

  He wondered where she was, and what she was doing. He even hoped kindly, for her sake, that there were parts of America that were civilized. Poor, lovely Virginie! Her beauty, her elegance and her wit would be quite wasted in America. Perhaps, at last she would begin to regret that she had left France, that she had left him.

  Pierre would have been surprised, all the same, if he had known that his cousin was actually, and at that very moment, thinking of him with affection, and even a twinge of nostalgia.

  5

  Ginny lay in a bed, a real bed, for the first time in weary weeks of travelling, and found that she could not fall asleep. She was overtired, overexcited, and the bed was even too soft, after what she had begun to get used to.

  Ever since she had arrived in America, she had been travelling. The two weeks she had spent in New York now seemed almost dreamlike and unreal. Whenever she closed her eyes she imagined she could feel the swaying, bumpy motion of the coach which had brought them here, and that had been much worse than the rocking of the ship that had carried her to America, and those dirty, cinder-filled trains that had brought them from New York to Louisiana.

  Closing her eyes, Virginia Brandon thought firmly about Paris—and then about her cousin Pierre. Poor Pierre, she thought now. He had looked so unhappy!

  “But I’ll write to you often,” she had promised, and he’d shaken his head lugubriously.

  “You won’t. You—you’re flighty, dear cousin. You’ll find yourself a dozen new swains to dazzle before you’re halfway to America!”

  “But that’s different—you’re my cousin, and you know me so well!” she’d reminded him laughingly. “Oh, Pierre—you know very well I never dazzled you. You only pretended, because—because it was the fashion, and your friends liked me. Why, you always considered me a nuisance before, and much too much of a bluestocking. Remember? You told me so yourself. Besides,” she’d added coaxingly, “you’ve always been my confidante. Who else would I talk to?” But though she’d teased him, she remembered that she had been quite infatuated with him when she was younger. What a lot had happened since then!

  Crossing her arms beneath her head, Ginny thought about it all. America—the country she had been prepared not to like at all, was young, and vital and exciting; and when she had met her father and her new stepmother, all her initial misgivings had disappeared.

  Her father had seemed genuinely happy to see her and glad to have her with him after all the years they’d been separated. And Sonya, his wife, was surprisingly young—blond, petite and spontaneously affectionate. It was impossible not to love her.

  “I think it will be quite all right if you call me Sonya,” she had whispered after Ginny had called her “madame” for the third time. And her father had smiled indulgently.

  He liked her, and he had shown that he was proud of her and trusted her. Hadn’t he taken her into his confidence right away, to show that he accepted her completely?

  Ginny smiled in the darkness. It was really her father’s plans and ambitions that had made everything so exciting.

  At a party they had attended in Washington, Ginny had overheard a man refer to her father as an opportunist—a man with no scruples and too much ambition. But the sneering words had made her feel proud, instead of angry. She understood that a lot of people must be jealous of her father—envious of his wealth and his power and above all, his drive. He was the kind of man who obtained what he wanted, and she admired him tremendously, just as Sonya did. To think he had taken the trouble to explain it all to her!

  “I mean to carve myself out an empire, Virginia,” he had said. “Other men have done it. The time is right, with people milling around uncertainly and aimlessly since the war’s been over—and whole territories to be taken for the asking.”

  Well, she thought, why not? Why shouldn’t her father do what other men had done and were doing? Maximilian had been c
rowned Emperor in Mexico, with the French armies supporting him—and she had been happy to learn that her father had connections with the French. Bordering Mexico, Texas and California were states, but between them stretched the vast territories of Arizona and New Mexico, and beyond that Baja California. Who could know what might not be achieved, with the support and alliance of the French, and Maximilian too, of course? A really strong man could do anything—look at the first Napoleon. She was not only excited but flattered that she was to play a small part in her father’s plans.

  Ginny Brandon was now in San Antonio, Texas. A very old city, her father had explained. It had been built by the Spaniards a long time ago and the Texans had fought for it and taken it in the time when Texas was still the Lone Star Republic.

  It was a city of contrasts, with old brick and stone buildings and ancient squares lying cheek by jowl with recently constructed, false-fronted wooden structures. Fine hotels and private houses mingled with gaudy saloons and gambling halls. A kind of headquarters for cattle ranchers, all rushing to sell their herds to the meat-starved north and east—and, inevitably, for gamblers and Indians and renegade gunmen as well as cowboys who came to town for excitement. A rich town now—full of movement and excitement and danger. But not to her, of course, or to Sonya, for her father was here to protect them, and he had already hired several men, who would be working for him.

  In a few days, when Senator Brandon’s plans were completed, Ginny and Sonya would travel overland by wagon train to California, while he would have to return to Washington for a while. Her father had bought a small herd of a new breed of white-faced cattle in Galveston—ordered all the way from Europe by a rancher who was unable to pay for them when they arrived. They would be driven to his ranch in California, following the wagon train. But—most exciting of all, the wagon train would also carry something more. Gold bullion, concealed in the false bottom of the wagon that Ginny and Sonya would ride in. And surplus army rifles and ammunition as well, in another wagon. All to help the French armies in Mexico. Louis Napoleon of France was careless about paying his troops there, and Maximilian would be grateful for help. An empire, straddling both sides of the border, her father had said once, and Ginny believed, as Sonya did, that he would make his dream a reality.

  A sudden burst of laughter from the room next to hers made Ginny come back to the present with a frown. Not for the first time, she regretted that her father’s suite did not connect with her room, but lay at the other end of the passageway instead.

  It was a hot, humid night, and she was forced to keep her window open. No doubt the occupants of the room next door had done the same thing, and the sound of their drunken revelry carried clearly into her room. Annoyed, Ginny sat Zup in bed, glancing across the room at the small cot where Tillie, Sonya’s maid, slept deeply and soundly, with her mouth half-open. Poor Tillie, she had been working extra hard, and must be exhausted. I’ll let her sleep, Ginny thought, and close the window myself. Even if I half-suffocate it will be better than having to endure that noise all night!

  She heard women’s voices in the next room, loud and raucous, and her lips tightened disapprovingly. What kind of women would sit up half the night, drinking and partying with men? The question answered itself in her mind. Only one sort! There were no intelligent and sophisticated demi-mondaines in this part of the world, in these still uncivilized, roaring, bawdy western states. Women were either “good” or “bad,” with no half-world of elegant courtesans dwelling between the two categories.

  Ginny had seen these “good” women, dowdily dressed in ugly, old-fashioned clothes, looking much older than they could possibly have been. And she’d caught glimpses of the gaudily dressed “bad” women in their enormous feathered hats and tawdry satin gowns. They all looked hard, and somehow shop-worn. Ginny herself had sometimes used rouge in Paris—a discreet trace of it on her lips and cheeks, but the women she’d seen who used it here looked as if they were painted—bright, ugly splotches of color standing out grotesquely against their too-pale skins. Yes, she’d seen women of that sort in New York and Washington and New Orleans and Galveston, and had recognized them for what they were without having to ask Sonya or her father.

  One of the women in the adjoining room began singing, and Ginny climbed determinedly out of bed. This was too much to bear! Tomorrow she’d tell her father, and he’d have her room changed. A pity, in a way, because it was such a nice, large room, and had windows overlooking the street—even a narrow balcony outside the big windows, with a carved wooden railing around it—to be used in case of fire. But even if she had to occupy a room that was much smaller and did not have a view, it would be much better than having to put up with this kind of disturbance when she was trying to sleep.

  With the thin silk of her nightgown swishing about her legs, Ginny walked to the window; and then, with her hands upraised to pull down the heavy shutter, she froze.

  The voices of two men sounded as if they stood right next to her, and it was a few startled moments before she realized that they must be standing at the open window of the next room. The faint smell of cigar smoke drifted to her, and she wrinkled her nose with distaste.

  One of the men spoke with an accent that she wasn’t able to place at first.

  “You are bored, amigo? But she likes you, the blonde one.”

  The other man’s voice sounded faintly contemptuous.

  “Oh, sure! She’d like anything wearing pants—with money. And since Bishop’s won most of our cash—maybe she’ll turn her attention to him. Think he’d like her?”

  The first man laughed delightedly.

  “Poor Jim! He looks as if he’s afraid of her!”

  “Well—” Ginny could almost feel the man’s shrug, “this little card party and the girls, was his idea. Me, I’d prefer to get some sleep.”

  “Maybe you had better. That man Haines—he’s looking for trouble. I think he remembers you from some place—he doesn’t believe you’re really a wagon scout, or that your name is Whittaker.”

  “Don’t care what he believes. If he keeps pushin’ he’s going to get himself killed.”

  The cold, unemotional certainty in the drawling voice made Ginny shiver. She couldn’t move—and she was unable to resist eavesdropping while the men continued their conversation.

  “You could just wound him—”

  “That would be a waste of time. He’d get himself all healed up and come looking for me another time, and maybe I wouldn’t be ready for him then. No—if Haines still wants a fight tomorrow, I’m through backing off.”

  “Better be careful then. I’ve heard the Marshal here doesn’t cotton to gunfights in the streets of his town. Particularly when we have distinguished guests.”

  “I’ve met up with tough marshals before. And we won’t be sticking around town too long in any case.”

  “Steve—Steve, honey? What you doin’ over there so far away? Thought you wanted to hear me sing!”

  A woman’s voice this time, petulant and rather shrill, from somewhere within the room, and Ginny heard one of the men chuckle softly.

  “See what I mean, amigo? She likes you.”

  “God—not too much, I hope! She’s not my type. Think I’ll have Mimi send over that new French gal she was talking about—a redhead from Louisiana, she said.”

  “Tonight? Better not—this one will kill you!”

  “Steve!” The woman’s voice called again, shriller than the last time, and the man lowered his voice slightly, but Ginny could hear an undercurrent of amusement in it.

  “Ah, hell, I guess not. Guess I’ll just have to wait till tomorrow night.”

  The voices faded, and she heard more laughter and the sound of clinking glasses from inside the room.

  Seething with anger and disgust Ginny banged down the shutter. Let them hear! Maybe that would quiet them down. Men could be quite loathsome, she thought—talking about killing and women of ill repute in almost the same breath. And whoever those two men were, s
he hoped that she would never meet either of them.

  6

  Ginny woke late the next day. Even as she stretched and yawned lazily, she realized that it must be almost noon, or past, for it was hot, and the sun left a wide yellow stain on the floor by the window. The window! Her forehead wrinkled as she remembered last night—those men, and the horrible women with them. In spite of the tightly closed window that had made her room seem unbearably stuffy, the sounds in the next room had kept her awake for hours. And now—how much of the day had she lost already?

  Stretching again, Ginny sat up in bed, noticing that Tillie had gone, leaving the window open, fortunately, and the blinds drawn.

  Her eyes felt heavy-lidded and swollen, and she had half a mind to stay in bed, but there was too much she had wanted to do today—go exploring the town with Sonya, and sit in the old, tree-shaded plaza watching the people go by. Sonya, as soft-hearted as usual, must have told Tillie to let her sleep late.

  Before her resolve weakened, Ginny got quickly out of bed. She longed for a bath, but there was no time to order one now, and she was hungry. Perhaps if she hurried there would be time to have lunch downstairs.

  Most of her clothes were still carefully packed away, but Tillie had unpacked a few and left them to hang in the small closet that the room provided. Stripping off her pale silk nightgown, Ginny pinned her hair up and washed herself all over with water from the pitcher on the bureau. A sponge bath, after all, was better than none at all, and it refreshed her considerably.

  Choosing a cool organdie dress that did not look too wrinkled, Ginny slipped into it and studied herself critically in the small mirror. Its pale cream color, sprigged with tiny green and red flowers, suited her rather pale complexion.

  Of course, it was considered fashionable to be pale, but she wished in spite of it that she had more color in her cheeks. In France, she had sometimes used rouge, but Sonya had already warned her that people here were a little more old-fashioned. Peering at her reflection, Ginny pinched her cheeks lightly and frowned back at herself. If only her mouth was a little smaller, her forehead higher! Still, it wasn’t too bad a face, and she had been told she was a beauty; which, though it was surely exaggeration, was still flattering. I suppose I’m passable, she told herself, arranging her hair high on her head, and brushing it into ringlets that fell around her face and down her neck. At least I have nice ears, she thought, and I like the new hairstyles. No more smooth, decorous chignons—following the Empress Eugenie’s example women in Paris had begun to arrange their hair differently, and it was now quite proper for a lady to let her ears show. Ginny had had her ears pierced before she left for America, and now she wore her favorite earrings—tiny pieces of jade set in antique gold studs that had belonged to her mother.