He had gone through three horses to get from the mine to Mexico City, riding as fast as he could, certain Ginny was in danger. Now he found her at a dress ball for the new president, wearing a smile and drinking champagne. He had thought…Ah, hell, it didn’t matter what he’d thought.
He was here, and Luna was here, and there was other business to settle now that he knew Ginny was safe. The Spaniard was staring at him with satisfaction gleaming in his black eyes, a faint, smug smile touching the corners of his mouth. Steve didn’t even glance at Ginny.
“You’re just where I thought you’d be, General Luna. Still stirring up trouble, or did you come to Mexico to line your own pockets?”
Bishop didn’t move from Ginny’s side, but murmured that it was not the time or place to settle old scores. Steve ignored him.
Rafael Luna merely smiled coldly, regarding him with a triumphant smirk. “You remember me now, I see.”
“I remember you well enough. It’s been a long time since Milan, when I had to remove you forcibly from Francesca’s dressing room.”
A small space had cleared out between them, men and women scattering as the two faced each other. Tension vibrated in the air. Rafael Luna’s eyes had narrowed, and his mouth twisted into a smile that was more of a snarl.
“It was not your place to remove me from her dressing room or anywhere else. You took advantage of my inattention at the moment.”
Steve allowed a slow smile to touch the corners of his mouth. “You were cowardly enough to run, as I remember it.”
Luna went rigid; his arms fell to his sides, hands curling and uncurling, fingers flexing as if he held a weapon, but he only bowed slightly from the waist.
“As crude as usual, I see. I demand satisfaction for your insult.”
“Name the time and place.”
“Tonight!” Luna fixed him with a fierce stare, and a strange light glittered in his eyes. “So that your lovely wife will be a widow. Not that it matters so much to her, I believe, as she has spent some time in my company of late. A most lovely and compliant companion.”
Slow rage gathered at the back of his throat and behind his eyes, but Steve allowed nothing to show in his face or in his tone. His brown face was as impassive as an Indian’s, but his cold implacable stare conveyed a ferocity and danger that penetrated even to Rafael Luna, who betrayed himself with a swift, faint flicker of uncertainty shadowing his eyes. It was the first sign of weakness, a chink in the armor Luna had erected.
“You know why I’ve come, Luna. And it has nothing to do with my wife.”
How many times had he faced a man intent upon killing him? Across a dusty street or a marble floor, it was always the same. The man who allowed emotion to weaken his reflexes ended up making new dust. Not even the sight of Ginny—with her green eyes all wide and glazed, her breasts almost bare in that damned gown and her lips wet and parted—not even that would distract him.
“What is this in my palace?” The commanding voice cut through the crowd as if a hot knife through butter, parting them to make a path as Presidente Porfirio Díaz strode to the two men. “A quarrel? Between my Spanish envoy and my so excellent ambassador? This will not do, gentlemen, for we must not start my term off with violence. It has been too long since we have had peace in Mexico, and there should be peace now.”
A murmur ran through the crowd, approving but with an undercurrent of excitement and disappointment that the show had been momentarily quelled. Still wary, his muscles tense with the need for violence, for vengeance against the man who had sent him once more to the hell of the mines while he toyed with his wife, Steve managed a courteous nod.
“It will be as you wish it, of course, Your Excellency.”
Díaz smiled. “We have been comrades in arms for far too long for me to believe that you will submit so meekly, Esteban, but I will accept your promise that you will not fight with General Luna here or today, eh? Now come, where is your beautiful wife? She has not come to see me as she promised me she would. I hope that she is feeling much better now that her illness has passed. Is she here with you?”
Steve’s jaw set. Ginny, trembling visibly, gave him a beseeching glance as she stepped forward when he didn’t reply to the president’s query.
“I—I am here, Your Excellency. Many pardons for my absence of late. As you mentioned I have been—indisposed.”
“Of course, of course. Now that you are once more well and we are all in a better mood, we shall celebrate! General Luna, do not be so distant. Come. Tell me news of Spain.”
Though he seemed congenial enough, there was a steely undercurrent to his tone that left no room for dissent. Luna bent an ironic bow in Steve’s direction, swept Ginny with a glance and accompanied Díaz as he moved away.
Ginny. She didn’t move but stood there watching him, slanted green eyes slightly wary. The seductive gown clung to her body, skirts parting with her movements to give a glimpse of her legs. It was a cortesana’s gown.
The tension that had gripped Steve for the past hundred miles was slow to ease. His muscles were taut, his nerves and temper on edge. Ginny was alive, unharmed, staring at him with brimming eyes, but all he could think at the moment was that he was too tired to give her the explanations that she deserved. Not now. There would be
