she had not been so sure she would always have the demands of Three Oaks to fill up the lonely hours?
Sloan realized she ought to seek out Cruz and speak with him, to settle this matter once and for all. His cause was hopeless. She would never allow herself to love him. And she could never be the willing and obedient wife she was sure he expected her to become.
He would do much better to marry the young woman he had brought home with him from Spain, the one who had a long Spanish name regal enough to be joined with his. She had heard the senorita was unbelievably beautiful… and most certainly a virgin.
She turned her head to tell Rip what she had decided and realized he had fallen asleep. His body was no longer equal to the demands he put on it. The stroke had taken his strength and left him only his will.
In sleep he looked a gentle man, yet she knew he wasn’t. He was as hard and uncompromising as the land he had fought to tame. And he had raised her in his image.
Her future was tied to Three Oaks. She loved the land, and it gave her joy to see its burgeoning harvest. Somehow she would convince Cruz Guerrero she had nothing left to give to a man.
Cruz had not anticipated, when he made a personal vow to repay the Republic of Texas for Antonio’s treachery, that the Republic would recruit him as a double agent. But it had.
Because of his brother’s previous connection to the Mexican government, it had been easy to convince the British government that he was willing to spy on the Republic in order to help Mexico in its dealings with Texas.
Recently, he had been ordered to find out what plans the British government was cooking up with Mexico to interfere with President Houston’s plans to get Texas annexed by the United States. When necessary, he was to feed misleading information to the British.
While he was anxious to have Sloan in his household, having her around was going to complicate his work as a spy considerably. If he could have explained everything, he was sure she would have understood and approved his actions. Unfortunately, he was bound to secrecy.
After her experience with Antonio, Cruz was certain that if Sloan got an inkling of his activities, she would draw all the wrong conclusions. Therefore, he planned to speak today with the British agent he regularly dealt with and make certain that the man never came to Rancho Dolorosa again.
Cruz was careful not to be seen entering the upstairs hallway of Ferguson ’s Hotel. He quickly found the room where he was to meet with his contact, who reported directly to the British minister to Mexico. Cruz knocked twice, waited a moment, and knocked once more.
“Who’s there?”
“The Hawk,” he murmured, giving the code name the British government had assigned to him.
The door opened, revealing a short, rotund Englishman dressed foppishly in bright-colored silks and satins. Sir Giles Chapman had purposely adopted the foolish clothes as a disguise. Together with his bloodshot eyes and florid jowls, they had kept many a man from discovering the shrewd brain that resided beneath his shiny bald pate. Sir Giles gestured with beringed fingers for Cruz to enter, then checked the hall one last time before he closed the door behind him.
“Do you have your report for the minister with you?” Sir Giles asked, his British accent crisp and authoritative.
“I have written everything down.”
Sir Giles nodded his head in distracted acknowledgment as he accepted the missive. He smiled as he finished reading the document. “So. President Houston is still leaning toward keeping Texas an independent nation rather than accepting the offer of annexation from the American government?”
“It appears that way from everything I have been able to learn.”
Sir Giles snickered. “Thank goodness Houston hasn’t changed his song over the summer. There were rumors… Well, it’s good to know that at least we don’t have to concern ourselves with trying to delay an offer of annexation from the United States.”
“I have not told you anything in this report that your own British charge to Texas could not have found out for you,” Cruz pointed out.
“Yes, but the official version of Texas policy given to our charge might not have agreed with the version you’ve given us. And that, my good man, is where your true value lies. I will expect another report next month, or sooner if the political climate changes. Do you understand?”
“But of course.”
“Is that all?”
“There is one thing more,” Cruz said.
The Englishman raised an inquiring brow.
“I am taking a wife. Since her political sympathies are not precisely in accord with mine, I must ask that you no longer attempt to reach me at my hacienda.”
The Englishman pursed his lips. “Can’t you control your own wife, sir?”
Cruz ignored the scarcely veiled sarcasm and said, “I have made my wishes known to you. I expect you to abide by them.”
“I make no promises,” the Englishman said. “In this business, you understand, we must all make allowances for necessity.”
“Then make sure it is never necessary to come again to my home,” Cruz said. He nodded curtly to the Englishman, turned on his heel, and left the room.
Chapter 3
“YOU PROMISED YOUR FATHER YOU WOULD marry the Hidalgo girl, and now you tell me you cannot! Does the deathbed wish of a dying man mean so little to his eldest son?”
Cruz met his mother’s imperious stare with one of his own. “I promised my father only that she would be well wed. And she will be. I will find a husband who will take good care of her.”
“Bah! You are the husband for her. Refugia Adela Maria Tomasita Hidalgo carries the blood of kings in her veins, as you do, my son. She is a woman worthy of the Guerrero name.”
“I cannot marry Tomasita,” Cruz repeated quietly.
“You must get over this foolish notion that you are somehow responsible for Valeria’s death, and take another wife. Many women die in childbirth. It is the way of things.”
“That does not make it any less a tragedy, Mama, as you must know.”
He did not disabuse her of the notion that it was the memory of Valeria’s death that kept him from marrying Tomasita Hidalgo. He had chosen not to tell his mother about his marriage to Sloan Stewart until he was finally able to bring her to live at Dolorosa as his wife. That would be time enough to meet the objections to the marriage he knew his mother would voice.
Cruz pushed himself away from the mantel and turned to lean a shoulder against the cool, rough stone. He watched his mother’s skin tighten unbecomingly across her patrician cheekbones.
Her hair, parted and held in its tight bun at her nape, was still black as a raven’s wing and her body was slim and firm, without the gaunt, bony appearance that occurred in many tall women as they aged. Her creamy complexion was unwrinkled except at the corners of her eyes.
Dona Lucia Esmeralda Sandoval de Guerrero looked more youthful than her fifty-three years, too young to be a widow whose household would soon be the province of a younger woman.
He could not help thinking that part of Tomasita’s suitability as his wife stemmed from her unresisting obedience to his mother’s will. The girl was still very young, and had lived nowhere but El Convento del Sagrado Corazon, the Convent of the Sacred Heart, in Madrid, under the strict censure of the nuns.
Yet he had seen a smoldering streak of rebellion in Tomasita that he felt certain would burst forth in flame if it were fanned even a little. She was malleable now, and mayhap his mother could keep her that way if she became his wife. He doubted it, but he had no intention of finding out. The sooner Tomasita Hidalgo was married-to another man-the better.
“I will find a good husband for her,” he said.
“And what of you? Will you not marry and breed up heirs? Who better than Tomasita to be the mother of your children?” his mother demanded.
“Rancho Dolorosa has an heir. Have you forgotten my brother’s son, Mama? Tonio was your favorite. I have taken his son as my own. Is Cisco not heir enough for you?”
“He is also
Cruz’s eyes narrowed to slits and his lips pressed flat in anger. “You will speak of Sloan Stewart with respect.”
If Cruz had ever lifted a hand to his mother she might have been cowed by his fury, but although her son’s voice was hard, she was willing enough to fight words with words. She dismissed his obdurate stare with an angry wave of her ivory fan.
“Something must be done about
“She has a name, Mama.”
“I will not have it spoken in this house!”
“This house is mine,” he said, his voice harsh with the effort it took to control his temper. “I decide what names will be spoken here.”
“Of course,” she replied, her pride bringing her chin up another notch. “I see I cannot expect any more consideration for my wishes than you have given to the wishes of your father.”
Cruz refused to answer his mother’s challenging words with the taunting response on the tip of his tongue. Since his father’s death, he had found himself in almost constant conflict with his mother. She wasn’t ready to concede the father’s place to the son, any more than she was ready to concede her own place to a daughter-in-law.
He had told himself to be patient, that her abiding grief made her say things she did not mean, and that with time she would accept her new role in the household with grace. She needed his support and his solace in this time of change. He would not allow her to goad him into saying something now that he would
