“Si,I remember.” Angel smiled, making him look younger and more handsome than he had before. Ramon wondered bitterly if it was that kind of smile that had urged his wife to invite him to her bed.
“There are two ways in,” Ramon continued. “Both are heavily guarded. Tell them you are Andreas’s cousin.” He slid the heavy gold and ruby ring with the de la Guerra family crest off his finger, the ring he had given to Caralee the day of their wedding. He had found it in his saddlebag when he had gotten back from Monterey.
“Show them this and tell them it is I who have sent you.” He handed the ring to Angel, ignoring the odd sense of irony that his cousin should wind up with the ring he had used to wed Caralee.
“Gracias, amigo.”
“I did not know they had let you out of prison,” Ramon said.
“They did not exactly let me out. It was more like I escaped.” Angel began to back his horse away. “Again I am sorry about what happened in Monterey.”
“So am I,” Ramon said. “And I would advise you it is a subject best not mentioned again.”
Angel’s mouth flattened abruptly. “As you wish,” he said. “I am grateful for the information.” Whirling his horse, he dug his big silver rowels into the animal’s ribs harder than he should have, and pounded away back down the road.
Ramon stared after him until the dust of his leaving settled into the high brown grasses. The thought of seeing his cousin each time he rode into Llano Mirada made a hard knot ball in his stomach. Then again, perhaps very soon it would not matter. Mariano had returned from Santa Barbara, and even now, safely inside a chest in the house, Ramon held the documents that might return Rancho del Robles to its rightful owners. He had written to Alejandro de Estrada in Monterey and tomorrow he would forward the lawyer the papers.
Once the case was reopened, the rancho would be returned and his raiding could end. As there was before, there would be wealth enough for his family, work and a home for his people.
As much as he yearned for such a thing, deep inside he knew it would not be the same without Caralee there to share it. Ramon pushed the painful notion away and started back toward the house.
***
Carly paced the floor of her bedroom. Her uncle had returned late last night, bone-tired, his long canvas duster covered with the grime of the trail, and angry that they had once more failed to capture El Dragón. They were not giving up, he said grimly. The Indian scouts would continue their meticulous, inch by inch tracking, combing the Gabilan Mountains and on into the Diablo Range.
Captain Harry Love, the man who had apprehended the infamous bandit, Joaquin Murieta, led the vigilantes, and he had every belief that this time they would find the Spanish Dragon and his men.
Carly continued her pacing. She was worried about Ramon, as well as Pedro, Florentia, Tomasina, and the others in the stronghold. She didn’t want them winding up the way Lena and the people of the Yocuts’s village had.
She had to speak to Ramon, convince him to stop his raiding before it was too late. But she wasn’t even sure where he was, and considering the way things stood between them, going to him at Las Almas might seem highly strange. She didn’t want to raise her uncle’s suspicions any more than they already were.
Carly made a sharp turn, swirling her saffron silk faile skirts, and started back the opposite direction. Besides her worry for Ramon, something else was bothering her. Boredom. Until her return to del Robles, she hadn’t realized how much she’d enjoyed the work she had done at Las Almas. They were building something there. That it was smaller than Rancho del Robles didn’t matter.
They were accomplishing something and she had been a part of that accomplishment.
Unlike her life at del Robles.
Certainly it was easier. Here she was waited on hand and foot, with nothing expected of her but a ladylike smile and an hour or two of polite supper conversation. Unfortunately, shewasn’t the type to sit all day in thesala,tatting away the afternoon as her uncle expected. She couldn’t entertain herself practicing for hours on the pianoforte. Reading occupied her time for a while, but the truth was, Carly had spent too many years out of doors. She liked hard work, liked the results it produced, and though at Las Almas she had never been expected to work her fingers to the bone, even Ramon seemed to approve of her involvement.
Perhaps he had recognized her need and bowed to it, or simple believed that since she wasn’t a Spanish woman, she wasn’t truly a lady—laboring was all right for agringalike her. That thought wasn’t encouraging, but whatever the case, she needed to be a part of what was happening on the rancho.
Or perhaps what she needed was a home of her own, as her uncle had once said.
Her heart squeezed at the thought. She’d had her own home… once. A real home, she had believed. She’d had a husband, people who cared about her, a mother-in-law and aunt she had grown to love. Did all of them believe as Ramon did? Did they think her capable of such a bitter betrayal? What had he told them? she wondered. What had Angel said to his sister Maria?
Tears burned her eyes, but her hands clenched into fists. Ramon believed his cousin because he was a de la Guerra. He was also a liar, but there was no way to prove it. And even if she could, she would still be agringa,not the Spanish woman her husband wanted for a wife.
Carly sighed. What did it matter? Ramon had bannished her from his life as if she had never existed and nothing was going to change that. He had left a void that would never be filled, but surely there was some way she could be happy. Perhaps Uncle Fletcher was right and she should marry Vincent. Already he had sent his regards. A letter had arrived by messengerjust yesterday afternoon. Apparently her uncle had been quick to inform her ex-suitor of her return. Obviously Uncle Fletcher hadn’t learned a thing from the trouble he had caused by his manipulations.
Then again, if Vincent still wanted her, perhaps he really did love her. Maybe she should marry him and get on with the rest of her life. Carly had no doubt her uncle would somehow arrange the annulment. He wanted her to marry Vincent. If she had done as he wished in the first place, she wouldn’t be feeling the terrible pain she suffered now.
She started to pace again, then glanced out the window and stopped so short she stumbled and nearly fell. Carly stared in horror, blinked and tried to tell herself what she was seeing wasn’t real.
“Dear God!” Whirling toward the door, she jerked it open and raced out into the hallway. Heart thundering, her feet flying, she slammed through the back door and out into the work yard. “Stop this! What are you doing? You’ve got to stop this minute!”
But the lash fell again, slicing into the small brown back that already sported several long welts and three thin trails of blood. Carly stumbled forward, racing toward the boy just as the lash whistled through the air again. Ducking her head, she rushed between him and the whip, threw her arms around his narrow shoulders and bent over him, shielding his small frame and taking the wicked blow herself.
She gasped at the sting of the vicious piece of leather, her heart nearly breaking for the pain the boy had already endured.