in—large men, burly men, a cadre of men whose faces were partially covered and who brandished weapons towards the startled people sitting motionless in carved pews.
“Don’t move, any of you!” shouted one who strode to the front. “We’re here to prevent this damnable alliance with that filth-ridden vermin who calls himself King of England! There are still men in Spain—men, I tell you—who’d rather slit their own throats than ally with ill-begotten English refuse!”
Alejandro heard Anne’s gasp, and knew her eyes flashed fire to hear her English countrymen so defamed. He looked around and gave her a warning frown, knowing it would help but little.
He wheeled his chair forward, ignoring the swords which immediately swung in his direction. “What is your purpose here?” he demanded.
The leader laughed, a grating and unpleasant sound, and moved towards Damian. Another minute and the tip of the brigand’s sword pressed into the richly brocaded vest his son wore. Damian winced at the pain, his eyes narrowing.
Alejandro knew fear then.
“What would you do?” he asked again.
The man gestured. Damian was surrounded by men with weapons. Their leader lowered his sword. His lips twisted; one brow lifted above eyes that mocked. “I’m doing what I must.”
He turned to Celeste and bowed. “I almost regret, little English señorita, that I deprive you of both your lover and your wedding.”
As if in a dream, Alejandro saw the sword being raised behind his son’s back.
He pushed his chair forward before he thought, his hands jerking at the wheels, his callused palms hissing against smooth wood. Men rushed towards him like a wave, their features a blurred turning of hard lines and bared teeth, their words lost in the explosion and flash of pain behind his eyes, and he was falling, tumbling into darkness…
Chapter One
Don Alejandro Castillo had wicked eyes. Pirate eyes. They were blue, like the Mediterranean, and intense, like the Spanish sun. They could skewer a soul on the keen edge of a cutlass.
In real life, those eyes always softened when they looked at Celeste Rochester, but in her dreams the night before they had not.
“Don’t fail me, palomita. Find my son,” he’d said, his eyes dark with intensity. “Find Diego and bring him home to me.”
“I will,” she promised, knowing how great was the need. She sincerely meant and sincerely believed every word.
Such was the power of the dream.
It was harder to have such faith in herself now, released from the night’s magic and staring across a smooth expanse of blue sea towards the isle of San Juan Bautista in the Spanish Indies.
This was her destination. Somewhere on that island was the man she sought. Diego Castillo, her betrothed’s identical twin.
A shadow fell across her and she looked up. “Barto,” she breathed, her hand involuntarily moving to her chest in surprise.
Her companion bowed slightly. “I frightened you. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
Celeste smiled at him. He was a bit frightening—or at least he had been when she’d first met him. She supposed his fearsome aspect was the point, however, since this old friend of Alejandro Castillo had been charged with her protection.
Celeste never doubted Barto’s ability, not after having seen him. He was African, a Moor converted to Morisco, a man black of skin and firm of muscle and probably the largest person Celeste had ever seen in her nineteen years. His voice thundered; his arms and thighs fairly strained the seams of his clothing. He handled a variety of weapons with the ease of long practice. Yet, for all his great size, Barto’s face usually held a pleasant, almost amused expression whenever he looked at her.
He turned that expression towards her now as his hands rested lightly on the ship’s wooden rail. “Are you all right, señorita? There is a scowl between your brows that gives me pause. I almost feared to break into your reverie.”
She smiled at his gentle humour. “As if you’d have aught to fear from me, Señor Gigante.”
She nodded towards the isle they could see in the distance. “I confess to feeling anxious. Tomorrow we will go ashore and, God willing, we shall find Diego Castillo. I worry that he won’t be easily convinced of our need. I worry that I won’t be successful.”
Barto turned to face her, taking both her hands into his and raising them, one at a time, to his lips. “Ah, señorita,” he said softly as he lowered them again. “If I were you, I’d be far more worried that I would be.”
Celeste hardly slept that night, so nervous was she over the task she faced the following day. Instead, she slipped quietly on to the deck and listened to the crew from the shadows as they laughed over their games. She would write down snippets of their conversations in the journal she kept for her six-year-old brother, Jacob. She felt guilty about her months away from him, and writing had become her way to share all she’d seen since leaving England for Spain four months before.
She’d already sent him one book filled with the daily stuff of her life. It contained her early days with Alejandro and Anne Castillo, pleasant days for her, as they’d awaited the return of her betrothed from sailing aboard one of the vessels with which his family’s fortune was made.
Now she walked the decks of La Angelina and wrote of far more adventurous things, wanting Jacob to experience with her the taste of lemons and salt seaspray, each glorious sunrise with its chant of morning prayers, and the mournful song of the guitarra beneath a dark sky full of stars.
She didn’t write of her fears when the fresh morning dawned. Instead, Celeste tried to ignore her emotions as they rowed in towards the first Spanish settlement on the isle.
Caparra. Even the settlement’s name sounded exotic, the Rs rolling deliciously against her teeth like waves rolled against its beaches of white sand.
Captain Jones had smiled when she’d said as much. “Nay, señorita,” he’d said with a shake of his head. “You must harbour no romantic illusions about this place, even if the name is a hopeful one, for it means blossoming. This isle is fair, to be sure, but the living conditions are primitive. The settlers are men of adventure, busy mining the wealth of this land. They are second sons, my lady.”
He’d noted Celeste’s puzzled expression. “Second sons. The younger sons of the hidalgo. Unable to inherit the fortunes of their fathers, they strike out to achieve their dreams by whatever means necessary. And some of those means have been brutal. Nay, señorita. This land holds promise, but for now little comfort.”
Celeste had seen that for herself once they entered the settlement. The buildings were wooden, with roofs of thatch, even the miserable building that advertised itself as the inn and tavern, where they now headed to make enquiries.
As they waited outside for the Captain to conduct their business, Celeste looked about with growing discouragement. Everything was dirty and in poor repair. Roads were few and of thick, dark mud, rutted from the hooves of horses and wheels of carts. The sparse shops had the same tired aspect as the rest of the settlement. Celeste could only imagine
