Bridge of Fire

  “I mean to have you,” he said, looking up at her, his voice husky with desire. Shocked, her knees trembling, she stared into his eyes for a long moment. “How dare you,” she began, fighting to control the tremor in her voice.

  “I sense something in you that would not object to a small lesson in love,” he said softly, his voice drawing her like a magnet. “Am I right?”

  Before she could answer he grasped her face in both hands, his mouth coming down hard on her parted lips. His arms went around her, pulling her closer, crushing her breasts against his hard muscled chest. She felt the length of his booted legs through her silk robe, the sinewed muscles burning her skin. The fire spread as one hand parted her robe and found her naked breast and the other pressed her buttocks into his burgeoning desire.

  Also by Fiona Harrowe

  Published by Fawcett Books:

  PASSION’S CHILD

  HONOR’S FURY

  DARK OBSESSION

  FOUNTAINS OF GLORY

  PRIDE’S FOLLY

  BRIDGE OF

  FIRE

  Fiona Harrowe

  FAWCETT GOLD MEDAL • NEW YORK

  A Fawcett Gold Medal Book

  Published by Ballantine Books

  Copyright © 1989 by Fiona Harrowe

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-92989

  ISBN 0-449-13157-2

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition: June 1989

  Contents

  BRIDGE OF FIRE Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter I

  Francisca sat spine straight in her cushioned chair, her lovely features composed. No frown marred the smooth brow, no emotion disturbed the serene dark eyes or altered the repose of the full pink mouth. In contrast, Leonor, her sister, seated uneasily next to her, twisted and turned, leaning forward every few moments to peer anxiously through the latticework of the window.

  “I wish you wouldn’t fidget so,” Francisca said.

  “I can’t help it. Why don’t they begin?”

  “Yes,” Cousin Beatriz agreed, from her chair behind them. “What do you suppose is delaying them?” A mestiza, the offspring of a distant relative and an Indian woman, Beatriz had been taken in by the girls’ parents as a child and was considered one of the family.

  "They will be here in due time." The palms of Francisca’s hands were sweating. To sit quietly and appear serene was an agony. Only by an effort of supreme will was she able to hide her agitation. Her heart was beating so loudly against the tight bodice of her blue brocade gown, she wondered that the other two didn’t hear it.

  “I envy you. You’re so patient,” Leonor pouted.

  “Not always.” Francisca gave her sister a small smile.

  Francisca, her cascading black hair tamed into curled sidepieces and brought to a jeweled and ribboned bun at the nape of her slender neck, was seventeen; Leonor, her brown, rather thin tresses tied back with a bowed ribbon, was fifteen. Beatriz was eighteen.“If only we could go down and mingle with the people in the square,” Leonor complained.

  “You know that’s impossible,” Francisca said. “Ladies do not mingle with crowds.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are right,” Leonor murmured with a resigned sigh.

  Francisca smiled again at Leonor, thinking how easy it was to convince her fragile, high-strung sister that her position in life held certain strictures, acceptable if not enviable.

  Francisca herself was not too sure genteel birth conferred such blessings. Waiting for the procession to begin, she thought how much more exciting it would be if she did not have to sit behind a shuttered window like a prisoner or a veiled Moorish princess. How would it feel, she wondered, to be someone else, a simple peasant among the crowd thronging the Great Square below? And for a few moments she imagined herself as an ordinary onlooker, a girl chattering and laughing with a friend, a plain cotton shawl over her shoulders, and straw sandals on her feet.

  But she was Doña Francisca de Silva y Roche, daughter of a wealthy, aristocratic father and a patrician mother. Spanish girls of good family, even here in Mexico City, New Spain, lived sequestered lives in virtual seclusion until they married. Closely guarded, they rarely left the house without a duenna or relative to accompany them. Even on this special occasion her parents and her Aunt Juliana were in the next room, seated on the balcony with their hosts, the Orozcos.

  In her childhood Francisca, like Leonor, accepted her well-ordered but restricted life. But as she grew older she began to chafe under the rules imposed upon her and often wished she were the son her father never had.

  “Here they come!” Leonor suddenly exclaimed.

  Beatriz clapped her hands. “Where? Where?”

  Francisca pressed her face against the latticework. But all she could see was the restless multitude beneath her, and the cathedral across the square. Yet unfinished, the cathedral was nevertheless imposing in its awesome majesty, its twin spires rising high toward a cloudless blue sky. In front of the church a platform with wooden seats had been erected. These would be occupied by the prisoners accused of heresy. To the right stood a pulpit with the immense cross of the Holy Office brooding above it. From this pulpit sermons would be preached by high-ranking clergy and by the grand inquisitor himself. Afterward sentences would be pronounced upon the criminals who had betrayed the faith and sinned against Mother Church.

  The year was 1649.

  The girls were about to witness the concluding stages of the ritual known as auto de fe.

  The auto was an act of faith, a week-long ceremony in which all Catholics were reminded by their parish priests in thunderous diatribes of the terrible doom that awaited should they stray or question the true gospel. Yet in spite of the solemn intent of the auto, it had engendered an air of festivity among the population. On the preceding night, in anticipation of this rare public spectacle, church bells had joyfully pealed in clashing, clanging disharmony. Windows and rooftops had been hung with colorful banners and woven rugs. Bonfires had been lit, their leaping flames illuminating the excited faces of the common folk, who welcomed a holiday to break the bleak monotony of their daily lives. Some had gathered at the gates of the prison, bringing refreshments to the honorary guards who kept vigil over the criminals. Others had gone to mass and given thanks to God that the Holy Office had protected them by routing out the blasphemers, the Protestants and Judaizers.

  “Listen!” Leonor leaned her head against the grille.

  The throb of drums and the piercing cries of trumpets, faint at first, became louder, stronger.

  In a few minutes the procession entered the square. First to appear were the clergy carrying the standards of their parish churches draped in black. An acolyte followed ringing a bell, its low, mournful cling-clang hushing the crowd. Then came the robed and mitered criminals, stumbling over the cobbles, each carrying a green wax candle and a placard with his name, birthplace, and offense chalked upon it. Those with
lesser charges preceded the condemned, who had committed the more heinous crimes against Mother Church.

  Bringing up the rear were the conversos, the Judaizers or Jews who had outwardly manifested Catholicism but who still practiced their own religion in secret. The repentants among them who had become reconciled to the church would be granted the privilege of being garroted before being burned at the stake; the unrepentant would be burned alive. They were all dressed in sanbenitos, a robe reaching to the knees, on which the green cross of Saint Andrew had been sewn front and back. Their mitered headgear was painted with devils, snakes, and flames. Behind them porters bore effigies of the miscreants who somehow had escaped the long arm of the Inquisition and were to be burned in absentia.

  Next came the dignitaries, the senior and junior inquisitors, the viceroy, and the inquisitorial prosecutor, a tall, hawk-nosed man, bearing the crimson standard of the Holy Office. Tasseled with silk and golden cords and fastened to a silver pole, it was capped with a gilded cross that winked and glimmered in the hot sun above the heads of the marchers.

  More clergymen followed, prominent among them the white-and-black-robed Dominican order so essential in carrying out the duties of the Holy Office. And lastly, mounted on curvetting horses held tightly in check, rode men of rank.

  Francisca’s eyes widened as they rested on the hidalgo leading them. His horse was a handsome chestnut stallion, richly caparisoned, bridled in intricately worked silver. He sat in his cordovan saddle with an arrogance that came of an innate sense of place, his red velvet cape spread over the sleek haunches of his steed, his hand resting lightly on the sword hilted in nacre and precious gems at his side. On his head he wore a wide-brimmed cocked hat plumed in crimson and gold, the open side revealing tawny hair and the glint of a golden earring.

  When he reached the spot directly under Francisca’s window, he turned his face up and smiled—a flash of white teeth in a sun-bronzed face-lifting a gloved hand in salute.

  “Why, that’s del Castillo!” Leonor exclaimed. “Is that smile for you, sister?”

  “Not at all,” Francisca remarked offhandedly. “How could it be? We are too well hidden for him to see us.”

  But Francisca guessed Miguel Velasquez del Castillo knew she was there, watching.

  They had met three nights ago. Miguel, the second son of the Marquis of Avila, nephew to the grand inquisitor of Seville, had recently arrived from that city aboard his galleon, the Espíritu Santo, now anchored in the port of Veracruz. He had come to Mexico City to trade his cargo of wine, oil, and mercury for silver. And since Francisca’s father, Don Pedro, owned extensive mines in Taxco, Miguel had sought him out to transact his business.

  Ordinarily the women of Pedro de Silva’s house did not take supper with the men when there were male guests outside the family. But that night they were celebrating Francisca’s mother’s birthday, and Miguel had been invited to stay on,

  Francisca remembered how her father, taking her hand, had introduced them. “May I present my daughter?” And Francisca, rising from a deep curtsey, had looked into fathomless blue eyes, tinged with a faint mocking smile.

  “I did not know New Spain produced such beauties,” he had said, his gaze lingering for a moment on her breasts, half-bared above her tightly laced bodice.

  In that one fleeting moment she had felt as though he had brushed his lips on the bare, mounded flesh, and she went hot with embarrassment.

  All through the meal, served on silver plates by the light of perfumed candles, Francisca had sensed Miguel’s glances, and once when she dared raise her eyes, he shot her a look of such bold, masculine desire, her knees trembled. Men had looked with lust at her before, in church, as she passed from the coach to her door, even on rare occasions in her father’s house. But never had she felt the slightest interest or experienced the smallest tremor of excitement. But now, at each stolen glance, she could feel the warmth rise to her cheeks. She hated that blush but had no more control over it than she did over the beat of her heart. She worried lest her sister, her mother, or, worst of all, her father might detect her inner agitation and either tease or scold her for it.

  But her father had been too busy plying Miguel with questions concerning the news from Old Spain. Gossip involving members of King Philip’s court was of little interest to Francisca, and she listened with only half an ear. It was only when her father inquired politely about Miguel’s wife, who had remained in Seville, that Francisca was brought to attention.

  So Miguel was married. She might have guessed that such a handsome, prepossessing man from one of Spain’s leading families would not—or could not—remain a bachelor. He had a wife in Seville. Francisca did not know whether to be disappointed or nettled. Of course, it was customary for men of noble blood—married or not—to make conquests and take mistresses, but Don Miguel must have realized that the closely guarded daughters of an eminent citizen like Pedro de Silva were beyond his reach.

  Francisca, now sitting behind the latticed window, watching the last of the procession come into the square, recollected the rest of that evening in vivid detail.

  Don Miguel had talked about his voyage from Cadiz. He told of leaving port as part of a flota of thirty galleons and how fierce storms and an attack by pirates near the Bahamas had reduced their number to twenty. In recounting the story, he seemed to have forgotten about her and did not look at her for the rest of the meal.

  Francisca had wondered then if she had imagined Miguel’s bold stare. Or had his glances merely been those of a man who took casual note of any pretty woman who came into view?

  Later that night she learned differently.

  She was getting into bed when she noticed that her little lapdog, Pepé, who usually slept at her feet, was missing. Reasoning that he must have slipped unnoticed through the door when her maid had retired, she threw on a robe and went out to look for him. Moving along the gallery, she began her descent of the inner stairway that led to the dining room, where she was sure Pepé could be found nosing among fallen table scraps.

  The stairs were dimly lit by a flickering oil lamp set on the landing, so she was startled when a shadow detached itself from the wall two steps below.

  It was Miguel. Stripped of his velvet surcoat, he wore a white silk shirt and black doublet and hose, which outlined the strong contour of his legs. In the dim light he looked taller, his shoulders broader, the planes of his handsome face somehow more arrogant and haughty.

  “I see you are also sleepless,” Miguel said.

  “That is not my trouble at all,” she said, controlling her voice but not the hammering of her heart or the sudden weak feeling in her knees. How could a man she did not even know unnerve her so? He was probably no better than a common wencher for all his aristocratic airs.

  “What is it, then?” he asked.

  “My dog has run off,” she said, feeling a little foolish, wondering why she bothered to explain.

  “Perhaps I can be of some help?”

  She raised her chin. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t put you to the trouble.”

  “It will be my pleasure.” His eyes so dark, almost black in the dim light, held a strange magnetic glitter as they rested on the strip of flesh exposed by the gap in her robe. She drew it tighter about her, her hand fluttering protectively to her throat.

  “Do I frighten you?” he whispered.

  “Of course not. Why should you? Please—if you will let me pass?”

  But he was not a man to be easily discouraged or lightly dismissed.

  “You are a beautiful woman. Doña Francisca de Silva y Roche.”

  “You repeat yourself.”

  “And I intend to do it again and again.”

  There was an air of animal virility about him that frightened yet captivated her. The nobles and hidalgos she had met in her father’s house seemed soft and effeminate by comparison. She should have known by the very fact that Miguel captained his own ship—unlike other noble sons, who considered work of any kind
beneath them—he was a man apart. True, he was dressed in velvet and silk and wore gold rings jeweled with fine-cut stones. But his strong, broad-fingered hands also bore calluses, the marks of lanyards and hawsers. He did not seem the least ashamed of these rough signs of his trade, as the cavaliers with their white, well-tended hands might be. Though he shared the hidalgo arrogance, the air of rightful command, and the eye that could strip and assess a woman, Francisca sensed he was different. And the difference disturbed her.

  “I mean to have you,” he said, looking up at her, his voice husky with desire.

  Shocked, her knees trembling, she stared into his eyes for a long moment. “How dare you?” she began, fighting to control the tremor in her voice. “How dare you presume on my father’s hospitality?”

  He took the two steps that separated them. His breath was hot on her cheek, but he did not touch her.

  Suddenly, insanely, she wanted him to. She wanted him to touch her, to take her in his arms. She longed to be kissed by that strong, mobile mouth, to know how it felt to have his lips on hers.

  His face now was completely in shadow. The warmth of his nearness frightened yet excited her.

  “I sense something in you that would not object to a small lesson in love,” he said softly, his voice drawing her like a magnet. “Am I right?”

  Before she could answer, he grasped her face in both hands, his mouth coming down hard on her parted lips. The breath left her lungs, and the cry of protest that began as a thought died on her captive tongue. So this was kissing, this coming together of lips on lips. She had never imagined such a sweet sensation, this light-headed giddiness as if she had drunk too much red Andalusian wine. It was all new to her. Her hand had been kissed by one or two forward gallants, but they had never touched her lips. Yet instinct told her that no other man could arouse such feelings of need, no other man would be able to conquer her senses so totally.

  His arms went around her, pulling her closer, crushing her breasts against his hard-muscled chest. She felt the length of his booted legs through her silk robe, the sinewed muscles burning her skin. The fire spread as one hand parted her robe and found her naked breast, and the other pressed her buttocks into his burgeoning desire. She wanted him to go on kissing her, touching her in places he ought not to touch her, feeding the hot fire in her loins.