Joan Johnston - Texas Woman

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.

“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, Mamá, 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.

Doña 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 Corazón, 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, Mamá? Tonio was your favorite. I have taken his son as my own. Is Cisco not heir enough for you?”

“He is also that woman’s son,” she spat.

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 that woman.”

“She has a name, Mamá.”

“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 regret later.

Instead of answering her accusation, he countered, “Are the plans completed for the fandango celebration to introduce Señorita Hidalgo to our neighbors?”

“All is in readiness, as you requested. I have invited all the noteworthy families in the area-including the Anglo planters from along the Brazos whom you added to the list-to come and welcome Tomasita.”

Cruz noted the disdain with which his mother referred to the wealthy Anglo planters. In the eight years since Texas had won its independence from Mexico in the Battle of San Jacinto, she had not accepted the reality of Anglo dominance in Texas. She had always retained the hope that someday Spain would step in and reclaim Texas. That was never going to happen. Annexation by America was a far more likely fate for the Republic-unless England could somehow manage to forestall it.

For now, Texas was free of oppressive Mexican taxes and military rule. Cruz would do everything in his power to keep it that way for himself and for the children he hoped to have with Sloan Stewart… assuming he could bring her to his home and to his bed.

He had hoped to present Sloan as his wife at the fandango. His mother’s enmity for that woman reminded him that she would not have been above “forgetting” to invite Sloan to the fandango.

“Did you send an invitation to the Stewart family?” he asked.

“If they were on the list-”

“You know they were on the list.” He dug deep for the patience to treat his mother with the respect that was her due and in a calmer voice asked, “Did you send the invitation?”

“I cannot remember,” she replied sullenly.

“Then perhaps you should check and make sure,” he said, his words both a command and a warning.

Cruz swore under his breath as he felt his shoulders knot with tension. Even if Sloan received an invitation, she probably would prove her independence by staying away.

He reached out to touch the smooth blue Talavera jar that stood in one of the recessed arches found at intervals along the interior walls of his adobe hacienda. Sloan’s skin was softer, smoother, than the finish on the delicate jar. He jerked his hand away from the glazed pottery and thrust it through his hair in what had become a habitual gesture of agitation.

His mother’s attitude toward Sloan troubled him, yet nothing he said seemed to change it. As far as Doña Lucia was concerned, Sloan Stewart had given herself to a man beyond the bounds of marriage and borne a bastard child. She would never forgive Sloan that transgression, even though the man Sloan had taken to her bed had been her favorite son and the child born of that union was her own grandchild.

He should have told his mother long ago that he was not free to align himself with Tomasita Hidalgo. But he could not-would not-explain his agreement with Sloan to his mother. At the time Cruz had learned of the betrothal contract, Tomasita had still been a child. Cruz had thought he would settle the matter with Sloan long before Tomasita had reached an age to marry.

But things had not gone as he had planned.

Tomasita’s father had died and his will had instructed the Convent of the Sacred Heart to send for Don Cruz Almicar Guerrero to come and claim his bride.

Cruz regretted the circumstances that had kept his relationship with Sloan Stewart in abeyance, because now Doña Lucia had her heart set on becoming mother-in-law to the aristocratic young Spanish woman he had brought home with him from Madrid.

Fortunately, Tomasita knew nothing of the alliance that had been proposed by their fathers, and Cruz had sternly forbidden his mother to tell the girl about it. It was enough for Tomasita to know he was her guardian until she married. For, indeed, he was.