Quietly, he slipped into the open door of the tavern's kitchen. He leaned against the wall, smiling, as he watched Victoria adding ingredients to the wonderful-smelling food in the pot. If he did not already l--like her for her wonderful spirit and loving heart, he would have lo--like her for her wonderful cooking. He could well imagine that Mendoza was in love--uh, liked her for it.
Turning, she almost dropped the plump tomatoes in her hand. Diego grinned at her, forgetting for a moment that she was upset with him. To his amazement, she returned the smile as if she was happy to see him. "Hello," she said as began to cut the tomatoes.
"Hello, yourself." He walked over to stand beside her. She handed him a knife and a tomato. "You do know how to use that I assume?" she laughed. Diego shook his head in amusement and began to run the knife through the ripe flesh of the fruit, admiring the skill she was showing with her own blade. He wondered if she planned to lull him close enough so she could slice his throat, but he quickly discarded that idea. Victoria would lung at sight. It was how she was--direct and honest.
Picking up the dripping pieces, she turned back to her pot. Tossing them in, she turned to look at him. "You looked wonderful today."
Diego stood still. "Wonderful? Today?"
She walked slowly over to him, and he had the irrational fear that a jungle cat was stalking him. "That, uh, costume looked very nice on you."
"C-costume?" He did not know he could sound so innocent.
Victoria's arms surrounded his neck as she laughed. "Oh, yes, Don Diego, I must say you look very nice in black." He tried to find the words to deny her challenge, but her lips covering his drove any thoughts out of his mind.
***
No one dared to say anything--at least not to his face. His lancers came the closest, but even they could not ask the question. He could tell, after their initial confusion, that they began to enjoy being waited on by him, so they forgot to ask why he was working at the tavern. He was an excellent soldier, but he did manage to be a decent waiter, if he had to say so himself. Maybe all the orders had not been correct, but no one had gotten a lap full of food.
Shutting the door behind her last customer, Victoria turned to look at him, her eyes laughing. "I thought the alcalde was going to choke when you brought him his dessert!"
Diego's laughter joined hers. "Yes, I must admit that I enjoyed watching his face."
Victoria walked over to him and laid her head on his chest. "Thank you for helping me today."
He hugged her close. "I wanted to do it. Today was for me."
"And tomorrow?" She heard the dread in her voice, and he knew that she had already figured out his decision.
"Tomorrow is for the King." It was the only answer he could give. He needed to take his mother back to Madrid and being a soldier was all he knew. Staying in this pueblo was not even an option for him. Sooner or later, he would have to tell his father the truth, and he could not cause the old man that pain. Or, maybe, he admitted to himself, he could not face the idea of another possible rejection from his father.
She did not look up at him. "You are leaving."
"Yes, tomorrow afternoon. The tax has been collected, and the King is anxious to get his money." She pulled away from his arms, but she refused to look at him. She walked over to the bar and sat out two glasses. Slowly, she pried open a bottle of wine and poured them both a drink.
Diego walked over to where she stood. He picked up his glass, but did not drink. "You knew this day was coming."
"I know," she answered, still not looking at him. "It doesn't mean I don't hate it."
He reached across the bar and caressed her cheek. "I hate it, too," he admitted.
She managed to give him a small smile. "I doubt that, or you wouldn't have paid the taxes today." She was silent for a moment, obviously thinking. Suddenly, her eyes met his, and Diego almost stepped back, knowing that she was about to ask a question he did not want to answer. "Why did you use Don Alejandro's money?"
He opened his mouth to issue a lie, some claim to sufficient funds, but he could not make himself tell her an untruth tonight, the last night he would ever see her. "I wanted to test him."
Her brow drew together, showing her confusion. "Test him? For what?"
"To see if he was an honorable man," he admitted, feeling a sense of relief as he shared his burden with her.
Victoria's laugh was enchanting to his ears. "Everyone in the entire pueblo could have answered that question easy enough."
"I thought he was a dishonorable man who acted like an honorable man." Diego took a sip of his wine, ignoring the incredulous look on Victoria's face. "I thought what he did at his son's birth was the true him."
"What he did at his--?" Victoria gasped. "How could you, a soldier, hold that against him?"
She knew? "How could I not?"
"You do as the King orders and so did Don Alejandro!" she snapped, setting down her glass with a snap.
The King had ordered his father to give him up? That did not make any sense. "I don't think--I don't--"
Victoria leaned across the bar, her eyes flickering in anger. "You go where the King commands, and so did Don Alejandro. Everyone knows how much that man regrets missing his son's birth." Missing his son's birth? But--Victoria continued to talk, interrupting his thoughts. "He was so upset--especially after what happened to Doña Elena!"
Diego felt like he was in a dream, everything seemed to be moving incredibly fast and slow at the same time. "What happened to her?"
Victoria shook her head and leaned away from the bar. "I thought you knew everything about Gilberto's birth." He looked at her, waiting, and with a sigh, she told him. "Her midwife, some odd lady, gave her a tea to drink for the pain which made her sleep. She apparently helped birth Gilberto and then disappeared, leaving Doña Elena alone."
"Did you like her?" Diego asked.
Her brow twisted in confusion. "The midwife? Oh, you mean Doña Elena. Of course! Everyone here loved her. She managed to change all of Los Angeles. My mother used to tell stories about her working with the gentleman to teach them manners. It used to be a lot rougher pueblo before she came here with Don Alejandro."
She giggled. "I remember her talking about Gilberto's birth once. She said she was so excited that she dreamed she gave birth to him before he was born. She said her poor body had to go through all that pain twice. It took her a long time to recover, and her family blamed the midwife, which was why Don Alejandro left the army. He said he would never again leave her so vulnerable."
Leaning his head back, he drank all the wine in his glass. He set it down, resisting an insane urge to laugh. You were right in this, too, Julian. Mother even lied about him, he told his friend. He could imagine his friend, laughing, answering, "I told you so!"
He noticed that Victoria was looking at him strangely. He smiled weakly in her direction to let her know that he was all right. He strolled around the counter as Victoria laughingly backed away from him. Feeling free, he chuckled as he drew her into his arms, because today was for him. Tomorrow, he would think about his responsibilities--to the King, to his father, to his brother, and to her, the wonderful creature in his arms. Tomorrow.
***
Victoria watched the moon as it began its slow descent. She held a now-sleeping Diego in her arms, and wondered if the words he had whispered earlier were true. She thought they could be--they had seemed to flow from his mouth with no thought behind them. Shivering in her arms, he had told her that he loved her.
Stroking his hair, Victoria decided that he had been serious. There was no reason at all to play games with her; she had told him that first night that she made no demands and expected no promises. He had no reason to lie or manipulate her, and Diego had already warned her earlier that he was leaving.
She could not understand this man. He managed to steal her heart so quickly that she had doubted her feelings more than once. Many men over the years, some honorable, some not, had tried to get her hand in marriage. She yearned for a husband, but she wanted love more. She had thought, for a few months, that Zorro might have been the man for her, but he had quickly shown himself to be someone she could not love. Diego had appeared the same, too, until he put on that mask.
Then, the real him had shined through to her. Looking up at him, seeing his laughing eyes, she realized that he was enjoying the reaction of the crowd. Unlike the real Zorro, he was not enjoying because of their reaction to him, but rather their joy and happiness had touched him.
Softly kissing his brow, she wondered again about his relationship with Don Alejandro. When the caballero walked into the room, Diego's reactions were always mixed. She saw an admiration in his eyes, and an anger she could not understand, but there was also a yearning that broke her heart. What he wanted from the other man, she could not be sure, but she knew that he coveted something from him.
Diego's voice broke through the silence, letting her know that he was awake. "What was she like?"
"Who?"
"Doña Elena," he finally answered. "What was she like? I--I talked to some of Don Alejandro's friends before I came over, but I never asked another woman what she was like. Most of his friends seemed to be half in love with her, but I know that sometimes men and women have different--opinions about people."
Victoria stroked his hair, thinking about what he was saying and what he was not. His disagreement with Don Alejandro had started long before he had arrived on this shore. She longed to ask him, but she could not find the words or the courage. Instead, she thought of a beautiful woman, dead long before her time.
"She was magnificent. With her background--I guess you know that she was related to the King?" Diego's nod was his only response. "You would expect some very proper, very strict lady, but she was--Manners, liking tipping your hat for a lady and proper introduction, were important to her, but . . .."
Victoria laughed at an old memory. "Once, when I was a little girl, she found me playing in a mud puddle. I was horrified. I didn't really know her, but I knew how my mother fretted about her--she always wanted us to look perfect when we were visiting the de la Vegas!" Sighing, she allowed herself a moment of melancholy. Often over the years, she had wanted an older female companion to talk to and get advice from, but she had very little in common with most of the women here. Doña Elena and her mother would have been the only two women who could have understood her, and both of them had been taken from her too early. What advice would they have given about Diego? Follow her heart or her brain?
"It's sad, but it was the last year of Doña Elena's life that my mother finally understood that the doña liked her for being herself. She didn't have to act like someone she wasn't. It was hard for Mama--watching someone that was so close to her wane into a ghost of herself." Sniffing, she said, "Anyway, the doña found me playing in that puddle, and she laughed. Then, she jumped in and played with me."
Diego laughed with her. They were both silent for a few minutes, thinking about women that were long gone from this world. "Your mother sounds like a wonderful person."
Victoria hugged him close and let the tears fall down her face. "She was. I don't think she realized how strong of a woman she was until that year Doña Elena got sick. She helped Don Alejandro take care of her. My mother bloomed, even as she mourned. I--I remember--"
Diego pulled away from her. He tried to wipe away her pain by wiping away her tears. She smiled at him and kissed his hand. His eyes caressed her face, looking at the pain and the sadness there. "I didn't mean to make you cry."
"I know, Diego. But, it's good to cry sometimes." Smiling and crying at the same time, she kept her eyes focused on him. She struggled to remember every line, every plane, and every curve of his face. Tomorrow, he would be leaving her and California forever. "I remember how brave and strong she looked in front of the firing squad."
Diego jerked. She watched, with amusement mixed with sadness, as he struggled to talk. Taking pity on him, she shared the story of one day that forever changed the days after it. "My mother chose to--She chose to be a good person instead of a good Spaniard. People were hurt in the August Revolution, and she knew some healing arts, so she helped them."
Diego closed his eyes in understanding. "I'm sorry."
Shaking her head, Victoria tried to find words to explain how she felt. "Don't be. She taught me something that I never forgot. She showed me that there were things worse than death. She believed in something, so she stood for it. Death had no power over her that day."
Struggling to talk through her tears, she said, "I miss her, and I find it hard sometimes to be around you soldiers, but I know, in my heart, that if life had been different, if she had made a different choice, she would have spent the rest of her life hating herself. She wouldn't have been the woman she wanted to be."
Diego drew her close, making soft hushing noises. "I understand, Victoria. I really do. I wish my--mother was that type of woman." He drew her face up so he could look into her eyes. "From how you describe her, I can see her in you. She would be proud of you."
She reached up and kissed him. He seemed to know exactly what she needed to hear, even when she did not. Victoria hoped that her mother would indeed be proud of her. She had tried hard to follow in her large footsteps. "Tell me about your mother," she whispered.
Diego shook his head. "I don't think you want--"
"Yes, I do," she pleaded. "I want to know everything about you."
She watched his inner struggle in his eyes. He was not the kind of man used to sharing confidences, and she worried, for a moment, that he would refuse her request. She smiled as he began to talk. "My mother--For as long as I can remember, I've been taking care of her--"
Secrets never before shared were exchanged between the two lovers during the night. Fond memories of childhood were laughed about and painful memories were cried over together. Dawn was only a couple of hours away when they both fell into an exhausted sleep.