Chapter 38 – Relapse

Esteban was feeling better already, but he was asleep again when Victoria arrived. She didn't want to disturb him, so Don Alejandro took her to the library in the meantime, and Diego and Felipe joined them there.

"My goodness. I never suspected Luis could be involved with Lucía. He could have been her father, for Christ sake!" Don Alejandro said when they talked about the events and got to the issue of the clandestine relationship between them. "And Lucía not only killed him in revenge, she killed his wife and her mother-in-law too! My head is spinning. All these things going on under my nose in this pueblo and I didn't have a clue. I wonder if there is something else I'm missing completely."

Felipe couldn't help but to look at Diego with a naughty smile. Diego shook his head then, urging the youngster to erase that smirk from his face.

"I don't know what that could be, Father," he said with his best, most innocent, bland tone.

"We owe Esteban an apology," Victoria said. "All of us do. He really had been framed by Lucía, as he claimed, but he would still do the honourable thing and marry her."

"Yes. Who would have thought, ah?" Don Alejandro said. "I already apologized. I feel so bad about the whole thing I could bang my head on the wall. I not only yelled at him; I even hit him when he said he didn't want to marry her and he didn't care about the reputation of our family because he had done nothing wrong. And he was right. It is so embarrassing."

"I also slapped him. Several times, actually. And I called him a "cerdo" instead of showing gratitude after he confronted Ramón when he hit me with the whip," Victoria said, blushing. "As Diego said this morning when he came by the tavern, Esteban is a true gentleman after all."

"This morning?" Don Alejandro said. "What were you doing at the pueblo this morning, Diego? We all thought you were resting in your room!"

"Sorry. I couldn't sleep, so I went there to check on Apollo."

"Why didn't you tell us you were gone?"

"Because you would probably tell me going out was a stupid idea and I should try to rest instead, but the truth is, the fresh air and exercise let me relax and have a good sleep when I returned," Diego said, annoyed. Why do you think I have to justify to you every step I take? When would you realize I am a grown-up man, for crying out loud?

He was lying through his teeth when he said he was well rested, because he hardly had any sleep at all that day, and he was feeling extremely irritated to have to keep going with the charade. Specially now that the effects of the last sniff of coca powder had run out.

"How is Apollo? How's my boy doing?"

"He is doing really well."

"When will you bring him home?"

"Probably next week. He has been confined in that stable for five weeks already. The fracture should be nearly healed by now."

"Five weeks? Really? It doesn't look that long," Victoria said, sad to know Diego's visits would stop soon.

"Yes. Exactly five weeks today," Diego said.

"Gosh. Time flies."

"Yes, it does."

At that point, Don Emilio came into the library to announce Esteban was awake.

"You can come and see him now, Victoria. He'll be happy to see you."

"All right," Victoria said, standing up. She hesitated in the middle of the room when nobody else moved. "Should I…?"

"Yes, yes, my dear. Go ahead. You may want to have some privacy to apologize freely," Don Alejandro said with a warm smile that made her blush again.

ZZZ

Victoria knocked softly on the door and waited for a reply. She didn't hear any, so she knocked again before she came in, opening the door slowly. Lying on his bed, Esteban looked exhausted, pale and worn out like the day after he had received twenty lashes from the alcalde, when Lucía was feeding him breakfast, already setting her trap. The same as it had happened then, his tired face lit up when he saw Victoria coming into the room.

"How are you?" she said, coming closer to the bed. He lifted his hand towards her and she took it in hers, tapping the back gently. She could not believe only five days ago she had ordered that man out of her kitchen because she couldn't stand the sight of him. The return of those familiar, warm and fuzzy feelings for him caught her by surprise.

"Better now," he said with a raspy voice, still having trouble to breathe and speak at the same time, "because… you are here."

"I could not believe what happened. When I heard the news this morning, I thought it was a fantasy. Outrageous. Like something you would read in an adventure book. Unbelievable!"

"Adventure? Not… romance?" he said, squeezing her hand.

"Both," she said with a nervous smile, retreating her hands to her lap when she sat down on a chair by the bed. "I came to apologize. I am so sorry for the way I treated you, but, how could I know you were right and she had framed you?"

"Because… I said so?"

"You had to admit it was a ridiculous notion. Your word wasn't enough, sorry. Not after the scene she made in jail. No woman in her right mind would say that if it wasn't true, claiming to be pregnant out of wedlock. But she wasn't right on the head, was she?"

"No."

"Will you forgive me?"

"Yes… of course. You don't… hate me anymore?"

"No. How could I? If anything, I hate myself. I am so embarrassed for the way I behaved I could slap myself. Better still: do you want to slap me?"

"No. But… can I keep on… loving you… instead?"

"I already told you that you shouldn't because I'm in love with Zorro. You know that."

"I don't care."

"Well, I can't stop you, obviously, but please, don't let your hope fly too high. I don't want you to get hurt. And of course, I don't want your love for me turning into hatred if I don't return it."

"I'll never… hate you... Ever."

He went quiet then and relaxed his arms. Motionless, he continued to look at her, but the spark in his eyes had disappeared. Victoria thought he was getting tired already, but she got worried when he didn't reply to her next comment, as if he wasn't there.

"Esteban, are you alright?"

He suddenly tensed his whole body, rolling back his eyes, showing only the white, and he started convulsing violently again, foaming through his tightly close teeth.

"Help! Help!" she cried then, not knowing what to do. "Diego, come here, rápido!"

Diego was at the door in a second.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. We were talking, and all of a sudden, he started shaking like that. What's wrong with him?"

"It must be the poison still acting on him," Diego said, taking the bitten up wooden stick still on the side table to wedge it between his cousin's teeth.

Despite the apparent violence of the seizure, this time it didn't last long, and Esteban stopped convulsing after only a couple of minutes. By that time, everybody had come into his room, worried.

"Why is he doing that again?" Don Emilio said, fretting one more time. "I thought he was out of danger now!"

"So did I," Diego said. "I'll make him drink a peony infusion when he comes around. It looks like the poison is still active."

Esteban took a few minutes to fully come around, taking on his surroundings again. He felt as if a light on his brain had come off and then came back on again, and he was very disoriented.

"What happened?" he asked, blinking, surprised by the number of worried faces surrounding him.

"You had a fit again. But it was a short one this time. Can you move your limbs and breathe? Do you feel all right?" Diego said.

"Yes… I think so."

"Good. I'll prepare an infusion for you now. I'm afraid the visiting hours are over, Victoria. Everybody out, please," he said, clapping his hands.

She nodded, understanding.

"Goodbye now. I'll see you tomorrow," she said, saluting Esteban from the distance, following the others out of the room, still shaken by the scene she had witnessed.

ZZZ

Mendoza could not stand it any longer. He knew Zorro was innocent because he had killed Lucía accidentally for some reason, however that had happened, but he was too afraid to stand up to the alcalde. In the late evening, when he was off duty, he visited the doctor to find out if Don Luis had mentioned anything before he died.

"Doctor Hernández, I'm so sorry to trouble you with this, but I need to ask you something. When you treated Don Luis, did he manage to say anything before he died?"

"Why are you asking me that?" the doctor said.

"Because at his cottage, he said Zorro had killed señorita Lucía, but he also said he didn't mean to. However, he passed out before he told us exactly how that happened. And now the alcalde is telling me that I am imagining things, that Don Luis didn't say such thing, and that Zorro is guilty of slaughtering that girl. But I think the alcalde is lying to blame Zorro, and I don't like it."

The doctor knew he shouldn't lie, but in this occasion, he was willing to make an exception. This looked like an excellent opportunity to help Zorro, so he jumped in without a further thought.

"As a matter of fact, yes, he did. He told me Lucía threw the poisoned dagger at Zorro, but he reflected it with the sword and it hit him superficially instead. Lucía must have been very upset about it, because she knew her lover would be irreversibly affected by the poison, whatever it was. Don Luis said she threw herself into Zorro's sabre, which hit her throat, wounding her fatally and without hope. Zorro could do nothing to avoid her tragic end."

"And Don Luis told you all that?"

"Yes, he did. Right before he died."

"Why didn't you say so before?"

"I've been very busy all day attending other patients, Sergeant, and nobody asked me before. Don Esteban has relapsed and I spent most of the afternoon and evening at the hacienda De la Vega. In fact, I have just returned home."

"You have to tell the alcalde!"

"I will, of course. Tomorrow."

"Thank you, Doctor. You don't know what a weight you took off my shoulders tonight," the sergeant said with the widest smile ever.

"You are welcome."

ZZZ

The wedding that would have taken place on Saturday morning would turn into a double funeral the next day.

Don José was devastated and, like everybody else, he blamed Zorro for the premature death of his daughter, although he knew the chances of her hanging at the gallows were too high to dismiss. If Zorro had not killed her, he would have lost her all the same, but he needed someone to blame, regardless.

He was also extremely angry with his friend Don Luis for seducing Lucía and putting her into a position to act so irrationally to save her reputation. That man had had the nerve to continue their friendship, coming into his house as if nothing was happening between them when he was already taking advantage of her, and he couldn't take it. But, despite those feelings of anger, he felt sorry and somehow responsible for Don Luis's children, who were now orphans, losing both their parents in such a short space of time because Lucía had poisoned them both. Their closest relatives lived in Lima, in Peru, and it would take a while for them to get the bad news and take care of the kids, so when Padre Benítez asked him if he would like to act as their temporary foster carer, he accepted.

Understandably, it had taken them a long time to fall asleep that night, but the children were finally sleeping in their new bedroom at Don José's hacienda. Right before midnight, he opened the door to check on them one last time before he retired to bed, wondering what the future would hold for the five-year-old girl and her brother, only two years older than her. It wasn't fair, and it was all Lucía's fault.

ZZZ

Zorro had not visited Victoria since they had made love a week ago. Nervous about her reaction, he climbed up to the adjacent roof to reach her open window, coming directly into her bedroom because the tavern was already closed.

"Zorro! What are you doing here!" she said, surprised by the intrusion while she was changing into her night gown. Prudish, she grabbed a shawl to cover her body as quickly as she could, but she wasn't fast enough, not like the last time.

He saw a flash of breasts before he turned around, with a deep sense of déjà vu.

"I'm so sorry. I've done it again. Maybe I should hang tiny bells by your window, so you know when I'm coming to see you," he said, thinking about the trap his father had rigged his roses with, so he couldn't get any for her that night. "I can bring you some if you want."

"Is that what you are going to do from now on? Coming into my room every time you please, to take what you want?"

He didn't like the accusatory tone of her voice, so he apologized again.

"No, of course not. I'm sorry, I shouldn't come unannounced like this, but I had to see you tonight. Can I turn now, please?"

"If you must."

Sitting at the edge of her bed, wrapped up in her shawl, she looked so angry he had to wonder if the animosity was caused by the suspicions he had killed Lucía; remorse for the loss of her virginity; or a combination of both. Or something entirely different, because with the volatile Escalante temper, anything was possible.

"After what happened today, I had to come to see you. I don't want you to believe not even for a second that I killed a woman in cold blood as the alcalde is claiming. It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it."

"I figured that much," she replied dryly.

"Why are you so upset then?"

"I am upset, because today I realized of something. And I don't like it."

"What is it?" he said coming closer, but her body language told him he should not come too close, for his own safety, so he stopped a couple of steps away from her.

"You know that woman you killed today framed Don Esteban de la Vega to marry her, don't you?"

"Yes. Everybody knows that now."

"And we all disowned him when she said he had got her pregnant and then he refused to marry her, and he became a cast off. I still rejected him when he agreed to the marriage. But the truth is, he wasn't a scumbag, but a gentleman, because he had not been involved with that woman at all and he would still marry her to save the honour of his family. I was so mistaken with him. While you… you…"

"I see. I'm not a gentleman because I seduced you."

"Yes! Exactly."

"I'll say it one more time: I'm sorry," he said, kneeling in front of her, with his hands resting on her knees. "I am sorry for what I did, because that should not have happened. That night I came with the intention of breaking our engagement. But I'm weak, and stupid, and I couldn't refrain myself. But, if I recall it well, not too long ago you were lying naked on that bed calling me into your arms while I told you to cover up."

She slapped him hard then, following that move with some furious kicking to get him away from her.

"Stop it, please. I'm not calling you a whore, of course, but you'll have to agree what happened between us cannot be only my fault!" he said, avoiding her legs until he grabbed them.

"A gentleman should have refused!" she cried, still wriggling, using her hands as well to hit him repeatedly until he managed to grab them both in one hand while still holding her legs with the other.

"A gentleman made of stone, maybe. But not one made of flesh, one who had been waiting for years to be allowed to touch the woman he loves," he said leaning forward to find her lips. She continued wriggling under his restrain, fighting him off for a few seconds, complaining with a muffled cry, but he pressed on with the kiss and she soon gave in, melting in his mouth, unable to resist. He let go of her hands and they immediately travelled up his back, holding him tight, and when he let go of her legs, she wrapped them around his. He held her up for a moment, climbed to the bed using only his knees, and then lay her gently over the mattress, lingering on that kiss for a long, delicious time, until he pulled back.

"Can you see what I mean? Please, I beg you, don't blame me for what happened. I don't want you to make me regret it. After all, I kind of regret making love to you, but not really, because I love you."

"I love you too. Even if I am so angry with you."

"But you are right. I should not have put you into that position. From now on, I'll behave like a true gentleman and never again will come into your room, unannounced or otherwise. Not until we are married," he said, standing up. "And, as the misunderstanding with the unfortunate death of that woman is now clear, and that's all I wanted to clarify tonight, I can go now. Good night, Victoria."

Without a further word and not waiting for her reply, he got out of her window in a flash because that kiss had got him so aroused, he feared he would break his word immediately if he was to stay in that room for another second.

"Wait! Don't go yet! We still have to talk! Can we talk, please?" she said, but he was already gone, like a ghost in a bad dream.

ZZZZZ