Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [180]
During almost two years of near estrangement, he’d continued to treat her as politely as always, considered her ideas and suggestions, performed his duties assiduously. He’d never wavered in his commitment. Hacienda los Gemelos could not have prospered without Severo Fuentes. He was not a perfect man, but he’d always placed her interests first and never asked for anything in return. She’d assumed that the financial rewards were enough, but she now remembered that he’d always hoped for more than money.
Someone must have told him she was on the knoll, for just then he turned and, with a word to the foreman, rode toward her. As he approached, she saw a powerful, wealthy gentleman on a fine horse, the indisputable master over the land and all within it. He’s mine, she said aloud before formulating the thought. It flustered her. This was the man everyone else saw, the one he’d strived to become. The next moment she knew that Severo Fuentes must be rewarded. He was hers, and she’d get him back. No campesina could ever give him the one thing he most craved, and she could provide.
That evening, Severo came to El Destino, as Ana had requested. She heard him walk past the dining room, where the exquisite crystal, china, and silver she never used was artfully arranged over an embroidered cloth on the dining room table. A sterling candelabrum was alight with six candles. From the porch, she heard him go into his room and emerge half an hour later, showered and shaved. She’d always appreciated that he didn’t present himself sweaty and dirty from the fields, but this evening she was impatient to see him, and for him to see her. When he came to the balcón, she was gratified by the expression on his face, the darkening of the green eyes, the alert movements.
“Ana.”
He touched her face, stroked her hair freed from its tight bun at the nape of her neck and falling like black ripples down her back. The pale green frock that had been stored and now years out of fashion, fit her, at thirty-six, as if she were still a girl, even around the narrow waistband. He held her for a long time without moving while the intoxicating scent of roses and geraniums wafted around them. “Ana.”
The way he said her name made her feel as if she’d come home after a long journey.
“Mi amor,” she said. He kissed her and as she responded to his lips, she knew that, for the first time in her life, she’d meant it.
News about the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation in the United States sent a ripple of hope through the barracks and fields, and there was a flurry of reports of unrest in haciendas closer to the capital. Severo increased the patrols, and the dogs that accompanied him on his rounds were more suspicious and nervous than ever.
One afternoon he found Ana in the old casona. When things were quiet, she often sat on the porch, absorbed in newspapers.
“Two men from San Bernabé were captured hiding in the hold of a cargo ship in Guares,” he told her. “I’m gathering the workers to remind them that Spain and the United States are different countries and that whatever happens in one doesn’t mean it will happen here.”
“Are we in danger?”
“Be alert. When you ride alone, carry a firearm.”
She blanched. “I haven’t touched one in nearly twenty years.”
“I’ll set up some targets behind the barn. It will be good for them to see you.”
“I can’t imagine any of them would—”
“This is a precaution.”
“What’s happened to the runaways?”
“Luis had the overseer deal with them. They won’t run away again.”
She didn’t ask for details and he didn’t offer any. She poured him fresh water from the pitcher.
“Abolition