Blood and Honor (Honor Bound 2)

"I wondered if you were ever coming to bed," a voice behind him said. "What in the world were you doing out there anyway with that bloody type-writer? And who was that with you?"

He turned. His eyes had now adjusted to the light.

"Hello, Princess," he said.

She was sitting up in the bed, wearing a white nightgown.

"Hello, yourself, and don't call me that, please."

She sat up suddenly, then started to bounce on the mattress.

"I think I'm going to like sleeping here," she said. "This mattress is won-derful!"

"What did you do, climb in through the window?"

"I could hardly walk down the corridor, could I?" she asked reasonably. "What would people think?"

Then she held her arms open for him.

[THREE]

La Capilla Nuestra Se¤ora de las Milagros

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

0940 12 April 1943

A large, badly hand-tinted photograph of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade in a gilded wooden frame sat on an easel in the center aisle of the chapel.

It was probably taken, Clete decided, shortly before his father retired from command of the Husares de Pueyrred¢n. His father-wearing a ribbon-bedecked green tunic and a brimmed cap with an enormous crown-was pho-tographed standing beside a horse, holding its reins. The saddle blanket carried the Husares de Pueyrred¢n regimental crest and the insignia of a colonel.

Without conscious disrespect, he wondered where his father had gotten all the medals, and remembered Tony's crack that the Argentine Army passed out medals for three months' perfect attendance at mass.

There was plenty of time to examine the photograph, for two reasons. For one thing, the requiem mass had begun at eight. That was because work on Es-tancia San Pedro y San Pablo had to go on, and no one was going to work until the mass and the reception following it were over.

The second reason was that Clete had only limited success keeping his eyes off Dorotea. The best he could do was focus his attention on either his father's photograph or the ceremony itself. Dorotea was sitting beside him, her legs modestly crossed, on a slightly smaller version of his own thronelike, high-backed, elaborately carved chair.

She was wearing a black suit with a white lacy blouse, the lace covering most of her neck. She wore a black hat with a veil, and her black-gloved hands held a missal in her lap. In other words, she was the picture of respectable, de-mure, virginal young Christian womanhood.

Whenever he glanced at her, and she smiled demurely at him, his mind's eye flooded with images of Dorotea wearing absolutely nothing at all, cavorting with enthusiastic carnal abandon in his father's bed.

While it was probable that they at least dozed off momentarily sometime between the moment she held her arms open to him and the time she crawled out the bedroom window as the first light of day began to illuminate the bed (which would be rightfully theirs in the sight of God once the goddamned wed-ding was over and done with), he could not remember it.

These kinds of thoughts-not to mention the physiological reaction they caused in the area of his groin-did not seem appropriate within the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miracles during a service honoring his father's life, so he tried to hard to devote his attention to his father's portrait and the ceremony.

Behind what he thought of as his and Dorotea's thrones, Humberto and Beatrice Duarte and the honored guests were seated in red-velvet-upholstered pews. The honored guests were Se¤ora Claudia Carzino-Cormano and her two daughters; Suboficial Mayor (Retired) Enrico Rodriguez; Antonio LaValle, el Coronel Frade's lifelong butler; Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, a houseguest of Se¤ora Carzino-Cormano; and el Capitan Roberto Lauffer, aide-de-camp to General Arturo Rawson, who had been assisting the late el Coronel Frade's son during the final services honoring his father.

Finally, the Bishop-who spoke after Fathers Denilo, Pordido, and Welner-concluded his "talk." Clete was not sure if it was a homily, a eulogy, or a thinly veiled plea for the new Patron of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo to con-tinue the generous support of the diocese and its clergy that had been a long-standing tradition of previous God-fearing and commendably devout Patrons of the estancia.

The Bishop climbed down from the pulpit and took his place to lead the re-cessional parade. Father Welner, taking his place behind Fathers Denilo and Pordido, discreetly signaled Clete that it was time for him and Dorotea to stand up and be prepared to join the recessional, immediately behind the crucifer.

The crucifer was the nice-looking blond kid who had taken Julius Caesar and Rudolpho's roan back to the stables the day before. Clete was reminded of his own service as a crucifer at Trinity Episcopal in Midland, Texas. He had been "promoted" to crucifer following an unfortunate incident in which he, functioning as one of two acolytes, had lost the taper from the candle-lighting device and set the altar cloth gloriously aflame.

The procession moved through the church, out, and then down the paths of the English garden until it reached the house. There the Bishop, the priests, and the deacon lined themselves up on the lower step of the verandah. The crucifer and the other acolytes marched off down the drive.

Clete and Dorotea, and then Beatrice and Humberto, joined the clergy on the wide verandah step. Father Welner shifted position so that he was standing next to Clete.