Page 28 of The Scent of Snow
A distant hoot invaded the cave.
Clara began to wail, a sound that tugged at Pedro’s gut.
“What is wrong with her?”
“Oh, do you want a list? Let’s see. She almost died. She is scared, tired, and cold.” The boy enumerated with his fingers, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Jaw tense, Pedro turned to the girl. “Come here.”
She obeyed, shuffling closer until her little legs brushed against his. Pedro patted her head, praising her obedience. During a battle, a soldier dealt with the necessities he could. The others had to wait. Pedro shifted to remove his coat for her. Before he could shed the heavy wool, the girl jumped onto his chest. His breath caught, and her warmth seeped into him.
Pedro’s arms came around her instinctively. “Clara, hush.”
His voice had some mysterious effect on her. She stopped crying and glanced at him. This close, her eyes were just like Anne’s. It moved something in his chest, seeing those eyes. He never thought of children as carriers of pieces of loved ones.
The tears kept rolling down her dirt-smeared cheeks, and her chin trembled under silent sobs.
Pedro remembered the doll and retrieved it from the coat.
She instantly hugged it.
How could he comfort one so little? If only his Angel were here… Memories of a long-ago night when a girl with dawn in her eyes dazzled away his shadows swept through him, and he knew what to do.
Pedro sang. The lullaby came out rusty and graveled, but as he intoned the words, Clara stopped crying. Her tiny hand brushed against his hair once, twice, and then her eyelids fluttered, and she fell asleep in his arms.
He had dismembered a slave trader scheme, he had negotiated a wine treaty with the czar, he had helped avoid war with Spain — all paled with this silent conquest in a dank cave.
The boy pressed himself to the farthest end of the cave, his teeth rattling with the force of his shivers. If he spent the night like this, Pedro would return a corpse to the mother. “Sit by my side and take my scarf.”
“No.” He shook his head stubbornly. “I know of you. You are a bad man.”
Night fell in earnest. The wind wheezed over the dank walls, the sound of banshees. Impenetrable darkness reigned, swallowing everything into its depths. A wolf howled in the distance. They were trapped in the shadows. Pedro’s breathing turned shallow, and his legs twitched. Darkness pressed against his face, thick and oily. Without light to check it, the memory clawed to the surface again. He could see his father’s tall frame. Pedro had been so young, only four. He heard sobs — a child’s and a man’s.
His father was dead. He would not allow him inside his life. But it was useless. The sounds of crying invaded his being. Sticking his nails into the stone, Pedro fought against the memory’s hold, but it was a lost battle. Dammit, not here.
A faint glimmer appeared on the other side of the river. Pedro rubbed his eyes. Flickering lights shimmered to life, one after the other. They were too small to be torches and too big to be fireflies. Slowly, and then faster, the riverbank was awash in the soft glow.Luminarias. Anne’sluminarias.
Each light that flared into life kindled a flame in Pedro’s chest. A kiss, a whisper, a smile, a caress. Every little gesture of love Anne had taught him brushed against his skin. A deep sigh escaped his chest, and Pedro drank the vision before him, his shoulders relaxing against the cave wall.
“What’s that?” Antonio shifted closer.
“Anne.” If she did this, if she cared enough to light the night, then she still loved him.
Somewhere in the house, she knew he was here, and she cared. Her light washed away the darkness, leaving only determination. Pedro would endure the shadows, and he would return the children unharmed.
“Aninha?” The boy watched the riverbank, the glowing points reflecting on his olive skin. Without the bravado, he seemed much younger.
Pedro placed the woolen scarf around him. Antonio huddled close to his side and didn’t protest.
“Clara is so stupid. She followed me into the woods. Now, her father will hate me even more. No doubt he will tell my mother it was my fault.”
Pedro covered Clara with his coat and shifted so the outside wind would not touch her. “That Englishman is many things, but a liar isn’t one of them.”
“No? When he married my mother, he promised to take care of us, and now he wants to send me away.”
Pedro studied Julia’s son. Despite the dismissive tone, the boy was whispering. And the effort not to wake his sister resonated more than his rant.
“He wants you to be educated properly. To become a gentleman.”
