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"You are sure?" Luis Montoya's housekeeper frowned at the doctor's request, and Robert wasn't sure what he read on her usually placid, friendly face. Simple doubt? Concern? Suspicion? He assumed his most innocently direct expression as he nodded. "For my sons," she remarked with a shake of her head. "And for my grandchildren, si, I make atole. But for El Coronel?"
"Nothing better." Robert pitched his voice low as if to confide a shared secret. "Colonel Montoya happened to mention this morning that he was sleeping badly."
"Ai, si, si," she sighed. "I am not surprised: he has so many responsibilities. And that gringo capitan -– phttt -– he is no help at all." She had evidently not forgiven Grisham the shambles he had allowed Krane to make of her household. "Very well, Doctor Helm, if you are sure?" Robert nodded again and she moved toward one of the cabinets and took down a cannister of finely ground maize. "You are a good man to worry so about him."
Robert silenced his guilty conscious and watched her put a small saucepan of water over the fire to boil. "With a little chocolate, perhaps? The Colonel likes chocolate, I believe."
"He does." A wide smile dissolved the last vestige of her doubt. "And a little cinnamon, some sugar? To take away the bitterness?"
She mixed the flour into the boiling water -– "not too thick," Robert directed her helpfully – then whipped in some shavings of the hard black chocolate and the spices -– "only a little: nothing too rich" -– and gave the concoction a few final stirs as she brought it over to the table and poured it into two of Montoya's fine china cups. She pushed one toward him, and he hesitated. He hadn't intended to linger, only to set the scene and then retire, to provoke Luis and keep himself in the other man's thoughts. But refusing so kind a gesture would be suspicious. He accepted the drink with a smile as she placed the second cup on a tray and directed the maid to take it to their master.
Mmmmm. It was just right: thick and warm, chocolaty but not overwhelmingly so, neither too sweet nor too spicy. The first time Robert had tasted atole it had reminded him of the nourishing, coddling beverages his nurse used to make him when he was a boy. Something blandly comforting, innocently innocuous. Was it wrong to do this? Or to involve the women in this little manoeuvre? He stifled his doubts. If he had learned anything in those nursery days it was that games were nothing about which he could afford to be squeamish. Games were played to win. He gazed into the pale depths of the cup. The problem was he was no longer sure exactly what constituted winning in this little game they were playing. Something had shifted with Luis' impulsive kiss the previous evening. And while it hadn't surprised him that Luis had refused this morning to blame the brandy, he hadn't expected such an open display of interest, so direct an invitation to continue along the same lines.
Yet it was an invitation he wasn't sure he wanted to accept quite yet. Seduction was its own game, a rigged game whose rules had been established for centuries. Two players. The active, pursuing Lover who, given sufficient skill and concentration, would always win the surrender of the passive, fleeing Beloved. Of course, it was more complicated –- more fun -– when both players were alternately Lover and Beloved. Last night, this morning Luis had claimed for himself the advantage of attack, forcing Robert to resist and defend advances he could not honestly disavow. Tactical retreat had been his only option. But in each exchange, he reminded himself, player positions had to be renegotiated.
"He says I should fetch you, Doctor Helm." The maid stood in the doorway, barely containing a giggle. "He says you will only make a damn nuisance of yourself otherwise."
"Emilia!" the cook chided. "Such language!"
The maid shrugged. "That is what El Coronel said, Senora. He asked, and I told him the doctor was in the kitchen, and he made me repeat the message to make sure I had it word for word. He said you really were a...what is a 'cheeky bastard'?"
"It means you had better show me up, then, Emilia."
Robert gathered his wits more closely about him as the maid lead him through the residence and up the stairs. Luis evidently wanted to play, and despite his earlier intentions, he himself was more than willing to oblige. Now that he had figured out the new game....
Or not. He suddenly realized with a surge of apprehension – or was it excitement – that he had assumed Luis would be in one of the safe, more public rooms. A parlor, perhaps, or a library. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. It was too late to bolt now. Their knock was answered by a preemptory "come" and Emilia ushered him into Luis' bedroom, then retired, shutting the door behind her. Luis sat in an armchair by the curtained window. He seemed engrossed in his reading, not even looking up from the book in his hands. He looked the picture of civilized, aristocratic leisure. He looked...damn, but he looked good, and Robert grasped the moment's opportunity to savour the sight. Luis' hair was still bound back as severely as ever, but he had loosened the collar of his shirt and unbuttoned his waistcoat. The lines of his relaxed pose drew Robert's gaze slowly down the dark trousered legs -- the fabric was drawn taut around well-muscled thighs, he noted appreciatively -– to the casually crossed ankles.
The silence in the room continued a fraction too long. Robert looked back up and met Luis' eyes. The pale blue brocade of the waistcoat lightened their greyness with flecks of sea-green, and humor shone in them and creased the skin at their corners. One side of his mouth quirked in a mocking half-smile.
"Ah, there you are, my dear Doctor. Not content with lurking about my house at all hours, you have now begun to suborn my servants?"
Robert stepped toward him. Slowly, he reminded himself, and slipped into more of a saunter than anything else, payback for Luis' coquettish posture. "I thought you might need a little something warm to relax you before bedtime."
"And have you come to tuck me in, then?" Luis' hand caressed the page as he placed a ribbon across it and closed his book. He stood, never breaking the eye contact between them.
Robert ignored that. He took the volume from Luis' hands. "Good? Nothing too exciting, I hope." He opened the cover and glanced down at it. Byron? Where had Luis-- Ah, the English merchantman a month or so back, whose "distress" and need of emergency supplies had allowed
a few days of unsanctioned trade. He himself had exchanged a few simple medications for a copy of Tristram Shandy and some ageing gazettes full of gossip about the notorious poet and his latest scandalous epic.
"Exciting? An Englishman's definition of a great lover? Hardly."
Christ, that was an obvious challenge, not worth replying to, even if words hadn't somehow caught in his throat as Luis sidled up beside him, almost but not quite touching.
Luis' words were barely more than a breath in his ear and Robert shuddered a little. "It is hardly surprising that he had to look to Spain for his hero." Robert felt the book removed from his hands and failed to remember exactly when he had closed his eyes. "But his Don Juan -– excuse me, you would pronounce it Don Ju-en, would you not? -- his seductions are so English. About as exciting as this atole."
Luis drew back. Robert's eyes opened and his mind snapped back to attention. He watched Luis place the book on the table next to the maligned beverage. Robert smiled. "Oh, I don't know. I quite like atole." He reached out slowly and stroked Luis' hand, drawing it toward the cup. He dipped one of Luis' fingers into it, and lifted it to his mouth. He took it in, slowly, caressing it with his tongue. Luis allowed his eyelids to flutter closed and sighed. He withdrew his hand, but not before tracing the line of Robert's cheek with his fingertips.
Robert wasn't sure he knew who had won that round; but he knew he didn't care anymore. He reached out and took Luis' face between his hands; Luis leaned toward his kiss. Seductions were all very well and good, but if both parties were willing... well, suddenly further delay seemed rather pointless. Especially when Luis' body was so close, so hard and warm against his. When Luis fingers had set to unfastening his shirt and Luis' lips were exploring the skin of his throat. When they both seemed to be moving with one mind toward the bed.
Damn the game.