More Tales of Texas Vampires, Anthologies
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Diane Whiteside
More Tales of Texas Vampires
2
Diane Whiteside
More Tales of Texas Vampires
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MORE TALES OF TEXAS VAMPIRES
DIANE WHITESIDE
MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-287-3
Mobipocket (PRC) ISBN # 1-84360-288-1
(c) Copyright DIANE WHITESIDE, 2002.
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave.
Ellora's Cave, Inc. USA
Ellora's Cave Ltd, UK
Edited by Cris Brashear
Cover Art by
Darrell King
Diane Whiteside
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Sweet Punishment
A Tale of Don Rafael Perez and Ethan Templeton
Tomorrow I’ll be wed for the second time. It’s time to put away the past and look
towards the future. So I’ll write this story out, then burn it so I can find peace with the
good man who returns my love.
My family was Irish, fled to this country in hopes of finding easy money building
the transcontinental railroad. Father could charm a bear from a honeycomb when he
chose and my brothers inherited his knack. Unfortunately, they didn’t gain any of
Mother’s strong sense of honor and always avoided honest work. So all too soon after
our parents died, they were tricking folks out of their money.
It seemed better than starving to my young mind and I soon made a place for
myself in their campaigns, as the specialist in entering dwellings by stealth to remove
the more interesting contents.
It was simple enough for me to do back then. I was just as slender then as I am now
and could easily pass as a boy if I dressed in breeches, making it easy to pick a lock or
climb up to an attic.
Then I met a young man in a similar line of work, Daniel Moynihan. A charming
fellow whose knack with words was surpassed only by his brilliant blue eyes and
deftness with the cards. Soon enough, we were married and traveling together. He died
all too shortly: shot dead over a faro game.
I returned to my brothers and found them changed from my memory. They’d
grown far too fond of the bottle and the dinner table, thus gaining bellies that strained
every button. Their tempers had also increased and I quickly learned to avoid crossing
them at any cost.
It was a pleasant enough life otherwise. I met some interesting men who were more
than willing to console a grieving widow for a night or a lifetime. I refused them all, still
mourning for my beloved Daniel.
Diane Whiteside
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Only once did he not visit my thoughts when I studied a man. It was at an
afternoon musicale where I found myself watching a big Spaniard with an eagle nose
and broad shoulders. And eyes like melted chocolate as he listened to the violins’ song.
A single glance from him would have coaxed me into the garden for a kiss without a
second thought. But the invitation never came and I tried to forget my spell of womanly
hunger.
My brothers now lived in Austin, a plain town with little to recommend it except its
role as capitol of Texas. That made it the perfect locale for my brothers’ current goal:
obtain a large piece of land as quickly as possible. Great tracts could be had then for a
few forged bits of paper or a little gold handed to a judge. My brothers resented paying
gold so they started hunting for land with a single owner. They reasoned it’d require
fewer forgeries if only one person was named.
Soon enough they settled on the Santiago Trust as their target. A great mass of land
did that trust hold, to say nothing of rich cedar forests, iron ores, and interests in much
of the state’s commerce. But try as they might, they couldn’t discover who was the
owner; only that many of the most-respected men, and most-feared too, were connected
to the trust.
Finally, in anger and frustration, they demanded that I bring them the name of the
real owner. I reminded them of the powerful men connected to the trust. My brothers
took my warnings poorly and set about changing my mind. I agreed before more than
bruises marked my body but resolved privately to leave them and Texas as quickly as
possible.
So it was that I entered the First Bank of L-- one evening. It was solidly built to
withstand Comanches and bank thieves and furnished in a rather stolid but luxurious
style. A woman could have screamed herself hoarse without a soul noticing, once the
iron shutters were closed. The arrangement of rooms was nothing remarkable but the
large meeting room on the top floor offered a more elegant style than the other rooms.
I searched quickly but thoroughly, careful to leave no sign of my presence. While
the bank was definitely deeply linked to the Santiago Trust, it offered no clue as to the
Diane Whiteside
More Tales of Texas Vampires
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mysterious owner. Truth to tell, I was piqued that I couldn’t answer that riddle since I’d
always before managed to obtain whatever I wished. I did find an invitation to an
evening meeting of the trust’s friends.
My brothers weren’t pleased by my lack of success but relaxed somewhat when I
promised to spy on the meeting. In fact, they mellowed so much that they accepted an
invitation to spend time in Galveston drinking and whoring.
I dressed with great care that evening: black shirt, black wool trousers, and black
boots. I braided my hair and pinned it tightly up under a black cap, such as a scruffy
boy would wear. I didn’t bother to bind my breasts; even my fond husband had called
them “small and neat.”
I arrived at the bank and soon gained entry through an upper window left
conveniently open to gather cool breezes. A minute more saw me ensconced between
rolled maps in a large armoire, placed in a corner of the big meeting room. I settled
down to wait, certain that I could hear every word but couldn’t be seen.
I watched some of the most important men in Austin gather for the meeting, both
Mexicans and Anglos. They chatted a little of trivialities, like the weather and the latest
horse races, and avoided any taste of alcoholic spirits as they waited. Suddenly they fell
silent as a carriage drew up outside and the new arrivals were greeted. I leaned
forward, eager to see who could bring these powerful men to heel.
Two men entered, a tall Spaniard whose broad shoulders filled the doorway and a
slender blond man, possessed of incredible beauty and the coldest eyes I have ever
seen, following him. The Spaniard was striking, rather than handsome, with a brutally
scarred face and eagle beak of a nose. I knew him immediately: Rafael Perez.
The same blaze of lust lashed through me as it had before. I cursed silently as I felt
my nipples tighten. It would be difficult enough to eavesdrop without daydreaming
about the bedroom potential of that big body.
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