Author's note: This story appeared on a friend's website years ago. This is a revised version. Most of the changes are just repairing errors but there are a few other differences as well.

Victoria's Decision

Chapter 1

It had been a long day. Victoria sighed deeply as she shut the door on the final customer of the night. For once, there were no guests in residence at the tavern. So tonight, she was totally alone in the large building.

She took a slow look around the room. Her girls had done their jobs well tonight. Everything looked in order. She had merely to douse the kitchen fire and put up the few dishes that remained, and she could call it an early night for a change.

As she leisurely finished the few remaining tasks, her thoughts returned, as they so often did in quiet moments, to a certain masked man. How she wished he would come to her tonight! It would be a wonderful night for a midnight tryst. Just a few minutes alone with him would put a perfect end to her day. It was maddening that she never knew when he would come to see her. There was really no way to even get a message to him when she longed to see him. She was totally reliant on his timing.

Yes, he was a maddening man. That was indeed the word to use. Sometimes, she wished she had never given her heart to such a man. How much easier it would be to fall in love with a farmer! She laughed out loud. He certainly was no farmer. No, whoever Zorro was, he was a man of substance. She was sure of that much.

As she ascended the stairs, she rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. Her muscles ached, and she would welcome her bed tonight. She opened her door and placed the candle on the dressing table.

No Zorro graced the room. She had so hoped.

Heaving a large sigh, she turned down the bed covers. Taking her dressing gown from the drawer, she placed it on the bed and crossed back to the table to begin the nightly ritual of brushing her hair. Did a hundred strokes really help? But it was something her mother had taught her so she still made the effort.

She stared at the face in the mirror questioningly. It was still a young face. No wrinkles yet. But it was a face of a woman in stasis. She was so tired of waiting, waiting on a day that might never happen. Zorro had proposed. She had said yes. But the waiting had only just begun.

The Alcalde and the government of Los Angeles were both as corrupt as ever. Zorro battled bravely and always won, but was he really making any headway in turning the tide of the future? Would there ever be a time when he wouldn't be needed by the many so that he could devote his time to her? It was depressing. Sometimes she just wanted to be held.

Tonight, she wanted to be held desperately.

The slight sound at the window roused her out of her thoughts and she was unlatching the lock within seconds. He was here!

"Victoria." His soft voice breathed her name with a note of reverence. She was enveloped in his embrace, an embrace of black silk, and received the kiss from his lips that was as inviting as velvet. Now she was complete, but only for as long as he was with her.

"I was hoping you would come." Her smile lit up the semidarkness of the room in a way nothing else could for him. "I've missed you so."

"I have something for you." He handed her a small box tied with a pretty yellow ribbon. "Happy Birthday. I know it isn't for two more days, but—"

"You know when my birthday is?" She was surprised. He had never given her a birthday present before this, and the thought that he had gone to the trouble to discover the date of her birth gave her a sudden thrill.

"Yes, of course. I know far more about you than you could possibly guess." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. The gesture stirred something inside of her. It was not the kiss of a lover, but the kiss of a dear friend. She shook her head to shake the strange, negative feeling it gave her. That was not the relationship she wanted from this man.

She impulsively threw her arms around his neck and began kissing him passionately. And he submitted to her will. He returned her kisses with a growing impatience for the next several minutes. His hands roamed from her waist. His tongue searched the depths of her mouth. She felt his growing response to her closeness and gave him every physical assurance she could of her willingness to be his completely. But when all control seemed loss, he found steadfastness within himself to stop. He gently, but firmly, drew apart from her.

"Aren't you going to open your present?" His whispered question was heavy with his own labored breathing. She watched his eyes intently. He smiled and both held a silent conversation that said volumes in just those few seconds. They would wait. They both knew it was the right thing to do. But it was so very difficult.

She looked down at the small box and began pulling off the yellow ribbon. "What on earth could it be?" Her voice shook slightly at the effort to speak, and her hands were shaking as she removed the top of the box. He heard her quick intake of breath as she saw the brilliant gleam of silver.

The necklace was beautiful. She withdrew it from its red velvet lined box and saw that it held a pendant of an emerald surrounded by tiny diamonds. It would match the ring he had given her beautifully.

"Was this your mother's too?" she asked.

"No. This was made especially for you. I had it ordered from Spain. But, it was done by the same jeweler as the ring. They should look very nice together," the corners of his smile suddenly turned down as he added, "someday."

She realized her mouth had fallen open and sought to regain her composure. "I don't know what to say. It's so beautiful! I…I love it! Oh… thank you!" Then she kissed him again with the excitement of a child at Christmas. "Does this mean I can actually wear this…I mean… wear this... now?"

As he took the chain from her hands and began fastening it around her neck, he said, "Yes, you may wear it and think of me." She was in his arms once more, thanking him in a very improper way. "Oh, Querida, I hope it will not be so very long until you may wear the ring as well. I cannot help but think the end to the oppression of this pueblo will come about soon. If I did not have that hope…"

"'Hope springs eternal'?" She seized on the quote. She had only just read that somewhere.

"Yes," he said and smiled down at her. "'Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.' We must hope the blessing will come soon. This waiting is no easier for me, I assure you."

Their time together was brief. She memorized every word that he said, every gesture he made. She knew she loved him. She knew his motives for existence were real and true. But she knew very little else about this man she had given her heart to so completely.

When he left her, less than an hour later, she still glowed from his touch. Changing into her nightdress, she hummed to herself all the while. She was still riding a wave of ecstasy from her encounter with him, and she lay in bed for a long time going over every minute of the visit. The serene smile never left her face even as she drifted off into a dream of her masked lover.

In her dream, she reached for the mask and pulled it from his face. But the blank flesh underneath turned her dream into a dreadful nightmare. The face contorted and laughed at her and turned into all manners of evil. She tossed and turned well into the morning and when the knock on her door finally awoke her from the fitful sleep, she was grateful that it had all been just a dream.

Victoria had a difficult time that morning shaking off her nightmare. She dared not purge her system of it by telling anyone about it, so she was left with the nagging memory of that awful, faceless face cropping up in her mind every few minutes.

"This is ridiculous!" She said the words aloud in front of a table of customers before she caught herself. "I'm sorry. I seem to have forgotten something. I'll have Maria bring it for you." She smiled sweetly and headed for the kitchen.

Once there, she hurried about, finishing up the cooking for the noonday meal. When Maria entered, she was already pulling off her apron. "Maria, I am not feeling too well. Do you think you can manage without me for the rest of the afternoon?"

"Si, Señorita. I can manage. Why don't you go lie down? You look like you could use some rest."

At least she could leave the running of the tavern in Maria's competent hands for long periods. Maria had been quite a find. She was a hard worker, very honest and had the sweetest disposition one could ever hope to find in an employee. It wouldn't be too long before some dashing young vaquero would come and take her away though. It always happened to the young girls she hired.

"Yes, I think I will."

Victoria climbed the stairs to her room. But instead of lying down as she had intended, she crossed to the small desk she used to keep the records for the tavern. She drew out a quill pen, the bottle of ink, and a large sheet of paper and sat down, ready to go to work in a different way.

"Victoria, you are a smart lady." She spoke the words aloud trying to prepare herself for what she had planned. "You've heard that often enough. So, why don't you prove it? This is a puzzle, nothing more than that. It's just a puzzle. And puzzles always have solutions."

She wrote the name "Zorro" at the top of the sheet and sat back in the chair to think. Just what did she know about the man?

He was tall. She would start with that.

She wrote the word "tall" down and to the left of her title.

He had impeccable manners. She added the word "caballero" just below that and then, as an afterthought, put a question mark beside the word.

Continuing in the same vein for the next hour or so, she kept at it until her page held more words and phrases than blank space. She had come up with quite a description of the man who held her heart. As she scanned the words, her heart swelled with the love she felt so naturally for such a man: strong, skilled swordsman, expert horseman, excellent marksman, well educated, wealthy (certainly not poor!), scientific knowledge, Catholic, has a family (but not a wife!). She continued writing until her sheet was filled.

She reached for a second sheet of paper and at the top wrote "caballeros". This would take some thought.

Mentally picturing the layout of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas with the many haciendas located there, she thought of the occupants of each and wrote down the names of all the men, fathers and sons alike.

Before the next hour was up, she had 72 names on the list. Her eyes skimmed the list from the top and she laughed out loud at the thought of some of these men being a candidate for Zorro! When she caught sight of one name, Don Hector, she immediately picked up the quill and crossed out the name. Don Hector weighed all of 300 pounds and was no taller than she. He was definitely NOT Zorro! She continued down the list with a critical eye, looking for physical dissimilarities and marked the names off as she eliminated her "suspects."

There were still at least 30 names of men that were within the right age range and at least close to the body-build of her subject. So she needed to find another limiting factor to examine.

She looked back at her description. Dark hair was not that much help. It could be altered. She had seen them do that in the theatrical troupes that had come through town. But blue eyes! That was one feature that would be impossible to hide. Zorro's eyes were a deep blue. One would have to get close to really tell they were blue.

That was a problem. She hadn't been very close to many of the men on this list, at least, not often enough to notice the color of their eyes. A Spaniard with blue eyes, while somewhat unusual, was really not all that rare. Why, even Diego had blue eyes. She was just going to have to be more observant as these men came into the tavern in the future. She would have to keep her list handy, and mark them off as she eliminated them from the running by eye color.

She rubbed her own eyes and realized she now had quite a headache. The bed looked more inviting than ever, so she put down her quill and papers and laid down to rest her eyes just for a bit.

It was a good start. This was the way to go about a quest. She was sure of it. And if she found her Zorro without his mask, she would…

What would she do? She hadn't thought of that. All of this might just make him angry. She would have to be careful.

She got up and hid the papers in her bedside stand and felt better. There. This was to be her secret quest. She would not tell anyone else. She then went back to bed and dreamed about her masked man with the deep blue eyes that stared down into her very soul.