Tender Torment (34 page)

As if prompted by the spirit of mischief, the kitten, appearing from nowhere, pounced onto Marisa’s lap and began to play
with the lace at her bodice.

“Oh you precious lamb,” Marisa cried happily, catching the tiny creature to her face and nuzzling her nose in its fur. Her
unaffected gesture touched a chord of memory from Justin’s childhood.

“May I suggest a name for your new-found friend, my dear?”

“Am I to understand that she is mine?”

“But of course. I brought her here for you.”

“Then I think you
should
name her.”

“What would you say to Emily?”

“Emily? Such a ladylike name for such a naughty little minx. But I do believe you have struck the perfect note for her. She
shall never live up to that prim-miss of a name. Do you have some reason for choosing to call her Emily?”

“I once owned a cat by that name. She was just such a minx as you so aptly call this one.”

“Then Emily it is. I do thank you most kindly, sir, for my new little companion. I shall keep her in a basket in my room.”

The earl regarded his wife speculatively, a wicked gleam lighting his eyes. “Perhaps you will allow me to visit her there
sometimes.”

Again their eyes locked in a long gaze. This time a
perceptibly rosy hue flushed Marisa’s cheeks and she looked away. The countess had never looked so adorable to the earl as
she did at that moment.

Justin knew he had gained an advantage with the introduction of Emily, but he knew also that regaining Marisa’s confidence,
if ever he possessed it, would be a slow and arduous task. He had stumbled onto good fortune with the kitten, but now he must
make his way back to his wife carefully and skillfully. They had yet to openly confront the events of that terrible morning
when Marisa had overheard the earl in conversation with Harding. He shuddered inwardly, wondering how he would ever bring
himself to speak of that morning and beg Marisa’s forgiveness as he so desperately needed to do.

Upon removal of the splint from Marisa’s leg, Lord Straeford found countless ways of keeping himself in his wife’s company.
He was the constant cavalier who wooed his lady as never he had during their betrothal days. He read Portuguese history with
Marisa and assisted her in translating the Camões epic. As the weather improved, he escorted her on brief sightseeing excursions
to Lisbon’s most famous historic sights. They traveled to Belem where Vasco da Gama made his long vigil prior to his momentous
explorations. They toured the Geronimos abbey and studied the Manueline architecture, planning ventures to Alcobaga and Batalha
should the future permit.

Slowly there arose between them a comfortable relationship that they had never enjoyed before. Each was finding delight in
the other that neither had dreamed possible.

On the night of their first anniversary, Marisa and Justin planned a celebration party with the Hardings that would take them
to the notorious Cafe Bruxa Negra in the antique Alfama district to hear native singers whom some called
fadistas.
The
fado,
or fate, theme was peculiarly Portuguese in style. The music evolved from the national characteristic of the Portuguese which
placed heavy emphasis on fate or destiny in the affairs of mankind. The Portuguese seemed to have a deep strain of melancholy
in their natures, Marisa observed, and it was reflected in the native music.

On the night of their expedition into Alfama, the Hardings and Straefords found it necessary to leave their coach and proceed
on foot through a labyrinth of twisting narrow streets until they came to a shadowy doorway fitfully lighted by torches burning
from brackets set in the stone walls.

Marisa and Ann pulled the hoods of their black dominoes down over their heads and clung excitedly to their husbands’ arm as
they followed a dark-skinned waiter in leather breeches and a black cape. He led them through murky shadows past tables lighted
by glowing red candles to a section secluded by a lattice of woven ropes which was reserved for their party. They were served
a light golden wine blended with herbs. The indefinable flavor of the wine suited the atmosphere of exotic and forbidden pleasure.

“Wherever did you learn of this shockingly wicked
taverna,
Edward?” Ann whispered confidentially to her husband.

“You will have to question Justin on that score, m’dear,” Harding replied, mischief gleaming in his eyes.

“I have my sources,” the earl claimed evasively, entering into the spirit of play.

“That sounds slightly sinister,” Marisa added her part. “I can’t believe my high-stickler of a husband trafficks with any
but the most respectable elements of Portuguese society.”

“Oh ho,” Harding taunted gaily, “now that’s what I call a testimony of wifely faith. You would do well to follow Lady Straeford’s
lead, dear Ann.”

“But I trust you utterly, Edward dear. I know you would not cut a caper. I simply wonder that you
or
the earl would know of the existence of a hole-in-the-corner place such as this.”

“You do not like it here?” Justin queried, deliberately seeking to rattle the easily flustered Mrs. Harding. It amazed the
earl to realize that he actually found this woman, whom he once labeled a fool, to be the charming person his altered vision
now proclaimed her to be.

“It looks positively evil—all the dark shadows and mysterious people lurking about. I adore it!” Ann whispered confidingly.
“It’s bang-up to the nines!”

All four broke into merry laughter and continued in their friendly raillery until their attention was captured by the
senhora
singing on a small stage at the center of the room. Dozens of candles lighted up her red satin dress glittering with spangles
and fake jewels, but there was nothing fake about the alluring
saudade
melodies that poured freely from her sultry throat and the throbbing of the guitar accompaniment that wove a haunting mood
of melancholy magic. The music was a dark poetry that echoed sad enchantments through the corridors of the mind. As they listened,
Justin reached for Marisa’s hand and raised it to his lips, kissing her fingertips lingeringly. She looked at him with eyes
glistening, the Hardings momentarily forgotten. It was a gesture she would never forget.

The party grew very quiet and sentimental that night, an awareness of an unspoken communication having been shared through
the hypnotic music of the
fadistas.

It would have been a perfect evening had not the small party come under the observation of one whose heart bore a long-standing
grudge of resentment toward the Earl of Straeford.

Isabella Costanza, who had sworn an oath of vengeance that ill-starred day Lord Straeford so arrogantly cast her off before
the British army left Spain, had at last been presented with the object of her hatred. The dark fate which the Portuguese
believed so inevitably intertwined in men’s affairs had contrived to bring the earl within Isabella’s sphere once more. She
could still hear Dubois screaming his futile vengeance at Straeford’s back as the arrogant Englishman rode away, leaving her
and the Frenchman to grapple with their broken pride in that foolish arena where they had enacted that charade of honor. “Fight,
coward!” Dubois had demanded in vain, and their mutual humiliation had lain in the dark recesses of their minds, festering,
seeking a channel for expression that had at last been revealed. Isabella would do the Straefords a lasting harm and set the
wheels in motion on the very night that Marisa and Justin had awakened to each other as lovers. She watched his group until
they left the cafe and sent a spy to follow them on their return home.

But the Straefords knew nothing of the dark thoughts directed toward them, and when his lordship presented himself to Marisa
within her bedchamber that night, he knew he need not fear her rejection.

Marisa was waiting for him in a gown of white lace, her unbound hair tumbling to her waist. The only light in the shadowy
room was a soft glow cast by a gentle fire in the grate. She stood, with all the tremulous anticipation of a bride, in the
middle of the room watching him advance toward her.

When he clasped her to his burning body, she answered his yearling with a yielding response that quickened his breathing.

“Dear God, how long I’ve hungered for you,” he groaned and began kissing her lips with a tender possessiveness, as if learning
anew the sweetness of her mouth. She could feel the ardor rising in him, but that he was holding back his passion and would
not let it surge forth in full expression. He kissed her long and lingeringly before lifting her in his powerful arms and
carrying her to bed.

“Marisa, I never thought to feel for a woman what I feel for you. The passion in me is a rage so consuming that it makes me
tremble,” he admitted.

“Justin,” she murmured and caressed his cheek, “Justin, what is happening to us?”

He buried his head in her breast and they clung together momentarily.

“Marisa, before I make love to you, I must know that you have forgiven me for the pain and suffering I have caused you.”

“Hush, dearest. Do not speak of what is past.”

“But I must,” he claimed harshly. “I must hear you say you forgive me before I can rid myself of the terrible burden of guilt
I have carried since that fateful morning you fell down those stairs and nearly killed yourself. The image of your broken
body is seared in my mind like a burning brand.”

“Let it go, Justin. Do not torture yourself. You can see that my body is not broken—it is whole… and eager to beclaimed by
yours.”

“Marisa,” he cried in the throes of a passion he
could no longer stem. It swept them to a rapture neither had dreamed possible, a rapture such as the Creator had envisioned
from the beginning of time when He ordained the wound of separation to be healed by the joining of man and woman. For just
such loving were their bodies made—that the soul might blaze forth in the glory of physical union. So brief, so sublime, so
exalted, so transient and fragile and shattering. The answer to the riddle of existence. Yet the very act created a hunger
that only eternity could satisfy.

Marisa and Justin slept in each others’ arms lost in sweet dreams. It was only in the morning aftermath, as Marisa cherished
the tender memories of their night of bliss, that she realized his lordship, for all his lovemaking, had not told her he loved
her. He had begged forgiveness and told her of his passion, but the words “I love you” she had yet to hear from the man who
now held her heart in his hands.

While Justin and Marisa had innocently slept in each other’s arms, the dark gypsy Isabella was sending word to Colonel Dubois
at French headquarters informing him of her discovery. The English devil, Straeford, was now in Portugal, living in the Trudenjos
villa in Lisbon. That very morning Isabella was visiting in the Trudenjos kitchens with her cousins Donato and Carmelita who
served as footman and laundress to the establishment. It was not for family fealty that the dark-eyed camp-follower sought
out her relatives, but to discover what she could of the Straefords—of their life style, their comings and goings, their habits,
conversations, entertainments—for somewhere in the skein of the Straefords’ daily living was the dark thread Isabella required
to weave her web of revenge.

She learned that General Straeford, though spending much time at the villa, would, nevertheless, be gone for intervals of
time that were increasing in frequency lately, and that the other gentleman, Major Harding, often accompanied the general.
Further questioning revealed that Straeford’s military headquarters were over seventy miles to the north in the Beira region.

The Straefords unwittingly played into Isabella’s designing hands. The couple had accepted an invitation to
visit the
quinta
of Senhor Joaquim Almarez and his wife, Maria, sometime during May. The country estate, between Villa Franca and Santarem,
was not very far from French military encampments that had gone undetected by British intelligence. The projected visit would
provide Colonel Dubois with a perfect opportunity for accomplishing his plans for revenge. Colonel Dubois was known as a daring
officer who had made his reputation at the risk of his men’s welfare in past skirmishes with the British, and he would get
the Straefords in his hands whatever the cost. Dubois did not intend to let the old score of Vimeiro pass when fate was assisting
him so readily. He had always known the day would come when he would confront the British
diable
again, and now he was ready.

While Dubois studied maps of the area around Santarem, Lord Straeford planned to take Marisa to Queluz. There they would tour
the former country residence of the Portuguese court before the royal family fled to Brazil in 1807. Queluz was Portugal’s
Versailles, perhaps less splendid, but nonetheless a charming scene for royal intrigue and decadence. The ugly Carlota Joaquina,
the Prince Regent’s Spanish wife, had conducted many of her famous indiscretions there, begetting children by unknown fathers
before her quasi-exile to Ramalhao.

Following the devastating earthquake of November 1755, the Marquis of Pombal had launched an ambitious rebuilding program
in Lisbon that had transformed that city into a prime example of the “enlightenment” sweeping Europe at that time. Everything
in Lisbon was rationally planned and built—residences, streets and squares—with slide-rule precision, as if envisioned by
an 18th century philospher. The royal house at Queluz was undertaken during that fever of reconstruction, but unlike the classical
designs of Lisbon, Queluz was a wonder of rococo fantasy, a sort of wedding cake in pink.

Justin and Marisa strolled through its many rooms on a sunny afternoon in April, admiring chinoiserie panels from Macao, marble
statuary from Italy, porcelains from Austria, ceramics from Delft and tapestries from Spain. Queluz was like a museum of art
from around the world.

They took their dinner in a small dining room out
side Cintra which they approached through a garden patio overflowing with blossoming mauve bougainvillea, scarlet geraniums
and pink camellias. Although the dining room was small, its interior features were cut on the grand scale. The fireplace at
the far end of the room was tall enough to walk into, and the stone ceiling, decorated with blue and white
azulejos
in the form of scrolls and arabesques, vaulted high above them. Their meal was an exquisite collation of creamed vegetable
soup, sole meuniere and a dessert of the famed peaches of Alcobaga in a light custard sauce. They sipped a superb Madeira
and sat enjoying the music of a strolling minstrel who plucked haunting melodies from his guitar as a mood of romantic enchantment
settled over his listeners.