The Flesh and the Devil (4 page)

         
Temper had lent haste to her feet, and she had almost
reached the head of the first flight of stairs when a voice from the landing
above her made her jump, her skin prickling as though someone had brushed it
with ice.

         
'His name is Salvador Felipe Inigo Bartolomé de Benaventes y Rioja, Duque
de Valenzuela.'

         
Her head jerked up so sharply that she almost winced
with the pain of strained muscles in her neck as a man stepped forward out of
the shadows. He added punctiliously, 'Madam,' and yet something in the level,
obsequious tone made her heart beat sickeningly, chokingly, high in her throat.
For a moment she thought that the name was a formal presentation, but then she
saw the glint of a liverybadge on one broad shoulder and thought, He is only a
servant.

         
The strength of her own relief surprised her: she had not
known that she was afraid to see her future husband. To acknowledge it would
have been to admit that she could not escape this marriage. Now she found her
unhappiness turning on the man who confronted her, and she lifted her chin to
sweep haughtily by him, scorning to acknowledge his presence by so much as a
word of thanks.

         
For a moment she thought, with a feeling close to panic,
that he would not step aside as she approached; he was a tall man, so tall that
she could not see higher than the griffin badge on his shoulder without tilting
her head, and she felt suddenly tiny and futile beside him. For the first time
in her life she found herself wondering what would happen if her unspoken
command were not obeyed, and looked up to order the servant out of her path.

         
Her eyes widened, half-incredulous, and were filled with a
sort of fascinated revulsion as she took a step back from his somehow shocking
proximity. The black-clad man's lips twisted; there was an almost imperceptible
irony in the inclination of his head as he towered over her, as though
acknowledging the correctness of her reaction, but he did not drop his gaze
from hers.

         
Her brief irritation, that any man should be capable of
overwhelming her by the force of bis physical presence -breadth of shoulder,
arrogance of bearing and lean, sinewy height - was overborne by a feeling of
confusion followed by choking sickness. Hideous was her first rational thought;
hideous, with an added fascination that made his ugliness almost attractive.
Beneath oddly golden-toned skin the facial bones were harsh and exaggerated,
sharp ridges and grotesquely deep hollows carving classic features into
uncompromising parody without a trace of gentleness to soften their taut
angularity. Too-heavy lids fringed with thick gold lashes hooded cold, oddly
set eyes, expressionless as lakes of ice, level and noncommittal. The hair was
an outrageous, flaunting contrast to that austerity; pure, flaming red, thick
and smooth, falling in a fiery mane to the broad shoulders. But what drew
Juana's unwilling eyes most was the jagged, curving scar that slashed the man's
right cheek in an ugly puckered line and ridged one corner of the upper lip. It
gave his whole controlled, sardonic face the air of a mask - a mask that
someone had tried to smash.

         
Juana's hands lifted in a half-defensive gesture that was
checked as she became aware of it, and then she lowered her gaze. Anger flamed
like banners in her cheeks as she realized how she had been staring. Only a
servant, she repealed to herself, and one who merited a flogging for daring to
speak to her unbidden.

         
'Senor Tristán!'

         
The eagerness in Dona Luisa's fading voice made Juana turn
to look sharply at the older woman. Dona Luisa's haggard face was wreathed in
smiles suddenly; there was an intent look in her sunken eyes, and Juana thought
abruptly that her hostess must once have been beautiful. Now she was almost
hurrying to the head of the stairs, all her attention on the liveried giant who
waited there.

         
'Are you not attending on the . . . the Duque? I thought. .
. .'

         
The man bowed, so deliberately that the grave salute became
irony. 'I am on my way to signify to Senor de Castaneda that the Duque will
keep to his room tonight, senora. The doctor is with him now.'

         
'Is he sick? I did not know that a doctor had been sent
for.'

         
'No, not sick, but his temper has been uncertain since he
heard the good news.' The man's cool gaze flickered back to Juana's face for an
instant. 'It was thought best to physic him, to be sure that anticipation does
not keep him waking tonight.

         
'He will not come to supper, then?' Juana felt her heart
sink as her last hope faded, but her tone was icily indifferent. It was Dona
Luisa who answered.

         
'No, Bartolomé feeds in his own rooms, rather . . . rather
earlier than the rest of us. He is — young for his age — in many ways, and
young men's appetites cannot always wait upon set hours.'

         
To be so indulged at two-and-twenty seemed to Juana to
savour of hopeless spoiling, but she said nothing. With a curt nod she began to
move away, but the servant's voice stopped her. 'You have dropped your glove,
madam.'

         
She glanced down with a tiny sound of pure vexation. The blue
cheveril glove that she had dragged from her hand must have slipped from her
fingers with the shock of seeing the man's scarred face. But before she could
move he had bent unhurriedly and scooped it up in one long fingered hand,
extending it to her by its empty fingertips.

         
'Here, madam.' His voice was toneless.

         
Juana knew that she had only to take it, to murmur some
sort of acknowledgement, but her lips would not shape the words; a sudden
repugnance had gripped her, and her voice shook as she spoke.

         
'I did not ask your help. Keep it, and its fellow with it.'
Fumbling, she wrenched the second glove from her hand and almost hurled it to
the floor.'I shall not soil my hands with them!'

         
It was a faint, perverse pleasure to make him stoop a
second time, to watch the arrogant red head bowing before her, but the sweet
sense of power was lost as Tia Beatriz, horrified, gripped her arm and drew her
away, denouncing her behaviour in a distressed undertone. Juana hardly heard
her; the pounding of her own heart was filling her ears with a thunder of
outrage.

         
'. . . how you dared to speak so uncivilly. Your father
would be ashamed of you if he knew of it.'

         
He is already, she thought bitterly and was silent.

         
'At least behave as befits your new position! That poor man
is one of your husband's servants!'

         
Juana was silent. She was trembling, she discovered; she
had always detested disfigurement and the man's scarred cheek, combined with
his air of insolent power, had made her feel not only repelled but disturbed,
as if she had been threatened. She glanced back to reassure herself', he was
only a man, she berated herself fiercely, and not a demon, and it was only her
overwrought imagination that made her feel that she was being watched.

         
The red-headed man still stood beside the balustrade at the
head of the stairs; he had straightened, holding the second glove in his hand.
Then, holding her gaze with his, he lifted it and pressed it deliberately to
his scarred mouth.

         
The gesture turned her insult to a favour, and she felt her
breath catch in her throat as she turned her head away; all her misery and
desperation were lost in unbelieving anger. Juana turned to her aunt, only to
hear her apologizing to Dona Luisa for her hasty temper.

         
'I cannot think what possessed her, senora, for I can
assure you that she would never. . . .'

         
'It is no matter, I promise you.' The fleeting radiance was
gone from Dona Luisa's face, and her tone was vague. 'Naturally your niece is
disturbed - my husband's haste can be distressing. Senor Tristán will
understand,' she added, smiling slightly.

         
'What office does - Senor Tristán hold? Does he attend on
the Duque?'

         
Dona Luisa hesitated briefly, then said, 'Yes, he is my nephew's
most - most valued servant. A year ago he was honoured with the title of
GentlemanCompanion to the Duque.'

         
Juana tried not to flinch. The task ahead of her was
delicate enough, she thought, without the burden of that man's presence. If he
tried to stay for their first interview, she resolved inwardly, she would ask
for his removal before she spoke a word to her husband-to-be.

         
'He is not —' Dona Beatriz was evidently embarrassed, but
sufficiently intrigued to ask the question - 'of this country?'

         
The words seemed to jar Dona Luisa out of her abstraction,
and she merely shook her head without further explanation. In uneasy silence
they went down a long painted gallery and through a circular anteroom beyond;
then, in a cool passage floored with gleaming mosaic and lined with high,
panelled doors down one side and a long series of arched windows on the other.
Dona Luisa stopped. She spoke in Juana's direction, but her eyes did not meet
hers.

         
'You d not object to using the Duquesa's rooms?'

         
Juana's nails dug savagely into her palms, and it took all
her resolve to answer with a semblance of calmness as she replied stiffly, 'No
doubt it will help to make me proud of my coming greatness.'

         
She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. Some
disturbance trembled across Dona Luisa's face like the dissolving of a cloud,
making her feel that she had upset the poise of some fragile thing that could
be shattered by the merest vibration. Quickly Juana added, to smooth the moment,
'Where are the Duque's own apartments?'