The Flesh and the Devil (40 page)

         
Juana did not know whether she meant danger for herself or
for him, but her agonized voice make him pause, his eyes brightening.

         
‗I shall take care. Do not be afraid, Juana.‘

         
Before she could answer, he had wheeled away on the grey
and was gone in a scutter of loose earth and stones. She stared blankly after
him, her fingers still clenched hard on the latch; than, with a little burst of
impatience, she jerked it up and swung open the carriage door.

         
Without the choking dust that eddied about the carriage
while it was in motion, the air tasted warm and sweet, but there was a vibrant
stillness, a closeness in the atmosphere that presaged rain. The outlines of
the hillside seemed to blur at the stared at it, and looking at the
gold-and-cooper clouds massed on the horizon, she saw that they were sweeping
closer by the minute. Jaime could not have chosen a worse time to bring them to
a standstill, she thought. Here the track curved round the broad belly of a
hill, crowded on either side with thin, whipping thorn-trees. It took a moment
to see the other track, little more than a footpath, that crossed it and then
wound on downhill. Faint sounds signifying Jaime‘s progress rose to her ears,
and she craned forward anxiously.

         
‗In his place I should have gone on foot,‘ Tristán
observed dryly ad swung lightly out of the bay horse‘s saddle.

         
Juana flinched, resenting the sudden quickening of her
heartbeats. He wound not, she told herself, he would not make her afraid.

         
‗The infallible Senor Felipe,‘ she said sarcastically.
‗You are never mistakes, are you?‘

         
Sat that I take care to profit by my folly‘. The green eyes
were watchful as he turned from tethering the horse. ‗Are you tired of
this journey, or is it your cavalier‘s ill-temper that makes you sound so crabbed?‘

         
She gasped, gazing at him in the purest dislike, and he
gave a quick, startling laugh and turned to glance up at the driver of the
carriage.

         
‗Ramon, tie up the reins and go and stand at the bend
of the track there. If anything comes that must pass, we shall have to draw off
into the trees, but we need not do so unless we must. Give me warning if you
see anything on the road.‘

         
The man scrambled down willingly, and when he had
disappeared round the bend in the track, Tristán said evenly, ‗I have not
had the privilege of my wife‘s society since we were wed. Will you not invite
me to share your carriage for a while?‘

         
‗You will do what please you – you always do.‘

         
The words sounded childishly sullen, and Juana regretted
them as soon as they were uttered. He was too acute for her comfort, he had
guessed that she felt disgruntled and out of temper before she had realized it
herself. Without his aid the walk back from the derelict house had been
difficult and unpleasant; Jaime‘s anxious courtesy has not prevented the mud
soaking into her shoes and stockings and becoming caked on the skirt of her
gown. It had dried, hard and cold, and now she felt as though she were treading
barefoot on bare earth. That and the disturbing quality of his presence made
her as miserably fractious as a sick child –

         
and more than anything she hated the look of comprehension
in his extraordinary eyes as he climbed into the carriage and closed the door
behind him.

         
‗It was not I who dragged you through the mire this
time.‘ His toe flicked the muddied hem of her petticoat. ‗So you cannot
blame me for this. Did your knight-errant think you weighed too heavily?‘

         
‗He would touch not me for fear of blemishing my
honour,‘ she retorted stifledly . ‗You would not understand that‘.

         
Tristán‗s cooper brows lifted coolly. He had lowered
himself to sit opposite her and now lounged at his ease, leg sprawled with an
easy arrogance that no Spaniard would have permitted himself in a well-born
women‘s presence. Again she was struck by the sheer foreignness of him, the
almost threateningly alien quality of his looks and manner. His next words,
crisp and razor-edged, seemed to answer her thought.

         
‗I have lived in Spain since I was twelve year old,
Juana, and I know your codes well enough, but I do not condone them when they
lead to folly. Your doctors will not tend a dying girl if she is not of birth
high enough to suite them, and then they vie with each other to take the news
of her death to greater folk –

         
you would have had Bartolomé‘s own physician to tell you of
your maid‘s sad death if I had not forestalled him. We came close to
quarrelling when he heard what I had done.‘ The curve of the scarred mouth was
sardonic. ‗Your priests will torture any man and woman in the name of
testing their faith, but they will not kill; they are too merciful. They
abandon their victims to the secular arm to mete our death, but it is the
Church herself that swallows the lands and goods that come with them. Your
nobles cluster about the King, squandering all they have while their lands
starve, and call it privilege; and a man will allow a woman to wade through
mire because to touch her in against etiquette.‘

         
‗Why do you stay here, if you hate this country so
much?‘

         
Juana never knew that made her ask the question.

         
Tristán hesitated briefly; when he spoke at last he seemed
to be replying to unspoken accusation rather than the words themselves.

         
‗I think I had some notion of revenge at first.‘ He
spoke meditatively, as if he tested the thought aloud for the first time. ‗But
I was too young to achieve anything, and when I was shown a little kindness I
was glad to conclude that my first belief was mistaken – hate is a heavy burden
for a boy to bear, and I shirked it. Later…‘. Reminiscently, his long fingers
lifted to his cheek in a brief, revealing gesture that made Juana catch her
breath. He heard the stifled sound and his eyes lifted, bleak and bitter, to
her face. He continued crisply, ‗Later it amused me more to abet your
countrymen and help them to the ruin they have chosen. A nation that will prop
a thing like Bartolomé in state and do reverence to it deserve to have its
will, and it pleased me to watch them pretending that he was whole and same
when sometimes he did not answer his own name. But that pastime wore itself
out; now I shall see how the office of husband suits my inclination‘.

         
‗You are deceived, you have not changed your calling
– you are a mercenary still.‘

         
‗So I am, I had forgotten that,‘ Tristán nodded
slowly, a scholar giving ground in some abstract debate, ‗and I still
abhor custom that takes the place of thought. Why sit there, plastered in mud,
when you may take off your shoes and stockings? You will be chilled to the bone
if you do not.‘

         
She flinch. ‗I do not need your concern.‘

         
‗My concern is to protect my property – knowing what
you know of me, how could you believe otherwise? Come –‗ he slid to his
knees before her in an easy, unfussed movement – ‗off with your shoes.‘

         
‗I . . . I cannot.‘ Juana moistened her lips. ‗It
is not permitted . . .‘

         
Useless to tell him, she thought, that for a Spanish girl
to show her feet was the ultimate shame. He would dismiss it as another
senseless custom, deriding her hard-held modesty. With tightly-closed eyes, she
felt him draw off her muddy shoes, then reach to her knees to roll down her
stockings. She was shivering with degradation, and as the second stockings drew
off she opened her eyes to protest, her mouth dry with shame.

         
She met his calm stare and the words died on her lips. He
knew; he had told her how well he understood her country‘s custom, and she
could read in his face that he was taunting her, waiting for her to break down
and plead with him. Watching her deliberately, he took one of her icy feet
between his hands and began to chafe warmth back into her flesh.

         
Her every muscle stiffened, and for a moment Juana thought
she might choke with humiliation. Then, as heat spread through her from the
motion of his fingers, a strange pleasure rose up in her, and she felt herself
relaxing against her will. It was a soothing caress, almost matter-of-fact, and
her toes curled in unconscious ecstasy as it continued, gently over her instep
and rosy heel, forcing the stiff, cramped muscles of her calf to relax. At
last, when her foot was warm and tingling and she knew that she must tell him
to stop, he moved deftly to her other foot and began the work again without a
word. Kneeling so, ministering to her in silence, he might have been the
servant he had pretended to be for so long –

         
but for the delight that flared through her at his skilful,
insinuating touch.

         
‗It‘s is so great a sin?‘ Eyes and voice mocked her,
his hands covering her bare feet like slippers of living flesh.

         
She gave a little exclamation that was haft anger and haft
an emotion that she did not recognize. ‗Did you marry me only to torment
me?‘ she demanded.

         
‗No.‘ The answer was prompt and stinging as he
released his grip on her feet. ‗For your dowry, I told you so. And for
one other reason, that I have not yet tasted fully.‘

         
She try to rise, suddenly panic-stricken, but his arm was
like a bar of iron across her lap, pinning her in her seat. Then he turned her
to him with a strength that paralysed her, and she felt herself borne back
against the cushioned seat, twisting her head desperately to evade his lips.

         
‗Felipe, no!‘

         
‗Be still,‘ he returned curtly, and then his mouth
silenced her.

        
Juana could feel great swooning waves of weakness breaking
over her. His strength was too great and she was drowning, losing the will to
flight; her struggles were becoming futile things, her protests blurring into
little sounds of acknowledgement, of acceptance. She strained her head away,
only to feel a pang of excitement as his scarred mouth brushed her throat,
moving with deliberately sensual expertise to the curve of her breast. She
gasped, ‗No-‗ and then the darkness filled her mind.

         
‗Do not be afraid.‘

         
She heard Tristán‘s voice through the mêlée of bodiless
sound with a sense of astonishment; she could hardly recognize the tormented
tone. His grip was holding her entirely powerless, and she was aware of the
warm weight of his head on her breast as he knelt before her, his lips against
her skin, talking arrant nonsense.

         
‗They cannot separate us now, if you will only have
faith – I shall not allow any man living to take you from me. When we tell him
truth, your father will forgive the haste of our marriage.

         
It sounded absurdly like the childish dream she had had of
what Jaime would say when she begged him to run away with her rather than allow
her to marry the unknown Duque, Juana thought. She gave a little laugh that
broke halfway, and at that moment a sound from the carriage doorway made her
lift her eyes from Tristán‘s bowed head to meet the appalled stare of Jaime de
Nueva.