The Flesh and the Devil (59 page)

         
With a slightly desperate look at Tristan, who had not
moved a muscle since she had turned her shoulder to leave him standing, Juana
said, ‗Oh, I have no interest in what is past! The past is dead and gone,
and I have no use for it. I prefer to think of the present.‘

         
Tristan spoke evenly, making her flinch, before Don Diego
could answer.

         
‗You must have a clear conscience, senorita. Most people
cannot discard their pasts so lightly.‘

         
‗Perhaps-‘ her eyes flashed stormily, 'it is that I
am an obedient daughter of the Church and try to put old injuries from my
mind.‘ ‗Inflicted, or received?‘

         
Her lashes swept up, then lowered again as swiftly. ‗I
believe I have paid for any I may have given.‘ ‗Perhaps, by your
reckoning. Yet malefactor and victim keep different scores I have heard.‘ The
strange eyes held hers for a long moment, and then were veiled as Elena touched
his arm.

         
‗Felipe, Jeronima does not believe that we knew each
other as children. Would I ask anyone but an old friend to stay in my house, as
I have you?‘

         
Juana swayed, the anger that had sustained her draining
abruptly from her body. She felt half-dazed as memory flooded over her,
buffeting her like a tide. The Condesa -Elena de Frontenera - was the woman her
husband had loved, whose unthinking cruelty had scarred both his face and his
soul. The woman who stood bantering with him so lightly, as if they had no cares
in the world, and employing every art to make him smile was the root of that
calm, detached malignance that had poisoned so many lives.

         
She wanted him now, Juana's jealous eyes could see plainly,
and her last words had made it clear that she had had what she wanted. Even as
she talked and laughed, she was losing no opportunity to signal her possession;
first her skirts brushed Tristan's thigh, then her white, rounded fingers
tapped him playfully on the chest, then she would be smiling at him through her
red-brown lashes with a sort of excited intimacy. Even her voice, low and
husky, was caressing him as her hands caressed his velvet doublet.

         
Juana averted her eyes, feeling sick. If for one
incredulous moment she had thought he had come here for her sake, she knew
better now. He had come to show his new lover, and insensibly to mock her
attempt to hide herself from him; to prove that not every woman shrank from his
disfigured face. He could have whom he chose as coldbloodedly as he had
possessed her, please-and be paid for it, going by those rich clothes he wore.

         
How long had he waited before he went to Elena, Juanna
wondered - a day?

         
three days? a week? That finery could not have been quickly
tailored for a man so tall, she was sure. She wondered whether the Condesa
Elena knew that she was being used to taunt her lover's wife, and felt the sour
taste of sickness biting her throat.

         
‗Senorita, you need air, the excitement of all this
is too much for you.‘ Don Bautista's voice addressed her from somewhere, and
she felt his hot hand against the back of her waist. ‗Come over to one of
the windows and let the night air cool you while I send for some water.‘

         
'Stop fussing, Bautista!‘ The asperity in Dona Jeronima's
tone made Juana's eyes snap open. ‗You will make everyone think that
Margarita is sickly, and she is nothing of the sort, are you?‘

         
‗No, senora.‘ Juana thought longingly of the water,
but she gave the expected reply.

         
Dona Jeronima smiled. ‗Let Don Diego and Senor-‘ she
hesitated tantalizingly – ‗Senor Agostin de Frontenera take you to that
seat over there and rest for a while. You young ones have so much to learn! At
court a lady-in-waiting may stand five or six hours without a rest.‘

         
Elena widened her eyes. ‗I thought you never went to
court, Jeronima?‘

         
Juana

         
did

         
not

         
hear

         
what

         
her

         
hostess

         
replied,

         
only

         
the

         
cutting

         
edge

         
to

         
her

         
voice.

         
She

         
wanted

         
to

         
protest

         
that

         
normally

         
she

         
scorned

         
such

         
weak

         
behaviour

         
as

         
this,

         
but

         
her

         
tongue

         
would

         
not

         
frame

         
the

         
words.

         
She

         
allowed

         
herself

         
to

         
be

         
guided

         
to

         
the

         
long

         
padded

         
seat

         
by

         
the

         
silk-hung

         
wall

         
and

         
pretended

         
attention

         
while

         
the

         
two

         
men

         
skirmished

         
politely

         
above

         
her

         
head,

         
wishing

         
only

         
that

         
they

         
would

         
both

         
be

         
quiet.

         
The

         
evening

         
that

         
had

         
seemed

         
in

         
prospect

         
no

         
more

         
than

         
a

         
slight

         
risk

         
of

         
danger

         
now

         
stretched

         
in

         
endless

         
purgatory before her.

         
They were all watching her, she realized with an unpleasant
shock; either covertly or openly, almost every eye in the room was upon her. It
was an effort to remember what Dona Jeronima had said about the scarcity of
fresh faces in Villenos society, but it must be true if they stared so at a
single newcomer. . . .

         
Pride came to her aid then, stiffening her spine with rigid
grace and lending an artificial brilliance to her great dark eyes. Several of
the gentlemen who had been studying her edged nearer, and soon she was
surrounded by a little court of jockeying admirers.

         
Somehow the evening inched on, Juana never knew how. Each
breath she drew, every movement she made, stabbed her like a knife; try as she
would, she could not lose her awareness of Felipe Tristan's powerful presence.
Even when she had her back to him his image was before her, watching her with
that calmly predatory patience. What did he wait for, she wondered wildly - for
her to break down and weep with jealousy?

         
She must have listened with the rest to the music of viols
that overflowed into the salon from the balcony in response to Dona Jeronima's
signal; she must have made answer to Don Diego and the others who talked to
her, but she had no memory of it. Only as the last guests took their departure
was she conscious of the Condesa's rich tones bidding her hostess farewell, and
she knew that Tristan would be going, too. Keeping her head stiffly averted,
Juana held her breath with pain until the doors closed at last.

         
The lamps were being snuffed in the salon and Dona;
Jeronima was below, ushering out those who lingered. Juana groped her way out
on to the landing like a blind woman. Her throat felt tight, and her skin
strained so tightly over the delicate bones of her face that it made her look
like a carving in alabaster. Her lids drooped over her tear-running eyes as she
moved; her steps were ungainly with tiredness, and she walked like a jointed
doll towards the stairs in her pale, shimmering gown.

         
She was passing the darkened library when a strange
prickling sensation at the back of her neck lifted her out of her tranced
misery. Then, before she could utter a sound, her wrist was caught in a hard
grasp and she was pulled through the half-open door. It shut behind her, and hands
rested on either side of her, pinning her against the dark wood. Tristan's
voice said, ‗This part of your past is not to be set aside so easily.‘

         
Juana shrank. She felt trapped and overwhelmed by his
closeness, the familiar sense of helplessness creeping through her veins tike a
drug. There was a barely-leashed force in his big, lithe body, in the
outstretched arms that imprisoned without touching, that frightened her; the
pale emerald eyes roved over her face, brilliant and unreadable. ‗I
thought you had gone,‘ she managed to say. ‗Not before I had spoken with
my wife. That would have been too uncivil.‘

         
‗What more can you have to say?‘ She forced cold
enquiry into her voice, putting her head back to look steadily into the
scarred, secret face so far above her own. ‗Surely matters are resolved
so as to content us both? There is no purpose in stooping to recrimination.‘ ‗Why
did you run from me? And why
here
?‘
 
The sudden, almost vicious question startled her, but she said
scornfully, 'Do you not know?‘

         
His mouth twisted. ‗Of course, you ran from the cruel
mercenary who raped you. But why here?‘ His hand flashed out, catching her
chin. ‗I want an answer, Juana.‘

         
‗Very well,‘ She jerked sharply away from his touch. ‗I
came here because I would not stay with friends of yours, pretending that I
married you willingly, letting them think you were worth the affection they
have for you-pretending to be happy!‘ Pretending to herself, too, she thought
bitterly, until that last blistering quarrel had recalled her to the truth. ‗I
met Dona Jeronima in church, and she offered me her help, so I took her offer
to be free of you. I hate you, I hate the sight of you.‘

         
Ihate what you make me feel,
 
she could have added, but she dared not, even
in desperation.

         
Tristan's expression did not alter by the flicker of an
eyelash, but something made her fall silent as though he had put his hands on
her throat.

         
‗So.‘ The word was toneless. ‗I have heard you
out; now you shall hear what I came to say to you. Hate me or no,‘ he added
dryly.

         
‗I shall not! If you do not-‘

         
‗Where is Margarita?‘ Don Bautista's voice came
plaintively from the staircase outside the door, and Dona Jeronima's answered,
coming nearer as she spoke.

         
‗In bed, I would guess; it is past three o'clock. For
God's sake, Bautista, go home! I shall speak with you tomorrow if you insist,
but tonight I am far too tired.‘ ‗Jeronima, about Margarita-‘

         
‗I am here!‘ Juana wrenched her mouth free of
Tristan's imprisoning hand, her voice high and sharp.

         
He released her instantly, stepping back with mocking
courtesy, and she twisted away from him as though his touch had contaminated
her. There was a curious look on his harsh-boned face, half wonder and half
bitter irony, but he let her open the door and step out on to the landing
without attempting to prevent her.

         
Dona Jeronima was halfway up the stairs, her narrow
cat-face filling with surprise at the sight of Juana, and Don Bautista, who had
evidently accepted his dismissal, had spun round in the entrance-hall below and
was staring up, openmouthed. Juana heard the door behind her close softly, but
when Dona Jeronima said, ‗Why, my dear!‘ in an odd voice, she knew that
Tristan had followed her. There was no sound of a footfall, but she was
suddenly aware that he stood close behind her.

         
'You are the very last, Senor Stanford.' Dona Jeronima's
thin brows twitched upwards in censure, but her gaze held a hint of amused
curiosity. 'Is there some way in which my poor house can serve you?'

         
Juana glanced down, and with a little cry sank to her knees
in a pool of spreading satin. As she stooped no one saw her hand fly to the
breast of her gown, and the next moment she had risen with something held
between her; slim fingers,

         
'I believe I have what Senor Stanford was seeking,
senora-he lost something, he was telling me, and stayed to find it. Here, senor
-' triumph was honey-sweet in her voice, ‗here is your ring-‘ and she
dropped the lion signet into his palm. There was a peculiar little silence,
then Tristan smiled with one of the rare flashes of pure charm that altered his
impassive face so totally, and bowed over her hand before she could withdraw
it. ‗I shall value it the more for its restorer,‘ he retorted evenly, and
moved swiftly towards the stairs.

         
Dona Jeronima made some smiling remark, but Juana was not
listening; her right hand was clutched savagely within her left as if she had
cut off a finger, and she stood rigid, watching Tristan leave. Her heart ached
to cry out to him, to bid him some sort of farewell, but she knew that if he
guessed what it had cost her to play that ruse, he might disbelieve in her
hatred. Now, she thought, he would not stay in Villenos to his danger for her
sake; there had been terrifying finality in his eyes as they met hers over her
wedding ring.

         
As the door closed behind him, she wondered what he had
stayed behind to say to her.

         
‗. . . and a ruby necklace from Don Diego! I have
never known him so prodigal before. It seems that Margarita's coldness is of
better worth than all the kindness I preached to her; I shall remember that for
the future.‘ Dona Jeronima held the blood-red stones to the light with a
pleased little sigh. 'It is as well that rubies do not become me or I might be
tempted to keep it, and there is a month's revenue here.'