The Flesh and the Devil (67 page)

         
‗You married me.‘

         
‗Because it answered your purpose. You got my
property by it.‘

         
Juana was shivering as she waited for him to reply. Her
head was bent low, her blue-black hair veiling her face like a cloud, as she
fastened her gown with a devotion that hid her face from him.

         
After a long moment Tristan said without inflection, ‗You
would end it between us then, utterly?‘

         
She nodded, her hands held motionless.

         
‗You could have saved us both these weeks of travail
if you had spoken to me so before.‘ Unexpectedly, there was a tired note in the
even voice. ‗I am honoured by your confidence, madam; you have been
marvellously open with me.‘ The words held a sudden whiplash. ‗I shall,
of course, do your gracious bidding and take my leave of you.‘

         
He rose to his feet with the rapid economy that was his,
and Juana found herself praying that he would go quickly. She could not bear
his closeness; in another instant she would break down, turn to him blindly and
cling to his knees like a beggar. But just as she became conscious that he had
not moved, his hand brushed her shoulder and she gave a little cry.

         
‗No need for that.‘ He withdrew his band instantly,
and his voice was almost gentle. ‗That last card of yours was an ace. I
remit the debt in full from this moment.‘

         
‗Thank you.‘ The words hurt her throat.

         
Tristan stood for an instant longer, his head thrown back
in that arrogant stance of his as though he waited for something more, but she
did not speak again. After a pause he said, ‗The second doorway on the
right of the corridor will bring you to the staircase, and you will find your
way from there.
Adios
, Juana.‘

         
She did not hear his footfalls as he walked away for the
misery that was choking her, and it cost her long moments of silent struggle
before she could call out, ‗Felipe –‘ and then only silence answered her.

         
For a long time she could not believe that he had gone. She
knelt where she was, trying to force her numb and stupefied brain to work. She
felt that perhaps, if she refused to admit that time had moved, then she could
deny what had happened; it seemed incredible that her desperation to keep her
condition secret should have forced her to a stand that had made him set her
free, when she no longer wanted to be free as long as he was willing to keep
her with him. Then slowly, as if she were moving against her will, her arms
crossed before her and she began to rock back and forth in a silent paroxysm of
grief. There were no tears. Tears were a relief, and she had none.

         
At last she stopped swaying and stood up with the cautious,
pain-racked movements of an old woman, her head bowed hopelessly on her slender
neck. Then she started, staring round her, the colour flying to her cheeks. A
faint sound, no more than a scuffle, had reached her ear, and she thought in
quick, incredulous joy,
He has come back
. She waited, not moving a
muscle, and heard the thunder of her heartbeats quieten as the hope died, but
the sound was not repeated.

         
An idea made her drop her gaze to the floor in sudden
eagerness, her eyes probing the pools of light and shadow. A gleam of metal
shone there; Doña Jerónima‘s chain, that she had hung over Juana's shoulder
such a short time ago. It must have snapped as she struggled in Tristan's arms.

         
But it was not what she sought, and she did not even bother
to pick it up.

         
She saw her prize suddenly on the edge of a pool of light,
dark against the bright Moorish rug, and stooped swiftly. A pair of purple
gloves embroidered with jet, the gloves that Felipe had thrown down before he
kissed her in a parody of her first challenge to him. She was holding their
softness against her cheek as she turned towards the doorway, and then as she
recognized the man who stood within its frame she froze, her eyes widening
unbelievingly. She had never thought to see him again, never dreamed he could
be here.... Almost in slow motion, the gloves slipped from her slackened
fingers to the floor.

         
It was the Italian, Riccardo Martinetti.

         
Doña Jerónima glanced watchfully at the clock's gilded
face. She did not feel anxiety-she was too confident of her own infallibility
for that - but a niggling sense of impatience, of unease, because things were
proceeding much more slowly than she had calculated. By now she had expected to
be assailed by an indignant Don Diego, and she had stationed herself and
Bautista near the door to quell any complaint of cheating that he might make.
Much longer and he would outstay the hour she had mentally allowed him, with
the proviso that his disappointment would probably make him quit the girl far
sooner than that. A fine thing, she thought, if he were so easily reconciled
that he was still at his game when the other came!

         
‗Jerónima, my dear, have you seen Felipe?‘ The
Condesa Elena paused in passing, a set quality about her charming smile. ‗I
have not seen him since he came to speak with you, more than an hour ago - have
you disposed of him with one of your famous potions?‘

         
‗Why, no! Has he not returned to you? He left me with
the plea of most urgent business, but I quite thought that he meant to resume
his duties when that was done.‘ It was so sweetly said that the insult was not
at first apparent.‘

         
Elena‘s fan fluttered, and she answered, still smiling, ‗It
may be that he is in hiding from those who pursue him. He is too much a man, my
poor Felipe, and every old hag tries to entangle him!‘

         
She swept away. Doña Jerónima watched her go with a rather
grim smile, then her eyes strayed again to the clock.

         
Don Bautista, watching her, said gloomily, ‗Twenty
thousand reales. I wish.... It is not so much, twenty thousand.‘

         
‗Ten - and that is more than you can get in bribes in
a year.‘ She turned to him impatiently, and one thin hand moved in one of her
rare nervous gestures.

         
‗Ten for you, ten for me, and you profit on your
investment by one hundred percent. Stop complaining, and wait here while I go
and find out what is happening. Don Diego should be back by now.‘

         
It was just like Jerónima, Don Bautista thought gloomily,
to do the errand herself when most women would have insisted that a man should
go. He shuffled his feet, then settled himself to lean against the wall in
contravention of every rule of deportment. Doña Jerónima eyed him acidly but
did not comment, and then she went unobtrusively out and up the stairs to the
next storey with as much swiftness as her bulky skirts and high-heeled slippers
would permit.

         
She had ordered that fewer lamps should be lit on the upper
flights of stairs, in case her guests should be tempted to stray there tonight
and see or hear what they should not. From the dimness of the flight she was
climbing, the hall below looked like a lighted well glowing with colour, the
people passing foreshortened into curious creatures like darting, brilliant
fish. She was about to hurry on when someone crossed from the foot of the
stairs to the main door and went out into the street. So that was where the
Englishman had got to, she mused, and realized that she had halted while she
wondered whether he meant to return. With a quick grimace of self-mockery, she
turned and burned on up the stairs - she had never allowed lesser matters to
distract her from more serious business, and she would not now.

         
She had almost reached the head of the stairs when a sound
attracted her attention, a muffled rustling and a noise like a groan. It could
not be the girl, she thoughts unless something had gone seriously wrong; by now
de Castañeda's man should have come for her. If Don Diego had damaged the goods
that were to go to him, he would regret it. Perhaps a guest had wandered up
here after all, or perhaps....

         
A high-backed couch in a nearby alcove had been shifted a
little away from the wall, and the noises seemed to be coming from behind it.
Tentatively, still listening for any other noise that might tell her what was
happening, Doña Jerónima tiptoed over to the couch and peered over the back of
it. What she saw resembled at first a bundle of cloth, crumpled and tangled in
a heap; then she saw that the bundle was shifting and groaning, and that it had
a battered face with a bleeding nose and blackened eyes, barely recognizable as
Don Diego Ruiz. De Castañeda's man must have come too early, she thought with
annoyance, and exceeded his instructions so far that by his thoughtlessness she
was left to pass off an unconscious man as best she could - a man whose face
had been beaten almost to pulp, and what was worse, the governor‘s son. Doña
Jerónima bit her lip. There must be a way - some way-

         
She smiled at the simplicity of the solution. How should
she, a poor distressed widow, know how her honoured guest came to have been
beaten and his body secreted there? It was for others to guess, to wonder and
lament. She had only to raise the alarm and protest perfect ignorance - Don
Diego‘s testimony, if he gave it, could not implicate her - and nothing could
be proved against her.

         
Stepping back, she essayed a cry of alarm. It was so
difficult to behave like a panic-stricken fool, when normally she would have
called a servant or two and simply had Don Diego carried home for his people to
tend. But she must do better than that, she knew, if her horror was to carry
proper conviction. Perhaps if she dashed screaming downstairs - no one would
suspect her if she caterwauled enough.

         
Calling for help with increasing volume, she began to run
downstairs in a fine simulation of heedless panic. She had reached the point
where the stairs turned upon themselves to sweep down into the entrance hall;
as she ran she misjudged the width of the narrower tread and her high heel
slipped and turned, wrenching her ankle. Staggering for balance, she trod on
the hem of her rose-pink gown, tripped and pitched forward. Her outstretched
hands clutched at the polished balustrade, missed their grip, and then as she
felt herself helplessly falling she knew with a sort of detachment that she
would bounce off the treads below her and crash down on the hall's polished
marble floor and break every bone in her body.

         
Even as she screamed, Doña Jerónima was thinking,
What a
stupid way todie
.

         
CHAPTER 16

         
Felipe Tristan's thoughts were preoccupied as he left the
Plaza Mayor and turned in the direction of the Conde de Molina's house, or else
he would have had warning that he was being followed. As it was, he noticed
nothing until his path was suddenly obstructed: out of the darkness moving
shadows converged on him, and when he would have brushed impatiently past they
shifted position to block his path. 'A moment of your time, senor,' a voice
said.

         
Tristan halted. 'Well?'

         
'We are fortunate to find you. We were going to
la
viuda's
 
house to seek you when we
saw you come out and followed you. Tell me, was the entertainment there not to
your liking?'