Lisbon (69 page)

“Nonsense,” said Charlotte briskly. “Men have always fought—and gotten hurt riding, and caught colds and fevers that killed them. You cannot take responsibility for the whole world, Cassandra!” It occurred to her that this daughter of hers needed guidance—and that she might attempt it, even at this late date! But
how?

They rode back together, slowly. Cassandra did not want this afternoon to end; she was greedy for more time with her newfound mother. “Drive around the shops,” she called to the driver.

And when they reached Madame de Marceau’s exclusive millinery establishment, she called to him to halt and beckoned her mother to alight. “There is someone here who says she knows you,” she said as they reached the door of the shop.

Charlotte might have drawn back, but it was too late. Her impetuous daughter had already flung open the shop door and the clapper over the entrance had noisily announced their arrival. From the back room Madame de Marceau suddenly appeared, tall and forbidding in her black garb.

The two women stared at each other in instant recogni
tion. A ghost of a bitter smile crossed Charlotte’s lips. “How are you, Annette?’’ she said.

Charlotte might not seem much moved by the encounter, but the effect on Annette was instantaneous and violent. “So you have come back?” she snarled.

“Obviously. ” Charlotte studied her. “It would seem you are in mourning,” she remarked. And then blandly, “Has someone died?”

“Oh, that you could say it!” Annette’s face had gone splotchy red and she was panting with rage. “I mourn for Rowan—which it is clear you do not!”

“No, I do not,” said Charlotte coldly. “But then, you were always his creature—it is just that you should mourn him.” She turned on her heel. “Come, Cassandra.”

With a last bewildered look at Annette, Cassandra followed Charlotte to the carriage and they drove on.

“What was my father’s—Rowan’s—connection with Madame de Marceau?” she wondered. “And why does she hate you so?”

“She may call herself Madame de Marceau or any other name, but she is Annette Flambord, whom Rowan fished out of the slums of Marseilles and made his accomplice. It was she who kept me imprisoned in the Alfama all those 
years.”

“How
horriblel”
Cassandra swung round in indignation to look back at the shop. “How could anyone do such a thing?”

“Oh, it was quite easy for Annette, I assure you.” Cassandra gave her a puzzled look.
“Why?”

“Love, I suppose—at least so she claimed.”

“She must have loved fath—Rowan very much.” Cassandra was awed.

“Enough to kill for him—and more than once I don’t doubt she did.”

Cassandra shivered. “I didn’t like the way she looked at you. Mother. Perhaps we should ask the authorities to—” “Annette will find it hard to get at me—I am well guarded, ” Charlotte cut in with a shrug. It occurred to her suddenly that such was not the case with Cassandra. “Forget this charade with the prince,” she urged. “Come back 
to my inn with me. I will explain to Carlos that you are the daughter of my oldest friend—or perhaps my cousin, and that you are in some danger. He will welcome you, Cassandra. I ask only that you remember that he is dying, ” she added anxiously. “Were it not for that, I would tell him who you are—joyously.”

“No, Mother, I cannot do that.” Cassandra sighed. “I must play this game out—I gave my word to Leeds. And after all, it is only until day after tomorrow. Then Prince Damião and Ines will have fled the country and it will all be over.”

Charlotte wished she thought so, but there had been a malevolence in Annette’s gaze that had chilled her. Annette would have no way of prying into her past, she would not know that Charlotte Keynes had been suddenly transformed into Carlotta del Valle, and indeed had papers to prove her new identity! No, she could stand Annette off if need be, but Cassandra was a different matter.

Back in the millinery shop, Annette was thinking much the same thing. The elegant Spanish lady who had been more or less dragged into her shop would not be easy to attack—and indeed might be quickly gone from Lisbon. Annette, from sheer curiosity, had visited Charlotte’s “grave” and seen that handsome footstone, which had told her more forcefully than any words that Charlotte had had a lover. And today, looking into fair-skinned Cassandra’s green eyes and seeing again that pale moonbeam hair of hers, she had come to the realization that—although Rowan had never told her—Cassandra was not Rowan’s daughter. She was Charlotte’s daughter—anyone with half an eye could see that—but there was no hint of Rowan’s swarthy features there.

Charlotte had borne Cassandra, but her father was someone other than Rowan. Annette was sure of it.

Now she clenched her trembling hands together. How much he had borne in silence all those years, her poor Rowan! she was thinking. And he had never told her, never shared his sorrow with her! Well, she would avenge him now! The mother might be an impossible target, but the daughter was not.

With Annette the thought was mother to the deed. No sooner had she decided to do away with Cassandra than she sent a boy to the waterfront to find a certain unsavory character she made use of from time to time. They held a hurried conversation there in the back of the millinery shop, money changed hands, and Annette sped him on his way with, “And it must be done
tonight!
”

Charlotte and Cassandra were happily unaware of this devil’s pact made between Annette and her minion. Charlotte was thinking only of a way to keep Cassandra safe under her wing.

“Cassandra,” she said suddenly, “tonight my husband and I are attending a reception in honor of Lord Derwent, who, I understand, is journeying down from Oporto for the occasion. Will I see you there?”

“Hardly!” Cassandra laughed. “Nobody invites a prince’s mistress to important functions!”

“Well, this is one reception you will attend,” said Charlotte crisply. “As the daughter of my dearest friend, Charlotte Keynes”—her voice grew wry—“I cannot fail to bring you along. ”

Cassandra’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, Mother.”

“You will call me ‘Doña Carlotta’ and you will be very proper, Cassandra.”

“Yes, Mother.” Cassandra was even more delighted.

“I will call for you in our coach, Cassandra. Be ready. ” “Oh, I will be ready, Mother,” Cassandra assured her. “But first you must come in, for there is someone you will want to see. I think she is back now—”

Her words were interrupted by a whoop from the house, and Wend, who had been looking out the window, erupted from the door and ran toward the carriage with her arms outspread. Charlotte sprang down from the carriage and the two embraced with all the fervor of old friends.

“Going about in a black wig, are you?” scolded Wend. “And what does Master Tom say about that?”

“Wend—oh, Wend, it is a long story. I can’t tell you now. Come back with me to the inn—we will talk while I dress for the reception and you can sleep on a cot in my room. Will that be all right, Cassandra?”

Cassandra nodded. Her eyes were moist at the sight of the two being reunited. She watched the carriage until it turned the corner and was out of sight, and then she went in to get a bite and to dress for the ball herself, and to contemplate how today’s events had changed her life. Today she had gained a mother! And tomorrow, when Prince Damião would be out of her life, she could sort everything out.

Cassandra was ready well ahead of time. She was sumptuously gowned in creamy Italian silk aglitter with gold embroidery, a dress that flowed over her round breasts down to her tiny waist and flared out into a wondrously wide skirt—and all of it overlain with ivory tissue alight with brilliants. She wore brilliants in her pale gleaming hair as well—and of course the diamond necklace. She looked stunning.

“I see you are going out,” observed Leeds Birmingham, who came into the hall just as Cassandra was descending the stairs.

“Yes. To the reception for the Englishman, Lord Derwent.”

Leeds stood stock-still. “The prince is taking you
there?”

“No.” Charlotte hesitated. “A Spanish lady, Doña Carlotta. ”

Leeds opened his mouth—and then closed it again. When he spoke, it was on a note of amusement. “You are aware of course that the prince will be there?”

“I have
assumed
that he will be there—he has not bothered to tell me,” was Cassandra’s airy comment. “And after tomorrow he will have no claim on me
—you
have promised me that!”

The amusement left Leeds’ face. He frowned. “Yes, I have promised you that.” He might have said more, but just then the iron door knocker sounded.

“That will be Doña Carlotta’s coach now!”

Leeds watched Cassandra drift like a great glittering moth toward the door. “I wish you a joyous evening,” he said grimly.

Cassandra turned. “Will I see you there?”

“I have not been invited.” He was tempted to say “either,” but she looked so happy that he forebore.

“Well, that will be their loss!”

And she was gone, leaving Leeds to ponder on the ways of fate.

Only Charlotte waited for Cassandra in the coach. Don Carlos had not felt well enough to come after all.

But when Cassandra saw where the coach drew up, she panicked.

“But . . . but this is the Varváez palace!” she protested.

Charlotte gave her daughter a blank look. “Yes, did you not know that?”

“Prince Damião is betrothed to their daughter Constanca. She will hardly welcome me!”

“Oh?” Charlotte frowned. “Well, it is too late to think about that, we are already here.” She alighted regally and Cassandra followed with a pounding heart.

“I may decide not to stay, Mother,” Cassandra warned under her breath.

“If you wish to leave after we are presented, I will explain that my young friend has been taken ill and that I must leave with her, ” Charlotte told her daughter calmly— for she had no intention of letting Cassandra leave her side this evening! Indeed she intended to scoop her up and bring her back to the inn, where Wend would look after her and the servants would protect her—let Prince Damião fend for himself! “But,” she added sternly, “I must at least make an appearance because I promised Carlos I would attend, since he did not feel up to coming. ”

Cassandra made no answer because they were being swept along by other guests who were already flooding in. There was a receiving line, with the Varváez family lavishly garbed and their daughter Constanca looking, in her white dress and white lace mantilla, more like a flower than the dangerous woman she was. When her eyes lit on Cassandra they opened wider—and she bared her teeth. Seen at that moment, Constanca looked a little like a tigress, Cassandra thought nervously. Best she melt into the crowd as quickly as possible, before Constanca attacked her!

Her thoughts were interrupted by her mother s voice, for Charlotte was just then being presented. “And by the greatest good luck, I have found the daughter of my oldest, dearest friend here in Lisbon—and of course I brought her along, for I knew you would want to meet her. Cassandra Dunlawton.”

Her hosts looked speechless but they rallied and welcomed both newcomers in voices that shook a little. Then, “Do something, Jorge!” muttered his wife, and Varváez turned and whispered something to a young blade in fawn satin, who promptly seized Cassandra s hand, beamed upon her, and led her firmly away through several spacious chambers to a filigreed stone balcony. Cassandra, fully aware that as Prince Damião s “mistress” she had indeed transgressed by invading the house of his betrothed, went willingly enough. She was glad to put distance between herself and that Portuguese wildcat! Here on the balcony the night air cooled her hot face, and her new escort promptly brought her a glass of wine and showered her with all the English he possessed, which consisted mainly of compliments on her beauty.

Charlotte had been following her daughter s progress with her gaze and had not even looked down the receiving line. Noting that Cassandra seemed to have found an interested admirer who had promptly spirited her away, she breathed a sigh of relief.

She moved forward with aplomb, using her floating walk of the Spanish court, her black velvet gown accentuated by a long double rope of pearls and her black lace mantilla drifting back airily from her high-backed tortoiseshell comb. She had not even looked up to see the face of the tall guest of honor, to whom she now extended one graceful black-gloved hand—at the moment he was only a pearl-white waistcoat and a gray coat of handsome cut.

. . Lord Derwent,” her host was just finishing presenting her.

Charlotte looked up and all of the color drained from her face. The guest of honor had gone ashen too.

“Tom?” she whispered as if she could not believe it.

“Charlotte,” he said hoarsely.
“Is it really you?”

Their conversation was in English and nobody nearby spoke English. Charlotte had never before faked a faint in her life. This time she did, slumping suddenly, gracefully, toward the polished floor. The guest of honor caught her in his arms, and to the 
Varváez
 family’s collective discomfiture, promptly bore her away.

“Charlotte,” he whispered. “
Charlotte
.”