The Flesh and the Devil (53 page)

         
'How very unselfish.' Dona Jerónima's reply was drier than
she had intended, and she made haste to repair her lapse, fixing Juana with a
look of deep concern. 'But my dear Margarita - if I may call you that - in all
this you are not to be blamed for anything beyond too much simplicity! It is
quite outside the case to go into a convent for such a trifling cause, when all
you need is a refuge and someone who will perhaps write to your parents on your
behalf when you are calmer.‘ She ignored Juana's vehement headshake and said
slowly, as though visited by an inspiration, 'Why not stay here with me for a
while, until we can decide what is best for you to do? This is too big a house
for a lonely widow, and your company would bring it to life for a while.‘ She
patted Juana's salt-sticky cheek smiling. 'You will, eh? Your betrayer will not
dare venture close enough even to see you, and if he tries we can have him
thrown from the door! You could not be safer. Put aside this convent business
for a week or two - a month – and then we can consider it again. Till then, my
house will be both home and sanctuary to you.‖

         
Juana nodded numbly; it did not matter to her what she did,
so long as she was free of Filipe Tristan. He had taunted her with taking
sanctuary to escape him, and now she had gained it. She did not see the
triumphing clenching of Dona Jerónima‘s fingers, the sudden brilliance of her
yellowish eyes before she turned her head away, or she might have been less
certain of her safety.

         
CHAPTER 13

         
It was a nuisance that the girl was so insistent upon
writing to her late hosts in the town, Dona Jerónima thought as she left Juana
alone, but a letter to such a direction was scarcely likely to spell danger.
Even if the girl told them where she was now living, they could do nothing;
they was not kin to her, and at any hint of trouble she could simply tell Don
Bautista to expel the whole household from the town. If the little fool had
wanted to write to her own parents, it might have been a different matter; then
the letter would have had to be suppressed. But she had promised that this one
would be delivered by her stable-boy. It could do not harm, would lull any
suspicion that the girl might have had of her hostess‘ kindness. Dona Jerónima
was smiling as she went to find Sanchia and order her to prepare rooms for the
Señorita Armendariz. That the girl could actually write was another unexpected
but welcome asset.

         
Juana was struggling with the composition of her note to
Luis and Elisabeta; her shocked brain refused to function naturally, and she
found herself using the stilted, formal phrases that she had been taught in
childhood. She thanked them for their kindness and their care of her; she would
always remember them with love and gratitude and think of their family with affection.
She knew now that she and Felipe would never be happy together, but she had
chosen her own path – the pen shook as she traced the words – and, even if she
never saw them again, would like to think of herself as their friend.

         
When it was written she sat staring before her at the
fresh, blank sheet she had taken. This letter must go inside the other,
shielding Tristán‘s name from prying eyes; the need for secrecy still held her
ever now, she realized, even when she was bidding a final farewell to her
husband.

         
Blindly, she got ups and walked to the window, staring
unseeing out over the Plaza Mayor. The colourful scene below was a meaningless
pattern of shapes that seemed to blur into the outline of Luis‘s crowded,
aromatic kitchen with its humped sacks and bunches of hanging herbs, so that
one had to check one‘s pace and duck one‘s head at every step. Then, before she
could stop it, the recollection that she had tried to stem broke round her like
a tidal wave, and she was living again the events of the last twenty – four
hours. It still seemed incredible to her that the time had been so brief – she
felt as though she had aged by twenty years.

         
The look on Tristán‘s face when he saw her had been a
shock. She had hurried towards him through the crowd in the church doorway,
already forgetting the strange woman who had spoken to her in the tension that
gripped her as she approached him, and he had turn his head to watch her; and
as his eyes met hers above the head of the crowd, she had been conscious of his
fierce, corroding anger. It had not shown in his expression – not a muscle move
in the harsh, golden

         
– skinned face – but the green eyes held the brilliance
like an alchemist‘s jewels, poisonous and unnatural. She had lowered her eyes
to avoid the look, afraid that he would read in her face how much his hostility
hurt her. For the rest of that day and she slow length of the next he had
barely spoken to her, even when she had tried to question him in private about
the news that
gitanos
were spreading. They had both gone about their
usual tasks, he absent for most of the day while she struggle to help Elisabeta
, wretchedly conscious that her misery was making her clumsier than usual, and
plagued by a hollow feeling of sickness in her stomach that deprived her of
appetite. She had barely noticed that the cloaked woman had been waiting in the
nave of San Pedro‘s to watch her come and go; only the familiar perfume
penetrated her consciousness as she passed by.

         
Then yesterday evening Elisabeta, perhaps sensing the
growing tautness‘

         
between her guests, took the whole family out of the house
with the excuse of visiting her sister-in-law in the next street, firmly
squashing Juana‘s craven plea that she might go, too. Tristán‘s had scarcely
spoken, only nodded agreement to the suggestion that he and Juana would like
some time alone together, with what was to her a terrifying pretence of a smile
on his lips. The atmosphere in the little kitchen had the thickness of a
gathering storm as the family bustled about, finding presents to take to Tia
Mariana, and Juana found herself thinking helplessly of the driving rain in
which Tristán had stood to accept Jaime‘s challenge.

         
It had been the same then as it would be now, she thought;
Felipe would rid himself of what he hid not want, as ruthlessly and calmly as
he would step on a cockroach. Now, it was obvious, what the gipsies had told
him had made him calculate the cost of his present course, and he had found it
too high. And now he meant to change it. He had not touched her last night – he
had return late and slipped into bed without trying to see whether she was
awake, and she had feigned sleep so that he would not guess she had been
waiting for his safe return. With that cold reasoning brain of his, he had
deliberately scotched the desire he had for her, and now he meant to end her
clinging dependence; he had taught her to want him, and now he would teach her
to do without him.

         
She bent her head over the shirt she was repairing for
Luis, and her needle flew faster and more erratically. Boisterous farewells
were called and she heard her own voice replying, but all she was really aware
of was Tristán‘s tall figure on the opposite side of the room. Absurdly, irrelevantly,
she found herself thinking of the labour it had cost her to unpick the
embroidered griffin badge from the shoulder of his black doublet.

         
A nervous tremor made her drive the needle into her own
finger, and with an exclamation she saw the scarlet stain spreading over her
work. She rose abruptly, but before she could move a step from her chair
Tristán had crossed the room in a single stride and gripped her by the
shoulders. Hardly knowing what she was saying, she stammered, ‗I must
fetch some salt – the stain –‘ and felt him shake her, an impatient jab of a
motion that jerked her bent head back. It was as though he had lost his temper,
she thought with a flicker of bewilderment, but he never did that; only once
had she ever known him angry. Anger was a waste of emotion, and he would never
indulge himself so far…

         
‗By God, you rate yourself highly‘. The contempt in
his voice cut at her like the chilled blade of a rapier, and she could see the
same look blazing emerald between his lashes. ‗Does a man‘s life get
nothing better than this? I thought you had learned to be more generous before
I married you, but it seems I was wrong.‘

         
Juana gasped. The words were so far from the emotionless
rejection that she had been braced to expect that she could not answer and only
stared at him, white

         
– faced, trying to reason out what he could have learned
that had stung him to this uncharacteristic temper. She did not doubt that it
was linked with what he had heard from the gipsies – perhaps she had played her
part too well, she thought, and he had set himself to break the calm she had
assumed.

         
Through an aching throat, she managed to say, ‗You
chose to do everything you did! I did not ask your help, least of all in
killing. You could have won a reward from me by helping me escape from the
castillo or by telling the old Duque the truth -‘ She broke off as Tristán‘s
mouth twisted cynically.

         
‗You would not have wanted him to know all the truth.
Would you have let me tell him this…?‘

         
She gave a sharp, agonized cry as his lips came down on
hers. His mouth tasted of wine, and she realized with a sense of shock that he
had been drinking, that his inhuman self – control might no longer serve to
protect her. She twisted in his arms, fighting him, thinking that if only she
could learn what had spurred him to this, she might understand the anger that
now seared her skin with the blind, elemental fierceness of lightning.

         
The salt taste of her own blood was on her lips, and she
could feel his hands moving across her back with brutal strength as though he
would break what she tried to deny him. As she strained his head lifted
fractionally, and she heard him say in a murmur full of scorn, ‗Your
reward would have availed me little when you pay your debts with such grudging.
What proofs of thanks would I have had?

         
Tell me.‘ His hand caught her chin when she would have
twisted her head inside, forcing her face up so that her eyes met his. ‗Even
now you cannot pretend to endure the sight of my face in the light.‘

         
‗I have given you what you asked of me.‘ Her voice
was harsh with pain, as she spoke, and she felt his fingers tighten.

         
‗No, not given, I have been graciously allowed to
take.’
The word bit.

         
‗Well, I have been slow to profit from this piece of
folly, but the lesson is learned now.‘

         
He released her so suddenly that she swayed, then stepped
back, staring at her with a mixture of hatred and contempt that made his heavy
– lidded eyes so brilliant that they were almost blinding. His voice cut at her
like the measured strokes of a whip.

         
‗I shall keep you, señora, to save my marriage vows,
and because you make a pretty counter to trade with, but I have lost the desire
to hold a martyr in my arms. Instead, tonight I shall spend a tithe of that
dower of yours in one of my old haunts – the brothel in the Calle Montera. That
should please both of us better.‘