Spanish Serenade (23 page)

The young man beside her was handsome in a refined Castilian manner. He seemed also to be rather spoiled, with a more rakish and experienced manner toward women than he should have at his age. Pilar said, with exact truth, “Please, I would rather not speak of it.”

“I should have known; why did I not guess? Your form, your shape, so beyond compare. It's not to be wondered at that the count keeps you shut away, for I would do the same if you were mine.”

“I should remind you that the reason is the count's extreme jealousy.” Pilar nodded in the direction of Refugio, who was watching them over the rim of his wineglass.

The young man barely glanced in the direction she indicated. His dark eyes glowing, he said, “Do you fear him? Shall I save you?”

“Certainly not! You will not think of anything so foolish.”

“Foolish? You speak as if you think me incapable of it.”

Pilar, recognizing the affronted vanity in his voice, made her voice as soothing as possible. “Not at all. I simply have no need for a champion since I am quite content.”

“You are afraid, rather, I think. Do I dare hope that your concern is for me?”

“I hardly know you,” she protested.

“Men and women have loved in less time, from a glance shared in the promenade, a brief word exchanged at morning mass.” His face was flushed. The took he gave her was meant to convey passion.

She was a challenge to him, a mystery to be possessed; she could see that. To him she was a courtesan whose charms had enslaved a nobleman as surely as the nobleman had imprisoned her. It appeared that merely speaking to her excited the young man. The attempt to seduce her could well be irresistible.

“Not I,” she said coldly. “I have no use for love.”

“A woman who looks as you do cannot mean such harsh words.”

“I assure you, I can.”

“You prefer to be adored, as in the past with the count; I understand perfectly. It would be my extreme pleasure to kneel at your feet.”

“Thank you, but it won't be necessary.”

“If it's wealth you want, I have it.”

“Your father has it, you mean. And what of a title?”

“It pleases you to be cruel, but that will make it all the sweeter when you surrender.”

She was wasting her breath and, probably, her consideration. Feigning a shrug of indifference, she turned away. Her gaze caught that of Charro just down the table. He must have been following the exchange, for he grinned at her, his blue eyes bright with amused sympathy.

It was well into the night by the time the last course of the enormous dinner was finished and the guests had refreshed themselves and gathered to be transported to the ball. The younger men would ride on horseback, carrying torches to light their way. The older men and the ladies would travel more sedately in the carriages that were arranged in a line.

Refugio elected to cover the short distance on horseback, as did Enrique and Charro. Baltasar, in the guise of a manservant, would ride on a perch on the back of one of the carriages. Señora Guevara, with her eldest daughter and the girl's duenna, a cousin of some degree, were to ride in the family carriage. The woman was about to assign the fourth place to Pilar, or so Pilar thought, when the widow Elguezabal joined the group with a mask in her hand and a mantilla over her plump shoulders.

“Do you go, Doña Luisa?” the older woman inquired in surprise.

“Assuredly,” the widow answered in the same tone, then went on. “Oh, you are thinking of my widow's weeds. I will not dance, of course, but I must have gaiety to keep my mind from my loss. My dear husband would have wished it, I know; he was a most unselfish man.”

Enrique, standing nearby, said sotto voce, “He was, without doubt, a saint.”

“So he was,” Doña Luisa said.

“Was that why you could not abide him or abide with him?”

The widow turned a plump shoulder to the acrobat, paying him no more attention than if he had been a fly. Nodding at the empty carriage seat, she said to her hostess, “I see you have left a place for me.”

“If it pleases you.” There was a trace of censure in the voice of Señora Guevara.

Pilar was entertained by the widow's single-minded pursuit of her own desires, and also by Enrique's baiting the woman about them; still, she was disturbed at the same time. She herself was not even wearing mourning for her dead aunt, much less preparing to forego the pleasures of the evening. The situation was difficult, it was true, but there might have been some way to show her respect.

Señora Guevara was speaking to Pilar, though her manner was no less stiff than that shown to Doña Luisa. “I am sorry for the imposition, señorita, but I fear I must ask you to ride with my good friends, our neighbors, the—”

Her son spoke then. “Your pardon, Mother, but I will drive the lady. It will only take a moment to have the horses put to my caléche.”

The woman frowned at her son before glancing around at her guests, who were watching the proceedings with avid interest and varying degrees of disapproval. Her face reflecting her chagrin, she said to Pilar, “This is satisfactory to you?”

Pilar was aware of Refugio's gaze on her from where he was already mounted on a dancing, sidling black stallion. It seemed, in truth, that half those in earshot were waiting for her reply. Her voice composed, she said, “Perfectly. I had thought to take my maid Isabel in case of problems with my costume. This way will be more comfortable for her than riding on top with the coachman.”

Philip appeared somewhat discomfited, but did not withdraw his offer. He was definitely not pleased, however, when Refugio, Charro, and Enrique closed in on either side of the small carriage, riding escort.

The drive to the governor's palace was pleasant. It took them along the edge of the harbor, in view of the old citadel of La Fuerza, with its watchtower crowned by a weather-vane in the form of an Indian maiden that was known as “La Habana,” and past the two fortresses that guarded the harbor entrance, Morro Castle and La Punta. The fortifications, including that of La Cabana behind Morro Castle and the city walls, had been built, so Philip informed Pilar, to discourage pirates and also to confound the English. They had served well for the first, not so well for the last. Havana had been captured by the English a little over twenty-five years before, during the Seven Years' War. It had been returned a year later, at the war's end, in exchange for the territories of the Floridas.

The governor's palace was an imposing pile of baroque splendor located on the eastern side of the town center which was known, as usual in Spanish colonial cities, as the Plaza de Armas. It was newly built, and parts of it were still under construction. Its rooms were large and richly furnished, in keeping with the consequence of the man who had final jurisdiction over all Spanish officialdom in the new world.

The ball at the governor's palace was a gala affair, for Mardi Gras was a day of revelry and mirth just prior to the abstinence of the lenten season. The ballroom was long and narrow, with a cavernous ceiling enlivened by a religious fresco touched with gilt, and French doors on two sides which were thrown open to the night air. The lusters of enormous crystal chandeliers tinkled in the draft from the doors. The music of violins and guitars, a flute, harpsichord, drums and castanets, was spritely, with an edge of passion that seemed to vibrate in the air. The guests, gleaming with jewels and shimmering with costly silks and velvets, danced constantly, crowding the floor as if they craved the abandon of movement in time to the music. Men bowed, women plied their fans and smiled with flashing glances from behind their masks.

Regardless, propriety was firmly in place, with duennas and anxious mothers fanning themselves as they sat along the walls, and stern husbands on guard. The repressed nature of the passions only added to the air of licentiousness hovering over the gathering, increasing the hint of barely restrained impulses and only half-spurned temptations.

Pilar danced first with Señor Guevara. It was, she thought, both a duty dance from her host and an attempt by the señor to establish for her a degree of respectability. His manner was stiff with decorum, scrupulous in its adherence to the rules of formal conduct. Immediately afterward Philip insisted on leading Pilar onto the floor for a quadrille. It seemed impossible to refuse after his father's gesture, and especially since he had taken the trouble to drive her. She regretted her agreement immediately, however. His attitude was of someone showing off a prize. His costume was the velvet doublet with the hose, breastplate, and helmet of a conquistador. It was fitting, since it seemed he was intent on conquest. Though Pilar had felt a little self-conscious from time to time on the ship with her role as the count's Venus, she had never until that moment felt demeaned by it. The burning looks Philip gave her, the lingering touch of his hands as he guided her through the dance, were like a public declaration of the kind of woman he thought her to be, and of his desire and intent to possess her.

“If you do not stop looking at me in that idiotic way,” she said to him through her teeth, “I'm going to slap you.”

“I don't know what you mean.” The gleam in his eyes belied his words.

“I think you do. I am not some silly maiden to fall swooning at your feet. The game you are playing is dangerous, I tell you.”

“Are you sure? I think you may place too high a value on yourself. I don't see your protector leaping to your side to take you away.”

“Because he would prefer not to make a public spectacle of himself, or of me.”

“Or else he doesn't care. Men do tire of their mistresses.”

It was, of course, a possibility, but she refused to consider it. “I'm amazed you would be interested in discarded goods.”

“To me you would be fresh and new, besides being far more beautiful than any lady of the night Havana has to offer.”

Her face congealed in anger, she said, “You flatter me, I'm sure.”

“Impossible.”

“You are the one who is impossible!” she said in a chill undertone, and refused to speak again.

The music came to an end. Charro, by accident or design, was beside her. He bowed to Philip and offered Pilar his arm to lead her away. For a moment it appeared Philip would refuse to release his grip upon her hand. He scowled as he squared up to Charro, staring into his eyes. Something he saw there, however, gave him pause, for he executed the briefest of bows and turned away.

Pilar, curtsying to her new partner as the music began, gave him a warm smile. “The rescue was timely. Thank you.”

“He's making a pest of himself, that one?”

“It's no great matter. He's merely young and full of himself.”

“I can send him home, if you like.”

“I'd rather not attract attention.”

He laughed, his narrow face creasing with amusement as he moved with her into the country dance just beginning. “It's too late for that.”

Charro was dressed as a Knight Templar, a medieval Christian warrior from the monk-like order based on the island of Malta. His militant appearance, with the red cross on his tunic, suited him somehow. His comments on the other guests were apt and funny; his manner was admiring yet carefully, perhaps too carefully, impersonal. His bow as his dance was ended carried that extra degree of depth and duration that lifted it above mere politeness. His light blue eyes seen through the slits of his half mask, as he gave her into Refugio's keeping, held dedication tinged with regret.

Refugio, watching the byplay, was disturbed but not surprised. For the effect Pilar had had on his followers, there was no one to blame except himself. She was beautiful, persecuted, and alone in the world; the result was inevitable. He himself felt the warring instincts of protectiveness and exploitation. Why should he expect the men of his band to be any different?

What did Pilar feel? He wished he knew. She was flushed from heat and the exertion of the dance; her skin was moist and warm and her breathing quick. He took her hand and curled the fingers into the crook of his arm as he moved to stand in an open doorway. He gave her a little time before he finally spoke in bland warning.

“Devotion from admirers improves the complexion and warms the heart, but has a way of exacting its price.”

Pilar glanced after Charro, knowing it was to him Refugio referred. She was aware of the way the other man sought her out, but felt sure it was only the close association of the long voyage that caused it. Refugio's attendance on Doña Luisa, however, was not quite so innocent. Her tone was cool as she answered.

“You speak, of course, from experience.”

“Of course.”

“And what form does this price usually take?”

“The devoted require bits and pieces of you, chosen at random.”

The words were exact and astringent. He was not speaking in general terms. Could he be thinking of the past days with the fiancé he had lost? She said, “Can't a person defend themselves?”

“It requires a strong stomach and an aptitude for giving pain.”

“The alternative could be total acceptance?”

“Yes, there is that, if you have a taste for martyrdom.”

“Or if martyrdom is forced on you?” she asked, her gaze on the hard planes of his face, though her thoughts were elsewhere.