No, it could not be Rosalia. A kinswoman perhaps but not Rosalia. And so he had muttered in answer to Carolina’s anxious query that he must have seen a ghost.
The ghost of first love, ever sweet. And haunting him once again . . .
He had sat beside Carolina in the theatre numbed with shock, watching the play, and observing how once or twice that same masked lady’s head swung round in his direction. And he was not to know that the masked lady was a superb actress, or that her performance outside the theatre just now had far outstripped anything that a swaggering ‘Moll Cutpurse’ might do on stage. Caught breathless by the sight of him after all these years - and looking so lean and fit and dashing - she had nevertheless instantly steeled herself to show no trace of recognition of this man she had long ago indiscreetly married - for that was the detached way in which she thought of that burst of young love now across the years. It could never have worked. He had not been what he seemed - an English heretic, not even a Spaniard, marrying her under a false name and with her fool of a father’s connivance! Her uncle had been right to try to kill him! But he had somehow escaped and she had always wondered what had happened to him for it had been as if the River Tormes had swallowed him up.
But gradually her curiosity - that curiosity her old duenna back in Spain had so often warned would be her downfall - overcame her and she whispered a message in her softly accented English into the ear of an orange girl and watched while that message was delivered.
Did she see those broad shoulders tremble at the words the girl uttered? She did not. Nor did his gaze stray to her masked face after hearing them. Indeed, he had bought an orange and was coolly proffering it to the blonde beauty at his side!
The ambassador’s lady sat back, frowning behind her mask. There was no guarantee that he would even come tonight! Her chagrin spoiled the play for her and she rose to her feet, brusquely announcing to Sancho that they were going home.
Sancho, at least, was relieved.
But to Rye Evistock, pondering as he sat beside Carolina while The Roaring Girl thundered on stage, there was no relief. He had been sent a taunting message - and he was aware that it might be a trap. With restless fingers he loosened a cravat that had become suddenly too tight.
‘Come to the side door of the Spanish ambassador’s residence an hour before midnight,’ the orange girl had whispered. ‘A servant will let you in.’
The Spanish ambassador’s residence! Until the moment he had seen Rosalia’s face, Rye would have laughed at the idea of going to the Spanish ambassador’s residence for any reason whatsoever. Why, that would be to put his head in a noose! He would be promptly spirited away to Spain and there done away with. Speedily. And probably with torture.
But the possibility that this woman really was Rosalia haunted him. Perhaps she was only someone got up to look like Rosalia - if she were, they had done a noteworthy job! For everything - and he remembered everything about her - was exactly as he remembered. A little older - but then she would be a little older now. And still that same flawless pale olive complexion, still those same big dark eyes fringed by a forest of dark lashes . . .
Suppose it was Rosalia? Impossible but - suppose it was? The thought tantalized him, tormented him.
And - he cast a quick glance down at Carolina’s blonde head as she applauded Moll Cutpurse’s on-stage antics -if it was Rosalia, then he had a lawful wife, and where did that leave him with this blonde beauty he loved so well?
The more he thought about it, the more harshly the truth struck him. If Rosalia were still alive, he had to know it - indeed he had no choice in the matter!
And so it was that he stuck two pistols in his belt, slid a long Italian dagger into one stiff jackboot, and with his basket-hilted sword swinging reassuringly against his thigh and his competent hand grasping a silver-headed Malacca sword-cane, he let himself out into the London night and made his way on foot to the Spanish ambassador’s residence. He was more than an hour early, and he sank into the shadows across the street and watched.
For the plotters - if plot there was - would expect him to be prompt, as befitted Rosalia’s hold on him. If this was an attempt on his life, then his enemies must know about Rosalia - how else would they have used an exact double as bait? There were candles still lit in the Spanish embassy. He watched as one by one they went out.
Across from him his view commanded not only the front entrance of the big brick house but the alleyway to the side as well. There was indeed a dark doorway there, inviting him to slip inside.
At eleven o’clock precisely - told by the gold watch he carried - he made his move. Nothing untoward had happened so far. There had been no sign of unusual activity inside the building, no contingent of armed men had clattered up and surrounded the house.
Which was not to say that inside the place was not crawling with armed men, all waiting to seize the redoubtable Captain Kells and carry him back - alive or dead - to Spain.
Like a shadow Rye Evistock moved towards that dark doorway. He cursed inwardly as his sword made a small sound against his jackboot - and promptly steadied it with his sword-cane. The amount of armament he wore was indeed impressive, but if this should be a trap he was walking into, then he meant to sell his life dear.
It was no surprise when the door swung silently open for him as he reached it. A single stocky form - it was Sancho for the ambassador’s lady trusted no one else - beckoned him into the dimness where a single small window lit the narrow stairway leading up, then glided before him, nodding that he was to follow.
With misgivings, Rye did just that.
The stairway led half a flight to the ground-floor level -for there was an imposing half flight leading up to the main entrance - and then another twisting flight to the second floor that opened on to a more spacious corridor. Here would be the bedrooms.
He had rather expected to be received in some out-of-the-way corner, but to his surprise Rye was discreetly ushered down that empty corridor into a large room where a branched candelabrum gave ample light to illuminate the elegant furnishings, the dark red damask draperies that hung over the tall windows, upholstered the heavy carved dark furniture and canopied the tall thronelike bed that dominated one end of the handsome room. His booted feet rested on a rich carpet the Moors had brought with them to Spain. And off to his right was a mirrored dressing table filled with jars of pomades and powders.
He was in a lady’s bedchamber.
And the mistress of that bedchamber was rising to greet him. Rising from a graceful lounge she had had transported from France. She was wearing a splendour of a robe, of almost paper-thin crimson velvet which suited her wild nature far better than the sombre black fabrics she was constrained as a Spanish aristocrat to wear by day. The robe was cut daringly, low and she had eased it down farther so that it showed not only a wide creamy display of upper breasts but the tips of her pale shoulders as well. Her hair was not piled high as she had worn it at the theatre - she had changed it several times before deciding on the coiffure she had worn when she had known Diego Viajar back in Spain, the spilling curls of a young girl that now cascaded black as night down upon her shoulders and the crimson velvet that covered her upper arms.
The door was silently shut as Sancho withdrew.
The woman in crimson took a step towards Rye, moving hesitantly, almost fearfully, across the rich maroon carpet with its geometric designs.
‘Diego?’ Her timid whisper penetrated the stillness. And then, as she peered up towards the tall man who seemed at this point rooted to the carpet, her face broke into a brilliant smile of recognition and she opened her arms and flew towards him. ‘Oh, Diego’ - that breathless joyous note in her voice still managed to carry an unmistakable note of yearning - ‘It really is you!’
This was no trick, no trumped-up wench out to make him believe the dead had come back to life. This woman before him was Rosalia. He knew that voice, that face, that slender body.
Goaded by memories, he took a
step forward. Rosalia swayed towards him and his world stood still. Time spun back, back to a golden courtyard in Salamanca when young Diego Viajar had thought to wed a Spanish lady and spend his life in sunny Spain.
Oh, Diego!' Her voice was a prayer. She went straight into his arms, and around her those arms involuntarily tightened. She lifted her face, lips parted. Her dark-fringed eyes, staring up at him, were pleading, willing him to love her and - just as he had done before - he lost himself, drowning in their dark depths. ‘Diego’ - her voice broke - ‘I have found you again! At last - ’
Her words were cut off as abruptly his lips crushed down on hers. In that embrace there was no past and no tomorrow, only an achingly wonderful return to yesterday. He did not even question that she was wearing nothing beneath the velvet gown. In the heady circumstances of her return to him, it seemed natural - right.
She was moving subtly backwards as he embraced her and he moved with her as she went, his thighs moving against hers - for the Duchess of Lorca was tall. She melted against him, moving with the elegant grace of a flower swaying in the wind, and the musky lingering scent of her perfume - that perfume he remembered so well - filled his nostrils. Her slight breasts were against his own and through the velvet he could feel the swift beat of her heart.
‘Oh, Diego,’ she murmured ruefully as the unyielding metal of his two big pistols pressed into her flesh. ‘You need not have come to my chamber armed . . .’
‘You have disarmed me,’ he muttered thickly.
And it was true.
The wheel had gone full circle in a world gone mad.
Across the years a dead woman had come back to claim him.
THE LONDON DOCKS
Summer 1689
20
Carolina’s thoughts roiled like a black whirlpool as the hackney coach jolted her away from the docks, away from the sight of Rye and that woman - together! And as the coach rumbled back over the cobbles towards the inn, those thoughts engulfed her in grief and fury mingled with a terrible sense of loss.
It was all clear to her now, clear in a naked brilliant clarity without joy or light. A knowledge of the soul, intuitive, devastating:
The shadow of an old love had come between them. A woman who bore a close resemblance to his lost Rosalia had crossed Rye’s path and he had left all to follow her. So deeply had Rosalia’s memory been etched upon him that it was enough to make him throw his life away - for that was what it would mean if either Spanish or English authorities caught up with him now. One did not lightly flee with the wife of the Spanish ambassador . . .
Yet Rye had been willing to risk all that just to spend his days with a woman who reminded him of Rosalia.
Thinking about it, Carolina’s world cracked - and fell in broken shards about her.
Her thoughts rushed on.
Rye had been too much of an English gentleman to tell his new American love coldly that he was leaving her. He had chosen instead to let her down gently, to send her to Essex in the care of his brother. Ah, it was the coward’s way! she thought hotly, the nails of her clenched hands cutting into her palms.
And he had sailed away with the shadow of his bride of yesterday . . .
Her mind saw them again in those last moments when he had lifted the ambassador’s lady up, steadying her with his hands as she mounted the ship’s ladder. Her dark hood had fallen back and in the distance the sun had glistened on the midnight of her hair just as it had turned Rye’s thick dark hair to bronze. The sun had bronzed their dark clothes too, making them seem for a breathless second in time to be a clinging statuette carved by the gods - of a piece, perfect together.
Not till then was Carolina aware that she was crying.
And what would this woman’s fate be? she asked herself as the hackney coach rumbled along. Would Rye tire of her eventually? For was she not a chance-met stranger? What could Rye see in her except her resemblance to a dead woman? And if he did tire of her, what then? Ah, he would be too chivalrous to return the ambassador’s lady to Spain and a husband who would no doubt kill her! He would - she thought about that, trying to concentrate on it somehow to escape the hurt that ached through her - he would not desert her . . . not entirely. He would find her some pleasant island, or some pleasant Colonial Spanish city. Or perhaps a place on the Continent where no one would ever guess the beautiful olive-skinned lady was the runaway wife of Spain’s ambassador to England.
And there he would leave her. Waiting. Just as he had left her here. Waiting.
And he would never return.
She wondered for a cold moment how many women he would run through like that in the course of a lifetime. The thought chilled her.
Well, she would not be one of them - waiting endlessly!
Her blonde head came up and she dashed away her tears angrily and took a look out at the district they were going through. Shops, half-timbered houses, narrow dirty alleys - it all went by her in a blur.
They had reached the inn now, and she sat there numbly looking up at the edifice she had left so blithely a short time before. She felt older now - older by a thousand years. And wiser. So much wiser!
And it was dreadful how much it hurt to be so wise!
She stared up blindly at the second-floor windows while the driver waited patiently to be advised of her wishes. Virginia was up there, fast asleep - dreaming perhaps of Andrew. She wished she could tell Virgie goodbye but she dared not. For that would bring a storm of questions, and in her anxiety Virgie would run and rouse Andrew and Andrew would rush in and try to circumvent her plans.
Her plans? As if she had any! she thought hollowly.
But one decision she had made as the coach lurched from dockside to inn - she was not going to Essex.
Rye was her past now, he had left her for another woman. She would not pause to mourn him, she would fly far away - and perhaps if she ran far enough and fast enough she would be able to escape the vivid memories of him that would come crowding in to torment her. Memories too of those two figures there by the Sea Waif's rakish side, gilded by sun and . . . probably . . . happiness.
Her lovely face grew haggard at the thought.
Drive around,’ she leant out to tell the driver in a ragged voice. ‘But - away from the docks, anywhere we cannot see the Thames.’ Because she could not bear to look upon that wide silver expanse of river and imagine the lean Sea Waif winging down the ebb tide, carrying the lovers to some distant shore . . .
The driver gave his changeable passenger a strange look but his passenger paid no attention. Through Cheap-side they went, through the Poultry and Cornhill, past Moorgate, skirting the London Wall. Still the beautiful lady sunk in thought did not stir. The driver shrugged his shoulders in his worn coat. The sun had risen, it was a beautiful day, and if his odd cargo chose to spend her day wandering about the city without looking at it, why should he care, so long as she had gold to pay for it?
Inside the hackney coach Carolina could feel herself shiver although the warmth of the day had already reached her.
At least she had done one good thing, she told herself: She had made Virginia a gift of Essex. Virgie would read the note she had left, she would show it to Andrew, they would have no reason to doubt it - and even if they did, they would have no way to ask Rye; he would have sailed away. Indeed Andrew would probably chuckle and say something like ‘I did not think Rye could bear to be so long parted from his silver wench!’
And how wrong he would be! Her heart bled.
But Virginia would go on with him innocently to Essex. She would wear Carolina’s beautiful clothes and flash Carolina’s jewels - she would be received with open arms no doubt by Andrew’s threadbare family. And as time went by she and Andrew, who shared so much, would come to share something else - ardour. They would realize they were in love.
And this time everything would be right. Virginia at last would have found safe harbour.
And in time perhaps even they would cease to speculate about what had happened
to Rye and Carolina, adrift on some nameless sea. Although of course the emerald necklace, the rope of pearls would remind them. But Rye, she felt in her sinking heart, would never return. And everyone would assume that she was still with him . . . They would both sink into obscurity and be forgotten - and maybe that was just as well.
Nevertheless the thought made Carolina’s eyes grow moist, and that annoyed her. Was she really fool enough to care about being remembered? No! She had a life of her own to live - and now that Rye had gone off with another woman, she would live that life as she pleased!
Carolina squared her slim shoulders, gave her blonde head a rebellious shake, and leant out to instruct the driver.
‘Take me to Jenny Chesterton’s gaming house,’ she directed.
The driver nodded and shrugged. This new and strange destination for his elegant passenger seemed to him of a piece with this aimless driving about London. At least Jenny Chesterton’s establishment was nearer the stables where he kept his horse than Moorgate was - Old Dobbin here would be glad of this change in direction!
Inside the hackney coach, trying to push away the heartbreak that had come upon her with the dawn, Carolina leant back and tried to tell herself that she was lucky to have found Rye out now, instead of later. Her expression had grown ironic. It would be good to talk to Reba, who was as unfortunate as she - one abandoned Fleet Street bride could console another!
As it turned out, consolation was not immediately in order. Carolina had not had time to alight in front of the familiar plain brick building before two boxes came flying out the front door, one of them spilling its contents of ribands and gloves into the street. And after them came Reba, elegant in russet silk - but stumbling on to the cobbles from a firm push given by Jenny Chesterton, still in her dressing gown, who stood hands on hips and squalled, ‘And don’t come back! You hear me?’
‘I demand you give me the rest of my clothes!’ Reba, having regained her equilibrium, whirled upon Jenny.
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