“Prince Damião is in desperate trouble.” He sighed. “Never did a man have more need of friends,” he added gloomily.
Cassandra knew that she should not be prying into the young prince’s affairs, but she could not help herself. “What kind of trouble?”
“I tell you this in strictest confidence,” he said, and added thoughtfully, “Can I trust you, Cassandra? For it is a woman’s life that is at stake here. ”
The green eyes that met his were steady and fearless. “You can trust me, Leeds.”
“Prince Damião has had the misfortune to fall in love with a girl from Nazaré—a fisherman s daughter. Had the prince been like his grandfather, King João V, he might have put her in the nunnery of Odivelas and made merry with her there.”
“Made merry in a nunnery?’’ Cassandra was incredulous. He shrugged. “Why not? It is a place famous for scandals. After all, it was on the convent’s patio that King Afonso VI fought bulls and jousted in honor of Ana de Moura, whom he had promised to make his queen.”
A strange world indeed! “But what of poor Prince Damião?’’ she demanded.
Ah, that note of distress in her tone was exactly what Leeds had been seeking!
“Prince Damião is reckless and a romantic. In secret he has married the fisherman’s daughter, and now, as his wedding date with Doña Constanca approaches, he finds himself in a desperate situation. He dares not bring his bride Ines, to Lisbon—lest his father imprison them both, or the agents of his father’s chief minister, the Marquês de Pombal, spirit her away somewhere, or Doña Constanca kill her with a stiletto.” He sighed again. “It is a terrible time for Prince Damião; he knows not where to turn.” Cassandra’s heart went out to the fisherman’s daughter of Nazaré. The prince’s love even had the same name— Ines—as the tragic woman whose inscription was the same as her mother’s. Another Constanca, another Ines. . . . “It is terrible they cannot be together,” she said, troubled.
“Yes. Terrible. You see, Prince Damião’s father would have countenanced a mistress with good grace. The young prince could have set her up in a handsome establishment of her own and visited her at will—both before and after marriage. But to marry this barefoot maid! Never!”
“He should find some actress or music-hall singer and set her up as a blind in some handsome establishment and then bring Ines in as her ‘maid’ and visit her there anyway!” said Cassandra, on sudden inspiration, for, like her mother before her, Cassandra felt violently that no one should be forced into a loveless marriage.
Those crystal eyes looking down at her lit up. Leeds could not imagine his good fortune that she should have suggested it! “Yes, that would be a good solution—at least for now,” he said gloomily. “But where to find such a woman?”
“Oh, there must be an endless selection!”
He shook his head. “The agents of the Marquês de Pombal are everywhere, and people are afraid of him— with good reason. If he ever comes to the complete power he seeks, heads will roll in this country. No, it is too dangerous. Who can be trusted? For the woman would have to know the truth, that she was not the prince s real mistress, but that another woman in the house was.
“There must be scads of women he knows who are trustworthy!” argued Cassandra. “Are you telling me there is no female in Lisbon this prince can trust?”
“Oh, there are several.” Again that shrug. “But none of a beauty that would make her believable as the young prince’s mistress. He is known to prefer beauties. Is he now to take to his bed—apparently, at least—some homely mouse whose only virtue is that she is to be trusted? You see, Cassandra, unless this creature is truly dazzling, Pombal will smell out a plot and set his spies upon her—they would be found out and it would mean disaster for them both.”
“There should be someone,” insisted Cassandra stubbornly. A sudden light seemed to break over Leeds Birmingham’s handsome duel-scarred face. “There is someone,” he breathed, looking at Cassandra. “You could do it. You are beautiful, you are a foreigner with no family in Lisbon, so you could not be blackmailed on their account, any man who looked at you would believe the prince could fall in love with you—you could do it, ”
She was backing away, her arm brushing one of the ornate stone pillars. “Oh, no, that’s ridiculous—I don’t even know the prince!”
“Come, you shall meet him!”
“No, Leeds, I couldn’t!”
“Why not?” His crystal eyes sparkled prismlike in the sun. “It would be a wonderful adventure, something to remember all your life! You would live in a palace, ride in a golden coach, heads would crane to look at you, whispering that you were mistress to the prince! Where is your wild blood? Doesn’t it appeal to you, Cassandra?”
The trouble was it did appeal to her. All the forces of her romantic nature had sprung forward to aid the embattled pair. “No, I—”
“Cassandra. ” He had caught her arm lightly and she felt anew his compelling masculine presence. Her very skin seemed to ripple at his touch. “The prince did me a great service once. When I first came to Portugal I was very despondent, I wandered listlessly about the country, caring for nothing. In a small village the wench who served me wine learned that I was going to Evora—not so far away—and asked if she might not accompany me, for she was afraid to make the journey alone. She was a pretty little thing and I took her up on my horse with me. We were seen leaving together. Before we reached Evora we were set upon by bandits. We had stopped at a little spring to drink. I was set upon from behind and rendered senseless. When I came to, I saw that the girl was dead—she had been raped and stabbed. I suppose the bandits would have done for me too but that someone approaching had disturbed them and they had run away. No sooner had I staggered up than a cart carrying several people arrived. They knew the dead girl, they were from her village, and they would not believe my story. I had forced myself upon little Conchita, they said, and when she had struck me the blow that was evident upon my head, I had become enraged and killed her. They took me to the nearest town, and there the people became so enraged that I think I would have been promptly hanged had not Prince Damião ridden in at that moment, observed the crowd, questioned the people, heard my story—and believed it. He arranged for my release and brought me with him to Lisbon. The bandits were later found and hanged. But I owe my life to Prince Damião and we have since become good friends and he has confided in me. This is the only way I can repay him. Before you say no, Cassandra, at least come and meet Prince Damião!”
His story had touched her, and Cassandra, still half-unwilling but wanting to help her newfound friend, agreed to meet Prince Damião.
Leeds’ eyes gleamed in triumph. She had thus far believed his lies! Now, if only he could take her a little further.
“You can meet him now,” he declared. “I know where he is lunching. ”
So Cassandra was off to meet the prince.
They found him dining alone in the cool loggia of an inn that overlooked the sea. Cassandra had never met a prince before, but she deemed a curtsy sufficient. It was daunting to discover that he spoke no English. During lunch Leeds did almost all the talking—and most of that in Portuguese to the prince—so Cassandra had some time to observe him. He was not very princely, she thought. Dark, slight, elegantly groomed, and foppishly attired in pink silk heavily embroidered in a deep rose. She would have considered his expression sulky had she not understood the reason for his dejection, and as Leeds talked, that dejection seemed to deepen until he looked positively tragic. How could Cassandra know that Leeds was encouraging him in Portuguese to look “doomed”?
After lunch the prince excused himself and left them.
“Well, what did you think of him?” Leeds sighed.
“I don’t know,” said Cassandra truthfully. “But I do feel sorry for him, Leeds. What will happen when his secret marriage to Ines is discovered?”
Leeds frowned. “Well, I have no doubt what will happen to Ines. She will disappear, the rec
ords of the marriage will disappear, and Damião will be free to marry Constanca. ”
The fate of a barefoot girl who had had the temerity to marry a prince! Cassandra shivered.
“And Prince Damião?” she asked, troubled. “What of him?”
Leeds rose. “Come, you are not to concern yourself, he said. “I was wrong to ask it of you. I don’t know what came over me. I have no right to ask you to take such chances. Come, I will take you back to your inn.”
“No, I want to know, Leeds. What will happen to him?”
“We have talked it over, Damião and I. He has told me that in the event of discovery, if Ines is wrenched from him—as she most certainly will be—he will end his life. I have tried to dissuade him but he is adamant. 1 believe he will do it. You can see why I was driven to ask you to undertake this charade, but now that I have had time to think it over—and the prince was of the same opinion, I asked him just now—we cannot ask it of you, Cassandra.
It was all going to end up in disaster, she could see that plainly. Unless she herself took a hand. She, who had been responsible for the deaths of so many men had now a chance to save one.
But the very idea was mad! Imagine posing as a prince's mistress! It seemed preposterous—and yet . . . Her world seemed to whirl about her. Lisbon was nothing like England. This was a fairy-tale place, fabulous, unreal. Here dreams could come true and lost loves reappear.
Common sense reasserted itself. “But even if his marriage to Ines is not discovered, he will still be forced into marriage with Constanca,” she pointed out. “He will become a bigamist! What then?”
“It is the prince’s hope that he can arrange his escape with Ines long before that. He has been sending funds secretly out of the country, he tells me. But he needs a place where all the arrangements for escape can be made, where Ines can be lodged with no suspicion cast upon her. He needs—”
“He needs someone to pretend she is his mistress,” sighed Cassandra. “Someone who can cover for all these mysterious comings and goings.”
“And you are not the one to do it,” Leeds told her with decision. “I must have been mad to suggest it. After all, why should you become mixed up in the prince’s affairs?” Why indeed? But Cassandra’s old recklessness overcame her and she made yet another unthought-out decision.
“What . . . what would I have to do?” she asked uncertainly. “If I did decide to do this?”
Leeds knew then that he had won. He seized Cassandra’s hand and kissed it. “Very little,” he assured her with laughter in his tone.
And that was true. Incredibly, that very afternoon Cassandra found herself—over Wend's astonished protests, for Cassandra had not chosen to confide in Wend about Leeds except to say that she had met a charming Englishman who was squiring her about—whisked from the Green Island to a small pink rococo palace that fronted the main square. And installed in another part of that same palace was Ines, a golden-skinned girl who walked about barefoot wearing the traditional wide skirts of Nazaré, held out by seven layers of pleated petticoats. A girl who spoke only Portuguese and who ducked her head and curtsied every time she saw Cassandra.
“I wish Ines wouldn’t do that,’’ Cassandra told Leeds unhappily after she and Wend had been there for a few days. “After all, she is the princess and I am only an impostor.’’ She did not add that Wend, who was up and around now and eyeing the Portuguese servants suspiciously, had observed only that morning that barefoot Ines seemed to regard her as a queen.
“Ines knows that even here she may be watched,” said Leeds, whose sudden frown had sent Ines scurrying away. “And I would add that even here we may be overheard. We must guard our tongues.”
“And what of those men who meet here?” demanded Cassandra impatiently. “I am upstairs but I hear their boots clomping in at night. They arrive only in the dark, and I have peered out and seen them disappear into the back of the house. Sometimes I have thought I heard the prince’s voice among them. What is going on?”
For a wild moment Leeds yearned to tell her, but he bit back the words. “They are helping to arrange the prince’s escape with Ines,” he told her imperturbably. “And the less you know about that the better.”
Cassandra bit her lip. “I . . . This charade can’t go on forever, Leeds.”
“Of course not. ” His sunny smile flashed. “But it can go on until All Hallows’ Day—and that is only a week away. You can last till then, can’t you?
“And what will happen on All Hallows’ Day?” wondered Cassandra. “For I am told the prince is to be married to Constanca the week after. ”
“On All Hallows’ Day the prince will flee the country with his Ines. He would have done it before now, but the arrangements are difficult to make. He must leave no trail that Pombal’s agents can follow. And he will leave you weeping, saying you have quarreled and you do not know where he has gone. And you will sink back into obscurity living here for a while but later going your own way with the fine clothes and jewels he has lavished on you. ”
“Oh, I don’t intend to keep—”
“Nonsense,” he interrupted her roughly. “Whatever he gives you is little enough for the service you do him. You will keep everything.’’
His manner was so compelling that Cassandra felt as if a strong wind had blown over her and swept her resolution away.
But despite Leeds’ assurances, after he had gone Cassandra still found herself plagued with a sense of foreboding.
Wend noted it and asked her what was wrong.
“Nothing,” she assured Wend. “It is just that we will be leaving soon.”
“Good!” said Wend with energy. She had never really believed Cassandra’s story that she had been offered the house for a song and had found the offer irresistible. Cassandra was mixed up in something. Wend didn’t know what, but she wished they were both back home at Aldershot Grange.
Cassandra at that moment was wishing the same thing. For a while she had succumbed to the spell of romantic Lisbon and the glamorous role of aiding a young prince, but of late—and perhaps it was the sound of those booted feet moving about downstairs by night—the shadows in this pink palace had seemed to deepen, and now at last it had come to her what a dangerous game she was playing.
In Estoril, Clive, Lord Houghton, was enjoying his own charade. But unlike Cassandra, he shrank from the idea that it would end. He wished desperately that he were free of Phoebe, free to marry Lady Farrington’s mousy daughter, free to enjoy the rich life such a marriage offered. In a weak moment he had already proposed to Della—and been joyously accepted. He had promised her a betrothal ring when they got back to England.
What he would give her instead would be the rude shock of learning that he could not marry her, that he had been lying to her all along. For he hadn’t a doubt that the moment the wedding banns were published, Phoebe would hear about it—and be on him like a harpy. And Lady Farrington had absolutely refused to let Della wed him in Portugal. She wanted a big public wedding to show off Della s “catch.”
Caught in a trap of his own making, Clive stood staring down into the Boca do Inferno, the Mouth of Hell, as if seeking guidance from somewhere within that awesome chasm.
All that stood between him and this dazzling marriage was Phoebe. His wife. And if that barrier were removed . . .
He thought long and hard about it as he stared down into the frothing milky whirlpool sucked down by the inrushing sea, and he came to what seemed to him an inevitable decision. Phoebe must not be allowed to stand in his way. He must dispose of her. The thought made him wrestle briefly with his conscience—for him that was not too difficult. Although sometimes his misdeeds came back to haunt him, Clive was always able to bend his conscience to his will.
He began to think about how to do it.
It must not be done on English soil. No, that would be too dangerous. Some foreign place perhaps, someplace where Phoebe did not speak the language and where he could set up his story ahead of time. A fall o
ver a cliff, perhaps, into the sea? But not someplace where the body would not be found and so leave a question in people s minds that she might somehow have escaped. No, a place of certain destruction.
Here, for instance.
He looked down at that foaming cauldron and knew that he had found the perfect spot to rid himself of Phoebe. He would lure her to Lisbon. He would set a man to watch for her arrival. And when she arrived, he would slip something into Lady Farrington's food, and Della s. Not something deadly, but something that would make them so sick they would keep to their rooms for two or three days.
And while they were confined to their rooms, he would welcome Phoebe—at another inn, of course. He would appear publicly to be on excellent terms with her. He would bring her here to Estoril. And at the Mouth of Hell, when no one was looking, he would lure her to the edge of the chasm. One little push and he would be rid of her forever! And ready to embark on the new and wonderful life he deserved.
He was suddenly no longer afraid of Cassandra. Indeed he found himself eager to return to Lisbon—they would go back tomorrow! They would stay at another inn far from the Green Island; there was nothing to fear. His waterfront watcher would tell him when Phoebe landed. He would spirit her quickly away to some outlying inn, telling her it was the best he could afford . . . and in Estoril do away with her. No need for the authorities to connect Phoebe with Cassandra—her name was no longer Keynes. Lord, he should have realized that sooner. Phoebe would be gone and Cassandra would be none the wiser.
So buoyed up by the thought of ridding himself of Phoebe was he that he sat down at once to pen a letter to Phoebe back in Liverpool.
“Join me in Lisbon he wrote. “I will be staying at the Pico de Ferro—the Iron Crest. I cannot wait to see you.”
He would have been shocked to know that Phoebe already knew he was in Portugal. She had run across a goldsmith with whom she had frequently pawned her jewels—when she had any to pawn. And the goldsmith had been among the crowd at dockside, seeing his daughter off, and had seen Clive board the vessel bound for Lisbon.
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