The Flesh and the Devil (93 page)

         
'I am sorry.' The lawyer came cautiously over the
threshold, his expression a mixture of misgiving and embarrassment. 'Later,
perhaps, Sir Philip-at present I fear I shall intrude.'

         
'No. Come in and close the door.' It was the same cool
authority, bordering on arrogance, that had accorded so ill, with his servant's
rank; Tristan was not even looking at the man he spoke to, but was watching
Juana with a mixture of mocking indulgence and a hint of hard attention. 'Will
you do me the favour, senor, of confirming to my wife how you first knew me? I
know she is doubtful of something even yet, and it may well be that — there has
not been leisure to resolve her. Tell her, if you will, how you knew at once
that I was the man you had been seeking.'

         
Juana stiffened in his arms; he had read her mind again,
she thought, though he was mistaken in the cause of her fears. Grateful of the
excuse to avoid his searching stare, she turned to look at Senor Oliver, who
had brightened.

         
'It was not hard to be certain, madam, I can assure you!
One has only to look at — er — your husband to guess his parentage. There is a
portrait of his uncle, Sir Gabriel Stanford, in the hall at Stanford Place, and
but for some slight differences —' his glance went unwillingly to the deep scar
on
 
Tristan's cheek - 'it might be of Sir
Philip here. And then I recognized the Stanford ring as soon as I saw it.
Sir
 
Gabriel gave it to his brother
Michael to keep for his-Sir Gabriel's - heir, when religious affairs compelled
the family to be divided. He said in his will that he had done so.' He cleared
his throat and turned embarrassedly to Tristan, saying something in English
that made the other man stiffen.

         
Juana felt her husband's massive frame grow rigid, and
looking up she saw the look of cold hauteur that she had come to dread. He was
angry, she knew; she had felt the spontaneous tightening of his muscles before
that infallible selfcontrol reasserted itself.

         
'Felipe, what is it? What is the matter?'

         
The green eyes held the lawyer's hazel ones above her head.
'The good Serior Oliver stands in some doubt himself, it seems. While he is
sure of my identity he doubts the wisdom of our marriage, and even that it took
place. I assure you, senor-' the level voice was a sudden whiplash - 'that it
was not my greatness that led this lady to entrap me: rather, she has left her
home and family to marry a man of whose birth and family she knew nothing. She
was to have been married to the Duque to whom I acted as servant when I first
saw her, and it was no light matter to win her when my master died. As for our
wedding, the papers are here, in my saddlebag - I stole those from the Duque as
well as his bride.'

         
The words were even and uninflected, without a trace of the
selfsatisfaction that Juana had subconsciously expected; he sounded as though
he recited tedious facts that were of no more importance than that they had to
be spoken to gain his end.

         
Senor Oliver looked appalled and lapsed into Spanish more
mangled than ever. 'Sir, I assure you — I had no intention - but the matter was
delicate, and I notice that Lady Stanford does not wear a ring— I thought, to
be sure, I should enquire.'

        
'I was not so wealthy that I could afford her any but this
of my uncle's, and while she went abroad in the city on my business I took it
from her again for safekeeping.' With an ironic glance Tristan caught Juana's
hand and slid the lion signet back on to her third finger. 'I should have given
it back to you before: I must ask your pardon.'

         
She nodded silently, and her eyes fell before his as he
lifted her hand to his lips.

         
Senor Oliver coughed tactfully, then said, 'I
 
too, must apologize, Lady Stanford, but you
will understand that I spoke for the sake of the future - it would be a great
pity of matters between you were not regular, for your child's sake. Let us
hope that this coming voyage holds no hazards that will jeopardize Sir Philip's
hopes of an heir.'

         
Juana felt as though her entire body had frozen; the silence
seemed to beat upon her eardrums as she stood motionless, feeling Tristan's
body against her as rigid as her own. After what felt like an eternity, she
forced a smile.

         
'You have sharp eyes, senor-'

         
He beamed. 'My wife was brought to bed of a little daughter
just a week before I sailed to Spain, so I am familiar with the look of ladies
who are - hrm! - breeding. By now my little girl will not recognize her
father,' he added rather wistfully, 'and already she will be walking.....well-'
He glanced at Tristan and his smile faded abruptly; then, after a moment's
silence, he said 'Ah' and executed his neat bow. 'With your leave, I think I
should go now. My cabin. . . .'

         
Realizing that his words were going unheeded, he allowed
them to trail away and backed out hurriedly. The bang of the door behind him
and his departing footsteps were unnaturally loud.

         
'An heir?' Tristan's voice was toneless but insistent,
Juana felt herself gripped by the shoulders and turned forcibly to face him,
but she dared not look up to see what the lawyer had seen in his face.

         
'Is it true? How long have you known?'

         
'Yes, it is true. Dona Jeronima told me, the day I saw you
in the Plaza Mayor with Pedrino. Before that I — I did not know what the signs
meant.'

         
'And you were afraid to tell me. Was that why you were so
desperate to be rid of me once and for all, that night?'

         
She nodded, and he said with a sudden flare of sarcasm that
made her wince, 'What, for fear I should not want you? Or for fear I might?'

         
She was trembling under his hands, and after a moment he
lifted them from her shoulders with an ironic little gesture. 'You do me wrong
to be afraid, I would not have hurt you. Especially not now-' his lips twisted
- 'when a child will be so useful to me - an heir for Stanford Place and five
thousand acres of Devonshire soil. Or was that what you feared when you kept it
secret? Did you hope that if
I
did not know, you might escape more
easily once we were free from danger?'

         
She shook her head tiredly. 'I knew you would not part with
your trophy lightly, but the child -'

         
'Trophy?'
 
The
tone of his voice was like the slash of a blade across her eyes, unbelievably
sharp, blindingly painful. 'Is that what you think you are to me? But I forgot
-' his tone altered to one of stinging contempt - 'you thought you bore the
child of a vagabond mercenary without home or title, one who would desert you
at the first taste of responsibility and would treat his wife like a
blackmailing whore if he knew ihat she sought to tie him to her with a child.'

         
Juana was silent, listening in horror to his sarcastic
distortion of her fears, and when she did not answer he said, 'Did you think I
would not want you when I was ready to kill to gain you?'

         
Her chin jerked up in astonishment at his tone, and her
eyes widened as she saw his face. It was tight with blazing anger, the scar
dragging the skin taut and paling the flesh that surrounded it, but the
lacerating scorn in it was for himself, not her.

         
'I was never sure that you wanted me, except as a prize you
had won from Bartolome, until the night before we left Cadiz.' She spoke
simply, fighting to restrain her answering temper. 'You called me a pretty
counter to trade with - I only knew that I lost all my value for Dona Jeronima
once she found out, and — '

         
'And my faith rated no higher than a bawd's reckoning,' he
finished for her.

         
Juana stiffened, a blessed flood of anger warming her
frozen heart.

         
'You warned me often enough that you had lost your faith!
Elisabeta told me about the Condesa Elena, and I knew that after that you would
hardly feel love for a Spanish woman again, and that a pregnant wife could not
please you for long.'

         
'You have a pretty estimation of me,' he interrupted. 'I am
flattered.'

         
She stared at him breathlessly, seething. It was like
hurling herself against a wall of granite, she thought disjointedly; fighting
against him hurt her. But if she yielded to the unreasoned impulse of her love
at this moment and flung herself into his arms in contrite tears, she would
never come so close again to the citadel in his soul that he let no one
approach unscathed.

         
Braving the bitter, vitriolic look in his eyes, she said, I
have had little enough to build an estimation on, and that I have had to beg
you to tell me! All I know of you now is who you are, and what has passed
between us; that you are my husband, and my child's father, and that you have
said you want me. Could I judge from that that you care for me more than as the
wife you won from a Duque

         
- the trophy in your game?'

         
For a moment there was no sound in the cabin but the
creaking of timbers and the surge of the hull through the sea. Then Tristan
said with apparent inconsequence, 'Do you remember the letter I brought you in
Bartolomc's name, at the Castillo? The one I constrained you to read while I
watched you?'

         
She nodded, startled, her cheeks colouring as she recalled
it, and his mouth twisted wryly.

         
'It is a poor paean of indifference. I sweated half the
night before to write it for you, and then turned craven and let you think it
was some other's work.'