“Because such is not the lot of princes.” His hand, so warm a moment ago, began to chill. “The most we may expect is companionship. But with you, I know I may expect more than that. You are a woman of business, of determination, of resources. And you are so beautiful I could gaze upon your face from dawn until sunset and never tire of it. I have it on good authority that you contracted your marriage with Captain Fremont in order to journey here safely to meet me, and put your case before me. Not one woman in ten thousand would have done so, and succeeded.”
“If I may be so bold, sir, ten thousand women in this country would not have needed me to, if women were given the respect they deserve and were allowed to manage their own business and travel about as they see fit, without the oversight and authority of a man.”
He squeezed her hand and released it, then indicated they should sit upon the sofa. Their tea had gone cold, so Gloria put the cups upon the tray and pushed it to the end of the low table.
“You speak of changing an entire culture,” he said with some amusement.
“I speak simply of what other cultures have realized is a sensible manner of proceeding. In my opinion, the Royal Kingdom must make its way out of the age of medievalism and join the ranks of modern governments.”
“Precisely,” he said eagerly. “With you at my side, I will be able to do so. You will open doors of transportation and commerce that have been closed until now. My father, rest his soul, was a man who looked backward, to the past and the way things have always been done. But I am not that sort of man. I—” His breath shortened, and he stopped, drawing air into his lungs with difficulty. “Excuse me. Your Evan Douglas suggested last night that I stop taking my evening tonic, but I have seen no real change—unless it is for the worse.”
Had the Viceroy had a dream last night, and called Evan in to interpret it? Had that somehow triggered this mad situation in which she was now embroiled? “Sir—Felipe—give it a little time to improve. Perhaps you ought to let Evan examine you properly.”
“My doctors would rise up as one like a hissing cobra, I am afraid.”
“But he is trained in the latest methods—”
“He specializes in the sleeping mind, not the waking body. And he is very good at it. He has made me face the truth, much as I did not like it.” He sat beside her on the sofa and took her hand again. “I cannot do what must be done without your strength and goodness by my side, Gloria.” He gazed earnestly into her eyes. “And I promise you, I will be a good and faithful husband. I will not take mistresses—for frankly, I have not seen a woman in the kingdom who may hold a candle to you.”
Thank you very much. “I’m sure that cannot be so,” she managed. This was not going well. “Why, the young ladies of the de la Carrera y Borreaga household here seem a lively, pretty lot.”
“Do they? I had not noticed. The point is, you will help me lead the Royal Kingdom into a new age, like Isabela and Ferdinand of old. You will establish schools for children who are not so fortunate as to be born into rancho families. You will extend the resources of the Meriwether-Astor Manufacturing Works across the entire country. Once the dam is built across the Rio de Sangre Colorado de Christo, our riverboats will be able to penetrate into the very heart of the continent, where trains and goods from the Fifteen Colonies will meet them to buy our fine cattle and grain.”
“Sir, about the dam—”
But in his eagerness, he overrode her. “You have a fleet of undersea dirigibles. Think how we might use them to trade on both coasts, not just the eastern.”
“I have airships, too. But the dam—”
“Airships!” he repeated, a smile brightening his somber face. “That is the first thing we will change. Oh, I know the monks and missions will object, but when they see how these marvelous vessels improve shipping and travel, how quickly and comfortably one may go from one end of the country to the other, they will change their minds. They must. For I will have my way, regardless of what they or anyone else thinks.”
Never mind the dam just now, there was something she must say before this marvelous castle he was building in the air grew any higher.
“Felipe, this is all wonderful. Truly, you are a visionary. What is to stop you from making these changes on your own? You are a prince, and I … I must point out once again that despite the unusual circumstances of our marriage, I am not inclined to abandon my husband.”
His gaze fell, and the animation faded a little from his features. She was struck by the line of his hawklike nose, and the firmness of his chin. Goodness, where had she seen features like this before? And recently, too.
“I have already granted your friend Evan Douglas his freedom,” the Viceroy said, “and this morning before you came, I signed the fiat of citizenship for his translator, José San Gregorio.”
“Have you?” Gloria said. Well, at least there was some good news to be celebrated.
“With the stroke of a pen, I gave two men their freedom. With another, I can take a man’s freedom from him.” His lashes lifted.
Their gazes locked.
After a long moment in which understanding spread like a stain, Gloria said very gently, “You know, blackmail is not the most effective method with which to convince a lady of the sincerity of your suit.”
“Can you think of another?”
All she could think of at the moment was how she might get a message to her husband to leave the country immediately. The thought of him in gaol, perhaps forever, his humor and capability drained, his body withering under hard labor while she fled to safety in Philadelphia, was completely impossible.
“I can think of many. With such a beginning, you hope for companionship and affection?” It took quite an effort to keep her voice low and gentle, and not fling the teapot at his head. For truly, how could he know any better, brought up in this country? Especially if Ambassador de Aragon—whose mania for other people’s land and gold was the source of the war—had been one of his models of gentlemanly behavior.
His gaze held naked honesty now. “Can you suggest a better way in which to convince you to accept me?”
Her outrage and fear drained away and she gripped his hand. “Oh, Felipe, my dear, you would make a wonderful husband for any woman. Why do you not choose a young lady from one of your noble houses, and be happy?”
“Because they are not like you,” he said miserably. “They are silly, and have no conversation, and if you asked them to double a recipe they would have no idea how to do it.”
She felt some surprise at his even knowing such a thing as a recipe existed, never mind how to double it. “Then establishing proper schools might be a good solution,” she suggested. “Girls have every bit the brain capacity and ability of boys, you know.”
“I am learning that,” he admitted. “You could certainly rule on your own without me.”
“But this is your kingdom, not mine.”
“It could be.” Oh, his eyes! Full of desperate emotion, like a prisoner who sees the open door and cannot run fast enough toward it before it closes. “Please, Gloria. Say yes and become my Vicereine, to change the world at my side—and to change me.”
How much he needed to learn of women—and of himself! For one did not marry to change another. One married because one wanted to change with the other—to create something new that had not been there before, that was only possible in a particular combination of two unique lives.
As she was just beginning to discover with the captain.
She pressed the prince’s cold hand to her hot cheek. It curved around her jaw, and in its uncertainty she realized that he had never touched a woman in this manner before. “Will you allow me some time?” she asked softly. “Your offer deserves consideration and great care.”
“Then you are not saying no?” He straightened, his eyes wide. His hand fell away with reluctance.
“He may not be my husband for much longer, but I do value the captain’s life,” she said dryly. “All I ask is a day and a ni
ght to … to talk with him. And to make the wisest decision.”
“If you will only consider it, I rescind what I said about taking away his freedom. I did not mean it. I want you to make up your mind free of such considerations.”
“Thank you.” She could not keep the dryness from her tone, but he did not seem to notice. Hope had infused him with an energy he had not possessed before.
“May I escort you to your conveyance?” he asked eagerly. “We might walk through the gardens.”
“I am afraid that the captain is waiting out in the courtyard to escort me, but thank you. It was kind of you.”
“Ah. Of course.” His face fell. “Let me call a carriage for you, at least.”
“Truly, sir. The walk will do us good. And perhaps … when I tell him … it would be better if there were trees and air and birds about us. He is that kind of man.”
It was clear he did not understand, but he nodded. “Thank you for coming. And for … considering a future that I hold most dear.”
She sank into a curtsey, and rose before he could raise her. “I am honored by it. Believe me,” she said, “in my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined such a thing.”
He took her hand one last time and kissed it. “You have been in my dreams since last night. But I am tired of dreams. I want to wake to reality. The reality of you, Gloria.”
She blushed, and dipped her knees, and somehow got herself out of the room. The guards at the door bowed as she passed, and the majordomo bowed practically in half as he opened the door for her.
“Gracias,” she said a little breathlessly, and walked slowly across the flagstones and between the pots of flowers.
Her husband waited for her by the fountain. “Well?” he said when she was within earshot. “What did he say?”
How on earth did one even begin to reply? “Come,” she said, to gain a little time. “Let us walk down the avenue, where we cannot be heard.”
Obligingly, he offered her his arm and they left the plaza, then the gardens, at a companionable stroll. At least, she hoped it looked so to the observers at door and window. Inside, her nerves were wound to screaming pitch.
“You are to be given your freedom, at least,” she said in an attempt to work up to it.
An eyebrow lifted. “I was not aware that I had lost it.”
“Evan has his as well, and his translator is to be given his citizenship.”
“I am delighted, though I have no idea what this has to do with your audience with him to stop the war.”
They passed through the great wrought-iron gates, nodding to the Viceroy’s guard, and when they were clear she gasped out a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but instead held both relief at her escape and a little hysteria at what she must tell him.
“In actual fact it has everything to do with stopping the war. You see, he told me he would indeed command it—”
“Gloria!” Her husband took her shoulders in his warm hands and gazed into her face in frank delight. “You did it! You did what no one thought you could do. I do not know whether to be proud of you—or frightened that I am married to a woman of such influence.” And now the tears welled up, causing the delight to fade from his face. “What is it, dear?”
“That is just it.” Her voice shook. “The price is too high. I do not know if I can pay it—and yet it seems I must if I am to accomplish what I have sacrificed so much for already.”
“What … price?”
She tucked herself more closely against his side, and they walked on, otherwise her knees would have been tempted to fold. “The price is the annulment of our marriage and the subsequent announcement of my engagement to the prince.”
The captain stopped dead in the middle of the gravel avenue to stare at her. “I beg your pardon?”
With the brilliant sun in her eyes making her tear up, she repeated it. And still he stared, as though she were speaking Italian and he was trying to parse the words.
At last his jaw tightened, and he put his hand over the one tucked into the crook of his elbow, as if she might try to pull away, and walked on. “Why, that lily-livered, no-good, jumped-up boy masquerading as a man … I ought to go back there and turn him over my knee. He needs nothing more than a good walloping. How dared he speak that way to you? Is this some kind of joke? It’s in the worst possible taste if it is. Tell me at once, dear—did he make advances to you?”
“Not in the way you mean. I am afraid he was every bit as sincere as one could wish on such an occasion. He even went down upon one knee. The only thing missing was a vulgar diamond of impeccable vintage belonging to some long-dead queen.”
It took a moment for him to get his breath back. “You mean he … is quite serious?”
“Deadly serious. When I asked him what the consequences would be if I refused him, the subject of your freedom came up immediately.”
“Blackmail!” Her husband seemed to be having difficulty catching his breath.
“That was the very word I used. Then he came to his senses and rescinded his threat, but there will be no such charity when it comes to the war. If I do not accept him, it will go ahead and all that we fear most will come to pass. Particularly the dam. In fact, even if the war comes to a grinding halt, the dam will not. He has great plans for shipping and commerce, and the river is a key part of it.”
“The witches may have something to say about that.”
“Not if they are a hundred feet below the surface—or displaced into another territory altogether.” She clutched his arm as though they stood in a high wind. “Stanford, what on earth am I to do?”
“I am still feeling a little stunned over what he said to you. How in heaven’s name—annulled! There is only one circumstance under which that may be accomplished. I realize that one does not speak of such things, but—”
“But somehow he knew that we have not—” She took a breath. She had promised him honesty, and she would keep that smallest and most vital of promises, though a lady certainly did not speak of such things, especially out in the open air. “We have not consummated our marriage.”
A fact that she was coming to regret with all the gathering force of an avalanche.
He said a word that he had never spoken in front of her before, but that she, unbeknownst to him, had used on several occasions of high emotion. “This is impossible.” He gazed heavenward, but there was no help forthcoming. Only gulls, and a pelican heading out to sea. “Surely you are not thinking of going through with it.”
“I do not see that I have a choice, if thousands of lives are to be saved.”
“And what of your life?”
They had reached the mission at the end of the avenue, where no more could be said. Instead, he allowed the question to hang unanswered between them until they had passed through the great gates and reached the bottom of the hill, where the bustle of the town embraced them.
“I cannot go back to the inn,” she said suddenly. “I cannot face them and tell them this. Not yet.”
“Very well.”
A few minutes later she found herself at the far end of the harbor wall, where they had spoken two nights ago. The tide was again low, exposing the rocks and glistening weed and the sea creatures clinging for dear life, waiting until their proper environment should return.
She envied them. At least they had the assurance that it would.
Her husband folded himself down upon the sea wall and invited her to sit beside him on the warm stone. She leaned into his side, wondering a little hysterically how many opportunities she might have left in which to do this simple, homely thing.
“What of your life, Gloria?” he asked again, softly. “Are you prepared to live here for fifty years, isolated behind those mountains? In a culture that—forgive my saying so—does not agree with your temperament?”
She huffed what passed for a laugh. “He intends that I should change all that. To open schools for girls, to open the skies to airships, to invite all manner of commerce here.
Why, he even has plans for my undersea dirigibles. He was rather frighteningly well informed about the assets of Father’s company for a boy who has been away at school in Holy Mother Spain for several years.”
“He is no boy, if he can come up with a plan like this. But plans are just that. Plans. Why has he not put them into action himself? He has been on the throne a year at least.”
“I asked him that, too. He says he needs me before he can do it. Though I hardly see why. He is an absolute monarch, and if he wishes his council to agree with him, he has only to make it plain it is in their best interests to do so.”
“What are the odds that, even if you were to agree to this mad proposal, the council and the Ambassador would allow what the Viceroy wants? For you and I both know who really seems to rule the roost in these parts.”
And therein lay the rub. What would be the point of sacrificing her life for the sake of thousands of other people if all that the Viceroy promised were prevented by powerful and determined men?
“Allowing airships over the border seems a very simple thing to begin with, doesn’t it?” she mused aloud. “And yet he has not had the courage to attempt even that. Though he did hint that the missions would object rather strongly.”
“Perhaps his dreams have become so real that he cannot tell the difference between them and reality. But Gloria, you cannot sacrifice your life for dreams.”
“I have not even had the chance to sacrifice it for my own dreams, let alone his,” she agreed wryly.
He passed an arm about her. “And what do you dream of?”
Laying her head upon his shoulder, she watched an orange starfish begin its infinitely slow journey toward a purple one some inches away. “I have given up on castles in the air, I can assure you of that.”
He chuckled. “Don’t be so quick to do so. I enjoy a nice castle now and again. But mostly I prefer a less exalted view.”
“From the wheelhouse of your steamboat?”
“Yes. And perhaps from the window of a cottage somewhere, with a river rushing past and a decent pier.”
Fields of Gold: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 12) Page 2
