“In Cassandra we are dealing with a romantic,” grated Leeds, losing patience. “She was awash with the tragedy of Ines de Castro—I played upon it by giving you an Ines as well as a Constanca!”
The prince sneered. “Have you unloaded the gunpowder?” “Yes, it is safe off the ship and in the warehouse. ” “Good. There will be more, Pereira tells me, tomorrow. ” “Then why the devil does Pereira not unload it? He has men aplenty, you tell me.” Leeds’ tone was ironic. “And you might tell me if Pereira is holding secret meetings here. I am told there are men stalking about downstairs by night. ”
The prince bit his lip. So the English girl had ears! “Only once or twice,” he hedged. “He asked me if he might.”
Frowning, Leeds studied the young prince, noting again his shifty eyes. In point of fact it was chance that had brought Damião and Leeds together. Down and out in Madrid, Leeds had drifted into Portugal, encountered Prince Damião bragging loudly in one of Lisbon’s wilder gaming hells—and it had led to this. For Leeds had discovered in the foppish young prince a burning ambition to rule. Cynical Leeds was no stranger to the power plays of princes—in his wanderings he had watched them played out in Europe’s brightest capitals. Sensing in this ambitious princeling his own road to wealth and power, the hardened adventurer had cultivated the foppish young man. He had hinted at his prowess, lied about his part in foreign political schemes—and he had impressed Damião. And egged him on.
So young Damião wanted to be king. Well, palace revolts were commonplace, and with enough support—which Damião had always insisted he had—he just might become king.
And if Damião became king, Leeds Birmingham saw himself emerging as Portugal’s strongman, a replacement for the energetic—and entrenched—Pombal. First he would become Secretary of Foreign Affairs and then Prime Minister, for once ruthless young Damião was on the throne, Leeds believed he would succumb to pomp and extravagant living and carelessly leave the reins of government in other hands—his hands.
He, Leeds Birmingham, would be Portugal’s true ruler, he would wield the power.
Even cynical adventurers have dreams. . . .
It was actually Prince Damião who had insisted that a woman must be brought into the scheme, a woman who would always be around to furnish a ready alibi for Damião’s time away from Court so he would be free to meet with his fellow conspirators and make and weigh secret plans. But he had turned down every woman Leeds had suggested. They were Portuguese, he objected, they had families, they could be blackmailed—they were either too old or too young, no one would credit that such a one could be Prince Damião’s mistress.
Then Leeds had found the English girl and she had exactly filled the bill. Prince Damião had approved Cassandra’s appearance, her lack of knowledge of the country, the fact that she didn’t speak the language. And then, to Leeds’ surprise, he had frequented the pink palace on the square very little—indeed he had seemed to hew more closely to Constanca. And even a fool like Damião must know that Cassandra must not know that her part was all a sham, a smokescreen hiding the real truth.
It was all very puzzling to Leeds, and irritating as well.
He realized of course that he must deal with seedy aristocrats-gone-turncoat-against-the-crown, such as Pereira, but his own role in all this was begining to chafe.
Perhaps it was time to clear the air. . . . His eyes narrowed.
“I had expected that I would be the one having secret meetings here, marshaling my men,’’ he told Prince Damião silkily. “But I have seen no men, although you keep telling me Pereira has hordes of them. My role seems to be to unload gunpowder—and we have enough to blow up all Lisbon already!”
The prince shifted his weight uncomfortably from one daintily shod foot to the other. “It is best that you do it. Pereira says he is being watched.”
“A man can scarcely gather an army together without being observed,” Leeds said impatiently. “I am probably being watched as well. Has that occurred to you?”
It had indeed. The prince frowned at this upstart. “Pereira wants you to do it,” he said sullenly.
“Very well, I will keep watch for the ship. But you might tell Pereira that we will need not only gunpowder but also guns if we are to mount a rebellion.”
The prince looked around him uneasily. “Guard your tongue—Pombal’s agents are everywhere and you know what influence he exercises over my father!”
“I have told you that I would be glad to challenge Pombal to a duel and dispose of him for you. Indeed, it would be a pleasure—he has offended me twice.”
“It would do no good for you to challenge him. He would brush aside your challenge and either have you arrested and thrown in a dungeon or banish you from Portugal altogether.”
“Your father could put a stop to that. ”
“Yes, but he would not.” Prince Damião sighed. “He is completely under Pombal’s domination. No, my friend, we will take care of Pombal later. Pereira says—”
“Hush,” muttered Leeds. “She is coming downstairs.” And from the stairs, Cassandra, a vision of loveliness in her low-cut velvet gown, came down happily to greet them.
The opera house was packed and stifling; the performing company was Italian, and the diva onstage singing lustily at the top of her voice was both fat and middle-aged. Nevertheless Cassandra—about to melt in her velvet gown— was enjoying every minute. Seated in a box beside Prince Damião, her bosom ablaze with diamonds, she twirled her crimson ostrich-feather fan and enjoyed her newfound— and undeserved—notoriety.
Clive had not been able to obtain a box for Lady Farrington and her daughter. They sweltered below in the pit, observing the rich and the stately, who sat more comfortably in boxes above them. He was studying that assemblage of wealth and power and wishing he were among them, when suddenly his gaze fell upon Cassandra, looking magnificent, there above him. An expression first of consternation and then of indignant envy crossed his face. Cassandra was, he had been told, a new arrival in Portugal—how had she been able to acquire the favor of a royal prince in this short time? It was most annoying. He slumped down in his seat, fairly certain she would not spot him from above, and was sullen all evening. The ladies with him were mystified by this sudden change in him.
Drew Marsden had made no effort to obtain a box seat. Indeed he did not want one; he had intended to stand up at intervals and study those around him—and look for Cassandra. It was an enormous shock to look up and see her seated above him in a box with a handsomely dressed young fop—and at that very moment looking at the fop with all the adoration she could muster!
About to rise, Drew had sunk back into his seat as if he had been knocked there. Now, bitterly, he understood why people had been so evasive when he asked the whereabouts of Cassandra Dunlawton, pressing home the point by telling them she was his betrothed and describing her! He felt an odd mixture of pain and shame course through him. Cassandra was not his betrothed—she never had been, he had assumed too much. Livesay had been wrong; Cassandra had come across the water seeking a change— and she had found it!
While the diva onstage shrieked out her highest note, electrifying her perspiring audience, Drew Marsden made his way blindly to the door and out into the cooler night air.
Cassandra, twirling her fan, was aware of neither Drew nor Clive—nor of the attention she had attracted from one other.
In a box across from Cassandra, in the steamy heat of the opera house, Dona Carlotta’s mother-of-pearl opera glass swung lazily about the room—and came to rest on Cassandra.
“Who is the girl directly across from us, the one wearing such splendid diamonds?” she inquired of her hostess. “She looks like someone I once knew.”
Her hostess laughed. “Ah, that is Prince Damião’s mistress, an English girl. You will observe that the royal family can hardly keep their eyes from her!”
“What is her name?” was the next question, asked idly.
“Cassandra something—oh, yes,
Cassandra Dunlawton. I am told she is a widow. A merry one, wouldn’t you say?”
There was a long silence beside her. Then Dona Carlotta seemed to rouse herself. She beckoned a footman.
“Will you ask Doña Cassandra Dunlawton if I might wait upon her at her home tomorrow morning? Oh, and find out where her home is. Tell her . . . tell her that I knew her mother. ”
Cassandra was excited at receiving the message, although in the throng she could not locate the sender.
It had seemed to her unfair that she was to have no friends—save Leeds, of course—in Lisbon. Although Prince Damião sat beside her, splendid and bored and so encrusted with gold braid that he seemed made of gold, only the gentlemen present had seen fit to stop by their box— the ladies, although they studied Cassandra with interest through their opera glasses, to a woman shunned her.
Outside the opera house, although Drew Marsden could no longer bear the sight of Cassandra looking so radiant beside another man, he still could not bring himself to leave the vicinity. Warring with himself, he paced up and down. He told himself there might have been some mistake, Cassandra might have been in that box for some other reason—but no, there was no mistaking that look of absolute adoration she had given her companion. So he raged within himself, back and forth.
When the performance ended and the opera patrons poured forth, Drew mingled with the crowd and watched in astonishment as Cassandra and her fop got into a golden coach, unmistakably royal—but to make absolutely certain, he asked and was told it was Prince Damião’s coach and that the young lady riding in it was the prince’s English mistress.
Feeling that life had dealt him a terrible unwarranted blow, Drew found himself hurrying after the coach on foot, and discovered that it had not far to go. He watched from a distance as Cassandra and her prince alighted at the pink palace on the central plaza and went inside.
Then at last Drew believed it, and such a misery as he had never known swept over him. He swung away, shoulders hunched, and hied himself to the nearest tavern, there to drink moodily far into the night. She lost to him, lost forever—she had a prince now. Deeper into his cups he drank himself until he fell forward sodden upon the table.
35
All Hallows’ Eve October 31, 1755
The morning after the opera, dressed in a new yellow sarcenet gown which brought out golden highlights in her pale blonde hair, Cassandra received Doña Carlotta in the frescoed drawing room of her palace on the square and eagerly asked the elegant Spanish lady whose lacy black mantilla practically hid her features, how she had come to know Charlotte Keynes.
“I met her here in Lisbon,” said Doña Carlotta in flawless although slightly accented English. “It was a long time ago but I have never forgotten her face, and you look strikingly like her.”
“Yes.” Cassandra sighed. She was wishing that Wend were here to hear this elegant lady talk about Charlotte, but Wend was feeling fine now and had gone out on her own to investigate the fish market. “I will be grateful for anything you can tell me about my mother,” Charlotte told Doha Carlotta. “For she died while I was still a child and all I could find here was her gravestones.”
“Gravestones?” The woman in the mantilla started. “You mean there is more than one?”
“Yes, a headstone and a footstone.”
“Oh. Of course. ” For that was commonplace enough. “Yes, but in this case the footstone is far taller and handsomer than the headstone—and I was told they were erected at different times and by different men. I was hoping you could tell me about it.”
“I should like to see these stones,” murmured her guest.
“Would you? It is not too far. I will call for my carriage.”
Doña Carlotta smiled. The young mistress of the prince came well-equipped, it seemed.
Cassandra was surprised when her newfound Spanish friend asked if they could stop before one of the Alfama’s narrow ways, and got out. “There is a place I must see,” she told Cassandra. “It is but a short distance from here.” As she spoke, she was rearranging her heavy black lace mantilla to drift down entirely over her features.
“Can you really see through that wall of lace?” asked Cassandra doubtfully.
“Oh, yes. In Spain one learns to look out from behind iron lace balconies—or real lace mantillas. And at Court one learns how to mince along by moving one’s feet from side to side so that one seems to float.” She demonstrated the footwork that made her seem to glide across the cobbles.
“You have been presented at Court?” Cassandra was impressed.
“Oh, yes.” And there she had met the English ambassador and had managed during the conversation to ask him if he knew Rowan Keynes, a widower with two daughters. The ambassador had responded without enthusiasm, muttering that he believed Keynes to be one of Walpole’s supporters. Undaunted, she had followed that up by telling him that one of her friends had met Keynes’ small daughters. At that the ambassador had smiled and told her that Keynes’ daughters were both lovely little girls and that for a while they had attended school with his youngest daughter.
She had carried those words close to her heart for years . . . lovely little girls both, and attending a fashionable school.
Now, feeling her heart beat faster as she set her feet firmly upon the cobbles, she moved deeper into the heart of the Alfama.
And paused before a building with a low front door and a third-floor iron grillwork balcony that she knew only too well.
“What is this place?” wondered Cassandra beside her. “It is called Nowhere Street,” said Charlotte, noting that the place appeared deserted, the shutters were nailed shut. “Your mother”—her voice hardened—“knew it well. ” She turned away abruptly and they retraced their steps to the carriage and sought out the cemetery.
The headstone was obviously Rowan’s work, Charlotte thought. Very terse. Just her name and the dates. But the footstone . . . She studied that delicate spire of white marble.
“Here lies Charlotte, beloved of Thomas,” she read in a soft choked voice that had somehow lost its foreign accent. “Ate o fimdo mundo.”
“It means ‘Until the end of the world,’ supplied Cassandra helpfully.
It means Rowan did not manage to kill Tom after all, thought Charlotte, closing her eyes against the light that was suddenly too blindingly bright. Oh, Tom, you came back for me, you came back....
“His name was Thomas Westing.” Cassandra was looking at the stone. “And he was her lover.”
Tom—alive! There was a glory in Charlotte’s eyes. Her voice rang out. “He was indeed my lover Cassandra—and your father.” With a sudden gesture “Doña Carlotta” swept both the concealing mantilla and the dark wig from her hair and let her golden hair cascade down. “Am I so changed, Cassandra, that you do not recognize me?” Stunned, Cassandra considered the slender, beautiful woman before her. Like a picture emerging from the past. . . .
“That was why I felt so close to you,” she gasped. “Ever since I came downstairs and saw you. But I never guessed, I only thought you reminded me of . . . Oh, Mother, I have found you at last!”
And she went blindly into a pair of outstretched arms. After a long time during which they hugged each other and wept a little, Cassandra stood back and considered her mother critically.
“You look so young—I think that may be partly why I didn’t guess you were my mother,’’ she admitted. “But why didn’t you tell me at once? I had given up my foolish hope that you might still be alive.”
“I was debating whether I should tell you at all,” was Charlotte’s candid reply. “Life has taught me patience, Cassandra. Now, tell me, what of Phoebe?”
Cassandra thought it best not to tell the whole truth about Phoebe—at least not yet. “Phoebe married Lord Houghton, son of the dowager Marchioness of Greensea —oh, it must be six years now. She and Clive are residing in England.” Unless they have fled to the colonies or somewhere else. She did not say that, of course. “But what of you.
Mother? Where have you been all these years?” What could Charlotte say to her, this daughter of dreams who had been wrenched from her so long ago? What could she say of those years in Spain?
Now, in this sunlit Lisbon cemetery, she looked into her daughter’s green eyes, Tom’s eyes looking out at her from Cassandra’s beautiful young face, and gave it a desperate try.
“Rowan tricked me into marriage. In his way, he loved me, and I think I loved him too—once. But Tom came back and I could not resist spending several days with him. Rowan’s jealous nature could not forgive that. He kept me imprisoned for years in that house on Nowhere Street. When I finally escaped him, I found another life entirely. There was no looking back.”
She had looked back, but pride would not let her say so.
“My father ...” Cassandra stopped in confusion. “I mean Rowan Keynes—he is dead, Mother.”
“Is he?” Charlotte no longer had any emotions left where Rowan was concerned. “How did he die?”
Cassandra shivered. “He and Yates were found outside his London lodgings one rainy night—victims of footpads, people said.”
Victims of their way of life, Charlotte thought bitterly. Those who live by the sword . ..
Cassandra moistened her lips. “Didn’t you care what happened to us. Mother? To Phoebe and me?” Her voice was wistful—not accusing, wistful.
Charlotte had been able to hear of Rowan’s death with equanimity, but that wistful note in her daughter’s voice tore at her heart.
“Of course I cared!” she said huskily. “But Rowan warned me that if I ever tried to get in touch with either of you in any way, he would turn you out on the street as beggars! I could not risk it.”
“It would have been worth it,” said Cassandra impulsively, “if it brought us a mother!”
But would you have thought that when you were hungry and cold, without a roof over your head?
Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears. “I could not let him destroy you, Cassandra,” she choked, “as he destroyed me.”
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