Lola Montez Conquers the Spaniards (28 page)

And he did. He passed the trident to one of his gilled cronies and came up to me, then bowed. “Enchanting, señorita,” he breathed, kissing my hand. “May
I
be so bold as to request this dance?” Bingo. “Though I assure you, I am not so beautiful nor elegant as you.”

I curtsied again.

The orchestra had taken up a waltz, so I was in luck. Off we swirled, and he was very good. His hand at my back was steady; he led well. But now I was nervous.

“May I ask,” he murmured, “with whom I have the pleasure of dancing?”

“I'm afraid not,” I answered. “It's a masquerade, isn't it? We are under the spell of the evening and cannot break it. I, too, cannot ask your name, I shall just have to wonder.”

He let out the briefest honk of a laugh at this. As I waltzed with the prime minister, I realized that the man who'd begun the applause had, of course, been my Thunder Clap, and I surreptitiously looked around
for him now, but he'd disappeared. In my gown, my breasts sat very high, nipples tucked just inside the top of the bodice. Espartero's eyes smouldered behind the mask; I felt quite naked under his scrutiny. Calm down, I told myself, everything is going well. And that is when a minor little accident befell me.

The prime minister was very strong. At one point, we turned sharply (having come to the end of the room), he dipped me, and what should happen? My left breast popped right out of my dress! I was aghast and wondering horridly what to do, when my partner, with the coolness of a Sierra Madres mountain breeze, reached over, took hold lightly but firmly, and thrust it back inside my bodice. I blinked several times and opened my eyes wide as we took another few turns around the room. I could feel myself flushing up to the eyebrows, although it might not have shown under the mask. An appalled giggle fell out, however. “
¡Santa cielo!
” I sputtered.

“I fancy no one noticed, señorita,” the prime minister whispered, “except, I beg your pardon, for myself.”

At these gallant words, I bit my lip and tried not to guffaw, then whispered back, “Do you know the poem, you probably don't, it's a ridiculous Anglo Indian one: ‘But Qui Hi, disregarding care, fell headlong on a prickly pear.' That's how I feel!” Espartero's hand at my back whirled me around again as he said, “Not at all. Never seen finer.” By the time the dance ended, we were both half choked with trying not to giggle, belly laugh, or snort. Then he bowed, kissed my hand again, and seriousness was restored. The twinkle in his calculating eye now also heralded the possibility of a crucial proposition.

I shouldn't have said that about an English poem, of course; I kicked myself for it. Don't be distracted, I then thought: Focus on the man and his desire. And it came.

“Senorita, I suspect that you are feeling the heat. Would you care to step away from the ball for a half hour? I could walk with you, only a block or two, in the night air. My offices . . . if you become tired . . .”

“Wonderful idea,” said I, and gingerly took his arm. Now that it had come, stories of Espartero's brutal retaliations during the war were flying through my head like bats. This was a man who killed, no question.
Killed for country, killed for profit. Killed for self-interest. And without remorse. He made even the threat of Coria seem remote.

Above the crowd, Carlota's headdress still bowed and wove, flames licking the embers of a dying fire. There seemed to be many others on the dais now with the royals; courtiers and grandees, having toadied and groveled their way onto the platform at last, sweaty in actual masks rather than the merely facial ones they usually wore.

“Let me find your cloak,” Espartero offered.

“It is quite a tangle in there,” I answered. “Let me retrieve it and I'll meet you outside.”

“I'll be smoking, then. The finest cigar money can buy; you'll recognize the scent.”

Not as sweet as the ones Diego smokes, I wagered to myself. Likely large and thick, the more to impress.

“Very soon, señorita?”

I assured him, and we parted. Out of the frying pan and into the fire good and proper, I shivered, contemplating fleeing the scene altogether. Then I thought of Diego's faith in me, and carried on.

It was extremely hot in the ballroom, made hotter by the streams of molten wax that had begun flowing from the candelabras onto the wigs, hats, and clothing of the crowd; you had to keep your head down so that you weren't hit in the face by droplets or rivulets of the stuff. Squeezing my way to the cloakroom, flinching and ducking, I almost missed but then suddenly saw a tall, dark shape pass with a small figure in tow. Heading towards the door to the backstage corridors, clutching the hand of a struggling child. There were gossamer wings, half hidden under a dark cape—Luisa Fernanda! With this person I didn't recognize? Was this what was supposed to happen?

I heard a high-pitched scream of fear, quickly muffled, as the figures struggled on. Matching fear squirted through my guts: the vision of a muddy river bank, a helpless girl. Nanda's pale, beautiful face in an aureole of silver blonde hair. Carlota's words ringing in my ears: Listen to your heart. What if this was
my
little girl? Hearing that frightened scream, it was impossible to do anything but what I did. I didn't think, just leapt towards them, grabbed the arm of the figure
and wrenched it around—black wolf with dark eye holes, looking down at me! The priest!

I was confused, but still followed my instinct; I ducked low and whispered hard in the princess' ear, “Run to Carlota! Now!” She yanked her hand free of the man and darted off like a deer.

“
Mujer estúpida,
do you never
think
!”

“Stupid? Worse than stupid.
¡Bobo!
You've ruined months of planning, wasted thousands upon thousands of
reales—
”

“Enough!” from Diego.

The following morning, sitting (or pacing) amongst the wreckage of the ball, the group of conspirators met to berate (me!) and blame (me). Concha was livid. Ventura sat tearing at his hair. I could almost
see
it thinning; his fingers were covered with it and he kept shaking them off, then starting in again. The woman who was to have accompanied the princesses in the coach to Paris was the same Matilde who had guided the Jesuit and me through the mountains—she too was there, a Grimaldi conspirator now deprived of her task. She too sat in the wreckage and looked glum, the cherubic baby at her breast. Father Miguel lurked like a bad spirit in the background, once again robed in his cassock, the North Wind wolf mask thrown away.

De la Concha, vicious with rage, his lean limbs flinging themselves into arabesques as he remembered fresh injuries, continued the cursing. “They get a scare and what does royalty do? It flees, bodyguards before and aft, swords drawn and revelers injured! All our plans, all this time wasted! What will Cristina think of us? She should have us taken out and shot! Especially
that
one!” and he pointed at me.

“Hush.” Diego was pacing like a caged animal, kicking his way through the rubble that littered the floor.

“María Cristina is waiting in Paris! Longing to see her children! Like any mother, what is she to think? She'll be frantic when she hears!” From Concha's frenzied despair, I could tell that he too was smitten by the fair former queen regent. He continued muttering incriminations as Diego turned to me.

“Rosana, what happened, again. Never mind the General here, we're overwrought from lack of sleep and frustrated energy. Tell us everything.”

I looked over at the priest. He was staring back with a horrible intensity, but what could I do but tell the truth as I knew it? “I saw Father Miguel leading Infanta Luisa Fernanda by the hand towards the door behind the canal construction. I've told you this.”

“It's a lie!” From the Jesuit, a man who'd surely been trained never to lie. “As you know, generals, that was not my assignment. I was stationed where I had been posted—the southwest corner—waiting for you both to apprehend the infantas and to give you cover until the carriage was away. I was fully armed and ready. Do not allow this . . . woman! This liar! . . .”

I knew what I saw. “The man was dragging the princess by the arm, and she was screaming. He was wearing a wolf mask,” I argued.

Father Miguel almost pounced upon me, his fingers taut as talons. “So were dozens of men!”

Was that true? “I saw no others,” I snapped back. “No, it was you; I'm sure it was. We looked each other in the eye.”

There was a lull in de la Concha's cursing as I said this, and everyone suddenly turned to the Jesuit.

“The canal exit was not the plan,” Diego murmured, half to himself, “it leads to a completely different part of the building. Into the bowels of it, with no real way out. Father Miguel? Could you explain this for us?”

I'd never seen the priest look so ashen. I was going to best him! I was going to expose him for the sanctimonious ass he was—and perhaps for treachery, too! Oh, that would be sweet! So I added, triumphantly, “And there I was worrying about the reappearance of Pedro Coria, when all along we should have been worried about
you
.”

The priest's face changed as fast as a spring dirk on a pistol. “Coria? You saw him where?”

Ventura answered, “At the ball. She told me so.”

“Yes,” the priest said, nodding. “He was one of the other men wearing a wolf mask, and I'd been aware of his movements the entire evening. I don't know why Coria is here. He
is
very dangerous, and ruthless, I know this. He would be a bad enemy to have. My guess is that he may have turned sides, become a double agent. Now. At the moment in question . . .” He seemed rattled, I thought, but was speaking calmly.
“My attention had been caught by Espartero's exiting the ballroom, and I decided to see where he was going. Perhaps it is true I abandoned my post, momentarily. But I quickly returned. So this . . . woman,” as he shot me a look, “in mistaking me for Coria, may have done us a favour after all. Perhaps Coria was dragging the infanta off for some reason of his own. Some counterplot?”

I was confused. Had he just turned what I'd said around?

“
Diablo!
” Concha swore and cracked his knuckles. “This is a mess.”

“I've never seen those bodyguards move so swiftly,” Diego added. “We've underestimated them. It could be that even if our plan had gone smoothly, they'd have been on to us and cut us down before we could get to the coach.”

Matilde rocked the baby back and forth, eyes on the ground. De la Concha was still stamping back and forth, but slowly now, considering Diego's words.

“Perhaps it wasn't such a foolproof plan for getting the princesses away.” Diego rubbed the bristles on his chin, then his curly hair. I sat stock still; the Jesuit had manipulated the accusation away from himself. Is that what had just happened?

“Just a minute,” I said. “Can we—?”

“Let's think this through,” Diego went on, preventing Concha from cutting in with a hand on his arm, and giving me a swift, reassuring smile. “We must not alarm Grimaldi, that is very important. Ventura, you'll send a message today—fastest rider, spare no expense—letting them know that we had to abort, but that another plan is forming which is safer, which can be implemented within a week or two.
No
word about what went wrong, nor why. Do you understand me?”

The playwright looked sullen.

“There's another little girl's life involved, Ventura, in another country. An innocent little girl. You of all people should understand that.” I was taken by surprise. He had remembered my baby with the sea-dark eyes. Diego, bless you. He lit a cigar, puffed away for a moment, frowning like the thunder clap he'd been at the ball, then, “It won't be long. Let it all go. Let everyone calm themselves, let them relax their vigilance after this sudden shock. I will think of a better way.”

Matilde glanced up quickly at this, and down again. In a flash of clarity, I saw: She's worried for him!

“Don't let
that
prize idiot have anything to do with it, León,” Concha snarled, jabbing a finger towards me again. “She botched it. I don't trust her. Stop wasting your time bouncing the silly jade every two seconds; we have more important things to be thinking about!”

Matilde rocked, head bent over the infant, not looking at the men.

“Jealous?” Diego punched his fellow general in the arm. “Shut up about it now and let's think. We need Rosana; she'll be brilliant, she just lost her nerve.”

I know he was trying to defend me, but suddenly I'd had enough. “Stop talking about me as if I'm not here!” I snapped. “Of course wrong things will happen if you lie and get cocky, if you keep changing who's supposed to do what!” Everyone stared, with varying shades of surprise, hatred, and—in Matilde's case—an enigmatic interest.