New England 07 - The Lines of Laredo, page 25
Melody exchanged a thoughtful look with Paul Nash.
The man had been breathless, and no little mortified to have been cast in the role of go-between between Alonso and his mistress. Which had told her that he liked his friendship and loyalty abused as much as she did. Neither of them had been very talkative in each other’s company the last couple of days; betrayal did that to one, tied tongues, and all that…
Apparently, the man – or rather, the man and two women hunt – had definitely been quietly called off and Government House would, in the next few weeks, leak to the press that it had all been a terrible misunderstanding…
A fat lot of good that will do!
Clearly, Amelia Lee and her girls had never been taken in by the lies in the first place; but then they had plenty of recent experience of the mendacity of the New England media and thus, probably never believed a word they read in the papers or heard on the TV!
Melody smiled nicely.
Amelia stepped back a pace: ‘This is Anne,” she introduced, proudly, the slightly taller of the girls, “and this is Sarah, she moved on, equally proud, “they’ve been itching to meet you. You wouldn’t believe how excited they were when they discovered you were here!”
Melody tried not to roll her eyes or to glare at Paul Nash.
She wondered how many other people on the plantation knew who was actually staying – hiding out - in the otherwise mothballed holiday chalets?
Melody took comfort from the thought that Amelia Lee was probably not always this scatter-brained or effusive.
There was more awkward handshaking.
Melody was half-afraid the girls would start curtsying at any moment. Fortunately, her police procedural training kicked in. She established Anne and Sarah’s ages – fifteen and fourteen respectively – and which school they attended, the subjects they enjoyed, or were good at, usually but not always the same thing and then, now that everybody had calmed down and accepted that she was flesh and blood like them, she suggested to Paul Nash that it would be nice if he put on the kettle.
Amelia had got her hands-on Pedro, picking him up and holding him for her girls to inspect and coo over.
Melody, trying to snap out of detective mode had already decided that Anne and Sarah were ‘Amelia’s girls’ and that one way or another, self-evidently, she had been mothering them for a long time.
Perhaps, it was because Melody had travelled so much as a girl, the child of – whatever their other varied and numerous faults – were profoundly reasonable, cosmopolitan parents she had never understood what it was with all those people who thought the colour of a fellow human being’s skin was somehow the determinant of their worth, character or intellect. Like many children of the middle and upper First Thirteen she had never ‘got’ the bigotry and well, always been appalled by the outright racism that was still so common in the South, and sadly, these days in parts of the North courtesy of those Getrennte Entwicklung morons. Thinking about it, she had never done anything half as brave as the gabbling Virginian plantation owner had done taking on the two daughters of the man she planned to marry.
Belatedly, Melody realised she had missed something very important.
“Sorry, you said you’d met Paul in England, Amelia?”
“Oh, yes. He was a hoot!”
For the first time in Melody’s acquaintance with him, The Scorpion was looking distinctly sheepish.
“When I heard he was the fellow responsible for getting you and Lady Henrietta out of Spain, you could have knocked me down with a feather,” Amelia went on.
“Fair’s fair,” the man in question protested. “Albert Stanton had a lot to do with it, too.”
“I do apologise, again,” Amelia babbled. “Disturbing you like this, without warning but Paul said it was okay. That you’d appreciate the company. I think, we all think you’ve been treated abominably. Oh, by the way, Sam will be along soon. He was showing His Grace around the stables, now that we’ve got word that its safe….”
Melody was still not entirely convinced about the ‘safeness’ of their situation.
Okay, so her ex-lover was his Grace not ‘Alonso’ to Amelia; so, so it was reasonable to assume that the snake was not also an old friend of their host at Belle Isle. She would have asked Paul but suddenly it had become, well, rude to impose on his personal confidences now that it seemed they were both in the same metaphorical boat.
Melody was about to ask what had happened to Henrietta – guessing that everybody in Christendom was likely to descend on the cabin that evening whether she liked it or not - when there was another knock at the door and a moment later, Pedro was wrapped in his other Mama’s arms.
Melody joined the huddle, the two women kissing oblivious of the witnesses, not having seen or spoken to each other for what seemed like weeks but was of course, only a few days.
Melody knew that Alonso had choreographed this ‘get together’.
Bastard!
He doesn’t even have the courage to tell me to my face!
“Oh, I do wish we could have you all up at the big house,” Amelia declared, seemingly oblivious to the undertow of existential angst at play. “Perhaps in a couple of days,” she suggested hopefully. “Most of the press people have got bored and gone home. Sam and I have been lying low, well, actually, we’ve been busy on the estate. But I suppose it would be risky to tempt fate. The next big thing will be making sure that my dear brother allows the estate managers we’ve hired to get to work at Arlington. We’ve already taken over here in Spotsylvania. Sam’s been running Belle Isle, over the hill overlooking Fredericksburg for years, anyway. Suddenly, trying to run three estates not one, is a big ask but I’m sure we’ll get used to it.” She looked to her soon to be step-daughters: “Isn’t that so, young ladies?”
Both girls giggled.
Henrietta was looking very determined.
“Melody and I need to have a quiet word together,” she announced in that polite, persuasive, unoffensive way only daughters of a Viscount can, and the two women stepped into the main bedroom and shut the door at their back.
Melody had the oddest sensation; for the first time in their relationship Hen was the one who was in control.
Okay, this is new…
“There were a lot of things Alonso did not tell us,” the Governor of New England’s estranged youngest daughter prefaced, planting herself on the edge of the bed and waiting for Melody to sit beside her. She was very calm, as if she had already worked out, or vented her outrage, possibly several days ago. “Or rather, some things he told you, and some things he told me, or versions of one or the other. He told you one thing, me another. You probably guessed that, so did I, I think, but I didn’t want to believe it. Anyway, we had words. Well, I had words and he listened. Very patiently, actually. I gave him an ultimatum.”
Melody blinked.
“You did…”
“Yes, I demanded to know what was really going on and I told him that if he didn’t tell me the truth then that was it, I was finished with him.”
Melody was blinking even harder now.
And I thought I was the hard case…
The women were holding hands.
Henrietta hesitated: “I said some other, horrible things to him as well. Which I shouldn’t have but I was very angry. It was bad enough having to flee like thieves in the night in Spain; but this is my own bloody country!”
Which was pretty much the way Melody felt about it too.
“He tried the getting down on his knees begging forgiveness number,” Henrietta went on.
Melody reckoned that would have worked for her.
Although not apparently, with Henrietta because she was made of sterner stuff.
“I wanted to slap him,” she confessed.
“I would have,” Melody sympathised.
“That’s why we’re such a good team,” her friend sniffed. “Anyway, it turns out this is all a stupid game. Now that the war is about to get very, very unpleasant down in the south, not that it hasn’t got nasty already, Government House will soon start dribbling out stories about the findings of a so-called ‘Independent Security Review’ which sooner or later will exonerate us all of any wrongdoing.” She sighed a long, shuddering sigh. “Much good that it will do. I’ll always be the traitor daughter and you’ll always be…”
“Jezebel?”
“You know what I mean.” Henrietta was on the verge of tears. “Alonso arranged it all with my father long before we came back to New England. Apparently, he had his precious Queen’s permission to do whatever had to be done to put those ‘old Spanish colonies in the Indies in their place!’ Oh, and to persuade the authorities in Philadelphia to liberate the ‘investments’ sequestrated in retaliation last year in retaliation for the Empire Day atrocities. Apparently, the Cardinals and the Generals in the Greater Antilles tend to salt away their treasure in the banking system of the First Thirteen, and Queen Sophie’s court in exile is a little financially embarrassed at the moment. As is the House of Medina Sidonia. I think his bankruptcy is the only aspect of this whole thing that Alonso is actually even remotely ashamed of!”
Now Melody was reeling.
“Hang on…”
“It sounds twisted but I think it’s true, most of it. Obviously, nothing Alonso ever says to anybody is ever wholly true. Queen Sophie blames ‘idiots and religious zealots’ in the colonies for stirring up German ambitions and egging on the Mother Church to brazenly meddle in the affairs of Old Spain. Their defeat in the New World will quote ‘emasculate their malign influence for a generation and allow saner councils to regain lost ground in Madrid.’ And persuade His Majesty’s Government to bankroll and support, presumably nefariously, the Queen Empress in Exile in her quest to return to Madrid!”
Melody flushed, felt the heat rising in her cheeks and spreading down her neck, and across her shoulders.
“Oh, fuck,” she muttered. “That conniving bitch!”
Henrietta did not immediately come to the defence of the exiled Queen Empress of Spain, Sophie, Princess of Aragon and Leon.
She remained silent.
“She persuaded me to,” Melody began, horrified at her own gullibility. “To…”
“Talk me into making a huge pass at Alonso?”
“Yes.” But Henrietta already knew that; the women had talked about it and agreed it was a good idea and it was not as if Henrietta was not already besotted with Alonso.
“He claims that part of the plan wasn’t his idea,” Henrietta said, “but he embraced it when it happened, and,” she shrugged, “ran with it. He’d have used his affair with you to inveigle himself back into New England anyway, I was only his Plan B. As it was, by marrying me, he got a free pass straight back into Government House. I have no idea how Daddy reacted to his scheme but he’s a practical sort of man, Daddy I mean, so once he’d put his scruples to one side, I’m sure he embraced things, too. He’s a very modern pro-consul, bless him. He leaves his moral compass at the door of his office every morning when he starts work; and he knew that I was a tough little thing, I’d get over it and if and when, Alonso’s precious Queen managed to rehabilitate herself in Madrid. The important thing was not me, or you, it was for His Majesty’s Government to have a friend in her court. And in the meantime, you and I have been, wittingly or unwittingly, of great service to the Crown.” Henrietta was running out of words, and energy. “Whether we like it or not. From Daddy’s point of view if we’d only been thinking of England when we were on our backs with our legs wide open, everything would have been tickety-boo!”
The odd thing was that neither of them was anywhere near as bitter and twisted about this as they had every right to be…
Melody squeezed her friend’s hand.
She leaned in and kissed Henrietta, first on the cheek and then, as the younger woman turned her face, on the lips.
Henrietta came up for air: “Paul wasn’t in on the big secret, by the way.”
Melody was reluctant to believe this.
“He only discovered it was all smoke and mirrors after we got here,” Henrietta continued, placing Melody’s right hand over her bump.
Presently, Melody suggested they re-join the others.
Sam Henry and Alonso had arrived while the women had been in conclave.
Melody wasted no time; she stepped up to the Duke of Medina Sidonia with a slightly quizzical, fond frown as an uneasy hush settled in the room.
“Qué no sé qué está pasando aquí, hombre malvado?
What don't I know that's going on here, you wicked man?
Her lover contemplated playing dumb.
No, bad idea.
“My conduct has been inexcusable,” he said simply. “It was important to me that you, and Hen and Pedro were safe, far from the reach of my enemies, and my Queen’s enemies. There is always a quid pro quo in these things, that is regrettable but nonetheless, true. In this case, the British Government exacted a price. I am sorry. My dishonour was the price of my son’s life.” He shrugged, quirked a self-deprecatory half smile. “I think that you know, as does Henrietta, that there was nothing feigned in my feelings for you.”
Melody opened and shut her mouth like a fish out of water.
That was it; he was not about to say anything more.
With that half-confession very nearly obfuscated into submission by a skean of lies and distortions, warped by a claim to have been only acting for the best to ‘protect’ them he had absolved himself of all responsibility for the emotional, reputational and all the other damage he had inflicted in their lives.
This was an abbreviated goodbye party; the presence of the others was just cover in case anybody was watching…
Henrietta had materialised at her husband’s side.
“Alonso has to go back to Europe,” she announced hoarsely to the room at large. “Paul will look after us while he is away. We should be safe here.” She patted her swollen belly. “This isn’t Spain; this time around I don’t think we’d walk very far over the mountains with me like this.”
Melody sucked it up.
She would have only made a scene if Alonso had broken the news to her in private. Europe… No, he meant Portugal, and then probably, Spain where his enemies were the kind of men who tortured you to death, rather than lie about you in the newspapers. And all because his highest loyalty was not to his wife, to her, or even directly, to Pedro but to that beautiful, serene exiled Aragonese Princess, Queen Empress Sophie of Spain.
Melody was still tempted to slap him.
The trouble was that if he had not been the complicated, conflicted brave man that he was, she could never have loved him. Unconsciously, she was playing with the gold band on her ring finger.
She was crying.
As she had always known she would, sooner not later, she had lost him and the worst of it was that in truth, he had never been hers. The three-in-a-marriage thing would never have worked and in hindsight, it had all just been for the titillation of the New England media. She would have resented being used but actually, the sex had been orgasmic, sublime and because she, and Alonso were over, past tense, the emotional accommodations which might have sustained the affair had been cut short before they corrupted, or corroded her feelings for Henrietta, and she for her.
But it hurt.
Like a knife twisting in her soul.
Her world was spinning out of control, again.
Soon, she was alone with Henrietta and little Pedro.
“Oh, God,” she groaned. “Tell me I didn’t behave badly in front of everybody,” she pleaded.
“You didn’t,” her friend comforted her. “That’s why I wanted everybody in the room. If we’d behaved badly, we’d never have forgiven ourselves.”
Melody looked to Henrietta.
“Why aren’t you even more cut up than I am about this?”
The younger woman smiled tight-lipped.
She patted her bump.
Pedro wormed his way onto Melody’s lap and she ruffled his hair. He was tired, on the verge of getting cranky, so she hugged him to her.
“I always knew he was everything all the other men I’ve ever known were not,” Henrietta said, a little sheepishly. “Not exactly mad, bad and dangerous to know. Just very different. If he comes back; he comes back. I’ll worry about that at the time.” She laughed, softly. “This time next year he could be unexcommunicated, or whatever happens when the Pope forgives you your sins, and then I’ll be a single woman again.” Her gaze settled on Pedro. “Whatever, we’ve got the little one, and another on the way. And some memories…”
“We certainly have some memories,” Melody agreed, suddenly unutterably tired.
“Goodness, can you believe that night in Chinchón was only eight months ago?” Henrietta posed rhetorically.
“Which one?” Melody asked.
“The one where we ended up running for our lives,” her friend retorted, knowing she was being gently teased. “Not the one when you seduced that dreadful man.”
“I’ll have you know that dreadful man seduced me,” Melody protested feebly, giggling.
Henrietta gave her a very old-fashioned look.
“Okay, I didn’t exactly put up a fight,” Melody conceded.
Henrietta heaved herself to her feet, kissed her friend on the head and headed for the bedroom door. They were too tired, too emotionally strung out. They needed to just sleep.
Picking up Pedro, Melody followed Henrietta’s footsteps into the bedroom where, a few minutes later, wrapping the blankets about themselves she and Henrietta enveloped the boy in their arms and slept. If it was not the sleep of the just; then it was the slumber of two women who knew that in the morning, the first day of their future together awaited them.
Chapter 30
Saturday 18th November
ARM Sinaloa, Gulf of Spain
Vice Admiral Count Carlos Federico Gravina y Vera Cruz, the Chief Minister, Commander-in-Chief of the Armada de Nuevo Granada, and High Admiral of the Fleets of the Triple Alliance, had always accepted that he had been handed a poisoned chalice. He had over a hundred ships under his command, over twice as many as his counterpart, Vice Admiral Sir Anthony Parkinson – several of whose surviving ships were badly damaged - and was burdened by the need to defend a large vulnerable, helpless convoy of over two dozen defenceless merchantmen but Gravina did not think, for a single minute, that he held any kind of advantage ahead of the coming battle.
