Scandalous Brides: In Scandal in Venice\The Spanish Bride (45 page)

“Mama!” Isabella’s sudden scream made Esperanza whip her head back around. Her wide, startled gaze took in Carmen and the gun.

“Demon!” Esperanza whispered.

Then Isabella tugged hard on her arm, catching Esperanza by surprise. The soles of her shoes skidded on the stone floor, and she began to lose her balance. As Carmen watched, horrified, Esperanza fell backward, toward the windowsill, her hand still gripping Isabella.

“Papa, help!” Isabella screamed, her free hand flailing in midair as she was pulled toward the window, her bare feet dangling off the floor.

Carmen screamed as well, and rushed forward even though she knew she was much too far away to catch her in time. Her feet seemed made of lead.

Peter, though, was much closer to them. Sleek and swift as a tiger, he lunged at his daughter, and caught her small hand, pulling her back from the brink along with Esperanza.

The momentum of their weight sent him skidding backward, to land on his back with Isabella atop him. For a moment they both lay still.

Esperanza slumped on the floor near the window, sobbing.

“
Madre de Dios,”
Carmen whispered. She tossed aside the pistol and fell to her knees beside her family. She could not even feel the bite of the sharp stones through the thin satin of her gown as she watched them stir. Isabella, sobbing, fell into her mother’s arms.

“Sh, my darling,” Carmen murmured. “It is well now. You are safe.”

Across the room, Esperanza stirred, her shoulders shuddering as she took a deep, shivering breath. Carmen put Isabella into Peter’s arms and went to her, crouching down at her side.

“Esperanza,” she said very quietly. “Are you hurt?”

Esperanza began sobbing in earnest at the sound of her voice. Great tears fell from her wrinkled cheeks onto her dusty black skirts. She covered her face with her hands. “What have I done? What have I done?”

“Sh,” Carmen said, just as she had with Isabella. She drew Esperanza carefully into her arms, cradling her against her shoulder, as Esperanza had done so often for her when she was a child. “It is quite all right now. Everyone is safe.”

“No!” Esperanza lifted her head to stare frantically up at Carmen. Her twisted, thin hands clutched at Carmen’s hand. “I would never have hurt Isabella,
niña
, never! You must believe me.”

“I believe you. I know you would not want to hurt Isabella.”

“She is like my own child, just as you were.” Esperanza’s grip tightened. “Just as my Isabella was.”

“Yes. My mother loved you very much, Esperanza.”

“As I loved her! I did this for her.”

“For my mother?” Carmen still kept her voice soft and steady, despite her own bewilderment and sorrow.

“Before she went to the angels, she charged me to look after you. She said she feared you had a wild soul, that you would not live your life in a manner befitting your station. A manner the Blessed Mother would approve.” Esperanza’s head drooped against Carmen’s shoulder, and Carmen’s arms clasped closer about her. “I saw that her fears were correct when you came back to us so heavy with child, and so silent. You laid in bed all day, with your face turned to the wall, refusing to speak. You said nothing about the Englishman you claimed had been your husband. I thought your silence was shame at your disgrace.”

“It was not shame. It was grief.”

“I only wanted to save you, Carmencita!” Esperanza wailed. “Never harm you. You must believe me! You must!”

“I do believe you, Esperanza. Of course I believe you.”

“Do you, Carmencita? Truly?”

“I do.”

Then, as Esperanza subsided back into tears, Carmen became aware of other voices.

“Mama!” Isabella sobbed. She left Peter’s arms and crawled onto her mother’s lap, burying her face against her shoulder. She was shaking and scared, but seemed physically unharmed. “Why did Esperanza do that? Why? I was so scared!”

“My poor angel.” Carmen kissed the top of Isabella’s head and held her very, very tightly. “Esperanza is very ill. She did not know what she was doing or saying. But all is well now; Mama has you safe.”

Isabella clutched at her cloak. “Is Peter safe, too? Is he hurt?”

Carmen looked over at Peter, who had laid back down on the stones. He seemed rather stunned by his fall, but his eyes were open and focused as he watched them, his chest rising and falling steadily.

“I don’t think he’s hurt, dearest,” she said. “You see, he is getting up now.”

Isabella watched as Peter painfully climbed to his feet, leaning against the wall. “He said he was my papa.”

Carmen sighed. “Yes, darling. He is. But I shall explain it all to you tomorrow, when you are warm and rested.”

Isabella, however, seemed to require no explanations just at present. She just nodded and cuddled closer to her mother. Her eyelids were drooping in exhaustion.

Peter came to them then, wincing as he tried to put his weight on his left leg. “Carmen,” he murmured, “we should go.”

“Yes, of course. The others should be here any moment; perhaps they have brought horses for us. You should not walk on that leg.”

“I am quite all right. Here, let me have Isabella. You should see to Esperanza. I think that ...”

Whatever he was going to say was lost in a shout from below. “Peter!” Nicholas called. “What has happened? Are you all right? Is Isabella with you?”

Peter limped to the ruined window, a sleeping Isabella against his shoulder, and peered out. “Yes, and we are all well, if a bit shaken. I think I have sprained my ankle.”

“We’ll be up to help you!” Nicholas answered. “Don’t go anywhere!”

“Ha! This is no time for witticisms.” Then Peter turned to look at his Carmen and Esperanza, huddled on the stone floor.
“Are
you well, Carmen?”

It seemed such an insane thing to say at such a moment, but he could think of nothing else. What did one say after all the people one loves most have faced death and madness? No words could possibly articulate all the vast emotions roiling inside of him. Rage, battle exhilaration, relief, hope—love.

Above all, love.

“Oh, yes. No. I am not sure.” She laughed, a bit hysterically, then rose to her feet, holding Esperanza against her. Her old duenna was in a stupor now, murmuring in Spanish as she went with Carmen without a protest. “But we must go now. We must get help for Esperanza.”

Nicholas came up the tower steps then, his gaze darting sharply about the room, taking in the four weary, battle-scarred figures. He went to Carmen and took the weight of Esperanza from her arm.

“Señora,”
he murmured solicitously. “Please allow me to escort you someplace warm.”

Esperanza nodded vaguely and went with him without a murmur. It was painfully obvious that she was no longer at all aware of where she was. She had unburdened her heart, been granted forgiveness, and now she had retreated to someplace very far away.

Peter went to Carmen as she watched Esperanza leave with Nicholas. He wrapped his arms about her and their child, precious treasures, and tried to will warmth into them. “Do not worry now, my love. All will be well now. All will be well.”

Carmen sobbed against his shoulder.

Chapter Twenty

I
t was late afternoon of the next day by the time Peter managed to conclude his business. With Elizabeth’s help, he had seen Esperanza settled with a local woman, a former army nurse, in her cottage at Clifton. He had not had time to bathe or eat or sleep, but he went directly to Carmen’s room after he returned from the woman’s cottage.

She was asleep in her bed, Isabella curled against her, also deep in slumber. A dinner tray on a nearby table was mostly untouched; but Isabella sported smears of candy on her little chin and clean night-dress, so he knew they were not entirely unnourished.

Peter smiled at the lovely sight. He drew a chair to the bedside, very quietly so as not to wake them, and settled down to the very important job of watching them.

Dark purple marred the delicate skin beneath Carmen’s eyes, but she seemed a trifle less pale than she had last night. The tousled black curls that fell across her brow made her appear almost as young as her daughter.

But Peter felt himself to be positively ancient. He had lived a lifetime in one night, a life of such joy and terror and pain. He had spent so many years completely alone, trapped in a hell of guilt that had been of his own making. Then there had been a miracle. He had been given a family, the one love of his life and a beautiful child. He had experienced the most glorious feeling in life, the feeling of not being alone any longer, of knowing he would never be alone again.

He had watched his sister and her husband, had seen the life they were making together, and he had been envious. He had thought he could never find a love such as they had again; it was surely a onetime only gift, and his was gone. Then he had found Carmen again, and could see a future for them that was quite as rosy as the one awaiting Elizabeth and Nicholas. He could make love to his wife, not the mechanical physical release he had known with his mistresses, but to truly lose himself in her warmth, her love. He could play and laugh with his daughter, perhaps even hold new babies in his arms. More golden little girls and a dark-haired heir.

And he had almost lost all of that, all his fragile dreams, in one shattering second.

But here they were, safe and alive.

Peter reached for Carmen’s hand, the one wearing the wedding ring she had kept so faithfully all their years apart. He raised it to his lips.

“Oh, Lord,” he murmured. “I know I have been a wretched pagan. I only pray that I am worthy of all these gifts You have given me.”

And let our lives be peaceful and dull now, he added silently. At least for the next forty or fifty years.

Carmen stirred and blinked up at him. “Peter? Who are you talking to?”

“I am praying.”

“You?”

“Yes, love, me.”

“I do not think I have ever heard you pray before. Not even before a battle.”

“I do not think I ever have. Until now.”

“Why now?”

“I merely thought I should give thanks for the wonderful miracles bestowed on us. And I was humbly asking for a very dull life in our years to come; I have had quite a surfeit of adventure now.”

“Amen to that! Do you think He will grant your request?”

“Hm, at least until it is time to marry Isabella off. I have the sense that that will be no easy task.”

“No, indeed!” Carmen looked down fondly at her sleeping daughter. “Fortunately, we will not have to worry about it for many years yet.”

“But what if we have more? What if we have six daughters, and have to deal with six betrothals?”

“God forbid!” Carmen laughed. Then her gaze turned serious as she looked at him. “Oh, Peter. How could I have made such a dreadful mistake? How could I have left my child in the care of a mad-woman? We could all have been killed last night, all because I was so blind.”

“How could you have known? You knew Esperanza your whole life; you trusted her. Of course you could not have believed that of an old woman. No one would have.”

“I should have seen it!”

Peter slid onto the bed next to her, boots and all, and drew her and Isabella into the warm circle of his arms. Her hair was soft against his beard-roughened cheek, and she still smelled of jasmine even after their long night.

“My dear,” he said. “You are not culpable in this. Some people are not—not right in their minds, for whatever reason. Esperanza is one of them. I was one when I came home from Spain. I did some dreadful things. I could not see reality, just as Esperanza could not. Does that, then, make my sister at fault, for not seeing my illness and dispatching me directly to Bedlam?”

Carmen shook her head. “Certainly not!”

“No. Certainly not. It is the same for you. Isabella is safe. We are all here, together. So we can move into the future now, free of doubt and guilt.” For the first time in years, Peter himself knew that to be true.

The past was gone, and they were free.

Carmen nodded then, and turned her face up to his. There were tears in her dark eyes, sparkling like crystals, but they could not rival the brilliance of her smile.

Chapter Twenty-One

“C
armen? May I come in?”

Carmen smiled at her reflection in the dressing table mirror at the sound of her husband’s voice.

Her husband.
How her heart thrilled at those words, at knowing they were true at last, and not a mere futile wish.

“Come in!” she called. She rose to her feet, straightening the folds of her silver tissue gown.

“I was coming to see if you were quite prepared for this ridiculous tableau ...” His words trailed away, and he came to an abrupt halt inside the bedroom door at the sight of her. “Carmen. You look—entrancing.”

“Do you like it?” She twirled about, displaying the full effect of the gown, the laced sandals, the diamond bandeau in her hair. “I found it in Elizabeth’s trunk in the attic. She said it once belonged to your stepmother.”

“I am certain that Isobel, as lovely as she was, could never have looked half so beautiful in it.” He came to her and took her in his arms. His kiss was warm and lingering, a healing touch, a benediction, on all they had faced and overcome.

“If you continue like this,” Carmen murmured against his lips, “we will never make it to the tableaux.”

“Hang the tableaux,” he answered, and reached his hand toward her bodice.

She stepped back with a laugh. “Lizzie would be very vexed with us! And Isabella would be so disappointed. She is looking forward to showing you her Cupid costume.”

“Then, I suppose we must not miss it,” he sighed. “I do look forward to seeing our daughter attired as Cupid. She is very likely darling in it.”

“Yes, she is. And, speaking of costumes, is that cloak you are muffled in yours?”

“Er, no. But I think I may keep it on.”

“Oh, no! That, sir, is not allowed. You must let me see your costume. You have seen mine.”

“Very well. But first close your eyes.”