say this out loud, aren’t you?” Anthony’s voice quivered, and his stomach roiled, but Fitzwilliam continued to glare, his fury barely under control. He finally had enough.
“Answer me, damn you!!”
Anthony leaned forward, all the color drained from his face. “Please understand, Colonel, that what I tell you now could have me imprisoned or worse.”
Startled, Fitzwilliam eyed him suspiciously. “What is going on here, Milagros?” He had not anticipated this line of argument.
Anthony angrily began muttering something in Spanish about Amanda, his hands poking wildly at certain emphatic declarations, then mopped at perspiration running down the back of his neck.
Fitzwilliam was listening intently, trying to grasp a word from the too-rapid Spanish, when he suddenly heard a sneeze from the hallway. He stiffened and spun toward the closed door. “Is she here?” He spoke low, but his mouth had set into a cruel, clenched line.
Anthony’s head shot up quickly as he too turned toward the hallway. Alarmed and tense, he began to rise.
“Colonel, listen to me! You are under the impression, I believe, that you and I are in some sort of competition for the affections of Amanda, are you not?” Fitzwilliam said nothing but continued to glower. “
Fitzwilliam heard a muffled male voice spit out the words “bloody hell” from the corridor, followed by running footsteps, then a door slamming. Anthony groaned and started toward the doorway. “Edmund, wait!” he called just before another door somewhere deep in the house slammed shut. Within moments, a carriage raced from the back of the house and onto the street.
Fitzwilliam and Anthony stared at the closed door for several minutes, then both turned to watch through the French doors as the carriage careened wildly down the driveway. Anthony dropped into the chair, his head falling backward onto the headrest.
Fitzwilliam’s eyes were huge as saucers as he turned slowly in stunned silence. “Beg pardon?” he managed finally to say.
Anthony’s second nightly delight after his warmed brandy—the superb meal that his chef had prepared with such care—was quickly relegated to the trash. It was now near midnight, and the two men sat silently before the fireplace, each wallowing in his own lovelorn misery. Emptied bottles of wine were scattered amidst the tobacco pouches and cheroot ashes.
“Why doesn’t she want me, Milagros?” Fitzwilliam was slumped far down in his chair, his shirt disheveled and his cravat loose around his neck. He tried to rub the burning from his red-rimmed eyes. “Bah! That’s an unfair question. I am certain this is as much a mystery to you as it is to me, because, obviously, I’m a perfectly pleasant fellow. The ladies adore me, usually.”
“What?” Milagros turned a bleary eye to his companion. The poor doctor did not look like the same fine fellow who had begun the evening with such anticipation. Liquor had dimmed his glamorous eyes, his cravat was now askew, his hair a bit tousled, and he sat loose-limbed, his shirtsleeves unlinked and turned back. Already a heavy, dark beard was beginning to appear on his face. All in all, it was the most slovenly Dr. Milagros had looked in nearly four years. He had been staring intently at the end of his cigarillo, turning the burning cylinder slowly between his fingers. “What are you blathering about now?”
“My God, what a pathetic pair we make.” Fitzwilliam shook an empty bottle, then another, finally finding one half full. Anthony automatically held out his glass. “Listen, Jose, I want you to know that your secret is safe with me. I apologize to you for forcing the issue, pushing you to tell me the truth. Shouldn’t have pushed, should have minded my own business. But then I would have needed to kill you. However, I imagine I did you a favor, actually. It felt good to admit everything out loud, what? A load off, as they say.”
After slanting him an evil look, Milagros flicked his ashes at him. “No, Dickie, it did not feel good. It felt like shit, which is how I now feel. But that is fine. I imagine that I will survive this, no thanks to you.”
“No one will learn of your deep, dark secret from my mouth. I swear on my brother’s life that I will go to my grave with this knowledge.” A slightly inebriated Fitzwilliam poised one finger before his mouth and emitted a soft “sshh.”
“Well, if you really feel so badly about this I would appreciate your doing exactly that as soon as possible— go to your grave, that is, Ricardo. It will save me years of anxiety.”
“Nonsense, Manuel. My lips are sealed. I have been trusted with worse secrets about many others, much, much worse, ghastly secrets, people you know well, famous people, people of the Empire. Remind me to regale you with them someday, always popular fare at parties. You will be astounded. It will curl your hair.”
Anthony groaned, and Fitzwilliam chuckled.
“Seriously, Anthony, I do apologize. Did you care for this person very much? I mean, will you be able to explain to him what happened?”
“That a bloodthirsty, murdering, bastard of a soldier knows our secret? Of course, I am certain he will be thrilled. No, what I will tell him will be some sort of lie, and he’ll believe me because he wants to believe me. He really is a good fellow, you know. I am certain that when he stops to logically consider this, he will find it highly unlikely that I would choose you over him, and he will come back to me.”
They stared at each other silently for a moment.
“I believe I have just been insulted.” Fitzwilliam puffed on his pipe, and they turned to study the fire again, continuing in companionable silence for a time.
Richard was the first to speak. “So, tell me, Carlos, why doesn’t Amanda want me? I can almost understand your rejection of me, but why hers?”
“No, no, no, my dear friend, you are not approaching this the right way. It is not you she is rejecting, although now that I know you better, it would be the path I would recommend.” Fitzwilliam grunted his protest. “No, no, she is restricted by the custody issue of her child, as I have explained to you at least three times by now.” Anthony stubbed out his cheroot and lit another. “Hearing is the second thing lost to old age, or so I am told,” he mumbled under his breath. Fitzwilliam scowled.
“Shall I tell you how I met her?”
“I really wish you would not.”
“Very well, then, I shall. I met her almost directly after her marriage to Augustus…”
“It’s very late. Will this take long?”
“Yes, it will. Be quiet, and maybe you will understand better. Open up that bottle of red substance, whatever it is, and listen. Now you will learn all.”
“I knew who Amanda was before even meeting her. As you might suspect, a part of my social life is centered among a rather select and discreet circle of the aristocracy.” Anthony held out his glass for Fitzwilliam to refill. “Amanda’s husband, Augustus, was a well-known, if not particularly well-regarded, figure at many of our social gatherings.”
The room became quiet as a tomb as Anthony allowed that particular revelation to settle. Fitzwilliam’s raised eyebrows were the only indication of his shock. Anthony nodded. “And, Richard, that is something which she must never know.
“He had been involved with another for many years, a devoted couple, as if married in every sense of the word; however, there could obviously never be an heir from their union. It was the incessant harassment from his mother that sent him to America in search of a wife, both mother and son feeling it too dangerous to choose from among the upper classes here and thereby risking exposure. Amanda’s father was physician to one of Penrod’s American relatives, and she would oftentimes accompany him. Augustus requested an introduction, courted her,
