Vendetta in Spain

trouble for him later.'

For a moment de Richleau was silent, then he said slowly, 'Yes, you are Jose's widow.'

She did not smile, but came abruptly to her feet. 'Yes. I am no longer Jose's wife. I am his widow. That makes a difference, doesn't it?'

At the same moment the Duke stood up. His grey eyes were shining as he exclaimed, 'By God it does!' Next second she was weeping in his arms.

Holding her close, he murmured, 'Don't cry, my love, don't cry. Naturally it has been a great shock to you, but. . .'

'It's not that,' she sobbed. 'Not his death, although ... although I hate the thought that it was . . . such a horrid one. I . . . I'm crying from happiness. Oh Armand, you can have no idea how much I love you.'

'And I you.' Turning up her face to his he kissed her tenderly on the lips. She threw an arm round his neck and pressed her mouth to his, so that the caress became fierce, passionate, long, breathless.

As their lips at last parted, he whispered, 'When, darling? When?'

'Tonight,' she whispered back. 'Out of respect for Jose I decided not to see you until this evening; but the past three days have seemed like a week.'

'Oh blessed night! How I wish I could hurry the sun in going down! But wait!' His glowing face suddenly became clouded by a frown. 'It is nearly half past five already. To return to my hotel, pack all my things and return here could not be done in less than two hours. For me to arrive out of the blue and move in just before dinner is going to look very strange to Maria Alfonsine. That is, unless you have already told her that you have invited me to stay here, and we think up some plausible excuse for my arriving at such a late hour.'

Gulia shook her head. 'I've had a lot of time to think about us over the week-end, and I decided that it would be wiser if you did not come to stay. We're going to be so happy, darling; so happy. We'd never be able to conceal it if we were together all day as well as at night. Remember, no one else here knows that I am a widow and now free to do as I like. And although Maria Alfonsine is so straight-laced, I'd hate to hurt her by giving her grounds to suspect that I was being unfaithful to Jose in his absence.'

'How shall we manage then? I could take rooms for us under a false name in some small hotel, and come out here about midnight in a carriage to fetch you.'

'No, that would be much too risky. I'm so well known in San Sebastian that any servant at an hotel might recognize me.'

'Could you creep down, then, when everyone is asleep, and let me in?'

Again she shook her head. 'That's no good either. Going to and fro from my room would mean passing that of Maria Alfonsine and I know she sleeps lightly. The boards in the corridor creak and she would be certain to hear us. We might get away with it for one night but not as a regular thing.'

'But, beloved; you said tonight, and . .

'And I mean it,' she gave a low laugh. 'As I told you, I've had lots of time to think everything out. Kiss me again, then I'll show you how we'll manage.'

After a long embrace she tidied her hair in a mirror, then led him out of the house and round to the back of the stables. Backing on to one corner of them was a large shed. As she opened its door he saw that it housed all the garden implements and on hooks along one wall there was a twelve-foot ladder. Pointing to it she said:

'All you have to do is to carry that fifty yards and set it up beneath my window. Do you remember which it is? I leant out of it that night you fought with Sanchez in the lily pool, half-crazy with fear that he had done you some serious injury.'

He smiled. 'Shall I ever forget. It's the big bay window on the left-hand side of the porch. And your plan, dearest, could not be better. At what hour am I permitted to enter Paradise?'

'I was going to the Floridablanca's party, but I've sent an excuse, and we have no one dining; so we shall go up to bed at about half past eleven. It would be best to give them an hour to settle down. To be on the safe side, say between a quarter to one and one. In order to catch you alone when you arrived I told the others that I was going indoors to write a letter. But we must join them now and pretend that we are not the happiest people in the world.'

When they reached the fountain, round which were sitting the three older ladies and two friends of the Infanta's who had been invited in for drinks, they found it far from easy to conceal their elation; and de Richleau was much relieved when he had been there long enough to take his leave without rudeness, so that he might give an undivided mind to joyful anticipation of the night to come.

Those joyful imaginings were, if possible, surpassed by the reality. De Richleau was very far from being an habitual lecher, but in everything that gave him pleasure he took pride in perfecting himself, and as an expert in the art of love he found Gulia sufficiently experienced to bring out the best in him. As a woman she was just entering her best years, as a man he had not yet left his best years behind. They were as physically perfect as two thoroughbred racehorses, and they were at last able to give free rein to their pent-up passion for one another.

At half past five in the morning, after the Duke had climbed down from her window and put away the ladder, he walked the three miles back into San Sebastian as though he were treading on air. Gulia, meanwhile, lay dozing in her big bed, her lips pressed to a handkerchief that she had exchanged with him for one of hers. She drifted off to sleep, the desperate craving she had had so long for him at last blissfully satisfied.

Right through August and well into September their delight in one another continued unabated.

Gulia's bedroom was far enough away from any other that was occupied for there to be no necessity for them to talk in whispers, and they could romp together both there and in her bathroom without any risk of being heard. Of all pastimes, too, making love is best guaranteed to beget good thirsts and hearty appetites; so from their second night together onward De Richleau brought with him bottles of champagne, fruit, caviare or foie gras and a variety of other easily portable delicacies, for which Gulia smuggled up to her room glasses and plates that she concealed during the daytime under her winter underclothes in a drawer. Over these midnight feasts they laughed, joked and teased one another with the zest of happy children until some chance word caused them suddenly to fall silent, exchange a smile of mutual understanding, and stretch out their arms to hold one another close again.

After their second night together it occurred to de Richleau that it was a stupid waste of time and effort for him to walk out to the villa each night and back from it to his hotel in the dawn;

so the next day he went off to a livery stable and hired a horse, arranging for it to be saddled and left ready for him to collect from the night watchman round about midnight. Having ridden out on it he hobbled it in the orchard that lay beyond the garden of the villa, then returned it to the livery stable in the morning. He did not doubt that the people at the livery stable had a shrewd idea of the reason for his taking these night-long rides, yet returning his mount still fresh; but they could not know the place to which he went and, as far as he and Gulia could judge, no one living in the villa had the least suspicion of their clandestine meetings.

Yet no affaire ever stands still, and while on neither side was there the least sign of their passion cooling, there soon appeared a subtle change in their relationship to those about them. For the first few days, still having in the forefront of their minds the reason why Gulia had decided against having her lover to live in the house, they maintained an exemplary discretion. But before a week was out they found that it was not enough to spend five or six hours together each night then, perhaps, to see one another only for a morning bathe during the daytime and, if either of them went to an evening party without the other, to have to cut down the time they could give to their secret revels during the hours of darkness.

In consequence, almost imperceptibly they became indifferent to opinion. Both began to refuse invitations to parties to which the other was not invited. If they were not lunching out at the same place it became accepted that de Richleau should stay on after the morning swim and lunch at the villa. As well as bathing from its beach every morning he came out to swim with Gulia again every evening. They could not see enough of one another; they became almost inseparable.

From time to time the Duke was troubled by the thought that their being so constantly together must be giving rise to scandal. That the Infanta was showing her disapproval by an increasing coldness towards him he found distressing because he liked de Venddme's kindly if somewhat domineering mother; yet he did not greatly mind because he knew that in a few weeks' time she would learn of de Cordoba's death, and when told that Gulia had known of it from early in August would realize that she could not be so greatly blamed for permitting such marked attentions from a gallant. But that Gulia should become talked about among her acquaintances he minded very much, and now and then he endeavoured to persuade her that in the daytime they ought not to be seen about