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‘Tell me about your family,’ she asked him one day when they were working together in the garden. ‘Do you miss them?’
‘Yes, senhora, I do.’
‘Tell me about them.’
‘I have a father and mother and two sisters and a cousin who lives with us. She is married to an Englishman.’
‘The officer who brought you to England?’
‘No. This man is not an officer. He calls himself a gentleman, but he is no gentleman. He treated Juanita cruelly and when she confronted him about his gambling and his mistresses he beat her so badly she nearly died. I found her and took her home to my parents. When we went looking for him we discovered he had gone back to England, taking her fortune with him. Is it any wonder we want vengeance?’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Oh, yes, I know where he is. It will not be long now.’
‘What do you mean to do?’
‘I have not made up my mind. I might put a sword through his evil heart, or I might shoot him, but I have to have the money first.’
‘You must not take the law into your own hands, Mr Estaban,’ she said, thoroughly alarmed. ‘Tell the authorities. Have him tried.’
‘And do you think they will believe me? They will say the man has a right to beat his wife and abscond with her money and jewels. Perhaps he will have an accident. Or perhaps I will challenge him to a duel.’
‘Oh, no,’ she exclaimed. ‘Duels are illegal in this country and you could be killed. Your life is much too valuable to be thrown away like that. Tell Lord Wyndham your story. I am sure he will see justice done.’
He smiled slowly. ‘No, senhora, I must do what I must do. Now I go and put these brambles on the bonfire.’
She watched him as he piled up the bonfire, took a tinder box from his coat pocket and set light to the heap. Some of it had been lying there for weeks and was dry and brittle. There was soon a good blaze going. She turned to go back to the house, wondering what to do for the best. She ought to try to stop him from doing whatever it was he had in mind. One or other of them would be wounded, if not killed, and though she had no sympathy for the Englishman, whoever he was, she could not stand by and let him be killed. Was this emergency enough to send for Mark? But Paolo had so far done nothing wrong and might even deny his conversation with her. She would just have to watch him and try to persuade him not to do anything rash.
She looked up to see Mrs Butler coming towards her. ‘You have a visitor, Miss Cavenhurst. I left him in your parlour pacing about like a caged animal.’
‘Did he say his name?’
‘No. But I’ve seen him about Hadlea village a time or two.’
It could not be Mark, Mrs Butler knew Mark, nor her father, for he would not have withheld his name. There was Mark’s friend, Jonathan Smythe, but what would he want with her? Had something happened to Mark? She hurried indoors.
Chapter Thirteen
The last person she expected to see was Lord Bolsover, but that was who confronted her when she made her way to the parlour. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘That is hardly a civil greeting.’ He looked a little dishevelled, as if he had dressed in a hurry. His hair was not as carefully combed as it usually was and his cravat was askew.
‘I am very busy,’ she said. ‘Please state your business and be on your way.’
‘My business is with you.’
‘You have no business with me until after my sister’s wedding, and not then if I could think of a way out of it without ruining my family.’
‘I am not disposed to wait that long. I must marry and the sooner the better if I am to please my mother. Pleasing my mother is paramount, you see. I do not think we can have the nuptials at Hadlea church, the reverend there is bound to want to call banns or have the bishop’s blessing and we don’t want all that nonsense delaying us, do we? A simple statement and a consummation will suffice.’
‘If you think I will behave in that disgraceful manner, you may think again, my lord. You must wait until my sister is married. I made an undertaking to give you an answer then. Now, please go.’
‘The trouble is,’ he said, making no move to do as she asked, ‘I do not think Lord Wyndham will marry your sister after all, which is a pity. It means I have had to change my plans.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think Miss Isabel has other ideas. I fear she is about to elope with Mr Ashton.’
