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“Mostly he blusters,” the lad replied. “When it starts to go beyond that, the people hereabouts band together against him. No need to worry, my lord.”
Worry was only a part of what Arthur was feeling. He was remarkably unsettled, he realized. Señora Alvarez had roused and interested and annoyed him. How long had it been since he’d felt such tumult? Longer than he could recall, he thought.
He ought to simply dismiss her from his mind. She’d clearly had no interest in him. Indeed, she’d seemed eager to get away. But he did not deserve her abrupt dismissal. That was what rankled, Arthur thought. He was a…worthy person.
His face heated as he acknowledged the pomposity of that phrase. Yet it was true. Many people thought so. And for some reason, he felt a strong urge to show Señora Alvarez that she’d misjudged him. After that demonstration he would probably never see her again. They obviously did not move in the same circles.
But how then to speak with her? He couldn’t call on her, a woman alone in a part of London where he didn’t fit. He would be noticed; eyebrows would be raised. He had no wish to cause her difficulties. A thought occurred. Perhaps Mrs. Thorpe knew the señora? His friend seemed to be acquainted with nearly everyone in the theater world, no matter how tangential. That was it. At the first opportunity, he would find out. Mrs. Thorpe could even vouch for his character to the señora, since he seemed to require such bolstering. His brain shied away from asking whyever this should be the case.
“My lord?” asked Tom. The lad had walked on a few steps and now turned back with a quizzical expression.
He’d been standing in the middle of the street like a moonstruck calf. “Coming,” said Arthur and hastened to catch up.
Two
Teresa Alvarez de Granada tipped a handful of olives that she’d walked a good distance to purchase from a Levantine vendor into a shallow dish, discarding the twist of oily paper that had held them. She picked out one, closed her eyes, and bit down. The taste brought back the sunshine of her youth, the scent of lemons, the whisper of vine leaves stirring on an ancient pergola. Gone forever, but still remembered. She chewed memories. If only the good ones could be separated from the bad and kept like a casket of jewels to be taken out and admired at will.
Teresa spit out the olive pit and put it on the edge of the dish. Her eating habits were strange to many of the English. She didn’t much care for meat, certainly not the thick, bloody slabs of beef they enjoyed. A perfectly roasted chicken now and then perhaps. And she was fond of vegetables, both raw and cooked, which many of her new countrymen disdained as fodder for animals. Fortunately, she could make her own choices in this regard, as in all others now,gracias a Dios.
She looked around the front room of her tiny house. Her refuge was comprised of one fair-sized chamber downstairs with an extension behind for the kitchen and a place for her maidservant. A respectable woman couldn’t live all alone, here or anywhere. And she had become a respectable woman. Who would want to be solitaryen verdad? She was no medieval hermit.
A little walled yard at the back contained the privy and a coal bin. She hoped to take up some of the cobbles in one corner for a small garden eventually.
A single bedchamber upstairs had slanted ceilings under the roof, two dormer windows, and space for little more than a bed and a wardrobe. But she owned the place; that was the important thing. And it was in good repair. The furnishings were scant but adequate and might be augmented in time. She’d managed a bit of color in the parti-colored shawl laid over the back of the drab settee and one of her own watercolors hung over the small hearth. She gazed at the sun-drenched landscape in the picture. She’d had ranks of rooms to wander through as a girl, before war came roaring over her land. If she’d known life would come down to this, she might have savored that space more.
Her home was far from the fashionable haunts where people like the Earl of Macklin attended glittering parties, Teresa thought. The tall nobleman young Tom had introduced would not find her here. He would disappear back into the ranks of English society. She’d glided through such opulent festivities in her time, long ago. She’d also had a surfeit of pain and terror—days when she had no money for food, when she had to cower in ruins to evade marching armies. She’d done things she despised. But she refused to be ashamed. She’d survived, as others had not. A plain, quiet life was just what she wanted now. It was such a magnificent luxury—that no one could give her orders or make demands.
Teresa turned away from the bitter recollection of some of those and glimpsed a flash in the mirror hanging beside the front door. Her earrings had caught the light and flung it back. She shook her head to admire the effect in the glass. Tiny sprays of emeralds glinted from chains of delicate gold filigree suspended from her earlobes. She had designed this pair herself, as she often did, and had them made, taking jewels that evoked old bad memories and turning them into something of her own, something she could cherish. Her collection of earrings was both an indulgence and a way to easily transport wealth when one might have to pick up and run without warning. Too many times she’d been forced to do that.
Those years showed in her face, Teresa thought. There were faint lines now, hints of deeper wrinkles that would come with time. Her hair was still black as night. Her figure was good. Men had called her beautiful, and that had been as much a curse as a boon. What had this Macklin thought when he looked at her?
She turned away from the mirror, rejecting the question. Whatever he had thought, she didn’t need to consider it.Gracias a Diosonce again. An earl and his opinions and whims had no place in the frugal life she’d established for herself. No man did, she repeated to herself. That was over. She was safe. She had enough set aside to live on and could make her own choices. Did she propose to forget that this was far more than she’d hoped for in those dreadful years?Ciertamente no!There were no reasons, no grounds, for self-pity. Only gratitude.
“Eliza,” she called. “I am going to the workshop.” The Drury Lane Theater was preparing for a new play, and they wanted backdrops that showed a vista of mountains. Teresa, who was more than familiar with such scenes, had been engaged to paint them through the good offices of Mrs. Thorpe.
The meeting with that gracious lady had been a true piece of luck. One did not expect to encounter such a presence in this part of London, or find that she was a friend of young Tom.
The maid appeared in the kitchen archway. Teresa had hired a sturdy, taciturn young woman to help her. Eliza offered few words but a solid presence, which came in handy when Teresa went beyond her own neighborhood. She could walk by herself in certain areas. She knew them and didn’t stray into places where she might find trouble. If she had to roam farther, she took Eliza along, as well as a parasol with a stone knob well able to double as a club. Teresa’s demonstration of this function a few months ago had elicited one of the maid’s rare smiles.
“I’ll be back in the afternoon,” Teresa added. Eliza nodded and returned to the kitchen. Teresa put on her bonnet and gloves and set off.
The theater’s busy workshop was nearby. She heard the pounding of hammers before she entered the large open warehouse where carpenters constructed the flats that created the illusion of landscapes on the stage. The smell of paint enveloped her as she went inside. In one corner, artisans produced the smaller objects needed for the drama, such as bottles that broke over heads without injury. Seamstresses worked in a room at the back, though most actors wore their own clothes in the plays.
Workers called out greetings, and Teresa acknowledged them on her way to her area, where a partly painted scene waited. This shop was separate from the hectic world of the stage, and a different kind of camaraderie reigned here, that of craftsmen proud of their skills. There was some rivalry, but not the inflated self-regard and indulgences of temperament Teresa had seen in the casts now and then. Not all actors were as serenely confident as her new acquaintance Mrs. Thorpe.
Tom waved a hammer from the other side of the space. Teresa waved back as she removed her bonnet, gloves, and shawl and set them aside. She tied a long apron over her gown, which had short sleeves so as not to trail in the paint. She went to the table at the side where her brushes had been left clean and ready, opened paint pots, and set to work.
She had loved painting from her earliest years, and her favorite subject was sweeping scenes—mountains, castles, gardens, wide lawns or fertile fields, even opulent rooms. Animals too—herds of sheep or cattle, foxes peeking from the undergrowth, a dog or cat sitting to the side. The vistas sometimes included human figures in the distance as well, which was no problem. But Teresa didn’t do portraits. This was less from a lack of ability than a distaste for the process of reproducing human faces. One had to gaze so deeply into near strangers. And who knew which could be trusted? Or what incorrect message they might read into her gaze? She went back to the crag she’d begun sketching out the last time and immersed herself in the work. As usual, it occupied all her attention.
The theater provided bread and cheese and ale from a local inn around midday, which the workers supplemented with their own food. Most chose to eat in an oblong space behind the building, too rustic to be called a courtyard. It was rather a bit of ground left vacant when four buildings were constructed around it, a forgotten scrap of weedy grass. But the enclosure held the sun’s heat, and on an early spring day it was a pleasant place to sit. The artisans had painted country vistas on the blank walls, and someone had planted flowers and climbing vines. A motley collection of tables and chairs were scattered about.
Tom joined Teresa for the informal nuncheon, as he often did, and she was glad. She couldn’t remember when she’d met anyone easier to be friends with. He was so generally cheerful and interested in nearly any topic one could name. Surprisingly informed sometimes as well, considering the unfortunate life history he’d confided. Teresa sipped at the ale, preferring it to the thin, sour wine that could also be obtained. She knew where to procure good Spanish vintages when she wished to indulge, which was very seldom. She despised drunkenness and the disasters that came with it.
“This new play’s got camels in it,” Tom said.
“Does it?”
“A caravan from the mysterious East,” he intoned. Tom read all the plays they worked on, and he often had comments about the stories. “You ever seen a camel?”
