Lola Montez Conquers the Spaniards by Kit Brennan Page B

injury or accusation was in sheer dumbfoundedness at your yapping, arrogant tenacity.
    I was hurtling along on the upper floor now, going fast to keep pace with my thoughts: How could I use this information? For a brief and dangerous moment, I imagined myself blurting—but no, heavens not. Who knew when I might need to barter with such powerful secret knowledge?
    Then bam! A face-first crash into the piratical bodyguard’s rock-hard chest, bruising myself on what I realized must be a concealed, but very large, weapon.
    â€œSssss!” It was like the sound of a surprised snake, and his sinewy right hand shot out, grasped my waist, and hoisted me into the air. “ ¡Atento! ” He glared at me with his one good eye, the glass eye focused elsewhere. This was only the second time I’d heard the man’s voice—the first was in the shooting gallery that very first day, after the bullet had thumped into the back wall. Then it had been a stream of excitable Spanish before Juan had sworn at him and whisked me away. But there, in the rue de Courcelles mansion, the rumble from the man’s throat was like a close and violent thunderstorm. And how could his one hand almost encircle my waist? I held my rampant fear in check long enough to gasp, “Let me down, oaf!”
    A grunt. I dropped—and ran.
    I encountered another staircase and took it down. There, I discovered myself to be outside the very room Cristina and Juan still occupied. Should I seek protection from them? But wait, what were these two up to?
    â€œHe was like a son,” Grimaldi was sighing.
    â€œWe will make them pay, Juan; it is almost within our grasp. They shall eat their own livers.” She squeezed his fingers. “Do not become attached to this one, I pray you.”
    â€œShe is a woman,” he replied. “It is not the same.”
    I backed away again. They were discussing me as if I were a bullock or prize pig heading to market, of use only as the means to an end. Of course I’d guessed that’s what I was to them; I’d have been a fool to think otherwise. But it is very different to think something that you suspect than to hear it, out loud and in the open. My ears were in danger, and my little daughter’s as well. Heavily armed bodyguards skulking in hallways, nameless glass-eyed desperadoes providing henchman services for Juan. And this royal beauty never called me by my name, only my function: “little spy,” “pretty agent.” She distanced on purpose; she’d been born to it. I was expendable. How could I fight for them, I wondered, if I was constantly checking my back in case my comrades were about to do me in? I must be terribly careful—for Emma’s sake as well as my own.

    All the way home in the carriage, Concepción berated Grimaldi at fever pitch in such hasty, dialect-driven Spanish that I was hard-pressed to follow. I understood enough to know she was furious over Cristina’s command that I be given a new wardrobe at their expense. They were also concerned that this dressmaking order would delay matters and that the Jesuit would be chagrined—“The father is a diligent, impatient, and holy man”—to which she added, “The rehearsals in Madrid will have to be put back by a week.” At this, Juan reminded her that Day Smakiña (that odd character of mine) could be learned in one’s sleep “so long as one possesses a stomach of iron.” Oh, I trusted them not a jot, not any of them, including the one-eyed pirate with the long, strong hands, now riding with the driver. As soon as we’d returned to the Grimaldi home, I excused myself and tumbled into bed, curled up, and shivered profoundly. I longed to get away to Spain, the sooner the better, though the prospect of travelling under the eagle eye of that priest with the hollow cheekswas also unappealing. What would happen if I gave them all the slip, I wondered,