Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume Read Free

Porris y Montez, Spanish danseuse. A début in London, at Her Majesty’s Theatre! It was my pledge, to handsome, beloved Diego… At this, a hitch of the heart brought the sudden and dreadful realization: St. Valentine’s Day… Just one year ago today. We’d spent my birthday in the stable, making love all night long, my horse blowing gusts of hay-sweet breath upon us…
    Don’t. ¡Imbécil! Mujer estúpida, don’t torture yourself. I pinched myself sharply on the thigh, blinking hard. But, oh God, is it true? Have I lost my nerve? Shivering, I stared out at the ice-pelleted snow, now hurling itself against the sleigh’s window in staccato volleys.
    In London, following the début, further calamity had struck, and I’d needed to get as far away as I possibly could. I accepted an invitation—an escape route, and the first one to hand—to travel to the continent with bumbling Saxon booby, Prince Heinrich the Seventy-Second: a brief visit to his wee fiefdom of Ebershoof-Clovenbum or whatever the hell it was. From there, I’d never stopped moving, all over Europe… Eight months of it now. And where was I going? Just following my nose. But why did I keep getting into so much trouble? In the various cities I’d passed through chaotically, I’d danced a few times, but never seemed to hit the mark. I’d tried different theatres, but kept being “released” from my engagements. Barbarians, I’d told myself—but maybe they sensed…?
    Ignoring the icy rat-a-tat-tats against the window, I sat up very straight and took a deep breath. Time to pep up now, dammit, I thought, so never mind all that. Paris is my target. La Ville Lumière calls like a beacon, for its beauty and its liberal attitudes. I need to perfect my repertoire first, and perhaps my techniques: I just require a tad more dancing finesse. Then, back it came, like an unwelcome belch: but how will you acquire it, stupid, if the conceited apes in charge of things keep firing you and throwing you out?
    We were barrelling along. The sky was darkening, becoming dusk. Just at that moment, my eyes registered the snowy landscape beyond the glass and I saw—not twenty yards off—a frozen river, upon which a large, grey wolf with its hackles raised was moving towards a terrified deer, downed upon the ice. The deer, in fleeing from its predator, must have slipped. Its delicate front legs had splayed beneath it, almost certainly breaking them. It waited, immobile, propped on its chest. The wolf was circling slowly, fangs revealed. Languidly, with an almost obscene pleasure, it seemed to be weighing the merits of the final approach. As we galloped past, the last thing I saw was the deer, its innocent muzzle resting on the ice, being savagely ripped apart from the haunches up. Other grey shadows were loping out of the trees to join their brother in the feasting and the live dismemberment. Our horses, obviously aware of the feral scene, took off wildly, charging down the road, sleigh lurching and passengers crying out in sudden consternation. I could hear shouts from the driver as he struggled to bring the horses back under control. Nauseated by the sight, I touched my fingers to the front of my waistband, feeling for the closed flick knife I carry embedded there. It is four inches of very thin blade, like a stiletto, sharp as a razor, folded into itself. Yes, pistols are fabulous, but can be unreliable in the heat of the moment (as I’d learned to my cost in Spain): I never go anywhere now without the cold reassurance of that little switchblade. Not that such a small knife could have stopped a hungry wolf, I thought, gulping—how could it? I could hardly breathe.
    Oh God. The unbearable fear that I had been pushing down and out of sight with all of my strength had just loped out into the open and bared its fangs for me to face.
    That big wolf, now filling itself with live meat, was the animal double of the human predator who’d stalked and very nearly devoured me.