Spanish Serenade Read Free

reluctant to give his permission.
    It had not been easy to maintain that air of drooping defeat while her heart corroded inside her with bitter rage, but Pilar had managed it. Her reward had been permission to go to Father Domingo's church for morning mass each day until her departure. There she had accosted the priest, pouring out her tale. The good father had only sighed and shook his head, counseling obedience and submission to her fate. Don Esteban could not be so black as she painted him; hadn't the grieving husband pledged himself to erect a stained-glass window in the church in memory of his wife? The ways of God were mysterious. Perhaps Pilar was meant to be a bride of Christ and this was His way of telling her so?
    Pilar had no vocation, and she knew it well. She was much too fond of the pleasures and luxuries of the world, had missed them too intensely during her incarceration to ever give them up willingly. There was no thought of submission in her mind, but rather a teeming multitude of plans for vengeance and wild possibilities for escape.
    One of the last had been triggered by the sight of a young man named Vicente de Carranza y Leon. He was a theology student at the university who in better days had lived in the neighborhood and still returned there every morning for mass. Vicente was a stalwart young man with a kind and attractive face, but one who seldom smiled. He had little to smile about. His family had been ruined by Don Esteban Iturbide some years before, shortly after the don's marriage to Pilar's mother.
    The Carranzas and the Iturbides were hereditary enemies in a feud that had been going on for four generations. Don Esteban, it was said, had hired assassins to kill Vicente's father. More, Don Esteban's son, the young man who was to have wed Pilar, had abducted and violated Vicente's sister, after which the girl had committed suicide. When Vicente's older brother, Refugio, had challenged Don Esteban's son to a duel for the crime against their sister, then spitted him on his sword during the fight, Don Esteban had used his recently gained court connections to have Refugio charged with murder. Refugio's refusal to surrender to the men sent with the guardia civil by Don Esteban for his arrest had resulted in a fight: in which three of Don Esteban's hirelings were killed. Refugio had become an outcast, a brigand with a stronghold in the mountains who was called El Leon, the lion, after the big and deadly wildcats that roamed the hills, and also for his mother's surname, which meant the same. The hatred of Refugio de Carranza y Leon for Don Esteban at least equaled Pilar's own.
    The next time Pilar saw Vicente standing outside the church, she walked quickly toward him. She outdistanced the duenna who hurried after her through the early morning crowds. As Pilar neared Vicente de Carranza, she looked into his thin, earnest face then let her shawl slip from her shoulders and slide to the ground. Vicente knelt to pick it up. She did the same. She murmured a few words as she took the shawl he offered. He gave her a sharp look from dark, expressive eyes before he inclined his head in a bow, but the young man made no answer. Pilar turned away as her duenna joined her, and walked into the church.
    Had Vicente understood her? There had been so little time and no chance to be certain. Did he know who she was, know anything about her? Or if he did not know, would he trouble to find out? If he found out, would he do as she asked, or would he shrug off the incident as being of no importance? So much depended on that one short encounter.
    Of course, even supposing Vicente passed on her plea to his brother to meet her in the garden of Don Esteban's house in the midnight hours, there was no guarantee that El Leon would come. It would take a rare combination of hatred, curiosity, and daring to bring him.
    The hours of darkness were slipping past. Pilar's footsteps dragged. She was weary from her three-night vigil, yes, but