Masquerade Read Online Free PDF Page A

kind of foreboding that froze him to the bone. ‘What are we talking about here?’
    Marujita opened the locket. Inside were miniatures of a man and a woman.
    ‘Don Salvador and the high and mighty Doña Alexandra de Rueda,’ the gitana enunciated triumphantly. ‘Can’t you see? They are that chit’s parents,’ she snorted. ‘My lifelong enemies: the whore who stole Don Salvador from me, and the man himself, who not only rejected my love but threw me in prison and was the cause of my eldest brother’s death.’
    Leandro paused as the meaning of her words sunk in. An icy heaviness took hold. ‘ Mamacita , all this happened such a long time ago. Can’t you forgive and forget?’
    A sudden flush burned her cheeks. She rose to her feet, her finger stabbing at the air, sending her bracelets ringing again like a warning. ‘Don’t you dare speak like a gajo and forget you’re a gypsy. You are Marujita’s son!’ Her mien had altered with the speed of a chameleon changing its colour. The gitana ’s eyes shone wildly and her features contracted in an ugly spasm, a look that had caused her to be branded Il Diabólica , the evil one, by some. ‘Gypsies never forget a bad deed, you know that. The evil actions of our enemies must be returned upon them or their children, it’s our law,’ she rasped, holding the locket up to him again as if the two faces containedwithin it were already her grisly war trophies. ‘La venganza de Calés is not something to be bargained with. Fate has put that girl in your way for a reason.’
    ‘Perhaps.’ Leandro stared at Marujita. Even though he had often seen the darker side of her, she was scarcely recognizable to him at this moment. He had never anticipated that he would be placing Luz in danger by bringing her there. The story of Don Salvador and his wife from England was well known to him; his mother had bitterly reminded him often enough how it had affected their lives. And now he had unwittingly brought the daughter of Marujita’s sworn enemies straight to the gitana . The look in his mother’s eyes was clear and chilled his blood. So he was to be the instrument of her revenge.
    Leandro paused, watching her. ‘Why me?’
    Her laugh was bitter, more like a sneer. ‘Why me , he asks! Remember that because of them, you saw your first light of day in prison and, for that reason only, you were torn away from me. My baby son, wrenched from my arms. Even though you were only days’ old, you clung to me. I can still hear you crying as I watched you through the bars of my cell, disappearing down the long dark corridor of that prison.’
    There was pain as well as anger now in her dark irises and it caught at the strings of Leandro’s heart.
    ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked quietly. He knew her well enough to dread the answer.
    The gitana moved over to him, her eyes shining coldly as she smiled up at her son. ‘You are a handsome young man,’ she whispered, brushing his cheek with her tapering fingers. ‘It is a known fact that gajo women go mad for Caló men. It would not be difficult to seduce her and if you get her with child, even better. Let’s see how her stuck-up family likes that!’ She paused to take a breath, which set off a fit of coughing. Leandro was in the process of turning away but she held up a hand. ‘Then … then, you will toss her aside as her father did me.’
    Marujita stepped back and flicked up her fingers, sending her bracelets jangling roughly. ‘She will be used goods. No honourable Spanish man will marry her after that. La honra in those aristocratic circles obeys rules just as fierce as ours. It will ruin her life and her parents will shed tears of blood, as I have. And trust me, their punishment will be nothing compared with the pain they caused me, your mother!’
    Leandro stepped back from her. ‘What you’re demanding of me is an evil thing. Do you really want your son to be a part of this?’
    Glaring at him, she lifted her chin