"Well, that could've gone better," Sharon said to Ruy after seeing Frank and Giovanna out.
"Frank is not so young a man as he once was, Sharon," Ruy said, in that rumbling he-man voice he put on when he thought she wasn't being too smart.
"I know, I know." She sighed. "And if I was to be honest I'd say I pretty much expected him not to buy it. He was pretty okay about it otherwise, though." Actually, Frank had doubled up laughing when Sharon had told him what Barberini had said. At first, anyway. And then he'd pointed out that even if Barberini was serious, he knew from his own sources that the Inquisition was a power in its own right and while the pope could restrain them for a time, they were waiting for an opportunity. And since he'd already made himself a pain in the ass by regularly denouncing the fake propaganda—Sharon had chuckled herself when Frank described the reaction of the junior priests there whenever he walked through the door—he wasn't going to put himself where the pope couldn't save him, not for anybody. And if these people really were plotting against the pope, where was the pope's guarantee if he lost?
Frank was quite happy to just keep his toehold in Rome and make sure there was a core of support that would discount the bullshit that was going around. They had a soccer league going, running more or less without their help, and numbers had picked up a bit at the club he was running. Soon enough, he'd said, he'd have a press of his own and he sure as shit wasn't going to use it to put himself or anyone from his organization in jail. And if he had to bug out if the pope lost, he'd do it, too. They could always come back when the heat died down.
And Sharon couldn't disagree with any of it. She wondered, idly, for a moment, how Barberini was going to react at the salon she'd been invited to in two weeks' time. Would he be disappointed, or relieved? She'd find out soon enough, of course. Enough daydreaming; she had an appointment, right after lunch.
"I shall go out and make more enquiries in the afternoon," Ruy was saying. "It may be that I can find out more of what Quevedo is doing. Two of his demonstrations in the last week have resulted in small riots. The militia grow heavy-handed, I fear. On which line of enquiry I shall be purchasing drinks for a sergeant of horse tomorrow, as I believe that the orders being given arise from more than the usual incompetence. Furthermore, there is the matter of the teams of recruiters he is now using to hire layabouts for—"
Sharon leaned in close and put a finger over his lips. "Not this afternoon, you're not, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz. Father Maratta and Signora Fontana will be here for a meeting. It's not going to be a big society wedding, but we are going to make a party of it and we ought to have the planning in hand before Tom and Rita and my dad arrive."
"Ah," Ruy said, when she let him speak. "Truly, my love, I cannot let you face such things alone. Never let it be said that Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz flinched from the horrors of matrimonial strategy. Far be it from me to take the coward's route of espionage and spycraft! I put aside all thoughts of going forth and risking mere death and disgrace! I shall face the dangers of floral arrangement! I shall brave the terrors of banquet menus! I shall—what?"
Sharon was going weak-kneed with laughter. He was funny enough, but the heroic posturing that went with it was too much. God, she thought, but I love this man. "Stop it," she snorted, "just stop, all right? It'll take an hour or so, and then you can go lurk in seedy bars and beat up on people—"
"It was only one man, and him a pimp," Ruy said, suddenly all affronted dignity, "hardly a person at all."
"Whatever," she said. "Just try not to make me have to come bail you out of somewhere, okay? Bad enough at the best of times, but my dad's going to arrive tomorrow or the day after, and that'd be all I need, him growling about what a no-good bum his daughter is marrying."
Ruy shrugged and smiled. "But Sharon, he would be right. Never let it be said that Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz is not honest, nor that he believes that confession is not good for the soul. I have broken every commandment save the first and the last. The first, because I am no sculptor, whatever my other talents. The last . . . ?" he let it trail off, and shrugged.
"Why not the last?" she asked, trying to remember what it was, and then realizing she'd given him the straight line.
He grabbed and squeezed. "Why covet my neighbor's ass?"
"Ruy!" she squealed, sounding like a schoolgirl to herself, and swatting his hand away. "Not here!"
She glared around at the staff who were in the main hallway, daring any of them to laugh. To their credit, none of them were. Although every last one had a big grin in evidence, even the normally straitlaced Adolf. Oh, well, fair was fair. They were all looking forward to the wedding too, and the searching for the right people to get the wedding organized had all been done without Sharon having to lift a finger. By all accounts, Signora Fontana was a battleaxe to beat them all, and Father Maratta was one of that large minority of Catholic priests who looked like he enjoyed a good party. If he had heard of the ascetic traditions within Christianity, he wanted no part of them. He even had a list of caterers he could recommend from personal experience, and seemed to want more input into the reception afterwards than he did into the liturgy of the nuptial mass.
Ruy was giving off his best sweet-and-innocent look—about as convincing as a party hat on a tiger, in other words—and his eyes were twinkling.
"If you've quite done embarrassing me in front of everyone," she said, trying to get a mad on and failing, "let's get lunch."
But no sooner did they reach the front door to the embassy than their plans got scrambled. The big double doors were yawning wide before the servant who was preparing to open it for them got within ten feet.
Through it came Sharon's father, Melissa Mailey, and Tom and Rita Simpson. Behind them Sharon could see a few members of the military escort that would have shepherded them to Rome.
"You bums!" Sharon wailed. "You're not supposed to be arriving for at least two more days!"
Dr. Nichols smiled at her. If she looked really close and squinted, Sharon could possibly argue than it was an "apologetic" smile. It'd be a stretch, though.
Rita grinned. "You idiot. Don't you remember the time, roomie, when you and I sat up half the night in college and figured out the Three Laws of the Universe. The ultimate ones, not that silly thermodynamics business."
Sharon stared at her. Rita clucked her tongue.
"Poor girl's mind is going already. Repeat after me: The First Law is that you will always be late when it's critical to be on time. The Second Law is that—"
Sharon laughed. "—everyone else will always be early when you don't want them to be."
Then the hugs started.
Rita's was the first, and wildly enthusiastic. Her father's was heartfelt and paternal. Tom Simpson's was the genuine but slightly careful embrace a young man gives a young woman to whom he is neither married nor related and who possesses a very voluptuous figure.
Melissa's was complex. The sort of hug a woman gives who is, first, not temperamentally given to hugging; but, second, went through a prolonged period in her radical and semi-hippie youth where hugging was more or less a Social Mandate and thereby learned the art, however reluctantly; and, third, happened to genuinely like the young woman whom she sometimes described as her "common law step-daughter."
The last one done, and still holding Melissa by the shoulders, Sharon grinned at her and said: "So. Are you and Dad still shacking up, or have you finally decided to make him an honest man?"
"He's starting to pester me about it," Melissa growled, "but I got my principles."
Dr. Nichols snorted. "Principles! What she actually said was: 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.' And then added—unkindest cut of all—that it wasn't as if I had any Social Security she could collect as my widow when I croaked, so why bother?"
And now, it was time. Sharon had spent months wondering and worrying about how she would handle the situation. But, in the event, it all came quite easily and naturally.
She turned and placed a hand on Ruy's arm, to bring him forward and to her side. "I'd like all of you to meet my fiancé, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz."
Ruy immediately bestowed a bow on the new arrivals. No courtier in Madrid could have done it better, even one whose pedigree was genuine. Actually, they couldn't have done it as well, because they wouldn't have known how to keep it from being too elaborate. Ruy had now been around Americans long enough to know that the more ornate flourishes of seventeenth-century punctilio were not only wasted on them but would be viewed as slightly ridiculous in any event.
Sharon still didn't know Ruy's real last name. But she'd stopped nagging him about it after he'd told her, in a tone of voice that was genuinely sad, that he would not impart the information until the time came—if the time came—that he could visit his mother's grave. Openly, and in broad daylight.
Her father's reaction would be the critical one, so Sharon eyed him a bit nervously. Leaving aside the normal tension that automatically existed whenever a man was introduced for the first time to his future son-in-law, there was the added factor of Ruy's age. Sharon was pretty sure that Ruy was a bit younger than her father, but "a bit" was the operative term. A few years, no more—and he could conceivably even be as old as Dr. Nichols.
And . . .
It was weird. Her father wasn't even looking at Ruy's face, after an initial glance. He was studying the costume, most of his attention on the sword.
Sharon herself hadn't even noticed that Ruy was armed. Or hadn't thought about it, at least. Being armed in public was such an ingrained part of Ruy Sanchez—his persona, for lack of a better term—that she'd long since stopped giving it any thought at all.
She couldn't help it. She burst out laughing, covering her mouth with her hand.
Her father cocked an inquisitive eye at her.
"Sorry," she half-choked. "I was just remembering the time I introduced Leroy to you for the first time. You gave him that very same scrutiny."
Dr. Nichols chuckled. "No, not really. That time, I was trying to figure out where the bum might be hiding some drug paraphernalia."
Then he smiled at Ruy and extended his hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Señor Sanchez. I will say you don't quite match Sharon's depictions of you in her letters."
"Her very long and fulsome depictions," Melissa added dryly.
"Sure don't," added Rita, who was back to grinning.
Now it was Ruy who was cocking an inquisitive eye at her.
"It's not fair," Sharon whined. "You weren't supposed to be here yet. I'm not ready for this."
"Yup," said Rita smugly. "And there's the Third Law. 'No good deed shall go unwhined about.' "
James Nichols was trying to hide his genuine surprise at finally seeing Ruy Sanchez in the flesh. Surprise so great that it bordered on outright shock. The man didn't look at all the way he'd thought he would, from Sharon's letters.
He realized now, in retrospect, that he should have been prepared. His daughter was the sort of person who always responded to problems of a personal nature by what he'd come to think of as the "Sharon preemptive strike."
And if you think THAT's bad, Daddy dearest, lemme tell you what else—
So, naturally, her letters had emphasized all the possible drawbacks to Ruy Sanchez, as a husband. Among those, pride of place had been given to the fact that he was a generation older than she was. By the time she was done, Nichols had been stoically prepared to greet an ancient mariner, painfully hobbling about and breathing wheezily.
Instead . . .
James Nichols no longer wondered how a man of such an advanced and decrepit age could have not only challenged six men to a swordfight, but pretty much won the thing. If you ignored Sanchez's face, with its lines and its gray hairs, you'd swear you were looking at a man in his physical prime. Somewhere in his mid-thirties—no older than his early forties—and in superb condition. Not tall, and with a wiry build, except for very broad shoulders. A waist that would be the envy of most teenagers.
From time to time, as a doctor, Nichols had examined both amateur and professional athletes, including one memorable instance where a well-known major league baseball player had suffered a car accident nearby and been brought into the hospital. The man had been an outfielder, through most of his career, and then once he reached his mid-thirties brought in to play first base to extend his longevity. He'd lost a bit of his running speed, but his reflexes were so superb that the team wanted him in the lineup. Batting clean-up, in fact. At the age of thirty-nine, he was still averaging thirty to forty home runs a year, with a .300-plus batting average.
Nichols was quite sure that if he gave Sanchez the sort of examination he'd given that athlete, he'd find the same thing. Some men are simply blessed with a physique so hardy and top-notch that, provided they maintain a decent diet and a rigorous exercise regimen, they really don't lose all that much physically even after they're well into middle age.
As for the man's face, Sharon's letters had done the same. Gray hair. Lines all over. Weather-beaten. Etc., etc., etc.
The man was handsome, for Pete's sake! The sort of Latin male who could age with immense grace and dignity, the way men of any other ethnic lineages had a hard time managing. He reminded Nichols, more than anything else, of some Italian and Mexican movie stars once they reached their fifties. Giancarlo Giannini, for instance, or Ricardo Montalban.
Well, not that handsome. But certainly a lot closer than the wizened old geezer Nichols had braced himself for.
It remained to be seen, of course, where Nichols thought Sharon's assessment of her fiancé's other qualities was on the mark. Her letters had been considerably more expansive in their praise of Sanchez's character and intelligence, and positively enthusiastic—very unusual, for Sharon—about his sense of humor.
But, whatever else, the basic mystery was solved. His daughter had gotten attracted to her future husband for the same reason women had done so for ages. She had the hots for him, simple as that.
Sanchez had a very good handshake. Nichols wasn't surprised at all, by then.
"Lunch!" Sharon exclaimed.
"Good move, girl," Rita approved. "Always a great sideslip."
On their way out, Sharon took Rita by the arm and murmured: "I missed you, a lot, all that time you were in the Tower. Now I'm half-wishing they'd kept you there."
"As if they had any choice! We woulda sprung ourselves anyway—don't think we wouldn't—but once Harry Lefferts and his wrecking crew got to England, it was a done deal."
"Not to mention Julie Sims," Melissa added, shaking her head. "Gawd, at my age, to be having such adventures."
"So what happened? I've never gotten any details, dammit!"
But before Rita had gotten out more than two sentences, the carriage had arrived.
"So it's a mess at both ends of Europe," her dad said. It was early evening, by then, and they were back at the embassy enjoying some glasses of wine at the big table in the formal dining room.
"Yes, but not so bad here," Ruy offered. "I think we will see some play made in the internal politics of the Holy See. I cannot believe that all of this agitation is an end in itself, Doctor Nichols. I believe that Borja seeks to destabilize the Barberini and their grip on the political workings of Rome to further his master's ends; we have had direct intelligence that this is the end they have in view. While I have taken steps to ensure that all here can get to safety at a moment's notice, and advised the Committee of Correspondence in the same way, this is merely a precaution which your daughter has most wisely ordered."
Her dad chuckled. "That's got to be the first time my daughter's ever been described as cautious by anyone," he said.
"Compared to him, anyone's cautious," Sharon said, grinning.
"Well, I figure he'd have to know no fear," her dad said, before she quelled him with a glare. "Peace. I'm proud of you, honey. You're a surgeon in your own right now, and—if you don't mind me saying so, Señor Sanchez—you've found yourself a good man."
He gave Ruy a sly little smile. "Not that I've not worried on that score, before now. Let me tell you about the time, while she was at college—"
Sharon groaned and put her head in her hands. There wasn't going to be any stopping him. She quietly thanked God that the album of baby photos hadn't come through the Ring of Fire.