Lola Montez Conquers the Spaniards by Kit Brennan Page B

and admire me. That was why I was to appear in La pata de cabra. The infantas would come to the theatre; I was to get myself invited to the palace. Once there, I was to meet the tutor who never let the little girls out of his sight. I needed to make him do so.
    â€œBut—?” My mind still was protecting Emma, and the instructions confused me.
    â€œCan you still not see what service you are to render to the crown?” scolded Concepción.
    â€œI am trying.” Their eyes were burning holes in my head.
    â€œSeduce the man!” she screeched, as Grimaldi put his hand upon her arm.
    â€œWe know that you have a talent for it,” he added, “so don’t waste our time with cries of outrage. There are other agents in Madrid; you will meet them and be given instructions for the next plan of action after you have accomplished the first. In your case, the less you know the better.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that at all. “But what good will seducing this tutor do for your cause?”
    â€œHe will be discredited, of course, and then dismissed,” Grimaldi answered. “Prime Minister Espartero has put an extremist politician in place as tutor in order to display the righteousness and purity of his government, to show how well they are looking after the interests of the soon-to-be queen. This will prove the tutor is not pure.”
    â€œSuppose I do what you ask.” They had cornered me and betrayed my trust. I was right to demand answers. “What will happen to me, afterwards? Will I be blamed?”
    â€œShe is worried about her reputation, Juan?” Concepción sneered, and then to me, “You should have thought about that after your first transgression. Not now, after your—what is it, Juan? Her fifth? Her eighteenth?”
    â€œ Querida, por favor . . .” Juan took his wife’s hand and led her to the door. She allowed herself to be ushered out, with one last baleful look at me to smarten me up.
    Grimaldi turned and smiled. It was an empty smile that never reached his eyes. “Now then, Rosana. You see why we need a woman of your talents? Of your beauty? Of your undoubted amorousness?”
    At that moment, I finally recognized his charismatic energy for what it really was: the exercise of power. He had me and he knew it.
    My voice was small as I whispered, “I’m afraid for my ears.”
    â€œI’m afraid for them too. Let me see.” He reached out, pulled a strand of fallen hair away from the side of my face. His hand smelled strongly of tobacco. I had been alone with him many times outside of that room, his arms about my waist and my laughter pealing around the empty heights of the shooting gallery. But our silly harmless intimacies had always had a playfulness about them. That was all gone. He leaned towards me and whispered, directly into my left ear, “You will not be allowed to go back, Rosana. Forwards is the only direction you can take. Your ears are not Tristany’s. They are well attached to your head, and your head to your shoulders. I know you are the one to help us return our beloved country to its rightful ruler. If not, I have a smaller box. A decorative box that will just hold two other, tiny ears, and a lock of her dark black hair. Do you understand me?”
    A knock at the door made me leap to my feet, heart thundering. Grimaldi growled, “ ¿Quién es? ”
    â€œPadre de la Vega,” a male voice rejoined.
    â€œAh, good,” Grimaldi said, and opened the door. There stood an enormously tall and thin priest, holding a large silver crucifix in his hands and wearing a long, black robe. His cheeks were covered with a well-trimmed black beard, his hair tonsured. His eyes glittered as he flicked them quickly around the room, coming to rest upon me in my gaudy pink furbelows. They flicked up my length and then down, then very slowly up again, only to dart away and stare past me out the