She grimaced. “That woman got shot. Or hanged, I can’t remember which.”
“Please!” Ruy drew himself erect, exuding outrage and indignation. Again, Barrymore couldn’t have done it better. “That was done by the French!” He scowled. Olivier would have swooned at the sight of that tight-set jaw, the quivering mustachios, the frown like Jove’s. “The French. Just like them. Shoot a woman! Yes, it was a firing squad. The ungallant bastards. No Spaniard—well, perhaps the Spaniards—but certainly no Catalan—”
“Oh, give it a rest!” Sharon shook her head, laughing. “You’d shoot a woman in a heartbeat, Ruy, if you thought it was your duty.”
“Well. Duty, yes. Simply because it was ordered, no.”
There was a finality to that last sentence that Sharon didn’t find herself doubting at all. Whatever else he was, she’d understood for some time now, Sanchez was not dishonorable. If anything, she suspected, he would hold himself to a tighter standard than most men would.
I can live with that, she decided abruptly. “All right, Ruy. Still, the answer will probably—almost certainly, to be honest—wind up being a ‘no.’ But . . . if you’re willing to risk the most-likely waste of your time and effort . . .”
Barrymore and Olivier, both, would have collapsed then. Struck down by the sudden realization of their hopeless amateurism.
Sanchez had taken off his plumed hat when he’d first entered the room, and placed it on the back of an armchair. Now, he snatched the hat up, swept it across in a flourish, and gave a bow that no courtier in Madrid could possibly have bettered.
“Dona Sharon! A minute wasted in your company is time better spent than a millennium in paradise! I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, swear it is true!”
* * *
When she stopped laughing—she had to sit down, for a moment there—Sharon rose and slung her purse over her shoulder. It was very big purse—more like a traveling bag, since she always carried an emergency medical kit in it—which a smaller and less broad-shouldered woman would have found fatiguing to carry for very long. For Sharon, it was almost an inseparable part of her. She even took it to the opera.
She ushered Sanchez out the door. “Come on, Ruy. The main reason I asked you to come here—I, Sharon Nichols, swear it is true—is to ask for your help in finding Joe Buckley’s murderer. Remember?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Certainly! And notice that I did not give it a moment’s thought. So sure may you always be of me.”
As they moved down the corridor, she couldn’t keep the laughter from bubbling up. “Like I said—Don Quixote on steroids.”
“Indeed. Whatever ‘steroids’ are. If they are something like ‘testosterone,’ it is certainly true. And . . .”
His voice trailed off for a moment. When he looked at her, sideways, the brown eyes were soft, a bit sad, and . . .
“You are indeed my Dulcinea, Sharon Nichols. Believe it true.”
Jesus H. Christ. The guy is actually in love with me.
That he’d read Cervantes, didn’t surprise her. That he’d embraced the book . . .
Didn’t surprise her either.
The answer is still probably NO, she told herself firmly. Tomorrow, next year, whenever.
But she couldn’t deny the warmth the knowledge brought to her heart. Nor that it was the first real warmth that had come into it since a column of smoke rose over the sea. She wondered if she were being unfaithful to Hans? Just the warmth, alone?
No, she decided. Hans Richter had been many things, including rash and reckless and often unthoughtful. Petty and spiteful, never once.
* * *
In the foyer below, they encountered Benjamin Luzzatto and Ernst Mauer. Billy Trumble was standing guard at the entrance, along with two other Marines.
“Oh, good, you’re both here. Hold down the fort for the day, would you? I won’t be back until sometime this evening.” Sharon gave Billy a somewhat imperious look. “Lieutenant Trumble, would you be so good as to accompany us?”
“Uh, sure, ma’am. Whatever you say. The father left you in charge until Mr. Stone gets back.” Billy’s eyes flicked back and forth from Sharon to Sanchez. The youngster was obviously both surprised and more than a little dismayed. “Ah, going out on a date?”