Her manner was altogether different when I came to her, at the handsome new dwelling that she dwelled in now with Souza. Still was she clothed in great finery; but that lofty style, that high and distant condescension, had been put aside. Now was she the woman I remembered, whose body had been coupled to mine in every several position of the act of love, and whose each inch I did know with mine eyes and fingers and lips and tongue. She glistened at me with memory of lust and desire yet unfulfilled; and I in turn responded with tremors of yearning that I controlled only barely.
Yet control it I did, as did she, for we were in the formal drawing-chamber of her house, with slaves all about us bringing us little cooked morsels and wines and the like. What passed between us, to the eyes of those onlookers, was as proper and seemly as anything that might occur between some old dowager and a decrepit monk. Only Teresa and I could detect the searing currents of powerful attraction that flowed from her eyes to mine, and mine to hers.
She proffered me a tray of sweetmeats and said, low and throbbing, “All the while I was in Europe I imagined you atop me, Andres, and I was sick to the heart from being so far from you.”
“And I, lady, sick to the heart that I thought you were murdered.”
“It was a near thing. Who told you of it?”
“One of my sailors, as I went toward Loango. He had heard in a tavern, rogues talking too loud of the plot. How I raged, how I pounded the staves of the ship in fury over the loss of you, Teresa! A near thing, you say?”
“We learned of the scheme only a day or two before it was to happen. Three men meant to come to us in the night and cut our throats and put us over the side, but Don João had loyal servants who scouted out the murderers, and made them admit their plan, and it was they who went into the sea instead, with their hands tied in back.” She filled my goblet a second time. “It was the worst moment of the voyage for me, hearing how close I had come to dying. Nay: the second worst.”
“And what was the worst, then?”
“Seeing Don João greet his wife in Lisbon.”
“His wife? But I thought—”
“Yea, so did I. A promise of marriage made unto me. But he had never said it in so many words. He had planted the idea in my own mind, and let me think it, and embellish upon it, and imagine great things of it, but he had never said it himself. He is subtle at such twistings of the truth, is Don João. But as I sorted through my memories of our dealings on that theme, which were not many, I saw that he had not pledged me anything, but merely had allowed me to trick myself into thinking us betrothed. For how could he wed me, if he has a wife already in Portugal? The Church will allow him only one, and he cannot put her aside as easily as your English king did dispense with the queens he no longer required.”
“I am sorry for your pain,” I said, seeing the flaring of her nostrils in anger, and the sheen of withheld tears in her eyes.
She said, “He married her when they were very young. She is of a noble family, yea, I think of royal blood, and wealthier than he, with powerful connections in the government, and he does not dare break with her, though he has lived in Africa these many years and has had no commerce with her all the while. When we arrived in Lisbon he at once sent his messenger to her, and in the time we were in that city they did consort themselves as man and wife, with much public show of it. Although they spent their nights in separate chambers, I think.”
“Then why bother to bring you to Portugal at all?”
Dona Teresa smiled a bitter smile. “Because he had truly pledged it to me, without equivocation, that if ever he returned to Portugal I should go with him. I think he never expected that pledge to be redeemed, for he planned no more to set foot in that land. But when circumstances here required him to go, why, he did not cheat me of the journey, knowing that I desired so much to see Europe. In that regard he is an honorable man. And then also it is a long voyage, and Don João is not one who cares to spend weeks and weeks without a woman in his arms. And also I think he wanted to display me at court, as his beautiful African concubine, for men take pride in such show, do they not, Andres? And even among good Christians there is no evil in taking a concubine when one has a wife already, if one is a man of high position, or so I understand it. The wife herself did not seem jealous of me. She praised me, in sooth, for my beauty, and I think gave her husband congratulation for having chosen so well.”
“And is this why you married Captain da Souza?” I asked. “By way of revenging yourself?”
“That is too simple a reason.”
“But Don João had done you a great injury.”
“Nay, Andres, my own hopes and follies had done me the injury. I hold no grudge against Don João.”
“He is most marvelously fortunate, that he can injure people and they will still love him.”
“He has promised you a return to England, has he not? And not by subtlety and indirection, either, but in most straightforward outright words. Yet he has not made good the promise, and still you serve him, and still I think you love him.”
“It is not the same,” I said. “He has no reason nor obligation ever to release me. It is only his gift to me, which he can bestow whenever he chooses, or withhold forever, and I have nothing to say in the matter. But to allow you to think he would wed you, knowing all the while it was impossible—”
“I have told you, it was self-deception on my part. Mine eyes were blinded to the truth. I will not deny I am greatly disappointed, and that it was painful to learn how far I was from an understanding of the actual situation. But I do not hate him for it. I remain his friend.”
“But you are now the wife of Souza.”
“Indeed.”
“Why Souza?”
“He is handsome. He is ambitious. I was eager to wed, and if I could not have Don João, why, it was time to choose another. And I chose Souza.”
“And he does not object that you’ve been the mistress of Don João?”
“Why should he? Men do not seek virgins here. And it does him honor, to have all know that he has captured so high a prize as Dona Teresa da Costa.”
“And how does Don João feel about all these matters?”
Dona Teresa said, smiling slyly, “His conscience is eased toward me, now that I am truly wed. And he has lost nothing.”
I stared at her. “You intend still to—”
“He is the governor, is he not? If he still finds me attractive, is there not advantage for me in gratifying his desire? Is there not advantage for my husband, also?”
It was much like the court of England, I thought, this pandering of wives for preference, this winking at adultery. It is the same everywhere, I do suppose.
After a moment I said, “It amazes me that Souza will let himself be cuckolded before the whole community for the sake of gaining a little power. Has the man no shame?”
“Ah, it will not be so public as you seem to think. We will be circumspect. There are decencies to consider, are there not?”
“Are there?”
She laughed now. “Andres, Andres, you look so stern!”
“This kind of business is not comfortable to me, this handing off of a discarded mistress to a younger officer to be his wife, and then this sneaking around behind the new husband’s back, and—”
“Ah, you are so pious! And when I thought I was betrothed to Don João, and I came secretly to you, did you find it so uncomfortable that you did refuse me, Andres?”
“That was different!” I cried.
“Was it? Not so far as I can see. I do brand you hypocrite, dear Andres, and false moralizer.” She offered me the sweetmeats again, like a proper hostess, and then she leaned close to me and said in a low rich voice that went through me like a hot blade, “Nothing has changed, except that I am now called wife. I use Don João to my benefit. I use Fernão the same way. So has it been, so shall it be. What passes between them and me is a kind of business, a transaction, do you understand? It is not the same between you and me. And we remain as we are. Do you remember how it felt, when I was in your arms? Nay, you have not forgotten that. I have not forgotten, neither. And it has been a year, has it not? That is much too long. I remember your body, the size of it, the taste, the feel. I remember everything about you. I hope you will not tell me in your pious English way that I am too sacred to touch, now that I am called wife. Eh, Andres?”