Rivera’s performance at Covent Garden was equal to any upon the stage. The assassination had made him a recognizable figure and there was a burst of flashbulbs as he left his vehicle, the picture made dramatic by the escorts grouped around him. He remained grave-faced, head bowed, bypassing the champagne gathering to go directly to his reserved box. There he chose a rear seat, in shadow from the rest of the theater. He withdrew even further with the arrival of the others in the party, shaking hands with the men who offered pleasantries and holding back when Henrietta positioned her face to be kissed.
The production of The Barber of Seville was not as good as Rivera had hoped, and the tavern scene was particularly disappointing, people shouting at each other rather than singing. There was champagne arranged for the break, of course, but again Rivera declined. Henrietta held back briefly, accusing him of taking things too far, and flouncing off when he still refused to accompany her.
The dinner party afterward was at the Dorchester. Briefly Rivera thought of avoiding it, and when he got to the hotel he came close to wishing he had. Henrietta clung to him, holding his arm and sharing every conversation, and Rivera recognized the retribution for his earlier distancing himself from her. The seating plan put him next to her—because Henrietta had arranged it that way—and she sat with her hands obviously beneath the table, blatantly straying across to his thigh and crotch.
He complained, when they were finally alone in the car with the glass screen raised between themselves and the driver. Henrietta said, “For Christ’s sake, darling, don’t be such a boring bloody hypocrite! There’s not one person at that table tonight who doesn’t know we’ve been screwing each other for ages.”
Henrietta was right, and it upset him to concede it. He said, “It wouldn’t hurt to be a little less obvious for a couple more weeks.”
She put her hand in his lap and he moved to make it easier and she said, “You’re not worried about propriety now!”
“We’re not in front of a hundred people in a hotel dining room now.”
Henrietta twisted to look out of the rear window at one of the escort cars. “Do they carry guns?”
“Some,” Rivera admitted. “They’re not supposed to, under diplomatic convention, but they do.”
“How long will it last? Will you always have to be guarded as closely as this?”
“For a long time, I suppose,” Rivera said, believing he was stimulating her excitement.
“Even when you’re transferred somewhere else?”
It was an opening to start talking about Paris, but Rivera held back, deciding the rear of a car was not the right place. He said, “I would imagine so: I haven’t really thought about it.”
“I would think it’s all right for a while but not all the time: too claustrophobic,” Henrietta said, discarding a novelty.
“I don’t want it to go on forever.” The chauffeur was a member of the GDI, like all his other Cuban protectors. Rivera hoped the vehicle was not equipped with the listening devices that spies were supposed to utilize. He was sure that everything he’d said so far was innocuous enough.
At Pimlico, Rivera followed her familiarly into the house and on to the drawing room, which was on the first floor with veranda windows overlooking the illuminated patio at the rear.
“I’ll have brandy,” she ordered, flopping onto a love seat.
There were times, like now, when Henrietta could be profoundly irritating, treating him like a servant whose name she didn’t even know. Rivera was sure he’d correct the attitude quickly enough, although Henrietta was strong-willed to the point of willfulness, far stronger than Estelle had been. There was still so much each had to learn about the other. Rivera was very sure about one thing. With Henrietta as his wife, he wouldn’t consider a mistress; he’d never need to consider a mistress.
Rivera was uncertain, oddly shy, about breaking the news of Paris “I’ve got some news,” he set out. “I’m going away soon.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. She seemed suddenly occupied with a pulled thread on the seam of her dress.
Was that the best reaction she could manage? He said, “Spain. I am to be an observer at an international conference.” Rivera thought, discomfited, that he sounded like a child hopefully boasting a better holiday destination than anybody else in the class.
Henrietta seemed to treat it as such. She said, “I don’t like Spain. I always feel nauseous there; something to do with the oil they cook with, I suppose. I much prefer France.”
The opening hung before him, beckoning. He said, “So do I. In fact I’ve been thinking about France quite a lot, lately.”
Henrietta frowned across the room at him. “Thinking about France?”
It had been an awkward way to express himself, Rivera realized. “I want Jorge at the Sorbonne eventually. It would be convenient to live in Paris, better perhaps for the remainder of his preliminary education to be there.”
“How could that work, with your embassy being here?” asked Henrietta, still confused.
“I’m going to resign,” Rivera announced.
“You’re going to do what!” She came forward on her seat, wide-eyed.
“Quit,” he said, enjoying the sound of the declaration.
“Give it all up, just like that!”
“There’s not actually a lot to give up, compared to a return to Havana,” Rivera said. ‘That appears the alternative.”
“But what are you going to do in Paris!”
“Nothing,” Rivera said. “Just sit back and enjoy myself.”
“When?” she demanded.
So far her reaction had not been quite what he’d expected. He said, “I haven’t worked out definite dates. But soon; quite soon.”
“Oh,” Henrietta said.
The tone was empty, and small though it was, it amounted to the first sound of sadness. Rivera said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You don’t sound very upset.”
Henrietta offered her glass to be refilled. “Give me a chance, darling! It’s something I never expected. I thought we’d go on … oh, I don’t know … I mean. I didn’t imagine it ending.”
“Has it got to end?”
Henrietta looked steadily at him over the top of the glass he returned to her, then smiled coquettishly. “No reason at all!” she agreed brightly. “Paris is only an hour away by plane, after all!”
“I wasn’t thinking of your commuting.”
The smile went but the direct look remained. “I’m not going to guess what that means,” she said. “I’m going to sit here and listen to you tell me.”
“I want you to come to Paris with me.” Rivera blurted finally. He’d not meant it to be as clumsy as this; he was stumbling about like an awkward schoolboy.
For a long time Henrietta remained staring at him, as if she expected him to say mote. When he didn’t, she looked away, around the room, as if she were inspecting what he was suggesting she give up. “Divorce William? Marry you, d’you mean?”
“Yes.”
She sniggered, at once clamping her mouth shut, her free hand to her face. “Oh darling!” she said. “Oh my darling!”
The word was right but the tone was wrong; it was more sympathetic than loving. “What?” he said.
“We don’t marry, people like you and me. Not each other. We marry other, nice people. And cheat on our wedding night, because it’s fun. I couldn’t marry you! I’d never be able to trust you and you’d never be able to trust me. It would be a disaster. What goes on here—or doesn’t go on—between William and me is unimportant, to both of us. I’ve got respect as his wife. I get invited to Downing Street to dine with the prime minister … to Buckingham Palace. You’re asking me to abandon all that…!”