The Turquoise Mask by Whitney Phyllis A.;

Author:Whitney, Phyllis A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Romance
Published: 2017-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

XI

Soon after I left the dinner table that evening, I went to my grandfather’s study and found him waiting for me. There was a change in him—a quickening that made him seem more alive and fiercer than ever. At once I was wary. Whatever he intended, I was not sure I would want to accommodate him.

“Buenas tardes,” he said eagerly. “Now you will tell me where each one is.”

“I don’t know. They all went off in different directions. But they aren’t sitting around downstairs, if that’s what you mean.”

“No matter,” he said. “Come with me, Amanda.”

He rose from his desk and stepped into the darkened room behind him—the bedroom I hadn’t seen until now. A lamp near the big, four-poster bed came on at his touch and I went into the room for the first time.

It was all dark brown against the white of the walls, from the high, carved posts of the bed, to the bed covering and a dark Spanish rug on the floor. Beside a carved table stood a monk’s chair, square-wrought, with dark leather across the back, and a crimson velvet cushion over the stretched leather seat. The arms were square-cut and broad, and I could imagine Juan sitting in it as though it were a throne, ruling his domain.

There was nothing Indian in this room. The only relief which offered rich color was a great painting that occupied most of the wall opposite the bed, where he could lie in comfort and look at it. Though why anyone should want such a picture for a bedroom where rest was essential, I couldn’t guess.

Fire flared at the painting’s center, climbing toward a storm-angry sky and beginning to envelop the man at the stake. Hooded figures with crosses upheld marched about the fire, and a little way off an old woman stood wringing her hands—perhaps suffering for her son who was being burned by the Holy Inquisition.

My grandfather saw the fixed direction of my gaze. “A fine painting and very old. The artist is not known, but I found it long ago in a shop in Seville.”

“It seems a strange choice for a bedroom.”

He stared me down with proud arrogance. “That scene is part of Spain, part of the Spanish character. We cannot shrug our heritage away in gentler times.”

“I’m not sure I like that Spanish heritage,” I said. “I haven’t any taste for torture in the name of religion.”

“I accept what is in my blood, Amanda. And so must you. There are times when one must rule by the brand and the scourge. Come with me.”

The falcon’s untamed ferocity was upon him again, and I shivered inwardly. I would hate to bring my grandfather’s anger down upon me.

I’d wondered why he’d brought me to this room, and now I saw. He went to a door that I had thought was a closet, and opened it upon stone steps running down into darkness, at the end of which was a faint radiance.

“A secret passageway?” I asked lightly.

His tone reproved frivolity.

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