Lola Montez Conquers the Spaniards Read Online Free Page B

which I am referring?”
    I had a vague idea. Spain had been in the news a great deal during the past decade, with the so-called Carlist Wars and England’s dithering attempts to support Spain’s Queen Regent, who’d been ruling the country until her young daughter, Isabel, came of age. All I’d gathered at that point was that an upstart younger brother of the recently dead king believed he should be king, not the girl, because of some ancient law or other. The country had taken sides and civil war had ensued. I didn’t understand the politics; it seemed horribly convoluted—still does, God knows.
    â€œDo you teach the stamping step? I’m sorry, but I don’t know the name.”
    â€œAll of that,” he answered eagerly. “Boleros, and cachuchas, fandangos. Refined versions, for the English palate. Not quite so . . . scandalous?” Why was he leering in that dreadful manner? “You have a mysterious past, Miss Gilbert,” he continued. “There is something that you are running from?”
    He was almost hissing the words now, his smooth accent making it all the more sinister. How did he know?
    â€œAnd—may I say—you have the acquaintance of a particular aristocrat, a gentleman who has been more than kind to you in your hours of need?”
    The little shit had been spying on me! I could think of no other explanation. He pointed his toes again, one after the other, with a mincing hop in between.
    â€œI am like the English raven, Miss Gilbert. I keep my eyes open, and I fly very swiftly to deliver the news.”
    I really didn’t like the sound of this. And Miss Kelly had effectively handed me over to this tiny dago, wiping her hands of me in an instant.
    â€œMr. Hernandez, I do not think that I am interested in your proposal.”
    â€œMiss Gilbert, I think that you must be. I shall teach you everything I know about the cachucha and flamenco, and in return you will meet a man who will introduce you to your destiny.” He spoke in such an odd, affected way, and God knows his words were to prove both prophetic and dangerous. “What do you have to lose?”
    I should have said “Everything” and run away as swiftly as I could. But I didn’t. Truthfully, I didn’t know what else to do, since my lessons in acting had ended so abruptly. And he’d made me the slightest bit curious—always a weakness. “Very well,” I agreed with a haughty sniff. “I shall come to one lesson, and then I’ll decide.”
    â€œ ¡Maravilloso! ¡Buena fortuna! ”

    By this time it was late July, and my trial date was approaching steadily. I could have cried with exasperation at the money and time lost with Miss Kelly. Instead I sat down to enumerate my skills and talents, and the earl helped me lengthen this list when he arrived with a lovely set of peridot earbobs.
    â€œMaybe this is what I am, in my natural state—a dancer.” I was sitting up in bed, naked, eating a currant bun, wearing the earbobs and trying out the idea. My lovely earl had set me up in a tiny apartment near the theatre district and had spared no expenses on the softness of the mattress. Was I a kept woman? I tried not to think about that.
    All things Spanish had become quite à la mode because of the recent Carlist skirmishes, and I certainly approved when the earl presented me with a long-fringed shawl and a cunning pair of fashionable shoes.I went to my first dancing lesson wearing them proudly. Hernandez made me take both off at once. I was given an old, dingy pair with steel heels, which clicked alarmingly when I walked. He also had a flounced skirt that he made me wear instead of my own, and we spent a good deal of this first lesson swinging those flounces just so. This turned out to be part of the stamping step, as I had called it—an integral element of flamenco. To my surprise, I enjoyed the whole thing a great deal