“Yes, you know her well,” is all he says, and he seizes her hand and covers it with kisses. “Do you love me?”
No word comes to her blanched lips, but she bows her head and softly answers to the pressure of his fingers. On the imprisoned hand is the diamond ring of her espousal. It would gleam out, though she tries not to see it. Oh! where was Claire? What would she say to her? Alone with Don Fadique, she feels all her good resolves melting.
For nearly a minute Blanche let Fadique hold her hand. There was no sound below in the patio to distract them, only the chiming of the great bells of San Pablo close by across the square, the beautiful flamboyant portal reared against the sky.
Blanche lay quite still while Fadique covered her little hand with kisses, even the lace ruffles she wore at her wrist he kissed.
A moment before no words could express how she dreaded the king, but with her hand in his, listening to his muttered words of love, the earth seemed to melt away, and she was suddenly transported to some unknown paradise, full of infinite felicity.
She knew she was doing wrong and that Claire would bitterly reproach her—perhaps go away in disgust and leave her.
But for all that she could not help it; and after all, what was a crown, or Claire, or Castile, or France, or the most Christian king, her kinsman, or her father, compared to the lover with angelic eyes kneeling before her?
It might be that they never should be alone again, and that she might not be allowed to speak to him, for Don Pedro was, they told her, a devil of jealousy—that she could readily believe—and that he possessed every vice human nature can compass. If this was indeed the last time, would it not be too cruel to be cold to Fadique in this one hour when his heart spoke to hers?
Blanche was but a child, cause and effect were unknown to her; but love, first love, that blessed light direct from heaven, had transformed her