Chapter Seven - The Lady Doth Protest
Part One
On the morning after she was safely returned to her husband and hacienda, Elizabeth awoke to find herself nestled in Diego’s arms. The last thing she could remember was lying exhausted with him on the bed once they’d gotten upstairs.
She lay there for a while. Slowly the realities began seeping into her consciousness, realities that had had little time to take on their full color and meaning during the three days since Diablo’s men had dragged her up into the mountains.
The most profound of these realities, the thing around which all the rest circulated, was that Diego was El Zorro. She was married to The Fox. To that tall, dark man who had so merrily charmed her the first time they met on the de la Vega road, to the man in black who climbed in her window and kissed her, rescued her from Diablo on her wedding eve, oh those stolen kisses....these were those very arms, these long strong arms that held her now. This was Zorro. The implications were so many and so intense that she suddenly felt crushed, not in sorrow but with the sheer weight of it. He fought duels regularly, faced bullets constantly, did daredevil riding on the loyal but skittish Tornado, and was a wanted outlaw all across California. Women swooned over him from Monterey to San Diego. His identity was a matter of ongoing speculation, which led her to realize why he could never remain in a given place longer than it took to do the deed he came to do.
She understood the need for secrecy, on many levels. This was not a government that allowed for the seed of open rebellion. Diego had a responsibility to protect the family name and land. At the same time he was a defender of justice and the people. How does he do it? she thought, and suddenly felt in awe of this man who carried so much duty, responsibility, and lonely purpose on his fine shoulders. He had trod this hard path for four years, and had stayed on it all the way through their courtship and marriage, never giving himself away. The discipline it all took left her in a state of wonder, and she began to realize that she was married to someone she barely knew, had misapprehended from the start, and could only now begin to build a true relationship with. This caused her to feel daunted, unequal to what she was dealing with. At the same time, it was her dream come true.
He stirred slightly, his lips barely touching her neck, his breathing soft on her skin, and in this small shift she felt the tenderness and protectiveness he gave her. She thought again about Zorro, and the heroics he declined to take up when they were in the San Gabriels. He easily could have conquered Diablo’s men, taking them by surprise on that dark night, and could have turned them all over to the lancers before making sure she was secure. Instead he had made his way up into those mountains not to defeat the enemy but as a man who loved a woman and wanted, above all else, to see her out of harm’s way. He had done it all while still recovering from broken ribs and a collapsed lung. She began to realize yet another thing. This man was made of iron.
At some level she still couldn’t take it in. Her gentle, bookish, easily-flummoxed Diego was in fact the confident, dashing Zorro. It still boggled her mind, yet now she could see the flashes of each in the other, the tenderness in Zorro’s touch, the authority with which Diego rode his horses. Somehow it gave her courage. "I will do whatever I must to try to win you," he had once told her.
"I’m won," she said softly.
They emerged from their room late, though given the prior day’s ordeal this came as no surprise to anyone else in the household.
"You are looking much fresher this morning, my dear!" said Alejandro as Elizabeth sat down at the table for breakfast.
"I am so glad to be home, Father," she said, looking over the food and realizing she was ravenous.
"Now, Elizabeth, is there anything you need?" Alejandro asked, passing her the plate of huevos rancheros that had just been delivered from the kitchen. "I know we asked you last night, but are you truly all right? Is there anything we need to know?"
She looked at him, puzzled, and then turned to the food. "Need to know?" she asked.
"I think my father wants assurance that Zorro didn’t take advantage of you," Diego said, taking a handful of grapes from a plate and sitting back, looking amused.
Elizabeth opened her mouth, then looked briefly at Diego, who, slightly behind his father, shook his head briefly and mouthed, "not now." She took a bite of the eggs.
"There’s talk, Elizabeth," Alejandro explained. "Sgt Garcia has already stopped by this morning to inquire about you and to see when you can come to the cuartel to talk with him about what happened up there. Of course he’s saying they want you to help them find Diablo’s hideout, but he’s also trying to figure out why you were up there for another day and a half," he gave a side glance to his son, "with Zorro."
"Zorro did nothing..." she said, searching for the right words, "..nothing that made me feel unsafe or taken advantage of," she said carefully. "He took me to the little cabin, he found food for me," she went on, looking to Diego for help.
"Garcia claims he saw Zorro kissing you!" Alejandro said.
"All right, all right," Diego interrupted. "This has gone far enough."
"Well, Diego, you have to be concerned, people are talking, the story is that she and Zorro spent two days up there in my cabin wrapped in each other’s arms!"
Diego looked around, making sure no servants besides Bernardo were in earshot. Then he smiled at his father and said, "We did." Alejandro stared at his son, looked over at his daughter-in-law who was concentrating on her breakfast, and back at Diego. "She knows," Diego said simply.
Alejandro’s hand hit the table, causing Elizabeth to jump and drop her fork. "Well this is a disaster!" he exclaimed. "Forgive me, Elizabeth, but you have no idea how dangerous and complicated all of this is."
"I’m beginning to find out," she said, picking up her fork. She couldn’t believe how hungry she was, even Diego was watching her in amazement. Usually she ate like a bird.
"Need more grapes?" he asked, offering her the plate. She took a handful.
"Well how are you going to explain this?" Alejandro asked.
"We’re not," Diego replied.
"Diego, you cannot have this entire community speculating that Zorro is Elizabeth’s... "
"...admirer," Diego finished for his father.
"And he is my admirer," Elizabeth said cheerfully, taking another helping of bread. Diego’s eyes never left her.
Alejandro took all this in and groaned. "You two seem not to grasp the seriousness of this situation!" he said. "It reflects on this family as well as Zorro’s credibility, not to mention Diego’s honor." He looked at Diego sternly. "Why on earth did you have to kiss her in front of those soldiers?"
"I didn’t know they were coming!" he answered indignantly.
"Well we need to find some way of explaining it," Alejandro said. "That makes you look uncooperative," he said to Elizabeth.
"I think it would be better not to dignify the accusations at all," Diego said. "This wouldn’t be the first time Sgt Garcia could be accused of magnifying what he saw."
"He knows what he saw, Diego."
Finally putting her fork down, Elizabeth said, "Father, this rests mostly with me, doesn’t it? I’m the only person who is available to explain what happened up there, since Zorro isn’t going to be interrogated."
"True," Alejandro allowed.
"Well," she said, "I agree with Diego that the less said, the better. I will reassure Sgt Garcia that Zorro did me no harm and certainly saved me from a terrible fate, and I’ll put him off as cleverly as I can about what he thinks he saw as Zorro was leaving."
"This won’t be enough to stop the rumors."
"We can’t stop them, Father," Diego said. "But if people see us together and happy, living our married life, they’ll lose interest with time and move on to some other drama. Public happiness is the best counter to rumors of infidelity. And in the mean time, Zorro has much to do for the people. He will only gain the winks and nods of a few who are starving for a romantic story."
"I think you are kidding yourself," Alejandro said. "You underestimate people’s needs for a romantic story, especially a scandalous one!"
"What else can we possibly do?" Diego asked in exasperation. "Announce who Zorro is, and let everyone know it is all right? Yes, Sgt Garcia saw Zorro kissing his wife?"
"She can deny that anything happened up there!" Alejandro insisted.
"Then it will be, ‘the lady doth protest too much,’" Diego came back.
"This debate has gone on long enough," Alejandro said, rising, "and I can see that you two are determined to do it your way. But I warn you, we are going to face further consequences down the road." With that, he excused himself.
Diego watched him go, then looked at Elizabeth soberly. "He’s usually right," he said.
"Oh, what can possibly make things more complicated?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I don’t know, but I can tell you that with Zorro, things often take unexpected turns."
"All we can do is deal with them when they come," she said, reaching for a peach.
He took it and sliced it for her, feeding her a piece and putting another in his own mouth. "Spoken," he said after chewing and swallowing, "like someone after El Zorro’s own heart."
That afternoon, Elizabeth slept more, while Diego worked with his father on details for a complicated land purchase Alejandro planned to make in the mountain forest adjoining the land where the old de la Vega cabin stood. Diego supported adding to the property so there was no bickering involved, only the painstaking planning around making the offer to the government and plotting out how the funds would flow into the Governor’s purse system. "This means several trips to Monterey," Alejandro observed. "I’ll go on the first one to make the offer to the governor, but I expect you to deal with all the follow-up."
Diego agreed, saying he wanted to take Elizabeth with him. "She’s never been there," he said, "and she loves the ocean. It might be good for both of us."
"Yes, and it would help this gossip die down," Alejandro added. "Go for a month. Go for two."
Diego considered that. Monterey was gorgeous, right on the Bay, and he could probably find a small house outside town where they could live for a month or two. It was, on the other hand, risky because of his history there. It was something he and his father no longer discussed, as it always led to arguments. He could see that Alejandro was, for once, taking the high road by not mentioning it. "Let me discuss it with her," he said, "but I think it might be a good idea. We’ll take Bernardo and a few horses, and stay until just before the rainy season."
Diego went upstairs and sat down on the bed next to Elizabeth, who was dozing fully clothed. "Will you sleep all day?" he asked.
"Possibly," she said from deep in the pillows.
"We should go into Los Angeles this afternoon and get Sgt Garcia taken care of," he said.
"Uh huh," she said, not moving.
He rubbed her back. "The sooner we get that done the sooner we can go on to other things," he said.
"Such as?"
"How would you like to go to Monterey for a while? A month or two?"
She sat up. "Monterey?"
"Si, the capital. My father has some business to do there, he wants me to take care of most of it. Land."
She lay back down. "Alejandro is going to own more of California than the crown, at the rate he is going," she said.
"Maybe," Diego chuckled. "But it will be ours one day. What do you think? Monterey is very pretty, we can find a house, take a few horses, and Bernardo of course...and it’s by the ocean."
"I just want to be where you are," she said. "But what about Zorro?"
"He’ll come too," Diego answered. "He’s quite well known in Monterey."
"Yes," Elizabeth responded, sitting up again. "I believe he had a paramour there."
"Where did you hear that?" Diego asked.
"Don’t act innocent," she said. "I’ve heard about Marta."
He shrugged. "It was years ago."
"Two years."
"Where do you get this?" he asked, unhappy that she had heard about his past indiscretion.
"Clementia knows everything," Elizabeth said.
"And tells everything!" Diego observed with annoyance.
"Is she still there?"
"Who?"
"Marta!" she said, pushing his chest.
He leaned over her. "If you think she ever crosses my mind now, you are mistaken."
She began to untie his tie.
"Don’t," he said. "We really need to go into the pueblo."
She pulled his tie off as he tried to push her hand away, and she reached for the top button of his collar, unbuttoning it. He kissed her. Sergeant Garcia could wait.
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