"Reading between the lines..."

From the Private Journal of the Contessa Maria Theresa Isabella Emilia Lucia Gabriella Rosalina Liliana Paloma

Port Dominion, Saturday, April the 22nd — Late Evening

At last — it has come.

The invitation I knew would arrive, written in that careful, perfumed English manner that mistakes precision for grace and formality for feeling. Lady Eleanor Whitehall invites me to dine at Government House. How proper. How punctual. How predictable. How delightfully, incurably English.

The messenger stood upon my threshold as if awaiting judgment, hat clutched in trembling hands, sweat glistening on his brow despite the evening breeze. I let him stand there longer than civility required. It does one good, sometimes, to remind the servants of empire that the Spanish still know what dignity looks like. When at last I took the letter, I could see how he exhaled — as though spared a sentence. They are trained to fear power, these English retainers. They smell it before they understand it.

The seal was heavy with intent, pressed deep into scarlet wax — a symbol of English order, English confidence, English caution. When I broke it, the parchment unfolded like a whisper of starch and roses. The handwriting was exquisite, the ink evenly measured, each word turned with delicate care — and yet beneath that lacework of politeness, I felt the edge of the blade. Lady Eleanor writes as one who smiles while keeping her hand upon the hilt.

I admire her already.

Her invitation is more than a courtesy. It is a summons, a test wrapped in silk. Every line is a question she dares not ask aloud. “The truest spirit of welcome,” she writes — ah, el espíritu más verdadero de la cortesía inglesa is to place one’s guest nearest the candlelight, that every flaw may gleam. It is not hospitality they seek; it is illumination. They wish to see what glimmers — and what burns.

But I am not one to fear the flame. I am the daughter of fire myself.

I imagine her now, in her fine English chamber, the candlelight dancing upon her pale hands as she chose her words with care. Her husband — that solemn Governor, Henry Archibald Whitehall — would be nearby, feigning distraction with his dispatches, though I suspect he watches her more closely than his own affairs. She writes as one accustomed to power; he rules as one accustomed to restraint. It is a dangerous balance, that marriage — perhaps the only kind worth having.

She means to study me. She wishes to know whether I am danger or delight. Let her wonder. I have been examined by queens and envied by courtiers, and each believed themselves the wiser for the effort. I have learned that the act of being observed is its own form of mastery — for it is I who decides what they see.

Of course I shall attend. To refuse would be an admission, and I am far too well-bred for that. No, I shall arrive precisely when the sun has fallen and the air still holds its breath — in a gown of crimson silk, rojo como el corazón de una llama, trimmed in black lace. Let them whisper that the Spanish woman wears the color of sin. They will not be wrong.

I can already envision their faces: the Governor, grave and composed; his wife, radiant and cunning; the assembled company watching as if the night itself might reveal something forbidden. They will speak of weather and trade and the virtues of empire, and I shall smile — gently, sweetly — while the real conversation unfolds in glances and pauses and the weight of silence.

It pleases me, this play they think they have devised. They believe they have invited me to dine. In truth, I have been waiting for them to set the table.

The game begins, and I know my place upon the board — not as pawn, nor queen, but as the player herself.

Tonight, I will pen my reply — courteous, elegant, and entirely as they expect. But when the candles are lit and Lady Eleanor looks across her table, she will understand. The invitation was not hers to send.

Let her light her candles, then.

I shall come dressed in red — and I shall bring the fire.