"Alcalde!" Diego called as his father and Felipe were helping Victoria inside the tavern, Tadeo's body already claimed by the undertaker, and the grieving crowd beginning to slowly disperse.
"What is it, De la Vega?" De Soto asked, his face reflecting a mixture of irritation and relief at the thought that he wouldn't have to offer the now-dead man any money.
"I met Tadeo in France three years ago and he confessed to have never been to California until then. But you should know that, shouldn't you, since you were good friends while in university." He informed De Soto in a volume louder than the Alcalde would have liked, and which drew the bystanders' attention towards them, the plaza falling silent again. "In fact, I remember Daniel de Rochefoucauld* had mentioned in one of his letters that Tadeo had spent a couple of years in prison, from 1814 to 1816. Something about beating his fiancée almost to death, I believe. Care to explain how our old colleague, who I understand has been spending his last few years with traveling theater groups, ended up revealing himself as Zorro the very day you announce the pardon?"
De Soto looked at the puzzled faces around the plaza as the people were starting to understand Diego's accusation and an increasingly furious crowd was gathering again.
"Fine, Diego!" He agreed with a smug look. "He wasn't the real Zorro. I had paid him to say he was. But you knew that when you agreed to marry the Escalante woman, didn't you? So don't act like a saint now. I may have sprung a trap for Zorro but you helped me willingly! I doubt the real masked fiend will be too pleased with you! Or that your new wife might forgive you for omitting to tell her that small detail and I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when she'll decide your punishment. You know how they say that silence is golden? Perhaps you should have kept your mouth shut!"
"Tell me, Ignacio. What do you think will anger Zorro more? The fact that I have married the woman he loves after she confessed to loving me, or the fact that you almost tricked her into marrying a man known to take pleasure in harming defenseless women?" Diego questioned. "Do you have any idea what might have happened to her if she would have gone through with it and married him? You have gone too far this time, Ignacio!"
While this conversation was taking place in the plaza, Don Alejandro was trying his best to console a crying Victoria.
"This is all my fault!" She said while sobbing and, by the looks she received from her patrons, they agreed with her. "He unmasked because I asked him to. Because I promised to marry him and I didn't even go through with it! After everything he's done for us I… I betrayed him! I proved him right! He… He told me, Don Alejandro! He said that his only fear in this world was that I was in love with a legend and should he ever take off his mask I might still be in love with Zorro and not with the real man."
"I am sorry, Victoria. I can't even assume to know how you feel but I am sure he wanted nothing more than for you to be happy. Even without him. Didn't you see how he hasn't even said anything when you went to Diego? I think he already knew, my dear. He already knew my son would make a good husband to you. I may be heartbroken about Zorro's death, but I am still glad you chose Diego. I can't even imagine what would have happened if you hadn't… that man… Zaragosa might had shot you, instead of him…"
"I would have gladly died for Zorro, Don Alejandro. Had Diego not stopped me… I would have taken that bullet."
"I'm glad he did, then, Victoria! But where in the world is Diego? Felipe?"
The young man signaled that his adoptive father had not followed them inside just as Don Alejandro, glancing at the taverness who was now his daughter-in-law, caught a glimpse of his wife ring's on her finger.
"Victoria? When has Diego given you that…" He started asking just as a very nervous Don Antonio, one of his friends, entered the tavern.
"That man wasn't Zorro!" He announced to everyone inside, instantly silencing all discussions. Victoria looked flabbergasted in his direction as Don Alejandro and many others there kept glancing between her and the newly arrived. "Don Diego just confronted the Alcalde about it," Don Antonio continued "He said that Senor Tadeo had been a university colleague of theirs and they both knew him well. Apparently he was and actor and the Alcalde admitted to having hired him to say he was Zorro in order to convince Senorita Escalante to marry him. It was all a trick!"
"What? And… Diego knew about it?" Victoria asked, her eyes wide-opened.
"He just said he did! I… I think he intends to fight the Alcalde…" he continued as Don Alejandro put a supporting arm around Victoria's waist and they both followed the crowd outside.
*AN: Daniel is the same character to which Diego alludes as being "the biggest bore in Europe" in the TV Show's episode "He who lives by the sword". Since the information in Daniel's letter at the time proved useful against a certain English swordsman, I figured it might prove useful again in my story :P.