Chapter 13

Diego rose to open the door for the departing lancers and was surprised to see Victoria with her hand raised just about to knock on the door. There was only a moment for the two to register their surprise before she noticed the small group of soldiers ready to leave.

"Sergeant Mendoza! What are you doing here?"

"They are hunting Zorro." Diego looked at her with only a shade of a smile. Victoria's own face registered a good amount of fear to anyone looking closely. But upon seeing the tall caballero's passive manner, she quickly sought to compose herself.

Several minutes later, the men had said their goodbyes and gone off cheerfully licking their fingers of the last of the custard. Diego closed the door after the last man and the two young people stood looking at one another awkwardly.

Finally, it was Victoria who spoke. "You didn't come into town today."

"No, I thought I'd stay away for a few days—let the talk die down," he said, with his eyes lowered.

"I wonder that such a well-respected caballero as yourself would ever let it bother you." An acidic tone had crept into her voice as she spoke and as she finished, she regretted it. "Oh, I'm sorry, Diego. I didn't mean…"

"It's quite all right. I expect and deserve a good tongue-lashing from you. But before you start, why don't you come on in and make yourself comfortable?"

She was pleased to see the resigned look on his face as she swept past him into the room. But almost immediately, the soldiers sprang back into her mind. "Why were Mendoza's men here? Do they suspect—"

He quickly placed a finger to her lips to stop the question. He looked over his shoulder toward to dining room as if to warn her that the servants might be listening.

She was suddenly overwhelmed by the idea of how difficult his life must be when he had to hide his secret, even in his own home. She searched for a safer topic, but Diego was already continuing the conversation.

"The Alcalde seems to have become even more obsessed the last few days. I vaguely remember the soldiers storming around the tavern the other night as well. Zorro seems to have vanished." He smiled at her reaction to his calm manner and led her into the library. "Now, the floor is yours. Lash away." But there was a warning in his eyes too, a warning to steer clear of the subject of her discovery. He crossed to the fireplace and leaned a shoulder against the mantle.

"Diego, I—" Then she stopped and whispered, "Do you really think the servants might be listening?" Obviously, it was going to be impossible to hold the conversation she had meant to have with him

"Haven't you heard? Even before my 'escapade' of the other night, you and I have become the talk of the pueblo. All kind of speculation is being made about us. A result of your 'lessons', I'll be bound. Oh, I think I have quite scandalized the indoor staff. Of course, the vaqueros are quite proud of me." He chuckled.

"You seem to be taking it rather well. Not embarrassed anymore?"

"I wish! And there's still Padre Benitez to go. Now, that is the mea culpa I am dreading. But what's done is done. I am more concerned with what you are thinking of me right now?" It was a question. "Do you forgive me?" He paused, and then added, "For everything?"

She looked down at her hands. This was so strange. She had to remind herself that she was not just talking to Diego. She could now see the quiet confidence behind his easy manner. It had been there all along, but she'd never really noticed. That was the Zorro in Diego. But right now, she was having difficulty in seeing Zorro in his face.

Even the act of pulling the mask from his face had not helped reconcile the two men in her mind and her heart. Part of her wanted to believe that she had really known deep down inside all along. It would even explain her so-long-denied attraction to Diego. But one part of her being was mourning for Zorro, a mythological man, whom she now knew to be the human Diego. The unmasking had brought Zorro down from some kind of mental pedestal she had erected. He was now earth-bound for the first time in her mind. Her thoughts and emotions were running a gamut, but Diego was waiting for an answer.

"I haven't decided fully yet," she warned. "You've still got a lot of explaining to do!" She pointed a warning finger at him and approached him slowly.

"Hmm. Yes, I thought so. Well, how about explanation number one?" His eyes twinkled as she looked at him expectantly.

Then she watched as his hand swept a low arc and indicated the area underneath the mantle. A panel had swung open at the back of the fireplace itself. Victoria's eyes widened and her mouth fell open in amazement.

He motioned for her to follow and he ducked through the opening. She hesitated and then followed the man, keeping close behind him. The secret opening led into a hallway lined with stone, lit dimly with candles in sconces embedded in the walls. Taking her hand, he led her down the stone steps until the passageway opened up into the large cave-like room she had been in once so long ago.

She looked back toward the steps. "And no one else knows?"

"No one, except Felipe. He has been with me in this from the very beginning, of course."

"Of course…" Memories of Felipe running into the tavern in a rush and Diego disappearing raced across her mind.

She walked slowly around, drinking in the sights of the room. "This does bring back memories." When she had last been here, she had tried so hard to commit every inch she could view to memory, trying in vain to gain the slightest clue as to the identity of the masked man. To think she had been just on the other side of a wall from the de la Vega hacienda!

She walked over to the table and looked carefully at the items there. Glassware of all kinds, test tubes and some curious small barrel shaped objects were scattered there. "What are these?"

"My latest attempts to perfect a precise timing mechanism for fuses."

She looked at him questioningly.

He replied simply, "For bombs."

"Oh!" She backed away from the table then looked over at him. In that moment, she made the connection between the inspired, resourceful mind of Zorro and the educated book-loving Diego. "This is going to take some getting used to, the idea of thinking of you as –"

"As him? Yes, I suppose so. I sometimes have trouble myself. Even in my thoughts, I refer to Zorro in the third person. Then there are days I am amazed I have ever fooled anyone." He clasped his hands behind his back and stepped slowly over to where she stood. "You were the most difficult of all to deceive. Every time I was in your presence, I wondered how you could not know. My feelings were so strong… I felt you would guess. If you had ever really looked at me…you might have."

"I've hurt you." She could see it now.

"It was my decision to keep all this from you." She noticed he didn't deny it. "I had to accept that as a result."

"And, all this time…" Her voice changed as her thoughts darted from one point to the next. "And your mystery woman—"

"Was you," he said quietly. "Only you."

"Is this where I confess to jealousy?"

"I long to hear it." His eyes danced as he took in how her hair shown in the candlelight. "But I thought this was my time for confession." She had moved around to the other side of the massive oak table and he made as if to follow her.

His leg lightly bumped the edge and the sharp intake of his breath drew her attention.

"Your leg! I forgot—"

"No, it is fine. It is just here," he gestured toward his upper thigh, "it was rather a deep cut." He waved away her look of concern. "I told Sir Edmund when he gave me that sabre that my goal would be it would never draw blood. Never did I think the first it would touch would be my own!" They both laughed at the irony.

"But it was a deep cut." She tried to sound stern. "I hope you've take care of it properly"

They both thought back to the circumstances of how the cut had come to be and how embarrassing it had been for him when she discovered just how far up it went. The two young people doubled over in laughter and she said, "The look on your face when you admitted to what you'd done!"

"And the look on yours when you thought you would have to dress it!"

"And you bled all over my bed! It looked so serious."

"But I assure you I was feeling no pain."

"Yes, alcohol does dull the senses."

"I just wish I had realized…you tried to tell me, didn't you? If I'd only been paying attention to you…"

"I think I believed if you guessed…it would somehow help absolve me from the danger I would be putting you in. I have been more open with you lately…but I think it is because I have just grown so tired of the waiting. It has been unfair to you."

"But Zorro's work is not done. You can't remove the mask yet."

"Zorro cannot marry you, and short of a pardon or decree of amnesty, I do not know that he ever could." He pulled her to him. "But Diego de la Vega…I…could."

She pushed him away firmly "Yes, you could…but I have not heard a proposal from Diego de la Vega, and if you think—"

He began, "Will you –" as he quickly dropped down on his left knee, and almost as quickly let out a sharp cry of pain.

"Diego!" Victoria knelt beside him, immediately concerned about his injured leg. But he was already chuckling to himself.

"You see! Now Zorro would not have had a problem with that. He would never stumble. He is—"

She stood and said sternly, "He is you! And you do seem to always have an excuse to stop short of saying anything that might commit yourself to me. Are you sure you want to marry me as much as Zorro always pretended to?"

"Victoria, of course, I—"

"Then?"

Looking up at her from the floor, he swallowed and began, "Victoria , will you …?" But Diego couldn't resist stopping to ask, "But what will Zorro say?"

"He had better just ask the question properly, Señor!" she huffed, her anger returning anew. "And I am not so sure he's going to get the answer he expects!"

"Diego!" The raised voice of Alejandro came from inside the sala and they both froze.

"Diego!" The call grew a little fainter.

Diego rose and went to the wall and checked through the peephole there. They waited until the way was clear, and before his father made another round of checking the rooms for his errant son, he and Victoria were seated on the sofa together, studying a book between them.

"Diego! Victoria! I did not know you were here, my dear." He glanced between the two of them, slightly confused, with the dazed look of someone who has been awakened from a sound sleep. As they both started to speak up, he raised a hand to stop them. "No don't even start, I thought… Oh...never mind!" Then on a different note, "Son, did you know there are soldiers all around the house?"

"Yes, Father. They are looking for Zorro." Victoria eyed Diego closely, marveling at the cool exterior he displayed. And a small thought crept into the back of her mind. Was this a good thing that he could fool people so completely? Was he finished with fooling her forever? She wasn't so sure his amazing ability to playact was a good trait to have in a husband!

"My, my! Well, my dear, goodnight. It is growing rather late, you know. Perhaps you should see her home, Diego." Then he turned to retreat back down the hall to his room, feeling as if the entire world was out of his control, mumbling, "Looking for Zorro, here…"

When Victoria heard the door close down the distant hallway, she dissolved into laughter. "How do you do this all the time? I never realized how complicated your life must be… to keep it all straight."

He pressed a finger to his own lips to remind her again to be alert to eavesdroppers and he laughed silently. Then she turned serious although she did change her volume to just above a whisper. "You've laughed at me too, haven't you?" She suddenly felt guilty over her own laughter at Don Alejandro. "It must have been so amusing to trick me."

"No, no. That…that was just the moment and being caught with you…Most of the time, I've felt badly for the deceptions I've had to make. Believe me in this. Now…our lessons…well…" He allowed a smile to curl the corners of his mouth. "I wish we could somehow replay those for you. I had even made up my mind to start trying to show you more of me—the real me…to let those lessons be sort of a preparation process for telling you. But our relationship seemed to be so …so…stuck. You couldn't see me as anything but…a friend."

"You're wrong, you know. I was fighting it. I wasn't supposed to have those feelings about anyone but Zorro. So I held you away every chance I got. If you only knew how many times I went to bed feeling guilty about stray thoughts of you. I was being disloyal…even cheating…when I did that. And you! You even made me jealous of myself!"

"And that is precisely what you've had me doing for years!"

"Don't you dare start turning the blame back on me!"

He opened his mouth to reply, but she continued, "And Safira! If that was over and done with, why does she feel it necessary to write to you now? Why does she think you need to know her whereabouts?"

"Well, she—" He stopped and grinned broadly. "You know, these are such insignificant points when compared to our real problems." He let his voice sink into a whisper, "I still can't shake the feeling that I'm asking you to come share a gallows with me."

"I know the risks and I'm willing to take them if it means we can finally be together."

"Convincing the people you've given up on Zorro may be a challenge."

"How about a fight?"

"A public quarrel? Hmm—but that could possibly damage Zorro's perfect reputation as a gentleman,." he said thoughtfully.

"Zorro's reputation!" She slapped at his chest. "Is that all—" The rest of her protest was lost as he stopped her tirade with a kiss, a thought-erasing, anger-melting kiss.

"All right. But we have to plan this. You do understand that Zorro has to remain a bit above everyone. His effectiveness depends on it. Do you see that?"

"Yes." She was completely docile now, ready to accept whatever he wanted of her. But a small prickling in the back of her mind warned her—Diego was not just Diego anymore.

He smiled down at her expectant upturned face, then rose and pulled her to her feet.

"It is late. You should be getting back to the pueblo. I'll ride back with you." As they went through the door together, he saw the objection she was about to voice and said, "Please, spare me the change of clothes, because I will see you home, one way or another."

"You've done that each time?" When he nodded, she said, "See… this will make your life so much simpler." He helped her up onto the seat of the wagon. "You should have told me years ago."

"I probably should have."

"And you should tell your father." She looked at him reproachfully. "It's not fair to let him go on thinking—"

"That his son's a coward?"

"He doesn't think that!"

"Oh yes, he does. He even said it to my face once. I don't think I ever regretted this whole masquerade as much as I did on that day."

"You have to tell him."

"I will," he said, but she could tell by his dull tone that it was something he was dreading.

"Oh, I just remembered." His face grew more animated in the moonlight. "There's something I have to do. It doesn't look like I'll get out of that change of clothes after all. Be on your way, but go slowly enough for me to catch up."

"All right, but what—"

"Zorro has to break into the Alcalde's office tonight. Lord Hodge gave me some forged notes to substitute for the original one written by Zorro that De Soto has."

"What are you talking about?" Now she was confused.

"The census. It is a scheme of the Alcalde's to find out who Zorro is. He's enlisted Lord Hodge to expose his identity by comparing handwriting samples of all the caballeros to those written by Zorro."

"Oh! Can he do that?"

"Apparently. Lord Hodge knows." He caught the look on her face. "No, it's all right. He's changed his mind about helping the Alcalde. He even told me how to avoid this problem in the future."

"But why doesn't he just tell the Alcalde that he can't identify—"

"Because De Soto has another expert coming next week to verify Hodge's findings. The forgeries should fool him. At least, Lord Hodge thinks they will, and he is the expert. Wait for me?"

"Haven't I been doing that forever?"