1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [95]
And now, it was time. Sharon had spent months wondering and worrying about how she would handle the situation. But, in the event, it all came quite easily and naturally.
She turned and placed a hand on Ruy's arm, to bring him forward and to her side. "I'd like all of you to meet my fiancé, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz."
Ruy immediately bestowed a bow on the new arrivals. No courtier in Madrid could have done it better, even one whose pedigree was genuine. Actually, they couldn't have done it as well, because they wouldn't have known how to keep it from being too elaborate. Ruy had now been around Americans long enough to know that the more ornate flourishes of seventeenth-century punctilio were not only wasted on them but would be viewed as slightly ridiculous in any event.
Sharon still didn't know Ruy's real last name. But she'd stopped nagging him about it after he'd told her, in a tone of voice that was genuinely sad, that he would not impart the information until the time came—if the time came—that he could visit his mother's grave. Openly, and in broad daylight.
Her father's reaction would be the critical one, so Sharon eyed him a bit nervously. Leaving aside the normal tension that automatically existed whenever a man was introduced for the first time to his future son-in-law, there was the added factor of Ruy's age. Sharon was pretty sure that Ruy was a bit younger than her father, but "a bit" was the operative term. A few years, no more—and he could conceivably even be as old as Dr. Nichols.
And . . .
It was weird. Her father wasn't even looking at Ruy's face, after an initial glance. He was studying the costume, most of his attention on the sword.
Sharon herself hadn't even noticed that Ruy was armed. Or hadn't thought about it, at least. Being armed in public was such an ingrained part of Ruy Sanchez—his persona, for lack of a better term—that she'd long since stopped giving it any thought at all.
She couldn't help it. She burst out laughing, covering her mouth with her hand.
Her father cocked an inquisitive eye at her.
"Sorry," she half-choked. "I was just remembering the time I introduced Leroy to you for the first time. You gave him that very same scrutiny."
Dr. Nichols chuckled. "No, not really. That time, I was trying to figure out where the bum might be hiding some drug paraphernalia."
Then he smiled at Ruy and extended his hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Señor Sanchez. I will say you don't quite match Sharon's depictions of you in her letters."
"Her very long and fulsome depictions," Melissa added dryly.
"Sure don't," added Rita, who was back to grinning.
Now it was Ruy who was cocking an inquisitive eye at her.
"It's not fair," Sharon whined. "You weren't supposed to be here yet. I'm not ready for this."
"Yup," said Rita smugly. "And there's the Third Law. 'No good deed shall go unwhined about.' "
James Nichols was trying to hide his genuine surprise at finally seeing Ruy Sanchez in the flesh. Surprise so great that it bordered on outright shock. The man didn't look at all the way he'd thought he would, from Sharon's letters.
He realized now, in retrospect, that he should have been prepared. His daughter was the sort of person who always responded to problems of a personal nature by what he'd come to think of as the "Sharon preemptive strike."
And if you think THAT's bad, Daddy dearest, lemme tell you what else—
So, naturally, her letters had emphasized all the possible drawbacks to Ruy Sanchez, as a husband. Among those, pride of place had been given to the fact that he was a generation older than she was. By the time she was done, Nichols had been stoically prepared to greet an ancient mariner, painfully hobbling about and breathing wheezily.
Instead . . .
James Nichols no longer wondered how a man of such an advanced and decrepit age could have not only challenged six men to a swordfight, but pretty much won the thing. If you ignored Sanchez's face, with its lines and its gray hairs, you'd swear you were