Welcome to Cadiz, setting for my new novel Masquerade. But not the sparkling, alluring parts of Cadiz to where the tourists flock: welcome to another world – to the gypsies’ world.

A little distance from the sea in a glade as dry as brown wrapping paper, wild and barrenlay the encampment. Yawning with caves and split by rocky gorges… Formed in a rough crescent along the hillside skirting the glade, many of these homes had crude rectangular doorways in front of which were assembled rickety chairs, tables and lines of washing.

Great flaming wood fires were burning, above which large copper containers filled with stew – the powerful smelling pirriá for the evening meal – hung from iron hooks. Two gypsies were singing while beating metal horseshoes on an anvil over a fire, their strong, hoarse voices resounding loudly in the camp. Men sat in groups of three or four in front of their tents, chatting or playing cards; decrepit-looking mongrels sniffed around the cooking pots, hoping for a bone; olive-faced urchins of various ages played hopscotch or ball in front of their doorways.

Now that you have taken tentative steps into the camp, allow me to introduce you to the indisputable leader of these gypsies:

She must have been in her late forties or early fifties, still handsome and well-preserved for a gypsy, not a wrinkle on her olive skin, which nonetheless had a somewhat pallid look. A mass of tousled black hair undulated wildly around a fiercely sensual but hard face, and down to her shoulders. The gold and silver chains and bracelets she wore spoke of her status within the camp: a striking gypsy queen.

Here is Marujita, antagonist of Indiscretion, the first book in the Andalucían Nights trilogy – the beautiful, seductive gypsy who coveted Salvador de Rueda, but lost him to Alexandra de Falla. Now, it is a generation later, and while Salvador and Alexandra have moved on, Marujita has never relinquished her bitterness over the past, and her thirst for vengeance against the couple she believes wronged her.

Marujita is not only a gypsy queen now; she is a mother – to Leandro. Whom she loves. And whom she will mercilessly manipulate in her final days, as she slips slowly away.

And when Leandro rescues a girl named Luz, thrown from a horse, and brings her to the encampment for treatment by his mother, little does he know the chain of events he is setting in motion. At once, Marujita recognises Luz as the daughter of Salvador and Alexandra, and she sees her opportunity.

‘My wish has been granted,’ she tells Leandro,‘and only you, my beloved son, can carry it out to its final closure so I may die in peace.’

Gypsies never forget a bad deed, she informs her son, and the evil actions of enemies must be returned upon them or their children, by law. She demands that her son exact la venganza de Calés (the vengeance of the gypsies) upon the de Ruedas.

What would you do, in such a predicament? Leandro is a good man with a conscience, and already he feels the stirrings of attraction and protectiveness towards Luz. But if he does not do the bidding of the one they call Il Diabolica, the one they all fear, she will cast him out and curse him. As will the other gypsies, to whom Leandro’s identity is tied. Plus there is the small matter of his uncle, Marujita’s brother, who promises to hunt Leandro down and kill him, should he let his mother down.

Of course Leandro does not wish to let his mother down. Whatever she is, whatever she has done and would have him do, she is his one and only mother, and that is sacred. He wishes her to die in peace, released from so many years of hatred. Loving him. Proud of him.

Marujita’s plan is simple: Leandro must seduce Luz, make her fall in love with him – entice her to become his lover. And then:

‘She will be used goods. No honourable Spanish man will marry her after that. La honra in those aristocratic circles obeys rules just as fierce as ours. It will ruin her life and her parents will shed tears of blood, as I have.’

La honra: the honour. Such an integral value in Spanish culture. Marujita is relying on her son’s honour in doing right by his mother, and she is relying on the societal notion of honour to condemn Luz and lay low the de Rueda family.

But what of Leandro’s honour? I am reminded of an axiom from the classical Greek philosopher Socrates: ‘The greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.’ But that, of course, means taking off the mask and revealing one’s true self. Will Leandro find the courage to do so, or will he remain a player in the great masquerade?