Текст книги "The Golden City"

Автор книги: Kathleen Cheney

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CHAPTER 10

Humming with the sound of moving water, the pipes on the second floor told Duilio his mother’s new companion had drawn a bath, which served his purposes well. He had questions that needed answering, and catching her in her bath would give him the leverage he needed. She wouldn’t be able to deny who she was.

It might be improper, but it was expedient. He could apologize later.

But he had to smooth his butler’s injured consequence first. “This has nothing to do with you, Cardenas. I merely suspect she would prefer to hold both copies.”

Cardenas wasn’t happy about surrendering one of his precious keys. “And if I should need to get in there to inspect the maids’ work, sir?”

“It’s only for a short time, Cardenas,” Duilio said soothingly. “I’ll give it two weeks. If she’s comfortable with the arrangement by then, I’ll ask her to return the key to you.”

“As you wish, Mr. Ferreira.” Cardenas frowned as he worked the brass key off his ring.

Duilio couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t the loss of a key that bothered the man, but the implied loss of control. Cardenas didn’t want to give up the ability to check on the other servants in the household, particularly not after the incident with the footman who’d robbed them. Fortunately, the butler wasn’t the sort to abuse his power. Duilio slipped the key inside his coat pocket, where it clinked against the master copy he already held. “Thank you, Cardenas.”

The perturbed butler took his leave and headed down the stairs to the first floor.

Duilio chewed on his lower lip. Am I actually going to do this? He took a deep breath and knocked on the bedroom door. When he got no response, he listened carefully and then let himself in.

It was Alessio’s old room—too masculine for a lady’s companion, perhaps, but there hadn’t been time to make changes. It had a private bath, as did none of the other empty rooms; if he was right about her, she would appreciate that.

Duilio strode across the rug and pressed one ear against the door to the bathing room, but didn’t hear any movement within. He unlocked the bathroom door, and, once inside, gazed down into the oversized porcelain tub.

Miss Paredes lay under the surface of the water, her eyes closed. The jangling of the keys must have been muffled by the water, because she apparently hadn’t heard him enter.

Duilio stared down at her, mesmerized. A flush of heat surged through his body. She was . . . stunning.

He’d admired her figure before, but unclothed she was as spectacular as he’d imagined. Her breasts with their mauve-tipped nipples were rounded but not overlarge. Her waist didn’t owe its trimness to corsetry, and her hips flared down to nicely curved thighs. His hands practically itched to touch her. He’d never been attracted to small, delicate females. Oriana Paredes was the sort of woman he preferred to bed—tall and strong and able to keep up with him in . . .

Oh, good Lord!What was he thinking? She was employed in his household. He turned partially away from her, mentally clamping down on his desire.

He was grateful she seemed unaware of his presence, that she hadn’t opened her eyes to catch him gaping at her like a schoolboy in a whorehouse. He must be flushed all the way to his hairline. He peeked at her again out of the corner of one eye, firmly reminding himself he was purportedly a gentleman.

Her hair spread about her head, the reddish tinge transmuted to a burgundy glow. Her skin looked different in the water as well, the paleness of her face becoming an opal-like iridescence. Below her breasts, her skin changed to a shimmering silver, a perfect imitation of scales running all the way down to her toes—the reason sailors claimed sereia had fish tails.

Her hands moved slowly through the water, no longer obscured by an old woman’s mitts. Translucent webbing showed between her fingers, pearly skin stretching between them up to the last knuckle, so thin he might be able to see through it in the light.

The expression on her face reminded him of paintings of the saints enraptured in the presence of God. She was singing to herself, the notes muted by the water. On each side of her neck, pink-edged gills vibrated with the sound.

But that song could entrap him if she raised her head above the surface. It was said men would throw themselves into the sea on hearing it. And while he wouldn’t mind staring at that silver-gilded body for the rest of the afternoon, the last thing he needed was to be enslaved to her, so he discreetly tapped on the side of the tub with one booted foot.

Still underwater, her dark eyes opened wide.

Miss Paredes sat up in a rush, setting the water sloshing about. She scooted back against the side of the tub and pressed her hands over her neck to hide her gills. That forced her breasts together, unfortunately obscuring his view of them at the same time. “I locked the door,” she said, her shaky voice betraying alarm. “How did you get in here?”

Duilio spotted a towel on the table near the vanity stand and retrieved it. He was notgoing to blush. “I have the keys, of course.”

Selkies rarely showed any discomfiture over nudity. That French book he’d once read, if he recalled correctly, suggested the sereia shared that view. Her choice of covering her gills—rather than anything else—reinforced the notion. Even so, it would be ungentlemanly to stare at her bared body, no matter how lovely. He held out the towel, resolutely reminding himself to keep his eyes on her face.

“What are you doing in here?” She rose from the water, giving him a glimpse of golden stippling along the outside of her thighs. He couldn’t see her dorsal stripe, supposedly one of a sereia’s best features, from that angle. She snatched the towel from his hand and wrapped it about her body, keeping her back turned away from him the whole time. Then she fixed him with a hard gaze, raising her brows to prompt an answer to her question.

Duilio leaned back against the vanity stand and crossed one ankle over the other, trying to present a nonchalant facade. “I suspected you were a sereia,” he said in a mild tone. “I needed to be sure.”

“You could have asked,” she said with asperity.

Her teeth barely showed when she spoke. Even though they looked like a human’s teeth, he’d heard they were razor sharp. He had the feeling she was considering biting him, so he kept his distance. “You would have lied.”

She twisted her dripping hair into a knot with one webbed hand. The movement gave him a better view of a yellowish discoloration encircling her forearms and wrists, faded bruises that might have come from being bound. “It is unacceptable to take advantage of someone in your employ, sir,” she said primly.

He felt his cheeks burn again, but tried to ignore it. “I haven’t taken advantage of you,” he said, “nor do I have any intention of doing so. But we need to talk, and we can speak privately here without being interrupted.”

“And I expected that I could bathe privately here, sir,” she snapped. “Without being interrupted.”

Duilio found himself admiring her nerve. It made him like her better. He doubted he would have maintained such composure if their positions were reversed. “If you’re caught here,” he began, “the prince will have you imprisoned or killed.”

“I am aware of that,” she said, sounding as if she thought him dense.

He inclined his head. It had been a waste of his breath to say it. “But in this household, you are quite safe.”

One brow rose. “Even from you?”

“As I said, I needed to be sure. This is not a habit.”

She tucked the towel more firmly about herself. “How did you know?”

“I’ve watched you for some time.” He smiled, feeling oddly pleased that he was finally getting to tell someonehow he’d figured out her secret. “Your eyes are large, dark, as one would need to see in deep water. You always seem to hide your hands. I’ve never seen you wear gloves, always mitts.”

“I see.” Miss Paredes regarded him warily. “So, what do you want of me?”

“You were pulled out of the river on the night of the twenty-fifth. What happened?”

* * *

Oriana stared at Mr. Ferreira, taken aback. How does he know about that night?

“Miss Paredes?” he prompted.

And how could she answer his question? She couldn’t tell him the truth. . . .

Then again, she had nothing to lose, did she? He already knew she was a sereia. Could she trust this man? He wore a different face now, not the one she’d seen the day before. He’d unnerved her at first, but ultimately she’d taken him for a fop, silly and desperate for approval, prattling on about a stupid coat. The man standing in front of her had direct, intelligent eyes—sharp eyes that she suspected many in the upper levels of society wouldn’t appreciate if they realized his frivolous manner hid them.

He’d been hunting her all along, she realized. Mr. Ferreira had to be the one who’d been inquiring about her by name on the streets, the one Heriberto had mentioned. She sat down on the edge of the full tub and tucked her overlarge feet behind its clawed foot, debating internally. Then she lifted her eyes to meet his. “Isabel Amaral died there.”

He didn’t flinch.

“She and I left her home disguised as housemaids, but we were apprehended in the street. I was drugged. When I awoke, I was tied to a chair, upside down, inside a tiny dark room. Isabel was across from me, bound the same.”

He looked neither surprised nor horrified. “And then it was dropped into the river.”

“Yes.” She gazed down at the bruises that discolored her arms. If she kept to the facts, she could keep the pain at bay. “I heard chains rattling. Then we hit the water and started sinking. The water kept coming in. I chewed at the ropes, but Isabel was dead before I could get free.”

His expression remained solemn.

She took a steadying breath. “You knew.”

He pressed his lips together, stalling perhaps. “I suspected. Can you tell me what happened then?”

Oriana told him everything—about trying to save Isabel, about the glowing letters on the table, and the taste of death in the water once she’d escaped. Her description of the two men in the rowboat drew a scowl from him. She quickly listed what she’d learned since, including Carlos’ revelation that Mr. Efisio’s coachman had searched for them, her research taken from the newspapers, and the sketch she’d made of the table. She left out only her meeting with Nela, as she was unwilling to endanger another sereia. Mr. Ferreira listened solemnly, asking pointed questions in places, but he never questioned her veracity. “So, this might be necromancy of some sort,” she said, “although I don’t know what purpose it serves.”

“Magic is not my forte. I know whom I would ask if we were in Paris, but here . . . here the Church holds more sway, so no one practices openly.” He shrugged ruefully. “In any case, you’re the first victim to escape, so what you know far outweighs what the police know.”

She sat up straighter. “Are the police investigating this? How long have they known?”

“It took them some time to see the pattern,” he said. “A couple of servants would disappear from a household on the Street of Flowers and, a day or two later, that corresponding replica would be found in the river. The police only figured it out a few weeks ago. Most of the missing servants were never reported to the police, and those who were reported were treated as missing. No one believed they might be dead until Lady Pereira de Santos started pressing the police to find her two missing housemaids. Since the houses aren’t being placed in the river in an obvious order, the relationship between the two factors was difficult to discern.”

Oriana covered her face with her hands. Servants came and went, generally unimportant to their masters, but she recalled Lady Pereira de Santos herself coming to the Amaral house to speak to the butler. Even if Oriana hadn’t known the girls, it made her stomach turn to think that they and so many others had died the way Isabel had. She drew another calming breath and laid her hands in her lap again. “Espinoza has taken someone from each household?”

Mr. Ferreira nodded ruefully. “All of the houses have confirmed the abrupt ‘departure’ of a pair of servants.”

And she and Isabel had been disguised as housemaids.Oriana laid one hand over her mouth, suddenly wondering if Isabel’s silly whim had gotten her killed. She was notgoing to cry. She turned her eyes to the floor so he wouldn’t see. “How many have died?”

“We can’t be sure, but there are now twenty-five houses in the river.”

Oriana shuddered. That meant fifty dead servants out there. No, forty-nine. It was a huge number to have slipped past unremarked, showing a damning disregard for the lower classes of society. “That means we only have about a week left to stop him before he kills again. I should have gone directly to the police. I didn’t realize . . .”

“No,” he said softly. “Turning yourself in wouldn’t have benefited anyone. When we went to the commissioners for permission to pull up one of the houses and open it, we were ordered to drop the investigation altogether.”

She licked her lips, wondering at his use of we. “You work for the police?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Surely you aren’t suggesting a gentleman would work for money?”

She preferred a direct answer. “Do you?”

“I consultfor them,” he said, dipping his head.

Semantics. “In what capacity?”

He shrugged. “I have access to levels of society where the police are not welcome.”

Ah. The police were using him to access society, just as she’d used Isabel. “But if the investigation was stopped . . .”

“As a private citizen,” he said, “I can ask the questions now forbidden to the police. We’re hoping that, given enough evidence, we’ll be allowed to reopen the investigation. Right now we have no proof. We can’t even get the newspapers to investigate. They fear being accused of spreading conspiracies by the Ministry of Culture, and supposedly the prince likes the artwork. They don’t want to offend him and get shut down. However, the fact that someone other than a mere servant was killed might prove the tipping point.”

Far too late to do Isabel any good. “So you sought me out. Why ask me to come here, if you could simply ask me your questions and send me on my way? You could have had them arrest me.”

“You are a victim in this,” he said, actually sounding regretful, “not a criminal. And you’re the only witness we have, the best lead we have in finding the man who’s doing this.”

“And when we have stopped Espinoza, will you then turn me in to the Special Police?”

He smiled wryly and shook his head. “No. You’re safe here. I have never found it reasonable to fear any of the sea folk. And I do not intend to reinforce the prince’s fears by exposing an actual spy. Heaven forfend.”

He made it sound light, but he could easily send her to her death. “Thank you.”

“You are a spy, aren’t you?” he asked, as if needing verification.

“Yes,” she said. “I am a spy.”

He nodded once. “I assume you have a master to whom you report. Do you need to do so?”

No, she wouldn’t tell Heriberto. He would not like this development at all. Oriana shook her head. “I’m avoiding him for now. I will find Isabel’s killer first and face him later.”

One of Mr. Ferreira’s dark brows quirked upward. “That’s brave.”

“I have my reasons,” she said. “So, what do I do now?”

“Well, to start, try to entertain my mother a little, which will be harder than you expect.”

Given her earlier interview with the woman, she didexpect that to be difficult. “Should I not speak to the police? The actual police, I mean.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think it would be wise for me to drag you to one of the police stations. If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit down tomorrow, perhaps after breakfast, and go over everything you can remember. I need every detail you can dredge up. Then I’ll talk to my police contacts, find out what we need, and we’ll go on from there.”

“Is that all?” She suspected her frustration came through in her tone.

He pushed away from the vanity where he’d been leaning and added, “I intend no slight, Miss Paredes. I believe you will be key to stopping Espinoza and his cohorts. But we need time to assess your information. Give me one day, please.”

He took her free hand—the one not clutching the towel—and pressed two brass keys into her palm. The sight of the webbing between her fingers didn’t seem to give him pause. “The butler’s copy as well, so you can have some privacy here. And one of these tins,” he added, gesturing toward the jumble of gilded boxes on the vanity table, “probably has sea salt in it.”

He let himself out of the bath, the scent of his ambergris cologne tickling her nose as he brushed past. Oriana locked the door behind him and rested her back against it.

He had apparently known she was a sereia for some time. That was a humbling revelation. She’d always been so careful, hiding her gills and hands. Isabel would never even have known if she hadn’t stormed back into the back rooms at the dressmaker's and caught Oriana with her hands bared. For two years, no one hadnoticed her. Even so, he’dknown.

At the same time, Mr. Ferreira had utterly fooled her. On the submersible, she’d believed his endless chatter. She’d thought him empty-headed and harmless. He was far more deceptive than she’d ever guessed, and clearly more successful at it than she was. She’d never heard a whisper of his involvement with the police. Society would be livid—and unforgiving—if that ever became public.

She let out a sigh and contemplated the cool water in the tub. After a week without a proper bath, her gills could certainly use more time in the water. And she needed desperately to unravel everything she’d just learned and plot a new course of action.

As she did her best thinking when wet, she went to find that promised box of sea salt.

CHAPTER 11

Duilio waited alone down in the kitchen. Mrs. Cardoza and her helpers had finished with the after-dinner cleaning. Gustavo Mendes, one of the footmen, was playing his twelve-string guitar down in the workroom and singing a mournful song whose notes drifted to the empty kitchen. The music brought back memories of Duilio’s university days, of drinking more Vinho Verdethan was wise and listening to fado in the taverns of Coimbra far too late into the night.

While Gustavo was a talented singer, Duilio had quickly discovered after his return that the young man’s true desire was to become a police inspector, like Joaquim. Gustavo had proven to be a help when Duilio had needed to observe someone, break into a house, or be in two places at once. He could have asked Gustavo to wait here, but . . .

Duilio checked his watch again—it was just past ten—and almost missed Miss Paredes slipping down the servants’ stair. He rose when he saw her walking along the narrow hallway toward the back door of the house. She wore black again, a skirt and shirtwaist shabby enough to cause him to speculate as to whether it might be what she’d had on that night. “Miss Paredes?”

Her head snapped about. “Mr. Ferreira. What are you doing down here, sir?”

Judging by her tone, his presence wasn’t wanted. “I thought if you needed to go out, I might accompany you.”

She came down the two steps into the kitchen, her jaw clenched. She looked trapped. “I was not to take up my duties until tomorrow, I thought.”

He caught her implication immediately. “You are an employee of this household, Miss Paredes, not a prisoner. I’m not here to stop you, but as you are our most important lead in this case, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you on your own out there.”

She’d listened with her lips pressed tightly together. “Mr. Ferreira, I have been in this city for two years and have never run into trouble.”

Duilio felt his brows creeping upward.

Miss Paredes shook her head. “That was a stupid thing to say. But truly, sir, I am only going over to Bainharia Street to see a friend. I won’t be gone more than an hour.”

Bainharia Street wasn’t far, but its short length was dark and shadowy, as was that entire area. It would be an excellent location for an ambush. And he was curious to see where Miss Paredes was going at this hour, so he continued to press her. “Are you armed?”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth, a motion he found strangely appealing, as she adjusted the pin holding on her straw hat. “Do you think that’s necessary?” she asked in a tart voice. “There are plenty of streetlamps.”

“And someone almost succeeded in killing you before, Miss Paredes.” He felt bad for pointing that out. It wasn’t as if he’d never walked into a trap himself. “All I’m asking is that you let me follow you. I’ll keep my distance, I promise.”

She sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “Oh, very well. You might as well accompany me, since it pertains to your investigation.”

“Thank you. I am honored you’re willing to trust me that far,” he said. She cast him a doubtful glance, but didn’t protest his statement, so he gestured for her to precede him. When she walked up the steps, he could see that her skirt had been torn in a couple of places, then neatly repaired. Hadn’t she said something about her skirt tearing when she escaped the replica in the river? Did it bother her to wear those same garments again?

She stopped at the back door and waited while he picked up his hat and an umbrella. Once outside, he locked the door and set off at her side. “You’d best give me your arm.”

She hesitated, but then wrapped her hand about the crook of his arm as they walked in silence down the alleyway behind the houses. He led her along the alley and onto the Street of Flowers, heading up toward the palace. “Can I assume you have some expertise with weapons?”

“Yes. I lost my dagger in the river, though,” she said softly enough that he had to lean closer to hear. “The man who dove in after me wrestled it out of my hand.” She glanced down at her right palm, covered by her mitt. “I need to replace it.”

The traffic on the Street of Flowers flowed all night, although there were far fewer carriages at this hour. Pedestrians kept their distance, moving along the line of fences in clumps. Duilio watched them, unwilling to risk her safety. “I’ve got a couple of spares. A gun?”

“I know how to use a gun, but the trigger guard can be tricky, so a blade is more reliable.”

He almost stopped walking, puzzled by that claim, and then realized that her webbing would make getting her finger through the trigger guard difficult. That prompted a dozen other questions in his mind, most pertaining to her people’s military—surely they had a navy—but this wasn’t the right time to be asking. Instead he went back to an earlier question. “This man who dove in after you. How did he catch you? Did he outswim you?”

“I’d hit my head on the side of their boat,” she said, sounding embarrassed by that fact, “and I was exhausted by then. I just wasn’t fast enough.”

Her face turned toward him, but he was watching a group of apparently drunken young men stumbling in their direction. He maneuvered Miss Paredes over until they walked next to the fence and made sure he kept between her and the young men. Fortunately, the revelers were too busy insulting each other to bother Miss Paredes. Their chatter faded as they continued down toward the river. “And the other man,” Duilio said. “Silva? Did he say anything?”

She turned onto Souto, the narrow street that would cross Bainharia. It wasn’t much more than a cobbled alleyway, not wide enough for a carriage. A feeble glow came from a streetlamp affixed to the side of one of the buildings that closed in on either side. “He seemed to think he was rescuing me,” she said. “He claimed he’d had a vision about me being in the water and came to save me.”

Duilio pursed his lips. He didn’t like Silva, but he didn’t want to bias her perception of the events of that night. He didn’t want to put ideas in her head.

It had been an unpleasant shock when she’d told him his bastard uncle had been the one to draw her out of the river. At first Duilio had assumed the boat was rowed by a collaborator of hers. When he’d realized Miss Paredes was a victim, Aga’s mention of the two men in the boat had gone from understandable to baffl ing. How had the small boat gotten out there, past the patrols? Hearing that it was Silva in the boat made it less improbable. The man had access everywhere, and could probably talk his way past any police patrol. But Duilio found his entry into her story disconcerting. “Did you see any other boats on the water nearby?”

“If you’re thinking of the boat that dropped the house into the water, it would have been long gone,” she said, shaking her head. “Silva and his man must have rowed out from the city.”

The City Under the Seawas positioned out of the lanes of traffic, nearer the southern bank of the Douro River. It inhabited an area dredged out in the past decade, ostensibly to create harbor space for naval vessels, but the navy had chosen to dock their vessels at the unfinished Port of Leixões, north of the Golden City, instead. That dredging had created a perfect situation for the artwork. It was just past a curve in the river, so the river’s outward current didn’t pull too hard on the houses, and protected from the incoming tidal currents by the southern breakwater that kept the sea at bay. It was about a mile from the quays of the Golden City over to that spot, giving it privacy. One had to be going there to end up there, so Silva’s appearance could not have been an accident. “Did you believe Silva? About his vision, I mean?”

She walked on for a moment without answering, her heels clicking against the cobbles. “To be truthful,” she finally said, “I am not a believer in seers, Mr. Ferreira. I’ve always suspected they simply pretend to know what will transpire and only point out the times they happened to be correct. Anyone would be right half the time, don’t you think?”

Well, I’ve been put in my place. Duilio smiled ruefully. “Logic tells us that isthe case, Miss Paredes. So what do you think led him there, then?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But he said we’d meet again. That does concern me.”

It worried him too. Silva was the showy sort who would create a great fanfare when he revealed that he’d saved a young woman from drowning. Miss Paredes did not need her likeness in the newspaper. He only hoped that it took Silva some time to locate her.

They’d reached Bainharia Street and she gestured toward the dark windows of a druggist’s shop in one of the first buildings. “This one. We’ll have to go upstairs.”

Beyond the wrought-iron guarding a narrow balcony, a light still burned in the second-floor window. Someone was waiting for Miss Paredes. She opened the door and slipped inside. A plain lantern hung from the ceiling, casting the yellow walls in a sickly light. Duilio followed, climbing the narrow stair behind her. She knocked on the door of the apartment above the store.

An elderly woman opened the door and peered out. “Ah, good. You’ve come. I’ve had word.” She caught sight of Duilio waiting a couple of steps down the stair. “Who is this?”

“My new employer—” Miss Paredes began.

The woman opened the door a bit wider and held up a wrinkled hand. “Don’t tell me, child. Heriberto came by this afternoon, trying to find out where you went, so I’d better not know any more. Give me a moment.” She closed the door, leaving them in the hallway.

Miss Paredes glanced at him, an apologetic expression drawing her brows together. Duilio shook his head. “I don’t need to know.”

The worry fled her features then. “Thank you.”

He didn’tneed her to tell him. Heriberto was, without doubt, the name of Miss Paredes’ superior. That the man had visited the elderly inhabitant of this building hinted that the woman must also be a sereia, despite the evidence that Duilio hadn’t seen webbing between her fingers. That raised questions he would love to explore, but they could wait until Miss Parades trusted him more.

The door opened again, and the elderly woman passed out a square envelope. “She left this for you.”

Miss Paredes took it. “Thank you. I truly appreciate your help.”

The elderly woman waggled one finger at her, a finger that had an ugly scar running up each side. “Be careful out there, child.”

“I will,” Miss Paredes promised her.

The woman nodded and closed her door, an end to the interview.

Duilio heard the key turning in the lock. “Is that it, then?”

Miss Paredes chewed her lower lip for a second, cast a glance at his face, and then opened the envelope and withdrew a fine, deckle-edged card. She read the words, her dark eyes flicking across the page. “I’m supposed to meet her at the Carvalho ball Thursday night.” Her eyes lifted to his face. “Do you know a way I could sneak in?”

Duilio didn’t ask whom Miss Paredes was expected to meet. Not yet. But if she’d asked his help, then this meeting was important to her. “Sneak in? No, Miss Paredes. You and I will walk in the front door. I’m invited.”

“I can’t accompany you,” Miss Paredes protested, her spine straightening. “I’m not . . .”

When she trailed off, he realized that she’d misunderstood his intention. He couldescort a young lady to that ball uninvited—he knew the Carvalho family well enough to get away with it—but that would attract more attention than he wanted at the moment. And it might prove awkward, since Mr. Carvalho had approached Duilio earlier in the year, hoping to arrange a marriage with his eldest daughter. But Duilio had a different plan in mind. “My mother is invited as well,” he clarified. “As her companion, your attendance would be unexceptional.”

“Ah. I see,” she said, her face lowering as if she might be blushing, although Duilio didn’t see any flush staining her cheeks. “Is she well enough to go?”

“Despite her distraction, my mother is made of steel, Miss Paredes,” he said. “She can do anything once she makes up her mind. Shall we discuss it with her in the morning?”

Miss Paredes slipped the card back into its envelope. “Yes. Thank you, sir.”

Duilio offered her his arm. “Then let’s go home.”