The Seer's Choice: A Novella of the Golden City Page 9

  “It wasn’t relevant,” Rafael said.

  “I benefited from her son’s death,” Anjos protested softly.

  “No,” Rafael said firmly. “You benefited from Salazar’s death.”

  A knock came at the door, and Rafael and Anjos both rose. A moment later, Medeiros escorted in a woman of fifty or so, her face worn with worry. She wore a dark blue skirt with a white shirtwaist that spoke of respectability without excess. She clutched a photograph in a silver frame to her chest and a crumpled handkerchief in her other hand.

  “Mrs. Duarte,” Rafael said gently, gesturing for her to sit in one of the empty chairs. “I’m Captain Pinheiro. I wanted to assure you that we’ll do everything we can to find your husband.”

  The woman sniffled and nodded. She shifted the frame in her hand to apply the handkerchief to her nose. “I don’t know why he’s doing this. I don’t know what to think.”

  He held out one hand. “May I see that?”

  The woman’s eyes lifted, startled. “The photograph?”

  He nodded and she placed the frame in his hands. He gazed at it for a moment. “Is this recent?”

  “Last spring,” she said, “but his hair has gone white since Enrique’s death.”

  Enrique would be one of the young men her father had murdered, Genoveva guessed.

  Rafael laid the photograph on his desk where Genoveva could see it. And then she knew why. She wrung her hands together, her jaw clenching tight.

  The man in the photograph was her pursuer. His eyes seemed different somehow, but once she imagined the man with white hair, she had no doubt.

  The captain pulled out a chair and sat a few feet from the man’s wife. “Mrs. Duarte, there are some questions I need to ask about your husband. Does he or anyone in his family have any gifts?”

  “You mean a witch?” the woman asked, sounding aghast. She crossed herself. “No.”

  Rafael nodded. He handed the photograph back and she folded it against her heart again. “What time yesterday did you last see your husband?”

  “I lay down to nap after lunch. When I woke up, he was gone.”

  “I see,” Rafael said. “Does your husband often talk about how your son died?”

  The woman seemed hesitant, but eventually nodded jerkily. “He said it was unfair.”

  Genoveva swallowed. She had a hollow feeling in her stomach.

  “He heard that the man who killed Enrique had a daughter,” Mrs. Duarte added in her weary voice, “and he says it’s unfair that our son is dead when that man’s child is still alive. It’s God’s will, I told him, but he won’t listen to me.”

  Genoveva laid her hand over her mouth, afraid that her anguish would spill out. This was one of the reasons she’d so readily accepted a position with the Special Police—to make some amends for the lives her father had taken.

  “Tell me,” Rafael went on, “would your husband do anything to harm that woman?”

  Mrs. Duarte looked shocked. “He’s angry, that’s all. It’s only talk.”

  Genoveva fixed her gaze on the floor. She wished she had left when she had the chance.

  Rafael rubbed his chin. “Has he had any trouble with his speech lately?”

  “No,” the woman said quietly.

  Anjos shifted in his chair. “Are you certain?”

  “He’s fine most of the time. But when he needs rest, sometimes he doesn’t make sense.”

  “Has he been ill?” Anjos pressed.

  She clutched the picture frame close to her heart. “He has been suffering from headaches lately.”

  Anjos waited.

  “And he’s been irritable,” the woman admitted. “But it’s just grief. He did not take Enrique’s death well.”

  Anjos nodded once, and Rafael took control of the discussion again, reassuring the woman that they would find her husband again. He eased her out of the room into Medeiros’ hands and then turned back to Genoveva. “At least now we know why.”

  She rose, feeling a touch light-headed. “Is that supposed to help? Knowing why he thinks I shouldn’t be alive?”

  Ignoring Anjos’ presence, Rafael came and wrapped his arms around her. Genoveva pressed her cheek against his shoulder. He wouldn’t let the man hurt her, but she didn’t want to fight this battle in the first place.

  “I know it wasn’t pleasant to hear that,” Rafael said, “but now we know who’s following you and why. That will make it easier for us to stop him.”

  She drew back, her hands coming to rest on his arms. “And do what to him? It sounds more like he’s ill than a criminal.”

  “The woman was lying,” Anjos interjected, “when she said the man had no witches in his family. There must have been rumors.”

  Anjos was a witch himself, a Truthsayer whose gift was the ability to recognize when others lied.

  Rafael stepped away from Genoveva. “So he’s a witch and we were simply unaware of that?”

  “Possibly,” Anjos said. “It’s likely the family has trained themselves to deny their gift. To ignore it. That could go back generations.”

  “That sounds about right, sir,” Medeiros said from the doorway. “I can talk to the sons, if you’d like, and see what they say.”

  Genoveva sat in her chair again, feeling Medeiros’ eyes on her.

  “The report says you found Mr. Duarte at the Agramonte Cemetery,” Anjos said, peering at the paperwork again.

  Medeiros turned to the inspector. “Yes, he was at his son’s grave. Sitting on the ground, in fact.”

  “And he didn’t remember how he got there?”

  “No, sir. He couldn’t remember anything from Thursday morning on.”

  “But he was lucid when you found him?” Anjos asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Medeiros said. “He seemed a bit off, but otherwise fine.”

  “Go ahead and check there first,” Rafael said. “If you find him, Gaspar wants to see him. If you don’t find him there, call back in to let us know, then go talk to the sons and find out what runs in their family.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Medeiros nodded to Anjos and Genoveva and left.

  Anjos waited until Medeiros was out of earshot and said, “I don’t want you to be hostage to this situation, Miss Jardim, but Gaspar needs to determine what gift this man has before we approach him. In essence, you’ll be bait. All the more reason for Captain Pinheiro to stay with you around the clock until we find Mr. Duarte.”

  Genoveva wasn’t going to argue that. “So where do we go?”

  

  The room was stiflingly warm so Rafael pushed open the window. There wasn’t much of a breeze coming off of the river, but it was an improvement nonetheless. The sun was beating down, the afternoon grown unseasonably hot. At least they were out of the sunlight and off the streets.

  They’d done just as they’d planned, heading to the government offices in the old Bishop’s Palace first to apply for a marriage license. Then they’d walked down to the quay where a handful of old buildings had been converted into hotels, the sort frequented by less wealthy visitors to the city.

  Gaspar had caught up to them with the news that Medeiros hadn’t found his quarry at the cemetery, although the officer had found what appeared to be the missing floorboards from in front of Rafael’s door. He’d also located Duarte’s surviving sons, who verified that the gift of finding did run in the family, although none of them had ever learned to control it. Therefore using Genoveva as bait was the best way left to them to locate the man, no matter how little Rafael liked it. He spotted Gaspar standing near the aging walls of the quay below, a reassuring sight. Since the hotel only had one door, Duarte would have to get past Gaspar’s sharp eyes to reach Genoveva, and Rafael doubted the man could do that.

  Genoveva sat on the edge of the tatty bed, her hands folded primly in her lap. The furnishings here weren’t any better than what she had back at her boarding house: a bed with a floral coverlet that had likely seen far more inhabitants than it should, a blocky table, an
d a yellowed set of linen curtains. “How long do you think?”

  “Let me ask my gift.” Rafael sat down on the bed next to her. “I wish I could promise this will work, but I can’t.”

  He set his hands on his thighs and tried to slip into a meditative mood. The scent of vanilla tickled his nose, distracting him—Genoveva’s perfume. He forced himself to focus on his gift instead. He asked himself whether the man would show up before nightfall, but his gift had no answer for that. Of course, it hadn’t divined the man’s appearance the previous day, either. He tried to figure out a better question, one that didn’t depend on a man driven mad, but every way he reformulated the question, it still depended on the man’s timing.

  Will we stay here for an hour? he asked himself. Two? That finally produced an answer, a positive one. “Well, we’ll be here a couple of hours, at least.”

  Genoveva sighed. “What do we do then?”

  “We wait.” He gestured toward the pillows. “Might as well nap and save our energy.”

  She shooed him off the bed and dragged back the covers, apparently hunting for bugs. After a thorough search, she pronounced the bedding safe. She slid the pin from her hat and set it on the little nightstand, then proceeded to remove her jacket. Rafael watched silently, wondering how far she intended to go.

  Her eyes lifted and locked with his. “I don’t want to wrinkle my jacket,” she said defensively.

  Rafael smiled. “Of course not.”

  Her lips pressed together in annoyance. “Don’t be prudish, Rafael.”

  He didn’t blame her for her snappishness. After all, he’d already appeared before her stripped to the skin. Unfortunately, he didn’t have permission to see her undressed, not until they married. He leaned back against the wall. “I’m not. Take off as much as you want.”

  Genoveva’s eyes narrowed. Then her fingers began to work on the buttons of her shirtwaist. Rafael kept his mouth shut. She would have on a few layers beneath that, so she had a way to go before this spun out of hand. Surely she would lose her nerve before that point. She finished unbuttoning the placket and turned to the cuffs. She slipped the shirt off and laid it atop her jacket. Her eyes didn’t meet his as she started to unbutton her corset cover.

  He licked his lips. His mouth had gone dry.

  She would still have her corset and camisole left once she removed her corset cover. And her skirts, probably two layers of skirts. And drawers and stockings, too. As he watched, she drew the corset cover off and laid it on the chair as well. Then she unhooked the waist of her skirt and pushed the skirt down over her hips.

  “Gena, I . . .” What exactly was he planning on saying?

  Her eyes lifted to meet his but she didn’t speak. At the moment as much of her was covered as would be when she wore a ball gown.

  “You should probably stop now,” he finally said.

  She stepped carefully out of her skirt and picked it up. “Why?”

  Where did he begin explaining this? It was one thing for him to take a lover who knew what she was doing, who understood all the consequences. A different thing altogether to bed an innocent woman like Genoveva. Even so, he wasn’t going to evade her question or lie to her.

  “Because I don’t have anything with me to assure you won’t become pregnant.” She hadn’t expected him to say that. He could tell from her drawn-up brows. “I don’t want to make a mistake,” he clarified, “that you might regret later.”

  She laid the skirt atop the pile. “What do you mean?”

  “You know very well what I mean. We aren’t married yet. If something happened to me and you found yourself with child, you would be forced to make decisions I would rather you not face. Like my mother did, and your mother. And that woman at the hospital. I don’t want that for you.”

  She licked her lips. “But Rafael . . .”

  He crossed to her and set his hands on her bare arms. “I can wait. It won’t be long.”

  “Rafael . . .”

  “Please don’t push this, Gena. God knows I want you, but I won’t risk . . .”

  She pinched his arm. Hard. “Are you going to listen to me?”

  He was if she was going to do that. He rubbed his stinging arm. “Yes,” he said, sullenness creeping into his tone.

  A rueful smile lifted her lips. “Don’t you know, Rafael? Healers have one advantage over other women. We can prevent ourselves from becoming pregnant.”

  Had he ever heard that before? He realized he was gaping at her. “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I can control my monthly cycle. I didn’t grasp I was doing that when I was younger, but I was. A very . . . convenient skill to have.”

  Yes, it must be. “So you wouldn’t become pregnant?”

  She shook her head.

  His breath came short. If he were a gentleman, he wouldn’t press this.

  If he was a better son of the Church, he would leave now.

  He reached out, grabbed the lower edge of her corset, and dragged her closer. He laid one hand on each side of the corset’s busk. “Are you sure?”

  Her eyes were fixed on his. “Yes.”

  He pushed the edges of the busk together and the hooks popped loose. Genoveva tossed the corset onto the growing pile. Then he reached up to remove the pins from her hair, but she stepped back. “Not that,” she said. “I want to keep that.”

  “What?”

  “Until we’re married,” she clarified, laying one slender hand against his chest. “You can’t see my hair down until we’re married.”

  He hadn’t given it much thought before. Genoveva had shiny brown hair, worn in the same style that most every woman wore. Rafael didn’t think her hair was padded, though, so it must be thick. He’d seen one strand come loose that day in the rain, and it certainly curled.

  Now that she’d forbidden it, he desperately wanted to see her hair loose.

  “Agreed,” he said anyway. He could have a little self-discipline. He leaned down to kiss her, aware of her hands tugging at his jacket. She didn’t seem to be afraid of him, a glorious thing.

  She pushed his jacket off his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. “Undress.”

  Definitely not afraid of me. He stepped back and began stripping off his clothes, not nearly as tidy as she’d been. She sat on the edge of the bed and took off her shoes and stockings as he did so, but kept her eyes on him the whole time. When he stood before her nude—which he’d done the day before—she rose and came back to him. Eyes downcast, she ran her hands down his bare chest, sending gooseflesh along his arms despite the heat. She wrapped her arms around him. Her breasts pressed into his chest, and his body definitely made up its mind where it wanted this to go. He reached around her to unbutton her underskirt, the scent of warm vanilla surrounding him, but was distracted when her hands settled on his buttocks.

  “Gena?” he asked, breath short.

  She grinned up at him. “I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you wearing those white shorts.”

  He didn’t wait for further explanation. He simply picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed.

  

  If there were a choice, Genoveva would willingly spend the next month in bed with Rafael. She’d known he was a passionate man, but that had been an abstract idea for her. She’d wanted him to be her lover without truly grasping what that meant. Now she knew, and it was far more thrilling than she had ever imagined. She didn’t know how much time had passed. They were surely coming close to the couple of hours he’d foreseen. It wasn’t enough.

  She shifted to rest her head against his shoulder. She laid one hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat, still faster than normal. “Do you like to dance?”

  That apparently struck him as funny, because he let out a flustered laugh. “Are you referring to the waltz, perhaps?”

  She must have hit on a male euphemism for sex. “Fine,” she said, “do you waltz?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Are
you as good at that as I suspect you are?”

  He turned on his side to regard her with laughing eyes. “Why do you ask?”

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth, but then answered. “I hadn’t noticed before I saw you playing football. How graceful you are, I mean. I thought then that you must be a good dancer, and I began to wonder what else you did well.”

  She had to be blushing.

  “I dance well,” he said with a gentle smile. He touched her hair, tugging on a strand as if trying to pull it free from her bun. “I was always athletic, so it came naturally.”

  She disentangled his fingers from her hair. “I’m not taking it down,” she reminded him, then added, “I would love to dance with you.”

  “After we’re married, then,” he said smugly. “You can’t dance with me until we’re married.”

  She supposed she deserved that condition, since she’d refused to take down her hair. She touched his chin, feeling stubble there. “What should we do now?”

  He smiled, but lay back and closed his eyes. He was trying to use his gift; she knew what that looked like now. She waited, wondering if he would have any answer this time. After a moment, his eyes opened wide. “Get up,” he said. “Get dressed.”

  She didn’t question him. She jumped up and began grabbing up her undergarments. Rafael rolled out of the bed behind her. Once she’d pulled on her drawers and chemise, she picked up her corset, wrapped it about her and began trying to hook up the busk. Rafael, only missing his waistcoat and jacket at this point, came around in front of her and did that for her, reinforcing her earlier impression of his familiarity with women’s undergarments. She would bring that up some other time. He turned her loose, and she grabbed up her corset cover and put it on.

  Shouting on the quay below prompted Rafael to climb over the bed and step out onto the small balcony. Genoveva clambered over as well. She hid behind him, peering over his shoulder as she buttoned the waistband of her skirt. “What’s happening?”