The Golden City (17 page)

Oriana quickly hid her smile behind her hand. While it hadn’t embarrassed her to be caught nude, as it would have a human woman, it had embarrassed her to be caught
at all
. Now she had the upper hand. “A knife wound?”

His cool manner re
st
ored, he attempted to survey the slash again. “Yes, but not deep.”

As she couldn’t go to a hospital herself, she’d been trained to handle minor injuries. She opened the liquor cabinet, sele
ct
ed the brandy decanter, and carried it over to the table. She picked up his bloodied shirt and, once she’d poured some brandy on it, lifted it to his shoulder. “Who did this?”

He hissed when the fabric touched his skin, but otherwise he didn’t flinch from her familiarity. “I’m not sure.”

“You didn’t see your assailant?”

He gazed at her, his expression calculating. “I did, but I didn’t recognize him.”

She pulled the shirt away. The blade mu
st
have scraped along the skin, leaving a shallow cut rather than a pun
ct
ure, so the wound wouldn’t need
st
itching. “Do you have something to bind this?”

“I was going to use the shirt,” he said with a short laugh. “And I was planning on drinking the brandy.”

Oriana handed him the sodden garment. “You mu
st
have gauze somewhere. Iodine?”

“Open the bottom drawer of the cabinet.”

Oriana returned to the liquor cabinet and, from the bottom drawer, extra
ct
ed a bottle of iodine in a paperboard box that also held a few rolls of gauze and a pair of sharp-looking scissors. The handles were small, but she could probably use the very tips of her fingers to control them. She took a pair of glasses from an upper shelf and returned to the table.

“Who is Erdano?” she asked as she set everything down.

He picked up the brandy decanter, poured two glasses, and slid one over toward her hand. “What did my mother tell you?”

Oriana ignored the glass for the moment and peered at his wound again. There was a bit of skin that would need to be cut away, but it looked clean otherwise. She removed her mitts and laid them aside. “I gather he’s your half brother. She said he lives at Braga Bay, but only selkies live there.”

He was facing away from her at the moment, so she couldn’t see his expression. “And your dedu
ct
ion is?”

“That Erdano is a selkie,” she said as she negotiated the small handles of the scissors onto her fingertips. “And that your mother mu
st
be, as well.”

“Yes,” he said, his head bowing. “If my mother were handed over to the Special Police, it would mean her life.”

“Don’t move, please.” She dabbed at the wound with some of the gauze, and then began to cut away the extra skin. So Mr. Ferreira was half selkie himself. That shed new light on his willingness to harbor a sereia in his household. He could ensure Oriana’s safety here . . . because she could turn the threat of exposure back on him and his mother. “I’m done cutting.” Oriana wiped the scissors on a scrap of gauze. “Your mother’s human in this form,” she pointed out. “They can’t prove she isn’t.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “
Someone
can. Someone has her pelt, which would be ample evidence should that person choose to expose her.” Oriana touched iodine-soaked gauze to his wound, and he flinched. “Are you enjoying that?”

“Of course I am,” she said, not entirely sarca
st
ically. She sponged the wound and then the skin around it. “Was her pelt taken from her?”

He sighed when she laid down the iodine-dampened gauze. “It was
st
olen three years ago, and since then she’s been trapped in human form. Until we can get it back, she won’t get better.”

“Is her”—Oriana laid clean gauze over the wound while she tried to find an acceptable term—“
di
st
ra
ct
ion
due to its absence?”

Mr. Ferreira took a sip of his brandy and nodded.

How very sad
. No wonder the woman
st
ared out at the water; she couldn’t go back. In human form, Lady Ferreira was as vulnerable to the water as Isabel had been. Oriana had Mr. Ferreira lift his arm so that she could wrap a length of bandage about the shoulder, and then he held that tight while she looked through the box on the table. A moment later the bandage was secured with a safety pin, although if he was a re
st
less sleeper it probably wouldn’t hold.

Mr. Ferreira drew out one of the chairs, sat, and drank down his remaining brandy in one gulp. Facing her, he looked little different from a sereia male. That thought sent warmth throughout her body that had nothing to do with the brandy. She was glad then that she couldn’t blush. She settled across from him and finally took a sip of her own glass. Brandy burned her throat and gills, but Isabel had taught her to
st
omach it. “Was it this Paolo she’s so afraid of?”

He sat with lips pursed for a moment.

“She said he wants to kill you,” Oriana added. “That he’d taken away your brother and your father.
Did
he kill them?”

He rubbed a hand across his face in a weary ge
st
ure. “About a year and a half ago, Alessio fought a duel over a lover. Despite the fa
ct
that the other man fired into the air, Alessio was shot through the heart.” He regarded his now-empty glass, then poured another. “I was abroad. I’d been traveling across the continent and I hadn’t come home for . . . well, a long time. When my father finally learned I was in Paris and sent a telegram about Alessio, I
st
arted home. I had already missed Alessio’s funeral, so I didn’t rush. A few days before I arrived, my father died of pneumonia.”

Two deaths so close together had to have been hard on him. He’d come home from his travels to find no brother, no father, and a mother sliding toward . . . not madness exa
ct
ly, but Lady Ferreira wasn’t whole either.

He rubbed his eyes with one hand as if they
st
ung. Perhaps he was fighting tears. Then he dropped his hand, shook himself, and took another sip of his brandy. “I didn’t know how bad things were. They had all been sparing me the worry, you know. But Alessio and Father fought con
st
antly, about everything. It was ju
st
easier for me to be elsewhere. I would give anything to go back and change that.”

“You didn’t know,” she said. “You never know when your family will be taken away from you.” Her own life had taught her that.

He gave her a wry look. “
I
should have known, Miss Paredes. I should have come home. In
st
ead I was far away, playing police officer when I should have been here, helping search for my mother’s pelt.”

She wished she had some clever words, soothing words, to placate him, but he would likely always blame himself, ju
st
as she did over her si
st
er’s death. “So is this Paolo to blame?”

“My cousin Joaquim—who’s an a
ct
ual police inspe
ct
or, unlike me—he and I inve
st
igated my mother’s claims thoroughly. We’ve never found any evidence to corroborate the claim.”

“Then why does she think he’s responsible?”

Mr. Ferreira sighed heavily. “When the pelt was
st
olen, the thief also took a
st
rongbox from my father’s desk, a box that contained only my grandfather’s correspondences. You see, Paolo’s my father’s ba
st
ard brother. Older than my father, but never acknowledged. My father believed his brother
st
ole the letters to find some evidence of his birth he could use to blackmail us, to obtain a portion of the inheritance he didn’t get. The pelt was taken in case the letters proved useless. But we’ve never found any verification of that. No proof.”

So they had ample motive, but nothing more. “And your mother’s ju
st
repeating your father’s claims.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “We have looked everywhere, Joaquim and I. We know the pelt hasn’t been de
st
royed—that would kill her. But each lead we had fizzled away. I personally searched every one of my uncle’s properties. My time with the police forces taught me a great deal about breaking into others’ houses discreetly.”

“
You broke in
?”
The idea of urbane Duilio Ferreira breaking into a house seemed fanta
st
ic. He laughed, the gloom about the room fading with the sound. At lea
st
her incredulity had gotten a smile out of him. “Forgive me, sir. I didn’t mean to make it sound . . .”

“Implausible?” he supplied. “That’s what makes me valuable to the police. People think I’m useless, but I was in
st
ru
ct
ed by some excellent housebreakers. I’ll have you know I’m very good with a skeleton key.” He nodded once at the end of that
st
atement. “I’ll even
st
oop to breaking a window if necessary, although I have not attempted the palace.”

Oriana wondered if he might be a touch drunk. Or perhaps he was simply fooling her again. “The palace?”

“To see if he’d hidden the pelt there,” Mr. Ferreira said.

Something clicked in her mind, a recolle
ct
ion of his wary rea
ct
ion when she’d fir
st
mentioned Paolo Silva the day before. “Do you mean Paolo Silva,
the prince’s seer
? The one who pulled me out of the river?”

“Yes.” He sighed, his dark lashes hiding his eyes. “He’s my father’s ba
st
ard brother.”

Why hadn’t he mentioned that when she’d told him of the seer’s “rescue” of her? Of course, many families didn’t speak of their ba
st
ards. But Silva’s entry into her
st
ory mu
st
have made him suspicious. “And what happened to you tonight, Mr. Ferreira?”

“Erdano and I met at a tavern,” he said. “We were set upon as we left.” He reached back, dug something out of the pocket of his frock coat, and laid it on the table. It was a knife bearing the mark of the Special Police. “It could be a coincidence or
st
olen, but this doesn’t look like a cheap copy. It’s regular issue.” His eyes rose to meet hers. “I think they’re not happy that I’m asking about
The City Under the Sea
. What I’m not sure about is how they know I’m
st
ill asking.”

Oriana glanced down at the blade. A line of his blood
st
ained the edge. “Do they know about you . . . and your mother?”

“Why would we be alive if they did? No, I suspe
ct
this is about the inve
st
igation.” He regarded her wearily. “I came by earlier to return your sketch, but you were out.”

Oriana licked her lips. Was he accusing her of telling someone about his inve
st
igation? Did he think she’d provoked this attack on him? “I . . . I saw my ma
st
er on the
st
reet, and . . .”

He held up one hand. “You don’t have to explain. I ju
st
wanted to apologize for not getting you a knife earlier, as I promised I would. I’ll bring one to breakfa
st
.”

The coil that had been twi
st
ing in her
st
omach loosened. She didn’t want him thinking badly of her. “Thank you.”

Mr. Ferreira
st
ood and offered her a hand up. Her mitts lay on the table, but she placed her bare hand in his and let him draw her to her feet. That close, he smelled of ambergris cologne, of blood and brandy, a fascinating combination.

“I should go to bed,” he said, “before the brandy goes to my head.”

He mu
st
be exhau
st
ed. She felt guilty now for interrogating him. “Of course.”

“Then good night, Miss Paredes.” He gathered up his coat and assortment of weapons, including the knife with the sigil of the Special Police. He moved toward the door, but
st
opped and glanced back over his shoulder. “And if you sleep in the bathtub, you might contrive to rumple the bed anyway. I was already asked by my valet, who had it from the butler, who was told by a maid that you didn’t sleep in your own bed la
st
night. Their assumption being, of course . . .”

“That I was in your bed,” she finished for him, warmth
st
ealing through her body again. She crossed her arms over her che
st
. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He nodded, and then was gone.

Oriana sat down and
st
ared dazedly after him.

She didn’t know why she was rea
ct
ing this way to him. She had never given a moment’s thought to any of the men who’d made up Isabel’s court of suitors. Some had been overly familiar, touching her inappropriately or making sugge
st
ions, but that had only made her like them less. They simply hadn’t intere
st
ed her.

She wasn’t certain why this man
did
. He wasn’t
st
rikingly handsome. He was human—or half-human, she corre
ct
ed herself. He was also half-selkie. Her people tended to regard selkies as savages, choosing to live in the sea like animals. She’d never met one before, though. Lady Ferreira was certainly not a savage, nor was her son.

But selkies also had a reputation for sedu
ct
iveness. Oriana licked her lips, wondering if that was the source of her rea
ct
ion. She had gotten close enough to smell his skin. That scent she’d taken for ambergris cologne mu
st
have been a selkie’s musk. Could that be it?

She shook her head to
st
op her brain’s meandering. She needed to keep herself under control around Mr. Ferreira. She didn’t need any more complications.

THURSDAY, 2 OCTOBER 1902

D
uilio had expe
ct
ed to toss and turn for hours, but he’d a
ct
ually fallen asleep facedown on his bed without even undressing. Marcellin had been livid at Duilio’s disregard for his attire, more so than he’d been over learning that someone had tried to kill his ma
st
er. Duilio took it with good humor, though, offering the man the chance to pick out his evening wear for the ball that night as a sop.

By the time he reached the breakfa
st
table, he found Miss Paredes and his mother already halfway through their meal. When reminded of the ball they planned to attend later, his mother promised she would take a nap that afternoon. She appeared unruffled by their plans, which made him feel better about dragging her out into society.

He turned to Miss Paredes, sliding a napkin-wrapped bundle across to her. “I hope this one works for you, Miss Paredes.”

She peeked at the knife and its wri
st
sheath, then quickly shifted the contents to her lap. “Thank you,” she said meekly. Her eyes flicked toward the door where Gu
st
avo was entering, carrying a tray with Duilio’s regular breakfa
st
and coffee. “It will be fine, sir.”

Apparently she didn’t want to talk in front of the footman. Or perhaps she was sheepish after her boldness la
st
night. But she seemed withdrawn this morning. Duilio preferred the woman who’d surprised him in the library the night before, who’d spoken to him like an equal. He wondered if that was the real Oriana Paredes.

He wasn’t going to find out this morning, he decided half an hour later. Miss Paredes spent the meal reading to his mother about an effort to lift salvage from a Spanish ship sunk decades before near Lisboa. When he left, pleading a need to go speak with Joaquim, Miss Paredes seemed relieved. It was vexing.

A quick side trip down to the marina pa
st
the Alameda de Massarelos, where the family’s boats were moored, gave him the answer to Erdano’s query about where Aga had gone. As soon as Duilio said her name, a furiously blushing João
st
ammered that Erdano’s si
st
er had decided to “visit” at his flat for the time. Since he’d probably gotten the young man into that situation, Duilio asked João to come up to the house in a few days to discuss it further. João’s apartment was rent free, but the young man would need additional funds if he were to ho
st
Aga for any length of time. Duilio didn’t mind—after all, Aga was almo
st
family.

Joaquim wore a pleased smile when Duilio finally reached his office. The office in the Massarelos Police Station was small, with a modern metal cabinet for files
st
anding in the corner and a decrepit desk in the center of the windowless room. As offices went, it wasn’t particularly welcoming. The plain wooden chairs before the desk were
st
urdy, though, and surprisingly comfortable—a good thing, since Duilio spent a great deal of time sitting in them.

“I have good news,” Joaquim said before Duilio even settled into his usual chair.

Duilio puffed out his cheeks. “Erdano and I were set upon la
st
night.”

“Yes, I heard,” Joaquim said briskly, waving that away as he sat behind the desk. “Now, Captain Santiago has given me a new assignment—”

“We’re both fine, by the way,” Duilio said, feeling unappreciated. “Only a knife to the shoulder for me.”

Joaquim folded his arms over his che
st
, an impatient frown twi
st
ing his lips. “Don’t be childish. Cardenas told me about it when I
st
opped by the house earlier this morning. He said you came in through the servant’s door late la
st
night, looking like hell but on your own feet.”

Duilio slumped back in the chair and tugged off his gloves. “You
st
opped by the house to talk to Cardenas and not to me?”

Joaquim shrugged off Duilio’s prote
st
. “You were at breakfa
st
. Mrs. Amaral has decided to be petulant and is claiming that Miss Paredes
st
ole personal items of the daughter’s. Some jewelry and—”

Duilio sat up
st
raight, appalled. “That’s ridiculous. Miss Paredes—”

Joaquim held up his hands. “It’s a baseless charge. However, the charge gives me license to que
st
ion the Amaral servants. I can get back to work on this case, even if in a roundabout fashion. Fortunately, Mrs. Amaral doesn’t know where Miss Paredes has gone or she’d probably demand I immediately arre
st
her.”

“Damnation,” Duilio said with a grimace. “She’ll know tonight. Remember, we’re supposed to go to the Carvalho ball tonight.” When Joaquim looked ready to argue, Duilio added, “Besides, servants up and down the
st
reet do gossip. It wouldn’t occur to them that her
presence
should be kept secret.”

“Which is why I spoke with Mr. Cardenas this morning,” Joaquim said. “I wanted to ask him to have the servants keep quiet about Miss Paredes.”

Duilio
st
retched out his legs and crossed his ankles under the desk. It irritated him that Joaquim felt unwelcome in his home. There’d been a lot of fri
ct
ion between Joaquim and Alessio when they were young. When his mother’s pelt was
st
olen, Alessio had chosen not to tell Joaquim, even though Joaquim surely would have been helpful in the search. Duilio didn’t know what had passed between the two of them, but he suspe
ct
ed
that
was at the base of Joaquim’s behavior. And Alessio was dead. “You should have come up and eaten with us.”

“I’d already eaten, and I wanted talk to Mr. Cardenas, not you.”

That puts me in my place
. Duilio sighed. “That will give us until tonight, at a minimum. Has Efisio conta
ct
ed the police in any way about Lady Isabel?”

“No,” Joaquim said with a roll of his eyes. “It’s a conspiracy of silence, with him and the girl’s mother shielding the criminal while they’re trying to prote
ct
their so-precious reputations.”

Duilio
did
under
st
and Joaquim’s disdain for that aspe
ct
of privilege. Reputation shouldn’t come ahead of the truth. He nodded mutely.

“Now, I have something to show you.” Joaquim opened a desk drawer, withdrew a slip of paper, and handed it to Duilio—an invoice from the Ca
st
ro Ironworks. “I talked with the bookkeeper there a couple of weeks ago, before the inve
st
igation was shut down. He didn’t recall anything unusual, but left this for me late ye
st
erday. He didn’t know where the chain ultimately went, but the bill went to that address.”

Duilio frowned down at the paper, an order for three hundred feet of galvanized marine chain. A coffee
st
ain marred one corner of the invoice, as if a cup had been left atop it. The grade of chain, a little heavier than a normal anchor chain, approximately matched what Duilio had seen when peering out through a submersible’s windows. The billing address near the bottom was in a less-well-to-do parish of the city on Bonfim Street. “Espinoza?”

“I
st
opped before work this morning and talked to the landlord,” Joaquim said, “one Mr. Gouveia. The renter answers Espinoza’s description handily. Middling age, lean, with white hair in a queue. He hasn’t been seen there for some time. Gouveia isn’t certain exa
ct
ly how long, but he’s
st
ill receiving the rent via the mail.”

Fortunately, Espinoza’s old-fashioned hair
st
yle made him memorable. “Well, this has promise.”

“Here’s the be
st
part,” Joaquim said. “The tenant rented both the fir
st
and second floors and, according to Mr. Gouveia, the fir
st
floor has been made over into a craftsman’s shop.”

“Woodwork, perhaps?”

“The landlord wasn’t sure, but it was enough to make me curious.”

“Me too.” Duilio folded up the invoice. He held it between his palms and asked himself whether it was important.
Yes,
came the answer. Duilio grinned at his cousin. “I’ll try to get back with you later today, let you know if I find anything.” He quickly rose to take his leave. “By the way, did you get a chance to tell Captain Santiago I had another lead I was working on?”

Joaquim rose as well. He retrieved his suit coat from the back of his chair. “I did, although I didn’t tell him what lead or mention the specific case. He would know, since you’re only on the one right now. But I didn’t feel comfortable talking about your source. Captain Rios was in with him,” Joaquim finished, shrugging on his coat.

Duilio paused, one hand in the doorknob. Captain Rios was the liaison between the Special Police and the regular police, and he thoroughly disliked Duilio. Rios considered him an interfering busybody and dilettante. “The person who attacked Erdano and me in the tavern la
st
night? He left his knife behind. It was Special Police issue.”

•   •   •

O
riana had been working in the front sitting room where the light was good, but she’d finished the edge she was hemming some time ago. She’d been sitting there ju
st
st
aring at it. The blue silk dress with its layers of skirt and newly attached ruffle was almo
st
ready. At the moment it lay across her lap on the beige sofa, a cloud of darkness that refle
ct
ed her mood.

She shook herself back to awareness. The day before she’d checked behind her a dozen times on her walk home—using a far more circuitous route than she would have normally taken—and had finally been satisfied that she wasn’t being followed. Her brief foray in pursuit of Heriberto had given her a great deal to think about. She’d always suspe
ct
ed that Heriberto wasn’t above blackmail. Now she knew that to be true.

He had definitely been threatening her father. It had been a vague threat, but Oriana had heard Heriberto mention his girl. She didn’t know whom Heriberto meant by that. It wasn’t Oriana herself, because Heriberto had said he knew where she lived. It apparently wasn’t her father’s employer and purported lover, Lady Pereira de Santos, which hinted that her father was involved with more than one woman. Oriana hadn’t yet forgiven him for replacing her mother with Lady Pereira de Santos, no matter that her mother had been dead for fourteen years now. It implied that the tie of De
st
iny between her father and mother had been false, didn’t it? She hadn’t been able to reconcile that in her mind yet.

And she was jealous of her father’s new life here, where he had a gentlemanly occupation and likely didn’t wear shoes that pinched his feet. Here the males had all the opportunities, which would suit her father perfe
ct
ly. She shouldn’t be angry with him. But
she’d
been the one left behind to raise Marina when he’d been exiled. She’d had to hear the news that her si
st
er was dead. She’d been alone then, with no one to comfort her.

Lady Pereira de Santos lived one house over, and Oriana’s father came there on occasion. She would peer out the Amarals’ windows, trying to catch a glimpse of him as he walked up the front
st
eps of the Pereira de Santos mansion. But she’d
never
conta
ct
ed him—not even a note. She had played by the rules, done everything as she should, and now she felt a fool.

He’d known she was here in the city. Her father hadn’t conta
ct
ed her, but he hadn’t displayed any surprise when Heriberto asked about her either. He’d seemed ready to defy Heriberto for her sake. He said he wouldn’t tell Heriberto where to find her even if he knew. Part of that was simply his temper. She’d gotten her hot temper from him, not her mother. But she believed his words.

She’d spent the pa
st
two years in fear that Heriberto would blackmail her by threatening her father. Evidently she’d gotten it all backward. And what of the woman who’d watched her from across the
st
reet? Oriana sighed, clenching her teeth on the pins in her mouth. She wished she knew what the truth was.

Stop wa
st
ing time.
She could mull this over and over for hours and
st
ill get nowhere. She turned the dress about to take in the wai
st
band.

The door to the sitting room began to swing open. Oriana reflexively buried her bare hands in the mass of fabric in her lap. But it was Mr. Ferreira who
st
epped inside, leaving the door open. His brows drew together quizzically as he regarded her. “Miss Paredes?”

She abruptly recalled the pins in her mouth and carefully removed them, keeping the webbing between her fingers hidden the entire time. “Mr. Ferreira.”