The Seer's Choice: A Novella of the Golden City (16 page)

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?”

“He’s down there,” Rafael said.

Once she had her skirt fastened, she leaned out past him and saw Duarte on the quay in front of the hotel. Gaspar stood directly in front of the hotel’s door, pistol trained on the man. Two other police officers—Forsythe and Medeiros—stood at a distance, weapons fixed on Duarte as well. The passersby had all huddled away from the hotel, taking cover at the café and by the steps that led up to the cathedral.

The man stretched one empty hand toward Gaspar, his jaw clenched in apparent fury.

Gaspar’s head tilted. “What
are
you trying to do to me?”

The man’s mouth twisted, and he yelled an unintelligible string of words, his voice anguished. He thrust his hand toward Gaspar with no result again . . . just as Genoveva recalled that magic didn’t work on Gaspar.

Duarte must have grasped that. He spun toward Medeiros instead, and this time when he held out of his hand, Medeiros yelped. The pistol spun out of his hand and flew through the air directly into Duarte’s.

“Mother of God!” Rafael shoved Genoveva back onto the bed, falling halfway over her to protect her.

Below, a gunshot sounded, followed by cries from the crowds.

There wasn’t a second shot, though. Rafael held his breath, apparently trying to listen as he decided what to do next. The noise of the crowds had faded to a normal level.

Genoveva pushed at him. He was heavy enough that she was having trouble breathing. He apologetically rolled off her and cautiously rose to sneak a look out of the open window. He turned back to her. “He’s gone again.”

Genoveva sighed, relief leaving her shaken.

She didn’t know if this ruse had served its purpose, but it was chilling to know Duarte could steal a gun from an officer without touching him. That made him even more dangerous than before. She pushed up onto her elbows and clambered over the rumpled bed to put on her shirtwaist and jacket. Rafael was already buttoning his waistcoat with steady hands.

“How does my hair look?” she asked as she fumbled with her buttons.

He gazed at her, and in a perfectly normal voice pronounced, “Amazingly unscathed.”

She wished she had his cool nerve. Her fingers were still shaking. “You have no idea how many pins it takes to hold up my hair.”

He put his hands under her elbow and held her still for a moment. His warm smile reassured her. “I intend to find out,” he said. “Although . . .”

Genoveva took a deep breath and finished for him. “. . . not until after the wedding.”



Gaspar was grinning when Rafael grabbed his arm. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Rafael blinked at the inspector, taken aback by the man’s enthusiasm for Duarte’s powers. “A gun went off. Who fired?”

Gaspar shook his head. “Just a warning shot.”

“You, not him?”

“I don’t think he intended to use that gun,” Gaspar said. “He seemed to be trying to warn Forsythe not to shoot instead. Duarte didn’t use a device or witchcraft, by the way. He did all that himself, with a combination of gifts. I’ve never seen that before.
Never
.”

Rafael stared at him, shocked. Gaspar was only thirty-five, but he could remember living
before
this current life. Very few people knew that about him. It explained how he could know so much about witches when he’d lived almost his entire life on an archipelago of small islands off the coast of Africa. Duarte was something Gaspar hadn’t seen in all his lifetimes, and that
was
truly amazing. Rafael glanced back at Genoveva. He would have to explain that to her later. “So he just disappeared?”

“Exactly,” Gaspar said. “It was beautiful, like he turned into a blaze of fire, and then he was gone.”

He didn’t understand precisely how it worked, but Gaspar
saw
others’ powers. “And how did he pull the gun away from Medeiros?”

Medeiros had approached while they were talking, his expression sheepish.

“I’ve seen that done with witchcraft,” Gaspar said, “but this was a natural version. I don’t have a name for it. His is a finder, but also had a hint of Truthsayer about him. Generally when one has more than one gift, the others are submerged under the most powerful one. He’s using several at once, which is extremely rare. He also seems to have some fairy blood. That may be the source of his ability to . . . go elsewhere.”

“So he
is
a finder, then.” Rafael squeezed Genoveva’s hand, realizing for the first time that he was still holding on to her. Fearing it would spark talk about her, he almost let go but decided it was too late. The other two officers had already noted his grip on her hand. “The rest sounds dangerous, though.”

“Could he have sold his soul to the devil?” Forsythe asked.

Gaspar shook his head. “I would recognize that. Very obvious if you know what you’re looking for. No, this is natural.”

Rafael didn’t care much what the source of the man’s talents was. “So how do we stop him?”

Gaspar rubbed his chin with one hand. “I’m going to have to do it. I’m the only one he can’t touch. It’s a shame. He’s very interesting.”

“It’s not your fiancée who’s being threatened,” Rafael reminded him.

“True,” Gaspar said. “Since Medeiros found your floorboards at the cemetery, we should proceed in that direction. Duarte might still be there. If he’s not, he’s likely looking for Miss Jardim again.”

So Genoveva was
still
to be bait?

Rafael didn’t like that idea, but he didn’t have another solution. They could shoot the man, but if Duarte hadn’t committed a crime, shooting him would be excessive. “Did he take anything with him this time?”

Forsythe pointed back toward the quay. “There’s a hole in the stones where he was standing.”

Rafael could see the spot now that he looked, a hole broken in the stone surface of the quay, about five feet wide—a larger circle of destruction than last time.

“Go fetch us a couple of cabs,” Gaspar told the officer. Forsythe trotted away, leaving Medeiros staring at them with raised brows.

“Your fiancée? You could have just told me,” Medeiros complained when Gaspar walked a short distance away to watch for the cabs.

Rafael sighed. Of all the times to have a discussion about Medeiros’ perceived grievance, this was not the best. “Nothing was official at that point.”

“You were worried she would say no?”

Rafael felt Genoveva’s hand tighten on his. He wasn’t looking at her, but was fairly certain she was annoyed now. “Not at all. I knew she would say yes.”

Damn, he’d chosen the wrong way to word that. He realized that
after
he’d said it.

“Is she with child?” Medeiros asked in a whisper that sounded spiteful to Rafael’s ears.

Beyond being an incredibly rude thing to assume about Genoveva, it also implied that the only way she would marry
him
was if she had no other choice. Rafael wanted to punch the younger man. But two uniformed police officers brawling on the Ribeira would only make this situation worse. “Miss Jardim,” he said in a low voice, “is not a woman who would find herself in that situation.”

Medeiros’ handsome face flushed. “When I saw you on the balcony, you weren’t wearing your jacket or waistcoat.”

That’s what triggered this
? “It was stuffy up there,” Rafael said in a patient tone, “and Miss Jardim has been to football matches, so she’s seen me in my shirtsleeves before.
I’ve
never even seen her hair down.”

Those three truths strung together wouldn’t have fooled Anjos for a second, but Medeiros didn’t have Anjos’ skill. From those words, Medeiros would likely infer something untrue.

“You’re an idiot, Medeiros,” Gaspar inserted. He’d made his way back over to them, and watched with sardonic amusement. Even though Gaspar wasn’t a Truthsayer, Rafael knew the man was aware of the lie under the words. Gaspar could always tell when two people became lovers, one of the more embarrassing aspects of his gift, he claimed. “You’re insulting both the young lady
and
your superior officer. Quit talking before you say something worse and the captain fires you for slander.”

Medeiros flushed even darker, embarrassment this time rather than anger. “My apologies, Miss Jardim, Captain. I misunderstood the situation.”

One of Gaspar’s brows rose, but he didn’t press further. Rafael kept his mouth closed. He could fire Medeiros any time he wanted, but the man had potential . . . and he wasn’t actually committing slander. A cab had drawn up next to them, so Gaspar signaled that Rafael should take that cab while he and Medeiros waited for the second. It was a deft way to get Medeiros away from Genoveva, and in the meantime, Rafael suspected that Gaspar would stare Medeiros into greater circumspection.

