The Shores of Spain (28 page)

“While I would like to say I’m concerned for the safety of the Spanish,” Madam Norton added, “I admit to being rather blasé about their situation.”

Their situation.
During the exodus of the various embassies, one notable fact had become clear. The Spanish embassy compound wasn’t being evacuated. In fact, the military personnel who’d been seen massing nearby had moved to surround the wrought-iron and stone walls of the Spanish compound, a row of sereia naval sentries outside the Spanish guard posts. The Spanish guards were keeping them out, but the sereia were keeping the Spanish
in
.

Madam Norton leaned back in her chair. “You’ve been here on Amado less than two weeks, Madam Paredes. You’ve been visited by two ambassadors—I’m calling Madam Davila an ambassador because we both know that’s what she is despite her husband’s title. The subminister of intelligence, who also happens to be your aunt, has come to see you, and now that subminister is holding the Spanish embassy hostage with the navy’s help. I must say, I’ve been here more than a decade and have never provoked the evacuation of the embassies. For someone so young, that’s an impressive feat.”

Duilio kept his grin under control. Oriana preferred not to draw
attention. It was an aspect of politics she was learning to
tolerate
, but he didn’t think she’d ever choose the spotlight. Certainly not this way.

“As for your queries about Subminister Paredes,” Madam Norton said, “my source inside the ministry says that it was indeed the subminister who sent a notice to Ambassador Alvaro in Northern Portugal about your near execution. One of her coworkers recalled it, since the subminister was agitated enough on that occasion to be remarked upon.”

“Thank you, madam,” Oriana said.

Duilio tucked away the fact that the American ambassador had a source inside the ministry itself for later consideration. What the agent had found, though, meant that Jovita Paredes
had
moved directly to save Oriana’s life. That moved Jovita into the role of potential ally.

“She hasn’t been able to locate any records old enough to verify anything about your father, though,” the ambassador continued.

“Ten years is a long time,” Oriana said.

“I agree.” Madam Norton tugged on her plain cotton gloves and gathered her parasol and handbag. “Now, I must return to the hotel. If you find out anything else about Leandra, will you let me know?”

With their promise—they could hardly refuse when the woman had gone so far to help them—the ambassador made her stately way out.

*   *   *

T
ERRASSA

J
oaquim straightened his tie. He rubbed the top of each shoe against the back of the opposing pant leg. He should have asked Duilio about this, or Rafael. His own limited seer’s abilities had never told him anything about seeking out his great-grandmother.

He’d always wanted to know why his mother’s life turned out the way it had. He’d hired an investigator in Barcelona who’d traced his mother’s difficulties back to her grandmother. His mother’s mother,
Mereia Quintana, had married an unapproved suitor, Emilio Castillo, a scion of the minor gentry from the north. Her mother had refused to speak to her ever again, and Mereia had died when Joaquim’s mother, Rosa, was born.

Joaquim knew little of his mother’s early life; she had died when
he
was only eight. When Rosa was a young woman, Emilio Castillo had sold his daughter to Alexandre Ferreira like a piece of chattel. Joaquim’s investigator had said it was widely known that Castillo had gambling debts, but Joaquim didn’t care
why
the man had sold his daughter. It was criminal of him to have done it at all, a betrayal of the trust a child should be able to have in her own father.

He gazed down at the top of Alejandro’s head. The boy had fallen asleep next to him on the bench, his head lolling against Joaquim’s side with the train’s motion. His cap had come off and now lay on Joaquim’s leg. The boy had slept a great deal in the last two days. That might have something to do with being able to eat his fill and having a safe place to sleep.

Joaquim didn’t know what he was going to do when they found Leandra Rocha. She was the boy’s mother. While Joaquim recognized her right to keep her son to herself, she’d already made plans for Alejandro’s disposition, which involved turning the boy over to the Ferreira family. For the moment, that was Joaquim. But when they found her, would she demand him back? And would he fight her to keep the boy?

He was beginning to suspect that Marina wouldn’t let him do anything less.

What had Alexandre Ferreira done for this son of his? Had he known that Alejandro existed?
I’ll probably never find the answer to that
. But he could amend Alexandre Ferreira’s negligence, just as the elder Joaquim Tavares had once done by raising a son he knew not to be his own. Joaquim set his arm about the boy’s shoulders, only to withdraw it when Alejandro jerked awake, eyes wide.

“It’s only me,” Joaquim said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Wordlessly, Alejandro settled back on the bench. He snatched up his cap and put it on his head again, then leaned forward to gaze out the window. The train was passing over a narrow river and rumbling the last of the distance into the town of Terrassa. It was by far the smallest town they’d visited, although since the station was north of the town, Joaquim suspected they weren’t seeing much of Terrassa itself.

The station wasn’t grand, although new, a building of white brick with arches that led to the street before it. They walked to where drivers waited and quickly found one willing to take them out to the Quintana Estate for the right number of pesetas. Joaquim helped Marina up into the carriage, let Alejandro scramble up on his own, and a moment later they were on the move again. The open carriage allowed them to view the edge of the town, but the horses went at a good clip and they were out on a country lane in only a couple of minutes. Alejandro watched the countryside pass without comment, although the first time he saw a vineyard, he turned his head to view the rows of vines as they passed.

“Is it a large estate?” Marina asked Joaquim.

“I’m not certain. The man who investigated it for me gave me the size in a unit called
jornal
, which means nothing to me.” He wouldn’t have grasped the size if it was explained in hectares either. He’d lived in a city all his life, where land measurements were irrelevant. “She’s a marquesa, so I would expect it to be large.”

Marina’s eyes went wide. She glanced down at her costume, a plain white shirtwaist and a twilled brown skirt, and in a plaintive voice said, “You didn’t tell me that before.”

“That she’s a marquesa?”

“Yes, you failed to mention it.”

Joaquim glanced at the back of the driver’s head. Was the man listening to them? Or would he plead the oft-claimed Spanish inability to comprehend Portuguese? “I didn’t think of it,” he said. “But I told you my mother was a gentlewoman, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” she snapped, waving a horsefly away from her face. “But
you treat all women like they’re gentlewomen. I thought you were being polite.”

He glanced at Alejandro, who just shrugged, so he turned back to Marina. He stared at her face as the carriage continued to bounce along the dirt road. “Are you offended that I didn’t tell you? Or that I have a nobleman somewhere back in my lineage?”

“That you didn’t tell me,” she said in a milder tone.

He turned his gaze in the other direction, trying to figure out how to answer that. Vines marched in careful rows on low trellises, the fresh green of early summer. He turned back to her. She was rubbing her hands together as if they ached. She always did that when upset, and he hated that he’d overset her. “I didn’t mean to, Marina. It didn’t occur to me that it mattered.”

“Because you’re so adamantly republican that you don’t want to be related to anyone with noble blood?”

He opened his mouth but closed it before the protest could come out. He
was
adamantly republican, although no one had ever said as much to his face before. Not even Duilio. She wasn’t going to let this go, was she? “I tend to be wary of people with titles.”

“Is that why you feel bad taking the Ferreiras’ money for this trip?”

That wasn’t the same thing at all, was it? “I don’t feel it’s my money.”

“So you don’t feel entitled to your father’s fortune, but you think others should?” Her eyes flicked toward Alejandro as she said it, and he recalled his insistence in their late-night conversation that the boy deserved to have a portion of the family’s fortune, no matter what his birth. Marina hadn’t pointed out the fallacy in his argument then, and he hadn’t seen it for himself. Now that she’d said something, it made a shambles of his logic.

The driver turned his carriage off the main road onto a smaller one that paralleled a stream, cedars growing up on the far bank and hiding the vines that climbed up the hills in neat rows. After a short
distance, they reached a pair of splendid gates of sand-colored stone and wrought iron. The gates stood open, so the driver took the carriage on through toward an old house with plastered walls and a tiled roof that was brown with lichen rather than the clay red Joaquim knew from the Golden City. It was more like a farmhouse than a manor, but the size of it was stunning, with outbuildings and wings all running together in his view.

Another wall separated the house itself from the drive. The driver stopped and let them down, promising he’d stay to take them back to the town. They entered through that gate onto a wide terrace that surrounded the house. Ivy climbed the walls, local cactus stood in urns and planters near the stairs, and two large fan palms flanked the green-tiled steps that led up to the house. Marina clutched Alejandro’s hand while trying to brush off her skirts with her free hand. Joaquim waited until she finished and picked up her handbag from the stone walkway, then led her to the house. She walked up the steep steps to a heavy-looking door.

Joaquim rapped smartly with his knuckles. No one answered, and after a moment, he raised his hand to knock again, but the door was opened by a stout gray-haired man who must be the butler. The old man squinted at them. “How may I help you?”

“We’ve come to speak with the marquesa.” Joaquim didn’t have any calling cards like the ones Duilio carried, so he settled for giving the butler his name. The butler allowed them inside but directed them to wait in the parlor while he determined whether the lady was home to callers.

Joaquim hoped she was. How annoying it would be to come all this way only to be ignored.

CHAPTER 26

                   T
ERRASSA                   

M
arina held on to Alejandro’s hand. She didn’t
think
the boy would steal anything, but the parlor was cluttered with porcelain trinkets.
Only imagine if he snatches something that belongs to Joaquim’s great-grandmother.
It would not be an auspicious introduction.

The room was crowded with ancient furnishings, shawls and throws covering aging fabrics and torn upholstery. Marina ran her fingers over the arm of the blue upholstered couch in the center of the room and tugged the ivory throw over to cover a rip. A cigarette or cigar burn marred the old Persian rug on the floor, the rug’s original colors faded by the sunlight into drab tans.

It wasn’t the home of a poor person, an owner who couldn’t afford to replace things. No, this was the home of someone so set in his ways that he refused to change anything, even when it fell into disrepair. It reminded Marina of the house of one of her father’s clients she’d visited last year to drop off and pick up paperwork. The client was wealthy, but aged and infirm. He hadn’t wanted to spend time refurbishing a house he could barely enjoy.

Near the door was a prayer niche, the Virgin standing within with her pale marble hands outstretched. Marina tugged Alejandro
over so she could look at it. A Bible lay opened out atop the kneeler’s shelf, open to the Psalms, perhaps a source of solace to the marquesa. Marina ran her finger down the page, trying to guess what the woman had been reading. When she drew it away, dust clung to her glove.

Joaquim paced back and forth behind the couch, arms folded over his chest. He would stop periodically, place his fist against his lips, and then resume his pacing.

Evidently the marquesa didn’t mind keeping guests waiting.

Alejandro didn’t complain. Not that she expected he would. Most boys would have, but not him. She finally suggested that he sit in a chair where he could look out a window. Then she wandered about the room, stopping to peruse the books stacked on one of the tables. She neatly folded the shawl laid over the back of a leather chair. She was tempted to use the corner of it to wipe dust from the mantelpiece, but resisted. The windows could use a good cleaning as well. She came back to where Alejandro sat and gazed out at the terraced vineyards. It was a beautiful view, despite the cobwebs in the corner of the window frame.

Apparently some male cousin of the marquesa’s husband would inherit all this. If life were fair, Marina reflected, Joaquim would inherit this place with its lovely views. Then again, he would never accept it if it were offered to him. He didn’t even want to move into the Ferreira house, even though it would stand empty after Lady Ferreira married.

He didn’t think he
deserved
such things.

She stole a glance at him. He was still pacing back and forth, his expression worried. “How long has it been?”

He drew out his watch and checked. “Half an hour now.”

Marina shook her head. This delay was intentional. If the woman was struggling to ready herself, she would have sent a servant with her apologies. Much longer and they would miss the return train to Barcelona. “How long do we intend to wait?”

Joaquim licked his lips. “Would you mind giving it another quarter hour?”

The delay annoyed her. If a client had kept her father waiting like this, he wouldn’t be pleased, but Father handled their money, which made him important to them. Joaquim was more accustomed to being kept waiting. Nobles didn’t like associating with the police, and considered them beneath their notice.