Black and white. Why was that important? His gift never answered the why of things, which was always the part he needed most. He sat back in his chair and sighed. In the morning he would visit the Amaral house and ask to speak with Miss Paredes.
No, I won’t. His gift told him she wouldn’t be there. She had left the Amaral household for good, which was damnably inconvenient for him.
Duilio got up and turned down the gaslight. If he wanted answers to his questions, he first had to find her.
CHAPTER 4
Oriana jolted awake when the milkman’s cart rattled through the alleyway. A momentary panic seized her, but she too quickly recalled why she had fallen asleep out of doors.
Lady Amaral had cast her out. When she told the woman that Isabel had been taken, Isabel’s mother claimed it was merely part of her daughter’s scheme to elope. Oriana hadn’t been able to tell her the truth; she’d barely gotten a chance to speak at all. Lady Amaral had just returned from a ball or party and was in a foul mood, so in the early hours of the morning she had the butler escort Oriana out of the house.
It had been too early and too dark to go anywhere, and Oriana had been too exhausted to search for a place to stay, in any case. After a dazed moment standing in the court behind the house, she recalled the stairwell that led to the house’s coal room. The two bags she’d left the previous evening were still there, so she’d curled up on the cold stone next to them and cried until sleep overtook her.
Oriana forced herself to sit up. The morning air was cold but bearable. Her black skirt was ripped. Her clothes were almost dry, although her shoes were still damp. Her forehead was tender, and her fingers found a small lump there. She checked her right palm, wrapped with strips torn from her apron. The narrow slash her rescuer had made when wrestling her dagger out of her hand had scabbed over, although one end began to bleed afresh when she removed her makeshift bandage.
She heard someone speaking then with the milkman up at the back door of the house—meaningless chatter, but it reminded her she wasn’t alone here. She grabbed the portmanteau she’d left there the evening before, dragged it to her side, and searched through the contents until she found another pair of mitts. Hiding her hands came first. She tugged the right one on over her scabbed palm, making sure that all of her webbing was covered.
She was donning the other when Carlos, the first footman, leaned over the rail that led down to the coal room stairs. “Miss Paredes? Are you still hiding down there?”
Oriana clutched both hands to her chest, her heart slamming against her ribs. She took a deep breath and rose unsteadily, grasping the rail with her left hand. “Yes, I’m here.”
He came a few steps down, not crowding her. “The dragon won’t be awake for hours, so Arenas won’t notice if I’m missing for a few minutes.” He held out a napkin-wrapped offering in one hand. “Were you serious about Isabel being grabbed?”
Oriana took the napkin. It held a croissant, a rare show of kindness from Carlos. She wasn’t starving yet, so she tucked it into the mouth of her portmanteau. “Thank you. Yes. I fear something terrible has happened.”
Carlos nodded. “Efisio’s driver came by here just a few minutes ago. He said he was supposed to pick up the two of you last night. They drove around and around but they never saw you.”
Of course the driver would have missed Isabel! “Has anyone told Lady Amaral that?”
“Wake the dragon?” Carlos laughed shortly. “Not after the way she treated you last night.”
It had been a terrible display of temper on Lady Amaral’s part. Oriana didn’t want to relive it again. “There was a coach at the end of the alley,” she told Carlos. “We thought it was Mr. Efisio’s. They took us. They drugged us and threw me into the river, but Isabel . . .” She shrugged, not wanting to lie outright.
Carlos nodded, his lips pursed. “I’ll be changing my bets, then.”
What did he mean by that? “Bets?”
“On whether they’ll get married or not,” Carlos clarified, brushing a croissant crumb off his black sleeve with white-gloved fingers.
Oriana felt a flare of anger. Carlos didn’t care about Isabel—or her. He just wanted to make certain he didn’t lose money on a bet.
“You can’t stay here,” Carlos added, glancing pointedly down at the two bags near her feet. “Arenas will find you for sure. Do you have somewhere to go?”
There were places she could go, but Oriana didn’t know if she’d be welcome in any of them. She could go to her master, Heriberto, but if she went to see him, he might order her back to the islands and she wouldn’t be able to pursue Isabel’s murderer. She could try one of the sereia who lived here in the Golden City, the exiles, but as they’d been banished by the very government she represented, they had no reason to help her. She doubted any of them would, not even her father. In any case, contact with the exiles was strictly forbidden by the ministry.
She raised her chin. “I’ll think of something,” she told Carlos.
He fished a slip of paper out of a pocket and passed it to her. “My grandmother’s sister rents rooms. Tell her you know me, and she’ll give you a good rate.”
The paper had an address on it, one down near the river. It wasn’t a good neighborhood, but she couldn’t afford a good neighborhood, not with what little she had stashed in her portmanteau. Oriana looked back up at Carlos. He was watching her, but had one eye on the house’s back door, she could tell. “Thank you, Carlos.”
His eyes focused on her, one corner of his lips twisting up into a smirk. “And if you can’t pay, I’m sure we can work something out.”
I should have known Carlos wasn’t acting out of kindness. A paid companion was considered above the household servants, but given her current circumstances, the footman might well think a dalliance with her within his reach now. She’d had some of Isabel’s suitors try their hand at seducing her before. It had been an easy matter to frown at them and shake her head, but she’d been under Isabel’s protection then. Now she had no one to guard her against unwanted advances. Still, while she might not like Carlos, she needed a place to stay, a place where they wouldn’t ask too many questions about a woman showing up in her bedraggled condition. She forced herself to smile at him. “We’ll see.”
Carlos spotted the butler come out looking for him then. He winked at her and jogged up the steps toward the back of the house, nose in the air as he went.
Oriana leaned back against the stairwell wall and covered her face with her hands. Why do things keep getting worse?
Duilio’s mother sat alone at the breakfast table. He stopped at the threshold and gazed at her, worried. She looked completely human and had human manners. She had excellent taste in clothing, always comported herself in a manner befitting a Portuguese lady, and had elegantly decorated the Ferreira home, managing to work in the occasional garish item brought back by her seafaring husband. None of the social set who knew her would have any reason to guess that she was a selkie.
At the moment, she stared toward the dining room’s west-facing window, her hands cupped in her lap. She absently rubbed the tips of her fingers with her other hand as if they ached. With her somber garb and desolate countenance, most would assume she mourned her husband’s death still. Duilio knew better.
She was pining for the sea.
He hated to see her this way. When he’d left the Golden City to travel abroad, she’d been vivacious and mischievous—a loving, attentive mother. She’d helped oversee the family’s business investments and kept firm control of the household. Now most days all she did was sit in the front parlor and gaze in the direction of the river. It seemed her spirit had slipped away from her body.