Page 11

IV

The tapestries, the chairs, the rugs.

María paces the house, reciting to herself the many changes she will make, but soon grows bored. She goes upstairs and lets herself into her husband’s rooms, surprised to find them a cluttered version of her own.

A suit of armor poses on a wooden model, the metal polished to a shine.

Another portrait of the viscount himself looms over the hearth, this artist’s hand flattering to the point of jest. Andrés’s hair rendered a glossy black, his chin as hard and sharp as stone.

A desk sits before the window, a trio of books perched along the back.

María takes one up and turns the pages. As a child she had learned to count using lines drawn in the dirt, and to write her own name, common as it is—even that was less a knowing of letters and more a memorized design—but beyond that, there seemed no point.

Now, as she weighs the book in her hand, she wishes she’d had cause to learn. She can tell that it’s valuable—leather-bound, the pages full of painted shapes, the edges filigreed with gold—but the lines of ink striped across the paper are nothing but a pretty pattern.

She returns the book to the table and turns to survey the bed.

A carved four-poster frame surrounds the pallet, pillows full of down and blankets hemmed with gold. She climbs up and flings her body across the massive bed, but when she turns her face into the pillows she’s met with her husband’s smell, sudden and sharp enough to turn her stomach.

María recoils, abandoning the bed as well as the room.

And goes to find her maid.

The servants startle at the sight of the viscountess, bowing and veering out of her way, no doubt wondering if she is lost.

Their quarters are simple compared to the casona’s main rooms. The same stone walls, minus the adornments. The rugs worn bare by rushing feet.

María finds Ysabel in the kitchen, elbows resting on the counter, a fistful of cards in one hand and a cup of wine in the other. Across from her, a man—so old that his face is more wrinkle than skin—lays down his own cards as the cook elbows him aside to turn out a loaf of bread.

There is a moment before they see María.

A moment when Ysabel’s eyes are not cast down, and the sun catches the strands of light in her braided brown hair and turns it gold. A moment when her expression is unguarded, open, and she looks both tired and amused, one brow arched, and a wry smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

And then her gaze drifts to the doorway and—

“Mi senora!” Ysabel yelps, nearly spilling her cup.

She throws the cards down as if they’ve burned her, and ducks her head, eyes going to the floor at María’s feet.

The old man shuffles backward and bows, and the cook stops waving a towel over the bread and looks around as if searching for escape. Finding none, she too goes still.

Eventually, Ysabel chances a look up.

“I’m sorry, mi senora. I thought you would still be sleeping.” Her gaze flicks over the half-fastened dress, the ribbons María tried and failed to reach. “You should have called for me.”

María thinks of her horse, locked in its stable, and smothers the flare of rage before it spreads. She shakes her head dismissively. “What’s this?” she asks, flicking her fingers toward the cards on the counter.

“Nothing,” answers the maid quickly. Then, “Only a game.”

María grabs hold of this, as if it were a rope.

“Teach me.”

“It’s called Chinchón.”

They have traded the servant quarters for the inner courtyard, two chairs drawn up to a low table. It took several polite invitations, followed by one firmly worded command, to get Ysabel to sit across from María, but now that the maid is seated, her shoulders have begun to loosen.

She lays the cards face up. “There are four suits —that’s what they’re called. Cups, coins, swords, and clubs. Each card holds a certain number of these things.” Ysabel’s finger taps the cards as she points this out. “Three cups. Four coins. Five swords. Six clubs.”

María’s gaze flicks over the many cards, trying to keep up.

“They’re beautiful,” she says, fingering a delicate illustration. “How did you come by them?”

Color rises in Ysabel’s cheeks. “They were a gift. From the count.”

Count Olivares. Andrés’s father. María lifts a brow. “How generous.”

“Yes,” says the maid, adding under her breath, “he can be.” She sets down a new kind of card. This one has a king holding out his cup. “The highest cards have men on them.”

María can see that. There are men holding clubs. Men holding swords. Men holding coins. Men holding cups. “Where are the women?” she asks, and Ysabel only laughs, as if it were a joke.

“We shuffle the cards,” explains the maid, gathering them into a pile. “And then, we deal.”

She begins to place cards on the table, alternating between María and herself, as she explains the rules. It is a matching game. The goal is to create a series in the same suit. Or a set of the same cards in different suits.

They each take up their hands.

María studies her own set, one finger silently tapping on her skirts as she adds the numbers on her cards while her maid rearranges her own hand.

“Where did you learn to play?” she asks.

Ysabel’s gaze flicks up, then down again. She throws away two cards. Draws two more, says at last, “By watching my father.”

María studies her maid instead of her hand.

She may only just be learning to read cards, but she has always been good at reading other people.

There are two parts to every answer. The part that’s said, and the part that isn’t.

Which is how she knows that Ysabel is holding back more than just her cards.

She lays her hand out on the table. So does María. It takes her a moment to count, and realize she has won. She is used to winning, but Ysabel beams, praising her for being such a quick study, and María feels sun-warmed by the words.

“Another?” she asks, and María nods.

Ysabel shuffles and deals again, and as she does, María finds herself studying the girl’s hands. The length of her eyelashes. The way she bites her bottom lip when she is thinking, turning the pink flesh red beneath her teeth.

This time, María loses.

For once, she doesn’t mind.

She only wants to play again.