Valentina had expected her heart to sing when they reached the gates of La Casilla, when they saw the garden hedges like a march of green
soldiers arrayed on a battlefield, the rose trees, the fine white gravel of the drive. It was more grand than she had dreamed, perfect in its symmetry, its windows gleaming, jewels set in stone.
Instead she felt sick and wished for wine to steady her nerves. Across from her, Marius relaxed against the coach’s seat, his ruff spangled with silver to match hers, an ornamental sword at his hip. He looked like a well- fed hound. But his family was of higher rank. They had once been more than minor nobility, and even if their lands provided little more than a dusty view these days, there was pride in their name. Somewhere in his blood he carried an ease she could only hope to perform. Beside him, the widow managed to look both poised and mysterious, dressed in perfectly tailored pewter silk banded with black and yellow cording.
Only Luzia, wedged next to Valentina, reflected her own misery. She was wearing her stern black wool gown with its bright white ruff, and she took shallow breaths, still unused to the confines of a proper corset. Her face looked almost green beneath the white lead and violet oil they’d used to try to ameliorate the catastrophe of her freckles.
“Do not faint,” Valentina instructed.
Luzia’s eyes slid to her with a look of such disdain that Valentina glanced at Marius to see if he’d witnessed it. But he was beaming out the window at the grooms and footmen who swarmed around the coach in their cream livery. The door sprang open. Marius descended first and Valentina made to follow, but the widow had already risen gracefully.
“You forget yourself,” Valentina hissed, fear and worry making her brave. “I am to follow my husband, not …”
In the confines of the coach Catalina de Castro de Oro looked over her shoulder, a smile playing on her lips. “Not?”
Valentina’s tongue felt fat in her mouth but she made herself say the words. “We all know you are Don Víctor’s whore.”
The widow didn’t recoil or reach out to slap her. Her smile deepened and she looked at Valentina as if she were a charming child who hadn’t quite learned her letters. “I feel certain your husband would take Don Víctor in
his mouth himself for the price of a fine racehorse.” She leaned forward. “And I might enjoy watching him do so. Now, let us all remember that we are in a place where even a breath of scandal may doom us and endeavor to have a good time despite the sword above our necks.”
She floated out of the coach, alighting soundlessly on the path, her face aglow with easy delight.
“Close your mouth, señora,” Luzia said gently as she gathered her skirts. “You look like you’re waiting for someone to push a cake into it.”
Valentina felt the shameful ache of tears in her throat. “You look like a goblin,” she spat, and gave Luzia a shove so that she toppled back into her seat. She descended from the coach and took Marius’s arm.
“Are you unwell?” he murmured in her ear. “Your breathing is unsteady.” “Just excited,” she lied.
“As we all are.” He paused. “You look very well in that new gown. The color suits you.”
It was the first time Marius had ever complimented her appearance, and Valentina couldn’t even enjoy it. The widow had chosen this green silk from Perucho.
She drew in a breath and then coughed. They were only a mile from home, but the air was so sweet, so clean, so free of the stink of the city. It was like being plunged into cold water, bracing and alarming all at once.
She felt as if she were shrinking in the shadow of La Casilla, as if the great house with its humble name was growing larger. The vast double doors with their golden handles opened like a mouth, and Valentina
stumbled as she crossed the threshold, clinging to Marius’s arm. This fine carpet is a tongue, she thought. I will put my foot upon it and it will snag me at the ankle, roll me up, and swallow me whole.
There were paintings on every wall and the windows were heavily swagged in cloth of silver.
“It’s all so perfect,” she whispered.
Marius grunted a laugh. “I bet even his horses shit gold.”
Usually she hated when his talk turned coarse, but not today. Antonio
Pérez is just a man, she told herself—even a man once second in power to the king is still a man. A man who was nearly a prisoner in his own home since he’d fallen from favor.
Don Víctor’s coach had been trailing theirs so that they would all have to wait for him. Now he entered with the awful Santángel close behind. He didn’t bother to greet Valentina or Marius but said something to the widow and waved for them to follow.
“Will we not have a chance to refresh ourselves?” Valentina asked. “They will not grant us rooms until after the first trial,” the widow
replied. Her sunny expression had dimmed, but she looped her arm through Luzia’s and hastened them along after Don Víctor.
There was nothing for Valentina and Marius to do but trail behind them. “All of the trunks we packed, the new clothes … is it all to be for
nothing?” Valentina asked. And did some part of her want that to be the case? Why should she long for the miserable familiarity of her drafty,
charmless house?
“I suppose …” Marius began. “Well,” he said as he put his hand over hers. “I suppose that is up to Luzia now.”
