For a moment Manuel wondered if Daniel had been her source, but then he remembered climbing into the cellar master’s vehicle in the afternoon and catching sight of her black-robed figure watching like Poe’s raven from the perch of her particular bust of Pallas.
“Enjoy the inheritance, manage the businesses and assets, and apply yourself to assuring this elderly dowager financial security to the end of her life,” she added with a smile, as if she found that prospect particularly amusing. Her gums were bright red, as if they’d been bleeding. Manuel was surprised to find himself contemplating the ferociousness they symbolized. The marquess made a dramatic pause; the smile vanished utterly and her mouth set in a short straight line. “But if you think by doing so you will become a member of this family, let me warn you that you are mistaken. You are alien to this place, and nothing in all the property deeds in the world will change that. This will never be your home, nor will my family be yours. Now get out of my house and never come back.”
The two women got to their feet and went to the doorway closest to the fireplace. The nurse opened it and stepped aside to leave it free for her mistress. The dowager turned and glanced back as if surprised to find him still there.
“You’re dismissed,” she said. “I’m sure you can find your way out.” She entered her bedroom, followed by her assistant, who gave him a last disparaging glance before shutting the door behind them.
He sat there for a while longer before the fire and the tea setting. Anyone who happened to look in might have thought a cordial conversation had taken place. He felt drained, as if that brooding old raven, that species of vampire, had put her thin lips to his neck, drunk his blood, and sucked his life away. Each demeaning word and each mocking expression emitted by that malevolent many-headed hydra had been intended less to hurt him than to amuse her. She’d played him for a fool. He quivered with indignation. He circled the sofa, his shoes sinking into the thick carpet, and he had the sensation that someone was watching him. He left that lair swearing Nevermore.
He closed the door behind him and walked toward the light that fell in broad luminous shafts across the stairs. He saw that the door to álvaro’s room stood slightly ajar. He pushed it open and entered, went to the night table and picked up the book. He quickly punched the code into the safe’s keypad, opened it, and collected everything inside, including The Man Who Refused. He pulled the back off the little frame, removed the photo, and without a backward glance slipped it and the documents into the book. He remembered the ring. He lifted his hand and saw it secure next to his own, the two gleaming together like a single band. He fled.
Overwhelmed by these trials, he dropped into a chair by the housekeeper’s wood-burning stove. “Herminia, I’d be grateful for a cup of coffee. The marquess’s tea was more than I could take. She probably brews it with hemlock.”
The housekeeper stood before him deeply distressed. “And now you’ve met the Raven. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Santiago was in the stables. He saw you go into the kitchen, and he came to question me. I couldn’t lie to him.”
“Of course not, Herminia, don’t give it another thought. Santiago is a lunatic, and I wasn’t too surprised.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She put a chair before him and sat down. “You know, I cared for those children from the day they were born. I loved them more than their own mother did. I know Santiago has a good heart.”
Manuel started to object but she interrupted him. “Very impulsive, I admit, and that’s due to his lack of character. When he was small he was álvaro’s little lapdog, and he spent all his teenage years trying to win his father’s affection. My poor little tyke has always been a nobody in this house. álvaro was the one with character; Fran was the charmer; and Santiago, poor thing, was the weepy little fatso his father couldn’t stand. And the old man made no secret of it. Can you imagine growing up like that? And even so I swear he loved his brothers more than anything else in the world.”
“That’s no longer relevant, Herminia.”
“Listen to me!” she insisted. “When Fran died, Santiago went to bed for three days, moaning and weeping and blubbering constantly. I thought he was going to wreck his health. And then last week! When they told us about álvaro and his accident, he rushed to the hospital; and when he came back home after the horrible experience of identifying his brother’s body, he came to me. Not to his mother but to me, Manuel, because he knew I’d share his feelings. He stood right there in the kitchen door, looking at me without a word. ‘What happened?’ I asked him, ‘What’s happened to my boy?’ He broke down and started slamming his fist against the wall, out of his head with grief, shouting that his brother was dead. Santiago didn’t fall off a horse, Manuel. He smashed his hand battering that wall. He broke several fingers. So don’t you go telling me what I already know. No one knows him as well as I do. He hasn’t gotten over it. He thinks I don’t know, but since álvaro died, every afternoon he’s hidden himself away in the church and cried his heart out.”
Crushed by grief? Or by guilt?
As if she’d heard his thoughts Herminia added, “I think he feels partly to blame, because they had an argument the day of the accident.”
Manuel gave her a questioning look.
“It was nothing,” she said. “A silly quarrel. Santiago was here in the kitchen having a coffee. álvaro came in and said to him, ‘Who do you think you’re fooling with those candelabras?’ Santiago didn’t say anything, but his face got red as a beet. álvaro stalked off toward his car. And Santiago went upstairs, slamming the door behind him. I don’t know anything about art. It’s all a mystery to me. The new ones look just as good as the others, but maybe they’re not. Like I said, I’m no expert, but Santiago went to a lot of effort to replace them. He’s the kind of person who needs approval, and he was offended when his brother refused to give it. But of course that’s one of those things that later, when something so terrible happens, loses importance and sounds trivial. But knowing him the way I do, I’m sure he’s torturing himself because they weren’t on good terms when his brother died.”
Manuel turned and studied the wall by the entrance. He detected spots of lighter color where Herminia must have scrubbed off the bloodstains.
“Where is he now?”
“Damián drove him to the hospital so they could repair his cast. He’s always flying off the handle like that. He’s been that way ever since he was a baby.”
“And what’s up with Catarina? He doesn’t seem to treat her very well. And she told me he doesn’t like the fact she works.”
“You need to understand, some things are different for them; they’re not like us. These days it might seem strange to most of us, but for them it’s shameful to have to work. Catarina’s family is one of the oldest and most distinguished in the country, but for various reasons things haven’t gone too well for them in recent years, and they’ve had to find other ways to support themselves. They sold a lot of their land, and not much is left except the grounds around the manor. A couple of years ago her family converted the manor house into an event hall for weddings, conventions, and that sort of thing. With a restaurant. Santiago finds such changes unbecoming. Catarina doesn’t seem to have any problem with it, but you just have to understand that Santiago considers it demeaning. The way folks like us would feel if we were reduced to begging.”
“There’s no comparison, Herminia. There’s a huge difference between converting a manor house into a banquet hall and having to beg for your supper and shelter.”