The Seer's Choice: A Novella of the Golden City (13 page)

She surveyed his apartment then, trying to pick out what it could tell her about Rafael Pinheiro. It was rather plain, but the furnishings seemed to be of good quality. A sofa sat across from the hearth with a chair to one side, but those were the only places to sit. How often did he have guests? There was nothing feminine about the room, certainly—no lace, no ruffles, no flowers. There
was
a painting above the hearth, a rural scene with a young girl driving cattle along a lane. It seemed a strange choice, but she thought it was lovely. The style reminded her of the work of Carvalho de Silva Porto.

And beneath that stood a phonograph player, one of the newer design that played discs rather than cylinders. She smiled. Rafael must love music if he’d bought one of these. They were quite expensive.

The bedroom door opened and Rafael stepped back into the front room, now fully dressed. He wore a black frock coat and held a top hat in his hand. And she was right. Splendidly garbed as he was, he was more attractive when unclothed.

“You look very fine,” she said anyway, her cheeks warming.

“Thank you,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”

He held out one arm. When he opened his apartment door, they both stopped at the threshold.

“What happened?” she whispered, aghast.

Right before the door there was a rough oval of missing floorboards. They could see straight down to the framing of the floor. A narrow table stood in the hallway—she’d not noticed it in her panic before—but it looked as if a bite had been taken out of it. And when Rafael checked, the end of the door latch was gone as well. “That is bad,” he said.



One thing he’d noted early about Genoveva Jardim was that she’d been well trained to handle social difficulties. When he’d mentioned his intentions earlier that afternoon, she’d been flustered only for a second.

Not nearly as flustered as she’d been when he ran into the front room to confront her pursuer. He’d been taking as much of a bath as he could without keeping her waiting forever. When he heard his door slam, he acted purely out of instinct, running to confront the intruder. And then he heard the man’s crude diatribe and everything flew out of his head but fury. He’d wanted to twist the man’s neck off.

Given the state of the floorboards, he was glad she’d stopped him.

Gaspar had been right in saying the man might take more than just a layer of skin with him when he’d disappeared. And if the man had taken part of the floor—and the table and the door latch—it could have been his entire hand. Or Genoveva’s. Even though this man had been little more than a nuisance so far, he was a
dangerous
nuisance, one with a potential to kill.

This case would take top priority tomorrow.

Tonight he had a mission, though. So he escorted Genoveva to her boarding house and waited outside while she changed into dinner wear. She came down half an hour later with her hair repaired and wearing a lovely gown in pale green silk with ivory beading about the low neckline. “I haven’t worn anything like this since . . .”

Since she left her family’s home
. He didn’t need her to finish that. He knew she’d sold most of her fine clothing to pay her rent. That she’d kept this dress hinted that it was her favorite. She carried a small portmanteau, so he took that. “About time you wore it, then. That cab over there is waiting for us.”

A few minutes later they were headed down to the Street of Flowers.



The balcony at the Stock Exchange Palace looked out in the direction of the river, and a cool breeze came up from that direction. Rafael led Genoveva out onto it, one of her hands in his. “I wanted to talk about money, which I understand is one of those topics that men don’t think should be discussed with women, but I do think it’s important.”

Most men in society would prefer to discuss this with her father. As she didn’t have one, it was a moot point. “Thank you. I prefer to know.”

“First, I don’t want you to think I’m going to inherit any of the Ferreira money,” he said. “I didn’t bring you here to suggest that, but . . .”

“That doesn’t matter,” she told him. “Between the two of us we make enough to get by, even if we adopt a child or two.”

“Are you going to listen to me?” he asked crossly.

She could tell he wasn’t serious in his annoyance. “Very well, say what you have to say.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been working on this speech, and I don’t want all my effort to go to waste. Let’s see. Where was I? I actually have a decent inheritance of my own, from my mother’s side, the Pinheiro family. It doesn’t compare to the wealth the Ferreira family has, but it’s enough to assure that you would be taken care of should something happen to me. I have a house and quinta in Guimarães, along with all the Pinheiro family lands and holdings there. I have part interest in four fabric mills, and I will also inherit my father’s house on Pinto Bessa Street eventually.”

That was a surprising recitation. A house
and
farm in Guimarães? Genoveva kept her mouth shut, hands folded meekly.

“None of that tempts me to leave the police,” he warned. “I intend to stay at my work for the foreseeable future. I only wanted you to know that you would be financially secure should you agree to marry me.”

So he
was
going to ask her to marry him . . .
eventually
.

“I also think,” he added, “we should marry as soon as possible. I’d like to wait until my cousin Joaquim returns to the city, although that might be as soon as tonight.”

She laid one hand on either side of his face and rose on her toes to kiss his lips. Then she stepped back. “Yes. As soon as possible.”

“I’m
not
going to ask Lord Carvalho’s permission,” he warned.

“He’s not my father,” she said firmly.

“Then would you mind going tomorrow afternoon to file for a license?”

While she might once have dreamed of a large society wedding, her months of living on a tight budget had completely removed that desire. In her eyes, money had better uses. “Not at all.”

“Then do we have something to announce to your mother when she arrives?” he asked.

He knew everything about her that might turn away a man and yet still wanted her, even when she had no money and no social status. He wasn’t even put off by the madman chasing her who’d eaten his floorboards. “Yes, provided that you actually ask me to marry you.”

He laughed ruefully, then touched her cheek with the back of one hand. “Genoveva Jardim, would you consent to be my wife?”

She turned her face to place a kiss on his hand. “Yes, Rafael.”



Genoveva’s mother clapped her hands in pleasure when she learned of their plans, then insisted on kissing Rafael’s cheeks. It had all gone far more smoothly than he’d expected, even though he’d almost forgotten to ask his fiancé to marry him.

The restaurant was elegant, and they were given a table out of the view of other customers as he’d requested. He hoped Genoveva’s mother wouldn’t be seen by anyone who might tell her husband where she’d been. The white-aproned waiters brought them their courses, and Rafael concentrated on answering all the questions the lady had for her prospective son-in-law.

“I do have one other thing to tell you,” he said to Genoveva later over the main course. “The gentleman who managed my grandfather’s properties in Guimarães is elderly and wants to train someone to replace him so that he can go to live with his daughter outside Braga. When I talked to your butler, he told me that Tiago Coelho is both clever and hard-working, and that he could take on that manner of work. I sent a telegram to Coelho, asking if he would be interested in learning to manage the properties for me.”

Genoveva stared at him, her mouth in an O.

“I received a telegram back from him yesterday afternoon,” Rafael added. “I didn’t tell you then because I didn’t want you to think his position was contingent on your agreeing to marry me. Are you upset with me?”

She shook her head quickly.

Rafael turned to her mother. “I’ve written to him, suggesting that he and his wife move into the main house, since I rarely plan to be there. I wanted to extend an invitation to you, ma’am, to join them. After all, I understand that your daughter Constancia is . . . in the family way. It might be a comfort for her to have you there.”