Page 39 of The Familiar

His brows shot up. “Only three?”

“For now,” she said. “I want you to tell me about the trials of the torneo, so that we will be ready to face them together.”

“I can do that,” he said, and his relief was clear.

“I want to eat this pomegranate.”

“That’s why I brought it to you.”

“And I want you to turn your back while I do it, so that I can enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed, without worrying what I look like with juice streaming down my chin.”

“I can do that too, Luzia Cotado.”

For the second time, he turned his back on her.

CHAPTER 20

The gowns arrived on a Thursday, in trunks marked with Valentina’s initials. They were wrapped in muslin, bundles of lavender and rosemary placed between the layers.

Valentina laid them out one by one on her bed. Three gowns, one in lush black velvet trimmed in ermine and pearls, stiff with silver brocade. One in darkest green, the ruff and sleeves edged in lace and silver spangles. One in cream velvet, stitched with birds and scrolls and pansies in ochre and umber and black. There were fresh underskirts, squirrel-lined gloves, and new velvet slippers. A new corset had been sent, of soft quilted silk. She felt a heat pass through her, a liquid pleasure that made her press her thighs together.

What is the true cost? she wondered. Will it be the devil I pay? But she clutched the corset all the tighter.

It was true she had no proper jewels, but did it matter? She would fight not to think on it.

Valentina looked around, unsure of what to feel. She wanted to celebrate, but she didn’t dare interrupt Marius. He’d taken to working in the salon rather than his study, and she couldn’t blame him. She crossed herself each time she passed the door, and she wondered if some part of Víctor de Paredes’s bodyguard might not still be beneath her feet or above her head, wedged between the floorboards, food for boring insects.

She would be practical in this moment. She would make sure that the gowns for Luzia were in order.

She found the scullion in her room, staring at the black lacquered chest as if it might be full of vipers. Valentina entered silently, skirting the spot on the floor where they’d laid a rug, despite the fact that no stains were still visible.

In wordless agreement she and Luzia opened the chest together and lifted the bundles out, setting them neatly on the bed, carefully unwrapping the muslin.

Luzia had also received three gowns. One for day in a kind of rust-colored silk edged in gold lace, one in black velvet, and one in black wool. For performing.

Luzia ran her hand over the rough wool and gave a heavy sigh. “I thought I was being wise.”

Valentina frowned. She was glad she hadn’t squandered what might be her only chance at luxury on something sensible. “Perhaps it will be less severe on the body?”

“Come,” said Catalina de Castro de Oro, bustling in from the hallway. “We will get you dressed.”

When had the widow arrived? Had Juana let her in? Why had no one knocked? How had Valentina agreed to grant a stranger such access to her home? She voiced none of these questions. She simply shut the door and they began the process of stripping Luzia and layering her into her new gown. It was silent work, the work of women who had not been tended to their whole lives, who had done the tasks of servants when another pair of hands couldn’t be bought or found. That Valentina knew such things was to be expected, but who was this widow who dressed so elegantly, who walked with such natural confidence, and yet whose fingers flew over fastenings and laces with surety?

“Many will bring their own servants to La Casilla,” said the widow. “Víctor has arranged for us all to have a girl, but she will have to be shared. Luzia will be her first priority.”

And the widow her second, and Valentina would wait and be late for the banquet. That was the unspoken part of all of this.

“I will bring my own maid to see to my hair and toilette,” the widow continued, but Valentina didn’t want to be appeased.

When they finished, they were all pink-cheeked and sheened in sweat. Valentina opened the window as Catalina opened the door to create a breeze. Then they stepped back to examine their work.

Luzia stood in the late morning sunlight. The black wool gown was austere, the sleeves tight instead of belled or flared, the fabric a kind of dull, sturdy material the color of soot. The tailor had built a corset that narrowed and flattened as it should, but the hoop was smaller and more subtle than those Valentina and the widow wore. The white ruff was restrained, simple folds and pleats, a bare wisp of cloud. The effect was eerie. Luzia didn’t look like a nun, but she didn’t quite look like a woman either. It was as if she had become smaller, a figurine carved from obsidian, a tiny pagan icon one might find in a cave.

Catalina cocked her head to the side and tapped her lips with her finger. “Dare I say it suits you?”

Valentina saw Luzia’s posture relax a bit, as if she had sighed in relief. Why should she care so much what the widow thought? And yet did Valentina not hope for her approval too? Did some part of her not long to say, Come, see what your tailor has made for me?

The widow circled Luzia slowly. “A compelling idea. It will change the game entirely if she is presented not to appeal to desire but to forbid it. Chaste, pious, unassailable.”