The Shores of Spain (2 page)

I will relay your affections to Grandmother,
the letter continued
, and will write once we’re there to tell you everything that’s changed. I’ll probably see some of your childhood friends while there, and will relay any messages they have for you.

Oriana didn’t mention her own childhood friends because she hadn’t had many. Not that she wasn’t friendly—she simply hadn’t had time for friends. After their mother’s death, Oriana had taken it on herself to make certain that Marina kept up with her schooling, even though Oriana had only been twelve. Because Marina was small and meek, other girls teased her, calling her
webless
and other names. Oriana had always come to her defense.

The true turning point in their lives had come when their mother’s eldest sister, Jovita Paredes, requested that the girls visit the main island of Quitos to get to know their mother’s family. Despite his misgivings, their father gave in, but once they were there, everything had
gone wrong. Their father had been accused of sedition, jailed, and exiled without even a chance to speak with his daughters. Effectively orphaned, Marina and Oriana became wards of the state. They had to live with two of their aunts and their spoiled cousins, forbidden to return to their grandmother’s home on Amado.

Marina hated her life there. Her aunts found fault with everything she did. Worse, they forbade her to practice her religion; Christianity wasn’t
allowed
on Quitos. Oriana tried to protect her from her aunts’ venom and her cousins’ ridicule, but Oriana couldn’t always be there, particularly not after she took a job at a factory. She’d wanted to save money so that when Marina came of age they could move out of their aunts’ household, perhaps even back to Amado.

That was why Marina lived in Portugal now. By the time she was eighteen she’d grown so frustrated with her mother’s family that she decided to run away to find her exiled father. Marina had scraped together every last royal she had to cross to Amado on a ferry. She waited until Oriana was away, thinking her aunts wouldn’t hold Oriana at fault. Once on Amado she hadn’t contacted her grandmother for fear of getting her in trouble. Instead, Marina begged captains of the various human ships to take her to Portugal to find her father, offering to work for her passage. She hadn’t understood then what manner of trouble she could have found herself in. But God had been merciful, and an English captain felt moved by her obvious distress to let her work in his ship’s kitchen until the ship reached Portugal.

Marina sighed softly.
The only daring thing I’ve ever done in my life
.

It
had
all worked out for her. She liked Portugal. She fit in far better here than she ever had at home. Here she wasn’t expected to be a leader or politician or spy. She wasn’t sure what she did want to do with her life, but it wasn’t one of
those
professions—the careers considered acceptable for females from her family line. Here in Portugal she had choices.

Back on the islands she wouldn’t have been likely to attract a
mate either. She didn’t have the money to support a male, nor did her lineage make a match advantageous for a male’s family. In Portugal, though, she’d found a male who very much suited her tastes—Joaquim Tavares. So no matter how much she’d missed her sister and grandmother, she was very happy to be in Portugal with her father.

She turned her eyes back to the letter. Oriana went on to tell an amusing story about visiting a street market in the capital city of Praia Norte with Duilio. Apparently the guards hadn’t noted the approach of an old woman who, curious about the human man in the marketplace, managed to snatch off his
pareu
, leaving Duilio wearing nothing more than a revolver strapped to his thigh.

Marina clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling aloud.

She shouldn’t laugh. It would have been mortifying to Duilio, especially since etiquette forbade him to demand his garment back. Instead he’d had to wait for Oriana to retrieve the
pareu
from the old woman. The embassy guards should have prevented the incident, but they’d made the mistake of assuming a woman was harmless because she was elderly.

A soft cough sounded at the sitting room’s doorway, alerting Marina to Lady Ferreira’s return. The lady had gone down to the kitchens to discuss something with the cook—likely a flimsy excuse to allow Marina privacy to read her letter.

“Lady, did Oriana write to you about the . . . um . . .
incident
in the market?”

Lady Ferreira laughed merrily as she approached. “Certainly. An amusing tale, but not one that needs to be spread about here in the Golden City.”

The lady settled gracefully in the matching chair on the other side of the window, the deep brown fabric of her gown glistening in the lamplight. To ward off the chill coming off the window glass, she adjusted her ivory shawl around her shoulders. Marina reminded herself
firmly not to covet the thing. It looked to be of silk and cashmere—or perhaps wool—with intricate embroidery all along the edges. It had likely cost more than all of Marina’s current garments combined. Marina’s father, with his successful business in the city, was well-to-do. Her father’s wife, Lady Alma Pereira de Santos, had managed to turn her own limited funds into a comfortable fortune. The Ferreiras were, by comparison, shockingly wealthy.

“Is your father still talking with Joaquim?” Lady Ferreira asked once she was comfortable.

“Yes, although I’ve no clue what they’re talking about,” Marina said, a hint of vexation creeping into her voice.

Lady Ferreira chuckled. “Perhaps they’re discussing you.”

Marina shook her head. “I’m sure it’s politics.”

Lady Ferreira gazed at her for a moment, her warm brown eyes sympathetic. “Young men have their passions,” she said.

Marina felt childish and petulant now. “I know. The referendum is very important to him, and I do understand why.”

Joaquim had a revolutionary streak. He believed in the equality of all peoples regardless of kind, religion, or birth. He regularly conferred with Prince Raimundo—they’d become unlikely friends over the past six months. Despite the prince’s station, Marina was sure that Joaquim treated him no differently than he would a fellow police officer, a beggar chance-met on the street, or a pagan sereia whose child had been murdered. That was one of the things she loved about him.

The upcoming referendum would determine whether the princedoms of Northern Portugal and Southern Portugal would once again be one country. Not only would reunification mean one monarchy, one government, and one military; it would also trigger the drafting of a new constitution, a chance for the new country to redefine itself, perhaps into a more republican mode. That was the outcome Joaquim prayed for. Unfortunately, Marina wouldn’t be voting in that referendum. No woman in the Portugals would.

As important as it was, Marina wanted Joaquim to spend less time worrying over the future of the government and more time thinking about
their
future. “I wish it was over so we could all move on with our lives.”

Lady Ferreira didn’t disagree with that. “Dear, Joaquim only acts when
he
is ready, you know. He was always the most stubborn of my boys.”

Marina blinked. Had she spoken her worries aloud? Too often they showed on her face, she knew. “But what about when
I
 . . .”

She stopped herself. It was one of the truths of living in the human world, another thing that was different from her homeland. There, she would have been the one to court Joaquim. If she’d had her way, their courtship would have progressed much more quickly. Oriana had courted Duilio less than a week before taking him as her mate, while Joaquim had been courting Marina for six months now and had done nothing more forward than hold her hand. Engagements in Portugal sometimes lasted two or three years, she’d heard.

Lady Ferreira’s fingers touched her cheek. “Dear, give him time. Consider him a pearl of great value, one worth selling all you have to possess.”

What is wrong with wanting to possess the pearl now?
Marina sighed. “I know, lady.”

Lady Ferreira waved one hand airily then. “He would be pleased that I even know that parable.”

Actually, Marina was a little surprised herself. Lady Ferreira’s adherence to the Church was nominal at best. Like Marina, the lady wasn’t human; she was a selkie. Unlike most of her kind, though, the lady had been raised among humans and must have been exposed to that parable in her childhood. She sometimes professed it a mystery how Joaquim had grown up so religious. Of all the boys from the Ferreira household, Joaquim was the only devout one.

Marina understood how different influences in life could affect one’s beliefs. Although her own grandmother and father were
Christians, her older sister—Oriana—had chosen the religion of their mother. Since Oriana’s husband, Joaquim’s cousin Duilio, wasn’t terribly devout, he hadn’t minded taking a pagan to wife. Joaquim, on the other hand, wouldn’t have been able to accept that. Fortunately, Marina held to her father’s religion, despite pressure from her mother’s family to deny her chosen faith. She’d only learned later that the Christianity practiced on the islands was different than that of Portugal, shifted to better suit the culture of the sereia, with greater emphasis placed on the Virgin as the instrument of God and intercessor.

Marina folded up the letter. The rest of it could wait. “I will tell him we were discussing it,”

The lady turned in her chair to face Marina more directly then. “I confess I did come in here with an ulterior motive. I wanted to see whether you could influence Joaquim.”

Oh dear
. “To what?” she asked cautiously.

“With Duilio and Oriana gone, when I marry, this house will stand empty. I would prefer that Joaquim move into the house, but I cannot get him to agree.”

“Will you and Joaquim’s father not move in here?” Marina had assumed that when Lady Ferreira married, she and Joaquim’s father would move into this house. The Tavares house was much smaller than the Ferreira one.

“He wants to stay closer to his business,” Lady Ferreira said, “and since I’ve never been particularly attached to this place, I don’t feel any need to stay. This was Alexandre’s house. Never mine.”

Alexandre Ferreira had been dead two years or so. Some members of society had been scandalized when Lady Ferreira suddenly dropped her mourning six months before. Still, it was considered appropriate for a woman to leave off her mourning if she intended to remarry. It hadn’t taken long before it became clear that Lady Ferreira planned to wed her first husband’s cousin—Joaquim’s father—who’d been a widower for decades.

Marina surveyed the elegant sitting room, its sofa and chairs in
ivory and beige, the fine carpet under that, the silver-framed photographs on the mantel. “But you’ve worked so hard to make it beautiful.”

Lady Ferreira laughed shortly. “Things, dear. I purchased
things
. They are not my children.”

Marina licked her lips, trying to see this as Joaquim would. He might have lived in this house for eight years, but he was only a
cousin
of the Ferreira family. “I suspect Joaquim would feel like an interloper, like he has no business living here. The house should belong to Mr. Ferreira, shouldn’t it? Not a cousin.”

Lady Ferreira’s head tilted and she gazed inscrutably at Marina.

Marina swallowed, feeling as though she’d failed some test. She didn’t know what the lady had expected her to say, but her answer hadn’t been the correct one.

“Duilio will be away for a couple of years at a minimum. Joaquim could act as . . . a caretaker,” the lady suggested.

That was
not
what she’d originally meant, Marina was certain. Lady Ferreira had been saying that Joaquim should move into the house
permanently
. “I can talk to him, I suppose,” she said after a moment. “It would save him the cost of his rent if he did.”

She had only been to Joaquim’s flat once, in the company of Oriana and Duilio; Joaquim’s landlady would be scandalized if an unmarried woman went up there alone. It was a cozy place, nearly as shabby as her own, but full of Joaquim’s books and possessing a masculine feel she’d found quite charming. It was
his
place, and it would be difficult for Joaquim to give it up.

He doesn’t like change.

Masculine voices sounded in the hallway and, before Lady Ferreira could add more, Joaquim stood in the doorway, Marina’s father behind him.

Tall and lean, and with dark hair going gray at the temples, her father had a distinguished air. He looked very much the Portuguese gentleman in his elegant evening attire. Most people would never
guess he wasn’t human. “Marina, darling,” he began, coming to kiss her cheek in farewell when she rose. “I’m sorry we didn’t get much of a chance to chat. Shall we talk in the morning?”

Since she worked for him in his office, it was a rhetorical question. “Yes, Father. Please tell your wife I hope she feels better in the morning.”

Lady Pereira de Santos had left the Ferreira house not long after dinner, claiming a need for rest. That had been a common occurrence lately; the lady was pregnant. It would be a strange thing to have a half brother or sister, particularly one so much younger than herself, but Marina enjoyed the prospect of watching her so-serious father chase after a toddler.

“I will do so,” her father promised, and then took his leave of Lady Ferreira before departing.

Joaquim came to Marina’s side then, holding out one arm for her to take. She’d thought him terribly handsome from the moment she met him. He was tall and strong, with straight dark hair and brown eyes that hinted at his mother’s Spanish blood, a square jaw that betokened firmness of purpose, and a wide brow that spoke of wisdom. Well, she hadn’t
known
all those things about him from her first glance, but it hadn’t taken long to learn his true character.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked. “Your father and I talked longer than I realized.”