You nod once. “Yes,” you tell Cecilia. “We’re going.”
The road to Hacienda El Cuervo is not a road so much as a long argument between mud and wheels. The cart groans, horses snort, and the rain returns in bursts like it forgot something important.
You sit beside the duke inside the covered wagon, because Mateo insists, because the duke insists more. Your daughters huddle on the other side, wrapped in spare cloaks. Sofía sleeps with her head on Mariana’s lap, thumb in mouth, unaware that her life just turned a page.
The duke’s breath is measured, but every bump sends a flicker of pain across his mouth. You watch his hands, the way they curl and unclench, the way he tries not to show weakness. He’s proud, you can tell. Not the empty pride of Rodrigo Ibarra, but the kind that was forged by being hunted.
“You did that splint with skill,” he murmurs after a long stretch of silence.
You keep your eyes on the wagon wall. “I’ve helped set bones before.”
“In childbirth?”
“In life,” you correct, because you’re tired of the world assuming women only touch pain when it’s polite pain. “I’ve seen men crushed under wagons. I’ve seen boys kicked by mules. I’ve seen fevers turn strong bodies into ash.”
The duke’s voice turns quieter. “And you’ve seen betrayal.”
You finally look at him. “Every day.”
He studies you like he’s reading a document written in scars and choices. “Your husband was involved in something bigger than a family dispute.”
You feel the old grief rise, sharp as smoke. “He never told me.”
“He might have been protecting you,” the duke says. “Or he might have been ashamed.”
“Ashamed of what?”
The duke’s eyes hold yours. “Of trusting the wrong people.”
Night falls by the time the black iron gates of El Cuervo appear, looming out of mist like the entrance to a myth. Torches flicker along the stone walls. Guards step forward, crisp and disciplined, and when they see the wagon, they move with the urgent coordination of men trained to respond to disaster.
The main house is not a house. It’s a fortress wearing elegance like a mask: high windows, heavy doors, stone terraces, and a courtyard wide enough for a hundred horses to dance.
Your daughters stare as if they’ve been dropped into a storybook that might bite. Mariana whispers, “Is this… a castle?”
“A manor,” Mateo says, and even he sounds cautious, like the building has ears.
Servants appear, but they don’t chatter. They don’t smile. They move like shadows with purpose, eyes downcast, hands sure. A physician is summoned. A room is prepared. The duke is carried inside.
You follow, heart thumping, clutching a small sack that contains all you own. It feels ridiculous in a place with chandeliers. It feels like showing up to a storm with an umbrella made of paper.
A woman in a dark dress approaches you, hair pulled back tight, face composed like a locked drawer. “I am Doña Elvira,” she says. “Housekeeper to His Grace.”
His Grace. The words make your stomach twist.
Elvira looks at your daughters. “And these are?”
“My girls,” you answer.
Elvira’s gaze lingers on Cecilia’s thin wrists, on Sofía’s bare feet, on Mariana’s tangled hair. Something flickers in her expression, but it disappears quickly. “You will be given rooms in the east wing,” she says. “Baths. Food. Clean clothes.”
You stiffen. “We’re not beggars.”
Elvira’s eyes meet yours, and for the first time you sense she understands the humiliation of being handed charity like it’s a leash. “No,” she says quietly. “You are guests under protection. The difference matters here.”
Later, after your daughters have eaten until their bellies look round and stunned, after servants have washed their hair and wrapped them in soft blankets that smell like soap and cedar, you sit at a long table with a bowl of broth in front of you and realize your hands are shaking.
Not from hunger. From the terrifying quiet of safety.
Mateo arrives with papers. “His Grace requests your presence,” he says.
Your heart kicks. “He’s awake?”
“He insists,” Mateo replies, and his tone suggests the duke insists on gravity too, and gravity obeys.
They take you to a chamber that smells of herbs and clean linen. The physician stands near the bed, frowning like the duke is an argument he can’t win. The duke lies propped on pillows, face pale, eyes sharp, leg elevated and bound in better splints than yours.
When the physician leaves, the duke gestures to a chair. “Sit, Beatriz.”
You don’t like being ordered, but you sit anyway, because you need answers more than pride right now.
He watches you for a moment. “Your daughters are safe here.”
You nod, but your voice is careful. “For how long?”
“As long as you need,” he says. “Or as long as this takes.”
“This,” you echo.
“The Ibarra fraud,” he replies. “And whoever tried to kill me.”
You inhale slowly. “Why would someone try to kill you?”
He looks away, and you see something old and dark in his expression, like a door to a room full of ghosts. “Because I made a reputation for not forgiving betrayal.”
You think of the stories. Men disappearing. Debts paid in blood. Families ruined. You want to tell yourself it’s exaggeration, but his eyes don’t look like a man built from exaggerations. They look like a man built from consequences.
He turns back to you. “I owe your husband.”
Your breath catches. “You knew Tomás.”
“I knew of him,” the duke corrects. “He helped move documents that exposed theft across several estates. He was supposed to deliver a packet to my office. It never arrived.”
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