Chapter 6 #2
Inés’s words rang in his head, mockingly. I told you to give it a try.
—
He hardly slept that night, replaying the events of the previous day; he was going to develop dark circles under his eyes from living in this house.
The fiasco of a trip in the car with the whistling driver, the bland conversation in the sitting room, and Perla’s dignified refusal.
How could he have bungled it? He’d hardly done anything!
Maybe that was the problem. He wasn’t doing enough.
What could he do, though? Normally he would have taken his time reeling the woman in, learning more about her predilections and her dreams. But money had been darn tight, and after the debacle with the widow he was desperate.
He’d exchanged a handful of letters with Perla.
What seemed to have clinched his invitation to the guesthouse had been his photograph.
He was handsome, but the lack of information on his target was causing serious issues.
A pretty face was not enough for an important job.
Once again, he scoured Perla’s letters, trying to discern more about her.
But they were bland and devoid of details.
He rubbed his temples, hardly ate a morsel of the eggs that constituted his breakfast. The coffee was bitter, while the toast was burned at the edges.
Maybe he should read the broadsheet to distract himself. But the newspaper wasn’t in his room, even though Inés had promised it would be brought to him each morning with his breakfast.
Annoyed, he descended the staircase and went in search of the newspaper, in search of the girl.
He found her in the dining room, dancing with the houseboy, of all things. Estrella, the cook, and Rita, the maid, looked on with amused smiles at the couple. Fito was a poor dancer, shuffling his feet with effort, but she moved with ease.
“You’ll never be able to ask Paloma to dance with you at the festival if you keep on like this,” Inés chided him.
“I’m doing my best,” the boy replied helplessly.
The women laughed, Inés the loudest of all. Her curly hair fell wild around her shoulders, her eyes were bright as she whirled the boy around, and her laughter was almost mutinous; it had a tempestuousness that made his lips curl up into half a smile.
Fito and Inés were reflected in the glass of the tall, carved china cabinets with their dusty porcelain cups and bric-a-brac.
They were utterly out of place in that large, ostentatious dining room where the wallpaper had begun to peel and the floor was badly scratched.
Their vitality clashed with the sedated, tired air of the house.
He wondered who’d taught her to dance. She might have learned on her own, twirling through the halls of the house, enacting a ballet for an invisible audience.
The cook and the maid caught sight of Ulises, standing in the doorway, and lowered their heads, greeting him respectfully.
Fito and Inés ceased their dancing, and the boy also bowed his head, but she looked at him with her large, inquisitive eyes.
Then she too lowered her gaze, slowly, a trace of mockery at her lips.
“Good day, Mr. Linares,” the girl said. “Did you have a good night’s sleep?”
It was obvious he had not. The breakfast had not been up to his standards either. He wondered if Inés had arranged for the poor coffee and the burned toast.
“It was fine. I was hoping to read the paper.”
“Of course, Mr. Linares. I’ll hand it to you immediately.”
He followed her out of the dining room and up the stairs. Her fingers glided upon the banister and her feet were light.
“You’re friendly with the help,” he told her. “That’s unusual in a lady.”
She shrugged, the gesture somewhat haughty, as if his opinion did not matter to her. “Fito wants to ask a girl to dance and does not know how.”
“How kind of you to show him the steps. I thought your aunt might not like it.”
“My aunt doesn’t know about it. If you tell, she’ll punish me. But then I might not be able to fetch your paper, since I’ll be confined to my room, probably under lock and key.”
“I wouldn’t want that.”
They reached her room, and she walked in with sure steps. She grabbed the newspaper, which lay upon her bed, and handed it to him. “Will that be all, sir?” she asked with that pitch-perfect insolence disguised as politeness.
She was annoying, yet clever and potentially useful. He’d told her he worked alone, but that was a lie. He’d worked with his father. Left to his own devices, Ulises floundered.
But his father had been family, the one person he trusted.
He did not know this girl, who seemed to have a wicked streak.
He might be able to use her, though. There was a nice amount of money to be had, if he could get his hands on it.
Did Inés even realize how much they stood to gain?
He could probably shortchange her without too much trouble.
“You haven’t spoken to your aunt about me.”
“Why would I?”
“I thought you might raise the alarm, given that I didn’t see fit to make you a partner in this enterprise.”
“I’m waiting to see how you do. Not too competently, by the looks of it,” she said. Her audacity was galling.
“You’d really steal from your aunt for the fun of it?” he asked.
She looked affronted. “Not for fun. You have no idea what it’s like growing up in a town like this. They brick you up inside the walls of your home.”
“You could run away.”
“With what money?” She picked up a long yellow ribbon from a shelf and began tying her hair back with it, trying to rein in her luxurious mane.
“There must be a piece of jewelry or a trinket you could steal.”
“After I pawn it, how much will I have? It’ll last me for what, a few days? Soon I’d be selling myself rather than my grandmother’s pearls.”
He had to admit he was impressed with her calm assessment of the situation.
He knew towns like this one. Insignificant, suffocating towns with roads that didn’t lead anywhere.
But most girls in those towns prayed for a man to take them away from there; they pinned their hopes on love and marriage. This girl was no fool.
Once again, he calculated the benefits of enlisting an assistant. She didn’t have a loose tongue, or she’d have already talked to her aunt. How courageous was the annoying mite? Would she go back on her word and betray him later? He’d have to be quick and run away before she grew a conscience.
“I’ve thought about what you said, and I believe, considering the risk and work that this entails, it would be best if I retained two-thirds of any money we might be able to obtain,” he told her. “I’m sure you’ll find that is a generous offer.”
“Generous? Don’t make me laugh.”
“One-third is a good offer for someone who has never participated in a similar venture.”
“Half. The risk is mine. If we’re found out, you can scam another woman, but I’ll be kicked out of the house,” she replied with a maddening assuredness.
“Still, it’s I who will do much of the work.”
“You talk as if you need to sow a tobacco field from dusk until dawn, when all you need to do is make love to a woman. That’s no art.”
“Perhaps all you’ve enjoyed are the fumbling hands of teenagers and houseboys who can’t dance, but it’s an art when it’s done correctly.”
She blushed at that, but he thought it was more out of anger than injured modesty. “I don’t sleep with Fito.”
“Who’s your sweetheart?”
“No one,” she said, and she did so simply. It was a fact, like the color of her eyes or the loose dark curls tumbling down her back.
“That’s a pity. You’re pretty enough.”
The words were spoken honestly, but she shook her head. “You don’t need to compliment me to get what you want, and even if you did, I wouldn’t budge. Half and half, sir,” she said, and stretched out her hand.
He vacillated, doubting the alliance. He knew nothing about the girl, but then he seemed to know even less about her aunt, and that was a problem. He simply hadn’t had enough time to learn her secrets, and now he was here and must proceed.
They shook hands.