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“It doesn’t matter,” Belle interjected. “Your father needs you. Go to him.”
He turned to Belle. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“I’ll check on you later.” His expression seemed distant. “And kiss you good night.”
Maybe then, she thought hopefully, when they were alone, they could actually talk and try to work out whatever was making him so distant. “All right.”
He kissed her gently on the forehead, his lips cool. “Until then.”
“This way, señorita.”
Belle followed the maid down the hall. They went up a sweeping staircase, then a tightly winding flight of steps, then another. Belle’s legs started to ache, and once or twice she leaned against the stone wall to catch her breath. The maid seemed to have no trouble whatsoever.
“How many people are on staff here?” Belle asked, to fill the silence as the maid waited.
“Thirty, señorita.”
“Thirty people work here? To take care of how many?”
“Two.”
Reaching a tower, they went up another tightly twisting flight of stairs, this one of rickety wood. Ducking her head, the maid pushed open a door at the back. She sounded embarrassed as she said, “Here is the room assigned to you, señorita.”
Belle realized they’d put her in the attic, as if she were a mad relative, four floors above Santiago’s room in the family wing.
“Th
ere’s the bathroom,” the woman added reluctantly.
Belle peeked past the door to a tiny bathroom, smaller than a closet, with a toilet, bare sink and shower so small she was afraid her belly wouldn’t fit. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling.
The family’s opinion of her, and intention for her future, couldn’t have been more clear.
“I’m sorry, señorita.”
Belle forced herself to turn with a bright smile. “No, it’s fine.”
“You are too kind.” The maid added under her breath, “If the marquesa had been assigned to such a room, we would have heard her screaming for miles.”
Which was why, Belle reflected, beautiful women like Nadia Cruz ended up with everything they wanted, while girls like Belle ended up in rooms in the attic.
Soon after the maid left, Belle’s overnight bag arrived, held by a huffing and puffing porter who glared at her, as if it were her fault he’d been forced to climb so many tightly twisting stone steps. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, feeling guilty even though it hadn’t been her idea.
Getting on her pajamas, she brushed her teeth and climbed into the tiny single bed, with the sagging mattress and squeaky metal frame, to wait for Santiago.
She looked out through the curtainless small round window. Sweeping moonlight showed all of the tiny village of Sangovia in the valley below the castle. With a shiver, she pulled up the thin blankets around her baby bump, and stared out into the starlit night.
Cuddling her belly, she leaned back against the lumpy pillow, yawning as she tried to stay awake until Santiago came to kiss her good night as he’d promised. She waited. And waited.
But he never came.
CHAPTER NINE
SANTIAGO STARED ACROSS the chilly salon, over a glass of even chillier Scotch, and looked down into his father’s eyes, the chilliest of all.
“What are you saying?” His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.
