Page 1 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Chap­ter 1

Gabriel, el Duque de Bencalor, had come to say good­bye.

He lifted the leather case onto the tres­tle ta­ble and opened the lid. The gui­tar’s pol­ished wood glis­tened like satin in its red vel­vet bed. He traced the grace­ful spi­rals of in­laid mar­quetry with his fin­ger. For a mo­ment, he let his hand hover over the strings, wish­ing, long­ing.

He yanked his hand away and slammed the lid down with less care than the ex­quis­ite in­stru­ment de­served. He stood it up­right be­side the five other gui­tar cases that lined one wall of the oc­tag­o­nal tower room. Even though he rarely came here any­more, the palace staff kept the stone floor gleam­ing and the rough-hewn walls free of cob­webs.

Gabriel closed his eyes, try­ing to hear again the wild, pas­sion­ate sounds of fla­menco that he had once con­jured from these gui­tars. Noth­ing but the muted roar of the waves smash­ing against the cliffs at the tower’s base pen­e­trated the closed win­dows. He had com­posed a piece in evo­ca­tion of that sound while at the mu­sic con­ser­va­tory two years ago. His strong­est work, he’d thought at the time.

He raised his hand to touch the lobe of his dam­aged ear. The top plas­tic sur­geon in the world had re­con­structed its outer whorls in a six-month-long se­ries of op­er­a­tions. It looked per­fect to the ca­sual ob­server, and he had no trou­ble with hear­ing all the sounds of nor­mal, ev­ery­day life.

Yet, when his teacher and men­tor had lis­tened to him play, An­to­nio de la Cueva had shaken his head in sor­row. “It’s muddy. The notes aren’t pure. You’ve lost the nu­ances.”

Gabriel could no longer per­ceive all the sub­tleties a vir­tu­oso mu­si­cian had to be able to hear.

He opened his eyes. The mute gui­tar cases shot a bolt of guilt through his gut. He yanked his cell phone out of his jeans pocket to call the mu­si­col­o­gist who had ac­quired Gabriel’s rare in­stru­ments for him. “I want you to sell my gui­tars.”

“Are you sure?” the man asked, his voice al­most an­guished. “It took five years to ob­tain the Tor­res in­stru­ment. Once you sell it, we may never be able to get it back.”

“These in­stru­ments are meant to be played. I’ve been self­ish to keep them silent for so long,” Gabriel said, the truth of it jab­bing at him again. “You know who wants the Tor­res… Marisela Alejo.”

“I’ll con­tact her.” The mu­si­col­o­gist’s dis­tress faded to res­ig­na­tion.

“Give her a break on the price,” Gabriel said. “She will make it a voice of beauty again.”

He and Marisela had played a duet once—an ar­range­ment of “As­turias” by Al­béniz—for a char­ity event in New York City. He had been only fif­teen, while Marisela was al­ready a fa­mous fla­menco gui­tarist—a to­caora—at the age of twenty-four.

It wasn’t her fame that made his hands shake be­fore the per­for­mance, but her blaz­ing tal­ent. He knew he wasn’t wor­thy to play with her—yet—but the char­ity’s or­ga­niz­ers had wanted his name on the star-stud­ded pro­gram be­cause hav­ing a royal duke per­form added ca­chet to their event. He had re­hearsed with Marisela by video­con­fer­enc­ing to get his cues down, but it hadn’t felt like nearly enough prepa­ra­tion.

As he stood in the wings of the stage, pre­tend­ing to watch the act be­fore them and tak­ing deep breaths to calm him­self, Marisela walked up be­side him. She was dressed in her sig­na­ture black trousers, black vest, and white shirt, the thick braid of her deep red hair fall­ing over one shoul­der. He’d al­ready stripped off his tuxedo jacket and bow tie and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to al­low his arms and wrists to move freely. She flicked a gaze over him. “Your first per­for­mance in New York?”

He nod­ded, not sure he could speak in an even voice.

“New York­ers are a tough crowd. For­get them. Wrap your­self in the mu­sic.”

Their names were an­nounced, and they walked onto the stage where a spot­light blazed down on two sim­ple black chairs and two gui­tars. The ap­plause was tepid. He could hear con­ver­sa­tions con­tin­u­ing at the ta­bles where the donors were fin­ish­ing their dessert and sip­ping cof­fee.

He was grate­ful that the spot­lights blinded him so he couldn’t see the faces of the au­di­ence as he sat and cra­dled his gui­tar.

Marisela lifted her eye­brows at him in a word­less ques­tion, and he once again nod­ded, watch­ing her po­si­tion her hands on the strings and play the first ur­gent notes of the piece. Af­ter that, he for­got ev­ery­thing ex­cept fol­low­ing her into the mu­sic, their gui­tars singing to each other, ask­ing and an­swer­ing, her bril­liance lift­ing him to a level he’d never reached be­fore.

When they fin­ished, the huge ball­room was dead silent for a long mo­ment. Then the ap­plause rolled through the room like thun­der, and he could see a rip­ple of move­ment as peo­ple stood and shouted, “En­core!”

He des­per­ately wanted to keep play­ing with her, to drink more deeply from her well of ge­nius. He looked at Marisela with a plea in his eyes.

But she shook her head and mur­mured, “Al­ways leave them want­ing more.” She gave a brief bow and strode from the stage with Gabriel trail­ing be­hind her while the next per­former stepped into the spot­light.

He re­mem­bered the way he had felt that night, as though he’d glimpsed a moun­tain­top he might some­day be able to reach.

Now all he did was work the lily fields and dis­cuss leaky roofs and cow dis­eases with the man­ager of his es­tate. The man­ager had run his es­tate with­out any help for years be­fore this, but Gabriel had needed to fill the time he had once spent prac­tic­ing the gui­tar.

He brushed his fin­ger­tip over the use­less, in­sen­sate whorls of his ear. It was time to seek out a new di­rec­tion for his life. His stom­ach turned to lead as he con­sid­ered what it would be.

Chap­ter 2

“It’s el duque on line one,” Emilia, the com­pany’s re­cep­tion­ist, hissed in a stage whis­per as she leaned through the door­way of Quinn’s of­fice.

“Oh, shit!” Quinn didn’t deal with clients. She was the way-be­hind-the-scenes com­puter nerd, and she pre­ferred to keep it that way. She had also been em­ployed by the se­cu­rity firm Se­guri­dad Silva for a mere six months.

---