Page 32 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Maybe you should get a sec­ond opin­ion.”

The glare came back, the gray of his eyes tem­pered steel. “When you have the opin­ion of the best, you do not ques­tion it.”

“How old is Señor de la Cueva?”

“In his eight­ies. Why?”

“Does he still per­form?”

“No. He has arthri­tis in his hands.” Gabriel sat up straight. “Why are you ask­ing these ques­tions?”

“Maybe fla­menco has changed. Maybe hear­ing dif­fer­ently wouldn’t be a bad thing. Do you know any­one who’s cur­rently a great fla­menco gui­tarist?”

“Yes, of course I do.” He was im­pa­tient now.

“Why don’t you play for them? See what they say?”

He rounded on her, his face a mask of pain. “Be­cause I don’t want to hear her say I’m no good.”

That had laid his wound bare. Now it needed light and air to heal. “Do you be­lieve that?”

“I—I don’t know.” He looked star­tled, as though he had never con­sid­ered ques­tion­ing his teacher’s ver­dict. Then he groaned. “But if it’s true, I have no idea what to do. Mu­sic per­me­ated my life with pas­sion. It was work that chal­lenged me and brought the plea­sure of ac­com­plish­ment. Now…” He waved his hand vaguely. “I’m just a duke.”

She re­mem­bered their con­ver­sa­tion en route to lunch. “You could run for the Con­sejo de los Señores and write laws for Cal­eva. That would be sat­is­fy­ing and worth­while.”

The sound he made was like an an­i­mal in agony.

She flinched. “Or not.” She con­sid­ered for a mo­ment. “You know about mu­sic. Why not start some kind of mu­sic fes­ti­val for Cal­eva? Bring in fa­mous mu­si­cians from other coun­tries. You speak their lan­guage so you could per­suade them to come. Put Cal­eva on the cul­tural map.” She was ex­cited about the con­cept.

In­ter­est lit his eyes briefly be­fore he shook his head. “I’m sup­posed to be tak­ing bur­dens off my un­cle’s shoul­ders, not adding new ones. That would re­quire money and peo­ple and plan­ning.”

Her phone chimed its door­bell sound, and they both jumped. She pulled it out of her pocket to check the video. A man dressed in a dark suit stood on her front stoop. An­other man, wear­ing jeans and a wind­breaker, was at the bot­tom of the steps, hold­ing the reins of Gabriel’s horse. She turned the phone to­ward Gabriel. “Do you know these peo­ple?”

“Mierda! That’s my un­cle’s as­sis­tant and the head groom at the palace.” Gabriel stood, wob­bling slightly.

Quinn glanced at her watch. Gabriel had been at her house less than an hour be­fore the palace had tracked him down and come to re­trieve him. Of course, hav­ing a horse parked in front of her home might have made it eas­ier than usual.

“They’re prob­a­bly just wor­ried about your poor horse.” She grabbed Gabriel’s el­bow to steady him as he piv­oted too quickly and stag­gered.

“Sure they are.” Sar­casm dripped from the words. He walked with­out mishap to her door and swung it open. “Bue­nas noches, Bruno, Hugo.”

Quinn would have cow­ered at his tone had it been di­rected at her, but Bruno was clearly ac­cus­tomed to deal­ing with royal dukes. “Don Gabriel, Hugo has come to re­turn your horse to the sta­ble. Gas­par is here”—he ges­tured to a black Mer­cedes-Benz parked be­hind him—“when­ever you are ready to re­turn to the palace. Bue­nas noches.” He gave a slight bow and walked down the steps to­ward an­other sedan idling on the street.

“Gra­cias, Bruno,” Gabriel said, res­ig­na­tion in his voice. “I ap­pre­ci­ate your care for my mount, Hugo.”

“Of course, Don Gabriel,” the head groom said as he led the horse away on the side­walk, its shoes clop­ping loudly on the stone.

Quinn leaned around Gabriel to see a pickup truck with a horse trailer hitched to it pulled over on her quiet lit­tle street. Sev­eral of her neigh­bors were also out on their stoops, watch­ing the spate of un­usual ac­tiv­ity. She won­dered if one of them had called the po­lice about the horse.

“I should go.” Gabriel sounded tired and un­happy. “I’ve cre­ated a scene and given your neigh­bors a rea­son to gos­sip about you. Lo siento. I’m sorry.”

She tugged at his el­bow to get him back in­side so she could close the door. “I don’t give a shit what my neigh­bors say about me.” Not true, of course. She tried hard to be a model cit­i­zen and fly un­der the radar. But she wasn’t go­ing to pile on the guilt. “Let me get you that cof­fee.”

He waved a hand in a half­hearted neg­a­tive. “Gas­par is wait­ing for me in the car.”

“You’re a duke. Let him wait.” She took his hand, in­ter­lac­ing her fin­gers with his to make it hard for him to pull away, and led him back to­ward the sec­tional. He came to a halt be­fore they reached it, their in­ter­twined hands bring­ing her to a stop as well. He gen­tly tugged her around to face him.

“No cof­fee,” he said, his eye­lids half-closed as his gaze an­gled down to­ward her lips.

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