Page 74 of The Hacienda
Beatriz, Beatriz...
My heart stopped.
“Come, querida,” Rodolfo said sharply. “I’m tired.”
I stowed my needlework with trembling hands. “Yes, you must be exhausted.”
He grunted in agreement and held out his arm to me. I rose and took it, biting the inside of my cheek as he set a firm kiss on my hairline.
I wanted to throw him off. To run—but where? I had nowhere to go.
I followed him out of the parlor and into the dark hall.
Paloma had left it illuminated by candelabras. I told her she must do so, but also to depart the house as soon as she could and leave the washing up in the kitchen for the morning. I was glad she had, though the opening and closing of the front door had extinguished a few of the candles.
Or had it?
The light from the candles barely penetrated the black stretching before us. At the end of it was the staircase to our bedchamber, but also the doorway to the north wing.
Rodolfo walked confidently down the hall, taking me with him. The cold parted around him like water, catching me in its wake. It watched me gasping for breath from every corner, from the rafters, from within the walls.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
Shewas here.
Beatriz...
“I think you did very well tonight,” Rodolfo said.
Beatriz, Beatriz...
The closer we grew to the north wing, the more the barriers I put up against it threatened to split like the skin of overripe fruit. I could not keep that voice from slipping under my skin like a knife.
“Oh?” I said, hoping my voice sounded light rather than strained. I should have kept my eyes straight ahead, or better yet, fixed them on my feet, but I swept the darkness before me. As if seeing could help me defend myself. I was raw and vulnerable, a lamb before slaughter.
And the house knew it.
“Yes. I think Doña Encarnación and Doña María José were rightly impressed with your hosting,” he continued. “I do think, however, that... some things need to change around here.”
Beatriz, Beatriz...
We drew near to the staircase. As we took the first step, my eyes drifted to the doorway leading to the north wing.
There, in the hall, a body lay facedown on the floor, clothed in ripped, moth-eaten rags. It was pale, streaked with blackened blood from a wound in its back. I shouldn’t have been able to see it in the darkness of the hall, but there it was, clear as day.
Someone had been killed.
I jumped, colliding with Rodolfo, who reached out for the banister to balance himself.
“What?”
“Do you see that?”
“See what?”
I looked to his face—the creases of concern deepened with shadow—and back to the hall.
The hall was empty.
