She was rising to a sitting position, her pillow clutched to her chest. From the sound of her breathing, Lucien thought she'd be crying, but her eyes were dry and clear, though touched with hurt and a little sparkle of residual anger.
She rolled her eyes, but didn't smile. "Don't expect me to be impressed. Canaan can do that trick, too, Lucien. So can Nico I think. JJ says it's a knack that comes with age."
"I keep telling you I'm an old man," he said, trying to make her smile.
"You're not an old man. You're a bullshitter. Vasco, too." She used her sign for 'bull' and had figured out a way to express the rest."
"Where are you getting this language? My mother and sister would never have known or used such language."
Faith eyed Lucien skeptically as he sat beside her on the bed. His mother would be over two hundred years old and according to Agdta, he hadn't seen Marisol in a hundred and fifty. How would he know what kind of language she used?
"I'll bet they did. They just didn't say it out loud." She was that way with the f-word. She could think it, but could never bring herself to say it even though the sign was easy and obvious.
"They were raised to be ladies. They were innocent," he told her, affronted on their behalf.
"Oh please. Your mother had two children didn't she? She couldn't have been too innocent." She heard his sharp intake of breath and assumed she'd touched on another topic 'ladies' didn't talk about. Again, she chose to ignore him. "You said yourself that your father used to whisper in her ear and make her blush and laugh."
She'd seen Nico do that to Hope on a regular basis. It would embarrass her sister, but she loved it just the same.
"What do you suppose your father said? I like your hair ribbons? Your mother was a woman and he treated her like one."
Lucien looked away, pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed and looked back.
"Why the locked door?" he asked conversationally.
"It usually means someone doesn't want company." She was being a brat and she knew it, but didn't know how else to express her anger.
"That is, perhaps, when we need it most." Lucien sat on the bed beside her. "It sounded like you were crying."
"I don't cry."
It was one of the lessons she learned from her time with Tyn; move silently; speak only when spoken to; don't cry and above all, don't scream; keep your eyes down. The first two kept you from being noticed. The third kept you from giving him the full measure of pleasure once he did notice you and the fourth was to keep what little sanity you had left.
She'd failed lessons three and four time and again until she learned about the door in her mind. That door was now closed and locked and unlike Lucien, she was unable to turn the key, so she sat with her eyes cast down, silent and unmoving.
"I'd like you to explain to me what you think happened back there," Lucien said, sensing her withdrawal, "And then I'll tell you the truth."
The truth? What was that movie all the recruits watched over and over? The one with that actor, Jack Nicholson, saying the line, "The truth? You can't handle the truth." That line summed up her life. Faith shrugged. Speak when spoken to.
"You were there. You saw. I got angry. I told Álvaro to go to hell and you all thought the evil bruja had cursed him for real." Thinking about it brought back the feeling of burning in her fingertips and she curled them into her palms.
"No one thought that," Lucien told her and when she started to pull away, he slipped his arm around her shoulder to hold her in place. He chuckled. "Alright, Álvaro thought it, but he had good reason which I will get to in a moment. No one else did."
"I saw their faces."
"What you saw was shock."
"No. I know what I saw. Everyone saw me as Álvaro's nightmare bruja come to life."
She wrapped the fingers of one hand around the other to keep from saying more. Lucien wrapped his big hand around the bundle and held them there in her lap.
"Don't put your fears onto my face," he said quietly.
He could stop her hands from speaking, but not her thoughts. "That's not what I'm doing." Her head snapped up to look at him when he answered as if he'd heard her.
"It is. What you saw was shock. I freely admit it. I was shocked, not by what you said, but by how you said it!" He wasn't smiling now. "Where are you learning these words?"
"Then you don't believe I cursed him?" She looked up at him with those big blue eyes begging him to say so.
"Of course not! I believe you cursed at him, though. Several times," he said sternly.
"And Vasco?"
"Vasco still thinks you're an angel," he said gently, "By the look on Álvaro's face, he was sure his son had committed some terrible sin for which you were sent to consign him to Perdition and not on behalf of the devil. As I said, shock."
Faith closed her eyes, smiled and sighed and Lucien could feel the relief spread through her as she relaxed against him. He pulled her a little closer and rested his head on top of hers, breathing deeply of the halo of hair that looked and smelled like sunshine.
"If you dare question the boys' loyalty to you," he said lightly, "I will turn you over my knee and whip your bottom soundly. Unlike me, they were not shocked by your language. They were, however, blown out of their skulls… Did I get that phrase right? …by your bravery in saying them to Álvaro's face."
Faith smiled, but the smile quickly faded. "What about Álvaro? Why does he hate me?"
"It's not you that he hates, hummingbird. It's your magic." He took a deep breath and slowly let it out to prepare himself to say what needed to be said. He didn't want Faith to hear it from anyone else.
"A long time ago, my mother had a friend from the village who was a bruja, a practitioner of magic. She was a healer like you. She and my mother spent many hours together laughing and gossiping, but this bruja and the Vigilante never got along. One day, they were arguing as they always did and the bruja suddenly pointed at the Vigilante and told him that because of his neglect, he would fail in his duty, bring shame to his family and tear their world apart. She swore she would stop him and then she cursed him to Hell. The servants heard it all."
Faith, who'd been leaning comfortably against his side, listening carefully to the story, felt Lucien take another long, slow breath. She looked up to find him staring straight ahead, seeing something that was only in his memory. She reached up and gently ran her hand along his jaw.
"It sounds more like a vision of the future than a curse." she said.
She knew of no one who could cast a spell or lay a curse, but Grace sometimes had visions and they weren't always what they seemed. Yes, her visions had once saved Col's life, but her screams of Otto being crushed beneath the car in a pool of blood had sent everybody running only to find him changing the oil and cursing because he'd spilled the pan. The 'blood' of her vision was motor oil.
Even a reliable vision often came too late to change the course of events.
"It might have been, but it wouldn't have mattered. The story was brewing long before my mother got wind of it. I was fostered to another House for training and she wrote me about it and asked me to come home. The bruja was a good woman who'd done so much good for the village and enclave. My mother wasn't superstitious. She didn't believe it was a curse, but there was trouble brewing in the village and my father's hands were full. It was a time of battles and unrest. Demons were everywhere. He was called away a great deal." Lucien gave a helpless shrug. "I only know that I was too late."
"You came as fast as you could," Faith concluded, her heart aching for the young man Lucien had been, but Lucien shook his head.
"But not fast enough to save Engracia, my mother's best friend. She'd gone into hiding up in the hills and my mother wanted me to fetch her and bring her here to safety, but the People found her first and stoned her to death in the Village Square in front of the church on the afternoon before I arrived. All I could bring to my mother was her broken body."
Stoned, hanged, drowned, or bur
ned at the stake, this was the history of the Daughters of Man. Faith had listened carefully to all the stories Manon had to tell, but that's all they were; stories of people she didn't know, who lived in another time and place.
Engracia was real. She'd walked these halls. Her laughter had filled these too quiet rooms. She'd gossiped with Lucien's mother in the cool of the courtyard. Her sandaled feet had trod the very stones of that courtyard that Faith had so meticulously set to rights. Faith felt as if she knew her. Engracia was real.
This woman, this Daughter of Man, was Lucien's mother's friend, dear enough to be rescued and brought to the safety of this hacienda. Lucien's mother had turned to her son for help and in Lucien's eyes he'd failed her as well as her friend.
Without realizing it, Faith had climbed to her knees and thrown her arms around Lucien ad Toussaint. She buried her face in his neck. Behind his back, her fingers wove the words she thought.
"Oh Lucien, poor, poor Lucien. It wasn't your fault. You did what you could, just as Engracia did. Your mother knew her, knew she wasn't evil."
She was more convinced than ever that Engracia's 'curse' wasn't a curse at all. It was a warning that the Vigilante ignored.
He was rubbing her back, comforting her while she was trying to comfort him. "No, she wasn't evil, but she died just the same and that's why…" He pulled her away from his neck to say it face-to-face, but said instead, "I thought you didn't cry."
"I don't." Faith wiped at her cheek and was surprised when her fingers came away wet. She turned her back on Lucien, grabbed a tissue from the box at the bedside and scrubbed her eyes as if they'd been doused with pepper spray. She took a break from her scrubbing long enough to sign, "That's why what?"
Lucien sighed and shook his head. "That's why I'm hesitant to allow you to visit the village again. Since Engracia's death, there have been no practitioners of magic among the People. It is forbidden."
Faith stopped her eye wiping and turned back to him. "Until I healed Goyo."
Lucien nodded. "Until you healed Goyo. As long as you were here, the secret could be kept. Agdta and Diego adore you. Vasco thinks you're his angel. Álvaro is loyal to me."
He brushed his hand across her forehead, pushing her curls out of her eyes and in that moment when she closed her eyes and smiled softly at his touch, he knew. This child, who was no longer a child and yet, not a woman, was his.
She was beginning to blossom under Agdta's watchful care. The deep hollows in her cheeks were gone as were the dark circles under her eyes. Her body was forming the enticing curves of adulthood. She was becoming a beautiful woman.
But she was young and he was no monster. He would not make his feelings known until she was old enough to truly understand what he was offering. She was a human, a Daughter of Man. He was Paenitentia. He could afford to wait.
Until then, she had a right to be young; to flirt with young boys and dance in the cantina. He would keep her here in his House where she would be safe and protected until the time was right to tell her what he felt.
His parents had been the same way. His father knew his mother was the one when she was only seventeen and yet held his feelings secret until she was twenty-five and considered an adult. His father would tell them how he silently watched as she flirted and danced with other young men. He was sure she did it purposefully to watch his jealous anger rise. She, in turn, would deny it, but give him a sly and knowing look that said he was absolutely right.
"I came to tell you that you can go to the village and La Cantina with Agdta as your duenna, your chaperone." He raised his hand to stop her protest. "No young woman would go to a place like La Cantina without her parents or an Aunt and Uncle to keep watch. You won't feel out of place. Lalo and Adam can go with you. Lalo is right. They deserve a night out."
He thought his news would make her smile, but she frowned instead. "Aren't you coming?"
"No," he said, "As I said, I have my duties to attend to. Álvaro will go in my stead."
Her frown deepened and he thought he saw the beginnings of a pout. A pretty pout from a woman could be very enticing when it came to the bedroom, but in a girl, it was a sure sign of practicing her wiles and expecting to be spoiled. He shook his finger at her in admonishment.
"Those are the conditions, little hummingbird. Take them or stay home." He turned to leave.
Faith was a little taken aback. She must be losing her touch. She pouted a little more in consternation. People had always fallen for 'the pout', even JJ.
"I only wanted flowers," Faith signed at his retreating back not expecting a response. Her pout turned to open mouthed surprise when Lucien turned.
"Flowers? If you wanted flowers why didn't you just ask? I'll buy you whatever you need."
He should have thought of it. Every young lady wanted flowers in her room. His sister was much younger than Faith when she first requested them. He thought it might have something to do with putting away their dolls.
For a moment, Faith couldn't answer. Lucien could hear her without the use of her hands! How could that be? She'd experimented with everyone in the House and no one else could. By the look on Lucien's face, this was no surprise to him. How long had he known and how much could he hear? Faith held her hands behind her back.
"It wouldn't be a gift if the person they were for, paid for them, now would it?" she said in her mind and smiled when he looked just as surprised as she was.
"You wanted flowers for me?" he asked incredulously.
It wasn't the comment she was expecting, but she nodded just the same.
"I thought it would bring you happy memories of your mother. She loved her courtyard. I love it, too."
Chapter 15
She didn't expect her visit to turn into a party, particularly not a village fashion party where she was the mannequin. Agdta, the traitor, had repeated the story she was told in confidence to the group of women who'd arrived almost immediately after Goya's mother, Rosa, greeted the two of them at the door.
Faith had made the mistake of lamenting to Agdta that she had nothing to wear, literally. Earlier, she'd had a private fashion show of her own. The jeans were a real shocker.
She couldn't get them past her hips. When she looked over her shoulder at the reflection of her backside hanging over the band of denim that was supposed to be at her waist, there it was; a behind, a rump, a tush, or in JJ's words, an ass. It wasn't a big backside, as backsides go, and it wasn't as if she wasn't aware of its existence. She'd been steadily putting on weight since she got there, but in the comfortable drawstring pants and loose tee shirts she wore every day, she'd never noticed a real difference.
Every single piece she'd hidden in the trainee's luggage was too tight and not the lay-on-your-back-and-suck-it-all-in-to-get-the-zipper-up kind of tight, either. She'd have to get them past her thighs for that to even be an option. Her tops weren't any better.
"I have nothing to wear," she signed when she got to the kitchen where the others were waiting. She opened her arms to show off her faded blue tee, the best of Agdta's donations, and a pair of almost-white baggy pants. "This is the best I can do."
"Beats going naked," Lalo consoled in his too-honest way.
"I dunno about that." Adam eyed her up and down and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Why don't you take those off and let me be the judge," he proposed, which earned him a swat in the back of the head from Agdta at which he laughed.
"You look fine," the housekeeper told her and used her finger to turn Faith's head from side to side to inspect the small amount of makeup Faith had used to highlight her new and rounder face. Agdta nodded her approval. "Very pretty."
"An angel in boy's clothing," Vasco added which didn't make Faith feel any better.
Unpleasant as always, Álvaro grunted.
Agdta was dressed in her finest; a long dark green dress that hung to mid-calf, topped off by a colorful wrap with silver threads running through it that caught the light. She'd rolled her long braid into a bun at the
back of her head.
The cook wasn't frowning or whacking any heads as she repeated Adam's comment to her friends. She tittered with glee. While Faith was visiting with the recovering Goyo, the women disappeared only to return minutes later with food and armfuls of clothes. Poor Goyo was chased from his sick bed to go get some fresh air with Álvaro who was posted outside the front door and refused to budge.
Plates, glasses and pitchers of lemonade laced with Tequila appeared to go with the goodies the women had brought. The last to arrive was a beautiful woman whose dark sable hair fell in a tumble of waves about her shoulders and landed with perfect curled ends. Her eyes were rimmed with dark lashes so thick they could easily be mistaken for false at first glance. The eyes they surrounded were dark and smoky with an upward tilt at the corners that gave her beauty an exotic appeal.
The other women ranged from early middle age to late with Agdta and one other showing gray in their hair. This woman fell somewhere in the middle. She was no taller than Grace, but reminded Faith of Manon. The others looked surprised to see her.
The newcomer waved her hand toward the back of the house. "I had to climb your fence," she said, sounding disgusted, "There's a hairy beast guarding your door."
The looks that passed among the other women told Faith there was a story there, but no one commented.
"This is Briza." Rosa made the introduction as she had for the others.
Faith jumped a little when Briza took her hand and her eyes widened in surprise, but she said nothing when she saw the warning in the other woman's eyes. Like Agdta and some of the others, Briza was of the People, but the feeling was so strong, Faith saw her as a Daughter of Man. She was also the woman Álvaro had loved when they were young.
"Here," Briza said, holding out a small bag filled with delicate, silky undergarments. "Don't worry," she laughed, "they're new and they'll fit." She gave Faith a significant look. "It's my business. I know."
There was no time for chitchat after that. The fashion show was on. The women tried to strip Faith down right in the middle of the circle they'd formed. Faith tried to hang on to her clothes and sign at the same time. The women only giggled at her modesty.
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