to keep on this full-time companion I've hired to look after mother. With her, and with Felicia
taking care of Patrick, when we return you'll have fewer responsibilities and be able to socialize more."
"That's wonderful. And I'd love to go to New York. But Patrick--"
"Will be fine. Dugald's dead, no one, nothing will harm the boy. Felicia treats him like her own. And we'll ask Davis to come around and check on how things are going."
Warren felt a perverse pleasure in the quiver that ran through her when he said Dugald. He might have to pretend he thought Patrick was his but that didn't mean he couldn't punish Meg whenever the chance came. "Strange, isn't it, how your brother shot both the Dugalds," he added. "Mike must have gone as crazy as the younger one--what was his name?"
Meg pulled free. "I don't recall," she said.
Warren shrugged. "Good riddance to bad rubbish."
"When do we leave for New York?" Meg asked, turning away from him.
He smiled.
After Elena arrived in December of 1901, Mexico City overwhelmed her at first, especially the mountains topped with snow-capped volcanoes surrounding the city. The mountains of southern California seemed puny in comparison. She'd thought Los Angeles had grown into a gigantic city--
after all, over 100,000 people lived there--but La Cuidad de Mexico impressed her far more.
There was Chapultepec Castle for one. Los Angeles had nothing as magnificent as a castle. Once the Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota had lived in the castle but their rule ended in tragedy when he was executed by a firing squad and she went mad. Now President Diaz ruled from the castle.
Mexicans were her people, they spoke her language. But there was more. She'd always been aware dancing came from the soul, here she was learning what was meant by el alma espanol, the soul of Spain. Mexicans were, after all, Spaniards, too.
Her teacher wasn't the great Marius Petipa, the French composer and dancer who'd made Spanish culture and dancing his life's work, However, she'd been fortunate enough to be taken on as a pupil by a woman who'd studied under him, Maria Cuadro, a thin, lithe woman in her sixties.
Madame Maria, as she preferred to be called, was full of tales of the old days in Spain. "Someday you'll dance in Madrid, my child," she assured Elena. "In the Teatro Real, of course, since you're foreign, but that's where everyone goes anyway. Even the king. Think of dancing before a king!"
As Elena walked along the cobbled streets, to and from Madame Maria's studio, she promised herself one day she'd do just that, dance before the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII.
When she practiced her tacaneo, the heel beats synchronized with complicated rhythmic patterns on the castanets, she pictured King Alfonso sitting in the royal box at the Real watching her. Applauding. It helped relieve her homesickness.
She'd been living at the Allende casa--they were friends of Madame Maria's--for a year when she came home from the studio late one Saturday afternoon in early December to find a visitor waiting. The last person in the world she expected to see.
He sat in a chair in Senora Allende's parlor and at first she thought her eyes had deceived her. It couldn't be him!
"Hello Elena," Davis said, rising. "I had business in Mexico so I came by to visit."
For a long moment she couldn't speak, all she could do was stare at him. He hadn't changed, he was still the handsome Sir Lancelot of her dreams. Conscious of Senora Allende hovering in the archway, Elena gathered her wits.
"How kind of you," she managed to say while thinking it was anything but kind. "I didn't realize you knew where I lived." Or cared.
He smiled at her, an unusually tentative smile. "Since tomorrow is Sunday, I hoped you might show me some of the sights of Mexico City. I've never been here before."
Elena blinked. How unlike Davis not to take it for granted
taking care of Patrick, when we return you'll have fewer responsibilities and be able to socialize more."
"That's wonderful. And I'd love to go to New York. But Patrick--"
"Will be fine. Dugald's dead, no one, nothing will harm the boy. Felicia treats him like her own. And we'll ask Davis to come around and check on how things are going."
Warren felt a perverse pleasure in the quiver that ran through her when he said Dugald. He might have to pretend he thought Patrick was his but that didn't mean he couldn't punish Meg whenever the chance came. "Strange, isn't it, how your brother shot both the Dugalds," he added. "Mike must have gone as crazy as the younger one--what was his name?"
Meg pulled free. "I don't recall," she said.
Warren shrugged. "Good riddance to bad rubbish."
"When do we leave for New York?" Meg asked, turning away from him.
He smiled.
After Elena arrived in December of 1901, Mexico City overwhelmed her at first, especially the mountains topped with snow-capped volcanoes surrounding the city. The mountains of southern California seemed puny in comparison. She'd thought Los Angeles had grown into a gigantic city--
after all, over 100,000 people lived there--but La Cuidad de Mexico impressed her far more.
There was Chapultepec Castle for one. Los Angeles had nothing as magnificent as a castle. Once the Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota had lived in the castle but their rule ended in tragedy when he was executed by a firing squad and she went mad. Now President Diaz ruled from the castle.
Mexicans were her people, they spoke her language. But there was more. She'd always been aware dancing came from the soul, here she was learning what was meant by el alma espanol, the soul of Spain. Mexicans were, after all, Spaniards, too.
Her teacher wasn't the great Marius Petipa, the French composer and dancer who'd made Spanish culture and dancing his life's work, However, she'd been fortunate enough to be taken on as a pupil by a woman who'd studied under him, Maria Cuadro, a thin, lithe woman in her sixties.
Madame Maria, as she preferred to be called, was full of tales of the old days in Spain. "Someday you'll dance in Madrid, my child," she assured Elena. "In the Teatro Real, of course, since you're foreign, but that's where everyone goes anyway. Even the king. Think of dancing before a king!"
As Elena walked along the cobbled streets, to and from Madame Maria's studio, she promised herself one day she'd do just that, dance before the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII.
When she practiced her tacaneo, the heel beats synchronized with complicated rhythmic patterns on the castanets, she pictured King Alfonso sitting in the royal box at the Real watching her. Applauding. It helped relieve her homesickness.
She'd been living at the Allende casa--they were friends of Madame Maria's--for a year when she came home from the studio late one Saturday afternoon in early December to find a visitor waiting. The last person in the world she expected to see.
He sat in a chair in Senora Allende's parlor and at first she thought her eyes had deceived her. It couldn't be him!
"Hello Elena," Davis said, rising. "I had business in Mexico so I came by to visit."
For a long moment she couldn't speak, all she could do was stare at him. He hadn't changed, he was still the handsome Sir Lancelot of her dreams. Conscious of Senora Allende hovering in the archway, Elena gathered her wits.
"How kind of you," she managed to say while thinking it was anything but kind. "I didn't realize you knew where I lived." Or cared.
He smiled at her, an unusually tentative smile. "Since tomorrow is Sunday, I hoped you might show me some of the sights of Mexico City. I've never been here before."
Elena blinked. How unlike Davis not to take it for granted
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