Annoyed, he descended the staircase and went in search of the newspaper, in search of the girl.
He found her in the dining room, dancing with the houseboy, of all things. Estrella, the cook, and Rita, the maid, looked on with amused smiles at the couple. Fito was a poor dancer, shuffling his feet with effort, but she moved with ease.
“You’ll never be able to ask Paloma to dance with you at the festival if you keep on like this,” Inés chided him.
“I’m doing my best,” the boy replied helplessly.
The women laughed, Inés the loudest of all. Her curly hair fell wild around her shoulders, her eyes were bright as she whirled the boy around, and her laughter was almost mutinous; it had a tempestuousness that made his lips curl up into half a smile.
Fito and Inés were reflected in the glass of the tall, carved china cabinets with their dusty porcelain cups and bric-a-brac. They were utterly out of place in that large, ostentatious dining room where the wallpaper had begun to peel and the floor was badly scratched. Their vitality clashed with the sedated, tired air of the house.
He wondered who’d taught her to dance. She might have learned on her own, twirling through the halls of the house, enacting a ballet for an invisible audience.
The cook and the maid caught sight of Ulises, standing in the doorway, and lowered their heads, greeting him respectfully. Fito and Inés ceased their dancing, and the boy also bowed his head, but she looked at him with her large, inquisitive eyes. Then she too lowered her gaze, slowly, a trace of mockery at her lips.
“Good day, Mr. Linares,” the girl said. “Did you have a good night’s sleep?”
It was obvious he had not. The breakfast had not been up to his standards either. He wondered if Inés had arranged for the poor coffee and the burned toast.
“It was fine. I was hoping to read the paper.”
“Of course, Mr. Linares. I’ll hand it to you immediately.”
He followed her out of the dining room and up the stairs. Her fingers glided upon the banister and her feet were light.
“You’re friendly with the help,” he told her. “That’s unusual in a lady.”
She shrugged, the gesture somewhat haughty, as if his opinion did not matter to her. “Fito wants to ask a girl to dance and does not know how.”
“How kind of you to show him the steps. I thought your aunt might not like it.”
“My aunt doesn’t know about it. If you tell, she’ll punish me. But then I might not be able to fetch your paper, since I’ll be confined to my room, probably under lock and key.”
“I wouldn’t want that.”
They reached her room, and she walked in with sure steps. She grabbed the newspaper, which lay upon her bed, and handed it to him. “Will that be all, sir?” she asked with that pitch-perfect insolence disguised as politeness.
She was annoying, yet clever and potentially useful. He’d told her he worked alone, but that was a lie. He’d worked with his father. Left to his own devices, Ulises floundered.
But his father had been family, the one person he trusted. He did not know this girl, who seemed to have a wicked streak. He might be able to use her, though. There was a nice amount of money to be had, if he could get his hands on it. Did Inés even realize how much they stood to gain? He could probably shortchange her without too much trouble.
“You haven’t spoken to your aunt about me.”
“Why would I?”
“I thought you might raise the alarm, given that I didn’t see fit to make you a partner in this enterprise.”
“I’m waiting to see how you do. Not too competently, by the looks of it,” she said. Her audacity was galling.
“You’d really steal from your aunt for the fun of it?” he asked.
She looked affronted. “Not for fun. You have no idea what it’s like growing up in a town like this. They brick you up inside the walls of your home.”
“You could run away.”
“With what money?” She picked up a long yellow ribbon from a shelf and began tying her hair back with it, trying to rein in her luxurious mane.
“There must be a piece of jewelry or a trinket you could steal.”