The Golden City by J. Kathleen Cheney Page A

ached. With her somber garb and desolate countenance, mo st would assume she mourned her husband’s death st ill. Duilio knew better.
    She was pining for the sea.
    He hated to see her this way. When he’d left the Golden City to travel abroad, she’d been vivacious and mischievous—a loving, attentive mother. She’d helped oversee the family’s business inve st ments and kept firm control of the household. Now mo st days all she did was sit in the front parlor and gaze in the dire ct ion of the river. It seemed her spirit had slipped away from her body.
    And, to some extent, that was his fault. If he’d st ayed home, perhaps none of this would have come to pass. Perhaps he could have st opped . . .
    His mother’s head turned as if she’d caught scent of him st anding there. “Duilinho?”
    He smiled. She persi st ed in calling him by his childhood pet name. He settled next to her at the table and covered her hand with his own. “I’m here.”
    Her seal-brown eyes fixed on him, a rare moment of concentration. “Are you well?”
    He mu st look tired after his sleepless night. Even as di st ra ct ed as she was, she always worried for him. “I’m fine, Mother.”
    Her eyes slipped back toward the window, and she turned that dire ct ion as if she heard the sea itself calling her.
    Duilio pressed his lips together. It troubled him that she spent mo st of her days cooped up in the house. His father had been dead more than a year now. Duilio expe ct ed that his mother would prefer to remarry eventually. She was a lovely woman, even approaching fifty as she was. But her social reemergence mu st be put off until she was better.
    One of the footmen brought him his regular breakfa st , a large plate of eggs and
chouriço
along with a pot of coffee. Duilio waited until the man left before st arting in on his food. Between bites, he told his mother of the bizarre information he’d gotten very early that morning. He wasn’t certain she was attending. Her coffee was almo st untouched, and she’d eaten only half her croissant. Her preferred newspaper—the trade daily rather than the
Gazette
—lay unopened next to her elbow. He talked to her anyway, in the hope that she caught something of his words. He would hate for her to feel negle ct ed.
    “So I’m going to go see Joaquim,” he finished, “and ask if he can help me find her.”
    His mother continued to st are at the window.
    “Shall I bear your greetings, Mother?”
    That caught her attention. She blinked and turned halfway toward him. “To Filho?”
    Apparently she
had
been paying attention. Ju st as she addressed Duilio by his childhood name, she called Joaquim so also. Joaquim Tavares and his father shared a name, so Joaquim was simply Filho—“son”—to her. He set down his napkin. “Yes, Mother.”
    Joaquim and his younger brother had lo st their mother at an early age and had come to live with their cousins, the Ferreira family. They had st ayed for the next eight years, until their father retired from his sea travels to take up boatbuilding. The younger son, Cri st iano, had joined that business, but Joaquim had chosen to
make his career in the police.
    Duilio might have sele ct ed that profession himself, had his own father not been set on his sons being
gentlemen
. He’d dutifully st udied law at the university in Coimbra—an acceptable profession for a younger son—but then had proceeded to travel abroad for the next five years to work with various police agencies on the continent and in Great Britain. His father had not been pleased. But when his elder brother Alessio died, Duilio had been forced to return home to shoulder the responsibility of managing the family’s considerable inve st ments . . . and to take care of his mother.
    She brushed her hands along her skirts and picked up her newspaper, a rare show of energy. “Please tell Filho to come visit me.”
    “I’ll ask him, Mother,” he promised.
    “I wonder . . .” She laid