The Seer's Choice: A Novella of the Golden City by J. Kathleen Cheney

doubted she’d often eaten tripe growing up. “If you want to pick out the bits of tripe,” he said, “Botelho won’t be angry.”
    “I don’t want him to think I don’t like his offering,” she whispered.
    It was amusing to hear the society girl worried about insulting a former police officer turned restaurateur. “Put it on my plate, then. It’s one of my favorites. No one will know.”
    She blushed, perhaps aghast at the implied familiarity. He was sure ladies didn’t pass food off their plates. But she took her fork, gingerly picked out a square of tripe, and set it on the edge of his plate. She dug through the rest of her soup, picking out a few more pieces of tripe. Botelho always added plenty of other meats, so she wouldn’t starve.
    He didn’t know exactly where to start the conversation, but something had been bothering him. “Will you tell me about Alessio Ferreira?”
    Her eyes lifted slowly to meet his. “You’ve heard about . . . him?”
    “I heard rumors. But I would rather hear what actually happened from you.”
    “I wasn’t his lover,” she insisted. “Never.”
    Rafael shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. There were rumors that you pursued him, and I can’t imagine you doing so.”
    Her straight brows drew together. “Did you know him?”
    “We met a couple of times,” he admitted. Alessio hadn’t known they were cousins, but he’d been genial enough to a common police captain.
    Genoveva sighed. “I was eighteen when I first came out, and he was kind to me. He talked to me. He made a point of dancing with me. That’s all it was. But Lord Carvalho . . .”
    He’d noted that she never referred to Carvalho as her father. Rafael didn’t blame her.
    “. . . he went to Alessio Ferreira,” she continued after a moment, “and offered me to him, rather like selling him a horse. He promised Alessio that I would turn a blind eye to his affairs, that I would be a dutiful wife and produce an heir for him, and that he could pack me off to the countryside afterward.”
    Rafael’s disgust for Carvalho increased. “Did he tell you that?”
    “Yes. Carvalho explained my duties as a potential wife to me clearly.” She took a sip of vinho verde, perhaps hoping it would calm her nerves. “Alessio told me about it later, as well.”
    How painful that conversation must have been. “Were you in love with him?”
    She shook her head. “I was infatuated with him at first, but . . . could you imagine? It would be like yoking a racehorse together with a rabbit. He was far too dangerous for me and I knew it. The only thing Alessio Ferreira and I had in common was a fondness for dancing. He always made a point of dancing with me, and others assumed there was more than that.”
    And as he’d heard that Genoveva Jardim was an excellent dancer, Rafael couldn’t blame Alessio Ferreira for asking, even knowing that the association would hurt her reputation. Alessio hadn’t feared scandal. “Have I offended you by inquiring into your business?”
    “No.” She licked her lips. “Most people just believe what others say of me. No one ever bothers to ask.”
    While her reputation wasn’t precisely tarnished, gossips had proclaimed her desperate for a husband, and many would assume that was born of promiscuity. “I’m not always a proper gentleman,” he admitted, “and I was curious.”
    That statement actually made her smile. “I’ve been through three years of balls and soirees, and proper is not a title merited by many gentleman of the Golden City. You’ve been far more proper than Alessio Ferreira ever was.”
    He could believe that. Alessio Ferreira had lived a shockingly loose life, taking lovers indiscriminately. “It’s good then, that he didn’t accept Carvalho’s offer.”
    “He had no intention to marry,” she said, “so there was no chance of that. He told me that he couldn’t be faithful to any woman, but . . .”
    Rafael regarded her with raised brows.
    “Well,