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

he was kind, even if a terrible rake.” Genoveva sighed dramatically. “I might as well confess that I was pressured to pursue his brother after his death. Carvalho wanted their family’s money to bolster his own coffers. At first I found that a ridiculous idea. Duilio Ferreira seemed a bit of a simpleton and he never dances, but then Carvalho started pushing me harder and threatening me with the convent. Ferreira was actually quite clever and kind, but he was in love with someone else, so my pallid effort was for naught in the end.”
    He’d always known that the business with Duilio was more Carvalho’s will than her own. “Expectations of others often push us to do things we wouldn’t do on our own.”
    She smiled sadly. “I wish I had gathered my nerve to leave his home before making a fool of myself.”
    “It had to have been a frightening choice for you to make.” He’d had occasional twinges of guilt over that during the last few months. He could have sought her out immediately after she’d left that house and asked her to marry him. It would have meant safety for her. But he hadn’t wanted to tie himself to someone he didn’t know, no matter how lovely she was.
    “I always knew there were alternatives, should I fail. My mother gives me money on occasion, when she thinks Carvalho won’t learn of it. And if things became unbearable, I could always have turned to the convent. I’ve never truly feared starvation.”
    How interesting that she understood that—that there was a difference between her situation and that of many other women. He was glad she hadn’t been living in fear all these months. “We wouldn’t have let you starve,” he told her.
    She gazed at him, head tilted to one side. “You mean that you wouldn’t have.”
    He inclined his head to concede the point. “Many women would resent that I didn’t do more.”
    “Why should you have?” She set aside her napkin, a worried line between her brows. She seemed about to speak, but shook her head, eyes miserably fixed on her half-eaten dinner.
    Was he about to find out what threatened them? He reached over and touched the side of her hand with his own. “Go ahead and say it. I won’t be offended.”
    It took a moment, her soft lips forming a question that she held back. “What about children?” she finally asked, barely above a whisper. “When you do marry, do you plan to have a lot of children, Captain?”
    He didn’t move his hand. He didn’t know what answer she wanted him to give. He finally settled on the truth, hoping this wasn’t the thing that would doom their relationship. “I’ve never given it much thought. Before a few months ago, I had never considered marriage so I never planned for children. Well . . .”
    “Well?” she prompted when he paused.
    “I had considered adopting a boy or two from the seminary.” He watched her face to see how she reacted to that idea. “When I was a little older, perhaps. There are so many there.”
    “But not children of your own?”
    He thought he understood. Her day’s experience must have made her doubt the safety of bearing a child. Many women didn’t survive, and he didn’t want her to be one of those women who died young. If he was going to marry her, he wanted to keep her with him for the rest of his life, even if that meant ignoring the will of the Church in certain matters. “It never occurred to me that I need to have children of my own, Miss Jardim.”
    Her eyes remained fixed on his face. Worried, he was sure.
    He’d always been careful in his relations with women, not wanting to repeat his father’s negligence. There were ways to reduce the chance of having a child, ways a sheltered girl like Genoveva wouldn’t know. Ways far safer than the solution her patient had attempted. If Genoveva was his wife, they could discuss this in detail, somewhere far more private. This wasn’t the time or place, though, for that discussion.
    Or perhaps she hesitated to violate