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was rude, but he wanted to know.
    “Huddersfield,” she told him. “I think it is only another day’s travel.”
    “And a little more. I believe you will have to change to a smaller coach line at Drumlin.”
    “Oh, dear. They didn’t tell me that,” she said, and frowned into the dishwater.
    Who didn’t tell you, he wanted to ask. Why are you going to Huddersfield, he wanted to know. To his knowledge, it was a mill town with nothing to recommend it beyond sooty buildings and a sky to match. Was she going to seek work in a factory? Surely not. Would Juan have to work there, too? He looked at the little boy, curled up on the sacking and sound asleep. He can’t be more than four or five, but I hear the mills like them young. A pity.
    “I assure you that I will pay for your transportation, food, and lodging between here and Huddersfield,” he reminded her. “Is . . . are you expected at a certain time there?”
    She shook her head. “I suppose a day or two will not matter.”
    “And I am a desperate man,” he joked. “Even more desperate than the landlord!”
    The coachman’s horn sounded again, and she listened to it, her hand to her hair. He could see that she was wavering. She sighed, and looked at her son.
    “Please, Liria,” he said. They could hear the coach stopping in the inn yard now.
    “Very well,” she replied, decisive now. She took off her apron, folded it neatly, and set it on the table, then went to the pile of sacking.
    He was there before her, and scooped up Juan, who only stirred and resettled himself. “I can carry him upstairs for you,
dama.
”
    She paused, and he knew she wanted to ask him why he called her lady. It was good that she didn’t; he couldn’t have told her, himself. As long as she does not think I am mocking her, he thought, as he carried the sleeping child upstairs to his own room and put him on his bed.
    “We can find a blanket for him in the corner,” she said quickly, standing in the doorway, and not entering his room.
    “No need. He doesn’t take up much space.” Quickly, Nez took off the child’s shoes: muddy, broken affairs too large for his feet. He has so little, Nez thought, covering the boy with a blanket, and yet, I have rarely seen a more cheerful child. He looked at Liria in the doorway, standing there so calmly with her hands clasped in front of her. He has a good mother. It may be that I must revise my estimation of the Valencias.
    “This way,” he said, and opened the door to the next room. Luster, the portrait of distress just barely under control, sat awkwardly with the Empress on his lap. Nez knew he hadn’t been gone the better part of an hour, but Sophie’s face was even more inflamed with the shiny blisters of chicken pox. When she heard them enter the room, she opened her eyes and burst into tears.
    The tempest was of short duration. Speaking in a voice so low that Sophie had no choice but to stop her sobs in order to hear, Liria told his butler to summon a maid from belowstairs. In mere moments, a tin tub stood before the hearth. He watched in growing admiration as the Empress allowed Liria to help her from her dress. In another moment she was close to bliss in the tub, while the woman gently washed her body.
    “Amazing,” he said.
    Liria rolled up her sleeves a little higher and shook her head. “It is only what her own mother would do, if she were here.”
    Nez chose not to disabuse her of that notion, even though he knew Augusta would have been at least as useless as he was. I am in the presence of female competence, he marveled. God bless the ladies. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, compelled by a gentleman’s manners to ask.
    “No, my lord. You may retire now. I will take care of your niece.”
    It was music to his ears. He nodded and tried not to stampede to the door in his relief. “If you would just ask the landlord to have a cot put into this room for me,” she said.
    “Immediately,
dama,
” he