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watchful, somehow sinister.
    “So your mother told you nothing about her family, Elinor,” the condessa said thoughtfully, her eyes not leaving my face. “No doubt Joanneira was too ashamed. She did not care to explain how she had turned her back upon the parents to whom she owed everything.”
    “That was only because you opposed her marriage,” I burst out fervently. “Mr. Darville told me what happened, Grandmama, and that’s the chief reason I wanted to come to Portugal to see you. I wanted you to know how wonderfully happy Mama and Papa were together. They were devoted to one another, and I feel quite certain that Mama would have been the most contented woman in the world but for the rift with you and her father.”
    “It was entirely Joanneira’s own doing. Her father had chosen a husband for her, a man of mature years, a man of position and wealth. It would have made a highly suitable match. But no, Joanneira willfully and disobediently ran off with this penniless doctor, a person of no status whatsoever.”
    “My father was a fine man,” I protested. “He was
    truly worthy of her love, and he loved her in return. Surely no marriage arranged by her parents could have been more suitable?”
    Dona Amalia’s jet eyes flashed. ‘You forget yourself, child, speaking to your grandmother like that.”
    I could have retorted that only minutes ago she had challenged my right to this relationship. But I held back. I had not made this long journey to fan the flames of bitterness.
    There was a pause while the condessa slowly and deliberately stroked the white cat in her lap, as if to demonstrate that she had affection for the animal, but none for me. When she spoke, her tone was sarcastic.
    “So you traveled all the way from England because you wanted to tell me that your parents loved one another. Really, Elinor, you will have to be more convincing than that.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked faintly. “It is the truth.”
    “I know very well what the truth is,” she snapped back. “You couldn’t wait, could you, to come hurrying by the very first boat to claim your inheritance? There is no justice in the world. Why should any of my husband’s estate go to your mother—or to you, now that she is dead—when she deliberately defied her parents’ wishes and abandoned us so disgracefully? But that fool of an advogado insists that it is the law, and must be so.”
    The wound went so deep that I found it difficult to speak. “My mother never abandoned you, Grandmama—it was you who abandoned her. In any case, how can you possibly imagine that I have come to claim any inheritance? I am perfectly well aware that there is nothing to inherit, that the estate is hopelessly in debt.”
    “Who told you that?” she demanded in a piercingly shrill voice, sweeping the cat from her lap.
    “It was Mr. Darville. When he came to tell me about my grandfather’s death, he explained the whole position to me.”
    Dona Amalia rose abruptly to her feet, with none of the grace and poise I had noticed earlier. She suddenly looked like an old woman, and I was afraid she might fall. Hastily, I moved nearer.
    “Grandmama, are you not well? Do sit down again.”
    She clutched my arm, and her long fingers had become like claws, digging into my flesh. “They keep saying this—Stafford and the lawyer. But it is a lie, do you hear, a wicked lie. Of course there are a few debts. Every great family has been through periods of financial embarrassment, but such things
are of passing importance, soon overcome.” She gasped pain fully for breath. “Do you imagine that the Milaveiras will ever be brought down merely for want of a little money? If so, child, you know nothing of the family, nothing. While I have the strength in my body, while I keep faith with---“
    She shuddered violently and went suddenly slack. Somehow I caught her before she fell, and lowered her gently to the floor. Dona Amalia lay crumpled and still, her arms held