“You don’t believe it was the king’s brother?” Alexandre Dumas, the author who had fictionalized the tale of the mysterious prisoner, had presented the man as the identical twin brother of Louis XIV, imprisoned so as not to challenge the king’s throne.
“I don’t,” Miss Woodchurch said firmly. “History would have revealed if Louis XIV had a twin brother.”
“I agree. But the prisoner was obviously an influential man. What other reason would one have to go to such lengths of imprisonment?”
“Why must it have been so cruel?”
The conversation was remarkable—no one in Mateo’s small circle of family and friends read as voraciously as he did. “I believe the author made the mask an iron one to add the dramatic to his story. But the real mask was made of fabric that was far more comfortable.”
“Fabric? What was it?”
“I don’t know the word in English,” he said apologetically.“Terciopelo.”He looked around the room and pointed at the drapes.
“Velvet,” she supplied.
Velvet.Like her laugh.
“How lonely he must have been,” she mused. “How cruel to live a life without anyone knowing you.” She shivered slightly, as if the thought revolted her.
Mateo could well imagine living a life without anyone knowing him. Sometimes he felt as if he was living it now. He had siblings, a mother, and Rosa, of course...but he’d kept to himself for the most part, and it had felt very lonely at times. He was, in some ways, a man behind a mask.
“Are you an avid reader, Miss Woodchurch?”
“Verymuch. My favorite thing to do on a dark, cold day is settle in before the fire with a good book.”
That was a great pleasure of his, too. “And what do you like to read?”
“Novels, mostly,” she said. “Love stories. I do quite like a mystery set in a gloomy castle, too. Lately, I’ve been reading an atlas.”
He didn’t understand. “Forgive my English, but I thought one consulted an atlas.”
“One does.” She laughed. “I like to look at places then read the little details about them. Do you know the longest river in the world?”
“The Nile. My brother and I traveled to Egypt on expedition a few years ago.”
“An expedition!” She sounded truly delighted. “Now I’mterriblyenvious. I’ve never been as far as even Ireland or France. I am desperately curious to see the world. Including Santiava, of course. What’s it like?”
He didn’t know where to begin to describe his homeland. For one, he’d never had to. And since arriving in London, he couldn’t think of a single person who’d asked him about the duchy. He assumed Santiava was too small and too far away to care about.
He thought about the land he loved—the beauty of it, certainly. And the people—he firmly believed there was not a country whose people were more generous than the Santiavans. “The duchy is small,” he said. “But powerful. We’ve had to fight for our independence throughout our history—first from the Spaniards, then the French, and only fifty or so years ago, from the Weslorians.”
“The Weslorians! But Wesloria is so far from Santiava. The Duchess of Marley is a Weslorian, did you know? What does it look like? Santiava, I mean.”
“The landscape is extraordinary. On the one hand, you have the crystal waters of the sea. Thepalacio real, the ducal palace, is on a cliff overlooking the sea. It’s quite grand, with several loggias facing the sea. The views are stunning.” He thought of how the sunlight sparkled like jewels on the surface. They would leave the veranda doors open most days to pull in the sea breeze. The breeze brought the scent of the honeysuckle and roses that twined around the veranda columns. The terra-cotta tile was cool beneath one’s feet—Mateo still went barefoot in the palace, even as the leader of that small duchy.
“What’s a loggia?”
Mateo gestured her forward, and on a piece of paper, he sketched the sort of covered terrace the palace sported.
Miss Woodchurch did not stand on the other side of his desk and view his rendering upside down. Oh no—this woman, who was so at ease with him, came around behind the desk and leaned over him. He was fully aware of her nearness, of how much smaller she seemed standing next to him.
“Oh, I see. It must be beautiful.”
“We’ve another home. Castillo Estrella is in the mountains. We call it the Castle in the Stars.”
“How terribly romantic,” she said, and moved away from him, strolling to the window.
The Castle in the Stars was quite different from the palace. From those windows, one looked out over mountains that wore fat white clouds like hats. The lake near the castle reflected the blue of the sky above so perfectly that it looked like a mirror. The land around was lush and green, the air clear and scented with pine. The floors were polished wood, the walls dotted with tapestries to keep out the winter winds. “One can leave the mountains and reach the sea within two hours. Mountains to seaside...that’s a beauty I find difficult to describe.” What he loved about Santiava was that no matter where he was, he had a view that looked like a glimpse of heaven. To him, there was no place quite like it.
