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Hearing Papa call her name impatiently, Reina fumbled to finish tying her shoes. She tried to look cheerful as she went downstairs, but her face felt stiff and strange.

As the carriage made its way through the park, Reina’s gaze fastened on the window, where the outside world had been hemmed into a small, high rectangle. Her mind was spinning, spinning, spinning.

“Why is my little chatterbox so quiet today?” Papa eventually asked.

“I was just thinking about when June and I went to skate at the park, and a man called me a bastard.”

He twitched as if he’d been stung. “That’s a bad word, Reina.”

“But . . . is it what I am?”

Papa took an unaccountably long time to reply.

Which meant yes.

“Your mother and I aren’t married,” he finally said, “as I already had a wife when we met. Therefore, ill-bred people may call you that word. Simply ignore them.”

“Will I grow out of it?” Reina asked hopefully. Mamaíta and Lizzie were always telling her she would grow out of things.

Papa’s fingers tapped on his trouser leg as if he were practicing Morse code. “No, Reina. It can never be changed.”

Absorbing that, she returned to the shapes moving past the small glass window. Streetlamp casings . . . tree branches . . . a ribbon of gulls curling through the sky.

“The proper term is nullius filius,” she heard her father say, “which means ‘child of unwed parents.’ ”

Reina had never corrected her father before, but she found herself saying, “It means ‘nobody’s child,’ Papa. ”

“How do you know that?”

“I have a Latin tutor.”

“Latin, for a girl? What can your mother be thinking? By God, I’ll put a stop to it.”

“But I like Latin.”

“Useless knowledge for a female mind. At any rate, none of this need worry you. You and your mother are under my protection. I’ll always take care of you and look after your interests just as I do my other children.”

Reina looked at him alertly. “How many are there?”

“Four.” Somewhat glumly, he added, “All daughters.”

“Are they . . . are they my sisters?”

“No, Reina. That part of my life has nothing to do with you.” Papa paused before continuing with a touch of sternness. “Any association with you would harm their future prospects. They would be scorned by decent society. Do you understand?”

No.

But Reina nodded, her blood chilled with unearned shame.

Seeming nettled by her stricken silence, Papa fumbled at his waistcoat, where a heavy gold fob chain dangled in a gleaming crescent. A pocket watch had been attached, as well as a gold propelling pencil, which he sometimes let her use to draw pictures. He unfastened the pencil from its chain and handed it to her along with a little leather notebook from inside his coat. “Occupy yourself with this, if you’re not going to take in the scenery.”

Upon their return to the town house, Papa told Reina to go to her bedroom while he talked with Mamaíta. She obeyed with relief, her legs churning up the stairs so fast they ached by the time she reached the top. As she entered her room, however, she realized the propelling pencil was still in her hand.

She began to take it back to Papa, but the sounds of an argument stopped her.

Mamaíta’s voice had thinned into a rare sharp tone. “No female teacher would risk her reputation by coming to Walters Street. The only choice was to hire tutors from the local boys’ academy.”

“Have you any idea what they’re teaching her?”