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“A journey not everyone wants to take,” he pointed out.

“I believe in focusing on people’s potential.”

“As you say, ma’am,” John replied in a neutral tone, and turned his attention to serving her dinner. He removed the silver domed plate cover and paused at the sight of a divided relish dish instead of a regular plate. It had three compartments containing a small quantity of beef, a salad of thinly sliced cucumbers and radishes, and a sliver of bread with a delicate curl of butter.

Reina looked a bit sheepish. “I don’t like my food to touch,” she said. “It’s not a requirement, merely a preference. June says this is what happens when someone isn’t disciplined enough in childhood.”

John couldn’t resist asking, “Were you?”

“Definitely not,” came her cheerful reply.

The little rogue. A grin tugged at his lips before he could suppress it. He set out the relish dish and rotated it a few degrees to position it correctly. “Our job is to create ‘moments’ for those we serve,” the old butler at Galwad-y-Môr had once told the staff, “without them even being aware of it.” Whether serving a dinner tray, drawing a bath, or cleaning a room, every detail should help to create little interludes of elegance and pleasure.

“My mother never disciplined me at all, as a matter of fact,” Reina continued. “She didn’t want me to be obedient, as it’s what people expect of Spanish women.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, you haven’t heard? There are so many contradictory notions—” She broke off as her gaze fell to the place setting. “I usually eat while I’m working. I don’t suppose you could push the plate over here?”

“Aye, Miss Martin. I assumed you would want to keep the activities separate.”

“I’m sure I should. But I can hardly bear having to sit and eat with nothing to do.” She watched as John moved the setting closer to her. “Thank you.”

“It’s unnecessary to thank me for every service, ma’am.” He tried to find a place for the water goblet among the periodicals and books strewn across the table. “You were saying?” he prompted. “About contradictory notions?”

“Oh, yes. People like to think Spanish women are obedient by nature, but also hot-tempered. Sheltered virgins but also brazen temptresses. Shy but loud.” She shrugged and reached for the water goblet.

“For my own understanding, ma’am—you consider yourself Spanish?”

“I do. Technically I’m half English, but most of who I am comes from my mother.” Reina gestured toward a nearby painting. “That’s her, just before she met my father. Her name was Manuela Martín, but everyone called her La Manuelita.”

John went to view the painting of a dark-haired dancer captured in mid-turn. He was struck by the power of the arrested movement, the chin tilted downward to help create force for the rotation, her arms extended with the tensile strength of a falcon’s wings.

“What kind of dance is she performing?” he asked.

“Flamenco. An art form from southern Spain. It’s more than dancing—it’s song and guitar as well. Very beautiful and passionate. An old gentleman at the London Spanish Club told me that when he saw my mother dance in Madrid, her arms cut through the air like the branches of an almond tree.” She stared at the painting across a melancholy distance. “My mother returned to Andalucía about five years ago. It’s in the southernmost part of the country—very hot and dry. She missed her home and the people she knew as a girl. She said the sun was a different color there. A yellow that’s almost orange.”

“Have you visited her there?”

Reina shook her head. “I would like to, but . . .” Her voice faded. Emotions played across her face, each lasting no longer than a heartbeat. Embarrassment, sadness, resignation. “Mamaíta was cut off from her family after she became my father’s mistress. I never met my grandparents—I’m not sure they ever knew about me. Mamaíta’s two sisters wrote to her after both parents were gone and invited her to live in the old family house with them. Now she and I correspond. From her letters, she seems happier than I’ve ever known her. But if I were to visit, it would remind everyone of the past and bring shame on her. It’s better if I stay away to maintain the illusion that I never . . . that I don’t . . .”

“That you don’t exist?” John asked, floundering for words.

A rueful nod. “My poor mother deserves some peace. She lived in exile long enough.”

What about you? John wondered. Did her peace have to be bought at your expense?

“You still have your father to rely on?”

Reina shook her head. “He died of a bronchial illness when I was eighteen.”

John looked at her sharply. “There must be an aunt or uncle . . . a cousin . . . ?”

“No, I’ve never met anyone on his side of the family.”

The cruelty of what had been done to her dawned on him. “You have no one?” he asked, incredulous. “You’re an outcast on both sides of the family?”

“It would seem so,” Reina said with a humorless smile. She fiddled with a silver spoon, watching it flash and flip between her fingers. “I’ve always been a remarkably inconvenient woman. For the first part of my life I was my father’s guilty secret and now I’m my mother’s.”