“It’s easy to be sure about the truth. Even a goat should know that,” she teased.

She continued to feed him the tea made from weeds that he had complained about at first, but now he drank the brew willingly, no matter how bitter. He was feeling stronger in a matter of days. He had faith in Maria, a mad, joyous rush of feeling which often made him laugh out loud, for at last the fever was breaking. And then one day, the pain eased, the hammer stopped, and he was no longer glass. Without either of them noticing, he grasped her hand. That was when it happened, the heat between them. There she was wearing little more than her shift and her apron, her legs bare, as if the two had taken up living together. Maria drew away and saw to feeding Cadin some fruit for his supper. She wondered what he thought about this man. “Do you mind if I let my crow out of his cage?” she asked. Poor Cadin had been trapped in his basket watching their every move with his quick eye. “He’ll eat any mosquitoes that come near.”

When Dias agreed, she opened Cadin’s door. He quickly flew up to perch on a beam, clacking happily, gazing at Dias with a bright, friendly glance.

“You travel with a crow rather than a husband,” Samuel said thoughtfully. “The crow I understand. He seems a clever fellow. But where is your man?”

Maria made a face. “Is it your business?”

Samuel gestured to the sapphire she wore. He felt a stab of jealousy. “Was it Faith’s father who gave you the gem?”

“You seem like a clever fellow as well if you’ve figured that out,” she teased. “Almost as smart as Cadin.”

“Is that a compliment? If it is, I’m grateful.”

A broad grin broke across Dias’s face, the first Maria had seen during his illness. She blinked and took a step away. Why did his expression affect her so?

“You’re going to him in Boston,” Samuel guessed. “And he knows you’re arriving?”

“Not yet.” She was not the sort to tell a lie, even when it might have ended the conversation.

“And do you even know where he is?”

“Essex County,” she said primly, as if it were a proper address.

“Essex County and Boston are not one and the same. This is a vast land, Maria. It’s not the island of Curaçao.”

She threw him a dark look. “You ask too many questions.”

“So I’ve heard,” Dias said.

He sensed that something wasn’t right. He certainly had known men who led a woman on with false information, those who had two wives who never knew of each other, those who left in the middle of the night, disappearing with all the household valuables. Dias squinted at the stone this man of Maria’s had given her. He knew the worth of gems, and this one had no spark. The blue was an empty color, dead inside. “I’m not sure this is genuine.”