Alone in my room, I removed the check I’d found in the mysterious valise and examined it. The signature was illegible and it was postmarked May. In other words, the man couldn’t cash the check until he was finished with me. The only other clue was the name of the bank in Vinces. Anyone in this house could’ve written the check and given it to the foreman’s son. But who?

A stern knock on the door startled me. I needed to calm down. I was dressed like a man, I reasoned. My disguise made me less vulnerable. The house was filled with women; they would think twice before attacking me. In addition, I posed no threat, really, being that I supposedly inherited so little.

I shoved the check inside the night table drawer and searched for my beard and mustache on the surface.

Seeing my reflection in an oval mirror across the bed, I attached the hair to my face as quickly and precisely as possible. My chin itched. It was developing a rash from the adhesive.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your nap, Don Cristóbal,” Julia, the maid, said from the other side of the door. “But Niña Angélica told me you’d had an incident with a horse and needed tending to.”

I groaned. Everybody in this house seemed to follow Angélica’s orders to the letter. Apparently, my sister was not satisfied with just sending me to rest, I needed a nurse, too.

The maid didn’t wait for me to invite her in before she waltzed inside the chamber with a wicker basket in her hands. Poking out of the basket was a bottle of alcohol, a tin box, and rags.

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” I said, even though I had a bad scrape on my arm and a large bruise on my outer thigh. “You don’t need to bother.”

“No bother. It’s my job to serve you. Where are you hurt?”

There was no way I would remove my trousers in front of this woman, but the determination in Julia’s eyes told me she wouldn’t leave me alone unless she’d tended to at least one wound. I rolled my sleeve up to my elbow, revealing the fresh scrape. The blood had already dried but it was still tender and bright red. For the first time in my life, I was grateful for the fine hairs on my arms.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

Julia didn’t answer. She was too busy setting the basket on my night table, removing a cotton ball from the tin box and moistening it with alcohol.