If you looked at each of Julia’s features with close attention, you wouldn’t find anything particularly striking about any of them: her eyes were too distant from each other, her nose was rather common, and her eyebrows too thin, but all together they composed a harmonious, pleasant-looking face. Her one beauty lay perhaps in her soft, button mouth. She was thin, with no breasts to speak of, and wore tiny earrings—her only visible piece of jewelry.

“It’s going to burn,” she said before pressing the moist cotton against my elbow. I flinched at the sting and bit my lip.

Julia dressed the wound and, without a warning, pressed another cotton ball against my forehead. I froze. What if the beard and mustache fell down?

My hands dampened while she tended to my facial wound. Her warm breath tickled my nose. The aroma of sautéed onions and lavender lye wafted from her hair. As she parted her lips, I noticed her crooked front teeth, her overbite reminiscent of a rabbit. I’ve never been this close to a woman, except for my mother, and her proximity made me uncomfortable.

How would a man react to having a woman so close? Cristóbal would probably stare at my chest, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I had an urge to push her away, but that would be suspicious.

After excruciating seconds bandaging my forehead, she leaned back. “There.”

I stood up. “Gracias.”

“Dinner will be served in about twenty minutes. I will come and fetch you then.”

“Don’t bother. I can get there on my own,” I said. I wasn’t used to all these servants at my beck and call. Cristóbal and I had lived in a minuscule apartment in Sevilla with barely enough room for the two of us and our plants. I’d done all the cooking myself and Doña Candelaria, our landlady, sent her maid once a week to wash our clothes and tidy up the place.

Nodding, Julia collected the used cotton balls and placed them inside the basket.

“Julia?”

She lifted her eyes to meet mine.

“Have you worked here long?”

“It’ll be four years in December,” she said.

So, she’d met my father. And probably the burned man, too.

“Don Martin showed me a house today destroyed by a fire. Do you know who lived there?”

“The foreman and his family, but I vaguely remember them. I’m always at the house.”

“You don’t know their names?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I was touched by what happened to them. Maybe something can be done for those poor people.”

“They left after the fire.”

She collected her things. I had to get more information from her before she left, like who else lived in this house.

“One last thing, Julia. Is Doña Catalina married?”

“No.”

“But she’s so pretty. She must have a lot of admirers.”