“That is very generous of you, señora,” the young nun said haltingly. “Beyond generous, even. Pardon my impertinence, but wouldn’t it best for you to discuss this intention with Senator San Martín first, only to ensure that he is of the same mind? I’d be happy to return with Fernando tomorrow or at your earliest—”

“That will not be necessary,” María Luisa said, with an imperiousness which brooked no further question.

After escorting the nun back to her car, María Luisa had Fernando settled away in an upstairs room in which he felt distinctly shabby. A bath and a change of clothes did not improve this feeling of shabbiness much. More wary than anything in such unfamiliar surroundings, he sat down in the wooden desk chair where he remained for some time until María Luisa came to check on him. Her regal presence rendered him breathless with nerves. With a cool glance and a nod, she left him be again.

Just as his stomach was beginning to grumble, a maidservant appeared with a tray of sandwiches, milk and sweets. It was the finest food Fernando had been given in some time, possibly ever. He was halfway through devouring the lot of it when the door opened, and his father appeared, standing there pale-faced in the threshold.

Dubiously, Juan Francisco looked upon the son whom he had heard passing mention of only once or twice in the past eight years and whom he had spared a passing thought for even less. The boy bore precious little resemblance to his gloam-eyed, cantankerous vixen of a mother. None whatsoever that Juan Francisco could see. Looking upon Fernando now where he sat gorging himself on sandwiches was to the frazzled senator like looking into a mirror darkly, like gazing upon a sepia-toned photograph of his own past self: the son the image of the father.

When María Luisa had announced her intentions to him upon his return to the hacienda, Juan Francisco had been torn between relief and suspicion. He might have expected a furious outburst of admonition at his bastard turning up on their doorstep, an outburst to outrival them all, and perhaps to leave him numb, gutless and psychically castrated for days in the searing wake of it. Though he well suspected María Luisa considered this adoption of the boy a sure and damning triumph over him, Juan Francisco was presently grateful to have avoided a calamitous falling-out.

Being among other things a shameless narcissist, the senator found himself greatly moved by how much the boy favored him—not merely in appearance, but seemingly in appetite as well. All his other known children bore a stark and disappointing resemblance to their posh, prim and ascetic mother. Even his trueborn sons, who ought to take after him simply for being male, were María Luisa’s through and through.

But this boy, this Fernando—in that one shared glance between father and son, Juan Francisco felt a profound and unmistakable kinship of flesh and spirit. The senator was not a religious man by any means, but he almost thought to thank God for this unexpected gift as he crossed over smiling to embrace his flustered, mustard-smeared get.

“Mi hijo,” he exulted. “At last.”

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La Gorgona © CS Dark Fantasy