Chapter One

Rio de Janeiro, October 1853

 

 

 

Their child is conceived in a time of plague. Here is how Carrie remembers it: She and William in her bed in her father’s house on the Ladeira da Glória with the shutters closed. Outside, panic in the streets as refugees flee the city, black flags in the port, ships in quarantine, the sound of church bells tolling ceaselessly. Inside, light slanting through the wooden slats of the shutters, the scent of freshly turned earth drifting in from the garden, William’s eyes filled with despair, the tenderness and fierceness of his lovemaking, his hair thick and soft as brown silk.

Speaking his name, she pulls him closer and tells herself they will be together for the rest of their lives. That is the moment she first realizes he is burning with fever. And when she sits up, sweating and shaking, she understands that she is burning, too . . .