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In the morning, Barbara rose as quietly as possible so as not to wake Leonardo. But he was already awake. In the mirror of the dresser he saw her slink away and she suddenly turned toward him with a look of hate that he had seen many times on her face and said nothing. If only he could tell her that they were not actually father and daughter. He would do so in America when they met again. His mind drifted to the past remembering everything he had done and his motivation at the time. The death of his pregnant wife, while they lay asleep. Him waking up in a pool of her and the baby's blood, poor child, expelled from the womb of its mother, dead also, for some unknown reason.
He heard no scream, no call for help, not even a sigh. Nothing.
At the time, he was having financial difficulties and was thinking of asking his mother-in-law for help, knowing she would certainly help her daughter, despite abhorring her son-in-law. With the death of his wife and child, he no longer had a connection to her. He would not be able to get the help he needed and he would be ruined. His mother-in-law had not even paid them a visit when she was told of her daughter's pregnancy because she could not tolerate him. She had always been against the marriage, on the contrary of her deceased husband who had a certain affinity with him. She was English, like her daughter. Her husband was the buyer of the port wine produced by Leonardo's family and their distributor in England.
Leonardo met his wife-to-be on a trip at the time when his father was transferring his commercial contacts to him. He stayed with her family, taking care of his father's interests in London. After his father's death, it had been difficult, but necessary, to convince her to move to Portugal so they could continue managing the vineyards. In the second year of work in Portugal, however, a blight destroyed the vines. He needed money to recover them and he had no funds. The sudden death of his wife and son, however, had sealed his fate.
He locked the door to make sure no one saw the bodies. In desperation, he sought out Jonas and they discussed what to do next.
Jonas mentioned that one of the workers in the vineyard had recently given birth, about twenty days prior, and was being kept from doing any heavy labor.
She was very beautiful, had arrived with child and was taken in by a family that worked for Leonardo. He knew nothing of the girl's background because she refused to talk about it. If they offered her money, she might give them the girl and disappear into the world. The child to her would be more of a burden than a gift. It was worth a try.
That is what they did. Leonardo gave Jonas a sum of money that he kept in his house and went back to the bedroom. After a few hours, Jonas returned with the girl. Despite being almost a month old, she was tiny and looked newborn.
Jonas wrapped the baby girl in a blanket and placed her inside a trunk when he neared Leonardo's house. He managed to enter without being noticed and the girl's cries could not be heard. When they opened the trunk in the room, the poor child was blue from lack of oxygen but she had survived the ordeal. Leonardo then exchanged the bodies, placing the body of his real son in the trunk, which was taken away for burial.
After everything was ready, Leonardo called the servants in and showed them the live child and the dead wife. If they believed his story or not, he never knew. He replaced the servants one by one over time and when he dismissed them he gave them a good sum of money with the intention of banishing any suspicions they may have had.
He sent a letter to Catherine informing her of the death of her daughter and the arrival of her granddaughter. It was through this sly deception that he managed to get the funds from his mother-in-law. She paid him a visit to meet her granddaughter and returned a short time later to her home in England. She suspected nothing because the girl was blond like his wife. By that time, Catherine had become a bit blind and mad.
As for Barbara, she grew into a beautiful and mischievous child. One night, Leonardo, slightly drunk and longing for a woman, decided to find solace in the girl who he had never considered his daughter. Next day he was ashamed of his actions but since it had been done once and nothing came of it, he continued to abuse the poor girl without her even noticing what was going on.
Her beauty continued to grow and her body became fuller. Leonardo fell in love with the girl and his love for her as a woman only increased. When she reached her teenage years, he realized she hated him. He uncovered a plan of hers to escape by marrying a young boy from the neighboring family. He summoned the lad and gave him a large sum of money to disappear.
Mario, who wasn't of very good character himself, complied with Leonardo's wishes and simply disappeared. He said he wished to see other places and the money given to him was sufficient to keep him going for quite a while so he left. He abandoned his family and set off to see the world.
Leonardo could feel Barbara's hate and rancor burning his skin but he could do nothing about it for the time being. They needed to leave Portugal. By going to the continent and telling her the truth, he hoped that with time she would pardon him and the atrocities he committed and, who knows, she may even agree to be his wife.
Who knew what could happen? He also planned to pay an exorbitant sum of money to Barbara's future husband so he would leave them alone in America. And they would both live in this new land, away from the malign influence of Archbishop Torres.
Leonardo feared that she may have revealed to him in a confession that they had a carnal relationship, despite being to all those who knew them father and daughter.
He also feared that the Archbishop would accuse him of incest and was plotting against him. Everything was conspiring against him and Barbara moving to another place, another country, another land far away from these problems.
He got up, dressed himself and went in search of Jonas. It was time to start preparing for the trip. Jonas would take her to Lisbon and return later for his own escape. He wanted Jonas to accompany him to America because he could not afford to lose his henchman. They would go together to Lisbon and from there embark to New Orleans where they would meet up with Barbara and her husband.
