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Cecília paced the antechamber like a caged animal, waiting. Dawn had certainly broken. The bells had rung for Lauds. She had no idea what Father Moreno had to think or if he already knew what had happened. And still, Tio Aloisio hadn’t returned. She was beginning to wonder if he was purposefully avoiding her. Whatever had happened with the guards and Francisco had to have been long over by then.
Just as she was considering going out through the window, there was a scrape as whatever had been bracing the door pulled away, and Tio Aloisio stepped through.
Cecília spun toward him.
He spoke first. “Don’t you dare try to explain yourself, Cecília Madalena.”
“Explain myself?” Her voice tipped up, dangerously loud in her incredulity. “You’ve killed your nephew.”
“I’ve saved my niece. There was already a price on Francisco’s head. You don’t need one placed on yours.”
“I could have managed things. Gotten him out of the country—”
“How, exactly? By dragging him down to the docks and asking every ruffian you come across if he’ll help? Bates might be infatuated enough to attempt your ill-conceived notions, but I can still tell you when you’re trying to get yourself killed.”
Anger still made Cecília want to snap at him, but the mention of John sidetracked her. “Mr. Bates... Is he...?” She couldn’t think how to end that question.
“Mr. Hays will likely have a headache to deal with, and I imagine Bates will be having a much shorter stay in Lisbon than he was planning, but most likely, he’ll come out the best from this entire fracas. He always has had a way of landing on his feet. You’d do best to worry after yourself.”
She tried to ignore the twist in her stomach. “What about me?”
Tio Aloisio held her eyes. “I convinced the first minister I could be trusted to watch you—and that wasn’t a simple feat, believe me—so you are not to leave these rooms until all of this passes.”
“I’m being held prisoner?”
“If you don’t wish to join your brother in Junqueira, you will remain here.”
The thought of the prison, the awful smell, and the screams made Cecília’s throat close. She fought to get her voice back, but Tio Aloisio had already moved on.
“You know the first minister is not someone who easily forgives, Cilinha, and what good will I have left is wearing thin. I can’t save your brother, but if you just listen to me for once and do as you’re told, we may get through this.”
The sad sincerity on Tio Aloisio’s face made some other emotion flicker through the righteous anger Cecília had been clinging to through the morning, leaving a sickening, unbalanced feeling inside her chest. For all her time living with him—five years of sharing a roof, conspiring together, going through some of the worst times of her life—somehow, she hadn’t fully factored her uncle into her thoughts of family. The equation had always been her, Bibiana, Francisco, the last vestiges of the family she had lost, not the one who had taken her in. A fragment of guilt attempted to take hold. “How long does he want me to stay here? Until he’s killed all the priests on the other side of the palace?”
“That isn’t our business.”
Cecília pressed her lips tightly together, her conscience churning.
Tio Aloisio watched her face closely. “I don’t want to have to bar the exits, but I will.”
“Then there isn’t anything else to discuss, is there?” She crossed her arms, retreating into her anger.
Something sad went through his eyes—hurt or disappointment, Cecília didn’t know—and he shook his head. “Do you at least understand why I’m doing this?”
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she did. Silently, she gave the barest of nods.
“I suppose that’s something,” Tio Aloisio murmured under his breath, moving deeper into the antechamber toward his desk. With his back to her, he raised his voice to address her again. “You’d best find something to occupy yourself with. You’re in for a long wait one way or the other. It’ll only feel worse with nothing to do.”
Worse. Cecília bit back a scoff, not certain it was possible to feel worse. But with nothing else to do, she turned on her heel and stormed off to her room.