"My lady, thank you so much for standing up for me," Raquel said, her voice low, barely above a whisper.
Lydia was still furious. Her shoulders were tight, her hands balled into fists. But when she looked at Raquel, something in her expression softened.
"Don't worry about it," she said. "Did you know my mother used to argue with him too?"
Raquel blinked, confused.
Lydia sat down on the bed and looked at her differently — not the way a mistress looks at a servant, but the way someone looks at a person who shares a secret.
"Do you still remember when we first met?" Lydia asked. "We were only eight years old."
Raquel nodded slowly. How could she forget?
"You were a slave being sold," Lydia continued, her voice steady but weighted with feeling. "I had never seen slavery up close. I didn't even know what it was."
Lydia stood and walked to the window, as if reliving that day.
"I kept asking my father: 'How can people be sold? Is that right?' My father said no. That it isn't right. So I asked: 'Then why do they do it? Can't we do anything? Doesn't the king care?'"
Raquel listened in silence, her eyes filling with tears.
"I told my father I wanted to help you. That I wanted to buy your freedom and give it to you." Lydia turned to face her. "So I found you. And you said you had nowhere to go."
"My lady…"
"So I offered you the job. You became my assistant. My lady's maid, yes, but—" Lydia paused. "You know how much you mean to me?"
Raquel didn't answer. She couldn't.
Lydia stepped closer and pulled her into an embrace — not the embrace of a mistress and her servant, but of someone who had saved another person, and from that saving had grown something neither of them knew how to name.
"Would you like to sleep here?" Raquel asked afterward, when the embrace ended. "It's already past your bedtime, my lady."
"I'll stay here," Lydia said. "Don't go. Stay with me, please. I don't want him coming in here."
Raquel lay down beside Lydia, and the two of them stayed awake through the night in silence, each lost in her own thoughts — but together.
The next morning, Lydia gave Raquel the day off.
"Go visit your sisters," she said. "It's been too long since you've seen them. And your father misses you. Go."
Raquel left the mansion with her heart racing. It had been months since she'd seen her family.
When she reached the square where they lived, Cecilia was the first to spot her.
"Raquel!" her youngest sister cried, running toward her.
Cecilia was only sixteen, with a round face and eyes that always seemed to be lit up with joy. She threw herself at Raquel with such force that the two of them tumbled to the ground, laughing like children.
"Careful!" Cassandra called out, arriving right behind her. She was the middle sister, with a sharp face and a mouth always ready to complain, but there was tenderness in her eyes whenever she looked at Raquel. "You're going to hurt yourselves!"
Sibila arrived next, more slowly, with the air of someone who observes everything before acting. She was the oldest of the three, and there was something wise about the way she moved through the world — as if she could see past the obvious.
"Be careful, you two," Sibila said, in that melodious voice of hers. "Raquel just got here."
The four of them embraced in the square, and for a moment Raquel forgot everything — the marriage, Loui, Lydia, Cawpember. There were only her sisters.
When their father arrived, coming home from work, his eyes filled with tears.
"My girl!" he exclaimed, pulling Raquel into a tight embrace. "I've missed you so much!"
"Father," Raquel answered, burying her face in his chest. "I missed you too."
"Has he been treating you well?" her father asked, holding Raquel by the shoulders to look her in the eyes. "The marquess?"
Raquel hesitated for a moment. She thought of Loui shouting, of Lydia defending her, of everything that had happened.
"Of course, Father," she lied. "We're happy. It's a good marriage."
Her father nodded, satisfied, though something in his face suggested he knew there was more to the story.
"My dear," he said, in the tone he used when he had something important to say, "why doesn't Raquel live with you? She's been so busy with the household, and her husband was tired. But he sent his regards."
Raquel blinked, caught off guard. Loui had sent his regards? That same Loui who had shouted at her the night before?
But she had no time to process it. Her sisters were already pulling her inside, where they had set up a tea party with cake and everything.
They spent the entire afternoon together — laughing, eating, swapping stories. Cecilia talked nonstop about the boys in the neighborhood. Cassandra complained about everything, but with that affectionate tone only sisters can manage. Sibila hummed softly as she poured the tea, her gentle voice filling the house with a melody that seemed to come from somewhere else entirely.
And Raquel, sitting in the middle of them, let herself be just Raquel — not the lady's maid, not the hidden lover, not the woman who had been bought and then set free. Just the sister. Just the daughter.
When the sun began to sink, she knew she had to go back.
"Do you have to leave?" Cecilia asked, in that childlike tone of someone who doesn't want anyone to go.
"Yes," Raquel answered, kissing each of her sisters on the forehead. "But I'll be back soon. I promise."
On the walk back to the mansion, Raquel thought about Loui sending his regards. She thought about Lydia holding her the night before. She thought about how complicated the world was — full of people pretending to be someone they weren't, and small moments of kindness that appeared when you least expected them.
When she arrived at the mansion, Lydia was waiting for her in the gardens.
"How was it?" she asked, with that smile that made Raquel forget to breathe.
"It was good," Raquel answered. "Really good."
Lydia took her hand, and the two of them walked through the gardens beneath the moonlight of Cawpember — that moon that shone as if it held every secret in the kingdom.
That night, in the gardens, far from Loui's eyes and the rest of the world, Lydia kissed Raquel.
It was a kiss that carried years of waiting, of sacrifice, of love that could not be spoken aloud. A kiss that was a secret, a promise, a confession.
And Raquel, who had been bought and then set free, who had served and then loved, finally allowed herself to feel that she belonged to someone — not as property, but as a choice.
When they pulled apart, Lydia whispered:
"No one can know. You understand?"
"I understand," Raquel answered.
And both of them knew that this secret was more dangerous than anything Cawpember could offer.