Chapter Thirty-Six

Many attested that since he’d been with her, he smiled more and had become more approachable.

There was no doubt that he was in love with her, they said, because of the change in his behavior. People who were supposedly in love were happy people. He had never looked so cheerful and he was always laughing these days, they said.

Even though she could detect surprise at this development from the hacienda staff telling her about this, she could see that Eric also had them convinced.

But some praises were veiled envy.

The condescension at being told she would eventually give in to the easy life Señorito Enrique was offering irritated her.

But the first and only time someone mentioned this while her mother could hear received a tongue-lashing from her usually mild-mannered parent.

“Have you ever seen us asking for or accepting anything we couldn’t get our own way? Have we complained while we lived alone and my children worked like horses so we could eat decently all those years since my husb