Page 120 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Gabriel swore as he screwed up the fin­ger­ing on the arpeg­gio again. He couldn’t fo­cus on the mu­sic be­cause he kept strug­gling to solve the mys­tery of Quinn’s rev­e­la­tion. She’d shared the bare facts but had with­held the most im­por­tant el­e­ment: her mo­tive. What could have com­pelled her to com­mit a crime like that?

He slashed his fin­gers across the gui­tar strings in frus­tra­tion, rip­ping a dis­cor­dant wail from the in­stru­ment that echoed off the stone walls of the tower room.

“Tough day at the of­fice?”

Gabriel turned to find Raul lean­ing against the door­jamb, his hands tucked into the pock­ets of his trousers. He was in full-on prince at­tire with his char­coal-gray suit jacket but­toned up and his Cal­eva red tie snugged up to his neck.

“Too bad you’re not dressed for fenc­ing. I could use a good bout right now,” Gabriel said, sling­ing the gui­tar around to his back where it hung by its strap. He was tired of wrestling with the damned thing.

Raul strolled in and seated him­self on the an­tique dragon chair. Some­how he made it look like a throne.

“I’d rather fence with you than go to my next meet­ing,” Raul said with a gri­mace. “But I don’t have time to take a shower.” He re­laxed his stance by stretch­ing out his legs and cross­ing them at the an­kles. “I came to of­fer a dif­fer­ent kind of help. I hear you’re meet­ing with Kyran Redda in New York. That’s pretty damned im­pres­sive.”

“One of my class­mates from the con­ser­va­tory grew up with him and put us in touch,” Gabriel said.

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t give you his time if he didn’t think you were worth it,” Raul said. “He must re­spect you as a mu­si­cian.”

“More as a cu­rios­ity. A royal duke who also plays the gui­tar.” Gabriel’s tone was sar­donic.

“You don’t give your­self enough credit, primo,” Raul ad­mon­ished. “Pa­ter is gen­uinely ex­cited about your cul­ture fes­ti­val. More ex­cited than I’ve seen him about a project in a while. I want to help you make it hap­pen.” He sat for­ward. “Clearly, the best use of your time is per­suad­ing fa­mous mu­si­cians to come, some­thing no one else has the artis­tic cre­den­tials to han­dle. So I want to han­dle the be­hind-the-scenes work, like de­vel­op­ing a bud­get. That would free you up to get the big names on board for next year.”

“Just be­cause I’m meet­ing with Redda doesn’t mean he will sign on for the fes­ti­val,” Gabriel said, even as he felt a new pres­sure to suc­ceed. If his un­cle wanted the fes­ti­val to hap­pen that badly, Gabriel would move heaven and earth to make it so. Tío Luis de­served to have some fun.

“So you’ll get an­other mar­quee band in­stead. I have no doubt about that,” Raul said.

Raul was right, if only be­cause Gabriel wouldn’t quit un­til he had a star-stud­ded lineup for his un­cle. “I ac­cept your of­fer on the bud­get. Gra­cias.” Gabriel was re­lieved to hand it off to an ex­pert. It would free him up to pur­sue more per­form­ers.

“How’s the prac­tic­ing go­ing?” Raul ges­tured to­ward the gui­tar ban­ished to Gabriel’s back.

“To­day, not so well.” The bleak­ness on Quinn’s face as she’d told him her sur­pris­ing story punched him in the gut again.

“Take the rest of the day off.”

Gabriel snorted. “It’s ten in the morn­ing. I’ve barely started. And I leave for New York to­mor­row. I can’t af­ford to take time off.”

Raul looked down at his hands for a mo­ment. “Have you con­sid­ered post­pon­ing the trip? It might be a good idea, given the de­vel­op­ments in the kid­nap­ping in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Mikel and Quinn have poked the hor­net’s nest so hard that one es­pe­cially nasty hor­net flew all the way here.”

“Joder! You too?” Gabriel shook his head be­fore he met Raul’s eyes straight on. “I can’t do it. I can’t wait any longer. I have to know the truth about my mu­sic. About my fu­ture.”

Al­though Quinn’s words about who had ap­pointed Marisela Alejo queen of the to­caores floated through his mind. How could this woman with such pro­found in­sights have schemed to steal other peo­ple’s money? There was more to this than she was re­veal­ing.

“The truth is that you have an in­cred­i­ble tal­ent, and you should share it with the world, no mat­ter what any­one else says.” Raul smacked his palm on the chair arm. “Por el amor de Dios, you don’t need to be per­fect.”

“No, not per­fect. I’ve grown be­yond that. But I have to earn a real place in the world of fla­menco. I can­not be the to­caor whom peo­ple al­low to per­form and ap­plaud for po­litely be­cause he is a royal duke.”

“I un­der­stand that.” Raul re­laxed back into his chair again. “As long as you’re not chan­nel­ing Abuelo Carlo.”

“How would I do that?”

“You know. The old king wouldn’t let Pa­ter fence on the Cal­e­van Olympic team be­cause he might not have won the gold medal, and that would have em­bar­rassed the royal fam­ily and Cal­eva. The dis­ap­point­ment went deep, both be­cause Pa­ter wanted to com­pete and be­cause his own fa­ther didn’t be­lieve in him enough to let him do it.” Raul’s hand curled into a fist. “He could have won.”

“He still is scary good.” But maybe Gabriel had ab­sorbed some of his abuelo’s at­ti­tude. He didn’t want to make a laugh­ing­stock of his un­cle or Cal­eva.

“Don’t let that crap stop you.” Raul seemed to read his mind. “You could never em­bar­rass Cal­eva.”

And that brought him back to Quinn, who thought she would em­bar­rass him, his un­cle, and his coun­try. Gabriel eyed his cousin, spec­u­lat­ing. How much did Raul know about Quinn?

“You have a weird look on your face,” Raul said. “What is it?”

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