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"Come on, darling, we're going home," Don Alejandro told Leonor. He was still holding her in his arms and was already heading to the hitching post.

"Papá," she told him in a plaintive little voice, "I'm thirsty."

Don Alejandro and Araceli stopped short.

"They haven't given you anything to drink all day, have they?"

Leonor shook her head.

"And I had a handkerchief in my mouth," she said.

"Los cabrones!" he muttered angrily.

"ALEJANDRO!" Araceli scolded him sternly, "watch your tongue before Leonor, please!"

He closed his eyes a split second to collect himself.

"Sorry," he said shamefully, "you're right Araceli, of course. Leonor," he then told his daughter, "please forget what I have just said. It is a very bad word, and I really shouldn't have used it. Mamá and I don't want you to ever say it. Understood?"

She slowly nodded. Whatever Papá and Mamá wanted...

"I'm very thirsty," she repeated.

Her father gently stroke her head and suddenly turned on his heels, walking resolutely to Victoria's tavern.

"And I suppose they didn't feed you either..." he grumbled.

z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z

The tavern had been buzzing with excited conversations when they arrived, the girl still in her father's arms, but the moment they crossed the threshold there was an immediate silence.

Engrossed as they were in contemplating their daughter and fussing over her, Don Alejandro and Doña Araceli were totally oblivious to it.

"Victoria!" he called out as they sat down at a secluded table near the stairs, "lemonade, please, and a jug of water!"

"Well, personally I think I will need something a bit stronger than that," Señora Valdès said. "Bring me please the same as yesterday, Señorita..."

"Si Señora," Victoria murmured.

She quickly retreated to her counter to fetch the drinks. For once she didn't want to intrude, a feeling she rarely experienced. But she realised it was a private moment for them, even though it was taking place in a very public location, and despite her intense curiosity and wish to learn the details of this story, she refrained from imposing on her.

The child was alternatively clinging either to her mother or to Don Alejandro, the two of them nearly rivalling to cuddle her and have her in their arms. She was barely aware of her surroundings, her little world right now coming to be her mamá and her papá, the safety of their arms and the warmth of their chests.

Don Alejandro and Señora Valdès, on the other hand, were slowly becoming aware of the lingering awkwardness surrounding them. Twenty minutes after they came in, as their pitchers were almost empty and Victoria was passing by their table – mostly to discreetly eavesdrop on their quiet conversation as she'd been doing for a few minutes now – Don Alejandro called her:

"Victoria, my dear, could you please come here?"

Until then, she had managed to grasp that the girl had been kidnapped in the morning, that both her parents had been searching her all day, Don Alejandro with the soldiers and her mother on her own, and that she had finally been rescued by Zorro who had heard about it only God knew how.

"Victoria," Don Alejandro told her, straightening himself in his chair, "before we go, let me introduce..." he cleared his throat "Please meet my daughter Leonor."

Victoria could tell he was doing his best to keep his voice even and to look at her in the eyes, but she could feel that he was not terribly at ease and that his normal and almost casual tone of voice was indeed obviously forced. The man was now feeling nervous, even though he was doing his best to hide it.

"Leonor," he then told the child. "Leonor!" he repeated a bit louder to get her to tear her face away from the comforting safety of her mother's bosom. "Leonor, please meet Victoria Escalante. She is a good friend of my family."

Victoria smiled at the girl in an attempt to dispel the awkwardness of it all. She wasn't feeling totally at ease herself, faced with this very unusual situation! What did the social code of conduct say about an old friend of your parents introducing his bastard child to you?

She quickly snapped out of her perplexing thoughts:

"Encantada, Doña Leonor," she said.

The girl stared shyly at her, even though she had already met her the day before. She was feeling a bit afraid to be roused from her blissful little universe and asked to interact with strangers.

"Leonor!" her mother prompted her gently, giving her a look of warning.

"Encantada, Señora," the child finally provided, a bit reluctantly.

"I'm sorry Victoria," Don Alejandro said softly, "Normally she's not that... uh..." He paused. "I think the day has been a bit too eventful. For everyone," he added.

Victoria nodded slowly. For everyone indeed.

"And here is Señora Ximénez de Valdès," Don Alejandro went on. He didn't add that she was the child's mother, as it was very obvious. He didn't clarify the exact nature of the relationship between them either, she noted. Well, some of it was just clear enough, wasn't it?

The señora politely nodded at Victoria and then softly said:

"Well, we've been acquainted since I stayed here last night, but we hadn't been formally introduced. Encantada, Señorita."

"Encantada, Señora," Victoria simply replied. She didn't find anything else to tell her.

"Well, I think we won't be too long before taking this little one home now..." Don Alejandro said, stroking Leonor's hair.

That's when Don Diego entered the tavern in a rush. He scanned the room and when he spotted them, he went straight to their table.

"Father, are you all right? Is everyone all right? Zorro came to the hacienda, he said–"

"Everyone is all right, Diego," his father told him. "Everything is fine, once again thanks to Zorro."

Still standing in front of their table, Don Diego let out a sigh of relief.

And suddenly, Don Alejandro seemed to be sitting on pins and needles. He rearranged is stance twice, wrung his hands thrice, looked at his son hesitantly and finally cleared his throat before saying:

"Hum... Diego?"

If Don Alejandro had been ill-at-ease when he had introduced his daughter to Victoria, she could now tell that it was nothing compared with how he was feeling now that he had to do the same with Diego. The older man was clearly nervous, although he was doing his best to appear collected. Victoria knew it was her cue to leave them, so she retreated to a further table. But she kept her ears acutely focused on the de la Vegas' conversation, even throwing a glance from time to time in their direction.

"Diego, since we're now all reunited," Don Alejandro went on, "I would like you to meet Leonor."

He felt it would be ridiculous to add 'your sister' or 'my daughter', since he knew Diego had fairly well understood what the girl was to him earlier in the morning.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Leonor," Diego forced out of his mouth, even bowing a bit.

The child tentatively raised her head to look at him.

"Leonor," Don Alejandro said again, "meet Diego, my son and therefore your brother. You can see that as I told you, he is all grown up."

She quickly hid her face in her mother's bosom once again.

"Leonor!" Araceli scolded her, afraid that Don Diego might find her daughter ill-mannered.

Prompted by her mother, she finally said in a plaintive voice, with her face still buried in Araceli's chest:

"He's too tall..."

The three of them were slightly taken aback by this unexpected reply, and they stared questioningly at each other for a split second. Then Diego quickly grabbed a chair and sat down.

"I didn't grow to this height on purpose, I swear..." he gently told her.

She ventured another glance at him, and seemed to decide that all things considered, he wasn't some bogeyman of any sort. Yet for all that, she didn't really warm much to him; she was still clinging to her mother.

"Leonor," Araceli told her softly, "where are your manners?"

"Nice to meet you, Señor," the girl said at last in a feeble voice.

Diego simply acknowledged her reply with a nod of his head. Another awkward silence settled between the four of them. Don Alejandro glanced at him; his son was fidgeting with an empty glass, looking from Leonor to her mother and then from the woman to his father.

"I..." he started to say, before pausing.

"Diego, I know–"

Don Alejandro stopped when he realised how silent the tavern had gone. Some of the other customers didn't even pretend not to eavesdrop on their conversation, now. He closed his eyes, barely holding back an annoyed sigh.

"Victoria!" he then called.

She came closer to their table. Not that she had gone very far from it, anyway...

"Si, Don Alejandro?"

"Victoria, my dear," he asked her softly, "is there some place here where Diego and I could have some privacy?"

So Don Diego truly hadn't known before today, she thought. She tried hard not to judge Don Alejandro on that too; but did he really want to have this conversation with his son here? A tavern was hardly the best place for a private and heart-to-heart talk on such a personal matter. But she understood that this conversation had been postponed for too long, partly due to the dreadful events of the day, and both father and son probably didn't want to delay anymore and wait to be back at the hacienda to have it.

"Si Don Alejandro," she answered, "I won't need the kitchen before at least half an hour. Or if you want, there are still a few empty bedrooms upstairs..."

"Gracias Victoria," Diego said, "the kitchen will be perfect."

The two men got up and walked away to the relative quietness of the tavern's kitchen. Araceli and Victoria looked at their retreating backs until they disappeared behind the curtain. The conversations resumed in the main room, even though some customers still threw a glance at the mother and her child from time to time.

Before Victoria went back to her counter, Araceli told her with a slightly unsure smile:

"Something is telling me this is going to take them a while; I hope you won't need your kitchen for some time..."

Victoria nodded.

"In that case," Araceli went on, "would you please bring me another Madeira? And something to eat for my daughter, she must be starving..."

"Mmm not hungry..." the child mumbled against her mother's bosom.

Araceli gave a long and loving caress on Leonor's hair and told her:

"Cariño, you must eat something! You haven't had anything since breakfast, you can't go on with an empty stomach!"

The girl shook her head resolutely.

"And come to think of that," Araceli added, "I haven't eaten anything since breakfast either... In fact, I'm starving! Señorita, could you please bring us something to eat?" She paused, before adding with a knowing smile and a wink: "Something that wouldn't require that you go to the kitchen, that is..."

"I think I have some bread and cheese here, behind my counter. Dried sausage, too. Oh, and olives!"

"Wonderful," Araceli replied.

"Aaaaannd..." Victoria added, leaning to the little girl, "I might even have some biscuits in a jar in case some child might turn up in my tavern... Have you seen any around here?"

Leonor didn't answer, but she involuntarily stirred in her mother's arms, betraying that she had heard and fully understood what Victoria just said.

"Hmmm, no I haven't," Araceli answered, playing along, "but you can still bring some of these too: you know, just in case some little one with a sweet tooth shows up..."