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'What are your intentions toward Don Alejandro...?'

After a short silence came her surprised answer to the 'padre':

"Well... none!" she said a bit puzzled. "I don't have any particular intention!"

"Really?" Zorro asked from beyond the grid of the confessional.

"Well, except for my daughter to come here from time to time now that things are out in the open, so that she could spend more time with him, and get to know her brother too. But I'm not sure Don Diego wants her to, I'm not sure how he'd react to the idea of having her stay a fortnight or so at their hacienda every three months... And I don't want any dissent, any strain between Alejandro and his son because of her. Because of me..."

"Don't you think you're seeing Don Diego in a rather too dim view? Don't you think he's already made efforts? Don't you think they have already started to warm to each other?" he asked, pleading his own case.

"Si... si... But making do with her presence right now and just once is one thing, while having her regularly at home and having to share his father with her on a recurrent basis is a different matter altogether. So I don't know... I'm not sure, Padre."

"Give him some credit," he replied. "So," he went on, "you don't have designs on Don Alejandro?"

"I've not come here to get him to marry me, if that's what you think, Padre. I've always fully intended to go back to San Diego after introducing Leonor to her brother. And may I remind you, Padre, that you were the one who went to seek me there and had to convince me to come to Los Angeles immediately at Alejandro's... summon. I, for my part, was perfectly happy with things as they were, I wasn't asking for anything..."

"And Don Alejandro, in all this?"

If Zorro/Diego could have seen through the grid, he would have seen a sweet smile graze Araceli's lips.

"Alejandro..." she said pensively, "I owe him so much! I owe him my daughter. I owe him the most important person in my life." She paused. "He gave me a child, made me a mother. You can't imagine what it is for me. What it means. And thus, what he means for me. Forever he will be my daughter's father, whatever happens. And in fact, even after we broke up, even after things ended between us, he remained my child's father."

A father... Parenthood... Señora Valdès's words sent him back a few hours earlier, to Victoria's question: all this must make you look forward to starting your own family, no?

Being a father... Having a child... someone to love, to raise, to be responsible for, to teach – to tell off and be frustrated with too, sometimes...

And also someone to kiss and cuddle, too, a lot, even though it wasn't very manly... Anyway, it was already common knowledge that Don Diego de la Vega wasn't very manly, so... Why not making the most of his reputation, if at least something nice could come out of it!

He sighed dreamily. A child... Becoming a father... But he'd better stop daydreaming about that, as things were it would probably never be. God just hadn't that in store for him, unfortunately.

"I also owe Alejandro wonderful memories..." Doña Araceli went on. "And we have... an understanding, a bond together, through Leonor, and through the fact that we have managed to get along so well after breaking up. Through the fact that despite the distance, he carried on his visits, doing his best to be here for her," she explained. "For us," she added. "All this has somehow bound us together, in a strange and unusual way."

Humph, this is all well and good, but you conveniently don't mention what happened two nights ago, Diego thought.

"Señ– Daughter, you'll understand that I have trouble believing you, considering what you are still keeping quiet about... regarding Don Alejandro and yourself, on a much more recent matter..."

Ow! Diego could have kicked himself, he really should have bitten his tongue, but it was too late: how could anyone know about their... rekindling of their earlier passion?

"Oh..." Araceli said, a bit down, "he has confessed to you..."

Phew, Diego thought, relieved that his slip went unnoticed thanks to this plausible explanation.

"You very well know that a priest can't break the seal of confession..." Diego told her, so as to neither confirm nor deny her supposition, and thus avoiding lying, especially in this place. He wasn't feeling totally at ease with deceiving her by impersonating a priest. Even though he hadn't intended to pass himself off as the padre and delude her at first, he didn't disabuse her either... Lie by omission, he thought. It evened the score with her, he justified himself in his own eyes...

"I hope you haven't been too hard on him with his penance, Padre," Araceli suddenly said, "because in fact it was all my fault. Even though I'm sure he didn't tell you so, did he? Always the gentleman..."

She paused a bit, and then she added:

"I wasn't thinking straight, he was right about that. I should have listened to him. Don't think too ill of him, Padre, I'm the one who sought him, who went to his bedroom." Another pause. "I wasn't thinking straight, I wasn't thinking about the day after, or even about the hour after... I was distressed, I know we shouldn't have, not just one night like that, I know I should have listened to him. But I... was unable to see reason... couldn't even listen to my own good sense, to wisdom. I just... I don't know... acted on instinct?"

With some relief, Diego couldn't help but note that she was doing her best to exonerate his father from any blame. At least he had to give her credit for that. It made him feel some relief as to her honest caring for his father.

Relief, really? Or rather some hint of... worry? It prompted his next question:

"Do you still... have feelings for Don Alejandro?" he couldn't help but ask her a bit apprehensively. And much reluctantly.

Silence.

"Señ– Daughter?"

Silence again.

"I... I..." Araceli started, then paused. "It... These past few days... got me to realise..."

She paused again.

"I... I realised I'm still attracted to him," she finally admitted in a barely audible murmur.

Diego wasn't sure whether it answered his question, but he knew that something in him didn't quite like this answer.

She was attracted to him. But wasn't it rather her very personal way of saying, or rather of not saying, that she still had feelings for him? That she loved him? That she hoped to resume things with him, to pick up where they left off, even though she didn't intent to have him marry her?

But it hadn't been a love story between them, right? Just a... well, he couldn't find any polished and refined way to phrase it, but the idea was clear enough in his mind... And it had rather been that than a true love story, hadn't it?

"And you maintain that you have no intention whatsoever toward Don Alejandro?" Diego asked, suddenly doubting her word, in light of her last admission.

"As I told you, Padre. I thought I had been clear enough when you came to San Diego a few days ago, and anyway now that I'm here I can see that... well... he..."

She didn't end her sentence, and Diego wondered what she meant.

"He...?" he prompted her.

"Well, Padre, do you... don't you... didn't he..." she mumbled.

"What?" Diego asked impatiently.

"...Doesn't he already have someone else on his mind?"

"WHAT!?" Diego shouted far too loud. "What do you mean?" he went on in a considerably lower voice. "Who...?"

Did his father start an affair here in Los Angeles without him noticing it? Now Diego wasn't sure of anything anymore... He searched his mind for some elderly lady coming to the hacienda more than before lately, or for his father paying more courtesy calls than before, but truth be told, since Gilberto Risendo's 'visit' and subsequent death, his father's social life had been kept rather low.

"Well..." Araceli answered in a rather subdued voice, "isn't he... interested... in the tavern owner?"

What?

Diego had a hard time stopping himself from chuckling, choking and even downright laughing, ludicrous and funny as this idea was.

Victoria...? His father...? Really, all Los Angelinos knew that, years ago, Don Alejandro had promised his friend Alfonso Escalante to watch over his children, and that he was subsequently seeing her as some godchild of his. Or a niece. That his affectionate care for her was nothing else than benevolence and benign friendship for his old friend's orphaned daughter. Much much younger daughter.

Diego had to bite the inside of his cheek not to laugh. Really! Preposterous!

He'd have to tell this to Victoria, it would amuse her to no end.

Except that no, he couldn't. He wasn't supposed to have heard this confession, was he?

Then Diego remembered that Señora Valdès was not from Los Angeles and thus didn't know anything about the ties between Alejandro de la Vega and the late Señor Escalante – may his blessed soul rest in peace. He managed to get serious enough to ask Doña Araceli in a detached tone of voice:

"Señorita Escalante, you mean?"

"Yes. He... Yesterday at the tavern he expressed his appreciation of her and of her conversation, and he invited her for dinner at the hacienda. He told her that he missed her company and that he wants her to get along with Leonor, saying it was important to him."

"Hmm," Diego simply said, thinking hard of what he was going to tell her next.

"He complimented her at dinner, too," she went on, "and... and he would have really wanted to gallantly and courteously escort her home afterward, if not for his duty keeping him at the hacienda with me, forcing him to keep me company."

Oh, she heard that?

Diego thought that she had already been at Leonor's bedside when his father had asked him to escort Victoria back to the pueblo. But she apparently lingered a bit behind the door. And eavesdropped a bit, too. Unnoticed. She'd make a very fine spy for Zorro!

"And even after she left, he had seemed really cheered up by this dinner, he was in a very good mood." Araceli remarked. "He... likes her, no? It seems to me that he intends to court her, doesn't he? Or perhaps it's already his way of... unofficially wooing her...?"

The cogs in Diego's brain were working full speed, and although his first reflex had been to disabuse her and deny any design of his father on Victoria – a girl who was even younger than Doña Araceli herself, this woman really wasn't thinking straight! – another more disturbing thought then came to his mind: what if this apparent lack of lucidity from her part as far as his father was concerned was the product of some... residual feelings?

Could it be jealousy?

Well, better kill any idea of getting him back which could be burgeoning in her mind, Diego thought. That way she would leave his father alone, and keep her claws away from him. And she even unknowingly just provided him with the best way to do so: confirming her mistaken suspicions.

"How perceptive, Señ– Daughter!" he told her, playing along. "I can't deny that Don Alejandro has a strong interest in Señorita Escalante, they have grown close over time."

Well, Diego thought inwardly, that was not a lie, was it?

"He sure likes her," he added, "and cares for her a lot."

Not a lie either.

On the other side of the grid, Araceli failed at totally suppressing a sigh.

"Si, I see," she murmured.

"So I think the best course of action for you would be not to interfere. Forget what happened the other night and leave him be..."

"Si... si of course..." Araceli replied. "Anyway, as I told you earlier I've never intended... The past is better left where it belongs."

Diego was relieved, but he felt a slight pang of guilt at how despondent and suddenly unconvinced she sounded, though.

"Padre," she asked in a small voice, "do you give me absolution?"

Ow...

Ow.

When he sort of decided to 'play along' and let her believe he was the padre, he hadn't thought of this part of confession. Of the sacrament of confession.

Ouch; he wasn't a priest. He morally couldn't fake it, it would be sacrilegious. Not to mention that he couldn't either let her leave unabsolved when she thought she had been forgiven. He would be committing a grave sin if he did so...

He was about to tell her to come back later because he had to think about it and about her penance, when he heard another familiar voice which he recognised immediately:

"Forgive me, daughter, for having made you wait, but I'm now done with what I was doing. I'm all yours..."

Padre Benitez!

The real one, this time.

Then Diego saw the small wooden door hiding him be pulled open when simultaneously a totally puzzled 'W-what?' came out of Doña Araceli's mouth from beyond the grid.

Oops, Zorro thought, caught!