Chapter 173

“Her father, Ricardo de Silva, owned most of the buildings back then. She was his only daughter, and he settled a pretty hefty dowry on her.

That’s not why people wanted to marry her, though. Well, not the only reason. Back then, people considered girls who looked like that beautiful.”

I said, “She’s very beautiful.”

David glanced at me with a funny little smile.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Right.”

“No. Sly is.”

David saw I was serious, and shrugged.

“Well, whatever. Her dad wanted her to marry this rich rancher, some cousin of hers who was madly in love with her, but she was all into this other guy, this guy named Diego.” He consulted the book.

“Felix Diego. This guy was bad news. He was a slave runner. At least, that’s what he’d done for a living before he came out to California to strike it rich in the gold mines.

And Maria’s date didn’t approve of slavery, any more than he approved of gold diggers.

So Maria and her day had