Conquistadora Read Online Free

behind the screen of the confessional.
    “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” In the list of schoolgirl transgressions (“I’m guilty of vanity, Padre. I looked in the mirror three times yesterday”), buried within the urges that beset adolescent girls (“I’m guilty of envy, Padre. I wished my hair were as long and shiny as María’s”), there was always mention of carnal thoughts, but never of carnal acts. In the stale, airless confessional, Ana and Elena risked the eternal fires of hell, crossed themselves, and sinned by omission, their fingers still stained with the other’s pudendum.
    Elena was an
hija de crianza
, raised in the same household as twin boys. Orphaned at four years old, Elena was raised by don Eugenio Argoso Marín and his wife, doña Leonor Mendoza Sánchez, relations so distant that Elena was unsure whether they were related at all. In any case, she grew up as niece to don Eugenio and doña Leonor, and cousin to their sons, Ramón and Inocente.
    Ramón, as the eldest by twelve minutes, was expected to marry an heiress to increase the family’s fortune and status. His younger brother, Inocente, would marry Elena, who was then penniless but was due an inheritance from doña Leonor’s parents on her eighteenth birthday. While the engagement was not formal, it was understood that Elena was meant for Inocente.
    “But you should marry Ramón,” Elena suggested. “We’ll be sisters then, and we’ll always be together. Ramón and Inocente are rich and handsome,” she added, “and the Argosos are from a distinguished family. Their father is a colonel in the cavalry.…”
    “Is Ramón a soldier?”
    “He was, but now both brothers work in an office,” Elena explained. “They’re learning how to take over their uncle’s business.”
    No
caballero
of Ana’s acquaintance, including her father and grandfathers, worked, or at least, not in the sense that they went to an office. “I don’t know.…”
    “They’re not boring or dull,” Elena said. “They only go there in the mornings. I know you’ll like them. They’re charming and like to have fun.”
    “How would I meet them?” Ana was still a bit doubtful.
    “Come for my fifteenth birthday and stay for a while. Doña Leonor will surely allow me to have my best friend with me on my birthday. Yes, please do, come to Cádiz.…” Elena squeezed Ana’s hands so tightly they hurt.
    ———
    Ana had never met identical twins. Two days after Elena introduced them, Ana was still unsure which one was Ramón, which Inocente.
    “You look so much alike,” she said one morning, as they waited for Elena to come downstairs. “How can I know the difference between you when you also dress the same?”
    “If you can tell us apart, we’ll marry you,” one joked.
    “Can Elena tell you apart?”
    “No one can,” the other answered.
    “So you’ll both marry the one girl who can distinguish Ramón from Inocente?”
    “We will,” they said in unison.
    “You can’t do that!”
    “Of course we can. Who would know?”
    Until her visit to Elena, Ana had never been alone with a man, including her father and grandfather, but doña Leonor was not as vigilant as doña Cristina or her mother. In spite of her youth and inexperience, Ana was certain that Ramón and Inocente played tricks on her. If one offered to walk her in the garden after breakfast, she thought it was the other who appeared. Or one offered to fetch her shawl inside the house, and the other brought it. That they thought it would be so easy to fool her made her determined to learn to distinguish Ramón from Inocente.
    Their pale eyes held the mystery of their identity. Ramón’s were playful and seemed to always seek amusement. Inocente’s were solemn and critical, and his jokes sometimes had a cruel edge. She didn’t understand how no one else saw this, but she realized that the brothers were experts at being the other.
    Once she was certain of their different gazes,