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“I know surprises are not something that you enjoy,” Alfie began, once he could speak again. “But perhaps this is a good thing.” He held a hand up before Cora could protest. “You have this affinity. If she wants help finding that part of Paris, you could use the time together to ingratiate yourself to her.”
“I don’t like that,” Cassandra offered, soberly. “If the girl is desperate to find women she can be her true self with, it is not right to use it against her.”
“She’s essentially bribing me, Cassandra,” Cora reminded her friend, who sent her a disapproving look.
“Perhaps she was as impacted by your meeting as you were,” Tia Osiris suggested. And that was exactly where she could not let herself return to. That first meeting. To the soft, sweet girl she’d had in her arms and of the way those big brown eyes had pierced her. How she hadn’t seen anything as appealing in what felt like a lifetime. How that kiss had awakened something she’d thought was lost.
“She’s an artist,” Cora said quietly. Her inability to stop talking about Manuela was quickly becoming an additional problem. “She’s got two pieces in the exposition.” This she’d learned from the agent she hired to dig up information on Baluarte’s owner.
“She’s obviously brilliant,” Cassie exclaimed.
“Youhave a piece at the exposition,” Cora drawled, eliciting a smug grin from her friend.
“Exactly.” She jumped up and clapped her hands while Cora tried to remain calm. “It means I am aware of the level of brilliance required to achieve such a feat.”
Cora laughed, her gaze on Frede, who smiled indulgently at her beloved. “How do you put up with her?”
Frede, who conducted herself with icy aloofness regarding most things, smiled warmly at Cassandra, her blue eyes burning with such devotion, Cora’s breath caught in her throat.
“She is my every delight.” The slender, pale woman’s passion for her lover was so clear in that moment it felt almost intrusive to be there. Cassandra’s face was a reflection of Frede’s affection as she bent to kiss her. They murmured something private and intense against each other’s mouths and once again Cora’s traitorous mind brought up the image of Manuela, those molten eyes and that soft, kissable mouth. The way it tempted Cora.
“You should bring her to Pasquale’s tonight. Sarah Margaret and Fleur will be showing their work.” With Cassie’s pronouncement the truth of her situation finally sank in, and with it the realization that to get the land, she would have to introduce Manuela Caceres into the most intimate, most fiercely guarded areas of her life.
Tonight wouldn’t do at all. What she needed was some distance from the heiress before going into battle again.
“I don’t know if dinner is such a good idea,” Cora equivocated. “And tonight won’t work either,” she told Cassie. “Alfie and I have the soiree at the Mexican pavilion,” she reminded her stepson, who appeared even less excited than she was at the prospect of another evening dealing with peers and diplomats.
As far as Parisian evenings went, the Académie Pasquale was not exactly risqué. In fact, it was one of the most renowned and notorious art schools in Europe, famous for having trained many emerging stars of the art world. However, Cora’s fondness for the institution was due to its founder Aristide Pasquale’s dedication to training women artists.
Instinctively she knew that Manuela would love Pasquale. Would love even more to attend a show for one of the most prominent couples in the Paris art world. Sarah Margaret Dalton was a renowned landscape artist who made no secret of her love of women and flaunted her relationship with Fleur Bonneville, a fellow artist. Cora had no opinion on how people chose to conduct themselves in their affaires de coeur, but the last thingsheneeded was Manuela Caceres Galvan getting any ideas.
“Sarah Margaret and Fleur tend to be a bit too outrageous, and the last thing I need is to get caught up in a scandal a month before Alfie and I return to London.”
“Mother, no one cares—” Alfie began to protest, but Cora held up a hand.
“Alfred, please, don’t argue with me on this. I will not do anything to jeopardize your entry to the House of Lords. I’ve already done enough damage, without needing to remind everyone why you haven’t been in London since you were in short trousers.” That was met with a series of sighs, deep inhalations and a particularly strainedNot this againfrom Tia Osiris.
“Yes, this very thing, again,” Cora shot back, swallowing down the bile that typically accompanied this topic of discussion. “We have been planning Alfie’s return to London for years. It is well past time for him to assume his place as Duke of Sundridge. I will not permit anything to do with my associations to interfere with that.” She was finally on the cusp of repairing the injury she’d caused her stepson’s family name. By orchestrating his return to Britain as one of the wealthiest men in Europe and a major shareholder of what was soon to be the most profitable railway project in the world. No one would dare snub a man with that kind of power, with that kind of influence. But for everything to go to plan, Cora could not let any whispers about her to resurface. Gallivanting around town with Manuela Caceres Galvan would almost certainly do it.
“I have no intention of giving Miss Caceres Galvan carte blanche over my life. I have to carefully assess the types of diversions I’d take her to and bringing her along to an exhibit featuring erotic renditions of Greek art merely hours after her proposing this demented scheme might give her the wrong impression.”
“And what impression would that be?” Tia Osiris’s inquiry was not at all innocent. She was clearly enjoying Cora’s misery.
“The impression that this will be some sort of romp where I take her on the sapphic adventure of a lifetime, Aunt.”
Alfie spluttered at that, then went into a coughing fit after inhaling some whisky. She moved to thump him on the back, even as she sent a dire glance in the direction of her best friend and her aunt. “I must keep very clear boundaries around what I do with Miss Caceres Galvan.”
All of this infuriated her. If she was a man, she wouldn’t have to consider any of this. She’d happily take Manuela for a roll in the hay with two or three trollops, and no one would blink.
“And when have you ever been against a romp?” Cassandra insisted. “Just last year you arranged a three-day bacchanalia for that government official you were buttering up about some kind of permit.”
Thathad been tiresome. She’d arranged for a pleasure palace in the Loire Valley and filled a fountain with champagne for the man, who had proceeded to splash around in it in the nude for the benefit of the five girls from Le Bureau Cora had procured and paid for. It had not been pretty from what she’d heard, but in the end, she’d been able to build a bridge which cut the transportation time between her vineyard in Champagne and the bottling plant in half.
“Could it be you’re developing a case of scruples, sobrina?”
Cora shuddered at Tia Osiris’s suggestion. Scruples were for people with weak stomachs and lack of ambition. Scruples had nothing to do with it.
“There’s always dinner with the gang tomorrow.” Cassie, when she chose to, could be quite persistent.
