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“I think you are very courageous. All artists are, especially women.”
“You are brave too,” Manuela said, tipping her head up to look at her. Antonio had managed to gather some information about the duchess, once they realized who it was that Manuela had encountered at Le Bureau. Aside from Cora’s seemingly unapologetic romantic proclivities toward women, she was also a well-respected and powerful businesswoman. According to Antonio’s sources, she was notorious—and bitterly criticized by some—for her tenaciousness and her indomitable drive.
But however life had hardened Cora, she had been kind in a moment when Manuela needed it. She’d done more than that, she’d noted what there was to appreciate in her work, without bestowing false compliments or empty praise. Everything she learned about this woman made her lose her head a little more. And she was so appealing.
A face made to be painted.
“I am bold in my dealings. I am not afraid of putting myself in a risky situation, but I only let my opponents know what I want them to know. They can’t see inside my head or inside my heart. But artists...you put your very souls on display. I could never expose myself like that.” It was an olive branch.
Once again, she was arrested with a sense of companionship. It could be her own tendency to romanticize even the smallest kindness. To want to take a sentiment expressed out of politeness and turn it into more than what it was. It was almost certainly that.
“I should read this.”
The contract seemed simple enough. Cora would escort her to six events over the six weeks. At the end of that period, Manuela would sell her the land for an exorbitant amount of money. It was more than she’d asked for. Certainly enough for her to live on comfortably for a long time if she had only herself to worry about.
“I’ll sign if we set the number of outings at ten,” Manuela finally said, attempting to send her most challenging gaze in the duchess’s direction.
“I thought artists were bad negotiators,” Cora teased, pulling a fountain pen out of her pocket.
The duchess, it seemed, was always a step ahead of her opponents. It pleased Manuela to know that she’d bested her at least a couple of times.
“You must mean the men.” Cora’s mouth twitched again, something Manuela noticed she did when displaying a shade of her temper.
“How about six?” Manuela balked.
“I might be an artist, but I am also from the Caribbean, and we are born hagglers.” This time she got a genuine laugh, for her insolence. “Let’s make it eight and I will sign right now,” she countered, emboldened by the indulgent grin on Cora’s mouth. That pink, lush, bitable mouth. The duchess bit her lip and Manuela licked hers in the exact same spot, and for a moment they were caught in a taut, pulsing moment. Cora was the first to look away, and without a word, she took the papers from her hand, crossed out a line in the contract and replaced it with a note amending their outings to eight.
“There. Happy?”
“I’ll be happy when I can finally start my sapphic reverie,” she volleyed back, reaching for the contract, but the duchess held on to it, her face grave.
“Why are you really selling the land?” The humor from the previous moment was replaced by a seriousness Manuela suspected was spurned by some niggling in the duchess’s conscience.
“Does it matter? You need the land, and I am willing to sell it. I thought that was all that mattered to you.” The duchess clearly didn’t like it when the questions landed back at her feet, but Manuela was getting quite aggravated with the world’s insistence that she be rational all the time.
“It is, but I want to know why it doesn’t matter toyou.” The duchess sent her another one of those incisive looks, then leaned back, crossing her legs. This was not the pose a society lady assumed in public, but Manu guessed the woman observed etiquette rules only when it served her.
“I thought the land was lost,” Manuela admitted, assuming her own obstinately relaxed pose. “My grandfather purchased the land years ago when my family came to Venezuela in exile from the Dominican Republic. The intention was to open an art school. It was my abuela’s dream to have a seaside institute where any woman with talent could come and master her craft, be around other women who shared that passion.” At one time Manuela had shared it too. Painting had been such a solace in her life. A lonely only child who had to live in her own head, and the canvas became the place where she could pour herself into. But that dream, like so many others, had died.
“Why did they have to leave?” Cora asked, her eyes curious, but there was no judgment there that Manuela could see. The last century had been one of liberation for the Americas. After the Republic of Haiti was born, the thirst for liberty spread, and freedom never came without strife. Many had been displaced in the path to liberation.
“They had to leave once the War of Restoration broke out and the criollos began targeting the families supporting the efforts to thwart the annexation of the Dominican Republic back to Spain.” She still had a hard time comprehending how that scheme had gotten as far as it did. “After that, Abuela didn’t have the heart to return home, only to have to leave again. Our family also put a lot of resources into the efforts of fighting the annexation.”
“How did they lose the land?”
Manuela looked away at the question, that old pain, fresh again. “The business thrived for many years, but once my father took over... We had some trouble with our finances.” It had been more than trouble. Her father gutted the business and eventually depleted the personal savings of the family. “We kept selling off what we had to keep us going, only to be back in the same position a few years later, but by then my abuela was gone.”And it was up to me to save them from ruin, she didn’t add.
“You don’t want to build the school anymore?” Cora asked softly.
“I loved hearing my grandmother’s plans for it.” Manuela smiled at the memory of her abuela sitting in her favorite chair by the window with a view to the sea. She talked for hours sometimes about all the students they’d have. How Manuela would be one of the teachers. “But after the land was sold, she never spoke of it again.” And her dying wish had been for Manuela to use the land for something that made her happy.
She lifted her gaze then and found Cora looking at her with unnerving intensity.
“The place where the land is, it has a sentimental value to you.” The duchess’s mouth pursed a little when she uttered the wordsentimental,and Manuela almost laughed at how unsavory it seemed to the other woman.
“Itissentimental, that’s the point,” she concurred. “Women in my position can’t afford to be sentimental.” It was so strange to be speaking about these things that for so long she could barely think about—and to feel strangely unburdened by them. “Wasn’t there anything you wanted as a child that didn’t quite make sense as an adult?” What she really wanted to ask was which dreams of hers had died with her childhood, but the mood was already somber enough. When she looked up at Cora, she encountered not the forlorn expression she expected but one of defiance.
“No.” Manuela laughed at the absolute certainty in her answer. Of course, this woman had been born with a plan of action and had likely begun executing it the moment she came out of the womb.
