AllFreeNovel
Share Us
God, they were so different, and yet this conversation felt like the first time she’d been able to speak freely in years. Because even with her friends, she censored herself. Never wanting to paint things in too grim a light so that she didn’t worry them. With Cora she could speak plainly, and she knew there would be no hurt feelings.
“Is it strange that I can perfectly picture you at five years old setting up your dolls and playing at building railways?” Cora’s mouth tugged up, and Manuela grinned at the image of tiny Cora in her split skirts bowling over unsuspecting competitors to do her bidding.
“I always wanted to be in business,” she told Manuela, but for the first time Manuela saw some cracks in that steel facade. “My father was a self-made man. He came to Chile to work as an engineer in the silver mines and within twenty years had made a fortune. A lot of it was being in the right place at the right time, but he was tenacious, and he was smart.” Manuela could hear the admiration in Cora’s voice: the man had to have been formidable to be spoken of with such respect from a woman who seemed to think very little of men in such positions.
“Did he approve of your desire to go into business?” she asked and immediately regretted it when Cora’s face shuttered.
“He did not,” Cora said tautly, after a long pause. The smile on her lips morphed into a fraught thing that made Manuela want to reach over and smooth it with her own fingers. She was certain the duchess would leave her answer there, but to her surprise she spoke again. “When I announced to him my intention to follow in his footsteps, he...” Her face was very blank as she spoke. But something about the way she held herself, her gloved hands gripping her knees, told Manuela the memory was a terrible one. “He went into a rage.” Again Cora stopped, this time her eyes directed at the ground. “Within a week, he’d found a man for me to marry.”
“The duke?” she asked, horrified. To her surprise Cora burst in laughter.
“No, he was the son of one of my father’s associates. I shot him in the leg when he tried to demonstrate how he intended to spend our wedding night.” Manuela was certain she’d misheard.
“Youshothim?” she shouted, staring at Cora in disbelief.
“It was just a graze,” Cora said with a wave of her hand. That arrogance returning. “In any case, I paid the price later when I was put on a steamer to London with orders to find a titled husband and stay there for good.” She told this ghastly tale so casually, almost too casually. The duchess was very good at hiding her pain, but Manuela was quite experienced in the maneuver herself.
And if she’d been intrigued by her before she was positively ensnared by Cora now.
“That is quite the story,” she finally said. Cora scoffed, her eyes bright with amusement. Then turned her attention to the papers in Manuela’s hands.
“What about it, princesa?” the duchess asked, pointing to the contract. Manuela lamented the loss of the intimacy they’d forged in the last few minutes, but there would be more time to uncover the mysteries of this perplexing woman. She reached for the fountain pen and signed the line over her name, then stood up.
“That’s settled.” She grinned at the duchess’s serious expression. “What will be the first place you’ll take me to? Pigalle, Montmartre?” The excitement in her voice at the mention of those places was not at all feigned. But Cora did not answer, she just looked at Manuela impassively before turning to the narrow door.
“First I think I’d like to see your competition in the gallery,” she informed Manuela, dusting off her dark blue skirts. “Then we’ll go to dinner.”
Ten
“Is this my first outing?” Manuela asked as Cora’s carriage halted to a stop on the Rue de Montparnasse. They’d both been quiet on the short ride over, and she’d gotten no more information about their dinner.
“Yes. Are you ready?” Cora’s husky voice in the darkness of the carriage sent curls of heat through her body, but she was not so far gone she didn’t notice the very lacking response.
“I will be once you tell me where we are, Your Grace.” Unlike the duchess, Manuela might not have the ability to turn grown men to stone with her eyes, but she certainly knew how to get what she wanted. She made sure to reach for the handle of the carriage door, effectively blocking their exit. Cora raised an eyebrow in challenge, placing her own hand on top of Manuela’s. “If you think I won’t arm-wrestle you because you’re a duchess, you’re wrong.”
“Are you going to be this difficult about everything, princesa?” Once they’d stepped out of that blasted attic, they’d strolled through the gallery admiring the other paintings. It had been companionable and surprisingly easy, but every time Cora called herprincesa, Manuela’s body reminded her that she wanted this woman, and not as a friend.
“I won’t be difficult, if you tell me where I am.”
Cora gnawed at her bottom lip, which she’d noticed happened whenever she didn’t want to reveal too much. They stayed there for a long moment with their hands tangled together on the door handle before the duchess relented.
“We are at Cassandra and Frede’s,” she offered with a put-upon sigh, while Manuela made a superhuman effort not to wiggle in her seat or break into applause.
“You’re introducing me to your friends, Your Grace,” she crowed, wishing there was enough light in the carriage to see if Cora Kemp Bristol blushed. “I’m beginning to suspect you like me.”
“You’d better let me out before I change my mind and take you home,” Cora shot back, a note of amusement in her voice that made Manuela ridiculously giddy.
“Who else will be at dinner?” Manuela asked, trying very hard to temper her excitement as they took the few steps leading to the door of a small but attractive house.
This Parisian neighborhood was not as fashionable as the Place des Vosges, where Aurora’s family had let a town house for them, and she imagined Cora lived in a mansion somewhere. But this little house, while respectable, did not at all communicate opulence. It was certainly not the kind of place Manuela imagined a duchess frequented or where her close friend would reside.
“Some friends, mostly artists, other women like us who are in other trades,” Cora told her as she knocked on the door. “A few of them have pieces in the exposition too.”
“Oh.” Manuela’s stomach sank when heard that. They’d walked by some of those pieces. None of them had been banished to corners.
“No, don’t look like that, dammit.” Cora sounded cross but when she lifted a hand to Manuela’s chin her touch was devastatingly gentle. “Your work is brilliant, and no one in that gallery or in this house is better than you.” This kindness would be a problem, she thought. It would be impossible to keep herself from wanting more.
“You don’t have to say that, you know? I’m not that fragile.”
