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“Demonios,” she practically cried, frustrated beyond belief. It was her own fault for dallying with the art. “I have to go. Perhaps I’ll see you again?” she asked hopefully as she stepped away. But in return she only received another one of those burning stares and a disappointing shrug of a shoulder.
“Paris is like a village, princess, especially for women like us.”
Two
“Don’t look at methat way, Luz Alana Heith-Benzan. I am extremely cross with you,” Manuela told one of her two best friends as their carriage navigated the streets of Paris on the way back to their rented town house on the Place des Vosges.
“What did I do now?” Luz Alana asked, wide-eyed as the three of them bounced around on the banquette on the bumpy ride from Le Bureau. The streets were crowded even at almost one in the morning. It was as though no one in Paris wanted to go home to sleep in the event they missed something. This city always had a marvelous amount of diversions, but the exposition had transformed it into something absolutely incandescent, and Manuela finally had experienced a tiny touch of that magic. Magic that she desperately wanted to experience again, though she had no idea how to go about it.
“You know exactly what you did, Miss All Business,” Manuela huffed, while Luz Alana feigned innocence. “I cannot believe you kissed the Great Scot while I barely got to see anything of Le Bureau.I—” she dramatically poked her own chest for effect “—was the one who came here with the intention of being ravished in a dark corner by an exceedingly disreputable rake, or rakess in my case.”
Which could’ve happened had you not prattled on about a fresco for an eternity.
“I didn’t exactly plan to kiss the man, Manuela,” Luz Alana protested. Her beautiful face flushed with pink at the memory of her tryst with the Scottish whisky maker. Manuela wasn’t truly cross with her friend. Dutiful Luz Alana had been doggedly—and so far fruitlessly—attempting to find an ally since they’d arrived in Paris, and Evanston Sinclair so far was the only one to take her seriously. And it seemed obvious to everyone the man was interested in more than just a business venture with Manuela’s best friend. It was welcome news, really. Luz Alana had been dealing with so much since the death of her father, she deserved a little indulgence, especially the kind that came in very large and handsome packages. “Besides, you met someone,” Luz Alana shot out as the three of them descended onto the street as quietly as they could.
A smile tipped up her lips at the thought of her own dashing stranger at Le Bureau. “Oh, all right. I forgive you.” She accompanied the verbal olive branch with a pat on her friend’s arm. “She was beguiling,” she admitted, thinking of the lush mouth and canny eyes. She only wished she’d had more time. “But I didn’t even get a name. I have to return to find her.”
“I amnotgoing back to that place again,” retorted Aurora, in that infuriatingly stubborn way of hers.
“That’s easy for you to say. You already saw people making love five feet from you!” Manuela protested, while Aurora shuddered at the mention of the show her friends had unknowingly walked into at the brothel. “I will have to go back to experience it myself.” Poor Aurora groaned.
“You should’ve seen her face, Manu.” Luz Alana’s words were strained as she tried her best not to laugh. Aurora had no such compunction.
“I will not dignify that filthy comment with an answer,” Aurora huffed haughtily. “Could we please focus on getting into this house without announcing ourselves to the entire street?”
“Good point,” retorted Luz Alana in an impressively controlled voice, while Manuela struggled to smother the laughter bubbling up in her chest. This was why she’d wanted to come with them to Paris. When the three of them were together, adventure always ensued. “How are we supposed to get inside without alerting Amaranta to the fact that we arrived hours past our curfew, smelling like whisky, tobacco and sex?”
Luz Alana’s question returned Manuela to their current exploit, and she noticed the distressed set of Aurora’s mouth. The last thing they needed was their friend going into a panic. “Luz, why would you say something that will only encourage Aurora’s dramatics?”
“It’s not dramatics, Manuela. I cannot be found walking around this city at all hours of the night reeking of sin and regret.”
“I only wish I smelled like sin and regret,” Manuela said wistfully, eliciting a fit of giggles from Luz Alana and an exasperated eye roll from Aurora.
Aurora sighed as she peeked through the small glass window on the town house’s front door and reached for the door handle. “Don’t bother, it won’t open.” Manuela whispered, to which Aurora responded with a very pugnacious raising of the eyebrows. “There’s another door around the back,” Manuela chided, hiking up her frothy skirts and signaling to the back of the house.
“Then, why didn’t you say so?” Aurora cried.
“Because I was busy mentally berating myself for not getting my lady’s name! Come over here.” She waved a hand to the back of the house, and the others followed her with dark expressions. “I’m so cross with myself,” she admitted, as the others stared at her in confusion. “Ihadher. She was exactly what I’d dreamed of when we arrived at Le Bureau, and I left with no means of finding her again.”
“You will have more chances,” Luz Alana assured her, with a soft pat on her shoulder. Even Aurora shot her a sympathetic look.
“Never mind.” She knew her friends didn’t understand her, but they wanted to see her happy regardless. That was their friendship in a nutshell: unconditional.
Once they got to the back of the house, Manuela pointed to the small door in the sunroom she’d commandeered as her art studio. “We only have to climb the ladder.” She trembled remembering the climbing she’d done earlier that night. The memory of tumbling into the arms of that beautiful woman, of the way she’d called Manuelaprincess, sent a shiver through her body.
She should’ve kissed her sooner. She should’ve found out who she was. Antonio, who had stayed at Le Bureau after all, offered to investigate but couldn’t promise he’d find out anything. The establishment was quite strict about keeping their patrons’ anonymity, but she hoped what the beauty had said about Paris being a village was true. She couldn’t shake the feeling she’d made a grave mistake by walking away.
As she, Luz Alana and Aurora climbed under the cover of darkness, she promised herself one thing: if she was granted another chance to kiss her mystery woman, she would not hesitate.
“Ouch, carajo! Manuela, open the door!”
Aurora’s pained yelp snapped Manuela out of her musings, but she’d been so lost in her thoughts she had to get her bearings. “Here,” she whispered, turning the handle. “I left it unlocked.” She winced when the door creaked. The sound was like a gunshot in the silence that surrounded them.
“Careful with that, the paint is still fresh,” she warned as Luz walked ominously close to the portrait of Clarita that she’d finished that day. Clarita, Luz’s younger sister and Manuela’s protégée—and the only other person in their household who knew how to enjoy herself—would be livid when she found out Manuela had failed to recruit her as their lookout for the evening.
“Good grief, has this house’s hallway always been so long?” Aurora whispered as the three of them attempted to reach the staircase leading to the bedrooms. She sounded so exasperated Manuela let out a laugh, which elicited a firmShhhfrom Luz Alana. They were as quiet as a herd of elephants.
“Bandidas!”
