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“You’re so quiet, querida,” Manuela whispered, with those plump lips brushing Cora’s ear enticingly. Heat radiated under her skin instantly as she turned her face down to catch the jutting bottom lip between her teeth. “Mm, that’s better.” Her lover crooned, pressing closer.
“Are you thinking the same thing I’m thinking?” Manuela asked against her ear, pulling Cora out of her grim thoughts.
“Unless you were also just contemplating how long it would take to get you out of that bodice and corset on the carriage home, princesa, then no, we were not thinking the same thing.” That pink flush and softening eyes would be seared into Cora’s mind forever.
“Manuela, do you mind?” Aurora sighed, but her princess was undeterred and continued to press kisses to Cora’s mouth. “It’s not enough that dolt Apollo will be there, I have to deal with this.” Aurora waved a hand to Cora’s lap where Manuela had been sitting for half the ride.
“Would you have preferred to be having tea with Doña Amadita?” Manuela demanded, which seemed to allay the fire in Aurora’s annoyance. The diplomat’s wife they’d encountered at the opera had been keeping tabs on Manuela since she’d returned from Scotland, even going so far as to show up at the Place des Vosges and inviting herself in for tea with Aurora.
“No, I would not prefer to be at Doña Amadita’s, hearing all her horrid gossip,” Aurora griped, roughly tugging at the bodice of her gown. “This blasted thing just puts me in a temper.”
“Ay, Aurora, you’re going to tear the lace,” Manuela cried, pulling back from the kiss. “You are so brusque. Stop that.” She pushed her friend’s hand from the hem as Cora and Alfie exchanged amused glances.
“I just don’t understand how we are expected to have a conversation when our lungs are pressed to our spines like this.” Aurora continued her litany but got no sympathy from her best friend.
“Your lungs are perfectly fine,” Manuela said, patting Aurora on the head like a wayward child. The usually imperturbable doctor responded by snapping her teeth.
“Now, children, behave or we’ll have to withhold your champagne,” Alfie drawled, winking at Cora.
“Oh, thank God,” Aurora exclaimed when the carriage door opened, practically launching herself out of the vehicle.
Manuela waved a hand in her friend’s direction as she slid off Cora’s lap. “Ignore her. She’s antsy about seeing Apollo again. Where were we?” she asked as they made their way into the ballroom. “Oh yes, the imminent divestment of my clothes. I am willing to wager you would not tear a single button.” They were walking side by side, with Manuela using her fan to conceal their conversation. If the titans of business could see Cora now, wrapped around the finger of the same young heiress she had assured them she would vanquish during the course of one luncheon.
Cora ignored the wife of a viscount who she’d spent a couple of very pleasant weeks in Capri with a few years earlier, who was attempting to wave her over. Instead she snatched two coupes of champagne from a tray, handing one to Manuela. The imp finished it in two gulps and proceeded to lick her bottom lip in such a sensually explosive manner, Cora’s mouth went dry.
“I thought that aristocrats were better about coy flirtation,” Aurora groused from somewhere behind them, making Alfie laugh. “I feel like I am going to burst into flames solely based on proximity.” Cora couldn’t even feign embarrassment. She was much too happy to care.
“Would either of you care to dance?” Alfie asked, looking between Aurora and Manuela. Her stepson knew better than to ask Cora.
Aurora scrunched her nose at the question, clearly uninterested. “Not at the moment,” she answered, her eyes on the tables at the end of the room laden with food. “I might venture over to the refreshment tables.”
“Are you sure? The band is quite good.” Manuela’s tone was happy enough when she asked the question, but Cora noticed a shadow behind her eyes when she turned her gaze toward the dancing couples. One thing Cora had learned about Manuela was that when she was subdued, she was at her unhappiest. “It would be lovely to step out on the floor with my preferred partner, but this ballroom doesn’t allow for that,” she finally said.
“Perhaps after things are done here we could make our way to Montmartre,” Alfie suggested sympathetically. “I’m sure we could convince Claudine’s band to play a waltz for us.”
“That is a wonderful idea. Could we?” Manuela beamed at the proposal, and Cora wished more than anything she could take her in her arms and promise to throw her the biggest ball Paris had ever seen. She had to conform with a slight nod and anof course. She wished they could go now.
It was one of those things that had never occurred to her as a deprivation, until these last few weeks with Manuela. Before, not being able to dance with a lover in a place like this would not have ever bothered Cora. After all, she could dance at Le Bureau, she could dance at Claudine’s, she could dance at home. But with Manuela she wanted the light. Couldn’t imagine being able to hide her feelings. Anger rose inside her at the mere thought of having to. She recalled something Cassandra told her when she asked her why she hadn’t accepted her parents’ offer to remain in the family if she kept her relationship with Frede a secret. Her friend said it would’ve been pointless to accept it because she couldn’t hide what she felt for Frede any better than she could stop her own heartbeat.
Cora had never really understood what she meant. Now...well, there was Manuela.
Her errant thoughts were interrupted by Manuela’s yelp when Aurora gripped her arm. “Oh no, it’s him,” she whispered, her attention on a very tall and handsome man walking in their direction. Manuela’s friend was a remarkably strange girl. “You need to dance with me!” she informed Alfie, who had cut his teeth on managing the demands of strongheaded women and gracefully refrained from reminding the doctor she’d turned him down only a minute earlier. When Cora turned to Manuela for an explanation, her lover threw her hands up in exasperation.
“Aurora, you should just admit you’re attracted to the man, bed him and get your nerves back in working order.” Manuela turned to Cora. “That’s Apollo Cesar Sinclair Robles, the new Earl of Darnick. If you hadn’t guessed already.”
“Do not tease me, Manuela,” Aurora protested through gritted teeth while she tugged on Alfie’s arm. “Dance floor, please!” By the time the earl came to stand at their side, Aurora was painstakingly swaying to a waltz on the dance floor while Alfie did his best to keep a straight face.
“Señorita Caceres Galvan, I see you’ve settled back into Parisian life without trouble.”
Cora didn’t think she imagined the heavy dose of innuendo in the man’s comment. Manuela didn’t seem too concerned. “I’m very well. Thank you for asking, Lord Darnick. Have you met the Duchess of Sundridge?”
“Your Grace.” The man’s greeting was very elegant, but his attention was clearly on Aurora. “You friend has escaped me again. I wonder if running from rooms is one of the courses at the medical school at the Sorbonne.”
“She is very spry,” Manuela concurred, amused. Apollo’s furrowed brow and vexed expression were ones Cora had grown very familiar with in the last month. She could not help but sympathize with the Earl of Darnick, who seemed to be the latest victim to be swept under the tide of the Leonas.
“How are you finding your continental adventures, my lord?” Cora probed. He was a strapping man. Not like Alfie or Benedict, who were fine-boned and almost pretty. This man was a gladiator. Tall and imposing. Shoulders that could hold up a building, with keen eyes that appeared to take the temperature of the room in one glance.
“I am finding my footing,” he said, his gaze still decidedly on the dance floor. “But I have the advantage of not having much of a conscience and even fewer scruples, which makes things much simpler.” An amused laugh escaped Cora’s lips, and Manuela’s tipped up at the man’s brazenness.
