Seventeen
“Where have you been?” Luz Alana demanded as Aurora walked into her friend’s parlor an hour later than promised. She didn’t blame them for their cross expressions. She looked a mess, and now she was going to be late for the garden party a duke—the duke in large part responsible for her lateness—was hosting for the benefit of the clinics.
“Perdon, perdon.” She made sure to appear appropriately contrite while she kissed her friends on the cheek, still breathing hard from having run the last two blocks. “I’ve been behind all day, it’s been mad at the clinic.”
“Where’s the dress?” She looked down at herself with a wince.
At Luz Alana’s insistence, Aurora had agreed to wear one of her friend’s dresses for the occasion, but it needed alterations and she never took it to the modiste.
“I did not have time to go to Bernadette’s,” she confessed. Manuela’s mouth dropped open like Aurora had just said she’d slapped the seamstress across the face.
She would’ve worn her sage dress, but Apollo tore at least three of its buttons and there was a stain on the front of the skirt she would never be able to get out. It was ruined. Like her.
“You know how busy she is.” Aurora did know that the modiste—formerly in service of Queen Marie-Louise of Haiti—had been doing her a favor by agreeing to do the alterations on such short notice, but the week had gone by in a flash.
“I know,” she admitted, even as her face heated. “This week has been one crisis after another, and I never got around to it.”
This was not a lie. She had indeed been running an hour behind on everything all day. Partly because she’d had her fistulotomy patient arrive for her procedure without prior notice—something she’d been glad for. And partly because she’d let a certain duke delay her with another one of his morning “therapeutic” sessions. In truth, in the week since she’d stayed over at his den, she’d barely slept at home.
Her days were not much different to her usual hectic juggling of patients, duties around distributing pamphlets and her latest project—and one she enjoyed—self-defense lessons with Gilberto. Though the work was gratifying, and she liked having a lot to do. But now instead of dragging herself back to Claudine’s each night, she found herself giving the fiacre drivers the directions to the den of iniquity on a nightly basis.
She’d had more than one painfully awkward encounter with her landlady, who now greeted her with “How is the duke?” every time she walked through the door. Usually with a smirk on her face that made Aurora blush all the way down to her toes. Did any of this detract her from going to the man’s lair at every opportunity?
It did not.
She was badly addicted, hopelessly infatuated. She could barely think the moment he was near. His presence covered her like fog. She was utterly fascinated by how her body responded to his touch, to the things he said to her. It was as if Apollo held the keys to the darkest, innermost room inside her, where all her desires lived.
His seemingly endless desire for her was another source of fascination. Always so hungry, and his need seemed to feed her own. She only had to walk into his parlor and he was instantly on her. His hands possessively taking, sliding over her as if confirming it was all where he’d left it. He would whisper all the things he’d thought about doing to her through the day. Would press her against the wall and murmur in her ear as he undressed her.
He’d recite the long list of wicked places he thought of tasting her. Explained in achingly exquisite details where he’d put his mouth, his fingers, his cock. One day, she’d arrived at his rooms and found him waiting for her right beyond the doorway. After wordlessly turning her he’d gone down on his knees, pushed up her skirts while his fingers left an electrifying trail up her thighs, right at the juncture that held her aching need.
He left biting kisses as he described to her how that very afternoon he’d walked out of a meeting with his solicitor to take himself in hand after becoming possessed by the idea of going to his knees for her. On another occasion, she’d walked in so tired she was certain she’d fall asleep standing, only to find him stripped to the waist, holding a box of the bonbons he always kept on hand. He’d carried her to the table, sat her at the end, asked her to eat them, while he feasted between her thighs. Her exhaustion had gone out the window by the second chocolate and she found herself being taken with powerful thrusts as Apollo licked the traces of the confection from her lips.
This morning he’d woken her up by flipping her onto her stomach on his soft linen sheets and proceeding to kiss his way down her back. His big hands squeezing and pressing until he reached her nalgas. There he took his time kneading and massaging them while he regaled her with all manner of deliciously obscene poetry about the shape of her bum.
How much he loved to squeeze it, the way it wiggled when he took her from behind, how lush it felt in his hands…and then ever so gently, he’d parted them while she sobbed with need, until she felt the ghost of his tongue grazing…
“Aurora!” Luz Alana’s atypical scream finally snapped her out of her extremely uncouth daydream. “You’re an hour late and now you are ignoring us,” her friend rebuked. If Luz Alana was complaining about her, she truly must be in a sorry state. “We have to start for Apollo’s house, they were expecting us thirty minutes ago. We can walk there, it’s only five minutes.”
Was she truly doing this? She’d not been in public with Apollo since they’d begun their…arrangement and she was not certain what her reaction to him would be.
“We’ll just have to arrive with you in this state,” Manuela lamented, then reached for the Gladstone. When Aurora tried to protest, her friend held up a hand. “You’re not walking into a duke’s house carrying this tattered medical bag.” She could only imagine her friends’ faces if she were to tell them that she had in fact been doing that very thing all week. Instead, she bit her tongue and docilely handed it over.
“It’s that man she won’t tell us about,” Manuela said to no one in particular, making panic balloon in Aurora’s chest.
“What?” Playing dumb was the only viable option. There was absolutely no possibility of her confessing to anything. “No,” she denied, hurrying out of the room, so they could not see her face. “I had a procedure this morning and you both know we’ve been struggling to find apothecaries.”
She looked over her shoulder and quickly turned away, fearing she’d buckle under Manuela’s disbelieving stare. But thankfully the comment about the apothecaries sparked Luz Alana’s interest. Nothing brought her enterprising friend more happiness than deciphering a business conundrum.
“Have you not found a new one yet?” she asked with that focused intensity that made her such a sharp businesswoman.
“Not really.” She grimaced, feeling like a heel when her friend reached to take her hand. But it was true that the loss of their trusted apothecary was a worrying development. It was only the part about finding the solution she’d lied about.
She’d spoken with Mihn after Apollo told her about his mother Phuong’s farm and discussed with him the possibility of purchasing in bulk from her. That was a promising avenue, but they needed a temporary solution while they figured out the details. She bit back a curse when she realized that telling this to Luz Alana would likely lead to questions of how she’d met Mihn, which would steer right back to the Duke of Annan.
“And there’s also the fact that your brothers are here.” She winced at that and earned sympathetic looks from her friends. Aurora had given the Leonas a redacted version of her brothers’ visit when she’d gone to Luz Alana’s for that dress. “Have they been to Claudine’s again?” Not all of them, but Ramón had sent her a pointed letter informing her of his disapproval of her choices. She’d torn it up and thrown it in the fire.
“Octavio stopped by the clinic the other day.” She hadn’t bothered to ask how he knew to look for her there, but she had been cautiously glad to see him.
“Did he know anything about Philip?” Her friends had been very alarmed on her behalf when she confirmed that Philip was in Paris. But she’d somehow managed to put the man completely out of her mind in the past few days and was almost surprised at the mention of his name. After all, what could Philip do to her? There was nothing he could take that she hadn’t already given up herself.
“No, apparently they tried but have not been able to get more details about what Philip is doing in Paris.”
“Was it all right?” Manuela asked, cautiously. “With Octa vio?” He’d given her information for where to find him and promised to let her know if they heard anything about Philip. Then he’d asked her to consider making amends with their parents.
This was not something that interested her.
“It was fine,” she said with a smile, and felt comforted in the fact that even if she chose not to make amends, she would not be alone in the world. She had her friends and she could always count on them.
“Now that we have covered the basics, tell us about the rest of it,” Manuela said, circling a gloved finger in the air, as they walked onto a street lined with opulent homes.
“What rest of it?” Aurora inquired innocently.
“Your brothers, the apothecary,” her friend listed aloud. “That’s not all that’s going on with you.” She did not like the look of Manuela just then.
“Of course it is,” she contested with a huff, picking up her pace. “Well, that and this cursed garden party!” She did not have to feign exasperation at the mention of the event, which was becoming more and more unavoidable as they reached their destination. Her friends were much too smart to not notice the way she flushed whenever she saw Apollo. She only hoped her reaction to seeing him stopped at that.
“If that’s not all of it, then why do you have a love bite on your neck?” Manuela demanded right as they reached the wrought iron gate of the Duke of Annan’s residence.
“I do not have…” An innocent person would probably not slap a hand to their neck, but in her defense, she was not accustomed to this much lying.
“I knew it!” Manuela cackled with glee while Luz frowned.
“I’m not ready to share anything,” she told her friends as they climbed the steps to the door of Apollo’s home.
“Is it—” Manuela began, but Aurora shook her head, de nying whatever was going through her friend’s mind. “Is it serious?”
“No, there are no feelings involved,” she told them, and her stomach clenched at the words. “I simply need to keep this secret awhile longer.” This was only biology, nerves, her aversion to deceiving her friends. It had nothing to do with her falling for Apollo or the denial of said nonexistent feelings.
“Let’s focus on this, please,” she said as she reached for the knocker, which was the same one as that of his rooms, and the mere sight of the thing had her practically breaking out in sweats. “I’m already regretting this, and this conversation is not helping.” Manuela clamped her lips together and sighed.
Luz Alana, the sensible one, simply sent her a stern look and said, “Well, you’re going to smile all the way through it. You need this and so does your clinic.” That did the trick, and by the time the door opened, she’d gotten herself in order.
“Welcome, mesdames.” A gentleman in livery opened the door, took their coats and guided them toward a magnificent foyer, where a lovely woman and an equally beautiful, younger version of the hostess seemed to be greeting guests. Apollo was nowhere to be seen. Which frankly was a relief. She could at least make her way through the house without her body rebelling against her like it did at the mere sight of the man.
“That is Dona Jimena, and her youngest, Juliana, the other daughters stayed in Cartagena,” Luz Alana explained with a smile. The aunt. There was a nervous flutter in her stomach at the prospect of meeting the most important person in Apollo’s life. His savior and protector. The one who fought so he could take his place in the world, the only mother he’d ever known and the one she suspected—in part—was the reason he’d claimed his title. The one whose wish was for her nephew to marry a woman who could be his perfect duchess.
As she walked forward, she was flooded with a feeling of inadequacy. With each step, she became more and more consumed by the feeling that she did not belong there. That if Apollo’s aunt knew who she truly was, she’d toss her out. By the time they reached the two women, Aurora was so tense her neck was in pain. “Luz Alana, estas preciosa querida.” The older woman beamed, taking in Luz’s aubergine gown, then gestured to the girl next to her. “You remember my Juliana.”
“Of course I do.” Luz Alana nodded with enthusiasm as she leaned in to kiss the younger woman, who barely inclined her head in acknowledgment. “I adore your gown.”
Luz proceeded to compliment Juliana on her dress, jewelry and coiffure with an effusiveness that seemed to escape Juliana. The girl’s eyes were frantically roaming around the room while she twisted the fan in her hands.
“Nina, don’t be rude.” The older woman rebuked her daughter, then sent an apologetic look at Luz Alana. “She has her head in the clouds lately,” she said with a familiar glint in her eye that Aurora had seen many times from mothers poised to make a successful match for their daughters. “There’s a fair share of suitable young men in Paris.”
However, Juliana did not look too pleased with her mother’s comment.
“Oh, has a young man started calling?” Luz Alana asked, to which Juliana reacted with a nasty scoff.
“I have no interest in boys.” The girl could not have been more than fifteen. She was lanky, in that way of girls who still had growing to do, but she had a lovely face and piercing brown eyes.
“Juliana!” Dona Jimena exclaimed, embarrassed.
“It is so good to see you, Dona Jimena, that color suits you,” Manuela exclaimed, with enough oohing and aahing to suffuse the tension after Juliana’s outburst. Her mother sent the girl another chiding look, before turning to Manuela.
“Thank you, Miss Caceres, how nice to see you here this evening.” The older woman’s greeting for Manu did not have the same warmth as the one directed at Luz Alana. Not that you would know from Manuela’s enthusiasm.
“It is wonderful to see you and thank you so much for hosting this in order to help my dear friend’s clinics.” The words were emitted with such sweetness, Dona Jimena could not help but smile. When she focused her attention on Aurora, however, the joy in the woman’s eyes dimmed significantly. Aurora could tell Apollo’s aunt was forcing herself not to stare at her shabby rust-colored suit. A very inappropriate memory of Apollo peeling off the very jacket she was wearing while informing her he’d begun to become aroused at the mere sight of bolts of wool came to mind and she had to swallow down a giggle. This certainly did very little to contribute to Dona Jimena’s overall good impression of her.
“It is nice to meet you, Doctora Montalban. My nephew has spoken very highly of your work.”
The things that occurred in her body at the mere mention of Apollo’s name could not be good for her system. Everything seemed to come alive all at once. She couldn’t believe he’d talked to his aunt about her. About the clinic yes, even the cause, but her personally. She didn’t know how to feel about that.
“That’s very kind of him, and thank you for hosting this for us, ma’am.” She resisted the urge to curtsy and settled on a reverent—she hoped—bow of the head. “This is quite a house.” She’d been raised in wealth. There was not much that impressed her, but she had never felt like she belonged in grand houses like this. She wondered now if she would’ve dared come to Apollo here, if he didn’t have his den of iniquity.
“My nephew brought all the furnishings from Cartagena, crafted by our best artisans,” Dona Jimena told Aurora, wav ing a hand at the exquisitely crafted pieces perfectly distributed around the room. Marble and finely carved wood filled every space. From the ceiling hung an exquisite chandelier Dona Jimena said was made especially for their family by an Italian glassmaker in Buenos Aires.
This was a world away from the cozy, warm apartment she’d grown so fond of. While his rooms near the Parc Monceau were a sanctuary, this place was a showroom. The mere size of it was astonishing, and every piece of furniture, every fixture was clearly there to mesmerize.
He’d need a perfect wife in this place. One who could stand next to his beautiful aunt and cousin and not stick out like a sore thumb. Not her, the rebellious doctor, who was dangerously close to becoming a rabble-rouser.
“All the art is from the Americas too,” Manuela, their artist, whispered, with a little awe in her voice, bringing Aurora out of her morose thoughts. “He has an astonishing collection.” Dona Jimena thawed significantly at that.
Aurora turned her head to look at the paintings and indeed the typical European pastoral scenes were not what lined the Duke of Annan’s walls in his rooms. The few portraits in the room were of finely garbed men and women of deeply brown skin in regal poses. This man might want to be in the aristocracy, but he was not willing to hide a thing about himself.
Aurora canvassed the room again, telling herself she was admiring the art and not attempting to find a head of mahogany curls above the crowd. She was half-listening to Manuela and Dona Jimena’s discussion about a seascape by an artist named José Ferraz de Almeida when she noticed Juliana’s sudden alertness as she spotted a figure on the other side of the room. Aurora could not see much of the man, other than his blond head and lean figure as he briskly crossed the room and disappeared through doors leading to the garden. Something about him sent a shiver of unease through Aurora, but Juliana’s face broke into a smile that explained her lack of interest in “boys.”
“Mama.” Juliana’s voice was very high and surprisingly animated given her ennui from only minutes ago.
“You’re being much too loud, Juliana,” Dona Jimena rebuked her daughter, who was practically vibrating. “What is it?”
“May I be excused?” she begged, and Aurora sensed the girl was trying very hard to not look in the direction where the man had gone. “Please, I just saw Mademoiselle Boucher.” That name smoothed the frown lines from Dona Jimena’s brows, and with a sigh, she made a shooing gesture toward her daughter.
“Ten minutes.” Juliana was off like a shot.
“That child,” the woman exhaled, with a shake of the head. “No interest at all in finding a husband. All she does is mope and primp her hair.” Manuela and Luz Alana both smiled and made noises of understanding while Aurora kept her eye on Juliana. She hoped whoever the girl had gone to meet was not a blackguard like the one she’d been ensnared by at the same age. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few arrivals to greet,” Dona Jimena announced. “Doctora, we will ask you to speak to our guests when everyone’s arrived.” The reminder of her upcoming speech did very little to calm her nerves, but she nodded and smiled, before the woman went to greet her other guests. She wondered what Dona Jimena would make of the women’s dressing gown hanging next to her nephew’s in his secret apartment.
“Aurora, are you even listening?”
“What? What is it?”
Luz Alana rolled her eyes at her in a manner she usually reserved for Manuela’s antics, causing Aurora’s face to heat with such intensity she almost pressed her palms to her cheeks.
“I was attempting to brief you on the key players here to night.” Now Aurora was the one rolling her eyes. Luz Alana approached everything as if she were entering a high-stakes negotiation.
“You mean besides the snobs and gossips?” she asked under her breath when she spotted a few of the notorious matrons in the local Caribbean social circles.
“Gossips with fat pockets,” Luz Alana countered. Aurora sighed and reminded herself this was all a necessary part of running the clinic. They wanted to help more people, and for that, they needed funds.
“I know I will be the source of much gawking and pointing, but I enjoy that,” Manuela said primly, with her usual defiance.
“I should’ve insisted Virginia be the one who does the speech,” Aurora lamented, but neither of her friends seemed very sympathetic.
“Darling Virginia is a known anarchist,” Manuela reminded her sweetly, looping one arm around the crook of Aurora’s elbow. “She might still be a wanted woman in Buenos Aires and the ambassador from Argentina is here .” She cupped her mouth for the next part and Aurora braced herself. “Cora and his sister were…friendly in the past.” She pointed at a tall white-haired man speaking to a lovely older woman.
“Where is your duchess, by the way?” Aurora asked. Manuela and Cora had been inseparable in the months since they’d reconciled.
“She had to attend to some business in Champagne,” Manuela said dreamily. “According to the note I received this morning, tonight I will come home to a lusty duchess and chilled champagne,” she tittered. “Life is but a dream.”
“That sounds much more pleasurable than this,” Aurora grumbled again, which earned her a very censorious look from Luz Alana.
“This will be a wonderful evening,” her business-minded friend insisted. “You will develop skills in procuring funding for your endeavors and be forced to socialize.” That last part was clearly meant to chastise, but Aurora was too preoccupied searching for the elusive host of the evening to react with one of her usual barbs.
“We could just ask Cora for the money,” Manuela started, and Luz Alana shook her head.
“Absolutely not,” Luz Alana interrupted. “It’s not good practice to rely on only one source of funds. You must also learn to talk about the good work you do, Leona.” Aurora nodded dutifully, without much enthusiasm, which elicited a sigh from Luz. “Now, please focus,” she demanded, grabbing Aurora by the shoulders to point her in the direction of the refreshments table.
“That man standing there holding court is Don Simón Patino.” Even Aurora knew who that was. The Bolivian magnate who owned most of the tin in his country and had one of the biggest fortunes in the world. “The rumor is that his wife has their three marrying-age daughters here looking for eligible aristocrats. I heard they’re on the hunt for a husband for the middle one, Graziella.” That probably meant Mama Patino had Apollo in her sights. She swallowed down the bile that thought incited and looked away.
“You’re too quiet, I get nervous when you become too pensive,” Luz Alana griped, making Aurora laugh, despite her dark mood.
“The obsession with an aristocracy that was built on the backs of our ancestors will never stop shocking me,” she remarked, as if that was the reason for her scowl.
“I should’ve kept my brief to myself,” Luz Alana lamented, finally at the end of her rope.
“Well, it is utterly ridiculous.” Aurora threw her hands up dramatically at a very unimpressed Luz Alana. “These peo ple built their fortunes from the exploitation of our countries, our people, and now we’re just giving it all back to them for some silly titles.”
“At least now they have a brown-skinned duke to obsess over,” Manuela remarked.
“Apollo will eat these girls for lunch,” she said, before she could stop herself.
“Apollo, is it? Such familiarity,” Manu noted, with a coy grin on her lips. “When did you stop referring to him as ‘duque de mierda’?” It was one of Manuela’s least attractive attributes, her insistence on pointing out truths no one wanted to hear.
“Speak of the devil,” Luz Alana said, sending Aurora’s heart into a gallop. “And bless him, he’s just stopped to speak with Patino.”
That was when she saw him, larger than life and more beautiful than the gods. Even with her negative opinion of the aristocracy, she could not deny the man looked like a duke. He was in a gray suit, cut to show off those impressive wide shoulders. Shoulders that should have a mark or two left there by her hands, and teeth. The thought was a comfort as she watched the young woman next to Patino, sending besotted looks at Apollo.
“That’s Graziella Patino,” Luz murmured. The heiress whose mother was actively trying to marry her to a titled man. She was as lovely as he was handsome, in her pale rose gown, which was almost certainly from Worth’s. They looked like a matched pair, his power and height a perfect complement to her regal elegance. She fit perfectly in this stately home, built to be filled with expensive, fine things.
“We should go and introduce you,” Manuela suggested, pulling her arm, but Aurora didn’t budge. She could not look away from the gorgeous creature who was hanging on every word Apollo said to her. She should look away, go and speak with some of the people here who could do so much for her clinic, but instead she was torturing herself.
“Apollo is clever,” Manuela muttered as they looked on at Apollo and Miss Patino. “She might not be English, but she has connections at the highest echelons of society.”
“And her father is actually richer than Croesus,” Luz Alana teased, while jealousy pelted Aurora like a hailstorm. The sight of Graziella’s hand on his forearm made her sick to her stomach.
Which only went to show how far gone she was. What did she think Apollo did when he wasn’t with her? Going after his own plans, securing the future of his dukedom. Doing what he must to ensure he could do things on his own terms. Marrying into one of the richest families in the world certainly would do it.
“I need some fresh air,” she told her friends, who were still enthralled by the tableau across the room.
“Don’t you want to greet him?” Luz Alana asked, suggesting more than asking.
“I will later.” She’d rather flay herself than walk up to him right then. “I want to clear my head before my speech.” The looks of concern on her friends’ faces told her they didn’t quite believe her, but she escaped into Apollo’s gardens before she was tempted to confess the whole sordid affair.
By the time she reached the bottom of the steps and took in the absurdly manicured Eden, she was angry with herself for her reaction to seeing Apollo with that girl. She had no right to be jealous or possessive of the man. Apollo wanted a wife and she didn’t want to be anyone’s duchess. But seeing him with the perfect Senorita Patino made her inadequacy that much more evident. She hated feeling unworthy, especially of things she had no desire for.
And it was not like any of it mattered. She didn’t want this kind of life. There was no having Apollo without losing her hard-fought freedom. This house, this world did not suit her, but still, for a second in there, she’d wondered what it would be like to be the one he chose. And none of this woolgathering was conducive to being in the state of mind necessary to stand up and speak about her work. She had to focus on what mattered, not on the things she could never have.
“Montalban.” The sound of a familiar and unpleasant nasal voice announced the presence of someone else in the corner she’d commandeered by the wall of pasionaria. “I heard you were here to make the case for your quacks.” She whipped around only to come face-to-face with the two people she wanted to see even less than Apollo’s heiress.
She considered the pair of men in their crow-like clothes, their oily, thin mustaches and sour faces and smiled to herself. The surge of anger made her fingers tingle and suddenly she had air in her lungs. A verbal assassination of these two imbeciles was exactly what she needed to ventilate the irritation of the last few minutes and get back to what she’d come here to do.
“Well, well,” she said, in a tone as cordial as a punch in the mouth. “If it isn’t the Hymen Brothers. Who let you out of your coffins?”