Twelve
Aurora did not intend to insinuate herself into Apollo’s bed. It was true that she’d considered it since her talk with Virginia, but she had not arrived at his fighting club with the intention to do so. Once she had, it seemed undeniable, as though the two of them had been on a collision course from the first moment they’d set eyes on each other.
In truth, it did not need to be a complicated affair. It was simply a liminality, a threshold on their way to their next destinations. His to a bride and life among the aristocracy, hers…ensuring that as many women as possible had access to the medical care they needed.
But these were things to ponder at another time, tonight was for… Well, tonight was for herself.
Her face warmed as she remembered the way she’d been with Apollo earlier. The wanton manner in which she’d lapped at his skin, bitten him. She stared at the mirror in disbelief as she attempted to button up the bodice of the dress she’d decided to wear. It was one Manuela had forced her to buy on a shopping afternoon in Manhattan before they boarded the streamer to France. It was not nearly as scandalous as the pieces her friend had purchased, but it was certainly a departure from her work suits.
The material was some kind of opal-colored silk, it could be sage or light blue depending on the light. It was soft to the touch, and it complemented her figure. She had wide hips and a plump bottom, and she was not very tall. One of the cooks at her family’s house used to call her periquita. Because she said she resembled the small birds with ample posteriors and short legs. She looked like a parakeet tonight in all this green.
“I should take this off,” she muttered to herself, turning this way and that, her eyes on the little bit of lace that concealed the swell of her breasts. She might as well have ravish me scribbled on her forehead. She sighed at the clock when she saw the hour she’d asked for was almost over. Apollo would probably laugh at her when she arrived at his apartment in these clothes. What had possessed her to put this on?
She wished she had Luz and Manuela there, but if she did, they’d be driving her mad. Manuela would likely suggest she wear something even more provocative and Luz would tell her to wear whatever she liked, as long as she was honest with herself about the reasons.
“I’m wearing it because I want him to look at me with fire in his eyes.” The person in the mirror looked terrified at that confession, but it was at least the truth. She’d enjoyed herself tonight. Loved seeing him spar. The thought of the way his body moved under the torchlight made her stomach flutter. He was such a fine man and for tonight he’d be hers.
She pinned up a curl and arranged her collar one more time. She’d even donned her white lace-up boots. An indulgence she’d been too self-conscious to wear, but this evening seemed the perfect occasion to finally put them on. It was the most time she’d spent on her appearance in years, but it felt good to do so. She found that the anticipation brought her a thrill.
As she reached for the doorknob to her rooms, she glanced at her Gladstone, the urge to grab for it was great, but she reached for her reticule instead. She didn’t want to make excuses or pretend this was something other than what it was. She was a free woman, an independent one, and she was on her way to take a lover.
The idea put a smile on her face as she descended the stairs to the ground floor. Apollo’s henchman was probably there already, she thought. She allowed herself to enjoy that too. Perhaps Virginia was right and this leisure idea had some merit to it.
“Aurora.” She was so lost in her thoughts she almost tripped down the final step at the sound of her landlady’s voice.
“Claudine.” She smiled, trying to shrink into herself as the woman took in her very unusual attire.
“You look lovely.” Claudine beamed as if she was witnessing a miracle. That only made Aurora more self-conscious about her clothes. “And very popular this evening.” Claudine’s eyes shone from excitement as she looked at the closed door to her small parlor. Had Apollo come to fetch her himself? Her heart hammered in her chest hard enough to put a dent in her sternum. “Three callers, Doctora,” she exclaimed. “And handsome ones at that.” Three callers? Had the man sent an entire retinue to make sure she got into the carriage?
She didn’t like how much the prospect of his unchecked possessiveness appealed to her, and still a small part of her wished it was him waiting for her. That even if it set the tongues wagging, he’d come himself. But the Duke of Annan had a reputation to protect.
“Gentlemen callers?” The landlady nodded, then gestured toward the small private room next to Claudine’s own rooms.
“I put them there,” she said amiably, then winked. “I’m glad you’re being more social.”
Was her personal life truly so pitiful that even her landlady noticed she did nothing but work?
“Thank you,” Aurora said, then decided she needed to know exactly what she was walking into.
“Is the Duke of Annan among the gentlemen?”
The question took Claudine aback, but her shock soon gave way to delighted approval. “You have been quite busy indeed.” Her own excitement at the prospect of Apollo personally coming for her surprised Aurora. “They did not identify themselves, but all three are quite virile.”
Three Jean-Louises was excessive, but Apollo didn’t seem to do anything in moderation, at least when it came to her. And who was she kidding with this, the man’s high-handedness pleased her to no end.
“Go,” she nudged Aurora. “They’ve been waiting awhile.” She thanked her and briskly made her way to the small room. An eruption of something giddy and unfamiliar spilling inside her as she did.
She couldn’t quite remember a time when she’d felt like this. Excited without the fear that someone would snatch it away.
“I must be quite intimidating if it truly requires three of you to get me into a carriage,” she said boisterously as she entered the room, those bubbles of giddiness turning to ice when she saw who was there waiting for her.
Her brothers.
The moment she saw them, she was assaulted with the dread that accompanied any interaction with her family since she could remember. The happy jitters from seconds earlier replaced with nauseating unease.
She’d never been close to her brothers. There was the difference in age. Octavio, the youngest, was almost fourteen years older than her. Sebastian and Ramón had been married and out of the house before she could walk.
Out of habit, she scanned their faces, looking for traces of herself. It was a game she’d played obsessively as a child. They were tall and lean, while she was shorter and considerably plumper. Their complexions fair, while hers was a deep brown. Her hair was a mass of tight brown curls, while theirs had delicately soft waves.
There was very little that gave them away as siblings, other than their father’s nose. The flat bridge and slightly flared nostrils that revealed the Olmec and African blood running through Fernando Ramón Montalban’s veins. As a child, she’d told herself it was simply that she didn’t take after their mother. Later she’d learn that she’d been wrong about that, as she had been about so many other things.
“What are you doing here?” She directed the question at her oldest brother, Ramón James, who was always the leader among her three siblings. Her tone was bellicose, and as expected, he instantly bristled. The four of them had not been in a room together since that awful night thirteen years ago. The weight of those memories settled over her like a shroud, smothering the excitement from a minute ago.
She should’ve known this would happen. It occurred anytime she was foolish enough to think she was free.
“You look well, Aurorita.” That came from the youngest of her brothers, Octavio Peter. He’d been the only one who’d ever shown any interest in her. He smiled at her warmly and took a step toward her, but Ramón stopped him.
“We’re here because you’ve ignored all our letters for the past three months.” Those were the first words out of Ramón’s mouth. She pretended not to hear him and turned to Sebastian and Octavio, who stood on either side of him like sentinels. “And we find you here, in this—” he gestured at Claudine’s lovingly decorated parlor as if it were a hovel “—this pauper’s house. Will you ever tire of embarrassing us?”
That enraged her, but she knew showing her temper to Ramón would only spur him on.
“I like this ‘pauper’s house,’” she told him icily. “And might I point out this is what I can afford now that I no longer have access to my trust.” None of them responded, but she could feel the disapproval as if it were a presence in the room. “I thought the three of you and the other Montalbans would be delighted to not see or hear from me.” Her brothers flinched when she refused to call their parents Mama and Papa. But why would she call them that, when from the time she could remember they’d both pretended she didn’t exist. “Is this the chair for the accused?” she asked, scowling at the lone chair directly across from theirs as they each took a seat. As expected, it seemed she was going to be on trial. “I’d rather stand.”
“No one asked you to vanish yourself.” Ramón always spoke to her in an exasperated tone, like her very existence was more than he could bear. It was how her mother spoke to her too, and Ramón was the apple of Catalina Wright de Montalban’s eye. “Why must you always make everything so difficult?”
He’d always been like this, haughty and cold. It was only later, after she’d ruined any possibility for any kind of peace with her brothers or her parents, that she realized the reasons why.
“In which way have I been difficult?” she asked, becoming enraged despite herself. “I have stayed away like she wanted.” Her voice broke slightly at the mention of the woman she’d believed to be her mother for the first fifteen years of her life. At that, her brothers all began to fidget with discomfort, even Ramón. “I have given up my trust. I have virtually disappeared from your life. Surely that must be good enough, even for them and for you?” She held her back straight, her head high. She would not cower or beg like she’d done that night. She would never do that for anyone, ever again.
“You were spending recklessly.” She knew it was moot to explain it was for a worthy cause, because her brothers likely saw it all as a waste. “And we never asked you to disappear,” Ramón claimed, but she held her hand up to stop him. She didn’t want to hear this, what’s more she didn’t have to. When her fate had still been tangled with the purse strings he managed, Aurora had to stand for her brother’s sermons, but she’d cut those months ago.
“You sent me away,” she reminded him. “When I needed my family most, I was ripped from the home I knew and you —” she thrust an accusing finger at her brothers as she shook with fury “— you vanquished me and punished the only person who cared about me enough to help me.” Octavio paled at her words, but if they’d made their way from Veracruz to Paris to bring her to heel, they had another think coming. “And now that I’ve stayed away, that I’ve given up what rightly belongs to me, in order to have control over my own life, you come here to scold me?” Thirteen years of swallowing her family’s disdain was long enough. She was utterly fed up with Ramón’s sanctimoniousness, with Octavio’s and Sebastian’s complicity.
“We tried to protect you,” Ramón claimed, and for the first time, she heard something other than recrimination in his voice. But what they’d done hadn’t felt like protection, it felt like a shunning.
She’d been fifteen and terrified. So scared of what she’d done. She’d gone to the only person who had ever been kind to her for help. Her aunt Gloria, her mother’s sister. She’d told Gloria that she’d been a stupid, gullible fool by falling for Philip Carlyle’s lies—the handsome Royal Navy officer who’d promised to marry her and allow her to attend university in Europe.
She’d been so easy to ensnare. A lonely, neglected wallflower, desperate for anyone to see her, she’d practically thrown herself at him. He’d found her watching one of her parents’ parties from her pathetic little hiding spot on the patio, and he’d been so handsome in his uniform and so gentle. He hadn’t laughed at her or pointed out how she looked nothing like her brothers. Instead, he’d been curious about the book she’d had in her hands. He’d even seemed interested in her answers.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t have to long or yearn. She’d wanted someone’s attention and had received it without having to beg or plead. Without having to kick or scream. For once, she wasn’t invisible.
Philip returned the next week to see her. With her parents and her brothers gone to see friends in New York for a few months—and as usual leaving Aurora behind—that first visit turned into more. Then there were walks in the park with Gloria as chaperone and carriage rides that had all of Veracruz talking. Philip didn’t seem to care she was half his age, a child really, and Aurora was smitten. Hopelessly infatuated with his blue eyes and blond curls.
Then the secret meetings began. The once-charming Philip became aggressive, demanding she demonstrate her affection for him in ways that made her scared and uncomfortable. But she wanted to please him so badly. She was so scared of becoming invisible to him too. So, she succumbed to his bullying and pleading that she prove her love for him. That if she did so then they could be together, always. She did and then there were more tests of her feelings for him, and secrets, so many secrets. Until the secrets could no longer be kept.
It was not long before the dashing and understanding Philip transformed into a sadistic, greedy monster. Those cerulean eyes she’d found so kind were suddenly hard and cruel. His claims of affection were replaced by insults and reminders that no one would ever want her after what she’d done. That she was tainted, damaged goods and should be grateful he was still willing to marry her. The promises to assist Aurora with her dream of becoming a physician were replaced with lectures on the place of women in the home and boastful diatribes about what he’d do with her dowry.
Aurora, determined to escape the awful fate that surely awaited her, asked for Gloria’s help. It was her aunt, after all, who she’d always confided in, and Gloria helped her. She arranged a short trip to Jalisco two weeks before her parents were scheduled to return from New York to see someone who could help bring back Aurora’s menses. Aurora and Gloria returned only to find her parents and brothers home a week early, and Philip with them. What happened in the hour that followed was something she still could barely ponder on, much less discuss.
Philip’s threats to turn her into the authorities for violating the law. The woman she thought was her mother calling her a whore. The heartless indifference of her father, whose only concern was how to keep all of it quiet, how to get rid of Philip, of her, of anything that could taint his reputation. Her on her knees begging for forgiveness, pleading with her father not to send her away.
It all went ignored, and in a matter of days, they had her shipped off to a finishing school in Switzerland and Gloria vanished back to Puerto Plata. She remembered how terrified she’d been for the entire voyage. The staff when she arrived was unfriendly, the food strange, and it was so cold. She didn’t think she would’ve survived if she hadn’t met her Leonas.
“Are you going to refuse to speak with us, Aurora?” Ramón’s demanding voice pulled her out of those terrible memories.
“What do you want from me?” she asked wearily.
“We want you to respond to our letters,” Sebastian told her, speaking up for the first time. “We want you to be residing in a safe area of town.”
She scowled at that, irritated once again. “You have no right to opinions on my life, brother,” she reminded him, not bothering to keep the anger from her voice. “None of you do, and besides, why do you care so much? Why not wash your hands of me like your mother did?” Ramón flinched like she’d slapped him.
“You’re still our sister.” She could hear the sentiment in Octavio’s voice, but it was too little, too late.
“I’m your half sister ,” she said pointedly, eliciting uncomfortable groans and evasive looks. “I’m the child our father never wanted and only tolerated so his mistress would remain under his roof.” She used the same words their mother had used that night thirteen years earlier when Catalina demanded that Aurora and Gloria leave her house forever, while her own father watched in silence.
“That doesn’t mean we don’t care about your safety, your well-being,” Sebastian insisted.
“What is this sudden concern with my safety you speak of, brother?” she asked in a louder voice than was appropriate. “I’ve been on my own since I was fifteen years old and not once have you ever concerned yourselves with my well-being.”
“Carlyle is in Paris,” Ramón finally said matter-of-factly, and now she was the one flinching in surprise. Not at the information, she’d learned months ago that the man had been seen on a steamer headed to France. What shocked her was her brothers were apparently concerned.
“I heard he’s here.” That seemed to infuriate the three of them.
“And you’re walking around without a care in the world?” Octavio’s outraged tone took her aback. Were they here because they feared she’d take up with that desgraciado again?
“Why wouldn’t I? Philip Carlyle is free to do what he likes,” she said with a feigned indifference she certainly did not feel. Her heart was beating so loudly, she could almost hear it. “Be sides, I thought I was at fault for what happened. Wasn’t that what you told me that night, brother?” She didn’t like the bitterness in her voice. Didn’t like that she still harbored so much anger. “That I was a disgrace, a puta?”
“No seas vulgar.” Ramón had the nerve to sound offended. Octavio sent their oldest brother a hateful look.
“We’ve come to realize that we were wrong. Haven’t we, brother?” Octavio demanded harshly, but Ramón only looked away.
“How did you hear that Philip Carlyle was in Paris?” she asked Ramón, certain that he would be the one to know. He was the Montalban who was always willing to get his hands dirty. Her brother’s defiant expression was answer enough, but he loved expounding on his machinations.
“We’ve had someone keeping an eye on him periodically,” he explained, which was not surprising. The man posed a real threat to the Montalban name. “He’s kept to the northern coast of Venezuela and Colombia for most of the last ten years, but it seems he’s acquired a minor title and has now relocated to Europe.”
“The man is likely up to no good,” Sebastian voiced, venomously. He’d probably use the title to swindle some poor woman. Philip had been a conniving comemierda as a low-ranked officer, she could only imagine the pomposity a title, even a low one, would entail. Which only made her think of Apollo, whose own position put him only below the Queen of England, and just this evening had been sparring in a Montmartre club. She was so angry at her brothers for stealing this night from her.
“We’ll find out what he’s up to and remind him to stay away,” Octavio declared.
Ramón, who didn’t like being interrupted, sent a nasty look, but for once the quieter brother had something to say.
“We didn’t do enough back then, too worried with gossips and not how that bastard got his hands on you.” Ramón, to his credit, blushed. “No matter what, you’re our sister.”
Now she was their sister.
“Don’t lose sleep on my behalf, I’ve long made peace with the truth about my birth.” They all paled then, probably recalling the way Aurora had been informed about her real mother, but she was certain none of them wanted a reminder of that. “Can one of you finish this long-winded tale?” she asked impatiently. “I’m late for an assignation, and the gentleman does not like to wait.” She could’ve used another excuse, but it was much too satisfying to see her three holier than thou brothers splutter about her scandalous declaration.
“You have always been insolent,” Ramón seethed, back to form. It seemed Aurora already had him at his limit.
“I’m the insolent one, am I?” she demanded, with as much derision as he’d used on her. “Why, because I won’t beg you to allow me back into the bosom of the family I was always a second-class citizen in? Because I won’t beg and plead with your mother to forgive me after she called my mother, her own sister, and me trash?”
“There’s no reasoning with you sometimes, Aurora.” Sebastian had the gall to sound exasperated, when they’d come to her home to make demands.
“She’s always blamed us for what happened that night,” Ramón added morosely, as if he was the injured party. “And all this pretending to want a profession only to end up as someone’s mistress.” His mouth twisted in an ugly sneer as he moved closer. “Just like her mother.”
She didn’t realize she’d raised her hand to slap him until the contact with this face made her palm ache. She’d never hit anyone, but the words were so vicious, so ugly. She stood there stunned, her hand throbbing and fighting back tears, not of pain, but shame and frustration.
“Shut your mouth, cabrón,” Octavio seethed, but Ramón didn’t say anything, just held a hand to his cheek, as she turned to leave.
* * *
“Please don’t go, Aurorita,” Octavio pleaded and despite herself, she stopped, because no matter how much vitriol she spewed at them, all she’d ever wanted was for her brothers to see her as more than an embarrassment. “We said we wouldn’t do this,” Octavio told the other two. “We agreed that, for once, we would behave like her brothers, not her enemies.” Aurora frowned at her brother’s words, at the way the other two flushed at his recriminations. “We were almost grown when she was born, and we allowed Mama to punish her for Father’s sins.” Octavio had always been most docile of her brothers, but his eyes blazed with fury as he spoke. And though it might be too little, too late, the words still healed something inside her.
It wouldn’t have made a difference. She knew that. Her brothers all depended on the family’s fortune. Worked for their father, lived on his land. They would not have risked their security for her. And their mother had to vent the anger of having to put up with her sister’s and husband’s betrayal on someone.
“What were we supposed to do?” Sebastian balked.
“We could’ve gone to that little table in the kitchen they made her take her meals at and sat with her.” She’d forgotten about that, or at least forced herself not to remember. She never could understand why she never sat at her parents’ table as a child. Just one of the many things she only understood when it was too late. “We could’ve made her feel like our true sister. We could’ve confronted our father, but we were all cowards.”
“Who are you calling a coward, cabrón?” Ramón shouted, lunging for Octavio, who instantly threw a punch, then Se bastian entered the fray, and before she knew it, a chair was knocked over.
“Stop this.” None of them heard her, focused on tearing each other apart as they were. When a flying fist almost knocked her over, she cried out, and that was when the door to the parlor burst open and a mightily pissed-off Duke of Annan prowled into the room with violence written all over his face.