“How were your patients?” Luz asked as she handed Aurora a small plate full of sandwiches. Manuela stopped sketching and waved her hand at Clarita, who flopped down from her pose like a puppet who’d had her strings snipped. They all looked forward to hearing about Aurora’s adventures whenever she returned from her rounds in the third-class cabins. They’d only been on the ship for eight days, but within hours of setting sail from New York, their friend had managed to avail herself to any passengers who needed a doctor and always came back with tales.
“So?” asked Clarita, who had a concerning appetite for the gorier details of the situations Aurora encountered.
“Everyone is doing well,” she assured them with that satisfied grin she sported whenever she talked about her patients. Aurora was always happiest when she could put her skills to use and was never shy about offering them to those who needed them. “The young man with vertigo is improving wonderfully. And Miss Barnier may have that baby before we reach land.” She crossed her legs, revealing her split skirts, which a few of the older ladies on the steamer calledgrossly indecent. A couple of heads turned, and quite a few eyebrows rose at Aurora’s lack of concern with proper feminine posture.
“What were you frowning about?” she asked, circling a finger in the vicinity of Luz’s forehead.
Luz spluttered for a moment but answered before Manu could. “I was explaining to Manuela that I can’t afford more wardrobe-related expenses in Paris.” Aurora was always her ally in matters of moderation and restraint.
“Well, you can’t,” Aurora decreed. “Not until the situation with your inheritance is sorted. You know that, Manu.”
Manuela heaved a sigh, then pursed her lips dramatically as she reached for the cup of tea she’d handed Luz for a bolstering splash of Caña Brava. “Fine, no spending onfrivolities.” Luz was certain she didn’t imagine her friend’s mocking tone, but she refused to take the bait.
“Did you write your letter?” Manuela asked, taking the conversation in a different direction, which was her way of conceding to Luz’s wishes.
“Yes.” Luz nodded, folding the document in question to place in an envelope. After tea she’d ask the concierge to post it to Mr. Childers once they reached the port. “Hopefully, I’ll receive some news within the next couple of weeks.” Her friends nodded encouragingly while Luz’s stomach twisted in knots.
Among the many surprises Luz had to grapple with in the past year, the most disconcerting one had been the realization that her father had never changed the conditions of the trust he’d set up for her when she turned sixteen. At the time, he’d arranged for it to be managed by Prescott Childers, an old friend in Edinburgh. It made sense then. She’d been young and could’ve used the help navigating her finances, but now, at twenty-eight, it was at best an inconvenience and at worst a potential disaster. The conditions, as they were, only granted her access to her inheritance with permission of the trustee or if she married and her spouse released it to her. To further aggravate her already-precarious situation, Prescott had been ill in the past year and had scarcely responded to her letters. The first she received in almost six months came only weeks before she departed from Santo Domingo, informing her that Mr. Prescott Childers had passed away and the trusteeship had passed to his oldest son, Percy.
Percy was as elusive as his father.
She would never know if her father neglected to change the terms before he died because he assumed he had time or if he didn’t trust Luz with the management of her inheritance. To think her father found her lacking in the ability to care for herself and her sister had been devastating. It still was. She didn’t know if that wound would ever properly heal.
“Are you still with us, Luz?” Manuela teased. She’d been lost in thought again.
“My mind keeps wandering,” she said by way of an apology.
“You have a lot to consider, Leona. Which is why we must make a plan for our conquest of Paris,” Manu said kindly, making Luz smile at the nickname the three of them had acquired while in finishing school in Switzerland. The three Latinas who roamed the hallowed halls of the famed Ville Mont-Feu like a pride of three. Twelve years on and here they were, still ready to take on the world for each other.
“We already have plans,” Luz reminded her, while she passed a biscuit to her sister. “You’re presenting two of your paintings at the Beaux-Arts salon so all of France can witness your genius.”
They all turned to look at Manu, who blushed at the attention. Manuela’s art was the one thing she took seriously. She was talented—brilliant, even. Getting her work selected for such a prestigious event was evidence of that.
Luz Alana tipped her chin toward Aurora next. “Aurora has plans to meet with her group of women physicians at the exposition and formalize their international society of women doctors.” Aurora, who had a true talent for organizing people, had been corresponding with other women physicians around the world for the past couple of years. A few of them would be in attendance to the exposition, and their friend had lofty plans for what they’d accomplish during their time together.
“You should make time to enjoy yourself too, Luz,” Aurora said, uncharacteristically. If the woman whose idea of leisure was improvising a clinic in a steamer thought Luz was taking things too seriously, the situation had to be dire. But her friend lifted a hand before she could respond. “Enjoyment within reason, of course.”
“Everyone brace for Aurora’s list of all the things we can’t do, see or touch.” If there was one thing Manuela loved above all else, it was to needle their best friend.
“You are the reason I even make these lists, Manuela Caceres,” Aurora retorted, falling right into the trap as usual.
Manuela leaned forward to cover Clarita’s ears and whisper. “As long as your rules allow for our Luz to at least once kiss the wrong man for the right reasons.”
“Andthatmisguided request gives us the first rule,” Aurora announced. “No falling in love.”
“Love?” Manuela balked. “What does kissing have to do with love?” She was whispering but, given the gasps around the room, the acoustics were better than Luz would have thought.
“Concurred about the no falling in love. Not the kissing,” Luz echoed as her friends continued to argue their differing views on what constituted enjoyment. It was not that she didn’t yearn for love, for companionship...but those were for the Luz Alana who had parents and whose every decision didn’t hang her sister’s and her own future in the balance. Love was for girls who had someone to depend on. For her, it was merely one more item on the long list of things she could not afford.
PARIS
One
Paris, May 1889
“No, absolutely not today,” Luz muttered under her breath as she purposefully made her way through the thirty-meter-long maze of stalls and tables of the Palais des Industries Diverses. She kept the man currently disrupting the carefully arranged display of Caña Brava’s offerings in her sights.
She’d come to the venue at dawn to set up her table. It had been an ordeal to even obtain a display space. Since the very idea that a woman distiller could be among the exhibitors seemed so distressing to the organizers, it had taken half a dozen attempts before she’d been assigned a table number, and this cad was apparently availing himself of it.
