“It’s called Las Tres Rosas.” He nodded in response, leaning back in his chair. “In the twenties, when the island was fully under Haitian rule, President Boyer put out a notice that he would give land to any freed men who came from the United States.” She was momentarily distracted when he took a sip of his wine, watching his throat move as he swallowed. It seemed everything the man did diverted her attention. “My mother’s father heard about it, he ventured to Hispaniola and claimed some land for himself.” She ran her finger on a divot in the wood as she recalled her family’s story. “He’d been living in Mexico for a couple of years after making the journey to freedom from Tennessee. His wife died only a year after they arrived in Hispaniola, but he had his two daughters with him. They were given a hundred acres on the eastern tip of the island in the region of Higüey. Part of the land is right on the coast. He built a house only about a mile from the beach. He named it Las Tres Rosas for the three roses in his life. My grandmother Sylvia, my mother, Clarise, and my aunt Catherine. That’s where I always lived, other than my two years at finishing school, that is.” After her father died, the farm, the house, the distillery—all of it had felt oppressive, like the memories would smother her. But now, with a little distance, she could think about it fondly again. She could recall the good bits of her life there without that searing pain.
“Sounds like a lovely place.”
“It’s paradise,” she said simply.
“And how did Caña Brava happen?” She shifted in her seat under his attention. He had a way of looking at her that made her wonder if he could read her thoughts.
“Higüey had very good land for growing sugar cane, and distilling is in my family’s blood. It started with my great-grandfather in Tennessee. He made bourbon.” For his master, but that was not the story. This story was about what her family had done with their talents, not about the people who exploited them. “He passed all his secrets to his only son, my grandfather, andheput them to use making rum. He started small, only producing a few casks a year, but it was so good it became very popular in the area. It was my mother who had the idea of expanding production, but she had a very particular idea of how to do it. She wanted every person who worked in making the rum to have a stake in it. Beyond their salary, they received dividends from the sales.”
Evan seemed genuinely perplexed by that. “Your family shared the profits with the workers,” he said slowly, as though trying to grasp the concept.
“Yes.” She nodded, and again that flicker of pride sparked inside her. She’d been so bogged down in trying to make connections here, she’d forgotten the history and tradition that she was carrying forward. What it meant to keep her family’s legacy alive. “It didn’t make our family rich, but I think it’s what makes our rum different. Every person that works on Caña Brava feels ownership in it. I think that comes out in the product.”
Her mother had once explained that the reason their home was comfortable but not opulent was because her great-grandfather had reviled the stark differences between how the main house lived in comparison to everyone else. Luz’s family made sure they didn’t have so much that it took away from others having what they needed. “For everyone to have enough, we cannot have so much. That’s what my mother always said.”
“Ah.” Evan’s response pierced the silence between them and shifted her attention to the food that had arrived while she talked about her family. Madame Fournier had placed two small bowls of soup on the table before slipping away without notice. It was fragrant and smelled of ginger, star anise and something spicy. Aromas that were familiar but combined in a way that was new to her.
“This is wonderful,” she said as she raised a spoonful to her mouth. The flavors exploded on her tongue. She focused on her food for a time, enjoying the soul-nourishing goodness of it. When she finally looked up, she found Evan observing her.
“You like the food.” He looked very pleased with himself, and she nodded, spying a few crumbs on his neatly trimmed beard.
“You have—” She ran a finger over the spot on her own chin where he needed to clean up.
“The downside of looking roguish and mysterious is that I sometimes will wear my food,” he said, managing arrogance and charming self-mockery at once. He patted his face with a napkin but didn’t quite manage it. She reached for him with hers. The moment her hand touched that strong jaw, the air around them thickened into something that ran through her like an electric current.
Impulsive, unplanned touching of Evanston Sinclair was not advisable. She pulled back as if she’d been shocked, though his eyes stayed on her with that same hungry, predatory look he’d given her at Le Bureau. She panicked and opened her mouth.
“Tell me about where you make the Braeburn,” she prompted, a little desperately.
He kept that heated brown gaze on her for a moment. “My mother’s father bought the land...” he looked up as if trying to recall a detail that had suddenly escaped “...oh, about forty years ago. He didn’t come from money, my grandfather, but he made a lot of it with the railways. The Braeburn he bought to make a statement. Almost ten thousand acres in the Highlands.” He paused again, and she could sense a discomfort there. As if he didn’t want to go further, but after another moment he spoke again. “He left it to my mother when he passed. She and my uncle were his only children; my uncle got his other holdings, and my mother got the Braeburn. The family who previously owned it had been making whisky for generations, but my grandfather kept the distillery dormant while he was alive. My maternal great-great-grandmother was a distiller in her own right—she operated a shebeen out of her home that clothed and fed a generation of Buchanans.”
He grinned at the sound of surprise that escaped her lips. Luz’s dad had told her about the shebeens, unlicensed drinking houses all over Scotland that were usually operated by widows. It was not something she would’ve thought a gentleman would confess having a family connection to. Much less sound proud of it.
“The Scots like to forget it was our women who made our whisky what it is,” he said with a lift of his shoulder. “I was close to my grandmother, and she told me about that side of our family. I was always interested in it, and—” He stopped, and it looked to her like he was about to say something, then thought better of it. She was surprised at the disappointment she felt to know he’d held something back. “I took it upon myself to revive the distillery about ten years ago,” he explained, but something was different. The brightness from earlier had been replaced by the brittleness she’d seen when he’d mentioned his father. It unnerved her to see him like that.
“Did your mother leave it to you?” she asked, and his face turned even more grave.
“Not quite,” he said, with a stark smile. There was a story there, surely, and she almost asked, then decided to let it go. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it, not with her.
“You’re also carrying on a family legacy, then,” she said, not quite sure why it seemed important to establish that kinship between them.
“I guess I am.” He looked at her with surprise, like it had not occurred to him there was a significance to that. His brow furrowed, and his teeth snagged his bottom lip as he sat with what she’d said. Right then, Madame Fournier arrived with plates of mouthwatering braised beef with thinly sliced fried potatoes and buttered green beans.
“This is absolutely divine,” she told their hostess, and when the woman had gone back to the kitchen, she turned to Evan. “Thank you for this.”
He shook his head as if there was nothing that warranted that, but she felt extremely grateful to this man for giving her such a pleasant day. Her plans for a summer of adventures in Paris kept being derailed by the many stumbles she’d taken with her business dealings. If she had a moment to herself, she spent it agonizing about her errant trustee or her failed business meetings. Even food, which was usually one of the things she most enjoyed when traveling, had been an afterthought. All the stress had her stomach in knots most of the time, but today she was ravenous. This simple meal was one of the most enjoyable she’d had in Paris.
“What’s the name of it? The land where you make your whisky.”
“Braeburn,” he said with a laugh. “And the house is Braeburn Hall. We’re not very creative with our names.”
“Braeburn Hall,” she mused. “Your very own Pemberley,” she teased, and he threw his head back with a laugh. It was becoming a bad habit, this craving for Evan Sinclair’s mirth.
“Good God,” he groaned as if the mere mention of the estate belonging to Jane Austen’s beloved romantic hero was an affront to decency and good sense. “It’s been seventy years. Are people ever going to stop talking about that cad, Darcy?”
“Men might. I doubt women will,” she said with feigned regret, as she chewed another perfect bite of crispy potatoes. “I’m afraid you will have to continue to endure being measured against an unattainable paradigm of male virtue.”
“The man barely spoke ten words to the woman in the entire book.” Evan made a rude sound, and nowshewas the one barking with laughter.
