“Then you’re already faring better than most marriages in the aristocracy, Leona.” Manu gave her an affectionate swat. “You still haven’t told us if you trust him.”
Luz considered her friend’s words as she tightly clutched the leather binder holding the agreement a lawyer had drafted. She wasn’t foolish enough to enter the arrangement without putting into place some legal protections. Manuela had procured the assistance of her friend the Duchess of Sundridge, and the woman had promptly produced an American solicitor who she assured Luz would draw up a contract that would effectively pinion Evan out of any claims on her inheritance and—as much as was legally permissible—her person. Luz and Aurora had spent most of yesterday in the seventeenth-arrondissement offices of Mr. Crouch being plied with legalese and such a thorough line of questioning, Luz was certain the man now had better command of her life than she did herself. The contract was, according to the mustachioed solicitor, the legal equivalent of a heavily guarded fortress.
As far as her trust in him was concerned, Aurora was correct. If Evan agreed to sign the contract, she wouldn’t need to trust him. Not really.
And though she was covered by the legal protections, that hadn’t really been the point of Manuela’s question. There was a difference between wanting something and it already being a fact. Did she trust Evan, even without the assurance of the contract? She found that she did. Which likely made her a fool. It didn’t make it any less true.
“I believe he’ll help me if I help him. It’s a transaction.”
“But there has been...” Aurora paused dramatically, and Luz rolled her eyes “...intimacy.”
“A moderate amount,” she prevaricated even as heat flooded her face. That unnerving shiver she felt any time she recalled the feel of his beard against the swell of her breasts while his fingers explored her, that had been... Not the time to recall that particular dalliance.
“Oh my, look at that flush on her cheeks! I’d wager the Great Scot has plundered and quite possibly pillaged,” Manu exclaimed with glee. Luz groaned.
“Oh my,” Aurora whispered, closely examining the expression on Luz’s face. “Have youfaite le coït?”
“Saying it in French only makes it sound more vulgar, Aurora.” Manuela’s voice was like a foghorn. “However, as your best friends in the world, itisimperative we are instructed on just how much of the earl you’ve...rendezvoused with?”
“Is that even a word, and could you two take a respite from the French innuendo?” Luz begged, biting back a laugh.
“Does everyone in the Jardin des Tuileries need to be made aware of her personal affairs, Manuela?”
Manuela only laughed at Aurora’s admonition. “Talking is absolutely not required,” Manu said happily. “We can make it a game of charades. What are we contemplating here, platanote or platanito?” She accompanied this by holding her hands ups, palms facing each other about a foot apart, then closed the space to about three inches.
That was when Aurora reached her limit.
“Manuela, would you stop?” she exclaimed, audibly horrified. Which was curious since she’d been the one to commence this line of inquiry. “I have absolutely no interest in hearing any details about the man’s genitals.”
Manuela fluttered her hand in a dismissive gesture.
Why had she thought having these two accompany her was a wise idea?
“I am asking purely for clinical purposes,” Aurora informed them with the disapproval of a schoolmarm dealing with unruly children. Manu rolled her eyes, her hands thankfully now clasped behind her back. “I have about thirty-six hours to procure a cervical cap for you, and I’d like to know if you require one.”
Luz could not be in the same room with Evan without feeling like her clothes were set to incinerate right off her body.
Yes, it was best to be armed with all means necessary.
“Gracias, amiga, I’d appreciate that greatly,” she said sincerely. Lying to herself about what she would or would not be doing in her marriage bed was one thing. Not taking the appropriate precautions to prevent a pregnancy was entirely another. Jane Austen might’ve thought preparation foolish, but Luz was not a genteel English lady of leisure. She was a Dominican rum distiller who would have control over every aspect of her life she could.
“I do want to talk about the wedding night. Because despite her unforgivable crassness, Manu did raise a topic of some heft.”
It took Luz a moment to deduce the comment was dripping with double entendre. “Aurora, that is beneath you!”
“That is likely one of the positions Lord Darnick will require of you.” Aurora was now practically crying from laughter.
“I adore the direction this conversation has taken.” Manuela clapped, and Luz gave up trying to be serious. “You must take that pink negligee I got at Cadolle’s shop. The Great Scot will tear it off you.”
“It’s not a real marriage, Manu,” Luz declared, unsure for whose benefit she was making the assertion. “I don’t need wedding-night frippery.”
“Some of the best copulation to be had happens between people who aren’t really married, querida.” Manuela winked saucily. Luz wished more than anything she could take a page from her friend’s book and let things wash over her. That she could live in the present without allowing the uncertainty in her future strip away all possible enjoyment.
Unbidden, the image of herself tipping a bottle of champagne to her mouth as the wind whipped around her at the top of the tower came to mind. She’d been more spontaneous in the few days since she’d met Evanston Sinclair than she had been since her father had died. She’d thought that side of her was lost—dead and buried with her parents. Snuffed out by the weight of all the things she was now responsible for. With Evan, she’d found it. She wanted to be more like that free-spirited Luz. But that Luz had not been on her own that night at the tower: she’d been leaning on a hard body, with strong arms anchoring her in place. A body that would not be hers to keep when this was over.
“That’s it,” Aurora announced, pointing at a house on the rue de Rivoli. Luz’s stomach did a somersault. It was nerves, and right underneath that was anticipation. Apparently, she was hiding it more poorly than she thought, because soon she had Manu’s arm around her waist and Aurora’s tight grip on her shoulder.
“He can’t get any of your inheritance. This is a reasonable, if slightly melodramatic, solution to your problem,” Aurora said in a valiant attempt to bolster her.
