“I’d like to build a sanatorium for young women,” Evan said after a long moment. “One where they are treated kindly, where they can rest, and family can visit. Formymother. My father confined her in one for the wrong reasons, but she was very fragile. I wonder if in her youth such a place could’ve helped her.”
“I,” she said and had to breathe through unfathomable emotions, “I will not abide by anything but seeing your father be absolutely skewered by the two of you.”
“I do not want you in the crosshairs of my father’s ire, Luz Alana. I cannot back away from this, but I will not put you at risk either.” He closed his eyes, mouth in a flat line. “Nothing is more important than this.” His eyes looked like embers. “I don’t want you to go to Heriot Row. I want you and Clarita to stay with me in Queen Street.”
Luz Alana truly regretted not throwing everyone out of her office. “We can discuss this later. We should focus getting through the next day,” she told Evan as she pressed in closer to him, desperate to believe in the yearning she heard in his words.
“It seems my work is done here,” Apollo said, standing from the armchair he’d commandeered. “I must convey myself to visit each of my sisters and inform them they finally have a brother they can boast about.”
“Yes, please leave,” Evan said with a roll of his eyes but kept his arms locked tightly around Luz’s waist.
“Evan!” Luz rebuked her husband.
“Ingratitude is an ugly trait in a spouse, Luz,” Apollo said with feigned regret, making her laugh and Evan growl. “And don’t think for a second I came here to assist you in any way. I was only ensuring you could return your focus to what matters to me.”
Luz suspected that wasn’t entirely true, but she also didn’t think Apollo was quite ready to admit he cared for his brother.
“Please be assured that your brother is poised to receive athoroughaccounting of all my opinions on his behavior in the past week,” she said as she glowered at Evan. For a second he looked almost bashful.
It would be a struggle keeping the flames of her anger at the man.
Apollo departed, though only after impressing upon Aurora a few salacious offers for walks and carriage rides, all of which her friend declined with extreme force. She and Manuela did agree to allow Apollo to escort them back to the house on Queen Street. Luz, and Evan at her side, stood watching them go out into the busy walkway of Princes Street and spryly climb into Apollo’s very well-appointed carriage.
“What do we do now?” Evan asked.
Luz turned on him in a flash and pinned him to the window, finger pressed to his chest.
“Now, Lord Darnick, you will begin a slow and very detailed explanation of why you couldn’t at least reassure me that whatever was happening was not about us.”
He grabbed the finger poking his chest and brought her flush against him.
“Is there anus?”
“There better be, now that you’ve got me embroiled in the biggest scandal of the decade,” she groused but still let him take her mouth. When he finally pulled back after a series of hungry, breath-stealing kisses, his brow was furrowed again.
“I am worried about how my father will react, Luz Alana. He is reckless, and he will punish me with what will hurt me most.”
“I’m not afraid of the Duke of Annan. Justice is important. Seeing your father pay for what he’s done matters. Once that’s over, we will take what’s ours, and we will build, but you need to finish what you’ve started with your brother.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he said, voice full of awe, and for the first time in many days, Luz felt hope again.
“You don’t, but you will, Evan Sinclair.” She pushed onto the tips of her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You will.”
Twenty-Two
“How does one accessorize for the social annihilation of a duke?” Manuela asked distractedly as she glanced at herself in the mirror one more time.
“Two dozen Colombian emeralds dangling from your neck ought to do it,” offered Aurora with a roll of her eyes.
“DoIlook all right?” Luz asked the other women and Clarita, shamelessly fishing for words of reassurance. In answer, Amaranta leaned over to straighten the hem of her dress and then stepped back with a satisfied smile. “Perfect.”
In a few minutes they’d have to depart to Annan House. Luz had been agitated all day, nervous for herself and for Evan. Evan, who had been quiet and resolute since they’d woken up this morning. He had been out of the house at dawn finalizing the last details with his lawyers, who were poised to descend on the duke with what amounted to an avalanche of injunctions and all manner of legal torpedoes. As far as they were concerned, things were at a standstill. The only thing Evan had asked of her was to give him until things with his father were settled before she made a decision about changing her residence to Heriot Row.
There had been no promises or assurances beyond that.
“You look beautiful, friend.” Aurora’s rare display of emotion brought Luz back to the moment. It was probably best not to dwell but rather to focus on getting through this evening. She took another look at herself in the long mirror in her bedchamber and smoothed out the bodice of her dress.
She was wearing her favorite gown. It was another of her cousin’s creations, made in cobalt blue. She’d considered wearing her dress from the House of Worth, but in the end, she’d decided she wanted to walk into that room armed in something made in the Caribbean. She might not have anything to prove, but that did not mean she didn’t like to make a statement when she could.
