Page 23 of A Caribbean Heiress in Paris
She nodded distractedly, then added, “I’m not passing judgment.”
“It’s all right if you were. There is much to judge when it comes to myself and my family.” He spoke the words nonchalantly, as though he fully expected her to have drawn conclusions about him. And she’d certainly started to, but he kept stumping her with his bewildering honesty. “My father takes much pride in our family’s long history of wealth and what he refers to as position.” He practically spat the words. There was a harshness in him she had not seen before. “I don’t pretend it has not benefited me greatly, but much to my father’s chagrin I make it my duty to remind him of just how we happened upon that position.”
Those last words he uttered with such complete derision, she imagined a healthy dose of it was directed at himself. One thing was certain: there was no love lost between Evan and his father.
“My father was from a wealthy Scottish family. His political views, on the role of Scotland in the transatlantic slave trade in particular, made him very unpopular with his kin, you see.” She surprised herself by sharing this intimacy with a virtual stranger.A stranger who has done more for you in a day than your father’s associates.
“Ah,” Evan said in apparent understanding.
“I never met any of them,” she clarified. “We never went to Scotland with him. They never came to see us. In the end, he lived in Hispaniola longer than in Scotland.” Her father had always talked about his homeland with a mix of longing and regret.
She looked up to find Evan patiently waiting for her to continue. “His grandmother left him a generous inheritance, and with that money he left for the Caribbean with the intention of investing in business ventures. That’s how he met my mother. He was the primary investor for the distillery.”
“I figured that your family had owned the distillery for generations—” He stopped abruptly as if he realized what he’d alluded to.
This was as good a time as any to test those particular waters. She’d trained herself to do this in those two years she’d lived in Switzerland. Just face it head-on and say the words.
“You can say it.” She used the practiced, easy tone she’d perfected over the years. She looked straight at him too. Made sure he saw the calm in her face. She didn’t hide from the truth, and she didn’t let anyone who did get very close to her. “If my family had owned the distillery for generations they likely would’ve been slavers.” His cheeks reddened slightly at that, but she continued. “My father was never personally involved in the slave trade, but his family’s fortune was certainly due to it, at least in part.” She affected a perfunctory lift of her shoulder before she continued to the next part. “As do many of the wealthy families in Scotland—all of Great Britain, for that matter.”
She did not quite sayYours included, but she didn’t have to. To his credit, his gaze never wavered from hers. He let that truth sit between them and did not offer a single excuse or attempt in any way to dismiss what she’d said. “On my mother’s side, I am only the third generation that has been able to own land. It’s a point of pride for us that every bottle of Caña Brava has been made by the hands of free people.”
He stopped abruptly, and Luz braced for it. The list of the many ways the colonies had benefited from having the Brits and the Spaniards ravage their people and their land. How they should be grateful for the language and the religion imposed on them. How fortunate they were to be allowed on British soil despite their...inadequacy. Even as she steeled her spine and wondered if she’d just ruined the one chance she had to receive any kind of help in Edinburgh, she realized the thing she was most sorry for was that she wouldn’t be able to remember this afternoon with a smile.
Seconds passed and he’d yet to say a word. He hadn’t let go of her arm—in fact he’d coiled it more firmly around his—which made it so they were pressed together like bookends.
“I will see about getting you a few more meetings with some of the Braeburn’s buyers,” he said in an astonishingly blasé tone and began to walk again. This time it was her who was tempted to stop in the middle of the walkway. She wanted to force him to turn around and look at her, but he continued in that brisk, assured stride. When he spoke he kept his gaze straight ahead. “You are correct, yours is a legacy to be proud of. Mine, on the other hand, only warrants being razed to the ground.”
Only then did he turn to her, and there was something haunted and wild in that honey-colored gaze. It struck her that despite his candor she was likely seeing the real Evan for the first time, and this was a man with his share of demons. She opened her mouth to say something.Thank you, perhaps, orYou took my insulting your ancestors quite well. But he didn’t let her.
“Here we are,” he told her, pointing to what looked like an establishment that attracted a working-class clientele. She peered in through the window and only saw a few wooden tables packed into a very small dining room.
“It looks closed,” she said, glancing at the door.
“It usually is at this time,” he confirmed. “But Monsieur and Madame Fournier will have something for us.” He knocked on the door three times, and after only a moment, a small plump woman with a jovial face and smooth bronzed skin opened the door for him.
“Ah, Monsieur Écosse,” she welcomed Evan with a familiarity that confirmed he was indeed a regular costumer. He greeted their hostess in turn with equal enthusiasm and introduced Luz to Madame Fournier.
“Bonsoir, mademosielle,” the woman said warmly as she ushered them in.
“Bonsoir, madame,” Luz whispered as she took in the cozy interior of the restaurant. It was even smaller than it appeared from outside.
“Vin blanc pour vous?”
Evan nodded, then turned to Luz. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Yes, please,” she said, then caught herself. “Vin blanc pour moi aussi. Merci.”
They were promptly served their wine and offered the plats du jour while Evan playfully responded to their hostess’s questions. Madame Fournier’s English was passable, and Evan’s French could barely get him through placing a lunch order, but it was clear they were old hats at figuring out a way to understand each other.
Luz was once again...charmed.
“She calls youMr. Scotland,” she said, amused, once they were alone.
“I rather like the sound of it in French,” he confessed.
When he’d told her that he kept a table, she had not envisioned this, a tiny family restaurant, with four tables, operated by a Vietnamese woman and her French husband. She’d expected chandeliers, frescoes, lushly covered banquettes. Not this intimate, unassuming room that smelled like good food and freshly oiled wood. It was a place she would probably not consider if she were on her own. But Evan with his fine clothes and his refined air seemed right at home here.
“Tell me more about your land in Santo Domingo,” he prompted, jerking her out of her musings. “What’s it like?” He was leaning in, close enough now that she could smell the dust and sweat from a day walking in the fairgrounds, and just beneath that tobacco and something warmer. Sandalwood, perhaps. She’d never liked the scent of sandalwood, but on him...she finally understood why it was a popular scent. She straightened as she considered what to say about her home. That life seemed so far away.
