Page 39 of A Caribbean Heiress in Paris
Manu, in one of those moments of shattering acuity, leaned in and whispered in her ear. “It’s perfectly fine to want this for more than just your inheritance, querida.”
Luz only shook her head, swallowing down her useless denial.
“You deserve to have a man who looks at you like he did the night of the soirée.”
“That’s just lust,” Luz insisted.
Manuela made a noise of frustration and then spoke again in an uncharacteristically impatient tone. “Men like Darnick always have choices, Leona. It would be in your best interest not to forget thatyouare his.”
Luz’s head was still ringing with her friend’s words when she raised the door knocker to negotiate her marriage of convenience with the Earl of Darnick.
“Let me see if I have this right,” Raghav drawled as he pierced a bite of kipper with this fork. “You’ve asked Luz Alana to marry you, she’s said yes, and you plan to elope to Scotland leaving me to deal with the rest of the exposition alone.”
Murdoch, who was also sitting at the table, shook his head. “Given that, according to my cousin, this is strictly a business negotiation, it’s imperative to be precise about the details.” Evan rolled his eyes at Murdoch’s taunting. “He did extend an offer of marriage to Miss Heith-Benzan. However, when he sent a carriage yesterday to her residence, she instructed the footman to relay upon the Earl of Darnick that she would convey herself to his home when she was ready.”
Raghav made an alarming choking noise while Evan glared at his cousin.
“The more I learn about Luz Alana the more I like her,” Evan’s business partner said when he finally was able to speak.
Evan had the same problem. He hadn’t seen her in the two days since the soirée, and his mind—as busy as it was—kept returning to the rum heiress. The last two mornings he’d roused from a fitful slumber to a raging cockstand and lingering dreams of a golden beauty astride his hips, moaning her pleasure in Spanish.DominicanSpanish, he corrected himself, and his lips turned up at the memory of the heiress’s explanation of what was on her tongue whenever she spoke in her native language.
With great effort, Evan redirected his attention back to his table companions.
“It’s an ideal solution. I need a wife to obtain the distillery. She needs a husband to gain control of her inheritance. Highly convenient for both of us.” He knew his casual tone was not fooling either of the two men, but the alternative was to confess he’d talked himself out of going to Luz Alana’s town house three times just that morning, and he did not need their ribbing on top of everything.
“Are you sure that’s all there is?” Raghav asked with aggravating perspicuity.
“What else could there possibly be?”
“Oh come off it, Evan,” Murdoch said with a laugh. “I saw the way you looked at her at the soirée. For God’s sake, man, you were acting like a sodding bloodhound. You nearly pissed a circle around her once you got her in your sights.”
“Sod off.” Evan could not muster much heat in his denial, since Murdoch’s assessment was not very far from the truth. There was something in Luz Alana that called to a visceral part of himself Evan scarcely understood. He was not a savior; he never had been, not even with Charlotte. But for all the self-sufficiency Luz Alana exuded, there was this air of forlornness in her that he found irresistible. That night at the tower, it had been nearly impossible to walk away from her. Evan was still mulling over that when a cacophony of yelps and howls shattered the last of his hopes at a peaceful morning.
“What is this I hear about a betrothal?”
Evan emitted a pained groan at the sound of his sister Beatrice’s booming voice. That could only mean that Adalyn and her pack of feral dachshunds were not far behind.
“Did you do this?” he asked, glaring at Murdoch.
“I went for a ride in the Bois de Boulgone with Gerard at sunrise,” Murdoch offered innocently, eyes shining with repressed mirth.
“This is why I didn’t tell you—” Evan didn’t finish his sentence because in the next second he was set upon by his two sisters, a toddler and three extremely energetic sausage-shaped dogs.
“Bea, Addy, have a heart, I’ve barely touched my cup of coffee.”
“We’ll be very gentle with your nerves, brother,” Beatrice assured him as she placed her hat on an armchair, then handed him his thirteen-month-old niece before walking around the table proffering kisses, while Addy fed her demonic canines his bacon.
“She is so lovely, Evan,” Adalyn contributed, as if the few glimpses she’d had of Luz Alana were sufficient to make a full assessment of her. This was the kind of meddling that Evan usually quashed the moment his sisters attempted to interfere in his private affairs.
The curious thing was that this time, he actually wanted to know what Addy thought of Luz. He suspected Adalyn, with her women’s rights crusades and rebellious spirit, would get on with Luz Alana. He envisioned them all in a cozy room, fire roaring in the hearth, Adalyn playing some of those Caribbean composers Luz Alana loved on the pianoforte, dancing, laughter...absurd things that would never happen because he wasn’tmarryingLuz Alana Heith-Benzan, he was entering into a business arrangement.
“Oh my, are these reveries happening often?” Bea’s feigned concern rudely pulled Evan out of his thoughts.
“Chronically.” That from his soon-to-be-former best friend.
“Do you not have anything better to do?” he asked his newly arrived guests, taking a seat in one of the smaller chairs, since Beatrice had claimed the one that belonged to the master of the house.
“Better than hearing about your proposing to a woman who you met days ago?” This time the astonishment was not feigned.
