One
Paris, June 1889
Manuela del Carmen Caceres Galvan was a failure.
An absolute, unequivocal, dismal failure. It was the only title one could use for a person who, after three weeks in a city known the world over for its endless supply of debauchery, remained thoroughly undebauched.
And she was running out of time. In six weeks she would have to return to Venezuela to be married. With every minute that passed, the Parisian bacchanalia she’d fantasized about from the moment she’d agreed to enter into a loveless marriage slipped further away from her. Matters were truly arriving at a critical point, and she was determined to act.
It wasn’t that Manuela was being forced into a union she reviled. On the contrary, she’d accepted Felix Bernard Kingsley’s offer eagerly, as was her duty. It was true that Felix didn’t possess much when it came to charm or family name. And he was not exactly an accomplished conversationalist or what one would call handsome or particularly interesting. But one attribute he did possess was the very one Manuela’s parents valued above others: a very large fortune and no compunction whatsoever when it came to buying himself a beautiful bride with the right connections.
Marriage to a man who at the precise moment he’d asked for her hand informed her she should not expect fidelity was not exactly the stuff of fairy-tale endings. But twenty-eight years of witnessing her parents move through life as if consequences were merely abstract concepts had made Manuela a pragmatist and a realist. Pretty girls from families with unfortunate finances and very expensive tastes existed solely to secure advantageous attachments, after all.
She knew who she was.
Which was why when unexciting Felix with his perennially damp hands asked for hers in marriage, instead of dwelling on what she was giving up, Manuela smiled and nodded and thought about the injection of cash into her father’s business. She imagined what colors she’d choose for the dozen gowns from the House of Worth Felix promised she could buy in Paris. She comforted herself with the knowledge that her parents could never again blame her for ruining the family.
In truth, considering her less-than-stellar options, she was quite content with her lot, and she still had a few weeks of freedom. Because despite the precariousness of her circumstances, before she’d allowed Felix to slide his gaudy ring on her finger, she’d made him promise to send her to Paris to procure her trousseau. It just so happened her two oldest and dearest friends from finishing school would be in Paris in their own pursuits. Luz Alana attempting to launch her rum Caña Brava into European markets, and Aurora endeavoring to forge some connections with other lady physicians. That two of Manuela’s own paintings had been selected for the Exposition Universelle was the final sign that she was destined to enjoy her last months in the city of love before her impending nuptials.
Her parents, who’d never cared much for Manuela’s artistic bent, were less receptive to her plan than Felix—who had been suspiciously eager to send her away for the summer—but Manuela had anticipated their protests. She sorted that minor hiccup by pointing out to Consuelo and Prospero Caceres that the best way to rub their restored financial glory in their peers’ faces was to announce that their daughter would be embarking in a lavish, months-long Parisian shopping spree. She’d boarded a ship to Paris the following month. The first three weeks had involved a barrage of fittings at the modistes and conveying herself to what seemed like every housewares shop in the city to select from an ungodly number of curtains, rugs, wine goblets and tea sets, but now with that drudgery out of the way, she was finally free to enjoy herself.
An auspicious step in the right direction was finding herself at Le Bureau this evening. The notorious brothel, she’d been informed, offered among many other things meeting spaces for women seeking the company of other women. It took weeks of wheedling to convince her friends to accompany her on an exploratory mission, but the minute they’d walked in, Luz Alana had run off with Aurora in search of the owners of the pleasure palace, pursuing a business connection. Manuela understood her friend was under enormous pressure to secure some funds and had let her go, but she didn’t have all night. They would have to return home eventually. Their cousin Amaranta had so far been the most lenient of chaperones during their time in Paris, but even she would take issue with them arriving home at dawn when they were supposed to be taking in an opera at the Théâtre Lyrique. Which was why she’d had to commandeer Antonio—Aurora’s cousin who lived in Paris—for her expedition to the upper floor.
“You are sure there are entertainments to my specifications up here?” she asked her companion, who responded to her question by pointing at the red-papered walls. The lighting in Le Bureau was kept low enough that she had to put her face very close to the wall to make out the drawings, but once she did, she gasped with utter delight.
“Oh my,” she said, the words rolling out of her like a purr while she ran her gloved hands over the black lines depicting couples engaged in a delightful array of erotic activities. One in particular displayed two women locked in a sensual embrace that made a shiver inch up her spine. It was so bold, so blatantly explicit, Manuela found herself a bit light-headed.
“Antonio, this is depraved,” she whispered reverently, extending a finger to trace the lines of the sketch. Everything about this place was a fantasy, including the women etched in the paper: she knew this. But for a moment she allowed herself the luxury of wondering what it would be like to have that. A lover who would lay her on the grass for lazy, toe-curling kisses. A life and love that could live and breathe in the sun.
“No seas pendeja, Manuela,” she muttered, giving herself a swift mental kick in her ample nalgas. She walked away from the idyllic lovers. Her musings, like the figures on the wall, were chimeras, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find a very satisfactory way to spend this evening. No time for sentimentality when there was vice and perdition to chase down.
“Let’s go, Antonio,” she urged her friend, as she pulled her small watch from her bodice and winced. “We have less than an hour before Luz Alana and Aurora start looking for us.” She should’ve never agreed to Aurora’s request to reconvene at midnight. It was ridiculous to expect her to get anything truly outrageous done with this kind of time constraint. “How am I supposed to make any progress in my utter corruption if I am only allowed mere minutes?” It truly was the outside of enough.
“This is Paris, my dear.” Antonio reassured her with a pat on her back. “You won’t have to toil long to find at least a dozen ways in which to permanently stain your soul,” Antonio quipped happily, which did amuse her.
“Then, enough dallying, Antonio. Lead me to sin!” She clapped her hands with all the passion of a soldier rearing to be led into a battle as she ran up the stairs with her guide to the demimonde cackling behind her.
But this was no laughing matter. This was the city of sin, for goodness’ sake, and the worst one she’d committed so far was accidentally exposing an ankle while avoiding a puddle. Tonight she would disgrace herself in some capacity, or there would be hell to pay.