The two weeks until the wedding had seemed like eons to Emilia, but they kept so busy with preparations, the day arrived before she knew it.
Susana and Emilia had talked all through their last night in their shared bedroom, and there were dark circles under her eyes as they helped each other dress like they’d done every day of their lives.
“What will Luis think?” Emilia teased, stepping into her dress.
Susana laughed and said, “I’d have made a very poor choice of husband if something as trifling as dark circles could put him off marrying me.”
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do that would put him off marrying you,” Emilia said. She waited until Susana had fastened the buttons at the back of her dress before going to the drawer and finding the small box she’d nestled among her shawls. “I thought you might like to wear Mama’s pearls today.”
Susana’s eyes misted over. “I’m sorry,” she said, as Emilia fished in another drawer for a handkerchief, “It’s just that I’d always thought Mama would be here for this.”
Not a day passed when Emilia didn’t miss her mother, but she couldn’t allow Susana to dwell on melancholy.
“Well, if you need to know what happens on the wedding night, all you need to do is read my stories,” she said with a grin, meeting her sister’s eyes in the mirror as she turned and bent her head so that Emilia could fasten the pearls around her neck. She’d polished them the night before and they gave off a lovely gleam against Susana’s ivory dress.
“There’s no need,” Susana said, looking prim. “I have a general idea of how these things work.”
“Good,” Emilia returned. “Because if not, I was going to draw you a diagram.”
Susana laughed, but sobered almost immediately. “I hate the thought of leaving you. You’re a terrible housekeeper and an even worse cook. You’ll starve without me to look after you. And Papa--”
Emilia waved Susana’s words aside. “Are you happy?”
“Very happy,” Susana confessed.
“Then that’s all that matters. I’ll be fine and Papa will be fine. I asked Mrs. Herrera’s sister to come in every day and cook for him and do some light cleaning.” Susana raised an eyebrow at Emilia. “All right, she’ll do all the cleaning. But I’ll be here to keep him company and, after all, this way he won’t be subjected to my cooking.”
“I suppose that’ll work nicely. Besides,” Susana added, “I don’t suppose you’ll remain in the house for much longer. Soon you’ll be married yourself. Have you and Ruben decided where you’re going to stay?”
Emilia lowered the veil over her sister’s face. “Not yet,” she said, a small smile hovering at the corners of her lips. It didn’t matter. Wherever they ended up, they had each other’s company to look forward to.
Chapter 26
The day after Luis and Susana’s wedding, while the newlyweds finished settling into their new home, Ruben found himself inside a closet, his ear to the door.
His heart was hammering inside his chest and not only because Emilia was pressed against his side. She was wearing the blue dress she’d worn the time they’d gone swimming in the lagoon and though it called up some memories that Ruben would have been happy to revisit at any other time, just now they were intent on what was happening outside the closet, in Cristobal Mendez’s office.
“You won’t regret this, Mendez,” Manuel Vega was saying. “Blanco y Negro is more successful than ever. You should make out all right, even after dividing the proceeds with Torres.”
The office was quiet enough that Emilia could hear the faint scratch of his pen as he signed the documents that had been drawn up by Ruben’s father’s lawyer.
Posing as Cristobal’s man of business, he was overseeing the proceedings to make sure nothing went awry. “One last signature here, Mr. Vega,” he murmured. There was a long pause. “Everything seems to be in order.”
“Congratulations, Mendez,” Vega said, and Emilia could hear the slap of a hand against a shoulder or an arm. “You’ve got yourself a paper.”
Giving Ruben’s hand a quick squeeze, Emilia burst out of the closet. “I’m sorry to tell you your congratulations are misplaced, Vega,” she said, and Ruben could have laughed at the expression on Manuel’s face. It was just as well that he was sitting. Emilia marched around the desk, ignoring both Manuel and Cristobal’s looks of intense dislike, and pretended to look over the documents the lawyer was holding. “Just as I thought. It’s Ruben you should be congratulating.”
Manuel went pale— no small feat, as his skin was brown and burnished darker by the sun. He turned and saw Ruben standing by the open closet door.
“That sounds about right,” Ruben said.
“Your name was nowhere in the contract,” Manuel said.
“Not in those,” Ruben agreed. “But Mr. Guerrero here has another set of contracts with which Cristobal sells his newly acquired shares to me.”
Manuel looked murderous but he gave a creditable attempt at nonchalance. “I couldn’t care less who keeps the damned paper as long as I get a fair share. The paper wouldn’t be half so profitable without my exposé so I’m entitled to—”
“Actually,” Ruben said, “seeing as your exposé would never have been written without Emilia and her stories, she’s entitled to the proceeds. You’re entitled to whatever Mr. Guerrero saw fit to give you, which I’m sure was more generous than you deserve.”
Mr. Guerrero laid a bank draft on the desk. “These are the terms you agreed to when you thought you were selling to Mr. Mendez,” he said.
Manuel didn’t look down. “We were partners,” he told Ruben angrily. “We built this paper from nothing. Do you really think this is what I deserve?”
“No, Manuel,” Ruben said. “You deserve so much more and I’m sure San Miguel will make sure you get it.”
Cristobal started, and Emilia gave him a tight smile. “You gentlemen might want to have a conversation about something other than me every once in a while. If you had, you might have found you have some things in common, like an acquaintance with that honorable fellow.”
Mr. Guerrero cleared his throat. “I really must insist you sign for the draft now, Mr. Vega.”
Until then, Ruben had been so angry at Manuel’s betrayal he hadn’t let himself think about all they’d shared. Now, however, as he looked at Manuel, he felt some of the anger and triumph fading and a feeling very much like grief settling in. Grief for his and Manuel’s friendship and for all the good moments they’d had and the work they’d done together.
“Take the money and go, Manuel,” he said. “You can make a fresh start in Guatemala or Costa Rica or somewhere where San Miguel won’t be able to find you.” Ruben turned away, reaching for Emilia. “Let’s go. Mr. Guerrero can finish up here.”
There were only a handful of places in Arroyo Blanco where two people could hold a private conversation, and La Tacita wasn’t one of them. Emilia could hear the murmur of voices grow louder as she and Ruben walked in the door, as it had done since the day of the book fair.
They found an empty table towards the back. Emilia slid into the chair Ruben held out for her, ignoring the whispers and focusing instead on Ruben. He had been quiet since they’d left Mendez & Co. She felt nothing but relief that they were done with the whole business and she hadn’t stopped to think that Ruben might not feel the same way. Vega, after all, had been his friend as well as his business partner and his betrayal must have hurt.
“Are you all right?” she asked quietly. A waitress in a blue-striped uniform approached them, a coffee pot in her hand and a curious gleam in her eye. Emilia waved her away and the girl complied, obviously disappointed.
Ruben rubbed the back of his head. “I have something to confess. Manuel didn’t sign his shares over to me. He signed them over to you.”
“Me?” Surprise unfurled inside Emilia’s chest. Surprise and, yes, delight.
What she’d told Ruben about not knowing any men who’d want a writer for a wife was tr
ue. And here he was, not only willing to put up with it but encouraging it.
“You once said you could make something out of the paper. So I was wondering if you’d like to step in as editor in chief. I mean to make this a true partnership. In more ways than one, if you’ll have me.”
“I already said I’ll have you for a husband,” Emilia said, heaving a mock sigh, “I suppose I might as well have you as a boss. In for a penny, and all that.”
“Business partner, not boss,” Ruben corrected her. “Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to the second order of business.” Ruben reached out to touch the cuff of her shirtwaist which, she noticed as she followed his movement with her gaze, was stained with ink and coffee. “I want to kiss you.”
“Here?” She looked around the room. Most of the people sitting among the marble-topped tables were staring, and making no secret of it. “Now?”
“Well, you did say once that you didn’t care for conventional notions of propriety.”
“Is that a challenge, Mr. Torres?”
“A Modern Woman would never back down from one.” He gave her that smile she liked, the one that was full of mischief and wickedness and desire and affection.
“Well, I do have a reputation for scandal I ought to maintain.”
He was sitting in a patch of sunshine, which made his eyes look brighter and more luminous. She felt all lit up herself, as if she would start radiating brightness any moment. She didn’t wait for Ruben to kiss her, but leaned in herself and touched her lips to his.
“Are they shocked?” he murmured.
Emilia didn’t bother to look around. An astonished hush had fallen over the room when their lips met and a second later, the whispering started again, louder than before. She sat back in her chair, giving Ruben a satisfied look. “That’ll hold them for a while.”
“I have to return to Ciudad Real soon,” Ruben told her, stroking her hand. “Violeta cabled me this morning to tell me that our father has had a relapse. But Emilia, this time…I was wondering if you would go with me.”
“I think I can do that,” she said.
“Only I believe you’ll have to marry me first, as I’m not one to overstep the bounds of propriety.”
“That, Mr. Torres, can easily be arranged.” He was smiling, and Emilia felt an answering smile bloom over her face.
“If I’d known all it would take to make you marry me was to name you editor of the magazine, I would have done it much sooner.” He pretended to wince when Emilia slapped his arm, then pulled her in for another kiss.
Epilogue
“It’s on her desk, she says,” Ruben Torres muttered in dismay as he stood in the study he shared with his wife. “That would be more helpful if the entire contents of the Ciudad Real Public Library were not on the blasted desk.”
Less than a month had passed since their tiny wedding in Arroyo Blanco’s courthouse. What with the ceremony, their hasty move to Ciudad Real when his father’s health had taken a turn for the worth, and the massive amount of work they’d put in to turn Blanco y Negro into a respectable publication, they’d had no time to get their things in order. Their combined income had allowed them to move from Ruben’s cramped quarters and into a roomy apartment not too far from his family’s house, but despite the extra room, their new quarters were bursting with crates and boxes and endless piles of books and manuscripts. Emilia’s desk, in particular, which they’d crammed beside his, was towering with books, somewhere among which was the black-bound notebook with the story she’d been correcting for him.
There. Spotting a plain black spine in the jumble of books that had been jammed into the open cupboard he’d fixed above Emilia’s desk, Ruben reached to tug it free.
Whereupon half the contents of the cupboard came tumbling on his head.
He rubbed his forehead, which had caught the edge of Emilia’s dictionary. His next action would have been to pick up the fallen books, but when he went to do so he caught sight of the postcards that had fluttered onto the desktop. His first impulse was to give thanks for his unconventional, surprising, scandalous wife. His second, to find her post-haste and coax her into recreating some of the naughtier poses shown in the photographs.
Fortunately, Emilia found him first.
Bursting into the study, she hastened to his side. “What can be taking you so—Oh!”
Ruben turned to her. She was so close her breasts brushed against his upper arm, and it took all his restraint to keep from ripping her shirtwaist open and pressing his face between them. Well, his restraint and the certainty that she would scold him for weeks on end if he tore off any more of her buttons. His wife did not enjoy sewing them back on, and she never hesitated to voice her displeasure with the task. It was one reason why he was learning how to do it himself. “You never told me you had inspiration for Valeria’s adventures.”
“Didn’t I?” she returned, casting her eyelashes down in a move that would have been demure if he hadn’t caught the wicked gleam in her eyes. “I suppose I must have forgotten. I’m a very busy woman, you know.”
“And a very wicked one,” he murmured into her ear as he shuffled the postcards, pausing on one that looked promising.
Emilia moved a fraction closer. “Do you feel about wicked women as you do modern ones?”
“Only if they happen to be married to me,” Ruben said, and grinned when Emilia bumped him.
“Good answer,” she said approvingly, reaching up to twine her arms around his neck. “Now—about the postcards. Have they inspired you as well?”
Ruben cupped her ass, pulling her sharply against him so that she could feel just how inspired he was. “Inspired enough to write a treatise on your excellent bottom and all the things I’d like to do to it.”
Interest and desire flared in her eyes. “Shall we go get started on it?”
“I thought you were a very busy woman.”
“I can find some time to help my husband with his, ah, literary endeavors.” She moaned against his ear as he pulled up the back of her skirt and his hands, to his delight, found bare flesh instead of cotton drawers.
“How very kind of you, Mrs. de Torres,” he murmured. A smart slap against her terse skin and she was clinging to his neck, her face buried in the collar of his shirt. He had discovered that reaction on one of the nights leading up to their wedding and it never failed to amuse him—or arouse him. “Would you care to do me another kindness?”
“I’m a generous soul,” Emilia gasped. “I would do you a multitude of kindnesses.”
“So will I.” He reached far enough to slip a finger inside her, sliding easily into her slick warmth. “A multitude of them. Only do me a favor first and get into bed—I’d take you right here but I’m afraid of what else might fall on my head if I do.”
She nodded breathlessly and turned to lead the way into the bedroom, but he caught her by the arm and pressed what he’d quickly determined to be his favorite postcard. “Don’t forget this. I have a feeling we’ll find ourselves in need of some more inspiration before the day is out.”
Her lips curled into that smile he loved—half amused and half impish, and full of affection—and her hand closed around the square of cardboard. “Only one? Are you pacing yourself, Mr. Torres?”
“I thought it was prudent. After all, we’ve still quite a number of years to go.”
“We’ve an eternity,” she said, her gaze soft.
Ruben slid his arm around his wife’s waist and, together, they walked into the bedroom.
Thanks for reading!
For questions and comments, you can find me on my website, lydiasanandres.com, on Twitter @lydiaallthetime and on Goodreads as Lydia San Andres.
* * *
Can’t get enough of Arroyo Blanco? Stay on the lookout for A Summer for Love, a short story about Luis and Susana’s courtship during the events of A Summer for Scandal.
* * *
The next book in the Arroyo Blanco series, A Time for Desire, will be availab
le in 2017. In the meantime, you can find A Season for Wishes, an Arroyo Blanco Christmas novella, at the retailer of your choice.
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A Summer for Scandal Page 22
