Dare to Love a Duke

by Eva Leigh

  His mother’s expression remained stony. But she did not leave the room, and he clung to the minimal consolation this offered.

  “And this was the Duke of Brookhurst’s doing,” Maeve said, turning to face him. “The dissemination of this . . . news.”

  “He did not take kindly to my opposition.” Tom stood and moved to her, carefully testing the tension between them. He silently exhaled when she did not walk away from him.

  “The bastard,” Maeve spat.

  “Language, Maeve Georgiana!” their mother snapped.

  Maeve looked past Tom, her gaze hot as she glared at the duchess. “Beg pardon, Mam. I ought to be more civil when discussing the man who decimated our lives because he felt slighted.”

  “If you had only done as he’d wished, Tom,” their mother said despairingly. “A vote here or there. What would it matter?”

  His jaw firmed, and it was a relief to feel the purity of anger. “It matters, Mam. Because you and Da raised me better than to pander to someone simply because it was the easiest and most self-serving thing to do.”

  “Do not dare lay the blame at my feet, child,” their mother said tightly.

  “I don’t,” he returned, hot, “and I’m not a child. I’m a man, and I take responsibility for my actions. That includes taking a stand for what I believe is right.”

  She stared at him a moment, and the air between them strung taut as a garrote. Slowly, incrementally, the fury left her eyes, and her shoulders sagged.

  God above, but he never wanted to see his mother so disconsolate—and it was made worse by the fact that he was the one to bring her low.

  “But the cost, Tommy lad,” she breathed, and brought her hands up to cover her face.

  In an instant, he was beside her, his arm around her shoulders, and gratitude surged when Maeve hurried over to also embrace their mother.

  “A steep one, to be sure,” he murmured. “But all of us—you, me, Maeve—we’ll endure. We’ll find a way to keep going.”

  “We have each other,” Maeve added, bending her head low so that she looked their mother in the eyes. “And we’re just contrary enough to persist despite whatever that rat-faced Duke of Brookhurst throws at us.”

  He heard his sister’s defiance and a gleam of hope shone within Tom that perhaps there would come a day when their family healed from this terrible wound. Yet he’d never excuse himself—he’d perform penance for the rest of his life.

  Their mother sniffed. “What of Lord Stacey?”

  Maeve’s lower lip trembled. “He’s said nothing. Not a letter or note, and mine to him have gone unanswered.”

  “That whole family is a quantity of bastards,” Tom snarled. He braced himself, waiting for his mother’s remonstrance of his crude language.

  “They are,” she said instead. “Quite a collection of bastards.”

  The three of them chuckled softly, breaking the strained atmosphere. He reached once more toward a spark of hope that they could recover from this trauma. Thank God for his family. They would find a means of healing, standing side by side to face the ostracism that had already begun. He’d shelter them as best he could, and all of them had an abundance of strength to withstand further blows. That was something.

  But it wasn’t enough. Because he had lost Lucia. He’d torn her life apart, shattered her dream, and could not help her reassemble the pieces.

  Chapter 22

  How am I to do this?

  Lucia stood in the hallway outside the tenement room in Bethnal Green, having left off from packing up the Bloomsbury house for a few hours. The books in her arms weighted her down more than they ever had, as if they were made of stone, not paper. She clutched the books tightly to her chest—these last gifts from Tom—squeezing her eyes shut. The girls had to be told, but Santo cielo, she didn’t want to.

  Yet this was a task she had to complete—alone.

  For a brief while, she hadn’t been alone. Tom had been beside her, lending his strength and support in a way that Kitty and Elspeth could not. He’d given her the fortitude of his heart, the steadiness of his presence, and the joy of his body.

  I miss him.

  Her eyes burned, and when a lone tear traced down her cheek, she juggled books from one hand to the other so she might brush it away. A tear could disappear in a moment, wiped off, but the pain remained.

  “Miss Lucia?”

  She opened her eyes to see Mary looking up at her, a crease of worry between her small brows.

  “Hello, Mary,” she said with an attempt at cheer. “Will you help me with these books?”

  When the girl nodded, Lucia handed her a few volumes, and together they walked into the room. Her heart seized as she beheld the half-dozen faces gazing at her, eager to begin the day and their lessons.

  “We’ve a treat today,” she said sunnily. “New books.”

  The girls exclaimed in wonder.

  “Where’d they come from, miss?” “They do look new.” “If there’s one about plants, I want that one.”

  Lucia moved through the room, distributing the texts quickly, as if she wasn’t handing out pieces of her heart.

  “That gentleman from the other week,” she said. “These books are a gift from him. And they are new, so treat them with respect.”

  Reverently, the children opened their books, their fingers tracing above the pages to preserve their cleanliness.

  “I liked him,” Mary announced as she took her seat at her desk. “He was handsome and smelled nice.”

  A broken laugh escaped Lucia. “He did smell nice.” Like spice and coffee and leather, and she longed to inhale him deeply and draw him into herself. Anger at herself bubbled up caustically. She didn’t want to want him, not after all that had happened and her foolish belief that she could put herself before others. “He’s not coming back.”

  The girls nodded, and the looks of resigned acceptance on their faces nearly made Lucia’s knees buckle. They were too used to people coming and going, too familiar with abandonment.

  She stood in front of the desks and exhaled jaggedly. “Bambine, before we begin today’s lessons, there is something I must tell you.”

  Her students gazed at her in expectation.

  “Do you remember how I told you about a place, a place that was warm and dry and there was enough food and books for everyone?”

  “And no rats running over our feet at night,” curly-headed Dora said.

  Lucia prayed for strength, when all she wanted to do was run away and hide herself in some dark place where she could weep and scream and feel the fullness of her grief.

  “Yes, that place,” she said. “It will happen. I promise you that. Only . . .” She swallowed. “It’s going to be a little while longer before it exists.”

  “How long?” Mary demanded.

  Lucia owed them the truth. “I don’t know. Six months . . . a year? I wish I could say, but I cannot.”

  Again, the expressions of calm resignation on their young faces shredded her. It was as though they had never fully believed that this special place for them would ever exist. Another dream that had died before it was born.

  “But this won’t change,” she said, resolve firming her words. “We’ll still meet here every Saturday. I swear to you that our time together is safe.” She placed her hand atop Dora’s head, the texture of the girl’s curls branding into Lucia’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  A few of her students smiled and nodded, but Mary continued to regard her warily. From what Lucia had been able to piece together of the girl’s history, her parents were long dead, and it was left to an older brother to take care of his siblings. But the brother could seldom find work as an unskilled laborer, and often disappeared for days. Mary knew hunger better than satiety.

  “I promise, Mary.” Lucia’s voice throbbed with vehemence.

  Slowly, the girl nodded. She opened her book and read, her lips silently moving.

  Lucia forced herself to smile. She would perse
vere, she would make her dream happen. But, Cristo benedetto, she didn’t know how.

  Damn me. Damn me for loving him.

  Tom climbed the stairs leading to his bedroom, his clothing clinging damply to his body. Despite the pugilism he’d practiced for hours that morning, fury and loss still sieved through him acidly. No matter how hard he threw his punches, no matter how many blows he took, he couldn’t beat the sorrow away. It weighted him down and turned the whole world into a monochrome nightmare.

  All the while, he imagined his opponent to be Brookhurst, and only when he’d knocked his sparring partner down with a vicious blow—causing the poor blighter’s nose to bleed—did he realize how much he channeled his rage against the duke into each punch.

  At the pugilism academy, he’d endured the stares and whispers of other gentlemen also there for a morning’s exercise. Yet their muttering and pointed looks pinged off of him like so many pebbles thrown at a brick facade. They couldn’t touch him. He didn’t give a rat’s arse what they thought of him. But Maeve, his mother—as women, they were more vulnerable to society’s opinion.

  His only consolation was that, in mourning, his mother and sister were not expected to venture out in public. Perhaps by the time they were free to socialize, the scandal might have dissipated. God help him, but he hoped so.

  He reached his bedchamber and lumbered inside. The elegantly furnished room oppressed him, its carpet feeling thick enough to swallow him up, the dark blue walls the same hue as sky just before sunlight disappeared with darkness following.

  Pulling off his shirt and dropping it to the floor, he strode to the bellpull to summon a bath.

  “You should pick that up,” Maeve’s voice said behind him.

  He whirled around before he could tug the bellpull. “Christ almighty, Maeve, you near gave me the apoplexy.”

  His sister bent down and gingerly plucked his soggy shirt from the carpet before flinging it at him. He snatched it before the garment could hit him in the face.

  “When have you concerned yourself with how you discard your clothing?” he asked irritably.

  “We aren’t discussing how I treat my clothes,” she said. “The subject at hand is you.”

  He deliberately dropped the shirt, defiantly glaring at her, then strode to his washstand and poured water into a basin. “I’m a sodding duke. It’s expected of me to be heedless with my wardrobe.” He splashed water on his face before dampening a cloth and rubbing it across his chest.

  “That’s true.” She strolled to his bed and sat on the edge. “But I have heard it said that an untidy bedchamber contributes to one’s disordered mood. And clearly, your mood is disordered.”

  “It’s rather evident why that might be the case,” he threw over his shoulder.

  “Except,” she said with an expert air, “your mood has grown steadily more dour as time passes. You have been able to go out of the house, so while you might be experiencing some social ostracism, it isn’t bad enough to keep you sequestered at home. Further,” she went on, holding up a finger, “you might not be Mam’s favorite person at the moment, but she’s thawing to you. And clearly, I am here, favoring you with my presence—”

  He bowed sardonically. “Much appreciated.”

  “—so I can only conclude that there is more troubling you than this situation with the duke of Brookhurst’s calumny. Well,” she added to herself, “it isn’t exactly calumny, since it’s true. But the idea is the same.” She got to her feet and stood behind him. “Thus, I can only conclude that there is something else making you stomp around the house and punch things at the pugilism academy.”

  Unease prickling along his limbs, he set the washcloth aside. Here he was, thinking he’d been doing an admirable job of hiding his heartbreak, when in fact he had been as obvious as a snarling lion.

  “So . . .” Maeve folded her arms across her chest. “Who is she?”

  His stomach clenched. Fuck. Here was the trouble with having an astute sibling. Briefly, he considered denying it, but Maeve was tenacious, and she merited the truth.

  Slowly, he faced his sister. “The woman who managed the club. She and I . . .” His words ground to a halt. Astute Maeve might be, but there was no way in hell that he’d divulge the details of his sexual life with her.

  Yet she nodded with understanding. “You were lovers.”

  What a flimsy way of saying that Lucia had become everything to him. He’d delighted in her body, yet it had been the moments when they had simply been together that resonated like music. The happiness she’d given him had brought light into his life, and now that it was gone, there was no way out of the shadows.

  “Yes,” he said after a moment. “We were lovers. But,” he continued, his voice roughening, “because of me, she lost her employment, and . . . her dream.”

  As a boy, he had climbed the stony exterior of the Kerry manor house, but he’d slipped and fallen. Fortunately, nothing was broken, but he’d sprained the hell out of his ankle. And how he’d howled—until his nurse Clodagh had quieted him.

  There now, gasúr, she’d said, gathering him up in her sturdy arms. Tomorrow, you might hurt a little, but ’twill be better than today. And the day after that will be even better, and so on, till the pain is gone and you can’t imagine you ever felt it.

  Clodagh had been right. The pain had lessened, bit by bit, and within a fortnight, he had raced around the manor’s grounds as if nothing had happened.

  So he’d believed that all pain eventually faded until it disappeared entirely. Even his grief for his father, present as it was, didn’t sink talons into him quite as deeply as it had. That hurt might never fully go away, but it eased.

  That, he had believed, was the way of pain. In time, it lessened.

  He was wrong.

  Each moment without Lucia was a new agony, as if he was Prometheus eternally chained to a rock as a beast tore him open. Except with the titan, he’d only lose his liver. Tom continually had his heart ripped from his chest. Again and again.

  “I see,” Maeve said, breaking into his thoughts. “You love her.”

  Tom lurched like he’d taken a body blow. “I don’t—” His denial ground to a halt.

  Love. Was that what he felt? This constant demand to be in Lucia’s presence? This need to breathe her in as though she was air and without her, he’d die? She was . . . she was everything. Life had no savor without her. It was flavorless and devoid of color. The thought of ever touching another woman repelled him. He wanted her. Only her. Now, and for the rest of his days.

  “I do,” he finally said. “I do love her. So much.”

  Just speaking it aloud confirmed what he already knew. He loved Lucia, and if he could, he’d devote all his energies to making her happy. Her joy was his joy.

  “I’m glad,” Maeve said, a bittersweet note in her words. “I’m glad one of us can be in love.”

  He reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I am so sorry about Lord Stacey.”

  She blinked back moisture in her eyes. “Me, too. I’d hoped . . . but I was wrong.” His sister shook her head, as if to dispel her sorrow. “Let’s talk of your lady. Does she know how you feel?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said bleakly. “As I said, I cost her not only her employment, but her dream.”

  “What is it you want from her?”

  “From her? Nothing. But I would give her everything if I could.”

  “Everything?” Maeve regarded him. “Even your name?”

  Could he? Marry a woman with no connections, no family. A commoner.

  Having her with him always—that’s what he desired. He blazed with the need to spend every moment with her, to journey through life beside her. Raise a family with her. Grow old with her.

  To bind himself to her for all of this world, and into the next.

  But she would not have him—the last words from her lips had been to send him away.

  Devastating weight pressed down on him, and he couldn�
�t find the means to push back against it. He didn’t want to. It would forever be his sacrament.

  Maeve frowned in thought, tapping a finger of her free hand against her chin. “What if . . . you could make her dream come true?”

  He rocked back on his heels.

  A solution presented itself with sudden clarity. If the club was closing, it meant the house in Bloomsbury now stood empty. It belonged to him. He could do anything with it. Including transform it from a site of illicit pleasure into a place of learning. The school Lucia had dreamed of would live. He could make it happen for her, for the girls she wanted to help.

  Could he—? Might it be possible?

  He was a goddamned duke. He could make anything happen.

  Or so he hoped.

  “I know what I have to do.” He straightened, gently tugging his hand from Maeve’s. “I know how to fix everything.”

  Step one. Give Lucia her dream—a home for girls.

  Step two. Find a way to alter the facts so he could prove Brookhurst wrong, and restore the Powell family’s reputation.

  Step three.

  Oh, God. Step three. The most terrifying step of all. But worth the risk.

  Step three. Ask Lucia to marry him.

  The very idea struck him with blinding force. For all his years, he’d believed that when he did marry, it would be a strategic alliance with a woman of rank. Love would never be a part of that union. That was the way of it for dukes and other aristocrats. Duty before heart.

  Wedding a commoner, and one not fully English, presented a massive break with tradition. Of a certain, doors would close to them, despite his rank. But he had allies, and the might of generations of Dukes of Northfield behind him. He would find a way to ensure Lucia got everything she wanted, everything she deserved.