Page 55 of Plucked By the Orc

Her fight with Duncan ran through Iris’s thoughts. Much as she didn’t want to think about it, if she kept her feelings inside, they would fester and erupt, not in any way that was healthy or good.

“A grand idea, that. Let’s find a place to get a cuppa.”

“Iris. ‘Ya know I can’t.”

Iris had just looped her hand over her friend’s arm when she stopped and bit her bottom lip. Lot wouldn’t have extra money for a tea shop. “I’ll pay for us, Lot. I’ve the coin.”

“None of that charity now.”

Lottie sounded like Iris had sounded when she declined Duncan’s offer of charity. Stubborn and full of pride. But she understood because she had once been in the same situation.

“Maybe we could sit in a park then. If it’s not too cold for you?”

“Now, ‘ave ya ever known me to be too cold, Iris Gabbert? Stop delain’ and tell me what’s wrong.”

Iris related what happened between her and Duncan, sparing no details regarding their intimacy. As she spoke, her friend’s eyes grew bigger.

“Is it …?” Lottie paused and snapped her fingers as though trying to summon the words from thin air. “… different from bein’ with a human man?”

“How do you think I should knowthat, Lottie Greenstreet?”

Lottie held her palms out. “I thought ya took a tumble with Tompkins a time or two. But I would never judge.”

“I know you would not. My experience with human men was limited indeed. But I know what I felt. Duncan and I fit like a hand in a glove.”

“And ya got to talkin’ like him. Elegant and the like.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Indeed.” Lottie patted Iris’s hand. “But if ‘yer so ‘appy together, why the bother?”

Iris shook her head. “Everything was well and good for a while. But then I felt … a stronger sentiment.”

“Struck with some feelins’ for ‘im, were ya?”

The heat of a blush bloomed on her cheeks, even in the cold. Deep down, her heart was breaking.

Iris thought of his lips trailing the side of her throat and the back of her ears. His hands caressing her breasts and then drifting down to the center of pleasure in her body. Still, that was a far cry from him bending down on one knee and offering a ring and his undying love if they did such things in his Hidden Realm.

Could they stick so closely to their strange hierarchies when an orc could take such a woman and pass her off in society as a fine lady? The subject has been a challenge, to say the least, but one I feel equal to.

When it came to it, he would never want to tie himself to Iris Gabbert. Not if the lines in his book were to be believed.

“I tried to get him to let you stay with us, I did,” Iris said, trying to regain the old cadence of her voice and feeling like she was failing. “He told me no. Can you imagine?”

“To be fair, the invitation weren’t yours to offer,” Lot said.

“That’s why I asked!”

“But I can’t think he’s keen to open an ‘otel for every woman with a hard luck story. He’s too respectable. He’s having a rough enough time keeping the likes of you under wraps, I’m thinkin.’”

“He wouldn’t even let you visit.”

Lottie raised her eyebrows, and as Iris said the words, she realized they weren’t exactly true. They fell into an argument before any of that was resolved, all because Iris had gotten her feelings hurt when he used the phrase “subject of study.”

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? They were from two worlds, and that was that. There was no understanding him on her part any more than he could understand her.

“I guess he might have relented to a visit,” Iris told her friend. “Eventually. But the truth of it is I’ve been distracted. I’m sorry, I am. But it’s almost over. I’ll be coming back to join you in Lambeth, and I’ll be makin’ sure we start the shop as we planned.”

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