Page 44 of Dare to Love a Duke
“No, I do.” The child pushed up from her desk and, carrying a battered book, marched up to him. She eyed Tom as he towered over her.
Immediately, he crouched down so their gazes were level. God, but her eyes were serious, holding a wealth of experience that he could never possess.
Gravely, she opened her book and in a slow, faltering voice, read aloud. “The prin—, the prin—”
“Principle,” Lucia said gently.
“The principle parts of a flower are the calyx, the corolla, the sta—, the sta—”
“The stamen,” Tom said.
Doggedly, Mary continued. “The stamen, and the pistil.” She shut the book with a decisive snap. “That’s botany. I’m going to be a botanist and study plants.”
“Noble work,” Tom said with a nod, not knowing whether to despair of her chances of making this dream a reality, or applaud her for her determination and ambition.
Lucia approached, and Tom straightened. She set her hand atop Mary’s head. “Everyone’s to continue their studies while I go out and talk with Mr. Tom,” she announced.
“Yes, miss,” the girls chorused. To his surprise, they appeared to do exactly that, dutifully bending over their hornbooks and primers.
When Lucia strode out of the room, Tom followed. They faced each other in the dim stairwell, the light so poor he could barely make out the details of her face. Yet he felt the intensity of her gaze on him, like a hand pressed against the base of his neck.
“They’re like me,” Lucia said. “No family, no home. No one to care about them.”
Thinking on it now, he’d heard a touch of the streets in her voice. She’d lived a life he had never, and would never, comprehend, and the realization humbled him. The woman who stood before him now was regal and proud, having earned every jewel in her crown.
“You care.” He folded his arms across his chest and looked around the stairwell. The floor was warped or missing pieces entirely. “How long?”
She glanced up at the stairs climbing to the next story, her gaze both sad and determined. “I started doing this two years ago. I walked through Bethnal Green, finding girls in the street, the ones that looked the most ragged and neglected. Most of them have one or no parents. They sleep in alleyways or broken-down boardinghouses where they have straw on the floor instead of mattresses, and eat infrequently.”
Lucia rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I said that first day that I’d give them each a seedcake if they came for an hour. They showed up, and some left after that hour. But these other girls, they’re the ones who stayed.” Pride in her tenacious students was evident in her smile.
It was as though a hand gripped his heart. There was so much resolute hope in her smile, so much courage.
No one in Parliament ever wore such a smile.
Then she sobered. “There are always more girls. The hornbooks and primers, the charcoal and paper—those I pay for with my wages from the club.” She exhaled. “It’s not enough. It’s never enough.”
“You’re but one person,” he said gently.
“I’m trying to remedy that.” At his questioning silence, she said, “Since I took over from Mrs. Chalke, the former proprietress, I’ve been saving. Bit by bit, but I’m nearly there.”
He frowned. “Where?”
“To make a place for them,” she said. “A permanent place. Not just a room in a tumbledown Bethnal Green tenement, but a home for them where they can be safe, there’s always something to eat, and where they know that someone believes in them.”
Her voice thickened, and she dashed her knuckles across her eyes. The sight of her tears squeezed him tightly as a vise.
He moved to reach for her, but she stepped slightly away. He pushed back any sense of hurt, understanding that she didn’t want comfort. She wanted to be heard.
“The club is paying for it,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I set aside most of my wages, saving up to pay for rent for wherever the home can find its location. Kitty and Elspeth add a bit when they can. But if the club dies...”
In the dimness, her gaze burned him, and he felt it all the way to his marrow.
“So dies the home.” His breath heaved in and out as everything he’d seen, everything she’d said, leveled him with the force of a hundred cannons. He growled, “Goddamn it, Lucia. You play a dirty game.”
“Life’s a dirty game,” she said without remorse. “The question is, how far is anyone willing to go to win?”
He rubbed at the space between his brows, where pressure built and built, threatening to rend him asunder. “What you’re asking... to stake my family’s reputation...”
