Page 55 of Dare to Love a Duke
“Mutton stew. With potatoes and parsnips.”
He exhaled with relief that she hadn’t added,Your Grace,and rubbed his hands together. “The smell is heavenly, and I fear I’ll humiliate myself by devouring it with unseemly haste.”
A blush stained Jenny’s already pink cheeks. “We’ve quince tarts to follow.”
Tom groaned. “Madam, you are diabolical. Quince tarts are my weakness.”
“No one can best Jenny’s quince tarts,” Lucia said confidently. “She even makes mepastierafor Easter.”
“Not as good as they do in Naples, I’d wager,” Jenny said with a dismissive wave.
Lucia smiled. “Maybe even better.” She glanced around the room. “But we’ll sing your praises after we eat.”
She sank down onto the bench. The male staff took their seats, and Tom lowered himself beside her. There wasn’t ample space at the table, making his shoulder bump hers, and the length of his thigh fit snugly along her leg.
You’re here to work and think.But his pulse wouldn’t listen, and it rushed through him to have her so close.
Talk started back up again as the men and women who worked at the Orchid Club gossiped, teased, and told stories. Elspeth and Kitty sat beside each other, taking turns holding Liam as the cook and her assistants circulated around the table, ladling up stew and filling mugs with small beer.
Tom turned to the lad sitting next to him. “How came you to work here?”
“Most days I’m an apprentice to a stonemason,” the bloke answered. “But a mate of mine, he said there was a place in Bloomsbury where the money was good and they treated you nice so long as you didn’t shirk, and didn’t mind an eyeful of folks joining giblets. That is,” he said, reddening as he glanced at Lucia, “guests having amorous relations with each other.”
Lucia gave a small laugh. “Gordon! I make my living watching people rut. No need to guard your tongue around me.”
Tom chuckled. “And I like your way of saying it better.Joining giblets—that’s a new one.”
“I got another for you, sir,” another man said from the other end of the table. “Dancing the blanket hornpipe.”
“Or a buttock ball,” Jenny threw in.
Within moments, everyone at the table shouted their favorite expressions for sex and roared with laughter.
“Inzuppare il biscotto,” Lucia said. “‘Dunking the biscuit.’”
Saints and sinners, but Tom liked hearing her say filthy things. It aroused him, heating his blood, but more than that, he loved to hear her so light and playful when so often she was made serious by the burdens of responsibility.
But hell if he’d be left out of the fun. “Board a long boat,” he added.
Pleasure coursed through him when the room erupted into more hoots, including Lucia’s laugh. Kitty clapped her hands over Liam’s ears, but her mirth was the loudest.
When everyone calmed down, Tom took a bite of stew. The cook watched him apprehensively.
The flavors of long-simmered meat combined with herbs and wine sang like a chorus. He shut his eyes and made a sound of deep animal pleasure. “Run away with me.”
“Ah, lad,” Jenny said breathlessly, “’tis but a plain stew.” She batted her eyelashes as she spoke. When she caught her assistants looking at her in disbelief, she snapped, “Go on, then! Have your supper, then come right quick to the kitchen. Can’t expect the guests to feed themselves.”
With that, she dashed off.
For several moments, the table was quiet save for the sounds of forks on plates and the draining of cups. It was informal and cozy, and a damned sight more agreeable than any of the elegant Mayfair dinners he’d attended.
Yet he couldn’t quite feel fully relaxed with Lucia beside him. Every time she moved, she brushed against his body, and it was bloody sensual to watch her eat with an unrestrained appetite. She would make small noises of appreciation, rocketing him back to their night together, and recalling the sounds she made when lost in her passion.
“You’ve got a brogue, sir,” Rose, one of the maids said, her words also marked by an Irish lilt. “County Galway?”
He snapped his thoughts back to less erotic subjects.
“Kerry,” he said. “Close to Tralee. Born here in London, but they took me to Ireland as a babe. My ma wanted me raised as she’d been.” As he spoke, he could hear his accent thicken. “It was a grand childhood—I ran wild in the Slieve Mish Mountains—but they brought me back to England when I turned twelve for schooling. I miss it there, I do.”
