Page 59 of Dare to Love a Duke
Doesn’t matter what you feel. You want to protect her, then keep away from her. The line between you can’t be crossed.
He kept himself busy by talking with the two burly men keeping guard, and then he looked in on the young woman washing glasses. They glittered like a wall of crystal as they were stacked beside her.
Suds climbed up her forearms and she shot him a wry look. “I’ll never give up my life of glamor.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“You’re a darling, but there’s nothing to be done but make my way through this.”
Logically, he knew servants kept Northfield House operational. Without them, there would be no meals, no baths, no clean clothes and beds. Yet to truly see how much arduous labor was involved was humbling.
He thought suddenly of Brookhurst, and his insistence that he and Tom and other men of authority ensure that nothing changed or altered the systems that gave them power. To them, people like the scullery maid were not fully human, only means to achieve a goal—such as clean glasses. But how could Tom pretend that the staff of the Orchid Club were merely living cogs in a machine, and nothing more? How could he plow onward, convinced of the supremacy of his opinion, discounting the experiences and lives of everyone around him?
He couldn’t.
Seeing the disparity in power wasn’t new to him, but never before had he been given the means to make profound change in that disparity. Once he left the Orchid Club, he could enact real transformation.
But the price... Maeve...
Goddamn it, he wasn’t certain what his next step would be. And if once he thrived on living life in the margins, now he needed more certainty—especially with Maeve, his mother, and Lucia’s safety at stake.
With a nod, he left the girl to her mountain of glasses.
He returned to the ballroom, where Lucia observed the guests as they danced and caroused. The movements of the guests were growing wilder, their touches more bold. Instead of the usual couples or trios, groups of four, five, and more were forming, as though the need for more and more sensation built. It took him a moment to understand why this might be, until he noticed that the largest groups were forming around the stage in anticipation of the forthcoming performances—like pagan worshippers around an altar.
“Your ploy of hiring someone to be the Lady of Dubious Quality is working,” he murmured to her. “The guests can barely contain themselves.”
“I didn’t hire anyone,” she said.
They exchanged baffled looks.
Seconds later, a woman in a golden mask and matching cloak drifted through the room, a secretive smile playing about her lips. A lanky blond man in black trailed behind her, and his gaze was full of warning for anyone who so much as glanced in her direction. She seemed strangely familiar.
Lucia gripped Tom’s hand. “My God...”
“She’s here to be anonymous,” he said lowly, “but I want to thank her for many a night’s pleasurable reading.”
When the woman in gold stationed herself close to the wall, her male companion keeping close, Lucia checked her timepiece. “Her appearance is opportune. Excuse me.”
She walked to the stage and climbed the small steps. Positioning herself in the middle of the dais, she raised her hands. The musicians lowered their instruments and Lucia said in a clear, projecting voice, “Friends, if I may beg for your attention.”
Guests streamed into the ballroom, many of them wearing only their masks. The groups that had formed around the stage broke apart. Everyone turned expectant faces to Lucia.
“On behalf of the Orchid Club,” she said, “I thank you for honoring us with your presence on this most exciting night. I shall not make myself tedious. You all came to watch enactments of the Lady of Dubious Quality’s work, and it is my great privilege to yield the stage to our performers. The first scene is fromThe Highwayman’s Seduction.”
A man dressed in a greatcoat and mask climbed onto the stage, two pantomime pistols in his hands, followed by a pretty woman wearing a low-necked gown. Dazzling gems that had to be paste adorned her neck and dangled from her ears. The performers bowed at the audience, who applauded.
Lucia descended from the stage and went to join Tom.
“My thanks in your choice of material,” he said appreciatively.
“It was happenstance that we’d arranged to perform this piece before I knew of your preference for it, but I’m glad now that we selected this one.”
They beamed at each other, and something radiant poured through him. Something free and light that buoyed him upward.
He nearly staggered under the realization—this was happiness. He hadn’t realized it had been missing from his life until it returned, created and given to him by her.
It was a hell of a gift. He’d never felt bigger, more expansive, and he’d never felt more reverential.
