Page 91 of Dare to Love a Duke
“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 feltslighted.”
“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, butSanto cielo,she didn’t want to.
Yet this was a task shehadto 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.
