Page 93 of Dare to Love a Duke
“You should pick that up,” Maeve’s voice said behind him.
He whirled around before he could tug the bellpull. “Christ almighty, Maeve, you near gave me the apoplexy.”
His sister bent down and gingerly plucked his soggy shirt from the carpet before flinging it at him. He snatched it before the garment could hit him in the face.
“When have you concerned yourself with how you discard your clothing?” he asked irritably.
“We aren’t discussing howItreat my clothes,” she said. “The subject at hand isyou.”
He deliberately dropped the shirt, defiantly glaring at her, then strode to his washstand and poured water into a basin. “I’m a soddingduke. It’s expected of me to be heedless with my wardrobe.” He splashed water on his face before dampening a cloth and rubbing it across his chest.
“That’s true.” She strolled to his bed and sat on the edge. “But I have heard it said that an untidy bedchamber contributes to one’s disordered mood. And clearly, your mood is disordered.”
“It’s rather evident why that might be the case,” he threw over his shoulder.
“Except,” she said with an expert air, “your mood has grown steadily more dour as time passes. You have been able to go out of the house, so while you might be experiencing some social ostracism, it isn’t bad enough to keep you sequestered at home. Further,” she went on, holding up a finger, “you might not be Mam’s favorite person at the moment, but she’s thawing to you. And clearly,Iam here, favoring you with my presence—”
He bowed sardonically. “Much appreciated.”
“—so I can only conclude that there is more troubling you than this situation with the duke of Brookhurst’s calumny. Well,” she added to herself, “it isn’t exactly calumny, since it’s true. But the idea is the same.” She got to her feet and stood behind him. “Thus, I can only conclude that there is something else making you stomp around the house and punch things at the pugilism academy.”
Unease prickling along his limbs, he set the washcloth aside. Here he was, thinking he’d been doing an admirable job of hiding his heartbreak, when in fact he had been as obvious as a snarling lion.
“So...” Maeve folded her arms across her chest. “Who is she?”
His stomach clenched.Fuck.Here was the trouble with having an astute sibling. Briefly, he considered denying it, but Maeve was tenacious, and she merited the truth.
Slowly, he faced his sister. “The woman who managed the club. She and I...” His words ground to a halt. Astute Maeve might be, but there was no way in hell that he’d divulge the details of his sexual life with her.
Yet she nodded with understanding. “You were lovers.”
What a flimsy way of saying that Lucia had become everything to him. He’d delighted in her body, yet it had been the moments when they had simply been together that resonated like music. The happiness she’d given him had brought light into his life, and now that it was gone, there was no way out of the shadows.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “We were lovers. But,” he continued, his voice roughening, “because of me, she lost her employment, and... her dream.”
As a boy, he had climbed the stony exterior of the Kerry manor house, but he’d slipped and fallen. Fortunately, nothing was broken, but he’d sprained the hell out of his ankle. And how he’d howled—until his nurse Clodagh had quieted him.
There now, gasúr,she’d said, gathering him up in her sturdy arms.Tomorrow, you might hurt a little, but ’twill be better than today. And the day after that will be even better, and so on, till the pain is gone and you can’t imagine you ever felt it.
Clodagh had been right. The pain had lessened, bit by bit, and within a fortnight, he had raced around the manor’s grounds as if nothing had happened.
So he’d believed that all pain eventually faded until it disappeared entirely. Even his grief for his father, present as it was, didn’t sink talons into him quite as deeply as it had. That hurt might never fully go away, but it eased.
That, he had believed, was the way of pain. In time, it lessened.
He was wrong.
Each moment without Lucia was a new agony, as if he was Prometheus eternally chained to a rock as a beast tore him open. Except with the titan, he’d only lose his liver. Tom continually had his heart ripped from his chest. Again and again.
“I see,” Maeve said, breaking into his thoughts. “You love her.”
Tom lurched like he’d taken a body blow. “I don’t—” His denial ground to a halt.
Love. Was that what he felt? This constant demand to be in Lucia’s presence? This need to breathe her in as though she was air and without her, he’d die? She was... she was everything. Life had no savor without her. It was flavorless and devoid of color. The thought of ever touching another woman repelled him. He wanted her. Only her. Now, and for the rest of his days.
“I do,” he finally said. “I do love her. So much.”
Just speaking it aloud confirmed what he already knew. He loved Lucia, and if he could, he’d devote all his energies to making her happy. Her joy was his joy.
