Page 94 of Dare to Love a Duke
“I’m glad,” Maeve said, a bittersweet note in her words. “I’m glad one of us can be in love.”
He reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I am so sorry about Lord Stacey.”
She blinked back moisture in her eyes. “Me, too. I’d hoped... but I was wrong.” His sister shook her head, as if to dispel her sorrow. “Let’s talk of your lady. Does she know how you feel?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said bleakly. “As I said, I cost her not only her employment, but her dream.”
“What is it you want from her?”
“Fromher? Nothing. But I would give her everything if I could.”
“Everything?” Maeve regarded him. “Even your name?”
Couldhe? Marry a woman with no connections, no family. A commoner.
Having her with him always—that’s what he desired. He blazed with the need to spend every moment with her, to journey through life beside her. Raise a family with her. Grow old with her.
To bind himself to her for all of this world, and into the next.
But she would not have him—the last words from her lips had been to send him away.
Devastating weight pressed down on him, and he couldn’t find the means to push back against it. He didn’t want to. It would forever be his sacrament.
Maeve frowned in thought, tapping a finger of her free hand against her chin. “What if... you could make her dream come true?”
He rocked back on his heels.
A solution presented itself with sudden clarity. If the club was closing, it meant the house in Bloomsbury now stood empty. It belonged to him. He could do anything with it. Including transform it from a site of illicit pleasure into a place of learning. The school Lucia had dreamed of would live. He could make it happen for her, for the girls she wanted to help.
Could he—? Might it be possible?
He was a goddamned duke. He could make anything happen.
Or so he hoped.
“I know what I have to do.” He straightened, gently tugging his hand from Maeve’s. “I know how to fix everything.”
Step one.Give Lucia her dream—a home for girls.
Step two.Find a way to alter the facts so he could prove Brookhurst wrong, and restore the Powell family’s reputation.
Step three.
Oh, God.Step three.The most terrifying step of all. But worth the risk.
Step three.Ask Lucia to marry him.
The very idea struck him with blinding force. For all his years, he’d believed that when he did marry, it would be a strategic alliance with a woman of rank. Love would never be a part of that union. That was the way of it for dukes and other aristocrats. Duty before heart.
Wedding a commoner, and one not fully English, presented a massive break with tradition. Of a certain, doors would close to them, despite his rank. But he had allies, and the might of generations of Dukes of Northfield behind him. He would find a way to ensure Lucia got everything she wanted, everything she deserved.
He loved her—he prayed that she loved him, in spite of everything—and if he offered himself permanently to anyone, it had to be her. Only her.
“I have to go.” He paced to his wardrobe and pulled out a fresh shirt.
“You haven’t bathed,” Maeve noted.
“So, I’ll stink.” He pulled on his shirt and rooted around for a waistcoat and coat, but draped them over his arm rather than actually put them on. Urgency pushed him. He didn’t have time for niceties like being bathed or fully dressed. There was so much to do.
