“Hugh,” Maeve called. “Stop making my brother scowl.”
Her suitor coughed. “Yes. Right. Sorry.”
With Lord Stacey following, Tom walked back to Maeve. His head rang. Lord Stacey’s words, and the column in the Times cemented a reality he did not want to face. Did not but had to.
To preserve unity between his family and the Duke of Brookhurst’s, Tom had to follow the path his father had walked. It was a path that stuck to England’s most revered traditions and ancient institutions. Many a time Tom and his father had argued over the late duke’s firm stance against progressive policies. But his father had remained obdurate.
As the new duke, Tom could choose to abandon his father’s staunch beliefs. But that meant severing ties with alliances that went back to the time of the Restoration, including the tie between the Northfield and Brookhurst dukedoms.
It was clear in Lord Stacey’s awkward confession the Duke of Brookhurst would forbid his son from marrying Maeve if Tom did not fall into line. The duke would surely cut off Lord Stacey’s allowance. The young man was a good lad, but Tom wasn’t certain he’d choose noble sentiment over realistic poverty.
“I’ll leave you two to your chaste rendezvous,” Tom said to Maeve and her suitor. “You have fifteen minutes before we must return home. Mind, you’ll keep yourselves to this front yard, and I shall keep you in my sights at all times.” He fixed Lord Stacey and his sister with a sharp look. “I make myself clear, aye?”
Maeve rolled her eyes, but Lord Stacey nodded, saying, “Yes, Your Grace. Of course.”
Unaccustomed to the role of chaperone, Tom strode off to walk the perimeter of the property. He kept his word and maintained eyes on the couple. Because, no matter how upstanding and honorable Lord Stacey might be, he was a young man, and most likely had a young man’s appetites and urges.
As Tom strolled along the fence line of the farm, the sky overhead heavy and gray, his thoughts churned in time with the movement of his body.
He’d hoped to reverse the regressive stance of the dukedom. He’d wanted to wield his power to help others—but the Duke of Brookhurst had a metaphorical gun to his head. Either play the part of the supportive Tory, or Maeve couldn’t marry the man she loved.
His own convictions—or the happiness of his sister.
Tom glanced at his sister and Lord Stacey as they sat on a stone bench in the front garden. Their heads were bent together, their hands intertwined. The air around them fairly vibrated with the intensity of their adoration. As Maeve’s shoulders began to shake with sobs, Lord Stacey ran his fingers down her cheek before embracing her. Comforting her.
Another hot stab of envy pierced Tom.
Since his father’s illness and passing, he’d consoled his mother and sister, holding them when they wept and listening as they poured out their grief. While he didn’t begrudge them their need for succor, there was no one to give him the same consolation. No one to comfort him, or hear his broken confession that while his father had been a strict and uncompromising parent, Tom had loved him. Loved him and missed him.
He faced all of this alone.
Not only that, he saw that he was now the face of the Northfield dukedom. As the Duke of Brookhurst had said, Tom’s conduct reflected on the Powell family. With the death of his father, he was supposed to become one of the pillars of English Society. The seventh Duke of Northfield. Not a title to be taken lightly. Nor were the responsibilities that came with that title easily shirked.
The life he’d known of gaming hells, opera dancers, and riotous pleasure—all of it had to stop. For his mother’s sake, and for Maeve’s.
His steps stopped. A galvanizing thought hit him.
“Fuck,” he said softly.
The Orchid Club, and Amina, were now forbidden to him. The place—and the woman—were too scandalous. He had to close the door on that part of his life, though it had been part of the fabric of his existence for a year.
A new loss tore through him like a claw. Never to hear Amina’s voice again, never to behold her as she walked with her queenly air and knowing gaze, nevermore to talk or flirt with her. All of it, gone.
It seemed impossible, insupportable. He wouldn’t know how to exist without the club and without Amina. She was a constant in his life, a person of both gravity and spirit. He didn’t want to walk away, but he’d no choice in the matter.
Today was Wednesday, which meant the club would be open tonight.
He firmed his jaw with resolve. This evening, he’d don his mask for the very last time, and see her just once more. When he did, he intended to make her a very bold, forbidden proposal that went against every rule.
One night together, before they parted forever.
The newspaper fell from Lucia’s hand, landing on the kitchen floor with a soft ruffling sound that she barely heard. She stared straight ahead, and everything she saw—from the fire burning in the hearth, to Kitty cradling baby Liam as she stirred up a pot of porridge, to the light in the windows shifting from morning to afternoon—appeared distant and far away, as if she was looking through the neck of a bottle.
“Dio ci aiuti,” she whispered. “God help us.”
“What is it?” Elspeth asked from her seat at the table. “You’ve gone white as whey.”
Numb with shock, Lucia scooped up the newspaper and walked it to the fire. She threw the paper into the flames, watching it curl and turn black before finally breaking into ash.
She moved clumsily to the table and sat heavily in a chair. She ran her fingers back and forth over the grooves cut into the table’s wooden surface, marks left by countless meals shared in this very kitchen with the people she cared about most in the world.
All of that might disappear. Far sooner than she could ever have feared.
“There were secrets Mrs. Chalke entrusted to me.” Her words sounded stunned even to her own ears. “I didn’t want to keep them from you, but I’d no choice. Holding those secrets was one of the conditions of taking the position as manager.”
“Ours is a business built upon secrecy,” Elspeth said. “We can’t fault you for holding to it, if it meant our continued employment.”
“Grazie.” Lucia exhaled, hoping that this simple act might ground her when she felt utterly out of control. “The identity of the club’s owner—that was one of the secrets. Exposing his identity compromised everything. So, I kept silent.”
“Understandable.” Kitty brought Liam over and gently lowered him into his high seat. “But we had our suppositions, didn’t we, El? Thought he might be a banker or some rich cove who had a taste for fucking and an even bigger appetite for profits.”
“That’s so,” Elspeth said. “But I was hoping he might be some bishop who liked to earn extra coin from sin while preaching against it from the pulpit.”
“In a way, you’re both right.” Lucia looked back and forth between her two friends. “He was a man of the highest rank, the bluest blood, and moral. At least, he liked people to think he was moral, but it was he who came to Mrs. Chalke to propose the opening of the Orchid Club.”
It felt strange to say even this much about the man who’d been their patron, when for over a year, she’d held firm to the knowledge of his identity. Holding tight to mysteries was her trade, and even with her dearest friends, it jarred to share them.
But it might not matter anymore.
She