Dare to Love a Duke. Eva Leigh

and her crew would prepare the sweetmeats and savories that fed their guests.

      Tenuous, the lot of it. She might blink and it would disappear forever. Worse than losing her employment was the fact that the club employed a substantial staff, people whom she’d come to think of as a kind of found family in the absence of her own kinship by blood.

      What if she couldn’t save this? What if she couldn’t save it for them?

      “The owner of this club . . .” She swallowed. “He’s dead.”

      A horrified silence reigned, broken only by the sounds of Liam slapping his hands on the tray in front of him.

      “Does that mean that the establishment’s finished?” Elspeth asked.

      “I don’t know.” Cristo, how she hated saying those words, and hated that she didn’t—couldn’t—predict what might befall her and the staff of the Orchid Club. She was the mortar that fixed everything together, but there was nothing she could do to prevent the earthquake that threatened to shake the building into rubble.

      Why hadn’t she seen this coming? When she’d gone for her monthly meeting to deliver his share of the profits, he had been absent, with illness being given as the explanation. She hadn’t known the severity of his poor health. Until now.

      “If he was a highborn cove,” Kitty mused, “it stands to reason that he’s got an heir, and that cove is our new owner.”

      “True.” Lucia hadn’t considered that. “These English nobles love nothing so much as preserving pedigrees. Thinking on it, I recall our dead patron mentioning that he had a son.”

      “Then the club passes to that bloke,” Kitty said. “Wouldn’t it?” She looked at Elspeth as if searching for answers.

      Elspeth held up her hands. “If you’re looking for an expert in English aristocrats and their patrilineage, look elsewhere.”

      “So,” Kitty continued, “he’s got a son. And that gentry cove is our new patron. Then there’s no harm for us in his sire’s passing.”

      Unable to keep still, Lucia surged to her feet. “We don’t know if his son knew his father’s connection to this place. Diavolo, the son might not even know of the Orchid Club’s existence.”

      “Be a hell of a shock when he finds out,” Elspeth muttered.

      “Esattamente. What if he’s prudish, and the thought of owning a club for fucking horrifies him?” She paced, her thoughts tumbling over themselves, each scenario worse that the next. “He’d shutter us for certain.”

      They’d lose the club.

      And without her income, she’d lose her dream. The home for girls could never come to pass.

      She pictured them, the countless young females cast onto the streets of London without anyone to care for them, to protect them and ensure that they could have a life of anything but the meanest poverty and subsistence. But Lucia was going to help them. Not all of the girls, because that would be impossible, but surely it was better to improve the lot of a few rather than let all of them meet grim fates.

      Lucia gasped, choked by desperation and fear. She couldn’t fail them.

      “Or maybe,” Elspeth said in a placating tone, “he’s one of those randy men who’ll delight in possessing an establishment such as ours. He might like it and keep us operational.”

      “I hope so.” Lucia braced her hands on the heavy worktable, trying to stay on her feet when she thought it very possible she might tumble headlong into darkness. “We’ll know soon enough, when I deliver the owner’s share of the profits.”

      “How long until delivery day?” Kitty asked as she tickled her son’s foot. The baby giggled.

      Lucia tried to take comfort from the infant’s laughter. Happiness and joy had ways of persisting, even in the midst of chaos and potential disaster.

      “Tomorrow.” It was always the same. Every twenty-first of the month, she’d travel to Mayfair to bring their patron his portion of the take. With no guidance, there was nothing to do but hold to that plan.

      “What do we do until then?” Elspeth asked.

      She’d learned from an early age that anything and everything might vanish, and in the absence of security, she could only rely upon her own determination. Surely there had to be some way to keep the Orchid Club running and preserve her dream of the girls’ home. She’d find some way to make that happen.

      Right now, however, her mind and heart were both blank.

      “We’ll open the club a second night each week,” she said. “Fridays. Until the new owner says we must close, we’ll increase our profits as much as possible. Save them up in case we lose our employment and income.”

      Her friends nodded.

      “In the meantime,” she continued, “none of the guests tonight can know of our troubles. I’ll tell the staff about our second night, I won’t speak of the new owner to the rest of the staff till I know for certain what our fate might be.”

      “Is that wise?” Kitty wondered. “They might want to know.”

      “There’s nothing any of them can do until we know what our new owner plans to do. And as for ourselves . . .” She let out a long breath. “We wait. And hope.”

       Chapter 5

      Within his carriage, Tom stared out the window, watching the world shoot past him. Everything seemed to be going too fast. He hoped that tonight, he’d be able to gain his footing again, if only for a little while.

      The vehicle sped down London’s darkened streets, heading toward Bloomsbury. And release. But only for a brief while.

      Absently, Tom touched the ducal signet ring on the smallest finger of his left hand. At the feel of the gold against his fingers, thoughts of his father flooded him, threatening to drag him down into the ever-present morass of grief.

      Tom slipped off the ring and tucked it carefully in the inside pocket of his coat. Where he was going tonight, he couldn’t have anyone recognize him.

      It was for Maeve, and his mother, that Tom had made the choice that impelled him to Bloomsbury tonight. After this night, he would never again return to the Orchid Club.

      A throb of loss pumped through him, but he put it aside. He meant to enjoy these last hours of freedom before donning the permanent disguise of staid, sober duke.

      He adjusted the green silk mask covering half of his face. While wearing it, he could be anyone. A sailor or a tradesman or a vagabond. All cares could be set aside for a few hours in his final pursuit of selfish, wonderful pleasure.

      The carriage pulled up outside a place Tom knew very well. He’d visited it weekly for almost a year, until recently, when he’d stayed at his father’s bedside and failed to attend the Orchid Club’s openings.

      His footman jumped down and opened the carriage door for him.

      “Wait for me in the mews,” Tom directed the young man, though he needn’t have bothered. The routine was well-known by his servants.

      When the carriage drove off, Tom tugged down his dove-gray silk waistcoat and brushed at the shoulders of his gunmetal-gray coat. How strange to be out of mourning, even for a few hours, but he didn’t want anyone inside knowing such intimate details.

      After climbing the short flight of stairs to the door, Tom gave the customary secret knock. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. Waiting, hoping, his heart rose in his throat in anticipation. They hadn’t seen each other in too long.

      Throughout these long weeks, he’d used the memory of her as a touchstone, a gleam