by Eva Leigh
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.
Chapter 4
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 looked around the kitchen, taking in the rows of copper pans in their open cabinets, the soot-stained wooden beams in the ceiling, and the large table that dominated the center of the room, where later that afternoon, Jenny 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.�
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“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 of gold amidst the ashes. He needed that brightness now.
A moment later, the door opened a sliver and the black woman appeared.
After he’d exchanged the customary password with the doorkeeper, he entered. For good measure, he showed her a small coin, stamped with a mask. The token was given to whomever had attended the club more than three times, to demonstrate that they were familiar with the rules of the establishment.
The tangles of grief and responsibility loosened in his chest as he stepped into the foyer. A sense of ease and release crept through him. No one here called him Your Grace. Only the moniker for all guests: friend. This was where he was meant to be. Not the heavy-paneled study where all the matters of the estate were handled, nor the corridors haunted by England’s men of power, where Tom was charged with both preserving England’s traditions—regardless of Tom’s own feelings on the matter—and preserving the Powell family’s reputation.
He handed the doorkeeper money, which she tucked into the purse hanging at her waist.
“Most everyone is in the drawing room and the ballroom,” she said, gesturing to the hallway behind her.
Familiar with the route, he made his way toward the sound of conversation, laughter, music, and sex. With each step, more and more weight fell from his shoulders. For the first time since his father’s final illness, Tom felt genuinely buoyant. Yet that buoyancy was undercut by the fact that soon, he’d give this up, too.
He entered the parlor, and his gaze fell upon the familiar sight of guests in various states of dress and undress. Bare flesh gleamed in the candlelight, laughter and sighs filled the air, and the scent of perfume and unbridled sexuality wafted like a tropic current.
Some weren’t actively engaged in sensual pursuits. Two women drank champagne and chatted in low voices. A quartet played a game of cards—though it appeared the stakes were articles of clothing, as evidenced by the piles of gloves, stockings, and coats heaped in the center of the table. No one bid their masks.
The people in this room could have been anyone, from barristers to fishmongers, barons to abigails. That was part of the thrill. The man or woman someone was coupling with could have been their servant, or master. It was rumored that spouses had made love to each other without ever knowing their partner’s true identity. But it was impossible to ever know the truth of this.
Tom took a glass of wine from a passing footman, then sipped as he surveyed the room. He took his usual place by the window. The moment a woman in a red dress began approaching him, he moved on. Over the course of the year, he’d fielded many offers of sex from interested parties, but he’d never accepted. That wasn’t why he came to the Orchid Club.
He crossed the threshold of the ballroom. This was where he’d first met Amina, a night he’d never forgotten. As always, the notes of a waltz drifted from the musicians as the guests on the dance floor surrendered to the seductive air of unfiltered desire.
This was not sanctioned London. It was the secret, dark side. The place where people of all walks of life came for release, to cavort and be free.
He sensed a charge like unheard music, a subtle threading of awareness moving invisibly through his body. Despite being engaged in watching the unfolding action, Tom became conscious of a new presence in the room.
Amina had arrived.
She glided through the chamber, calm and assured, a small, unreadable smile playing about her lips as she stopped to chat with guests, making certain they had everything they needed. Tonight, her mask was emerald green, embroidered all over with gold thread and tiny pearls. The mask matched her richly hued gown, which hugged her curved body.
Tonight, her thick black hair was pinned up, though small brilliants seemed to twinkle in the dark waves. But it could have been his imagination. For surely whenever she was near, he had eyes for no one but her.
Riveted, Tom watched her glide through the ballroom, expertly weaving through the crowd. She kept that slightly removed smile on her face as she talked with the celebrants. Occasionally, she waved over a servant to provide more refreshments to the guests. She checked with the musicians and adjusted the position of a can
delabra on a table.
This is my realm, she seemed to silently declare. The ruler of Bloomsbury. The empress of the Orchid Club. Regal and confident, her head held high, her shoulders back.
She caught sight of him, and he straightened to his fullest height. A thrum of excitement pulsed through him, all the way to his bones, as she approached. The lingering clouds of his unease lifted the nearer she came.
This close, he could see the deep brown of her eyes shining behind her disguise. Her pupils were large, fathomless.
“Rogue,” Amina said when she stood before him.
“You chide me baselessly.” His heart took up double time to have her so close and to hear her low, throaty voice again. Every now and again, he caught a hint of an unknown accent in her words, yet he could never ask after her origins.
She had to be from somewhere warm, a place where, beneath a gleaming sun, dark-eyed beauties felt temperate breezes caress their tawny skin. The thought of all Amina’s flesh bared to the sunlight made his mouth water.
“I’m not a capricious creature,” she said crisply. “I do nothing without reason.”
“If you are my judge, I’m entitled to know the offense for which I am accused.”
She clicked her tongue. “Even worse that you don’t know.” At his mystified silence, she explained, “Six weeks. It’s been six weeks since I’ve last seen you within these chambers. I thought you’d enlisted or run off to Argentina.”
He smiled to himself. “You think me an adventurer?”
“I think you dreadfully rude to have disappeared,” she said coolly.
He bowed. “Family obligations, unfortunately, have kept me away.”
A corner of her mouth lifted. “I forget, sometimes, that people have families.”
Despite her wry smile, a note of melancholy tinged her voice, making him contemplate her kin. Did she have any, and did they know what she did to earn her bread?