Dare to Love a Duke

by Eva Leigh

  Lucia watched him as he examined a roll of emerald satin with the studiousness of a scholar. A few of her past lovers would sometimes bring her little baubles—cheap, glittering things—but they’d present their gifts to her in the hope of a fuck. They were objects with conditions: access to her quim for the price of a paste necklace.

  Not Tom. He gave to her from his heart, no stipulations, no expectations.

  Ten minutes later, they left the booth with promises to return later to pick up a sizable bundle. She already planned which member of the Orchid Club staff would get which ribbon, though she knew for certain that Elspeth would get the buttercup yellow and Kitty had to have the one covered in miniscule roses.

  From stall to stall, they traveled, stopping to admire carved wooden toys—a soldier painted in jolly crimson was selected for Liam—and observing a man making beeswax candles as bees crawled over his hands and arms.

  While she enjoyed her outings to the shops with Kitty and Elspeth, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d allowed herself a day strictly for frivolous pleasure. Responsibilities and worries and burdens fell away, her step growing lighter with each moment, until she believed that if she didn’t have her arm hooked into Tom’s, she might soar up into the air.

  She couldn’t suppress a chuckle when Tom boomed with laughter as they rode a swing boat. They watched a puppet show with a throng of children, the performance followed immediately after by a quartet of brightly dressed acrobats leaping and jumping like fleas.

  “You’re enjoying yourself?” he asked after the last somersault had been turned.

  “So much.” Her cheeks ached from smiling. “I haven’t had a day just for amusements in . . . I can’t remember when.” Gratitude welled up like so much wine in a cup, liquid and warm. “Grazie.”

  Tom grinned. “Your delight is mine, love.”

  Love. The word made her stop in her tracks. He’d said it so easily, as if the word itself held little significance—but she could not set it aside so readily. Could he . . . ? Might she . . . ?

  Don’t be a babbea. It’s an expression, and nothing more.

  Unaware of her thoughts, he patted his stomach. “Revelry stirs the appetite.”

  She blinked, bringing herself back to that moment, grounding herself with the scent of trampled dust and the sounds of merriment. “It does,” she said as brightly as she could manage.

  He hailed a man pushing a cart.

  “Tasty sausages, sir,” the vendor said as he opened the lid on his cart. “Made from the best Devonshire pigs.”

  They collected mugs of beer and pieces of fragrant gingerbread, and ate standing up while watching a troupe of dancers spin and wave kerchiefs. Seeing the performers, she fell back through time and crossed an ocean, back to the fairs in Napoli. She and the other children would twirl alongside the women dancing the tarantella for coins, all of them grasping at moments of happiness in between the daily struggle for survival.

  I am here now. With this man, in this place. My life is my own, and I’m grateful for everything I have.

  She had to keep telling herself that. She couldn’t let herself wish for anything more. This day, with its indulgence and joy, was enough. Being with Tom now was enough.

  Her attention strayed from the performance, her gaze lingering on Tom as he enjoyed himself. Each bite he savored, and every sip of beer was met with his hum of approval, all the while his eyes were bright with pleasure. When he caught her looking at him, he winked.

  Her heart leapt in response. All he had to do was gaze in her direction, and she felt as though she spun like one of the dancers—giddy, reckless, free. So long as he was beside her, she believed she could do anything.

  Oh, she was in danger with him. Yet she couldn’t stop her headlong tumble into emotions she’d never believed she would feel. He made the impossible possible.

  “Ring-a-bottle! Try your skill for a ha’penny!”

  Tom would have been content to pass the game by—there were other sights to see at the fair, other amusements to bring a smile to Lucia’s face—but she stopped and nodded toward the booth, where a tall, thin man stood, crying to the crowd.

  “I want to give it a try,” she said.

  “Truly?” Tom eyed the game with suspicion. The man encouraged the crowd to throw wooden rings at weighted bottles lined up atop a bench. Poppets of different sizes were arranged between the bottles, most likely prizes for whomever managed to land the ring onto the bottles’ necks. No one, with the exception of the barker himself, was successful, men walking away with their shoulders slumped.

  Yet Lucia had already plucked a coin from her reticule and approached the barker with it.

  “Ah,” the man said with a knowing nod. “Want your chap to win you a prize?”

  “I intend to win myself the prize.”

  Tom smiled to himself when the barker looked back and forth between him and Lucia with a confused look.

  “Guv?”

  “The lady intends to be her own champion,” Tom said. “I, for one, will not gainsay her.” He adored that about her, her determination, her need to succeed on the basis of her own strength and skill.

  The barker shrugged, then held up a wooden ring. “Real simple, like. I’ll show you.” He lightly tossed the circle of wood, and it neatly fell onto the neck of the bottle. “Now you.” He offered her another ring.

  “I want that one.” She pointed to the piece of wood he’d just thrown.

  The barker’s forehead pleated. “They’re the same, ma’am.”

  “Perhaps so,” she said levelly, “but I will use the one you just threw. And I intend to do it from where you are standing.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but Lucia kept her expression perfectly smooth. Clearly, she would not be dissuaded. After the barker retrieved the ring and handed it to her, a nearby stocky man in a tall hat paused.

  “That gentry mort won’t make it,” he mused aloud while Lucia took her position.

  “A pound says she does,” Tom said.

  “I watched three coves give it a go,” the man in the tall hat said, “and none of ’em got the prize.”

  “Then it’s a guaranteed win for you.” Tom pulled a shilling from his inside coat pocket. He glanced at Lucia, who watched him with wry amusement. “Let’s agree to it.”

  “Awright.” His opponent produced a bob.

  “Have we settled the wager?” Lucia asked drily.

  “Go ahead, love,” Tom said.

  Lucia studied the bottles as she held the ring. The barker watched her apprehensively from the other side of the booth, and it seemed that nearby vendors and members of the crowd had stopped in the middle of their activities to watch.

  She pitched the ring with a careful underhand throw. Tom held his breath as it arced through the air, then caught the edge of the bottle neck. For a moment, it appeared as though the ring would bounce off. With a clatter, it swung around the neck of the bottle and settled into place.

  She’d done it.

  He grinned as pure delight radiated through him—as if she’d captured the moon and brought it triumphantly to Prinny, himself. And Tom was the lucky sod who happened to witness her triumph.

  This trip to the fair had been an impulse, a way to distract himself from the looming pressures of life. But it was far more than that. It was an affirmation—of her resilience, and the joy that could be found tucked between the pages of the world’s weighty tome.

  He was alive. He and Lucia were alive together, shoring up the strength he needed to face the coming tempest. And it was coming.

  “I’ll take that one, please,” Lucia said in a matter-of-fact voice, pointing to the poppet in a blue dress.

  Not bothering to hide his smugness, Tom turned to the man in the tall hat. It served the blighter right for underestimating her. “And I’ll have my shilling, sir.”

  Muttering under his breath, his opponent shoved the coin into his hand before storming off into the crowd. Never had Tom receive
d a shilling with as much pleasure, regardless of how replete the dukedom’s coffers might be.

  When Tom turned back, Lucia approached him, cradling the doll in the crook of her arm. At her exultant smile, more warmth bloomed in his chest. He itched to put a crown of laurels upon her head and carry her triumphantly through the fair.

  “Devious.” Unable to stop himself, he kissed her—quickly. “Hiding your aptitude at ring-a-bottle.”

  “You’ve stumbled across my cunning plan to conquer England, one carnival game at a time.”

  “The nation should quake in terror.”

  His heart pounded. Hell, but he delighted in her. This obsession with her body and the pleasure they created together continued to transform, changing into something far more complex than lust.

  “Hold a moment.” Tom approached a small girl who’d spread a ragged blanket on the ground. Lying atop the blanket were a handful of whirligigs, assembled from scraps of paper that had clearly been scavenged from found debris.

  “Whirligig, sir?”

  He tucked his winnings into her tiny palm.

  Her eyes went wide. “You can have ’em all.”

  “I’d rather you had this,” Lucia said, handing her the poppet.

  The girl didn’t waste words on thanks. The doll tucked under her arm, she ran straight to a pieman without a backward glance.

  As Lucia and Tom moved on, she said, “The odds were steep, and you wagered in my favor, anyway.”

  “Only a fool would bet against you.”

  Her dark, depthless eyes gleamed, and his body filled with surging energy, as though he could accomplish anything—scale any height, bridge any distance, and become more than himself. There were no obstacles when she looked at him like that. There was only possibility.

  “Learn the future,” a woman called out from her tent, breaking his thoughts. “I can see beyond time! Come and discover what fate has in store for you.”

  She sat on a cushion in front of a low table draped with a shawl, with another bright shawl around her shoulders.

  Tom gave his head a tiny shake. “Prognostication is a skill, not a power.”

  “You sound very certain of that,” Lucia said wryly.

  “My friend Blakemere, he went to one of those soothsayers. Got everything wrong—including the fact that Blakemere had just come back from Waterloo.” Tom clicked his tongue. “Turned out the fortune-teller was drunk and couldn’t see worth a damn.”

  “The sight isn’t here,” Lucia said, tapping the corner of her eye. “It’s here.” She pointed to her forehead.

  “Anyone with good eyesight—or listens well—can position themselves as a fortune-teller.”

  Lucia lifted a brow. “Sounds like a challenge. I think a demonstration of your abilities is in order.” She nodded toward a man shepherding his family around the fair. “Tell me his tale.”

  “I can do better than that.” A wild impulse gripped him, and before he could question it, he approached the mystic. “Please, go and have a cup of tea.” He dropped a handful of coins into her palm.

  Baffled she looked at him, then rose slowly to her feet. “Don’t you want me to tell your fortune?”

  “Sometimes, it’s better to be surprised,” he said, gazing at an amused Lucia.

  The fortune-teller tucked the coins into a purse before strolling off toward a vendor selling mugs of hard cider.

  “I think His Grace has descended into madness, like the king,” Lucia said with a laugh as he settled himself down on the soothsayer’s cushion. It was slightly lopsided from years of use, and much mended.

  “Tomorrow,” he said in a low voice, “I’m going to publicly sever the ties that have long bound my family to a man of great power. He won’t take kindly to what he’ll see as my betrayal and desertion. It might cost my sister the lad she loves.” He squeezed his eyes shut as if he could hold back the impending disaster.

  “Ah.” She reached out and cupped his face, her touch profoundly gentle. “Mayhem tomorrow. A bit of play today.”

  The tension in his chest loosened, and he opened his eyes. Gratefulness for her understanding nearly brought tears to his eyes. She understood and accepted. The gift she gave him with that faith had no price.

  Her hand slid away, but the warmth of her lingered in him.

  He cleared his throat, and tried to speak brightly. “Might I have your assistance?” He waved to the front of the tent. “If you will be so kind.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “If this is what you want.”

  “It is.” He’d left his wild impulsivity behind when he’d become a duke. But here was a chance to reclaim a part of himself, if even for a brief while.

  She didn’t press him further. Lucia went to stand in front of the tent and clapped her hands together.

  “Uomini! Donne! Do you wish to know what tomorrow brings?” Her accent was stronger, as though she purposefully let it come through. “What is your destino?”

  Several people passing the tent paused, considering her words. She was a surprisingly adept barker.

  Tom made sure not to look at the fairgoers, gazing off into the distance as though preoccupied with forces beyond the mortal realm. All the while, his heart beat giddily. It had been too long since he’d done anything quite this mad. Tomorrow would come regardless, but now was for him and Lucia.

  “Within this tent is the Prince of Riesling,” she cried. “Aimé! He’s a man exiled from his kingdom by those terrified of his mystical abilities. His disgrazia is to your benefit! Sit before him and he will reveal your fate!”

  A lad with a young girl on his arm stopped. They glanced at each other with curiosity before the girl shrugged, clearly torn.

  “Amici, the Prince of Riesling awaits your pleasure,” Lucia said.

  “How much?” the lad asked.

  Tom caught sight of the boy’s worn boots, and the hem of the girl’s gown, which had been let out several times.

  “For you, no charge,” he said in a thick Prussian accent.

  “Can’t refuse that price,” Lucia said. She guided the couple into the tent. “Please. Sit.”

  The lad and girl nervously sat on more cushions arranged on the other side of the table. They held hands tightly, and whenever she looked at her beau, the young chap blushed. Behind them, Lucia watched from a discreet distance.

  “Willkommen,” Tom said, striving to keep his outrageous accent moderately convincing. “Your right hands, please.”

  The lad laid his palm up on the table. Slowly, the girl did the same, revealing that her own hand was misshapen, and she only had three fingers.

  Tom picked her hand up gently and studied it, muttering, “Ach!” and “Ja!” before setting it down and doing the same for the lad. They both had neatly trimmed fingernails, and while the girl’s hand had a few calluses from a sewing needle, the boy’s was thick with evidence of his physical labor.

  After this, Tom held their chins as he examined their unlined faces lightly dotted with pimples.

  They’re little more than children.

  Behind them, Lucia looked on, her expression soft as she seemed to also recognize the youth and inexperience of the couple.

  “You have just begun an exciting time in your lives, ja?” Even as he spoke, the girl nodded, and the lad quickly followed suit. “It is exciting, but it also makes you nervous.”

  “We were married only last week,” she said eagerly.

  “Ach, of course!” Tom peered at them and they stared warily back. “Und now, you face some difficulty. From . . . a friend . . . or a family member.”

  “Her father,” the lad said at once. “He didn’t want me marrying Susie. Not this young.”

  “Natürlich.” Tom stroked his chin. “You were . . . his apprentice.”

  “At the woodshop, yes,” Susie said. “Everyone said to wait until Bill got his own place. But—”

  “You could not, eh?” Tom nodded at Bill. “A pretty Mädchen, how could you not ask her to be your bri
de?”

  Pink crept into both Bill’s and Susie’s faces.

  “Ja, the Eltern, they worry,” Tom said. “And you worry, too, ja?”

  The couple nodded.

  Tom closed his eyes and placed his fingertips at his temples. “I look . . . I gaze into tomorrow . . . it is cloudy . . . but I see . . . yes!”

  “What do you see?” Susie cried.

  Opening his eyes, Tom said, “There will be obstacles, nein? It will not be easy, but,” he added when her shoulders fell, “ultimately, you will triumph.”

  Smiles wreathed their faces and their backs straightened.

  “And Bill will soon open his own shop?” she asked.

  “Within the year,” Tom said with a confident nod.

  Tears shined in the girl’s eyes, and Bill exhaled as though someone had removed a crushing weight. When the lad fumbled in his pocket for a coin, Tom waved it away.

  “Freunde, I cannot take your money. Save it today, for soon, you will spend it on your Kinder.”

  Lucia pressed her fingertips to her mouth, her own eyes glossy with tears as the couple got to their feet.

  “Thank you, thank you,” they said with bows and curtsys before hurrying away with light steps.

  A moment later, the fortune-teller returned, and Tom ceded her tent back to her.

  Lucia took Tom’s arm, giving his forearm a squeeze. Happiness swelled within him at her touch, and the look of warm admiration in her gaze made him buoyant.

  “A man of many talents,” she said.

  “Telling people what they want to hear isn’t much of a skill.” His voice was gruff.

  Gently, she said, “You gave them hope for the future.”

  He led her toward the ribbon vendor’s booth so they could retrieve their purchases before leaving. The shadows lengthened, the day cooled. Time could not be held at bay. Much as he wanted to linger here with her, it was time to return home. He needed to prepare for the next day.

  Two worlds pulled at him, and he feared they’d tear him apart.

  “That’s all anyone wants,” he said. “Hope.”

  “That’s what hope is,” she said, picking her way around a juggler. “For a brief while, we believe that tomorrow will be better than today. When we receive hope, we’re given something precious.” She stopped and looked up at him, her gaze full of emotion, and his pulse rushed in response. “You gave them that—and they won’t squander it.”