From Duke till Dawn: 2018’s most scandalous Regency read

“I cannot be out here long.” She rubbed her hands against the stone to remind her of who she was and what she needed. “I’ll lose my position if Mr. Hamish thinks I’m not attending to the other guests.”

“It’s for that reason I’ve come back,” Alex said softly. “It doesn’t need to be like this.”

Her pulse kicked, and she couldn’t stop herself from turning around to face him, leaving only a foot’s distance between them. Cassandra had to tilt her head back to look into his eyes—unusual for her, given her height.

“And what do you propose?” she challenged. “There are not many honorable ways for a woman to earn her coin. I am a lady’s companion, not a gentleman’s.”

Though it was dark on the terrace, she thought a flush stained his cheeks. It was as close as she could come to saying the words courtesan or mistress in his company.

“Is that what you are suggesting?” she pressed.

“Cassandra,” he said roughly, “I’d never insult you that way.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Alex was too much a gentleman to suggest anything so impolite. Yet she’d tasted the fires of his passion, felt him groan against the skin of her belly. He wasn’t as cool or removed as he believed himself to be.

Yearning welled up. To break open the dam that held back his desire. See him wild with need, loosened from the role he had to play. To let herself be wild with him. To be truly herself with him.

Here. In this dark space where no one could see them.

Had she picked this spot on purpose? Was she guided by her own unknowing hand?

A dangerous game. There were times for risks, and times for sticking to what was known. Her mind had to be firmly turned to the running of the gaming hell and the goal of financial freedom. She couldn’t let her needs or the demands of her heart dictate her direction. If she did, she may as well tie stones to her feet and walk into the Serpentine.

“I know you don’t mean any insult,” she murmured. “I’m not the first female to find herself in . . . dismal circumstances.”

“They needn’t be so dire.” He clasped her hand between both of his. She wanted to tug herself free. She wanted to sink into the comfort he believed he offered. “I have the ear of England’s best families. Say the word. I’ll find you a good, respectable position with any of them. Girls in need of a chaperone, or dowagers who require companions. Stay in England. Travel abroad. See the world, now that we have peace. Anything you want, Cassandra, and it’s yours.”

“And you can guarantee that?”

“You know I can.”

His absolute certainty broke her heart. His longing to be her savior was obvious, like a thick blanket that warmed and suffocated. She had no doubt that he could and would give her whatever she desired.

Not everything.

Damn, but hearts were fragile, easily wounded things. They needed protecting. Armor. Yet if she let someone slip past that armor, that meant the chance of a terrible wound. One she might not survive. It was hard enough, to endure having Alex so close, with his desire to rescue her. But he didn’t realize how impossible it was for him to play her savior.

She’d seen her own father waste away in the Marshalsea, more heartbroken over his wife’s desertion than his own debt-riddled circumstances. She’d watched countless men and women in London’s dismal corners suffer and fail at affairs of the heart. Why? Because they’d put their faith, and love, in someone else.

The brokenhearted haunted Whitechapel and Southwark, the ghosts of the lovelorn and wretched.

Wisdom was a hard-won gift. She’d become wise at a very young age.

Send him away, her mind whispered. Protect yourself.

Never let him go, cried her heart.

But who would she listen to? Her heart or her brain?

Sadly, she knew the answer.

“I made a promise,” she said at last. “Mr. Hamish is relying on me.”

“He’s using you,” he answered bitingly. “He’s thinking only of himself, not your honor. Not your welfare.”

Part of her already understood this. Martin had been kind to her, but only as far as it benefitted himself. She couldn’t fault him for his selfishness. Generosity for its own sake didn’t exist, not in her experience. Though it did—with Alex. It was one of the reasons why she’d gone to his bed.

“I know,” she replied. “But I gave him my word, and I am always true to my word.”

A muscle flexed in Alex’s jaw. She knew he didn’t care for her response, even if some part of him respected her code of ethics.

“How long do you intend to work here?” he demanded.

A little bit of truth helped shore up a lie. “Mr. Hamish doesn’t plan on keeping the hell open for more than a month. We’ve got thirteen days left, and then the operation closes. He intends to use his earnings to open a more-permanent establishment in Edinburgh.”

“You’ll follow him to Edinburgh?” He seemed to push these words out as if rubbing sand into an open wound.

She shook her head. “With my saved wages, I plan on going to a town somewhere up north and teaching deportment to mill owners’ daughters.”

“Every step is planned out.” He released her hand and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Life is a chess game.” She pursed her lips. “All moves are thought out well in advance, or else disaster follows. I made that mistake with my cousin, and it can’t happen again.”

He exhaled as he glanced away. “This . . . is intolerable. You must allow me to help you.”

The duke was completely in her control. She could ask anything of him now, and he’d give it to her.

She imagined the luxurious apartments that could be hers, silk and satin and beauty everywhere she looked. Jewels for her ears and throat. Food cooked by her own French chef. Plenty of fine things to wear or look at. Every one of her youthful dreams brought to bear.

She didn’t want any of that anymore. Where once her mouth might have watered with greed, now she tasted ashes.

“Must I?” She smiled.

He looked rueful. “Of course, you have to do what you think is right.”

“Thank you.”

A corner of his mouth turned up, the most she had ever seen him smile. What would it take to get him to grin, to laugh aloud?

She wouldn’t know. She shouldn’t know.

“I have to do something to assist you,” he insisted.

Nodding toward the doors that led back into the building, she said, “Spend extravagantly.”

“I am not given to extravagance,” he said drily.

Oh, how she longed to flirt with him. To finger the diamond solitaire winking in his cravat and tell him that he wasn’t always so restrained. To coax more smiles and laughter from him, those rare, intoxicating sounds. But why torment herself with what she couldn’t have? That way lay pain and disappointment—two emotions she knew too well.