In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,70
in our stomachs and”—he gestured to the cracked ceiling—“a roof over our heads. Power, so that others bent on taking to grow their own wealth and influence don’t think to infringe on our territory.”
She moved her gaze over his face. “You don’t think of anything more for yourself.”
Peace. Hugh wanted only peace. With her questioning, however, she drove home the fact of the differences between them, and those questions about her and her past and how she’d come into his life surfaced. Who was she that she didn’t know the same fears that dogged everyone born to this side of England? “That is the way one who lives in the rookeries goes through it. People don’t live here, Lila. If they’re lucky, they survive, and then they die.” Unnerved, he eased out of her arms and lay down.
She immediately joined him, sliding against his side. “You deserve more than simply surviving.”
Hugh caught her fingers and drew them to his lips. “I wouldn’t even know what more than that is, Lila.”
Liar. You do know. It’s her. With Lila, he saw what it was to have a person to talk to and tease. And it scared him out of his everlasting mind. Just as he knew, for all the blood on his hands, he deserved nothing.
This time, she didn’t press him further. They remained wrapped in one another’s arms, and closing his eyes, Hugh slept.
“Ya bluidy monster. Yar a monster, the lot of ya. May ya rot fuir wot yu’ve done this day.”
His heart hammering, Hugh’s eyes shot open. The heavy sound of silence rang in the air.
He was here. In London. In his apartments.
And then he recalled . . .
Turning his head, he found Lila.
At some point, she’d risen, dressed, and plaited her hair. He rubbed at sleep-tired eyes. So much for the soldier’s senses that had saved him. Now, she sat perched on the edge of a moth-eaten armchair, and there was something so very wrong in this woman sitting in that seating he’d recovered from the streets years earlier.
Lila reached for one of her boots. As if she felt his eyes on her, she looked over; that abrupt movement sent her dark braid bouncing against her shoulder. “You’re awake.”
She sounded happy to see him.
Had anyone felt that sentiment for him? Ever?
“So are you,” he said gruffly, glancing pointedly at her feet.
She followed his stare, and color splashed her cheeks. “I have to leave.”
Of course she did.
And soon he had to return to Savage’s and get on with the day’s work, dealing with a business he despised.
And he was filled with the keenest of regrets. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Hugh stood and made his way over to a washbasin he’d set out that morn. After washing himself, he went about collecting a change of garments.
All the while, Lila resumed strapping her laces. There was an intimacy to the moment, the both of them going about dressing, comfortable in the silence between them.
But then, what had taken place here in his apartments had been a level of intimacy he’d never known or ever thought to know with another person. And he was loath for it to end. For when it did . . . what were they, really? Just two strangers content with their secrets, whose time together was finite. And in the ultimate mark of irony, he and Lila March were joined by the thing he despised most.
After they’d both dressed, Hugh and Lila faced one another. “I have to go.”
“You said as much.”
She glided over, and then like a loving wife might a husband, she smoothed her palms down the lapels of the jacket he’d donned. “What if I said I was dawdling because I didn’t want to leave?”
Stay. His heart thumped extra hard. For that was the word on his lips, and yet as she’d pointed out, they couldn’t stay here pretending anymore. He had his work, and she . . .
Where does she go when she leaves you for the morn?
“I’d say we both know we have to split ways eventually.” He spoke of the inevitability of their parting.
Did he imagine the sadness that glimmered in her eyes? “Yes,” she agreed, and let her arms fall to her side.
Hugh held out a hand. “Come on.”
She stared a long while at his callused palm. “Where are we going?”
Annoyance stirred. Did she think he’d simply send her on through the rookeries without knowing she’d found her way safely back? “We’ll find you a hackney.”