In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,76

hell, Lila.” He paused as a new, horrifying thought crept in. “Is Lila March even your name?”

“It is,” she spoke quietly, without hesitation, verifying she’d at least given him the truth of her name.

His stomach sick, Hugh looked around. “And this place?” Though “palace” would have been a more apt choice of words. “Do you live here?”

She shook her head, and some of the tension eased.

“This is my sister’s residence.”

Hell.

“The widow whose husband was killed by a fighter?”

She gave a nod. “Her name is Sylvia. And her husband was killed at Gentleman Jackson’s. I’m merely staying here until my brother returns from the country.” There was a slight pause. “Henry is an earl.”

An earl? Hugh, with his impoverished past and, at best, tenuous present and future—they couldn’t be any more different. And he hated the depth and truth of that divide. He despised that she was part of that same lot of people who’d taken advantage of him since he’d been born, and used him for their pleasures.

Unable to look at her lest she see the tumult of emotion, all his own self-loathing and frustration with circumstances he’d never had a hope of changing, Hugh looked at the snow-white keys she’d been expertly plying when he’d entered . . . the flittermouse she’d made off with resting there. As if the crude carving somehow mattered. Which was preposterous. For that would have to mean that he somehow mattered to her beyond the lessons she’d asked him for.

The moon’s glow bathed her cheeks in light. “I am so very glad you are here, Hugh,” she said softly, and his foolish heart jumped.

“Oh?”

Lila collected a book from the pianoforte.

When he still made no move, Lila pressed him. “Take it.” Still, there was a reluctance to her words, a woman surrendering secrets that she wasn’t altogether certain she wished to share. And it was why he wanted the book most. Because from the moment he’d spied her outside the windows of his arena, he’d been incurably fascinated by her.

Not taking his eyes from her face, Hugh tugged the book from her fingers.

“An idea came to me, Hugh,” she said eagerly when he still didn’t bring himself to look at her words written there. “Read it.” A command that required he look at those pages in order to have the answers he sought.

He flipped open the cover.

Pages filled with words that looked like they’d been written in haste, barely legible, so difficult to decipher that it took a moment to register them . . . or what he was reading. And then he did. Oh, God, he did.

With hands that shook, he snapped the book closed hard, and dropped it as if burnt.

His mouth went sour, like he’d sucked down a pint of vinegar. Feeling like he was going to toss the contents of his stomach right there on her gleaming hardwood floors, Hugh moved. Needing to put some space between them. Needing to sort through his thoughts. And this revelation.

But she’d not allow him that.

There was the softest whir of skirts, and the groan of a lone loose floorboard as she came over to him. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner,” she chattered, excitement punctuating her every word. “There’re so many who will benefit from learning how to fight. This is what I hope to do. Create a fight society.”

A fight society . . .

That name from his past, resurrected by the only person who’d brought light into his life.

Grabbing another one of those notepads, she flipped it open and gestured wildly at those pages as she spoke. “I know it’s not the most conventional of ideas, and yet, it is . . .”

Her words all became a jumbled blur of excitement and joy, phrases drifted in and out of focus, and with his spare hand, he briefly dug his fingertips into the right side of his temple.

“It can be something so wonderful, Hugh.” She smiled, dimpling both cheeks. Her dream was his nightmare. Spreading the venom that was this ruthless world, and poisoning more with the sin of fighting. “And tonight, it occurred to me . . . what I truly want.”

“What is that?” he asked hollowly.

“For us to embark on this venture together.”

Embark on this venture? She spoke about it as if she were suggesting Hugh and Lila together begin a grand journey to some far-off land.

“We would be true partners, each with an equal share in the running of the society. You’d be an equal.” At