LITMIR.BIZ

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“I leave the investigation to you. A pressing matter has come up.” Ellingsworth walked quickly toward his waiting lover.

      Less than a moment later, a blonde dressed as a dairymaid swayed over to Tom’s side.

      “Shame you being on your own,” she said as she trailed her fingers down his waistcoat. Her accent held the rough consonants of East London. “Shame that I’m on my own, too.”

      His body answered with a quick throb of lust, but he softly took her hand between his and pressed a kiss to her rough fingertips. So her garb and accent weren’t disguises. She truly was a dairymaid.

      “Forgive me,” he said with a smile. “I’m still getting my sea legs.”

      “Don’t need balance if you’re lying down.” She winked and glanced toward an unoccupied chaise.

      “I’m truly tempted, love,” he said with genuine regret. “But I mean to get the lay of the land first.” When she frowned in disappointment, he said, “You’ll have no trouble finding a willing friend. If I return in quarter of an hour and you’re still on your own, I promise to make it up to you.”

      She looked at him, her expression considering. “Sound awful sure of yourself.”

      “There’s much in this world that defies my understanding,” he said. “Yet if there’s anything I do understand, it’s fucking.”

      “Anybody can fuck,” she said, her hands on her hips. “But can you do it right?”

      “Oh, yes,” he said with complete confidence.

      She looked him up and down, and she smiled, liking what she saw. “Come find me then. A quarter of an hour.”

      She ambled away toward a servant pouring wine, but before she’d gotten halfway across the room, an elegantly dressed man stopped her with a kiss. Given the enthusiastic way in which the dairymaid responded, Tom was certain she would be quite busy in fifteen minutes.

      After grabbing a sugared cake from a platter and then following it up with a glass of wine, Tom moved from the parlor to an adjoining room. It was considerably larger than the previous chamber and looked very much like a ballroom, complete with parquet floors below, two sizable chandeliers above, and substantial framed mirrors on the walls. In the corner, a group of masked musicians played a waltz. At the farthest end of the ballroom stood what appeared to be a stage, currently empty. Tom could only speculate what sort of performances might happen at the club.

      The dance floor was full of more guests in various stages of undress. Some of them actually danced, though their bodies were far closer than any Society function would permit. The rest swayed in couples or trios, kissing and caressing one another. Even a Cyprian’s Ball could not compete for unalloyed sensuality.

      A man and woman paused in the middle of their heated embrace and beckoned for Tom to join them. Despite his stab of desire, Tom politely waved a decline.

      This was precisely the sort of diversion he normally relished. Yet here he was, sticking close to the perimeter, content merely to observe rather than participate.

      An unknown force held him back. He merely watched everything unfold around him and could not quite bridge the distance between himself and what he saw.

      Perhaps he should leave. Leave Ellingsworth to his debauchery and then … and then what? Go back to his bachelor lodgings and spend the rest of the night reading by the fire? What a truly gloomy thought. He hadn’t spent a quiet evening at home in nearly a decade. But if he wasn’t going to avail himself on the Orchid Club’s bounty, maybe it was better to beat a retreat.

      With a frustrated sigh, Tom turned to go. But he stopped when he caught sight of a woman standing alone by a table that held a potted orchid.

      She was fully dressed in a sophisticated white-and-gold gown and wore a mask of gold satin. The light in the ballroom was dim, yet even from this distance he could see the olive hue of her skin, and the long line of her neck revealed by her upswept black hair. She possessed a bold splendor, her features strong and striking. She had a beautiful, generously proportioned nose like a Mediterranean goddess, and full, ripe lips. Like him, she watched the proceedings in the ballroom, but did not move to participate.

      She held herself with the kind of poise that came only with complete self-assurance. As if she refused to believe anything could hold her back. That, even more than her beauty, made her magnetic. Once Tom’s gaze fell upon her, he could not look away, not even if the building had fallen down around him.

      Who was she? What kept her from joining in the activity all around them? He ached to know her every secret, and burned to hear her voice—would it be high and musical, or low and husky? Anything and everything about her he ached to discover.

      He couldn’t remember a woman affecting him so strongly, so quickly. He knew desire, certainly, and the quick pull of attraction, but this immediate fascination was unknown. Until now.

      Every part of him craved to be near the woman in the gold mask. Overcome with staunch determination, he moved straight in her direction. Whatever tonight’s outcome might be, he could never regret coming here, because it brought him to her.

       Chapter 2

      Excitement and anxiety pulsed just beneath the surface of Lucia Marini’s skin as she surveyed the Orchid Club’s belowstairs kitchen.

      “We’ll have enough cakes?” she asked Jenny, the cook.

      “For the fifth time, yes,” Jenny said with an exasperated smile.

      She placed a candied violet atop one sugared confection and set that on a silver tray. Immediately, a masked female member of the staff whisked the platter away.

      “Circulate three times through each room,” Lucia called after the girl.

      A pair of hands settled on Lucia’s shoulders and gently squeezed. “Breathing’s not so difficult, once you get the hang of it.”

      Lucia turned and smiled at her friend Kitty. Kitty’s ash-blonde hair fell loosely about her shoulders, and her hazel eyes regarded Lucia with fond amusement. With her coral freckles scattered across ivory skin, Kitty looked more like a country girl from Devonshire than a London woman of experience. She had once been the former and was now the latter.

      At the sight of Kitty, a fraction of the tension knotted in Lucia’s chest loosened.

      “I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?”

      “A little,” Kitty said. She rubbed her hand over her exceptionally pregnant belly in habitual movement. “But a bit of ridiculousness is perfectly understandable. Tonight’s your first night as the club’s manager. Only an escapee from Bedlam would be calm about it.”

      “I may need to be committed to Bedlam after the night’s over.” Lucia couldn’t keep still, and, despite a glower from Jenny, adjusted the placement of miniature tarts on their platter. They looked good, but were they good enough?

      Jenny pointed a cook’s knife in Lucia’s direction. “Hands off, or I’ll chop them off and make them into mincemeat pies.”

      Hands raised up, Lucia backed away from the sweets. “It’s not that I doubt your skill in the kitchen—”

      Kitty laid her fingers on Lucia’s arm. “Stop right there before you say something that’ll make you cringe later.”

      She tugged Lucia out of the kitchen. In the corridor, Kitty stroked a few strands of hair from Lucia’s face. “Be at ease, love. Everything will go swimmingly.”

      Despite all the encouragement Lucia had given herself earlier, her composure fell away and she fought to keep from twisting her hands together.

      “Mrs. Chalke entrusted the Orchid Club to me. All the souls that work here, they

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