Lord of the Masquerade by Erica Ridley

Chapter 13

Unity picked her way carefully down the slick cobblestone street. The rain had drizzled to a stop an hour ago, leaving uneven puddles and rivulets of dirty water in its wake.

Her mind was not on the spring weather. Nor were her constantly churning thoughts centered on the nest egg she was working to amass or the masquerade-themed assembly rooms she intended to one day own on a street just like this one.

She was thinking about the Duke of Lambley.

Again.

Still.

He had pushed the usual topics so far from her mind that thoughts of him had become the new usual.

Ridiculous. Pointless. They had spent a glorious hour dancing and arguing and laughing together as Lord and Lady X, but he was no carefree anonymous buck.

At precisely eleven o’clock, he had handed her his mask, knocked the powder from his hair, and resumed his role as king of the ballroom.

That had been Unity’s cue to forget about her temporary employer.

Take advantage of being left to her own devices, inspect every carefully planned element, and then log in her book each stratagem and rationale and, hell, even the dimensions and angles of the triangle sandwiches.

And she did. She had. In between remembering his expressive lips crushed to hers and the feel of his strong arms cradling her close.

It wasn’t even about the swan’s teasing recommendation to accept the invitation to go upstairs with the duke if he asked. Unity didn’t bother lying to herself about what she would do the next time. Of course she would go with him. She would drag him up the stairs by his cravat if it got them to a bedchamber faster.

That was the easy part. A meaningless tumble was something anyone could walk away from.

The hard part was making it meaningless.

She liked Lambley, damn him. She hadn’t meant to or expected to. He was rich and white and powerful, born to a title and luxury and privilege. She’d expected stilted conversations at best, if he condescended to speak with her at all.

And they’d somehow become friends. More than friends and less than friends, at the same time. He desired her enough to kiss her senseless, respected her enough to listen to her ideas... and yet, she only fit into his life one day a week, the twilight hour before the masquerade.

A temporary diversion. She couldn’t let herself forget.

Ah, here she was. She hauled open the door to noisy, smoky Eshu’s Altar and stepped inside.

“Miss Unity!” called out dozens of gamblers at once, some in obvious delight and others pretending to hide their cards or their chips from her view.

Normally she greeted them all by name with a smile or a teasing remark, but today she was struck at the parallels between Sampson’s Cheapside gaming hell and Lambley’s Mayfair masquerades.

Both locales greeted her with enthusiasm when she walked in the door. At the duke’s, she was Lady X, one more anonymous face among many. Here, she was Miss Unity Thorne, appreciated for exactly who and what she was.

At Lambley’s, liveried footmen surrounded her at once with silver trays piled artfully with crystal goblets of the finest champagne. Here, Sampson beckoned from the other side of the bar, one hand holding a glass of her favorite brandy and the other wiping down the counter with a worn brown rag.

Two wholly separate spheres, Unity reminded herself. This was the one she belonged to.

Sampson slid the glass of brandy across the counter toward Unity. “Heading to the theatre tonight?”

“Just came from there.” She’d traded in the gown she’d just worn to Lambley’s for a new one he hadn’t yet seen.

“How are the actress friends?” He wiggled his brows. “I’m still waiting for you to introduce me.”

“Anyone with half a brain should love to meet you, but you know how it is. They barely leave the theatre for long enough to go home and sleep. When you’re not the star, you have to do whatever you can to stay employed.”

That, and they were seeking protectors with money to burn.

“Now you have two posts.” Sampson wiped the bar, but his eyes were on her. “Do you ever get to sleep?”

“Three posts.” Unity held up her reticule and clinked the coins inside. “I intend to turn your clients’ pockets inside out at the whist table today.”

“Gambling is not employment,” he chided her.

She sipped her brandy. “Rich, coming from a man who has built his fortune on that exact enterprise.”

“I manage the venue,” he reminded her. “I don’t sit at the tables. Have you ever considered slowing down?”

“Slowing... down?” She stared at him, appalled.

“You run headlong into things. Into everything.”

“If I see something I can do, I do it,” she said defensively.

“Here are a few things you could do.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Slow down. Breathe. Have a moment when you’re not running yourself ragged.”

“I have to work harder than everyone else if I’m to have a chance at succeeding,” she said. “People tell me my dreams are impossible. I’m a woman. I’m Black. I’ve no one I can count on but myself. But I know I can become a successful business owner if I try hard enough. You did it.”

“I’m not a woman,” Sampson said dryly. “And I didn’t do it on my own. You helped me, just like you helped your cousin. Perhaps you could make a living out of helping others build their businesses.”

Help privileged men get richer and more powerful? She shook her head. There was enough of that already. “I want to fulfill my potential, not someone else’s. I’m tired of being employed. I want to be the manager, not the managed.”

Sampson inclined his head. He might not know the intricacies of being a woman, but he intimately knew the difficulties of being Black. Whilst slavery had technically always been illegal on England’s shores, Britain had yet to abolish the horrid practice throughout its territories. They both had family members they would never see again, cousins and ancestors they would never know at all.

If being free meant owning a gaming hell for Sampson, he would accept without question whatever Unity needed, in order to feel like her own person. To be in charge of herself, subject to nobody’s whims but her own.

A cry rose from a Hazard table. After an exchange of coins, the gentlemen put down their dice and came up to the bar for fresh ales.

Sampson poured with practiced efficiency and slid the frothy ales across the counter to the men. “Downing, Bost, Grenville.”

Unity placed her brandy glass on the bar. “I’m for the whist table.”

“Wait.” Sampson motioned her toward the storage pantry they’d often used to have a quick word in privacy.

As soon as they were out of earshot from the men at the bar, Unity raised her brows. “Are you going to lecture me?”

“I don’t want to lecture,” Sampson said softly, his dark brown eyes unsettlingly astute. “I want to help. You don’t have to wear your feet to the bone chasing after dreams, Unity.”

She scoffed. “I should repose on a chaise longue and allow the dreams to come to me?”

“It’s an option.” His eyes clouded, then cleared. “Marry me. I already have a successful business. We’ve managed it together before. We can do it again. I’ll buy you that chaise longue, and you can ‘repose’ whenever you like.”

Not again. Unity looked away.

Sampson was a good man. A great friend. He would make a wonderful husband... to someone else.

She liked him too much to saddle him with a bride who didn’t love him, not in that way. A wife who would resent him for convincing her to give up her dreams in order to help him build his.

“I thank you for your kind offer,” she said quietly. “It is not what I am looking for at this time.”

He tilted his head. “What are you looking for?”

Autonomy, freedom, financial independence. Those had been her aims for so long, the words usually spilled from her tongue without any conscious thought.

She was startled to discover a new word had crept onto the list.

Love.

She wanted love. Her achievements would be lonely without someone to share them with. She wanted someone who challenged her and believed in her. Someone who didn’t want to save her or fix her or do her a favor.

To Unity, Sampson’s gaming hell would always remind her of the worst moments of her life. When she had nowhere else to go because her cousin had turned her out. She had been eaten alive by betrayal and fear and hatred. Meanwhile, her cousin Roger was actively trying to drive Sampson out of business, so she’d funneled all that rage into making this gaming hell outshine anything her cousin had ever touched.

It worked. They won. But this place would always be Sampson’s. Unity’s emotions about her time here were too raw and ugly to let her stay for long.

Sampson deserved to fall in love with someone who could fully appreciate him for the beautiful soul that he was.

“You know I’d be a dreadful wife to you.”

His lips quirked. “I’ve made my peace with that.”

“You shouldn’t have to. One of the advantages to not being ton is that we get to choose. Don’t settle for anything less than a love match, Sampson.”

His brown eyes widened in obvious surprise. “I’ve never heard you talk about love. I didn’t think it figured into your plans.”

“I didn’t either,” she admitted. “Maybe I’m growing.”

“Maybe you grew a long time ago and are only just now letting go of who you used to be.” He angled his head. “Or maybe you’ve already fallen in love with someone.”

“I’m too busy for love at the moment.” She patted the bag at her side. “I’ve got a thick journal brimming with the plans I’m making for my future assembly rooms, and I—”

“May I see them?” he asked with obvious interest.

Unity pulled the book from her bag and handed it to him with pride.

He flipped carefully through the pages.

“I think,” he said at last, “your assembly rooms will be an instant success. I also cannot help but notice that a significant number of these entries are dedicated not to your future endeavors, but to the betterment of a certain weekly masquerade already in existence?”

She yanked the book from his hands. “I’m helping him.”

“I’ve no doubt.”

“It’s business,” she added firmly.

He nodded. “So you said.”

“I’m not going to marry him,” she said defensively.

“Probably not,” Sampson agreed. “Though I suppose we do have Queen Charlotte, so there is some precedent.”

“Is there?” Unity shook her head. “Her African heritage is distant and minimal, whilst mine is present and obvious. Her mother was a princess. Mine descended from East Indies slaves. Her father was a duke. Mine was a preacher’s son. She was born into royalty. Have you seen my rented rooms? Our paths and our stations could not be more different.”

“So you have thought about this,” Sampson said. “Interesting.”

Unity clamped her teeth shut.

“If anyone can do the impossible, it’s you,” he told her. “If that’s the dream you’ve set your sights on, go after it.”

“I don’t think I’d want to be part of that world,” she said uncertainly. “They would call me an unworthy social climber and much, much worse. If I were an heiress or shared blood with royalty, the color of my skin would be less of a deterrent. There would be looks and whispers and doors that did not open, but plenty of doors would. My unforgivable crime is being common and poor.”

“I’ve never met anyone more uncommon,” Sampson replied. “If your duke doesn’t have cork for brains, he sees it, too.”

She shook her head. “Even if he were interested, he couldn’t choose me. He is the beau monde. Opening myself up for an inevitable rejection would be foolish.”

And painful. Just the thought of being so vulnerable had her adding more protective layers around her heart.

“All Lambley and I share is a temporary business arrangement.” And torrid, but equally temporary kisses. She would enjoy it while it lasted and then walk away with her head high. “I’ll fall in love with someone appropriate to my station once I’ve achieved my other aims and have time for softer emotions.”

“Mm-hm,” Sampson said. “Then I wish you luck. You’re going to need it.”