Page 39 of Duke of Emeralds (Dukes of Decadence #2)

H ester took a deep breath as the air around them seemed to slow. A hundred pairs of eyes turned in her direction.

She dug her fingers into Thomas’ arm, desperate for something to anchor her as they moved through the Duchess of Eldenham’s ballroom. “They are staring at us,” she said.

Thomas didn’t break stride. If anything, he stood taller, his head held at a regal angle. He leaned in, just enough for her to feel the vibration in his chest. “How can they not stare at you, Hester?” he said.

She could have withered him with a glare, but she looked up, startled, and in that instant, she saw he meant every syllable. It should have embarrassed her, but instead, a current ran through her chest, followed by a dizzying, breathless lightness.

He seems proud of me. Truly proud.

Thomas steered her through the press, and Hester could feel the attention as people craned their necks to see.

She caught Anna and Fiona in the crush, their mouths gone round as dinner plates, and beside them, Nancy actually fanned herself and winked.

The entire room seemed to part for them as if by royal command.

“Lord, what have you done to me,” Hester muttered, scanning the faces.

“Only what any good husband would do,” Thomas replied, the humor so subtle she nearly missed it. “You’re a force tonight, Duchess.”

She opened her mouth to rebuff him, but just then Marquess of Alderton and his wife appeared. Lady Alderton’s eyes went comically wide then immediately narrowed into delighted mischief.

“Devil take me,” Lady Alderton said, approaching at speed, “if that is not the most spectacular entrance of the year. Your Grace, I salute you.”

Hester let herself be swept into the greeting. “I thought you were still in the country,” she said.

Lord Alderton clapped Thomas’ shoulder. “We were, but my wife threatened to poison the gamekeeper if I did not bring her back in time for this ball.”

“He underestimates the power of social necessity. I’d have dragged him back by his toes if need be.” Lady Alderton laughed.

They exchanged a quick chat before the Aldertons left, and Thomas pulled her closer. “You are managing admirably,” he murmured.

“If you throw me to the wolves, you’ll find I bite back,” she replied, but it had none of the venom she’d intended.

Thomas’ gaze traveled and settled briefly on her lips then traveled upward with careful deliberation. The room was full, every possible nook occupied, yet he looked at her as if they were alone in the center of a deserted cathedral. It made her feel exposed and invulnerable at once.

He offered his arm. “Walk with me?”

Hester acquiesced, weaving through the crowd, and the tension within her eased just a little. Her heart sped as she recognized the opening strains of the waltz. She wasn’t a terrible dancer, but she wasn’t especially good, either. And she realized she had never danced with her husband in London.

“We could always run for the card room,” she said, eyeing the far corner with longing.

Thomas smirked. “Not tonight, Duchess. Tonight, you must let them stare. And, if you’re feeling generous, maybe even let them envy.”

She was about to retort, but Thomas pulled her into the orbit of the floor, catching her hand in his, the press of his palm both reassuring and possessive.

The red dress glowed in the candlelight, every thread of embroidery catching fire, every turn amplifying her color until she felt herself a burning brand.

As they moved to the center, a nearby knot of matrons gossiped openly—deliberately. Hester caught the words “ostentation,” “bought her title,” and “parading like the Queen of England herself.”

Thomas’s jaw locked. Hester squeezed his hand, meaning it as a warning, but he broke from their dance path and addressed the ladies.

“Excuse me, ladies,” he said, “but if I may offer an observation, it is a rare man whose wife can outshine the crown jewels all on her own merit. Perhaps there is a lesson to learn here, ladies.” His tone was so polite, the venom barely registered, but the implication was evident.

The first matron bristled, and her lips thinning to thread. The second blushed. The third, clearly the leader, looked as if she would combust.

Hester wanted to cheer, but she played the part of the decorous spouse, dipping her head in a show of humility.

As they drifted away, Thomas muttered, “It’s their own doing, ye know. They build you up only to pull you down.”

“Are you always so good at dueling with society dragons?” she asked, letting him lead.

He shrugged, and she felt the muscles in his arm flex. “Ye have to be in Scotland. The dragons are real there.”

The dance began in earnest. Hester, at first too conscious of her body, focused on the mechanics: left, right, step, turn.

But Thomas was better—surer, lighter, as if he meant to show her off rather than pin her down.

Soon, she forgot the room and concentrated on the rhythm, letting herself move with him.

Around them, the whispers multiplied, but they waltzed through the scrutiny, and Thomas pulled her a fraction closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “Daenae mind them, Hester. Let them watch.”

“I am not so sure I like it,” she said, but she liked the way he looked at her. It was nothing she had ever expected: fierce, proud, almost… reverent.

The song ended, and the applause thundered. Thomas kept her hand a moment longer than was necessary.

“You do not have to act the part for my sake,” she said over the din.

“I am not acting, Hester,” he said, serious now. “I have seen the worst this world can do, and I’ll be damned if I let anyone —anyone—bring you low. I would not have you debased for the sport of idle tongues.”

The statement rattled her, not because of the force behind it but because she wanted—so badly—to believe him. To believe that he was capable of that sort of loyalty.

She realized she was trembling, and it annoyed her.

The next dance started, but Hester excused herself. “I must attend to the retiring room,” she said. She did not look back to see if he followed.

In the cool silence of the powder room, Hester steadied her breathing.

She caught her own reflection in the glass, the flush high in her cheeks, the dress burning brighter than her own skin.

The flush was not from embarrassment. It was from the intensity of that last exchange.

She pressed her hands to her face then let herself breathe, slowly and evenly.

On the way back, she cut through a side hallway to avoid the worst of the crowd. As she passed an ajar salon, she heard voices. Hester could have ignored them, but the mention of ‘Lushton’ had her steps slowing.

“—utterly disrespectful,” said one, brimming with outrage. “The man was nothing before. A commoner, practically. How he came to be Duke is a scandal unto itself.”

“And her,” another chimed in, “wasting away as a spinster when she set her sights on him. Some say she courted the favor of every titled man in London until she found one desperate enough.”

“The dress,” the first voice spat. “Only a desperate climber would wear such a color to a ball. Red. For a duchess!”

Hester froze at the threshold. The voices belonged to the matrons from before that Thomas had reprimanded.

“The Crown gives out titles now like sweetmeats at Easter. No breeding, no lineage. The man worked, did you know? Actually worked, as a steward or some such before the old Duke died.”

“He was under Craton, if you believe the stories,” the second voice whispered. “Imagine. Our hostess’ own husband had him in employ once. And now, he dares act as if he’s always been a peer.”

The third voice sighed. “It’s unseemly. The new money, the lack of manners. I would have thought the Duchess could teach him better, but it seems she prefers to lower herself to his level.”

Hester’s heart hammered. She turned, about to leave, but a memory snagged her: something Craton had said in Dorset, a remark about Thomas’s uncanny competence, his ability to manage lands and people, to make the impossible run like clockwork.

At the time, she’d found it a compliment, but now, the undertone was clear.

A wave of shame swept over her. Not because of Thomas but because she realized she had never asked about his past.

She moved past the door, careful to make no sound, and walked the rest of the way back to the ballroom in a daze. The noise, the heat, the music—all of it faded to a muffled drone.

When she saw Thomas across the floor, he was speaking with Isaac. Thomas had the easy stance of someone who belonged. But now, she saw it for the armor it was.

He had built himself, brick by brick, until he could pass for any other nobleman in the room. And she, blind as she was, had never noticed.

When their eyes met, Thomas started toward her. She looked away first, feeling unsettled within.

Hours later, when she could not sleep, Hester found Thomas in the library, alone, seated not before his easel but in the battered leather chair by the fire.

He wore shirtsleeves and had his boots propped on the fender, one ankle crossed over the other.

A book balanced on his knee, but she could tell from the unturned pages that he wasn’t reading.

“You’re not drawing tonight,” Hester said. She stood in the doorway, watching him.

Thomas looked up. “Lost the urge,” he said. “Some nights the world is enough to fill a man’s head.”

She crossed the room and perched on the edge of the settee. The silence was companionable but not easy. “You are breaking the pattern, then,” she said. “I had assumed you’d be sketching ships or castles or perhaps… wolves.”

He grinned, but it was a thin effort. “Am I truly supposed to be the wolf in this story, Hester?”

“You tell me,” she replied, and then, because she couldn’t help it, she added, “You are not nearly as frightening as society would have us believe. At least, not when you are reading poetry and ignoring the world.”

He set the book aside. “That’s yer mistake, Duchess. Ye let a man show ye his throat, and ye think he’s harmless.”

She snorted though her pulse quickened. “You are many things, Thomas, but harmless is not among them.”

He cocked a brow. “Neither are ye.”

They sat, locked in a stare, until Hester broke it with a sharp sigh. “I heard something at the ball. About your—about your past.” She watched his jaw set, the faintest recoil in his shoulders.

Thomas said nothing at first then ran a hand down his bearded jaw. “What exactly did you hear?”

“That you worked. For Craton, perhaps, or someone else.” She waited, heart pounding. “That you were… a servant.”

He made a sound that was half laugh, half grunt. “Aye. I was.” He looked at her then, the blue of his eyes as cold and hard as river glass. “You want to know the story, do ye?”

“I do,” she said. “I want to know you , Thomas.”

He sat up and clasped his hands between his knees, staring at the rug as if the right words might be hidden in its worn pattern.

“My father died when I was ten. Left nothing but debts and hunger and a mother who’d never worked a day in her life.

” He paused and blinked slowly. “We lost the cottage then the land. My mother worked on the farms, Elspet took in washing, and I went to the nearest estate to find work. Any work. A blacksmith gave me work. I hammered iron on anvil for four years during the day and carried goods to warehouses at night.”

Hester felt a sharp, unexpected pain behind her breastbone. “Four years,” she echoed, as if that could lessen it.

“After that, I was tall enough to be useful in the fields. I could out-plow any man twice my age by the time I was fifteen.” He grinned but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Never made much of it, though. Men like me don’t get promoted, we get beaten.”

She thought of the scar on his cheek, the way he sometimes flinched from casual touch. “They hurt you.”

He shrugged. “Nae more than was needed to remind me of my place.” He glanced at her then away.

“I worked for a nobleman a few seasons and saw how a proper estate was run. Learned how to fix a roof, mend a fence, balance accounts. That’s all a duke’s work is in the end—fixing, mending, balancing.

If anyone tells you differently, they’re lying. ”

She wanted to reach for him, but her hands remained clasped in her lap. “What about your mother? And your sister?”

He stilled, the muscle in his jaw working.

“Elspet married when I was thirteen to a baronet, Sir Robert McMillan. I thought she was selling her happiness to help us, but she insisted. My mother…” He sighed.

“She died when I was fourteen. A fever took her. Though Elspet helped us, we dinnae want to burden her, and our ma continued working hard until her body grew weak, and she was unable to fight the fever.”

Thomas met her eyes, the pain raw and unguarded now. “I lived on my own and assured Elspet that all was well. I blame myself for allowing my mother to work too hard and my sister to marry a man she dinnae love.”

Hester touched his arm. “You were a boy. It was beyond you.”

“I know that now, but I had nothing, Hester. Nae even a name worth the dirt it was scrawled on. When the Lushton line died out, and the title went hunting for blood kin, it found me in a London office managing Craton’s estate. That’s the miracle, Duchess. The biggest one of all.”

She blinked and tried to imagine it. Her own childhood with its music and books, the secure geometry of privilege—compared to this.

“That is not a miracle, Thomas. It is survival,” she said softly,

He shrugged, but she could see the shame in it. “I survived, aye. That’s about all I did.”

“You did more than that.” She found herself angry—at the world, at the snobs at the ball, even at Thomas for thinking so little of himself.

“You kept your family alive. You learned every skill worth knowing. You built yourself into something no one could ever buy or falsify.” She leaned forward, her voice rising. “Do you know how rare that is?”

He looked startled then amused. “You’re passionate tonight, Duchess. What’s in that punch you drank?”

She flushed. “I am not drunk. I am…” She trailed off, uncertain.

He supplied, “Hungry?”

She met his gaze, unflinching. “Yes. Hungry for the truth. For something real.” She drew in a breath. “I have never known anything so real as you, Thomas. And I have never been so terrified in my life.”

He laughed, a sound that cut through the sorrow. “Are ye afraid of me, then?”

“Never,” she said. “I am afraid of what I might become. If I let myself.”

Thomas stood then drew her up. Very slowly he touched her face, just once, with the back of his fingers.

“Ye mean that?” he asked.

“I do,” she said and found herself smiling through tears she did not recall summoning.

They stood balanced on the edge of something wild and new.

She did not know what the future held, but for the first time, she believed it could be beautiful.