“Are you... in love with him?” Unity asked.
“Oh, no. I’m married. Although, if Lambley were capable of love, I’ve no doubt the duke could woo any maiden from her husband. Alas, his heart is dark and shriveled. There’s no room in his rigid life for love.”
“That’s a cruel thing to say.”
“He told me so himself.” The swan shrugged. “The only feelings I’ve ever seen him admit to are displeasure and lust. He says love is for fools, and he does not suffer them.”
“That sounds...”
“Cold? Heartless? He would agree.”
“...sad,” Unity finished quietly.
And perhaps inaccurate. The duke was a man who prided himself on being icy and unforgiving, yet was also known for being extraordinarily generous. He opened his home, if not his heart, and was even at this moment fetching tarts and ratafia for his guests as though he were a footman and not the lord of the manor.
What’s more, he had agreed to Unity’s scheme despite patently not requiring her assistance. It was like the loans, she realized. Rather than give her money as though she were a beggar, he was allowing her to “work” for her keep. Here, in the most spectacular ballroom in Mayfair.
He was helpingher, not the other way around.
Did that sound like a coldhearted knave?
“He’s the worst kind of rake,” the swan warned. “The kind you know will break your heart because he tells you so before he starts. The sort of man you think you can change if you justwantit bad enough. But there is no changing anyone, Lady X. We are all who we are.”
“I won’t forget,” Unity vowed. “And I swear I don’t wish to keep him.”
“Good luck with that promise,” the swan said. “Oh look, there’s my husband. I promised to dance with him at least once before we select our ‘amusements’ for the night.”
And with that, she glided through the crowd to take the arm of... the Robin Redbreast?
The charming Horse Patrol officer who had flirted with Unity was the swan’shusband?
Good God, he might have meant for her to become his “amusement” for the evening. Unity jerked her startled eyes away. She would not be the duke’s plaything or anyone else’s. She was here for one reason alone: independence.
And she would let nothing stand in the way of—
“What do you think so far?” The duke. It was the Duke of Lambley. Standing right in front of her. His glittering hazel eyes concentrated solely on Unity.
“You’re... it’s... marvelous.” She brushed a stray curl out of her face, only to realize it wasn’t a curl at all, but a feather from her mask. Lambley could not see her expression, other than her mouth just beneath the bottom edge of the papier-mâché. She smiled for him. “You must know it’s marvelous.”
“One tries one’s best,” the duke demurred, but he wore no mask, and therefore his pleasure at Unity’s words were plain for her to see. “Have you been propositioned yet?”
She coughed into her gloved fist.
He laughed. “It’s all in good fun.”
Suddenly, Unity remembered she was supposed to be a courtesan. She pretended to be put out by this proclamation. “Their offers are not serious?”
“They’re very serious,” Lambley corrected her. “But it’s all voluntary. No one under this roof is to do anything they’d rather not, with anyone they’d rather not. Scandalous activities or otherwise. You can say no to any dance without having to sit out all the rest, and you certainly needn’t go upstairs unless you wish to.”
“I actually have no idea what I’d find upstairs,” she reminded him. “Our tour consisted only of the ground floor.”
The wickedness in his grin was unmistakable. “I can show you anything you want to see.”
Unity’s skin flushed and her pulse skipped. “For a ‘voluntary’ assignation with my host? That sounds like a dishonorable proposal, Your Grace.”
“It is,” he assured her. “You and I can indulge every disreputable act you can imagine, free of charge. Leave your reticule downstairs. This won’t cost you a farthing.”
Now sheknewhe was teasing her. Wasn’t he? It was a jest, because she was the courtesan and he the one who should pay for her time. He wasn’treallyoffering to take her upstairs for a thorough ravishing. Was he?
