8. The Women of The Domus
THE WOMEN OF THE DOMUS
Unfortunately, Rose’s determination to right things did not change the fact that, for now at least, she had failed in her task. Again.
And so, frustrated and treading that much closer to despondency, Rose returned to the sitting room where Nell, Marianne, and Violet appeared to have been waiting for her.
“Well? Is there any hope of bringing him round?”
Rose closed the door behind her. “It… didn’t go as I expected.”
Marianne studied her face. “You wore that same expression after the masquerade last spring.”
There was no accusation in her voice though. Only worry.
Rose said nothing.
It was answer enough.
Some of the color left Violet’s face. “He truly means to close The Domus, then?”
“He has always meant to,” Marianne pointed out, but then turned back to Rose. “Tell us what happened.”
Rose moved farther into the room, though she did not sit. She could still hear Lord Reginald’s voice in her head.
You are not free here.
He was wrong. She was free.
She had a wage. Friends. Food in her belly and a roof over her head.
She was safe.
She was not going to stand in the middle of her own sitting room and doubt all of that simply because one incredibly good-looking and broad-shouldered man had cast his judgement on them.
“I showed him our best receiving room,” Rose said. “Explained all of our precautions.”
“And?” Violet asked.
Rose hesitated.
“According to him we are prisoners in a gilded cage.”
Marianne let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “And naturally, he means to set us free.”
There was disapproval in her voice, but Rose heard the fear beneath it.
“It seems he’s seen only the worst of our profession,” Rose said. “And you’re right, Mari, he truly believes closing The Domus will save us from it.”
“By sending us where?” Marianne demanded. “Back onto the streets? Where a woman takes whichever man will pay, if he pays at all, and has no Boris waiting outside the door if something goes wrong?”
Violet’s fingers tightened around the blue ribbon in her lap.
Rose hated the fear in her eyes.
“He mentioned a pension,” Rose said. “And lodgings.”
Nell’s expression hardened. “Promises are easily made before a gentleman sails away.”
“I have savings,” Marianne said after a moment. Her anger had faded into something quieter. “But not enough to open the shop I’ve been dreaming of. And even if I found employment, how long would it last once someone learned where I had lived?”
No one answered.
Violet stared down at the ribbon.
“I had a position once,” she said.
Rose turned toward her.
“Before The Domus. I worked as a maid in a lodging house.” Violet twisted the ribbon around her fingers. “The mistress said I was fortunate to have a roof over my head. That I ought not to complain when the gentlemen touched me, because their money paid my keep.”
Marianne’s face went cold.
“But you left,” Rose said gently.
“I didn’t leave.” Violet looked up. The fear in her face made her seem painfully young. “I was dismissed. The mistress said I had become troublesome.”
Her voice thinned. “I slept in a doorway for three nights before Nell found me.”
Silence settled over the room.
Nell, who’d been mostly quiet, finally lifted her chin, narrowing her eyes. “Enough of this talk.”
She was right. Anything could happen in a month’s time.
Rose nodded, grateful to defer to anything Nell could come up with. And then Nell turned to her. “He is sweet on you.”
Hearing those words, Rose did something she hadn’t done in decades.
She blushed.
Which, of course, only caused Nell’s gaze to sharpen further. “He barely took his eyes off you.”
Rose tried for a laugh, recalling how she had challenged him in front of the entire staff. “I didn’t give him much choice, now did I?”
But Nell did not laugh.
“I have watched men look at women for longer than you’ve been alive, my girl.” She leaned back in her chair. “And I’d wager my best pair of boots that this seafaring captain—duke’s brother or not—is thoroughly entranced by you.”
Rose stiffened. “Nell.”
“No. Hear me out.” Nell lowered her voice, drawing all three women closer. “This man intends to sell the house, provide enough money to ease his conscience, and sail away believing he has done us a kindness.”
“He promised us time,” Rose said, though she didn’t know why she felt compelled to defend him.
“I know. And we must make use of it.” Nell held her gaze. “He needs a reason not to leave. At the very least, a reason to care what becomes of this place after he is gone.”
That had been Rose’s intention from the beginning.
She would show him how The Domus operated.
She would make him understand.
She had never meant to seduce him. Not after what happened in the garden.
“You want me to… use his attraction to our advantage?” Rose asked.
“It is more than attraction.”
Rose shook her head, but Nell continued. “I know men. And the only thing that will change his mind is if a woman he loves asks him to change it.”
Rose stared at her. “I can’t make him fall in love with me.”
Nell tilted her head. “You have done more difficult things.”
That was true.
At the very least, Rose understood desire. She knew how to awaken it, deepen it, and keep a man reaching for more.
But love?
Love was not something she knew how to create.
And Lord Reginald was not merely another man.
What had happened in the garden had begun with desire, certainly. But she’d felt something… deeper.
He had trusted her.
The thought of turning those feelings into—well, business—felt wrong. Outside of her realm. And that… scared her a little.
Even if it might work.
“He holds every card, Rose. The house, our livelihoods, our home. We have one thing that might sway him, and we cannot afford to waste it.”
The room fell silent.
It just felt wrong.
But if Nell was right—if Reginald truly was drawn to her—could Rose refuse to use that when every woman in The Domus was depending upon her?
Did she have that luxury?
It was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
She knew how to bring a man to his knees, literally. But Lord Reginald Preston was not like other men.
Yes, he had trembled in her arms, but afterward he had been ashamed. And today, every word she’d said had seemed to offend some deeply held belief in him.
He was not likely to fall in love with any of them, not when he despised what they did for a living.
And yet—what else could they do?
What if Nell’s plan worked?
Rose’s pulse quickened.
There was something different about Lord Reginald Preston. Something she had never felt with another man. Something that ought to make him easier to persuade.
Instead, it made everything far more dangerous.
Because there was also the possibility that drawing him closer meant she’d draw closer as well…
Rose pushed the thought away.
They were running out of choices. At the end of the month, they might lose not only their home, but the family they had made inside it.
She could not allow that to happen. At the very least, she’d try.
But Rose would not pretend it was anything more than a desperate chance.
“The sea will always be his first love,” she said at last. “Even if I turn his head for a night—or a fortnight—he still intends to leave London.”
Her throat tightened.
“He will leave The Domus. And he will leave me.”
Nell smiled gently.
“If the seas is his first love, Rose Darling,” she said, “Then you must become his mistress.”