The Dollhouse Society Volume IV: Lucky (Includes Lady Luck, House of Dolls, The Reluctant Bride, A Woman on Top, plus a bonus story!) Read Free Page A

won’t be necessary,” I told him, and he started walking me down the remainder of the hallway, with me limping like a lame horse at his side, but another sharp jab nearly made me collapse with a cry.
    “ Really, Lucky,” he said, and he scooped me up easily in his arms.
    “ Mr. Sloan, I really must insist…”
    “ Tiberius,” he corrected me. “And I must insist you be silent until we’ve had a chance to look at your ankle. You may have broken it.”
    I sighed as he ushered me into my father’s study and deposited me on the divan. Then he went to one knee and pushed up my skirts a little ways.
    I began to protest again but he shushed me, took my ankle in his hands, and slid my slipper off. “I worked as a medic on the Peninsula, and we learned to never underestimate injuries.”
    I didn’t much care for a man touching me like this, but my discomfort was minimal compared to the fear I felt, should someone step inside the room and find me in such a compromised position. I glanced toward the door, but all I could make out were the distant voices of my guests in the conservatory. “Ouch!” I said as he tested my ankle, much too roughly, I felt.
    Tiberius looked up with raised eyebrows. “You’ve turned it.”
    “ Ah, see. It isn’t broken. Thus, it will mend just fine on its own.”
    “ I should fetch the doctor.”
    “ I don’t need a doctor,” I insisted.
    Holding my ankle in his big, rough hands, he started rubbing it between them, much like a woodsman might do a stick of wood in order to start a flame.
    “ What are you doing?”
    “ I’ve known infantryman who were injured in their resistance to Napoleon’s troops, and they would sometimes do this to help loosen tight ligaments.”
    “ My ligaments are quite fine, thank you,” I told him.
    Tiberius stopped and glanced up at me. “Why have you summoned me here, Lucky?”
    “ I did not summon you,” I sniffed. “I merely invited you.” There was no tactful way of saying any of this, I decided, so I just went ahead with the truth. I couldn’t see lying in order to gain money from Mr. Sloan. I started by explaining my father’s gambling habits, and then the loan he had taken from Mr. Van Tassel. I finished by inviting him to look over my father’s ledgers at his leisure.
    “ I see,” he answered when I had finished. He placed my foot back in its slipper, stood up, and went to look at the ledger stored in the top drawer of the desk. He must have remembered where my father had kept it from his time as his partner.
    From the divan I said, “My father purchased goods from you once, a long time ago, is that correct? That’s how you became partners?”
    “ Silk I had imported from the Orient, yes,” he answered as he settled in to look over the accounts.
    “ Is it because my father purchased Mr. Whitney’s cotton gin that your association ended?” I inquired. “Was it the change of textiles from silk to cotton?” I knew that cotton was much in demand, and much less expensive to manufacturer. My father might have been a terrible gambler, but he was very good with business when he put his head to it. Of course, now the textile mill on the edge of the river was silent, with no one to run it at all.
    “ It is…slightly more complicated than that,” Tiberius said.
    That was the story that my father had told me. I felt my spirits smart along with my ankle. “It was his gambling, wasn’t it?”
    Tiberius looked up with a pitying look. “Your father could be difficult to work with at times,” was all he said.
    I sat in silence, contemplating my father. I had once thought he was the most wonderful man in the whole world. At church, the reverend would often say that men like Jesus and the Saints were full of goodness and light, but I used to think how even they paled in comparison to my father—my father who had given me everything, who had spoiled me from the very moment of my birth. He had nurtured me, protected me, and had never