It took a moment to process those last words.
When he did, two thoughts registered at the same time, two confused thoughts, neither of which made sense: one, he was holding the hand of a woman who was certainly not his wife, and the other . . .
His . . . betrothed?
“My . . . betrothed?” he croaked, his voice pitching slightly up.
“Betrothed,” the duke repeated in a joy-filled, bellowing voice. His Grace smiled widely. “Your future wife.”
Dare’s stomach fell.
Yes, yes, he’d heard his grandparents correctly, after all.
He stared at the small gloved hand joined with his. Oh, bloody hell.
Dare frantically jerked his palm out of her delicate grasp.
The duke’s expression faltered. “Darius? I trust everything is . . . all right?”
Wordlessly, Dare took in the assembly of guests, his grandparents.
No. This wasn’t all right.
It was a damned disaster.
A short while later, having washed the remnants of travel from her person and changed into her finest dress, Temperance was escorted belowstairs by Spencer.
Periodically, the butler cast strained glances back her way, only adding layer upon layer to her unease.
As they wound their way through the corridors, to keep herself from giving in to panic over her upcoming meeting, she scanned her gaze over Dare’s household—and for as long as she lived here, her household, too.
The varnish upon the hardwood portion of the floors added a layer of shine to the monochromatic heartwood flooring and spoke to the wealth of this place . . . which was at odds with the words Dare had spoken about an insolvent marquessate. Ornate, teardrop-shaped crystal dangled from gold sconces. Sconces filled with nub-size candles, those shortened tapers the first telltale indication of the financial state of this household.
If one looked past the initial trappings, one noticed the previously neglected details: the slight fading of the Chinese-paper walls. The velvetlike Wilton carpeting that lined the halls had begun to fray at the edges.
And still . . . despite that evidence of wear and aging, none would ever doubt the grandeur and wealth that had gone into the townhouse.
With every step that brought her closer to Dare’s duke and duchess grandparents, Temperance’s panic intensified. To steady the trembling of her palms, she smoothed them along the front of her finest dress.
Finest dress . . . ? Even upon its best day, the article she’d constructed of the remnants that had gone unused by one of Madame Amelie’s most influential patrons had never been suited to this place. A nervous laugh bubbled up and spilled from her lips.
Spencer stole a glance her way, and she forced herself to draw an even breath.
“Have you been employed long by the marquess’s family?” she asked in a bid to break the tension and establish some manner of rapport with the head servant. After all, given her new—though temporary—role within the household, they would be required to work closely with one another.
“I was only hired just shortly before His Lordship’s death,” Spencer murmured.
“Might I beg a favor, Mr. Spencer?” She reached into her pocket and drew out the note she’d hastily written to her brother, informing him of her and Gwynn’s arrival in London. “Would you see that this is delivered for me?”
“Of course, my lady,” he said, immediately collecting the missive. He glanced down at the name and address upon the front before tucking it inside his jacket.
There should have been only joy at thinking about her brother’s response to discovering she and Gwynn now resided in London. And there likely would have been . . . had she not been about to face Dare’s noble family.
Spencer brought them to a stop outside a pair of arched pine double doors. The servant hesitated a long moment, and then with a customary pained expression on his features, he drew the panels open. “Her Ladyship, the Marchioness of Milford.”
That pronouncement rang about the otherwise silent room. A silence so heavy and thick the small flicker of fire in the hearth provided the only other sound.
Dare, along with five strangers, stared back at her with horror, and one of those individuals was a young lady . . . a young lady who also stood very close to Dare.
Unease rippled along her spine. The sense of dread that she’d learned to listen to . . . That was now screaming just one single command. Run.
She curled her toes tightly and made her feet stay planted.
Clearing his throat, Spencer hurried from the room, and even as he drew those ornate pine panels shut behind him, Temperance caught the relieved sigh.
That click of the doors shutting managed to penetrate across the shocked collection of guests.
“Temperance,” Dare greeted. Color splotched his cheeks as he strode over to where she hovered in the entranceway.
She tried to make herself focus on him and find a lifeline in his familiar face and presence. He’d always represented that for her.
Until now.
“What is the meaning of this?” the bewhiskered stranger barked.
The blonde-haired woman clutching at his arm stared with shocked eyes at Temperance. “The marchioness?”
“Temperance.” Dare spoke in hushed tones. “Perhaps it might be better if we—”
“Who is this woman?” the white-haired gentleman thundered from the center of the room.
The voice, those garments, and the monocle could mark him as only one: the duke.
The regal lady on his arm—the duchess—looked Temperance over. “I am certain she—this—can be explained, Lady Peregrine.”
All the while, the pretty young lady took in the exchange with enormous blue eyes.
Temperance’s belly clenched. Many times in the course of her life, she had been made to feel somehow less than others. None of those instances, however, could compare with the look in the duke’s eyes as he scraped a hard, unforgiving stare over her. Or the feeling of the other strangers gawking at her.
Wordlessly, Temperance glanced about the room. She’d anticipated this meeting would be uncomfortable. Uneasy. Distressing. Many things . . . But not even she could have foreseen this level of misery. Reflexively, she found herself sliding closer to Dare’s side.
Lady Peregrine gasped and jabbed a finger at Temperance and Dare. “Who iiiis she?”
“I can explain,” Dare said with his usual calm, as if he were merely pointing out details on the English weather and not justifying Temperance’s presence to a roomful of horrified nobles. “And prior to Temperance’s arrival, I was attempting to . . .”
She lifted her chin. She’d not be spoken about or over. Not by Dare. Not by his grandfather. Not by anyone. “I am Dare’s wife.”
“Who is Dare?” Lady Peregrine cried.
“I believe she is referring to the marquess, Mama,” the young lady said in dulcet tones.
“But . . . but . . . he . . .” Lady Peregrine wilted, collapsing into the chair.
“What manner of game is this, Duke?” the bewhiskered gentleman thundered.
“I . . .” And amidst the confusion, Temperance witnessed that which she’d never thought to witness: not only a duke but also one who’d been cowed and silenced by another. “I do not know, but I’m certain it can be explained.”
“Come,” Lord Peregrine snapped. “We’re leaving.” Taking his wife by the arm, he guided her to her feet, and collecting his daughter’s hand, he led that pair quickly toward the door.
Temperance hurried to step out of their way as they sailed past her.
The duchess set after them, with the duke limping more slowly behind. “Please,” the duchess cried. “This can all be . . .” Those assurances grew more faded as she raced to keep up with the retreating trio.
Until all that was left in the room . . . was silence.
Nay, that wasn’t altogether true.
Narrowing her eyes, Temperance looked to Dare.
Dare, always
unflappable, even in the face of a capture and trip to Newgate, now tugged at his cravat.
“What. Was. That?” she managed to grind out between clenched teeth.
He pushed the door shut.
And the warning bells, already blaring, screamed all the louder.
“There appears to have been a . . . misunderstanding.”
She made herself go motionless. “Oh?” she asked, striving for a casualness she didn’t feel.
Dare crossed the room, making for a gilded and crystal tantalus. Drawing open the clear, bronze-lined doors, Dare drew out a bottle of brandy and a glass. “It appears I didn’t altogether understand the discussion the duke intended to have.”
“You didn’t tell them you were married.”
“There was a misunderstanding,” he said as he splashed several fingerfuls into a snifter.
“I know.” She bit out those two syllables. “You said as much, two times now.”
He swirled the contents of his glass once and then tossed it back in a long, painful-looking swallow. Grimacing, he set the empty glass back down. “I was under the assumption that they were expecting me to take a wife.”
“And what were they expecting?”
“The same.” Dare grabbed the bottle of brandy and poured himself another glass. “However, there was apparently a betrothal.”
“A . . . betrothal?”
“Between myself and . . .” With the decanter in hand, Dare motioned to the front of the room.
Temperance followed his focus over to the doorway the regal couple had fled through just moments ago. The young lady. “Oh,” she said, dumbstruck. And all at once, the meaning and the implications of that family struck . . . particularly that gloriously elegant, flawless English beauty’s presence. She’d been . . . his betrothed. “She was . . .” And even knowing it as she did, Temperance needed to say it anyway. To give life to the truth. “She was your intended?”
Dare took another drink from his snifter, this time more measured. He nodded. “Apparently. It was a childhood betrothal.”
“I . . . see.” And knowing all these years there had been another woman meant for him, one who was his social equal, who fit with every expectation of beauty, and who was flawless . . . in every way that Temperance wasn’t—in ways that Temperance was broken—suddenly, she had the overwhelming urge to just cry. About everything.
“The duke, however, failed to mention anything about a betrothal. The only statement he made pertained to my being married.” He cleared his throat. “Which I am.” Dare held her gaze. “We are.”
As if she’d needed clarification about that great mistake. The thin thread of her patience and self-control frayed and broke. “And at no time did you think to mention anything about me?” she asked, her voice slightly pitched. “You didn’t find any moment in which to say, ‘I have a wife, oh, and she also happens to have been born in the Rookeries to a drunk and a washerwoman’?” As if a duke or duchess could ever be prepared to learn their beloved, long-lost grandson had gone and wed himself a street thug’s daughter? Another panicky giggle climbed up her throat.
“They didn’t need to know that,” he said tightly.
“Why?” she shot back, propping her hands on her hips. “Because you are ashamed of who I am?”
“Of course not.” Exasperation laced his denial. “I’ve never been ashamed of you, Temperance Swift.”
She angled her chin up. “Haven’t you? You, who always go out of your way to remind me what I’m not. At least I’ve accepted my origins for what they are.”
Closing the remaining distance, he strode over. “Have you? You’re the one who finds any occasion in which to mention Abaddon.”
She choked. “I do not.”
“Or is it simply that you wish to remind yourself of your past because you don’t want to let yourself imagine any different future for yourself?”
Outrage drew a gasp from her. “How dare—” The doors were drawn open, drowning out the remainder of that charge.
And the urge to flee filled her again as the duke and duchess swept inside. Not just any duke and duchess, either. Dare’s grandparents. The pair’s earlier display of emotion may as well have been imagined. For as they entered, linked arm in arm, they may as well have been a lord and lady out on a social call.
The like tension in their wrinkled features and pale complexions proved the only indication that they were not as in control as they portrayed.
A servant waiting in the hall closed the arched double panels so that Temperance was alone with the powerful pair. Although that wasn’t altogether true. There was Dare.
And yet where there’d always been comfort in his presence, for the first time in all the years she’d known him, that sense of security was no longer there.
Now there were lies and half-truths and questions.
So many questions.
“Darius.” The duchess was the first to speak, as a duchess would. Holding her spare arm aloft, she swept forward with her husband in tow. “I believe proper introductions are in order.”
“And explanations,” His Grace said brusquely, hammering the bottom of his cane upon the bloodred carpet, garish and wholly at odds in the otherwise ivory-and-pale-white-adorned parlor.
The duchess quelled him with a look. “That will come later.”
Temperance took control. “Your Grace,” she murmured, sinking into a curtsy the king would have no cause to fault. “My name is Temperance Swift.” The woman’s brows came together. “Grey,” Temperance corrected.
“Greyson,” Dare substituted.
Her gaze flew to his. What . . . ?
“Perhaps we might all sit,” the duchess recommended in a tone none would ever dare confuse with a suggestion.
All of Temperance’s muscles tensed as she took the indicated seat, the one last occupied by the guests who’d run off. Dare’s betrothed. Shoving back thoughts of the earlier, wholly composed beauty, Temperance focused on the austere couple settled across from her.
“Now,” the duchess began, “come the explanations.”
“I’d hardly call what came before proper introductions,” Dare drawled. “Only what would I know? A thief scheduled to hang in the Rookeries wouldn’t know about proper introductions.”
The duchess’s whole countenance went a sickly shade of white.
Temperance shot a glare in Dare’s direction. Why was he doing this? Only he would endeavor to issue a challenge to a duke and duchess.
Wholly unfazed, he reclined in his seat. “Temperance and I were friends from the Rookeries.”
Bright-red splotches formed circles on the older woman’s face. Was it the reference to the friendship or the place they’d met? Or both? “Friends,” the duchess echoed, spitting it out as if she’d uttered a word she’d no familiarity with and found distasteful. “Men and women aren’t friends. It isn’t natural.” She looked to her husband.
His Grace gave an emphatic and concurring nod. “It isn’t natural.” He hammered his cane on the floor, punctuating his point with that marble stick.
“We were,” Dare said, “and we also married. So one might say we are both friends and husband and wife.”
Temperance frowned. He was baiting them. For what purpose?
“When did this take place?” Her Grace pressed, firing off questions.
“Five years ago,” Temperance said softly. It had been five years since she’d convinced herself she might be Dare’s wife and keep her heart out of their arrangement. All the while, she’d lied to herself . . . She’d failed to acknowledge that she couldn’t have taken her heart out of the equation of their union because she’d first fallen in love with him.
“Your marriage”—the duchess turned that query to Dare, Temperance edged out of the questioning—“is legal?” Hope flickered to life in the older woman’s eyes.
“It is,” Dare said quietly.
“Are you certain?” the duke pressed. “The records?” He motioned four fingers in a half circ
le, as he spoke. “The officiating? Was it a marriage with actual vows exchanged?” Hope filled the old man’s eyes. “Perhaps you signed whatever name you’ve gone by . . . by . . . where you lived?”
Startled, Temperance jerked her gaze to her husband.
Dare inclined his head. “I . . .” He looked away from his grandfather and over at Temperance. Their gazes locked. “I took care to sign my legal name.”
Her mind stalled and then swirled . . . with confusion. He’d . . . signed his legal name. When no one in the Rookeries, certainly not her father, would have been any wiser, ever, he’d still given her his legal name. Why? Why would he have done so? The sole point of their marriage had been to give Temperance the protection that had come from Dare’s name that was feared and revered in the Rookeries. She sought to make sense out of why he would have done such a thing.
Unless he really wanted you as his wife . . .
The duke sighed, cutting into those whimsical, nonsensical musings. “And . . . consummated? Was it consummated?” His tone, however, bespoke the resignation of one who’d already accepted the answer before it was given.
I’m going to throw up. Balling her hands, Temperance stared down at her interlocked fingers. She had anticipated being rejected. What she’d not allowed herself to consider was being plainly discussed, and the frantic puzzle of how to disentangle Dare from their marriage in front of her.
Dare covered her joined palms with one of his own, and just that, his touch, both tender and firm, all at the same time, eased the rigidity from her body. “I assure you,” Dare said coolly. “Our marriage is a real one . . . in every sense.”
Undressed with the Marquess Page 13