Undressed with the Marquess

by Caldwell, Christi

  Drawing her hand back, Temperance glared at him. “Stop,” she mouthed.

  The duchess’s cheeks fired red. And just like that, all the hope went out of the older woman’s piercing gaze. “I . . . see.” And by the dejected quality of those two words, the duchess did indeed see.

  The duke plucked a kerchief from inside the front of his jacket and dangled it before his wife’s face.

  Her Grace snatched the article and blotted at the corners of her eyes.

  No, this was precisely as Temperance had expected the exchange to play out. With many tears and fury from the couple over the fact that their beloved grandson had returned to their world with Temperance at his side. She turned to the duke and duchess. “I’m sorry for how all this has been handled,” she said softly. No truer words had she spoken than those. “You’ve every reason to be angry and disappointed.”

  Dare lifted a single finger and wagged it. “I’d like to be entirely clear that I disagree. They should only be overjoyed.”

  “O-overjoyed?” the duke stammered.

  Temperance dropped her head into her hands. Why was Dare so determined to botch this meeting?

  “You required me to find a wife—”

  “You had a bride,” the duchess cried.

  “One whom I can make my return to society with. And I have.”

  Dare and his grandparents looked to Temperance.

  Sailing to her feet, the duchess beat another retreat to the door. “If you will excuse me?” she asked, and let herself out.

  The duke once again struggled after her.

  And Temperance and Dare were left . . . alone.

  Her husband broke the silence. “All things considered, I would say that went remarkably well,” he said dryly.

  A curtain of fury fell over her eyes. Cursing, Temperance jumped up. “You are enjoying this.”

  He stood. “Of course I’m not, but sometimes a situation calls for moments of levity.”

  Yes, it was why everyone in the Rookeries—including Temperance herself—had fallen under his spell. “This is not one of those situations.” The fight went out of her. She sank onto the edge of the cream upholstered sofa. “You handled this . . . terribly, Dare.”

  He hovered there before starting for the tantalus drink cabinet. “It was always going to go terribly.”

  How damned matter-of-fact he was. She gnashed her teeth. The hell she’d let him to his alcohol. And furthermore, since when had he begun drinking? Temperance scrambled to put herself between him and those hated spirits. “So you made no effort, no attempt to make this easier for them?” For me. “For someone so remarkably smooth and charming in so many things, you really manage to make a blunder of so much, too.”

  He bristled. “That seems quite contradictory.” Dare paused. A half grin drew the right corner of his mouth up. “Charming, am I?”

  Her eyebrows shot up. That was what he’d focus on? Temperance jabbed a finger at his chest. “You couldn’t have handled this worse if you’d been trying . . .” Her words trailed off. Unless . . .

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Of course. It makes sense.”

  “What does?”

  “You didn’t want it to go well.” Her words came tumbling. “It was as I predicted . . . with you wanting to present us in dusty garments and stinking of horses.”

  “I changed my attire.”

  “All along, you’ve not really wished to meet the terms your grandfather expected of you, and yet the sense of obligation you have to help everyone didn’t allow you to simply walk away from a fortune. Your behavior, the decisions you made and continue to make, they’ve been self-destructive.”

  “Bah, you’re making more of it than is there.” He tried to step around her, but she matched his movements.

  “Am I?” she persisted, breathtakingly beautiful in that show of defiance. She’d always been the only one to defy him. “You wouldn’t walk away from all the people in the Rookeries who could be helped with the fortune the duke offered.”

  He met that statement with stony silence.

  “You’d deny you didn’t think of them?” Even if he did, she’d never believe him.

  Color suffused his cheeks. “Of course I thought of them.” It had always been about the people of the Rookeries. “But you”—he gestured to Temperance—“you’re analyzing and overanalyzing decisions I’ve made.”

  “I don’t believe I am, Dare,” she said in a hushed voice.

  They remained locked in a tense, silent battle. Dare was the first to look away. “You’re wrong,” he said flatly, and this time when he headed for the liquor, she let him to it. Dare kept his back to her as he reached for a bottle and another glass.

  “You have to determine what it is exactly you want more, Dare.” She spoke in those same quiet tones she had always reserved for her young brother. “Do you want the funds and future you can use to make life better for the people in the Rookeries”—and for him—“or do you wish to be free of this arrangement with me and your grandparents?” He stared at his still-empty glass. “But you can’t play at both.” His shoulders tensed. “And I’m not going to sit idly about while you risk losing everything your grandparents are offering because of the internal battle you’re fighting.” She couldn’t. Not when she’d already risked her heart and hopes and future in being here with him again.

  And with that, she left.

  Chapter 11

  That night while the house slept, Dare walked the halls of his newly inherited home.

  In the earliest years of knowing Temperance, they had rarely fought. They had been the best of friends, she being the only real one he’d allowed himself in the Rookeries. Not even Avery Bryant had he let in that close.

  He’d known the very moment her girlish adoration had faded and she’d become a woman who looked at him with a woman’s eyes—disapproving ones. She’d been fifteen, and he’d been heading to Mayfair to steal from a wicked viscount who’d littered the world with bastards whom he didn’t take care of. Stealing from one such as that had made complete sense to Dare . . . but had been a decision Temperance hadn’t understood.

  From that moment, it was as though she had grown up. And they were destined to never see eye to eye again—not on how he lived his life or how he came by the money he did. Gone was the girl who’d looked adoringly up at him and to him. In her place had come a woman—one who knew her own mind and with opinions as big and bold as her spirit. The greatest chasm between them had been about Dare’s existence. That which she’d once admired him for, she’d come to disdain.

  Over the years, their debates had been fierce and volatile. Ultimately, they’d always found their way back together, where he and Temperance arrived at a truce, an agreement that had ended the conflict and restored them to the friends they’d always been.

  This latest truce between him and Temperance, however, had proven their shortest.

  Though in fairness, none of this had really gone as he’d expected.

  There’d been a betrothal . . . That part he’d not been anticipating.

  What did you expect?

  As such, Temperance was likely already packed and prepared to leave, and he would be left trying to meet the duke’s terms on his own. The twenty thousand pounds he risked losing with her departure should have commanded all his attentions, but it did not.

  “Ahem.”

  That distinct clearing of someone’s throat brought Dare’s restless journey to a stop.

  He turned back and found his butler there.

  “I thought to inquire as to whether you required anything, my lord.”

  “No. That is . . . I am quite well.” Clasping his hands behind him, he made to enter his office.

  “Ahhhem.”

  Dare stopped.

  Bloody hell. What now?

  Spencer hovered in the hall.

  The day having been what it had, he should have anticipated he’d not even have peace in this. Clearly, the other man wanted to say som
ething. “What is it?”

  “I . . . thought I might offer you my services, my lord.”

  “I don’t require any—”

  “I didn’t necessarily speak to . . . my regular responsibilities. I have some familiarity with His and Her Grace, as well as their . . . your . . . family.”

  Dare grinned wryly. “Had there also been a familiarity with the fact that I had a betrothed, along with her parents, waiting for me before I introduced them to my wife, that would be helpful information in the future.”

  Spencer nodded frantically. “I’ll endeavor to do better. I was more than a bit at sea, given the circumstances. I didn’t know how to explain any of it in front of Her Ladyship.”

  “That makes two of us,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What was that, my lord?”

  “Nothing,” he said, stealing a glance at the hall clock. “Thank you for the off—”

  Only the butler wasn’t done. “I was speaking about my tenure with your family.” Oh, bloody hell. This was how he was to spend his night, then? With a cataloging of the butler’s tenure? “If I may?”

  Dare followed the other man’s gesture to the hall bench, and then it occurred . . . He was asking that they . . . sit. And worse, that request indicated Spencer had no intention of leaving.

  He and the butler spoke as one.

  “I do have matters of—”

  “Thank you,” Spencer said and settled himself onto the bench, staring expectantly up at Dare.

  The other man had no intention of leaving. Tamping down a sigh, Dare forced himself to sit.

  “My role as butler is a relatively new one . . . for me. Not for my family. Although I expect that may come as some level of surprise.” Spencer stared back. Something was clearly expected of Dare here.

  Lost, however, as to what that expectation was, Dare shook his head slowly.

  That appeared sufficient reply enough.

  Spencer smoothed his already flawless lapels. “My father served in His and Her Grace’s country estate in Yorkshire.” Once again, he looked to Dare. Spencer nodded his head ever so slightly.

  “I . . . see.”

  Alas, Dare still saw nothing.

  “I’ve only recently been brought to your London townhouse. The idea was that I would offer some . . . familiarity to you.”

  He didn’t. But Dare wasn’t one to deliberately hurt or offend, and as such, he kept quiet.

  “There’s also the matter of few being willing to work for the household, given the current and questionable state of the finances,” Spencer went on.

  “And yet you did?” Dare asked without inflection, feeling the first hint of real curiosity since the younger man had begun rambling on about his tenure with the Greyson family.

  “I did.” Spencer, however, didn’t elucidate. “As did the other men and women and their children who’ve come on staff.”

  Dare consulted the pair cased enamel watch at his waist. When he looked up, he found the other man’s direct gaze squarely on him, a slight and disapproving frown on his lips. Dare made himself release his timepiece. “Is there something you would like to say, Spencer?” he asked bluntly.

  The butler laid his palms on his legs and leaned forward. “It is my hope that you will succeed in your new role here, my lord.”

  That made two of them. “Thank—”

  “For not entirely altruistic reasons,” Spencer confessed. “I’m not unfamiliar with the terms His and Her Grace have laid out for you.”

  Dare rested his folded hands atop his stomach. “Ahh, servant gossip?”

  “My own observations,” he said evenly.

  He’d hand it to the other man; Spencer remained wholly unflappable. It was the first time Dare remembered the young butler being so self-possessed. The servant rose considerably in his estimation, and Dare looked at him for the first time as a potential ally in this place.

  “I am not one to question your commitment to being here,” Spencer said.

  “Then do not.”

  “However, I’ve reason to question your commitment to being here.”

  First Temperance, and now, of all people, his butler. And mayhap, had he truly been of the ranks of Polite Society, he would have sacked Spencer for all-out challenging him. “I take it you’re referring to my meeting with the duke and duchess?”

  Spencer nodded. “There was that.”

  Dare’s brows came together. “Tell me, is it customary for servants to call out their employers?”

  “No.” Spencer paused. “In fact, not at all.”

  “But you are, Spencer?”

  “I . . . prefer to think of it as assisting you,” the other man demurred.

  Dare snorted. “Call it whatever you want, your intentions are clear.”

  Spencer shifted, the aged wood groaning under that slight movement. “I do not believe they are, my lord. We are not unalike.”

  Dare repressed a laugh. “Now this I’d love to hear.”

  “Many are reliant upon your completing the terms laid forth by the duke and duchess.”

  There were a good many—the most desperate people in the Rookeries. Temperance.

  “The servants’ livelihoods are dependent upon whether or not you succeed.” Spencer’s pronouncement came . . . unexpectedly. And just like that, Dare was silenced. “If the funds are not released, husband and wives will be separated and forced to look for employment in different households. As it is,” the other man went on, “securing such work is challenging enough. But for families to do so, together?” Spencer’s mouth flattened into a tense line, and he gave his head a shake. “It’s nigh an impossibility. And then there is the matter of ensuring the staff finds placements in households where they will be treated with respect and kindness and not abused by merciless employers.”

  And Dare was humbled once more to realize how pompous he’d been, thinking the butler didn’t and couldn’t know anything about what compelled Dare . . . what drove him. “I . . . see.” Unlike when he’d given those two words before, this time, Dare did. Spencer spoke of details he’d not previously considered. Nay, not details—people. Yet again more people who needed him to succeed in this endeavor. Dare’s palms grew moist, and he discreetly wiped them along the sides of his trousers. So many to help and support . . . and yet further reasons why failure was not an option. “And you are concerned about those people who answer to you?” Dare asked quietly.

  “I am,” Spencer said instantly. And just like that, a kindred connection, an unlikely one, was born between Dare and his butler. They who were united in common efforts.

  “I . . . hear what you are saying, Spencer.” And this time, he did.

  The young butler dusted his gloved palms together. “Good. Then this has been a very valuable talk.” With that, the servant stood, bowed, and took himself off.

  Dare remained seated in the hall. He was likely the only nobleman to be called out by his servant, and yet there’d been honorable intentions to the man’s doing so. He had looked at Dare and questioned his motives and expressed concern for the people reliant upon him. People Dare hadn’t considered in the vein Spencer had forced him to.

  Temperance had accused him of intentionally trying to destroy the arrangement he’d come to and free himself.

  His sightless gaze settled on the doorway across from him.

  What if she’d been only partially wrong?

  What if, subconsciously, from the place deep inside that hated everything and anything associated with this world, he’d unintentionally set out to avoid joining Polite Society? What did that say about him as a man who’d committed himself to doing absolutely whatever he could to help the suffering souls in the Rookeries? It marked him as a coward who cared more about his own comfort than he did the people most in need of help.

  And that went against all he’d attempted to be.

  Coming to his feet, he ventured into the Portrait Room.

  Not a candle had been lit, and yet from the enormous fra
mes that hung along the corridor to the walls resplendent in gold satin wallpaper, an artificial light was cast over the space. Dare made the march past various noble figures in powdered wigs. Ladies ridiculously clad in enormous hooped skirts. All the people painted had been frozen in time, as they were . . . his . . . ancestors. And yet it was singularly odd to think that anyone who’d walked these halls had been family.

  Because he’d been without family more years than he had been with it.

  Dare paused in the center of the room, his gaze locked on one heavy giltwood frame.

  Because we do not play in portrait rooms, Darius. We pay our respects to the family who came before us . . .

  A child’s groan—Dare’s groan—reverberated from somewhere deep within his brain.

  He stared unblinkingly out across the gleaming parquet wood floors, seeing the tall, smartly dressed gentleman leave . . . so that only a child and a small, delicate young lady remained.

  My mother . . . She was my mother, and that boy . . . was me.

  Ah . . . but one would never say dancing was playing.

  There came his answering giggle.

  Dare closed his eyes and let himself see her. The woman he’d not allowed himself to think of in so long, he’d believed her forgotten. Only to find she dwelled there in his memory still. In his mind’s eye, he saw her as she winked and took him in her arms, twirling Dare wildly about . . .

  Dare forced his eyes open, and when he did, only the dark, empty room met him.

  This solitariness was what he’d come to prefer . . . to crave. It was why he’d been content to deal just with Avery Bryant and let no one else closer than his partner. Until he’d allowed himself, against all better judgment, to marry Temperance. He’d convinced himself that he could have the same uncomplicated partnership he did with his thieving partner. But deep down he’d known that could never be the case. He’d told himself what he’d wanted to hear because . . . he’d wanted her.

  It was just one reason his relationship with Temperance had changed. She’d come to expect . . . to want him to be more than he was or could ever be.

  Which was likely the reason he should let her go now. Dare could very well strike different terms with his grandparents. After all, he’d negotiated the releases of countless souls with Wylie at Newgate. A duke and duchess so desperate to see glimpses of the grandson they’d once known would prove far easier to bring ’round to his wishes.