Undressed with the Marquess

by Caldwell, Christi

And now, to have a little babe this close . . . and more, to bear witness to just how tender, how perfect in every way he was with children, proved the universe’s cruel way of mocking her.

  Carried out in Gwynn’s arms, Rose stared over the girl’s shoulder at Temperance. Until that pair was gone . . .

  And then she was able to breathe again.

  “Is there anything else you require, my lord?”

  “If you would escort Mr. Lionel to the kitchens? And also, please see that a basket is prepared for him and his family, along with blankets? When you’ve finished, please have a carriage return him home.”

  Unable to help herself, she stared on with the same awe of her youth as he fired off those instructions. He was the right man to have been made a marquess. He’d use his ability and power and wealth to help those most in need.

  “Yes, my lord,” Spencer said when Dare had finished. The butler waited until the boy had joined him.

  Chance returned his hat to his head and came to his feet. “I have to go. It is my hope that my employer might be able to intervene on behalf of Rose’s father. He is something of a social reformer, and I expect he will help, but it will take time as he’s in Norfolk for business.”

  “We’ll find a way, Chance,” Dare instantly offered. “When you are free of your work and we are able to talk, we shall strategize what to do.”

  Emotion stuck in Temperance’s throat . . . pride at hearing her brother formulate a plan to help . . . and at Dare being there, as he’d been for so much of Chance’s childhood, promising to stand beside him.

  The younger man bowed his head. “Thank you. And thank you for helping Lionel—”

  “Do not even think of it.” Dare cut off the other man. “We’ll find out what to do about Rose’s da.”

  Making his goodbyes to Temperance, her brother left . . . and it was just Temperance and Dare, alone.

  Silence hung briefly in the air, and an awkwardness hovered there, a first for them.

  Dare cleared his throat. “I needed you to stay before . . . for different reasons. For monetary ones related to seeing Lady Kinsley married off.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, there’s the babe to see settled.”

  Oh, God. He didn’t know what he asked. She again bit the inside of her cheek, worrying that same bit of flesh. “Dare.”

  “You were the only one who ever had a way with babes.”

  This is going to kill me. This was an all-new, unexpected heartbreak she’d never thought she’d have to confront with Dare.

  The loss of their babe . . . And now what would never, could never, be for her. Or them.

  Say something. It is expected of you here . . .

  Her throat closed up. “I only ever did what any other sister would do for her sibling.” How was her voice so steady? So even?

  “That isn’t true,” he protested, his voice a tender baritone moving over her like the warmed chocolate he’d surprised her with as a girl. “You were always the one children came to in the Rookeries. You had a way with them. You have a way with them.”

  Stop.

  She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears and run screaming from the room. God hated her. There was no other accounting for the dagger Dare unknowingly scraped over a still-raw, still-gaping wound.

  “You had a way with them, too,” she pointed out more to herself, her voice sad to her own ears. He would have made a wonderful father. If he’d allowed himself another marriage . . . with someone other than Temperance. If she’d not inadvertently trapped him and denied him even that opportunity . . .

  I cannot . . .

  Pressing her eyes briefly closed, she breathed deeply and grounded herself. “We’ll figure out the babe . . . together.” Her shoulders sagged slightly. “I may be a woman, but as long as Rose is here, the responsibility should be the both of ours.”

  “Of course,” he said automatically. Dare moved behind his desk and reached for his ledgers.

  That was it. Of course.

  In a world where it was expected that women and women alone would serve in the role of caregiver, he—now a marquess—should accept that role.

  It was settled, then.

  And yet . . . it was not. Not entirely.

  “The timepiece . . .”

  “What of it?” he asked when she didn’t say anything else.

  “Who did it belong to?”

  “Me.”

  Her lips twitched, and she drifted closer, joining him on the other end of the gleaming mahogany desk. “I wasn’t implying you stole it.”

  “Though you would have been right to your assumption,” he said with a devastating wink that would have once distracted her.

  But that was what he wanted; those were his intentions. A lifetime of knowing this man had taught her as much and made her able to focus. “Whose was it before it belonged to you?”

  A muscle moved along his jaw. “The marquess’s.”

  The marquess. “As in your . . . father?”

  “I suppose that is one way of thinking of the man,” he said distractedly, shuffling through his papers.

  “That is the way of thinking of him,” she gently corrected.

  He briefly paused but continued moving those pages . . . and then he stopped on one. Dare grabbed for his pen and dipped it in the inkwell. He touched the tip against the edge, clearing it of excess, and made several notes in a very familiar-looking ledger.

  Wordlessly, Temperance eyed his pen as it moved over the page, as he recorded details about Lionel and the boy’s family.

  Dare lifted his gaze a tiny fraction, as if he’d just recalled her presence there.

  “He was your father, Dare,” she said gently.

  Some emotion darkened his eyes, turned those irises nearly black. It was . . . a coldness she’d never before witnessed from him, and she shivered. “He was a stranger.” With that he rolled his shoulders and resumed writing.

  “Do you remember him?” Over the years, she’d asked questions about his family. Who had raised him before he’d found his way to working with Diggory and then Avery? He’d always been vague, offering nothing of true meaning.

  He stiffened. “Some,” he said tightly.

  “Did he . . .” She wetted her lips. She’d always assumed just the downtrodden didn’t value their offspring. Now she let herself think that mayhap those powerful lords, too, were as merciless. “Did he beat you?” She managed to get that question out.

  His gaze flew upright to hers. “No,” he assured her quickly. “He did not.”

  “You do remember him.” She pounced on that detail.

  Dare let out a sound of frustration. “My memories of him are . . . fine. He was concerned with my schooling and that I be the perfect heir to fill his shoes.”

  “So . . . he’s not a stranger, or worse,” she said, not letting the matter go as he so clearly wished. Trying to make sense of this indifference for the man he’d been stolen from. “An ogre like my father was.”

  “I’ve spent more years away from my late father than with him, Temperance. And as such, I don’t care about a watch that he might have used.”

  Just as he’d been determined to keep her and everyone else out, he did the same with the memory of the people who’d given him life. “Did use, Dare,” she corrected, highlighting that important distinction. “One that your father did use.”

  Midwriting, Dare slammed his pen down in the first break in his temper that she ever remembered of him. Ink splattered his always meticulous ledgers. “Would you have had me let Lionel and his family starve out of some sentimental connection? Because there is none, Temperance.” He managed a return to his usual calm. “There is none,” he repeated. “Do you know what does matter?” Lifting the ledger, he turned it around, revealing the lengthy column of names.

  She worked her eyes over the page of men and women and children—some familiar, more not—of the Rookeries who were reliant upon him. And beside those columns were others, enumerating how mu
ch money was needed to provide shelter and food for the individuals listed there. “This is what you intend to do with your grandfather’s funds,” she murmured. Of course. It fit with who he was. And what he did.

  And in doing that, he’d not have to steal. Not again.

  “These people matter.” He jabbed a finger at the top of the page. “Lionel matters.”

  “But it can be . . . both ways. You can help Lionel and others and still retain connections to the family and life you once knew, Dare.”

  “I’m sure I could.” He lowered his book. “If I had a desire to. I don’t.” His tone contained a finality to it. Returning his volume of names to his desk, he picked up his pen and resumed writing once more. “I’m not meant to have connections.”

  “Because you never let yourself have them, Dare,” she said softly. With that, she let herself out.

  The night of his impromptu offer of marriage, she’d convinced herself that she could be more to him. That they could be more and have more.

  Only to learn . . . and accept, too late, that Dare would never let her in.

  Not in the ways she wished.

  Chapter 12

  Dare had never thought partnering with Temperance in a pretend marriage and joining Polite Society, all in the name of twenty thousand pounds, would be an easy venture.

  But after she’d said her piece and quietly taken her leave, he was at last forced to acknowledge that he’d not given full consideration to just how difficult it would be in close quarters with her once more.

  A woman of moral convictions, the likes of which he’d never known a person could have, she’d shun the acts that most desperate people performed in the name of survival. She’d always challenged him to be more. Wanted him to be more.

  And time had not changed that.

  But then Dare had always deluded himself where Temperance Swift was concerned. How many times had he thought he could sway her to his way of thinking? Or appease her?

  Nay, she was a woman in full control of what she believed to be right and wrong, and they would never meet at a place of like understanding.

  The words she’d spoken lingered in the room, staying with him still.

  But it can be . . . both ways. You can help Lionel and others and still retain connections to the family and life you once knew . . .

  “It is just a damned watch,” he muttered into the quiet. A bloody timepiece that she’d gone and tried to make more of. All the items in this household were material baubles. And she’d have him make them out to be . . . more? Because why? The watch had belonged to his father. The father who’d not even wanted Dare as long as Dare had lived there . . .

  And certainly not after, when you waltzed off to join Mac Diggory on the grandest of adventures, the voice at the back of his mind taunted.

  He stared blankly over the top of his desk. In his mind’s eye, his position reversed, he stood there, looking at his father at work. Too busy to pick his head up. Or mayhap it was that he’d been too disgusted.

  “It has come to my attention that you’ve sneaked off to go exploring.” There was a slight pause in that steady click of the pen striking the ledger page. “In East London.”

  “I wasn’t exploring. I was—”

  His father silenced him with a look. Dare shuffled back and forth on his feet, studying his now grime-covered black boots intently.

  “Oscar,” Dare’s mother said softly. “He was helping. One of the maids has a sister, and he—”

  “Took a picnic basket?”

  It hadn’t really been a basket. A valise, because he’d not really known where baskets were kept, and—

  His father again spoke, whipping Dare’s head up. “It is enough that he is . . .” Not looking up from his writings, Father waved his other hand. “Him.” At last, he looked up, and there was so much loathing, so much disgust, that it hurt sharp in Dare’s belly. His father glared. “But I’ll not have him leading his brother down the same path of trouble and mischief and irresponsibility. I’ll not have two sons as sinners. Is that clear?”

  Except no answer had been necessary. His mother’s defense hadn’t mattered. The fact that Dare had been getting food that they had in endless amounts over to people whose bellies were empty. None of it. All the late marquess had given two jots about was that Dare hadn’t been the serious, model heir the marquess wanted him to be. Reflecting back, he could acknowledge his actions as a young boy had not been entirely driven by empathy. There’d also been the adventurous part of him that’d wished to explore.

  To see the world.

  And what a world he’d seen . . .

  Dare tossed his pen down.

  God, how he hated this place. For the memories dwelled even stronger here.

  So . . . he’s not a stranger, or worse . . . An ogre like my father was.

  And this time, he couldn’t resist the bitter twist of a smile at some of Temperance’s parting words. She wrongly assumed that ogres came in only one type and shape.

  She was wrong. So very wrong.

  Forcing himself out of the past and back to the only thing that mattered—the present—Dare picked up his pen once more. He looked down at the families who were in need of another visit . . . families who required more money, which he’d promised to deliver.

  Alex and Dora Smith. Three children.

  Natalie Reiner. One son.

  Patrick and Patricia Barclay. Five daughters.

  The list . . . It went on and on.

  And as such, Dare could see only those families, and he didn’t give two shites about moral right or wrong. Despite what Temperance had always believed, there were not two sides of this. There were the “haves” . . . and the “have nots.”

  And taking from the former—even the dead father whom he barely recalled—to feed and clothe the neediest was something he’d never make apologies for.

  A restlessness filled him. One that could be satisfied only by doing that which had come easiest to him. The streets of London whispered in his ear, and the need to answer that call was a physical hungering, a yearning so acute to quit this place. If even just for now. To put it behind him and go off on his own and do that which he was truly good at. That which he’d only and always been good at . . .

  KnockKnockKnock.

  “Enter,” Dare called.

  Spencer drew the panel open. “You have . . . another guest, my lord. A Mr. Avery Bryant.”

  Shock brought Dare flying to his feet. “Avery?”

  Avery sauntered in. “The very same, Grey. Given the circumstances of our last meeting and the abrupt reversal of your fate, I’m the one more entitled to surprise.” Avery’s sharp gaze worked over Dare’s office.

  In a brave display of boldness, the servant lingered for a moment, glowering at the visitor now doing a circle around Dare’s office. “Is there anything else you require, my lord?”

  “No, Spencer. That will be all.”

  Spencer sniffed twice. “As you wish, my lord,” he said before reluctantly drawing the panel shut.

  The moment Dare and his former partner found themselves alone, Dare took up a place behind his desk.

  Avery nudged his chin to where the butler last stood. “Friendly fellow.”

  “He means well,” Dare said, for some reason unwilling to let Avery have that low opinion about the servant. “He’s unused to meeting . . .”

  “People like us?” Avery supplied with a wry grin.

  “People like us,” Dare agreed.

  His partner looped his thumbs in the waistband of his breeches and glanced around. He whistled. “Though I will say, we don’t seem to be the same people. Not anymore.”

  Dare followed his stare, then frowned. “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” the other man asked distractedly as he picked up a white bust of a young lady.

  “None of this changes who I am or what I do.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Avery asked, curiosity in those two words. Words that were so very familiar, given L
ionel’s assumptions about Dare’s role in the Rookeries.

  “It doesn’t,” Dare repeated, this time with a greater insistence.

  Avery redirected his focus to the bauble in his hand, weighing it in his gloveless palm. “Marble?”

  Marble? It took a moment to register what Avery was asking. “I . . .” Dare didn’t know. “Believe so,” he said noncommittally, refusing to acknowledge that he’d not already taken a full inventory of the household.

  Wordlessly, Avery returned the piece to the side table and resumed his silent assessment of Dare’s new belongings. Items Dare should already know the value of. He should have inventoried the pieces and sold them off, as had been the initial plan and intent. He’d see to that. Soon. Eventually. As soon as he sorted through . . . his marriage and the duke’s terms . . .

  As his partner took a methodical turn about the room, Dare returned to his seat and the ledgers he’d been studying before Avery’s arrival—or trying to, in vain.

  He’d been wholly distracted . . . by her. His wife.

  Avery had made his way over to Dare’s desk.

  “You seem distracted.”

  Dare grunted. The other man had always seen too much. He shifted on his seat. “It is . . . a lot.” The change in circumstances. The new life. The reunion with his wife. And he was drowning under the enormity of it all.

  His former mentor–turned-partner grinned wryly. “That it is,” he said, wholly misunderstanding precisely what Dare had been saying. “Nice place.”

  But then they weren’t people who dealt in emotion, or anything beyond the physical things to be stolen and sold.

  Grabbing the curved back of the wing chair, Avery pulled it out and availed himself of a seat. “I never thought to see you here.”

  “That makes two of us,” Dare said under his breath.

  Avery shook his head. “I mean, after Newgate.” Avery’s lips twisted in the closest rendering of a genuine smile Dare had ever remembered from the man. “You always did have the Devil’s own luck.”

  “Luck,” he echoed. “Is that what one calls this?”

  A frown chased away Avery’s grin. “Don’t be an arse, Grey. What do you think any one of us in the Rookeries would call this?” He glanced about the room once more, forcing Dare to follow his gaze. “You don’t go whining and crying because you found yourself not only spared the noose but also moved up to the West End.”