Undressed with the Marquess

by Caldwell, Christi

  But then Rose pressed a fistful of gravel into first Dare’s hand and then Kinsley’s, urging the pair to hurl those “rocks.”

  And then, brother and sister began to skip those stones . . . the halting strains of their conversation drifting over.

  Tears blurred Temperance’s eyes. She’d feared he’d fall back on his old ways . . . the only ways he’d known for so very long. She’d begun to doubt that he was willing to make a go with the family he’d been taken from. Only to see he could open himself to a new way . . . a new life, here in Mayfair.

  And with Kinsley’s revelation, and the gift Temperance could never give Dare . . . a life that she could never, ever be part of.

  Chapter 17

  Dare had been without a family for so long he’d not thought he’d missed any aspect of it.

  He’d been wrong.

  As Temperance, Kinsley, Gwynn, and Rose rushed on ahead through the front doors, he stared after the happy quartet.

  It was the singular most terrifying thing in the whole of his life. Belonging to . . . something. And yet there was also a conflicting sense of . . . rightness to it, too.

  He stared up after them as they climbed the stairs to the nursery. Temperance paused at the top of the landing to look back. She briefly waved before hurrying after his sister. And that lightness filled his chest again.

  The moment they’d gone, Spencer cleared his throat. “You have a visitor, my lord,” he said as he accepted Dare’s cloak.

  The reverie from Hyde Park forgotten, all his senses went on alert.

  “Mr. Swift,” his butler expounded. “I took the liberty of showing him to your office.”

  His brother-in-law. With the grueling hours he worked, the younger man wouldn’t seek him out. Not at this time of day. Unless there was a matter of urgency that merited the meeting.

  When Dare still didn’t speak, the butler cleared his throat. “That is, Mr. Chance Swift . . . Her Ladyship’s brother. Should I not have . . . ?” the other man asked haltingly.

  “No. You were right to have him wait. Thank you, Spencer.” Reversing his direction, Dare quickened his strides, heading for his office.

  The moment he entered, he immediately found his brother-in-law.

  Seated with his elbows propped on his knees and his head in his hands, Chance tugged at his close-cropped curls. The distressed young man gave no hint that he’d heard Dare enter. Those warning bells blared louder than the ones hanging over St. Mary’s.

  Dare pushed the door shut behind him with a quiet click; that sound seemed to penetrate Chance’s distractedness.

  The other man jumped to his feet. “Dare. Forgive me for arriving without any notice—”

  He waved off that apology. “You’re my brother-in-law and closer than blood. You need never apologize for paying a visit.” Urging Temperance’s brother back to the chair he’d vacated, Dare claimed the seat nearest him and drew it closer. “What—”

  “They’re going to hang Joseph,” he said hoarsely.

  All Dare’s muscles seized. “What?”

  “They moved up his trial, and apparently it was not enough to deport him. They scheduled him to hang.” The younger man’s words all rolled together. “And I’ve not heard from Mr. Buxton. I’ve no idea if he’s even received my note, but I”—Chance swiped his palms over his face—“I don’t know how to help him, and then Rose will be an orphan, and Lionel will be left with only his father for protection, which is . . . none.”

  Here he’d been busy playing at life while others were struggling just to survive.

  Dare sat back and considered all those words. Wylie. Wylie was the one with all the control of Joseph’s fate.

  He firmed his mouth. And there was only one thing that Wylie wanted and answered to . . .

  Which meant there was also one person whose help he required . . .

  Coming to his feet, Dare called for Spencer.

  The butler immediately appeared, indicating he’d been standing in wait. “I require help,” Dare explained as he wrote directives on a small scrap of paper.

  Spencer examined the instructions written there and then folded them. He tucked the page away in the front of his jacket pocket.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “None, my lord,” Spencer said, and then took his leave.

  While he and Chance waited for the other man to return, Dare resumed his examination of the state of the finances left to him.

  From across the room, Chance bent slightly over a globe, spinning the sphere, not unlike the way Dare had as a boy when he’d been waiting for his father to arrive and lecture him on his many failings.

  “Did you ever think of going to these places?” Chance murmured.

  Dare blinked; it took a moment to realize that the younger man was speaking to him.

  “I . . .” He had. All the time. He’d wanted to see not only every corner of London and how the people lived there, but the whole of the world. To discover other people and other places. To explore. It was why, when he’d wandered off with Topher McSally, the street thug who’d taken Dare under his wing and promised to show him the thrill of that world, Dare had believed himself on the grandest adventure. And for a bit of time, he had been. Before his exploration of East London had ended and he’d been passed over to Mac Diggory . . .

  “We had a book,” Chance said, not pressing Dare for an answer, and bringing him back to the moment. “Just one: Coryat’s Crudities: Hastily gobled up in Five Moneth’s Travels.” A wistful smile pulled at Chance’s lips as he stopped the globe from spinning with his finger and then restarted it with the same digit. “Temperance always said Mum had sneaked it free when she eloped with our da, and when he went and sold everything off, she hid it under a loose floorboard . . . And whenever Da was gone, she would just sit there and read it, over and over.” Chance stopped the globe with his finger once more and peered down at the location he’d landed on. “Temperance would read to me from that book every night, telling me the world was mine for the taking and that I could be like that traveler . . . honorable. Good. Seeing the world outside of ours, but through respectable means.”

  Dare smiled. That was . . . very much Temperance. Building up her brother and refusing to imagine a life of crime and sin for him. Just as she’d hoped—expected—Dare would follow.

  Closeted away in his office nearly two hours later, waiting with a restless Chance, Dare registered the echo of footsteps in the hall.

  And they looked up as Spencer entered . . . with Avery Bryant beside him.

  “I found him, my lord,” his butler said, faintly breathless, but his voice brimming with pride.

  Chance blanched like he’d seen a bogeyman and jumped back.

  Avery Bryant grinned wryly. “Still got a problem with me, do you, Swift?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Or was that your sister with the problem?”

  The young man frowned and dusted his palms over his lapels. “I’m my own man, capable of making my own judgments,” he said tightly.

  Dare’s butler made no hint of concealing his interest in the exchange, watching the two men as they debated.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Spencer?”

  The servant nodded and then backed from the room, all the while keeping a careful eye on Avery Bryant until he’d gone.

  Avery snorted. “Funny to get a request from you, Grey. You got this one who never trusted me”—he jabbed a thumb in Chance’s direction—“and your servants don’t trust me. But then, mayhap they’re the wise ones, and you’re the one who never knew what was good for you.” He chortled like he’d told the cleverest of jests.

  The tight lines at the corners of Chance’s mouth dipped. “I don’t think it’s a good idea he be here.”

  Temperance certainly wouldn’t approve . . . She never had where Avery Bryant was concerned. But sometimes, the end did justify the means. “And what of Joseph?” Dare asked quietly. “Mr. Buxton isn’t answering you, and Joseph is set to swing.” Chance’s cheeks
blanched. “Should we not do whatever we need to, to help?”

  As they talked, Avery gave no indication he cared either way about the discussion taking place about him and over him. Rather, he continued to assess the same bust he had at his last visit, sizing it up with an expression Dare recognized all too well.

  Chance closed his eyes briefly, and then gave a short, tight nod.

  Dare motioned to his former partner.

  “I have it on authority that you paid a visit to a certain baron,” Avery said as he sauntered over.

  Dare stiffened.

  The other man had known.

  “I know. I know everything about the available households. Well”—he nudged his chin—“what did you manage?”

  Dare resisted the urge to squirm. “Nothing.” It was the second time in his life he’d been forced to admit to leaving a household . . . without. The only time before that had come when he’d gotten himself caught in the act and nearly hanged.

  “Nothing,” Avery repeated. The other man rocked back on his heels and rubbed at his chin. “You’re . . . done, then.”

  He felt Chance’s gaze taking in the exchange.

  You’re done . . . And it would have been easier and more welcome had there been judgment and not the same relief Temperance had revealed when she’d learned he’d been unable to go through with his last heist. Sweat slicked Dare’s palms and entire body as he confronted just how far he’d gotten from his path. “I’m not done,” he said, a defensive edge creeping in.

  Avery snorted. “There’s nothing wrong with it if you are. Like I said before, you should be. Enjoying trips to the park and spending time with your family.”

  Dare felt his face heat. “You’ve heard about that.”

  The other man picked up a paper on the edge of Dare’s desk.

  Dare plucked the copy of The Times from the other man’s hands. “It’s just gossip. I’ve no intention of quitting my work. Just . . . perhaps taking a different path.”

  “A different path?”

  He nodded. Only . . . what did that even look like? Could he be the man Temperance thought he could . . . the man she urged him to be . . . and still do that which he needed?

  The answer came immediately. No.

  While he’d been playing at family, there’d been others starving and struggling. Men like Joseph awaiting a date with the gibbet.

  “Grey, it’s not a bad thing if you quit. But if you aren’t coming back, they need to know that, too. They need to know that it’s time to stop relying on you and see to their own needs.”

  Every word was a blade of guilt, twisting and turning and then twisting back again.

  He’d been playing at another life. Playing house here with Temperance and Rose and . . . Kinsley, Dare had enjoyed himself more than he had ever in his remembering. But he’d also forgotten everyone else, too. It was what Temperance wanted. For him to immerse himself in this world and leave the one he knew and wanted behind.

  Feeling Chance’s stare on them, taking in the entire exchange, Dare cleared his throat. “This isn’t why I’ve asked you here.” He motioned for both men to sit.

  Dare proceeded to explain about Joseph Gurney and the other man’s circumstances.

  “Well, what do you need?” Avery Bryant asked when he’d finished.

  That had always been the other man’s way. Despite Temperance’s resentment and mistrust of the street thief who’d trained Dare, Avery Bryant was one who’d quit what he’d been doing and accompany a servant to the other end of London and ask how he might help.

  “Wylie,” Dare said.

  Avery sat back in his chair. “Wylie’s gotten more grasping. And you being a marquess now?” He shook his head. “He’s going to want even more. Expect it.”

  “What are his rates?”

  “Bribes from a lord?” His partner looped a boot across his opposite knee. “Hard to say. I’ve heard anywhere from one to two thousand pounds.”

  Chance promptly choked. “We don’t have that to save Gurney.”

  Bloody hell. “The marquessate is bankrupt,” Dare said flatly, never regretting more that he’d not returned when Connor Steele had urged him to. Instead, he’d allowed that wastrel to squander it all . . .

  “No Newgate guard is going to believe that, even if it is true.”

  Except . . . it wasn’t altogether true. There were items to be sold. A lot of fripperies and baubles. “You’ll handle the transaction?”

  Avery nodded. “You write the note, put your seal on it all fancy-like.” His partner grinned. “I’ll see it gets to his hands, along with the money for the transaction.”

  Dare reached for a sheet of parchment and proceeded to write.

  Chance frowned. “I don’t know about this. Perhaps I might try to reach Mr. Buxton once more?”

  Both men ignored him. A moment later, Dare had blown powder upon the note, stamped it with his seal, and handed the folded sheet over.

  Avery looked down at it several moments before tucking it in his pocket. “Now, the items to sell?”

  Chapter 18

  “The day . . . was nice,” Kinsley said, perched sidesaddle on the wooden, painted rocking horse.

  “You sound surprised,” Temperance noted as Rose splashed paint upon the little canvas that had been set up for her. After their outing at Hyde Park, they’d taken the curricle to Gunter’s for ices, and having since retired to the nursery to explore with the painting supplies, the little girl’s life had already proven so much fuller than all of Temperance’s childhood in the Rookeries. How she hated that the little girl would soon leave, and then what would the child’s life be? Drudgery. Hardship. That was all that awaited her and those like her.

  “I never thought of him as a person. I didn’t think of him as someone on the streets who’d helped others. Or who might play with babes on a shore. Fathers don’t do that, you know,” Kinsley tacked on. Her eyes grew sad. “At least mine didn’t.”

  “My father didn’t, either,” Temperance confided. Any day he’d not been beating her had been a gift. “My father struck me and . . . often.” She’d never spoken about the beatings she’d suffered at her father’s hand. Of course, nearly every person in the Rookeries had known about the abuse Abaddon Swift’s family had faced . . . but she’d not really spoken of it. Only with Dare. “He preferred an open hand. He liked the sound, he would say.”

  Get ’ere, gel, and take your beating . . .

  “I came to learn the sound of his footfalls so that I could avoid him when he was coming. I’d sneak away and hide, and when I did, I would dream of a different life. Yours, even,” she said quietly, absently stroking the top of Rose’s head. “I never imagined there could be small girls amongst the nobility also wishing for something different for themselves.” And yet even through the darkest, worst moments . . . other than escape, what had she ever really wished for? She’d not known . . . anything. The opportunities and dreams available to people of her lot were limited.

  Kinsley’s eyes flew to hers. “Oh.” Her voice came weak. Dare’s sister fluttered a hand about her heart. “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Please, don’t.” Temperance waved off that apology. “I only shared so that you might know you aren’t alone in your regret of wishing that you could have had a family different from the one you had.”

  “My father, however, would never have struck me,” Kinsley whispered. “How small I must seem to you, complaining about my life.”

  “Your pain is your pain,” she said. Rose brandished her brush. Taking it from the child, Temperance dipped it into a little jar of red paint and then tapped the excess onto the edge. She handed the brush over, guiding the girl’s fingers around the handle. “My experience and my pain don’t make yours any less significant. It is yours, and you should feel exactly how you feel.”

  “I do see why my brother married you,” Kinsley murmured.

  Temperance’s heart seized. The other girl couldn’t even begin to imagine the perfunctory,
businesslike start to their union. Then . . . and now.

  An arrangement that had been destined for failure.

  Footfalls echoed outside the door, and they looked as one to the front of the room.

  A servant drew the door open. “Her Grace, the Duchess of Pemberly.”

  The old woman swept inside, her gaze taking in first her granddaughter, then Temperance . . . and then Rose. Reaching for one of the chains about her neck, she lifted the monocle to her right eye and peered intently at the little girl spattering paint upon the canvas. “Whatever is this?”

  Kinsley hopped up. “She—”

  The duchess thumped her cane, commanding her granddaughter to silence. “I’d read reports in the papers but brushed them off as mere gossip.” She handed her cane off to the maid waiting there. She passed her gloves on to the servant. Reclaiming her cane, she marched forward. “Is this your daughter?” the duchess demanded, the hard strike of her cane penetrating the thin carpet covering the floor.

  “I don’t have a daughter, Grandmother,” Kinsley piped in.

  The duchess, however, quelled the younger woman with a look.

  Kinsley dropped her gaze to the floor.

  Temperance appreciated her sister-in-law’s attempt at levity. How different she was from the young woman who’d stormed from her bedroom the night Lionel and Rose had been discovered. And how Temperance hoped that when she left, Kinsley would remain one who was able to see a child from the Rookeries as a child, her life meaningful and valuable despite what the ton would have the world believe.

  “Well,” the duchess began again. “What is . . . this?” She motioned to Rose.

  Fighting to rein in her temper, Temperance spoke in even tones. “This is a child. Her name is Rose.”

  Her Grace’s mouth moved several times before a word emerged. “Rose?”

  Kinsley nodded. “Like the flower,” she volunteered helpfully.

  The duchess’s eyes narrowed.

  As if sensing she was the subject of discussion, Rose waved her brush wildly about, sending paint splashing. The duchess gasped as red paint hit her square in the chest, turning the sapphire satin a dark shade of purple.