Undressed with the Marquess

by Caldwell, Christi

  “Holy hell. Spenceeer?” he whispered. The son of his family’s head butler in Leeds, Spencer had been a playmate and friend to both Dare and his brother.

  The other man bowed his head. “My lord.”

  “I didn’t . . . I . . .” Words failed.

  Spencer cleared his throat. “A great deal of time passed. We were boys, and I go by my family name now, and as such, I wouldn’t expect you to remember me.”

  But . . . Dare had. He’d spent his life burying memories deep down in an attempt to forget everyone. It had been altogether easier to forget them than think that they’d forgotten him. It had been just one more thing Temperance had helped him see.

  That was why Spencer had been devoted when Dare hadn’t deserved it. And why he’d been committed to helping Dare and saving the Milford estate.

  The office door opened, and Kinsley swept in. “Dare. Spencer,” she greeted as the servant jumped to his feet and bowed.

  “My lady.”

  “If you’ll excuse us, Spencer?” Dare requested.

  “Of course.” The other man proceeded to gather up his things.

  It was the first time since he’d returned to his family’s fold that Kinsley had sought him out . . . about anything. Upon Temperance’s departure, Kinsley had settled into her days looking after Rose . . . until the child had gone.

  “You wished to speak with me?” he began when Spencer showed himself out.

  “About your wife. You should go to her,” Kinsley said without preamble.

  He blinked wildly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t beg mine. Beg hers.” Kinsley plopped onto one of the wing chairs. “I trust Grandmother is responsible for Temperance feeling as though she had to leave. Grandmother means well, but she has never been one to truly understand matters of the heart.”

  His sister spoke as one who knew. And it reminded him of all the ways in which she was still a stranger . . .

  “Well?” Kinsley lifted an eyebrow. “I expect you have something to say.”

  “Temperance . . . chose, and she didn’t choose me.” There were no more humbling words he’d ever admit, ones that had ensured he’d remain forever broken. Dare glanced down at the official-looking pair of envelopes that had been resting at the corner of his desk for the past three days. “I . . . would respect what she wants.” He’d only ever taken where she was concerned, committing an emotional theft greater than any other robbery he’d ever carried out.

  “She loves you,” Kinsley said simply. There was a brief pause. “Though I’ll admit that it’s not entirely altruistic, sisterly devotion on my part.” Sadness paraded across the young lady’s face. “I . . . miss her very much.”

  “I miss her as well,” he said gruffly. It was the first real, meaningful admission he’d ever brought himself to make to his sister.

  Kinsley glanced down at the envelopes. “You are not done with her. Not just yet.”

  No. But . . . soon. He couldn’t, however, bring himself to make that admission, not because of Kinsley but rather for what it would do to him emotionally. In the end, another knock came, saving him from answering.

  Spencer entered with Avery close at his heels. “Mr. Bryant to see you,” he said coolly.

  Bryant . . . the only guest whom the always unflappable butler had never bothered to feign a politeness for or over.

  All Dare’s senses went on alert. The visit was long overdue, but not unexpected. He’d been anticipating it. “Kinsley, if you’ll excuse me?” he said for a second time that afternoon, trading one guest for another yet again.

  Kinsley climbed to her feet.

  “What, no introductions?” Avery drawled with his usual dry humor.

  Kinsley blushed, and it was the blush . . . the hint of danger, and the sign that he’d be wise to keep his sister far away from the likes of Avery Bryant.

  His partner stepped aside as Kinsley passed by him.

  “You’ve become a protective brother in your old age. Never thought I’d see that,” Avery said with a laugh. Crossing over, his longtime partner availed himself of the same seat Kinsley had just vacated. “I’ve already paid visits to Moray, Wentnick, and Ashcroft.” His partner withdrew a heavy packet from inside the front of his jacket and set it down at the corner of Dare’s desk . . . directly beside the envelopes. “Made out quite well, I did,” the other man said. “I secured nearly two thousand pounds from Moray’s flatware alone.”

  Dare steepled his fingers together and stared over at his partner, the man he’d known since he was eleven . . . the same one who, just three years older than Dare, had shown him everything he knew. Who’d revealed every secret and helped Dare build the future and career he had.

  “As I understand it, Bolingbroke should be vacating his London townhouse,” the other man was saying. “He and his wife are expecting another child.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Dare asked, watching his partner closely.

  “What I always do.” Avery shrugged. “Or perhaps I should say what ‘we’ always do.” He looked briefly in Dare’s direction. “Of course, I’m happy to cede the assignment to you. I’ve never been greedy where you were concerned.”

  No . . . Avery hadn’t. It was why Dare had remained partners with him longer than any thief in the Rookeries worked with another.

  “And given the bastard’s crimes and the . . . personal connection, it would be only right to leave the honors to you.”

  Dare simply stared at him for a long while, watching as Avery picked up the packet, opened it, and went on to silently read contents he no doubt had already memorized.

  “Why did you do it?” Dare asked quietly.

  The other man stopped reading and looked up. “I already told you, because of the fact you were—”

  “Was it the money? The desire for power?”

  Avery stilled. The other man glanced briefly down before meeting Dare’s focus once more. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said carefully, setting the packet down.

  It was Avery Bryant’s only tell. That half-of-a-second look away, so quick that if one blinked one would miss it, and also, one Dare knew because of how damned close he’d been to the thief.

  “You bastard,” Dare seethed. “You betrayed me, connected yourself with Diggory’s remaining thugs, struck a deal with Wylie . . . all to see me hang. Why?” he whispered. “Whyy?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Avery snapped. He reached for his packet, and Dare caught the folded sheets, beating the other man to it. His former partner glared. “I took you in and taught you everything I knew, and allowed you to become what you did, and this is how you repay me?”

  “Is that why?” Dare asked quietly. “Because I surpassed you, and you finally saw a way to reclaim the power you’d been without for so long?” Now it made so much sense. The other man’s attempts at getting Dare to settle into his life hadn’t been the encouraging words of a friend. They’d been the greedy attempts of a man protecting his territory. “Tell me you didn’t work with Swift. Tell me.”

  Avery flattened his mouth into a tight line.

  Oh, God. The bottom fell out of his stomach, as he had confirmation of everything he’d only just suspected. “You did.”

  “Abaddon Swift controls the streets Mac Diggory once did. It was nothing more than a business decision, Dare.”

  Nothing more . . . than a business decision.

  He’d partner with the man responsible for killing Dare and Temperance’s baby . . . who’d beaten Temperance endlessly as a young girl. A curtain of black rage fell across his vision, momentarily blinding. “Get the hell out,” Dare said when he trusted himself to speak. Avery had kept him alive when by all rights he should have been dead, and that was the only reason Dare let him live now. “Abaddon’s already been rounded up by the law and will be serving his time far away. Unless you care to join him, I suggest you get yourself from my sight and never come near me or mine again.”

  The
color slipped from his former partner’s scarred cheeks. “You would just . . . end our friendship.”

  “We were never friends,” Dare said. “We were partners. I’ve had only one friend, and it wasn’t you.”

  Stiffly, Avery rose. “I’ve always done what I needed to do in the name of survival. You should not only know that already but also understand it.”

  “I’ll never understand you or any of the decisions you’ve made.” And he’d certainly never forgive them. He tossed the packet at the other man, and it hit Avery square in the chest.

  His former partner caught those pages and looked down. “How did you . . . ?”

  “Figure out it was you?” he supplied. “The clues were always there that you were poison to me; I was just too blind to see it.” And he wouldn’t have, had it not been for Temperance opening his eyes to it.

  Shoulders slightly slumped, the other man started for the door.

  “Avery?” Dare called, and his former partner wheeled about. “It was a trap, wasn’t it? Bolingbroke?”

  For a long while he thought Avery wouldn’t comment or respond, but then he nodded ever so slightly.

  “You were pushing it too hard,” Dare explained, answering the unspoken question. “Get out,” he said quietly . . . and the other man, his partner in crime, left.

  There should be bitterness and pain and hurt that came from that betrayal. And yet, he felt nothing where Avery Bryant was concerned. There had only ever really been one person whom Dare had trusted. One person whom he’d wanted in his life. And yet, he’d been so very afraid of having her there.

  No, it was as he’d said to the other man: only one person had ever mattered, and now Dare had just one thing left to do—give her everything she wanted.

  Chapter 26

  Temperance’s fingers ached.

  And her back and her neck. Those, along with parts of her arms she didn’t even know the names for.

  In her short time in London, she’d somehow forgotten the degree of toil and strife that came with a seamstress’s job.

  No, it was just that she’d let herself forget those miseries.

  But then perhaps this was to be her penance for having failed Gwynn. For having dragged the other woman all the way to London, bringing her so very close to the grandest hope she carried in her heart, only to then dash it with the truth of Temperance’s own selfishness. Either way, her friend had said nothing about their having to return and beg for their work back.

  Even as they’d not been replaced. Even as there were no finer seamstresses in the Cotswolds.

  Gwynn, who’d been more loyal than Temperance deserved, and who’d been only understanding that the hopes she’d carried for them to be their own women had died with Temperance’s decision.

  Except, was it really disloyal? The terms the duke and duchess had presented Dare had ultimately taken the decision away from Temperance . . . even if she’d wanted to give him a babe.

  And I wanted that . . . I wanted that so very much. To be a mother to the very manner of child Dare had envisioned for them, strong and witty and spirited. And the pain of that would never, ever go away. Not just to have that child . . . but to have her or him with Dare.

  Dare, who had cradled little Rose and—

  “Hullooo . . . Miss Swiiiift, I’m looking for more of that pretty pink fabric.”

  No, she’d been wrong. This was to be her penance.

  “Yes, Mrs. Marmlebury,” she said, hurrying to fetch the garish satin in question.

  Her friend caught her gaze across the shop.

  “Pink?” Gwynn mouthed, and then from behind the old widow’s back, she pulled a face as if retching, and Temperance managed that which she’d never thought to accomplish again—she laughed.

  A slew of horrified stares went to Temperance.

  Oh, bloody hell.

  Madame Amelie swept over.

  Oh, bloody, bloody hell.

  “Is there something funny, Mrs. Grey?”

  Actually, there had been. “No, madame.”

  “Do you find your work here amusing?”

  Absolutely not and never. “No.”

  The woman’s eyebrows snapped together. “Yes?”

  Why don’t you tell me what the damned answer is? she silently raged.

  Her employer leaned in. “Then I suggest you have a care with your laughter. I will see to Mrs. Marmlebury.”

  So Temperance was to be punished . . . for laughing.

  Temperance hurried into the back and sat at her tiny little station. She grabbed the partially completed day dress and her needle, and resumed sewing. This was fine. She’d prefer the physical misery of putting her body through this work to having to suffer through the likes of Mrs. Marmlebury. It was only a brief reprieve. After all, this was to be her future . . . But she would take those breaks from horrific clients when and where she could. From out on the shop floor, the bell jingled, announcing the arrival of some other unkind harpy.

  Temperance jabbed her needle into the fabric and let the rote motions take over as she saw to the dress.

  She’d forgotten what it was to be free in any way, capable of even just laughing without censure and condemnation. Just like she’d not been able to have an opinion on colors of fabrics or types or cuts or . . . anything. Only Dare had ever encouraged her to live freely, without constraint, and without apologies. He’d never expected her to answer for how she felt.

  And those had been gifts.

  She’d not realized as much until she’d fled. Temperance had left trying to protect him. Only to find that she really had been trying to protect herself from the fear that Dare would one day reject or resent her. When challenged by his grandmother, Temperance had allowed herself to be weakened by a sense of her failures as a woman. Only . . . she wasn’t a failure. She wasn’t broken. She had time to see that now. In those moments when she’d stated her intentions to leave, he’d been adamant that her inability to have children didn’t matter. He’d spoken of the possibility of theirs being a different type of family.

  And she wanted that.

  All of that . . . with him.

  But he’d not come for her. That truth was with her daily . . . along with what it meant. What it truly meant about his thoughts on a future with her.

  He . . .

  Her nape tingled with awareness.

  Impossible.

  And yet—

  “Hullo, Temperance.” His voice washed over her, that deep baritone, honeyed and warm; it would forever haunt her sleeping and waking thoughts.

  “D-dare,” she greeted. She made herself lower her sewing, but God help her for a coward, she could not turn. She could not face him.

  Her heart thumped hard and fast.

  He is here.

  She briefly closed her eyes but did not rise or turn to face him, for fear that when and if she did, he’d disappear.

  She knew why he was here, and she’d allow the reality of that to sink in after she just embraced his presence.

  How she’d missed him.

  Dare stopped at her shoulder . . . and remained . . . silent.

  He’d not allow her to her cowardice, then.

  Temperance shifted slightly in her seat, turning on the bench and looking up so she could meet his gaze.

  She could make nothing out of it.

  His eyes were serious and solemn when they’d always before this contained a teasing glimmer or spark.

  “Joseph Gurney has been freed.”

  Of anything he might have said, of anything she’d expected he might utter, that had not been it.

  “I managed to locate Mr. Buxton . . . who proved as your brother expected he would be: horrified at the circumstances surrounding Mr. Gurney’s imprisonment. He’s something of a social reformer, an abolitionist, and . . . he wishes to reform the prison systems. He’s invited me to take part in his efforts.” Dare twisted his hat in his hands. “He said given my title and . . . the life that I’ve lived, that I might help make meanin
gful change in London.”

  Her heart swelled. “That is . . . wonderful.” And she meant it. At last, he would have a new beginning and, more, the future he deserved. One that she would never be part of.

  “And . . . those portraits? The ones of my family that you said I was wrong to sell. You were right. Getting rid of them did not erase the regret I felt in leaving my family. Nor did it erase the love I had for my mother, or the love she had for me. I . . . purchased them back. All of them.”

  Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them back. “That is . . . also splendid, Dare.” He’d come all this way to tell her that? Surely that meant something about his being here. Surely that meant—

  Wordlessly, he set an official-looking envelope down atop the forgotten-until-now gown.

  Blankly, she looked down at it. What is this?

  Except she already knew. Just as she’d known with a woman’s intuition that he’d been near, she knew with a sickening dread what was contained within. Because their time together hadn’t been finished until this was done. This was why he’d come.

  His features were a mask that revealed absolutely nothing. “You said you wanted an annulment. My grandfather secured the necessary signatures.”

  Yes. Yes, she had. For him.

  This was why he’d come, then. Not to share in the joy of what his life held in store. But to sever what their life together had been.

  With surprisingly steady movements, she picked up the packet, broke the seal, and scanned the pages. She’d known what would be contained within, but seeing the words inked in black and stamped in various places left her frozen in her seat, unmoving.

  “It . . . is done,” he said quietly.

  After she’d lost her babe and her marriage had fallen apart, she’d thought her shattered heart was incapable of breaking any more. How much was there left to give?

  Only to find even more agony could be squeezed from the still-beating organ.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, welcoming the sting of pain for the distraction she needed.

  It is done.