Undressed with the Marquess

by Caldwell, Christi

“Harold,” the duchess gasped.

  Color filled the older man’s cheeks. “Other things. Lavish parties. The finest brandy and other spirits. Not a pence was spared.”

  Not a pence was spared . . .

  If you’d only returned when Connor Steele searched you out . . . Then, however, Dare had been so confident he wanted no part of the nobility. He’d happily banished the detective from London.

  And in the ultimate twist of irony, with an untimely trip to the gallows, Dare had found himself forced back to the place he’d sworn to never be, only to find everything that mattered here gone.

  Heron cleared his throat. “The entailed, as well as the unentailed, properties are largely . . . bankrupt.”

  “I gathered as much, Heron,” Dare snapped. This would be the moment the rambling servant thought required clarity.

  Dare would have been resurrected to the role of marquess, only to inherit a bankrupt title. His bloody luck.

  Suddenly, the hilarity of it all hit him. Kicking his legs up, he propped the heels of his boots near the papers Heron had set out . . . and slowly laughed. “You brought me back here, and dragged this out a week, now, only to tell me . . .” He looked to the man-of-affairs.

  The spectacled, wiry fellow cleared his throat. “There is nothing,” he clarified.

  “I thank you for saving my neck.” He shoved to his feet. “But this has been a waste. I want an accounting of what is mine, free and clear, to sell, and the value of the properties that I’m also free to sell.” He eyed the furnishings . . . threadbare and old. But good enough to fetch some funds.

  He’d strip the whole estate, take what he could, and then go.

  The duchess grabbed her cane and struggled to stand. “What? Where are you going?” She glanced frantically at her husband. “Where is he going?”

  Dare ignored the glare Lady Kinsley turned on him. Not that the woman was a sister to him in any way. Nor, for that matter, did Dare intend to remain here.

  He started for the door.

  “The way I see it, Darius, you have two options afforded you,” the duke called out.

  Pausing, Dare turned back. “Oh?”

  “One . . . you might remain here and become the marquess you are.”

  That wasn’t an option. That wasn’t even a consideration any longer. He folded his arms. “I trust option two is completing my walk to the gallows?”

  His Grace snorted. “There’s some family whom I’d let to that fate. You aren’t one of them. I’m not going to let my grandson hang.”

  And Dare found himself having to mask his surprise at that unexpected display of humor from this duke . . . and that matter-of-fact defense of him. He nudged his chin at the old duke. “Option two, then?”

  “You can go back to living the life you’ve lived”—Pemberly’s mouth tensed and moved, as if he were struggling to get his next words out—“picking pockets.”

  Picking pockets. That was what the whole of the world believed Dare’s crime to be. Society—and certainly not those of Pemberly’s station—could imagine no grander scale of thievery. One where Dare stole from the wealthiest, the men and women Dare’s newly found family likely called friends and certainly brushed elbows with. “I prefer the latter.” Dare spoke without inflection. “Though I do . . . appreciate your intervention on my behalf.”

  “Let him go, Grandfather,” Kinsley said briskly. “He’s made his decision. You’ve already wasted enough of your time.”

  Yes, Dare trusted the young lady would far prefer that outcome to welcoming a street rat into the fold of her family.

  Pemberly ignored his granddaughter. “If you carry on with this life, you’re eventually going to hang, Darius. I won’t always be able to intervene.”

  Yes, Dare had always known what fate awaited him. It was why he’d sought to avoid true entanglements.

  A memory slid in.

  I cannot quite decide which is more perilous to my heart, Dare Grey: a life without you or one with you, knowing you’ll one day be gone . . .

  “I know that,” he murmured, forcing back those memories he’d not allowed himself. Since his near hanging, however, she, Temperance, had wound her way back into his thoughts at the oddest of times.

  If only I could entice you to stay, Dare . . .

  “Perhaps I might entice you to stay?”

  For a moment, the past blended with the present, and Dare struggled to sort his way through which was real.

  Pemberly stared squarely back. And for all the ways in which the duke was in full command of himself, it was his eyes. That weakness Dare wagered the other man didn’t know he possessed. And just then, those intent eyes hinted at the old man’s fear—that Dare would walk away rather than hear him out.

  Dare, however, had never been too proud to entertain any proposal put to him. It was how he’d built his reputation and created the existence he had for himself. Returning to his seat, Dare nudged his chin. “I’m listening.”

  Kinsley shot to her feet. “This is madness!” she exclaimed. “You don’t need him, Grandfather. Look what the last man who had no place being the marquess did to this family.”

  There was the faintest stirring of curiosity about the fellow who’d come before Dare. Not enough, however, for him to ask questions.

  In the end, he needn’t have asked, as the duke provided answers to those unspoken ones anyway. “The woe of distant cousins without any meaningful connection to a title,” the old man went on with a sad shake of his head.

  “Don’t let him manipulate you, Grandfather,” Lady Kinsley pleaded. When not even a facial muscle ticked in Pemberly’s wrinkled face, the young woman turned to the duchess. “Grandmother, you must make him see reason. He doesn’t need to entertain this”—she slashed a hand in Dare’s direction—“miscreant.”

  Dare curled his lips at one corner. “Miscreant.” He touched the brim of an imagined hat. “That is certainly the politest of the insults I’ve been dealt.”

  Kinsley surged forward. “This is all a game to you,” she spat.

  The duchess shot the end of her cane up, halting the young lady’s charge. “Sit down this instant, Kinsley Daria Greyson.”

  Daria Greyson.

  His chest clenched.

  They’d named her after him.

  The replacement babe that she’d been.

  And he hated there was any feeling or reaction on his part to that truth.

  As if she’d caught Dare’s notice of her name, Lady Kinsley jutted her chin out, anger burning from her eyes.

  “Now,” the duchess said when Lady Kinsley, her cheeks flushed red, reclaimed the seat beside her. “No one takes advantage of your grandfather, dear. No one.”

  The younger lady jabbed a finger in Dare’s direction. “But one such as him is not—”

  “Enough,” the duke commanded. “Now, if I may resume.” His wasn’t a question. “The cousin to claim Perrin’s”—he grimaced—“your and your father’s title was a distant, distant cousin. The young man squandered all the funds your brother had managed to restore to the estates—”

  “Whoring,” Lady Kinsley spat.

  The duchess gasped. “Kinsley.”

  “It is true,” the girl said defensively, with more of a world-weariness than Dare would have expected of a lady of her situation. “All men are the same.”

  “Yes, well, it is true, but we needn’t speak of it,” His Grace said, ending the debate between his wife and granddaughter. “My title isn’t yours. Nor will my entailed properties pass to you. However, what I do have . . .”

  Dare’s ears pricked up. “I’m listening.”

  Kinsley Greyson scoffed. “Of course you are.”

  Dare ignored the young woman’s mutterings.

  “You’ve not had an easy life, Darius. I don’t know what your struggles have been, but you deserve more than the bankrupt estate that some spendthrift scoundrel left you. Of course, your father would have been wiser to have his fortunes secured in a way that they we
re better protected.”

  Kinsley stiffened but kept quiet through the old duke’s blunt insult of her late father.

  Their late father?

  “Do not blame Papa. He couldn’t have imagined Perrin would die.”

  “A nobleman is always prepared to look after generations of descendants, dear, and had your father done so, we wouldn’t be where we are now,” the duke said in gentle but insistent tones meant to end any further debate.

  Lady Kinsley, however, proved her stubbornness once more. “That isn’t true. You’ve not even given proper time to see the outcome of the investments Perrin made. These matters . . . They take time.”

  “The debt is enormous, and the creditors have begun calling,” the duke said flatly in frosty tones. “Whatever it is or might have been or wasn’t matters not.” He motioned about the room. “Here we are.”

  The duke thumped his cane. “Leave us, Kinsley.”

  Fire lit the woman’s eyes, and her tense mouth moved as if she fought the challenge there, but then, with a sharp glare in Dare’s direction, she sailed from the room.

  After she’d gone, the duke turned to his wife. “If I may speak to the boy alone, dearest?”

  And without any of the same obstinance of the granddaughter who’d preceded her, Her Grace filed out.

  When Dare, the duke, and his servant were alone, the greying gentleman focused his gaze on Dare.

  Dare tensed. Now that the women were gone, the duke didn’t have to bother with sensibilities or pretend niceness. Dare knew exactly how the nobility operated.

  Or rather, he thought he did. The duke spoke and threw that all-knowing assumption into question.

  “I want you to know, Darius,” the duke murmured, “I never believed you were dead.”

  “Why, thank you for that faith,” he said dryly. Of course, it begged the question why, if the old duke had been so very confident, he’d certainly not gone out of his way to find him. Dare was unable to tamp down that bitter resentment. Except . . . resentment would have to mean he cared. Which he didn’t.

  “Each year,” His Grace went on, “I set aside funds for when you returned, Darius.”

  And yet the duke had been more wrong than he’d known. The grandson he recalled, the one he’d held out hope of again seeing . . . Darius Greyson was as dead as if he were gone and buried. And accepting that was easier than thinking that there might have been people who’d actually wished for his return.

  In the end, it was far simpler to ask about the money awaiting him than to think about the duke longing for the return of his missing grandson. “How much?”

  “Twenty thousand pounds.”

  And Dare, who’d long been a master of concealment, dissolved into a fit, choking and strangling on nothing more than his own swallow.

  Twenty thousand . . .

  Dare couldn’t even complete the remainder of that amount in his mind.

  Leaning over, the duke banged him between the shoulder blades.

  It was a fortune.

  The kind of funds that would ensure countless men and women and children saved and comfortably set up in situations different from the miserable ones in which they found themselves.

  The duke didn’t resume speaking until Dare had regained the ability to draw an even breath. “I’ve a fortune saved and available for you.” There was a slight pause. “A fortune that I can give you.”

  All Dare’s senses went on alert. “Oh?” It didn’t escape him, the key word that had fallen in the very middle of the duke’s sentence—can.

  Not “would.”

  Not “intend to.”

  “Can.”

  And “can” implied strings attached.

  Of course, what did you think? A duke intended to simply turn over a fortune to you?

  Even if the old man held some sentimentality for the boy he’d once known. “What do you want?” Dare asked bluntly.

  His Grace didn’t mince words. “For you to look after your sister.”

  And just like that, the illusive hint of a dream withered on the vine of hope. “She doesn’t seem to be one in need of looking after or, for that matter, wanting my assistance.”

  The duke rested a hand on Dare’s arm, reminiscent of the way he had when Dare was a small child. “You know that isn’t true. All women require looking after.”

  There was only a partial truth to the duke’s words. In making women property and chattel of their fathers and husbands, society had thrust women into that precarious state where marriage was a prison and yet could also represent escape.

  I want to see you protected, Temperance . . . I want to see you safe . . .

  The duke continued speaking, and Dare welcomed the diversion from thoughts of . . . her. “If I give you those monies, Darius, you’ll be gone.”

  “Aye,” he allowed. And he’d never look back. Because nothing good could come from doing so. Not truly. He’d committed himself to never being bound to any place. “You are not wrong.” He’d never bind himself to anyone . . . Although that isn’t altogether true, a voice taunted. For there had been one person. One act . . . of folly. Of weakness. Dare shoved those thoughts of Temperance far away in his mind. “Why is it so important to you that I return?” he asked flatly. Once upon a lifetime ago, the old duke might have “dear boy’d” him and teased him, but they didn’t have that relationship any longer. More, they had no relationship, and never would. The sooner the duke accepted that, the better off he’d be. “What use do I serve to you?”

  A frown chased away the smile on His Grace’s lips. “Is that how you view the world, Darius? With suspicion and cynicism?”

  That was the kindest, most generous way in which he viewed the world. Dare, who’d lived firsthand its cruelty and ruthlessness. “What do you want?” he repeated quietly.

  His Grace chuckled and thumped Dare on the back. “I do appreciate your honesty, grandson.” His levity was replaced by a tangible worry in the ancient lines of his wrinkled cheeks. “Kinsley has no fortune of her own, and, well, she’s an example of the peril an unmarried woman finds herself in when we are no longer here. If you go, I’ll be left trying to find an answer to the question of what happens to your sister.”

  His sister . . . Kinsley . . . All those words, completely foreign. It was a singularly odd way to think of the stranger who’d stepped out of the room, who but for her obstinance bore no hint of a connection to Dare.

  “When your grandmother and I are gone, and you eventually hang”—the duke spoke plainly of Dare’s death—“your cousin returns to the role of marquess.”

  The scoundrel and spendthrift . . .

  “What are you proposing?” he said flatly.

  “Stay around long enough to see your sister married off. She has no fortune of her own, and if the estates revert to your cousin, that cad will likely just let her starve.”

  Dare took all that in. “In order for me to secure monies that, according to you, were always intended for me, you plan to keep me as a hostage?”

  The duke’s eyes twinkled. “If you consider living in Mayfair with a houseful of servants to tend your needs and no worries about a hangman’s noose awaiting you being held hostage? Then yes.”

  Tension whipped through him, and, restless, Dare wandered over to the window, looking down upon the clean streets below. Lords and ladies in their finest morning dress strolled down the pavement, while along the cobblestones, young lords and gleaming carriages passed at a steady clip. Lady Kinsley wasn’t his concern. She wasn’t a sister to him. Not really. And yet . . . even as he wanted that to hold true, there was an unwanted concern about what should happen to her if he walked out . . . “So you want me to stay until she’s married?”

  “Yes, and, well, I’d hoped you could form a relationship with her while you are here. Get to know her. Squire her about ton events. Balls. Soirees. Dinner parties. The customary,” he said with a flippant wave of his hand.

  The customary? Get to know her? Squire her about? Had the
duke even witnessed Dare and the lady’s volatile exchanges? “And then what?”

  “And then, as I said, after she is married, you may leave. If you want to, of course,” the duke tacked on.

  Oh, he’d want to.

  Only something in the duke’s tone gave him pause. That perception a product of learning that when anything appeared too good, invariably it was. “Why do I think there is more?”

  The duke’s smile was back in place. “Because you are my grandson and far too clever by half, Darius.”

  “Is she . . . amenable to marriage?”

  The duke stretched his arms wide. “Aren’t all women, Darius?”

  “Dare,” he corrected. It was time the old nobleman disabuse himself of the notion that Dare was the grandchild of his remembrances. The one he sought to reel back into Polite Society.

  He considered what the duke had presented him with. Of course his grandfather was correct. Kinsley was a lady, born of privilege and a distinguished lineage she’d railed at him for not caring enough about. As such, she’d be bound by those constraints. Ones that Dare had never conformed to, and his father had loathed him for his refusal to do so.

  “I see you’re thinking about it,” the duke cajoled. “All you’ll need to do is look after her for one Season.”

  How matter-of-fact the other man was. How very casually he spoke, as if Dare returning to this life would be no different from switching off one set of garments for another. But this? He repressed a shudder. What the hell did Dare know of squiring a lady about the Town? Or being a chaperone who assessed the suitability of potential suitors? He’d been born to this world, but he’d never really belonged to it. His father had made that clear to him often. No, the task the duke asked of Dare required a woman who could deal with Kinsley and help her navigate a—

  Dare stilled.

  For there was . . . one woman. One who’d prove fearless in that role.

  Someone who would rather see you dead than ever see you again . . .

  The idea turned in his mind, over and over.

  And yet . . . there would be good at the end of it. He wasn’t so naive as to believe he couldn’t do his work from this posh side of London. He didn’t want to, but not having what he wanted was something he’d become accustomed to long ago. “I’ll do it,” he said quietly, because in the scheme of what the duke offered, his living here in this foreign world was a small sacrifice.