Undressed with the Marquess

by Caldwell, Christi

  One he could always run from if the task proved impossible . . .

  “Splendid, boy,” the duke said. “The terms will be drawn up by Heron.” The servant was already frantically scribbling notes upon a page. “With my support, you’ll have entry to any event your heart wishes.” Dare’s heart wished for none of it. “Anything is yours.”

  “Except your twenty thousand pounds without me serving in the role of nursemaid to that viper,” he muttered.

  The duke waggled his eyebrows. “That viper, as you refer to her, is in fact your sister.” He paused. “That being said, I’m mindful to not place all this solely upon you.”

  His back went up. “I’m listening.” Again. The duke, with his ability to dangle just enough intriguing bits of information, was a master of manipulation, and therefore one to be watched . . . and mistrusted.

  “It is hardly fair to tie you entirely to someone else’s fate and future.”

  “Isn’t that what you are doing, Your Grace?” he asked, layering heavy sarcasm within that question.

  The duke looked offended. “Of course not. Looking after your sister is the duty any brother should and would be responsible for.” Dare didn’t disagree with him there. “But let us say for whatever reason, she doesn’t make a match . . .”

  Dare straightened. His earlier reservations, the very question he’d wondered at, reared its head. “And is that a real possibility?”

  “Darius, she was born the daughter of a marquess and the granddaughter of a duke.” His Grace spoke in lofty tones. “Do you truly think she’s going to have difficulty securing an offer for her hand?”

  The immediate answer was yes. If Kinsley Greyson turned on others the venom and ice she had upon Dare, all that would remain in terms of suitors would be those she’d poisoned or frozen.

  But members of Polite Society? They weren’t most men. They were a very small few, the sorts of men who overlooked anything in the name of their precious bloodlines and craving for even greater connections.

  “No,” he allowed. “I trust noblemen will overlook . . . much.”

  The duke laughed. “Indeed they do, Darius,” he said, thumping him hard on the back once more. “Indeed they do.” He let his arm fall, and moving so that he stood shoulder to shoulder alongside Dare, taking in the same sights below, the duke stared down at the passing lords and ladies. “But in this hypothetical scenario, where those gentlemen do not see your sister for the diamond of the first waters she is . . .”

  Dare strangled back a laugh. Surly as she was ruthless, she was many things, but a diamond she wasn’t.

  Clasping his hands at his back, His Grace continued speaking. “I like to believe I am a model of fairness. As such, there should be other terms in place to ensure that your ability to earn those twenty thousand pounds is within your complete control.”

  Dare stared at the glass panes. “Oh?”

  “There are only two ways to ensure your sister is properly cared for—”

  “A husband?”

  The duke nodded. “Yes, a husband.” There was a long and deliberate pause, and his entire body tensing, Dare looked back. “Or a babe.”

  Dumbfounded, it was a moment before Dare could respond. And when he did, he swallowed wrong and choked, strangling on his own spit.

  The duke gave him another thump on the back.

  “I-I hardly s-see how a b-babe can l-look after her.”

  “Of course it can. A boy babe, that is.” With that, the duke gestured to the forgotten man-of-affairs, and some kind of unspoken communication passed between those two, for Heron nodded and began flipping through his folders.

  “A boy babe,” Dare echoed, feeling like the only one not knowing what was expected of him. Or what was being said, exactly.

  “An heir,” the duke clarified. “If the estate can go to your son, there wouldn’t be a worry about your cousin returning and running it in your stead.”

  And then it hit Dare. An heir. “I am not having a child.” There was a permanency to babes and children. They represented a greater—nay, the ultimate—connection and dependence than Dare was willing to have.

  There also required the matter of a wife with whom to have that babe . . .

  That was an absolute impossibility.

  The duke shrugged. “Then you’ll just have to see your sister married.”

  How simple he made it sound. And yet . . . that possibility? An angry, snarling Lady Kinsley landing some lord? That was a greater possibility . . . a greater reality than Dare having a child.

  “Do you have the contract drawn up?” His Grace called over to his busily working man-of-affairs.

  “I do,” the servant said in his nasally tones.

  Adjusting an already flawless lapel, the duke looked to Dare once more. “I’ve had that last part included, regardless, as a safety measure.”

  “What part?” Dare asked slowly.

  “Well, you cannot have a babe without a wife. That is, not an heir.” And with that casual deliverance, His Grace headed for the door.

  Dare stood rooted to the floor, staring at the retreating duke’s back. “Whaaaat?”

  His grandfather cast a bemused look back. “You need a wife to have an heir, and as such, I’ve included those terms in our contract.”

  “Terms?” He strangled on that lone syllable.

  The duke shrugged. “Our agreement is also contingent upon you getting yourself married.” He gave a dismissive wave. “That way, if you need to fall back on term two, you’ll be able to.” The old duke may as well have thrown up London Bridge between Dare and the damned treasure at the end of it all.

  At his silence, the duke gave him a long look. “I trust those terms won’t pose a problem?”

  Those terms, as in Dare finding a wife? The other man may as well have spoken of Dare swapping out his coarse wool pants for a new tailored suit.

  “No, Your Grace,” Dare said in even tones.

  “Splendid. I take it this has been a great deal for you to take in. I’ll give you five days to reflect, and then we’ll speak further on these terms.”

  The moment the duke sailed out with the man-of-affairs close at his heels, Dare swiped a hand over his face.

  Remaining here in the fancy end of London and squiring a shrewish sister about Polite Society would be a hell all its own.

  But producing . . . a wife?

  That didn’t pose a problem. It proved a damned catastrophe.

  Chapter 4

  The six-o’clock hour was a seamstress’s favorite.

  It didn’t mean that was when the day ended and rest came. For there really wasn’t rest for the seamstress. It was, however, a time when one was spared the misery of an endless stream of thankless patrons and customers.

  And then after the shop was tidied came the next set of work—constructing the most recent orders.

  It was a harsh profession that left women with bloodied fingers and aching backs and strained necks.

  And yet it was one Temperance gave thanks for each day.

  Because having lived in the most ruthless ends of London with a drunkard for a father and a washerwoman as a mother, she’d witnessed firsthand the options that existed for the masses.

  And at least with her own hands, she was in charge of her fate.

  And when she was working, she wasn’t allowed to think.

  About the past.

  About the regrets.

  And there were so many of them.

  All of them revolving around one.

  Over the years, she’d managed to organize her past, to break it up into neat little compartments which she then divided into drawers within her mind that she kept firmly shut.

  But sometimes a thought wedged its way in, and the memories slipped around.

  And it had taken nothing more than a parting statement from her brother to Gwynn at their last meeting.

  Someday, we’ll be together. Forever . . .

  I cannot promise you forever . . .

/>   Different words. Such a different vow.

  “Are you all right?” Gwynn asked.

  Temperance started. “Fine.” It was a lie . . . one that she’d make true. Eventually. Soon. When she managed to make herself forget him—Dare Grey, a perfectly bold name for a man who’d commanded the Rookeries . . . and her heart.

  I will not think of him . . . I will not think of him . . .

  Quickening her steps, Temperance noted the bolts of blue fabric that had been hastily pulled and left upon the wrong table. She gathered them up and started across the room. Work was good. Work helped. It brought exhaustion and escape.

  It had to.

  It always had.

  The shop clean once more, Temperance dusted her palms together.

  “You’re not done,” Natalie Forde, the eternal pessimist of the shop, pointed out from the other end of the table.

  No, she wasn’t. But this was, despite the fatigue and toil of the day, the moment Temperance lived for. The joy she found in creating. It was some small measure of control she had. There, she could lose her mind in another task.

  Temperance found her way to her neat worktable . . . and came to an abrupt stop. A groan escaped her. “Noooooo.”

  “What was that?” Natalie asked.

  Temperance ignored the question, her gaze locked on the sight before her, one that remained unchanging: three swaths of heinous pink fabric.

  Madame Amelie was testing her. There was nothing else for it.

  Muttering a litany of frustrated curses under her breath, she sank onto the edge of the stool, and lowering her forehead onto the table, she knocked it lightly against the surface. And in the greatest of ironies, that garish fabric softened each little, deliberate blow.

  “Is there something the matter, Mrs. Swift?”

  Temperance gasped and jerked herself upright so quickly her already strained muscles screamed their protest.

  Madame Amelie swept deeper into the room, the curtains fluttering at her back.

  Temperance forced herself to focus on her work. “No, of course not, Madame Amelie.” Everything was the matter. It was this gown and this client, but she knew better than to say as much.

  “Because it sounded as though you were cursing and banging your head.” The woman ignored those false assurances she’d given.

  Temperance forced a laugh. “Of course not. Whyever would I be cursing?” Between the resurfaced memories of her greatest mistake and the pink disaster before her, she couldn’t even force any believability into that lie.

  “I don’t know,” the tall, statuesque proprietress said dryly. “But why would you challenge Mrs. Marmlebury’s choice of pink? There’s no explanation for these things.”

  And it was that underlying droll humor that sometimes reared itself and left Temperance wondering about the stern, driven proprietress.

  Madame Amelie narrowed her eyes.

  So the woman didn’t intend to let go that recent grievance.

  Temperance weighed her response. The woman had started as a seamstress herself . . . She’d built a business of her own. Mayhap she could be reasoned with. “These are the fabrics she selected, Madame Amelie.” Temperance gestured to the eclectic collection of varying shades of pink. “She wants them all incorporated into a ball gown.”

  Though what anyone in the Cotswolds would have need of a ball gown for remained to be seen.

  Madame Amelie’s features remained unbending. “And?” she asked coolly.

  And this wasn’t the fine end of London, where ladies flitted from ball to soiree to grand dinner fete. She’d never say as much. Not when the woman took such pride in being one of the most successful proprietors in the Cotswolds. As such, Temperance weighed her words.

  When she at last spoke, Temperance kept her features calm and placid, a skill she’d perfected as a girl seeking to avoid brutal beatings at the hands of her father, Abaddon Swift. “I’ve seen your masterpieces, Madame Amelie; I know that you know—”

  “Don’t patronize me, Mrs. Swift.” The other woman cut her off with an impatient tinge in her tone. “I’m not a compliment-seeker, I’m a coin-earner. And you”—she jabbed a finger at Temperance—“earn your coin, and whatever it is you care to design or think you know more of, always remember”—The client is always in the right—“the client is always correct.”

  There it was. A slight variation, but the meaning and the message always the same.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Swift: Are you a wealthy woman?”

  “No,” she said between her teeth, already knowing where this familiar line of questioning went. Nor would she ever be one. She was a worker and would never be anything more.

  “Do you have a hidden fortune? A protector, perhaps?”

  She paused as a face flashed behind her mind’s eye. Not a protector. A vise cinched about her heart and squeezed at that organ. It was too fresh.

  “Mrs. Swift?”

  “There’s no protector,” Temperance made herself say. She was the one who saw to her own security . . . and to her brother and Gwynn’s.

  Her employer, three inches taller than Temperance’s impressive five feet seven inches, leaned down. “Then I’d suggest you be more focused on earnings and less on what color of pink Mrs. Marmlebury wants this time.”

  And that was what marked them as different in their craft. Oh, it wasn’t that Temperance had the luxury of wealth and security . . . She didn’t. She had coin enough to put food in her belly and, come winters, heat the fire some. No, she was not safe. No one truly was. Even so, there was something inside Temperance that couldn’t separate from that inherent need—a creative urging that was like a hungering to be fed. For the sense of control it offered, when there was so little . . . of anything in her life.

  The tinny bell at the front of the shop jingled, interrupting her musings, and more—Madame Amelie’s diatribe. “Who would be here at this hour?” Temperance asked.

  “A client is a client, regardless of what time they arrive.” The proprietress glanced at the cameo clock affixed to her breast. “See to her.”

  And ordinarily Temperance would have wept at being torn away from sewing in order to take a client. But this proved a reprieve from the dress she’d be forced to construct. Hurrying through the curtains, she rushed to greet the villager—

  Stumbling to a stop, she caught the edge of a table to keep herself upright.

  For it wasn’t a villager.

  It wasn’t a patron.

  Or even, for that matter, a woman.

  It was . . . a ghost. One from her past; a man whose memory haunted her when she least expected it. Only he was here now, before her.

  Sweat slicked her skin; it left her flesh clammy and her mouth dry.

  I’m seeing things. There is nothing else for it.

  She blinked rapidly . . . and yet the sight remained.

  He remained.

  A buzzing filled her ears, a thousand hornets set loose around her mind, adding to the hum of confusion there.

  Over the years, she’d seen him in the unlikeliest places. Ofttimes in her mind. Others, in the shadows of the strangers around her. And yet she’d blink and he’d be gone, and she’d be reminded all over again of the man whom she’d wed in a night of folly.

  But in all the ways she’d seen him, she had never seen him like this. In elegant wool and impeccable garments perfectly tailored to his person. And very much . . . real.

  Doffing the high top hat, Dare flashed a pearl-white, devil-may-care grin. “Hullo. We meet again . . . wife.”

  For years—more specifically, that last time when she had turned him away—he’d occasionally allowed himself to think of this moment.

  Of seeing Temperance Grey again.

  He’d let it play out in his mind . . . how he wanted that imagined meeting to go. How he’d wanted their last real meeting to play out. There would have been tender looks and joyous laughter.

  Now, as they—two strangers—studied one another, he let himself drink i
n the sight of her as he’d not when in the bowels of Newgate. Her waist was still narrow, and yet where there’d been something almost coltish in her frame, time had lent a maturity to her form; her hips were slightly wider, her breasts fuller.

  Just then, she wetted her full lips, and he recalled all the times he’d kissed that mouth.

  What he’d not anticipated was just how potent the desire to again taste that flesh would be.

  And suddenly the onerous chore his grandfather had given him didn’t seem so very bad, after all.

  He took a step toward her, and the wide plank floorboards groaned under his heel.

  And with his every movement, Temperance remained absolutely stock-still.

  Dare made himself stop, allowing her the space she required.

  “You’re not real,” she whispered.

  “I told you, the noose can’t hold me,” he said softly. How many times had he uttered that very phrase to her? Offered that bold assurance before then going out to fleece a lord?

  She used to swat his arm and scold him for his arrogance.

  Time, however, had transformed her. She’d always been in control of herself around everyone . . . except him. With him, she’d always been a tempest. Now she was all blank nothingness . . . and his heart ached at those changes. The ones time had wrought. Or mayhap it had been him.

  “I don’t understand.” She released the death grip she had on the table and clutched those midnight strands that, like the woman herself, had always refused to be tamed. Then, suddenly, she let her arms fall to her sides and took a slow, deep breath. “Why are you here?”

  That was what she’d ask.

  Abandoning her place at the table, she took a jerky step forward but still kept that barrier between them, and that hurt worse than a physical blow.

  “I’m here . . . with the intent of picking up where we left off.”

  “I don’t . . .” She slowly shook her head.

  Unbidden, he stretched a hand across the table and stroked his knuckles down the curve of her cheek. “As husband and wife,” he murmured.