Undressed with the Marquess

by Caldwell, Christi

  Temperance laughed again.

  Her friend wasn’t done. “Or are you referring to working with the likes of Miserable Mrs. Marmlebury? Is that the ‘new beginning’ you always dreamed of?”

  “It was the best that I could have hoped for,” she said defensively.

  “Yes.” Gwynn held her gaze. “Before. But that isn’t the case any longer.”

  Temperance groaned. “You will not let this go.” It was a statement.

  “No,” her friend answered anyway. “Is it permanent?” Gwynn asked, pushing her hands out of the way.

  “Marriage is.”

  Her friend grunted. Her hands flew rapidly as she drew Temperance’s tresses into a long braid. “Is that what he wants, then? A real marriage?”

  That brought her up short. “He . . . didn’t say.” For in the request Dare had put to her, there hadn’t been talk of a marriage in the traditional sense. Or really, in any sense. Furthermore, he’d not truly wanted to be married to her. They’d struck up a business arrangement, and as such he’d spoken of their rejoining as a partnership so that he could secure funds he required. Temperance grunted. “He didn’t say that was what he wanted.” There’d been no talk of a reunion or reestablishing the bond they’d once shared. Or . . . more. Oh, he’d been attempting to seduce her into working with him. But that . . . it was different.

  Gwynn gave a triumphant little grunt. “I see.”

  “I’m not going to London, Gwynn,” Temperance said flatly. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the other woman. “Never again.” She’d die before she’d risk coming face-to-face with the monsters of her past. Any of them.

  At the long, protracted silence, she made herself glance up.

  “I trust, where you lived, and the world you knew . . . it wasn’t this new world the marquess has opened for you.”

  “No,” she murmured. “It was . . . the Rookeries.”

  “This wouldn’t be the Rookeries,” her friend said gently.

  No, it wouldn’t. But the location didn’t change the fact of who would be with her—Dare Grey.

  “This is enough for me.”

  A sad smile curved Gwynn’s wide lips. “You know enough not to believe that lie.”

  She tensed. Yes, she did. But she’d not be called out on it by her friend. “It’s done, Gwynn,” she said emphatically in tones meant to end what had never begun as a debate.

  Alas, Gwynn proved as tenacious now as she’d been at their first meeting, when they’d gone toe-to-toe over a bolt of ivory lace. “You can say this is enough and that you are content with your life as it is now, Temperance . . . but if that were the case, then I wouldn’t have to plead with you to remain silent on your opinion on shades of pink on Mrs. Marmlebury. You would stay silent, do your job, and go about your own business. But you don’t,” she said with a quiet insistence. “Ever.” With that, Gwynn turned the brush back over and exchanged it for the forgotten white dress she’d been working on.

  Why must the other woman be so stubborn? Why couldn’t she just leave Temperance to . . .

  Think about yourself . . .

  Temperance paused.

  And in that she’d proven selfish. Since Dare had put his request to her, she’d fixed on her own hurt; she’d not allowed herself to think about his offer and what it could do . . .

  That which she herself couldn’t do . . .

  She glanced over to where Gwynn was stitching away at a christening gown for one of their clients. Head bent, she attended that task . . . an agonizing, grueling one that, at the end of every day, would see the other woman—would see the both of them—with barely any pence to put in their apron pockets.

  With the wages they earned, they’d never leave Madame Amelie’s. It was a simple fact. They’d continue on working, earning just enough coin to pay for the rent on this cottage. Rent that her brother helped them afford. The same brother whom Temperance had cared for when he was a small boy had suddenly become the one who helped her, even as he himself knew only financial hardship.

  Still wholly focused on her sewing, Gwynn paused to rub at the back of her neck with one hand.

  Temperance frowned.

  No, they were not getting younger. Their hands would soon grow slower. Their fingers bent.

  She spared a look for her palms. They’d always been coarse and rough. Certainly not a marchioness’s hands, and that’s what Dare would have them be . . . even if for a short while. She balled them to hide the harsh white padding upon parts of her palm.

  Then they’d be replaced by younger seamstresses with nimbler fingers, and then where would they be?

  Temperance let her hands fall.

  She had long ago accepted that this was the best it would ever be. As such, there was a contentedness with her life, a willingness to accept that this was as good as she could expect . . . for her.

  But there was Chance . . . and Gwynn. Her brother and her best friend, who’d fallen in love but been kept apart—not by poor decisions or endless divisions between them, but for no other reason than that they didn’t have the funds to have a life together. They deserved more.

  And I can give that to them . . .

  Selfishness had made her look only at how Dare’s presence complicated her life.

  Her mind balked at the idea of it . . . and yet . . . She pressed her eyes shut.

  When she opened them, she quit her spot near a hard-at-work Gwynn and headed for the window. And she, who’d been so adamant that she’d never accompany Dare, thought of what he’d presented—in a new light, and in a new way. She could provide Chance with the ultimate protection and security she’d never been able to fully ensure when he was a child.

  “I’ll shape the narrative,” she mouthed to herself. She would decide what she was willing to give and what she was willing to do.

  When presented that way, it was an altogether different manner of thinking.

  Why . . . why . . . he didn’t necessarily want her to be a real wife to him. A real wife who shared kisses and tender touches and a bed and . . . babies.

  Every muscle within her seized up.

  Stop . . .

  Focus on the arrangement. Focus on what he might give you . . .

  Except as soon as the question slipped out, a memory slipped in. “I want forever with you, Dare Grey. Anything else will never be enough . . .”

  “Forever for me will be short, Temperance Grey . . . because of the life I live. But what time I do walk this earth? It is yours.”

  Her throat closed up from the long-ago memory, fresh still. It is yours, he’d vowed. How soon after they’d exchanged vows, however, before he’d gone off and set to work stealing, leaving her to her own devices?

  Nooooooo . . . Please, nooooo . . .

  Her agonized screams sounded over and over in her mind, and she fought the urge to clap her palms over her ears to blot out those cries.

  Gwynn sighed. “What . . . are you thinking?” her friend asked haltingly, her voice coming across the distance.

  Returning to her friend’s side, Temperance took her face in her hands and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “That you are brilliant.”

  Her friend wrinkled her brow. “I . . . thank you?” And then understanding glinted in the other woman’s eyes. “You’re going,” she whispered.

  She nodded. “And you’re joining me.”

  Gwynn choked on her laughter. “Now I know you’re jesting.” Her friend gave her head a shake.

  “I am not.” She spoke with a quiet insistence that brought the other woman’s gaze back up. “If I go . . . then you shall come.”

  “Well, that is silly,” her friend said with a toss of her glorious golden curls. “I don’t belong there. You, however, married into that life.”

  The other woman was splitting hairs. “You’re being deliberately obtuse.” Color splotched Gwynn’s cheeks, indicating Temperance had hit the nail on the head. “If I am doing this, you are coming with me.”

  “I can be your la
dy’s maid.” Another snorting laugh escaped the young woman as she dipped a graceless, haphazard curtsy.

  Temperance gave her a light shove, earning another guffaw from the other woman. “I’m glad you find humor in this, Gwynn,” she said softly. “If you join me in London, then you will be near Chance.”

  The other woman started, her lips forming a little circle. She gave a juddering nod. “Yes!” Taking Temperance by the shoulders, she gave her a light shake. “I will join you.” Her expression grew stricken. “That is, if you manage to find him before he leaves.”

  “Before he . . .” As one, they glanced to the pretty painted porcelain clock Temperance’s brother had gifted her for her birthday three years earlier. “Oh, bloody hell.”

  He was leaving.

  Sleep on it. I leave on the morrow. In the event you change your mind, you can find me at the Black Seal.

  That was, if he’d not already left. And he’d always been the earliest of risers. Temperance cursed.

  Gwynn shoved her gently. “Hurry!”

  Temperance took off running.

  As she readied the old horse Chance had purchased for them some years ago and climbed into the saddle, Temperance steeled herself.

  This time it would be different.

  It had to be.

  Because there could never be a future with him. Not a true one.

  Ever.

  Chapter 7

  She hadn’t come.

  Though in truth, having come here, he’d known all along that the end result would be her refusal.

  Nor did he blame her.

  For all the passion and love that had been between them, there had been an absolute lack of timing. Their lives had never been synchronous to their relationship.

  This time, her presence in his life had been the difference between him earning a fortune . . . and not. Her rejection left him with the task of returning to the duke and duchess and explaining that though there was a wife, the terms they’d put to him could not be carried out. Not in the way they wished.

  As such, the only thing he should be focused on was the upcoming meeting and what that meant for him and those monies.

  And yet as he guided his chestnut stallion, Bandit, away from the Black Seal and out onto the road leading back to London, he wasn’t thinking about the lost funds or the people he might help. Or in this case, the people of the Rookeries, whom he could no longer help.

  But then Temperance always had that effect on him—she’d always invaded his every thought and set up a permanent place there. She was the only person who had truly mattered to him. The only person he’d let matter, even as he’d known that with his thievery, he’d no place letting himself get close to anyone. Yes, he helped the masses . . . but he deliberately kept a distance between himself and those he helped because nothing good could come if—when—he failed those same souls.

  The steady thump of an approaching mount cut through his reverie.

  There was a frantic speed to that galloping horse; the pounding of its hooves drew closer . . . and louder.

  Cursing, Dare drew on his reins, and quickly guided Bandit to the edge of the old Roman road . . .

  Too late.

  A horse barreled over the rise, and—

  The blood whirred in Dare’s ears as Bandit whinnied loudly. The panicked horse danced wildly under him to escape peril.

  Adjusting his hold on the reins, Dare gripped his legs tight to maintain his seat, and kept the mount grounded as the other rider yanked on the reins. That grey mount pawed and scratched at the air before settling back onto all fours.

  Dare’s heart pounded in his chest as the immediate peril receded. “Bloody hell,” he thundered. “What do you . . . ?” His words died as the initial haze of danger lifted and he was presented with the reckless rider.

  Her cheeks were flushed, and at some point, her hair had come loose from her braid, leaving her curls to hang in a magnificent tangle about her back, a glorious curtain of dark waves he ached to stroke his fingers through.

  Only . . .

  She didn’t ride.

  Dare blinked wildly. “Temperance?”

  She smiled sheepishly. “I fear I overestimated the timing you would make this morn,” she called down breathlessly.

  Which meant . . . she’d come, seeking him out. Swinging a leg over the side of his stallion, Dare dismounted. Bandit immediately wandered off to graze in a nearby swath of overgrown grass.

  And for the first time in the whole of his life, he, Dare Grey, glib with speech, ready with any necessary response, couldn’t get his tongue to form a single word. Not a single one that made sense.

  Temperance shimmied down from her horse, but holding on to its reins, she led it over to Dare. “I expected you’d be gone,” she said, her words running together. “You always were an early riser, and as such, I went to the Black Seal.”

  He cocked his head. “The Black Seal?” he echoed, still wholly dazed.

  She’d long had that effect on him.

  She nodded enthusiastically. “The inn?” she clarified.

  Were they . . . really discussing the inn he’d just left? “I’m . . . familiar with it,” he said slowly, trying to pick his way around not only her presence here but also that she’d sought him out and that she rode and . . .

  “A rather silly name, is it not?” she rambled on. “The Black Seal, that is. I mean, if it was Suffolk or Dorset or North Yorkshire or Cornwall”—he struggled to keep up with that cataloging—“I might understand ‘the Black Seal.’ But we are quite landlocked in the Cuckmere River Valley. Why, there isn’t even a nearby water.”

  At last she went silent.

  For a moment.

  “That is, there isn’t a nearby ocean. There are lovely rivers. Just . . . not waters fit for seals,” Temperance finished weakly.

  “I . . . trust this isn’t what you sought me out to discuss? The name of the village inn.”

  “No.” That, however, was all she said. No.

  She wetted her lips, and he followed the path her tongue took over that plump flesh. And a wave of desire coursed through him, as strong now as it had been the first time he’d spied Temperance, her cheeks flushed with fury as she’d taken on a ruthless street tough who’d been bullying a boy. She’d always been beautiful, but the sight of her as she was now from her wild ride put him in mind of warrior princesses of old, fighting for their countryside.

  He’d never seen a woman as fearless. As undaunted.

  She proved as much by at last breaking her silence. “You are wondering why I’m here, and the truth of the matter is, I thought we might talk about your reason for coming here.”

  “Which part?”

  Temperance angled her head, the movement sending those heavy black tresses falling over her shoulder. She brushed them back, and how he envied her fingers in that instant. “Were there multiple parts?”

  “I . . . uh . . . no.” There’d been nothing meaningful about their past, or anything discussed beyond his changed circumstances and his need of her. Which could only mean . . . ? He froze, stopping the question even as it formed on his tongue. For he knew Temperance Grey, knew her pride and her ofttimes contrariness. He cleared his throat and urged her to continue. “If you would?”

  “You asked that I return to London and help you, help your sister navigate through her Season.”

  She stared at him, indicating something was expected of him. “There were other terms presented by the duke,” he felt inclined to point out. “If I . . . if we . . .” He motioned between them. Her face revealed only confusion. “Provide an heir to the family line?”

  “Provide an heir to the family,” she echoed, and then her eyes flew wide, as if she’d just realized what she’d stated aloud. “Good God.”

  The way she managed to add four syllables into one, and the abject horror etched in her features . . . stung. He’d never imagined a full future with Temperance. Just because of who he was and what he did, and how her expectations
were at odds with all that. But thinking she’d be so reviled at the idea of having his babe . . .

  His cheeks heated. “Of course not,” he said on a rush. “It is why I didn’t mention it when I first came to you. I just thought you should know they did present . . . another way,” he finished lamely.

  Temperance continued to eye him warily. She played with the reins in one hand, and with the other, she scratched her grey mare between the eyes. “What you presented . . . It was not a real marriage.” Her already brightly colored cheeks turned several shades deeper.

  She’d been clear long ago that a “real marriage” was the last thing she wished for with him. “No, that is not what I’d expected.”

  “Exactly.” Temperance nodded. “As such, when I considered it in those terms, I was able to see that it could prove mutually beneficial to us.”

  “It?” he asked, slow to follow.

  “Why . . .” She spread her palms out. “A marriage of convenience, and I know what you are thinking.”

  “You couldn’t even begin to imagine,” he drawled.

  “There’s never been anything convenient between us . . . or about us, but perhaps this one last thing together can be.”

  That was what she was agreeing to—a marriage of convenience? It was far more than he’d ever expected . . . and certainly deserved. Nor was it vastly different from what their actual marriage had begun as. And it was also the safest way between them. He still couldn’t be a husband to her. Not the kind she deserved . . . and would never have because of him. Shoving aside the wave of guilt, he nodded. “I’m listening.”

  “I will help you, help your sister, along with the terms of your grandparents’ expectations. But that’s all.” The long column of her throat moved. “Ours will be a business arrangement and nothing more,” she went on, all cool logic that would have impressed him if it hadn’t been their marriage she spoke of.

  “Of course,” he said automatically. He’d always known there couldn’t be anything more between them. Not truly. Not again.

  “You should be warned; I’ll attend the ton events, and host . . .” She didn’t want to. By the strained corners of her lips, she no more wished to take part in those events than he himself. “But I don’t know anything about them, Dare.”