Undressed with the Marquess

by Caldwell, Christi

  Oh, hell.

  Kinsley’s eyes widened.

  “Forgive me, Your Grace. She is just a child,” Temperance gently reminded.

  “You’ve already said as much,” the duchess snapped. “I do not need you to tell me she is a child. I can see that. I want to know who her parents are.” Fear and horror wreathed that demand.

  And then it hit Temperance . . . The duchess believed that Temperance and Dare’s union had resulted in a child. And the irony, the painful, soul-destroying irony, was that it had. “She is not ours,” Temperance said, her voice threadbare.

  The duchess’s eyes slid closed, and a breathy prayer spilled from her lips.

  Dare’s grandparents had not accepted the union as a real one. They were right to their suspicions of her marriage to Dare, and yet that did little to ease the annoyance and outrage that brewed within. Those sentiments felt vastly safer than the agony of before.

  From somewhere in the hall came a noisy rush of footsteps and the murmurings of servants.

  The duchess frowned. “Whatever is going on?” she muttered, and stalking to the front of the room, she looked out. Perplexed, Temperance peered around the duchess’s shoulder. What . . . ?

  Four servants balanced an armoire between them and ambled slowly toward the end of the hall.

  “What are they . . . doing?” Kinsley asked, completing the very question in Temperance’s mind. Dare’s sister eyed the flurry of bustling servants. “Whyever would they be moving furniture?”

  Temperance’s stomach sank. No. Oh, damn it. Please, please, do not have—

  The duchess shook her head. “I-I . . . do not . . . know.”

  And by the shock and horror in the duchess’s tone, being out of the know was not a state the older woman preferred to find herself in.

  From belowstairs, Dare’s voice came, slightly distant but clear as he called out commands. “That one . . .”

  She gritted her teeth, focusing on her fury and not the disappointment that Dare remained unchanged.

  But she already knew. She knew before Kinsley had any inclination of what she’d find. “Lady Kinsley, if I might suggest—”

  Ignoring Temperance, Lady Kinsley collected her skirts and bolted.

  Gwynn appeared at the door. “What is it?”

  “See to Rose,” Temperance ordered. She took off after her sister-in-law, ignoring the duchess’s commands that they stop.

  At the top of the stairs, Kinsley tripped on her hem, but she caught herself against the railing. “Kinsley, please don’t,” Temperance implored. But the woman would not be stopped.

  And mayhap she shouldn’t have tried to protect her . . . from the truth.

  They reached the foyer and found him down the intersecting corridor. With his back to them, Dare stood in the middle of the hall, directing various servants between two opposite rooms. Engrossed as he was, he fired off orders to several young women. All servants who studiously avoided Kinsley’s gaze.

  Lady Kinsley stopped so quickly beside one of the open doorways that Temperance ran into her. And the young lady stood, flummoxed, her mouth open and no words coming out.

  Temperance caught sight of her brother first: sheepish. Cheeks red. “Temperance,” he greeted weakly.

  Dare turned.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. Temperance caught his gaze and shook her head, equal parts angry and frustrated. Though she knew. He’d never kept anything. And he should sell it now, after the outing they’d had with Kinsley at Hyde Park? For what purpose? This was a new level of unforgivable.

  Just then, another person stepped out of the Opal Parlor, where she’d had her first disastrous meeting with Dare’s family . . . and it all made sense.

  “If I might suggest you retain this,” someone was saying.

  Her gaze landed on the familiar man she’d not seen in years. One she’d been so very glad to have never seen again. Only to find her hate for him as strong and violent as it had ever been. “You,” she spat.

  “At least until we find . . . Oh.” Avery Bryant took in the addition of Temperance and Lady Kinsley, and he stopped. “Temperance Grey,” he called over cheerfully. In his arms, he held an ivory marble bust. “Or, I’ve heard it is ‘my lady’ now?”

  “It is nothing,” she said between clenched teeth. “You may refer to me in no way at all.”

  “Friendly as ever,” Bryant crowed, and it was all she could do to keep from flying across the room and clawing the face of the man who’d introduced Dare to the dangerous life of crime that had nearly seen him hanged too many times. The one whom Dare still couldn’t separate himself from. And she wanted to throw her head back and rail at his inability to help himself and stay on a path that was good for him.

  He was working again with Avery Bryant . . . and what was worse, he’d brought her brother into the fold.

  “You’re no friend of Dare’s.” He never had been. She teemed with rage. Of course, Dare’s having gone to Bolingbroke’s . . . He’d have only gotten that information from this one. “And you’re most certainly no friend of mine.”

  “He’s helping, Temperance,” Chance said in urgent tones.

  “Helping?” she spat. “Avery Bryant only ever helped himself.”

  Her brother came forward with his callused palms outstretched. “They’re going to hang Joseph, Temperance.”

  Her breath caught. “What of Mr. Buxton? I thought he would—”

  “I still have not heard from him, Temperance. There isn’t time.”

  So he’d turn to dishonorable means, bribing the likes of Wylie, who’d happily sent Dare to the gallows once. Wylie would line his pockets, and that was only if he didn’t hang Dare first. “It doesn’t have to be the way,” she implored, directing that to Dare.

  That seemed to snap Dare’s sister from her shock. The young lady glanced from her brother to Temperance, and then ever so briefly to Avery—that hated figure—before returning her focus to Dare. When he didn’t immediately respond, she raced over to Avery, who had sense enough to eye her with a proper wariness. Kinsley wrestled the bust from the street thief’s hands. “What is going on here?”

  And it was a like fury Temperance understood all too well. One that she’d felt and appeared destined to feel where Dare Grey was concerned.

  Only silence met the girl’s query. Dare’s gaze hovered just over the top of his sister’s head. The coward. Well, she’d be damned if he didn’t tell his sister precisely what he intended.

  “He is selling it,” Temperance said quietly when Dare refused to answer.

  Confusion welled all the more in Kinsley’s eyes, and she stared at the bust. “You are . . . selling it?”

  When Dare didn’t respond, Temperance answered for him. “To help free Mr. Gurney,” she murmured. He would bribe a public official, a man not to be trusted, all in the name of saving those in need of saving.

  The bust slipped from the young lady’s fingers and tumbled noisily to the floor.

  He’d not changed. He never would.

  And Temperance hated him for it, and more . . . she hated herself for continuing to believe he could be different.

  Chapter 19

  Dare was always going to sell the contents of the Mayfair household he’d recently inherited. There’d never been a doubt. It hadn’t been a question of “if” but rather . . . “when.”

  Selling extravagant baubles was simply what he did. He cleared homes, stripped them of the clutter, and converted those objects into something important—money.

  Objects didn’t matter. They never had. What came out of them, however? Their value, the money they brought? That was something he cared about. The fortune that could be squeezed out of material pieces was the difference between people living and dying and going without or having food in their stomachs.

  That was a lesson he’d come to appreciate from his time on the streets. In the end, everything could and should be sold.

  Temperance knew as much. She knew it was how Dar
e operated.

  So how could she still look at him with the disappointment she did now? How, when he’d help Chance free his friend and Rose’s father?

  And how, when she knows who you are . . . ?

  Because she always wanted him to be better. She wanted him to rise above theft and bribery and operate within the confines of the law, failing to see that sometimes . . . there wasn’t time.

  Kinsley was the first to speak following that revelation. “He is . . . ?” Lady Kinsley moved her gaze between Dare and Temperance. “What is he doing?”

  Now the lady who lived here . . . He’d not considered how she would respond. He tugged at his collar.

  The duchess finally reached the hall. “What is . . . going on?” she asked, faintly panting. The older woman leaned her weight over the head of her cane and struggled to draw breath.

  Fabulous. The only one missing was the damned duke.

  Dare looked to Temperance, and she jutted her chin mutinously at him. Refusing to help him, she shook her head slightly.

  “Perhaps we should adjourn to—”

  “The Opal Parlor?” Kinsley spat. She stormed into the room in question, and as he followed reluctantly behind her, she tossed her arms up. “Oh, forgive me, there is no available seating because it is all covered with items from—” Her words cut off on a gasp. The young lady raced over to the row of paintings stacked against one another alongside the wall. “What is this?” Gripping one heavy-looking frame, she struggled to hold the ornate piece aloft. A lord and lady with a boy beside them and a small babe cradled in the woman’s arms stared back. “These are the familial portraits,” she cried, and quickly returned it to the floor, where she proceeded to flip through frame after frame.

  “Things.” That correction came automatically, and before he could think about the wisdom of uttering it.

  Temperance covered her eyes with her hand and shook her head.

  Lady Kinsley’s eyes formed tiny slits. “What?”

  The lady before him might be a stranger, but even he knew to be properly wary of the rage pouring from the stare she leveled on him. Dare gave his collar another tug. “Er . . .”

  “Things?” Avery Bryant offered helpfully in Dare’s stead. “That’s what we call portraits and vases and paintings and crystal. It helps if you think of them all as ‘things.’” His partner preened with pride. “Taught him that myself.”

  Chance winced.

  Dare made a slashing motion across his throat, urging his business partner to quit speaking.

  The duchess’s eyebrows climbed to her hairline. “Who is this man? Who are all these people?”

  When no one rushed to perform introductions, Avery saw to the task himself. “Avery Bryant, at your service, ma’am.”

  Chance, however, proved wise enough to remain silent under the duchess’s scrutiny.

  “Your Grace.” Rage underlined Lady Kinsley’s correction. “She is a duchess, and you will address her properly.” She took an angry step toward Dare’s partner. “Do you know, you will address her as nothing. You are no one.”

  “Well, you’re a friendly one, aren’t you, princess?”

  “Avery,” Dare said quietly.

  His partner grunted. “I know when it’s time to leave.”

  “Do you?” Lady Kinsley shot back. “If you did, you would have left the moment I caught sight of you, you bastard,” she hissed, and then she charged.

  Cursing, Dare jumped in the way, putting himself between his partner and his sister.

  “Kinsley!” the duchess cried, clutching for the chain dangling at her throat that contained her smelling salts.

  “Yes, I’m the shocking one, but”—she swiped a hand in Dare’s direction—“this one here is letting his thieving friends inside to collect our family’s heirlooms.”

  Avery yanked at his lapels. “I resent that.”

  “And I’m not . . . really a thief,” Chance said weakly. “I work at a mill.”

  Kinsley ignored Temperance’s brother in favor of Avery Bryant.

  “I’m to believe you aren’t a thief,” Kinsley demanded, stepping left and then right in a bid to get around Dare.

  “Get. Out. Avery.” Temperance’s clipped order was one of the only ones Avery had ever managed to listen to.

  “I’m leaving. I’m leaving.” He looked to the bust lying on the hall floor still. “You want me to take that—”

  Temperance stormed over. “Get out,” she repeated. She turned to Chance.

  Shame marred the young man’s features. “I’m so sorry,” he mouthed.

  She shook her head sadly. “You should go.”

  Hanging his head like he was still the little boy who’d stolen a loaf of bread and been dragged by the ear by the baker who’d owed Dare several favors, Chance slunk off.

  The moment they’d gone, Kinsley faced Dare. “You’re taking everything.”

  “I am selling it.” There was a difference.

  Temperance gave her head another shake.

  “You’re selling it,” Kinsley whispered. “You’re a monster.”

  “Because I’m ridding the household of items that could bring in valuable coin?” That would spare a man from a trip to the gallows. He opened his mouth to say as much, but Kinsley cried out.

  “Yes. That is why you’re a monster.”

  Temperance rested a hand on his sleeve. “Enough,” she said quietly to Dare.

  “I was right about you. All of you. You’re all the same.” She looked to Temperance. “And h-her”—Kinsley’s voice cracked—“I thought I might even come around to liking you.” With that, she flew off, the duchess calling out and racing after her granddaughter, until it was just Dare and Temperance . . . and the army of servants.

  Dare eyed the door covetously.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Temperance said, not even glancing his way, inherently knowing what he intended.

  She spoke a few quiet words to the young women organizing the things into piles, and the handful of maids rushed off.

  She’d claimed she was an outsider, uncomfortable with this world, but there was an ease to how she dealt with his household and the people here.

  And yet when they were alone, she leaned against the door panels and just stared back.

  He would have preferred her anger and outrage to this silence. Disappointment . . . It burnt from her eyes, so familiar. She’d never accepted how he’d lived his life, and what he’d done. That would never change, and because he would never change, it was just one more reason a future had always been impossible between them.

  “You disapprove,” he said quietly.

  “Does it matter whether or not I do?” she answered, offering a question of her own, and really the only answer he required.

  The obvious response should have been that no, her opinion really didn’t matter. And yet it did. So very much. It always had. Her opinion had always been the only one he’d cared about. And her opinion had also always been the lowest, the one he could never change. “She’s a stranger,” he said quietly, in a bid to make her understand.

  “Dare, the people whom you’re so committed to looking after are strangers, too.”

  And he floundered. “It is different.” Did he try and convince her? Or himself?

  She pushed away from the door and came closer. “Why is it?” she asked, curious and still absent of her fiery temperament.

  “Because she has never gone without,” he shouted. “Why should I care whether or not she’s distressed at how I secure funds to actually do something meaningful? She has a home and security and should also have material things that can go and feed children who’ll never know even a jot of the comforts she’s known.” His chest heaved from the force of his emotion, and through the tumult, in the greatest of reversals, Temperance remained remarkably composed.

  “Tell me, Dare,” she said softly. “Your selling off the cherished heirlooms here, Lady Kinsley’s and your link to your parents . . . Does this really s
tem from your resentment over her having lived the life you were deprived of?”

  His neck went hot. “Of course not. That is p-preposterous,” he stammered.

  “Is it, Dare?” She took a step closer. “Is it truly?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m trying to free Joseph Gurney.”

  “You were giving away your family’s heirlooms long before that,” she shot back. “You didn’t even try to work within the constraints of the law,” she said beseechingly.

  “There isn’t time.”

  “You are a marquess, and your grandfather is a duke,” she cried. “Do you truly think appealing to them isn’t the better course?”

  “Appeal to them to bribe Wylie?”

  “I’m not talking bribery,” she said in aggrieved tones as she swept over. “I’m talking about hiring barristers and allowing people to intervene on his behalf. Or asking Mr. Buxton to speak to his fellow mill owners about—”

  “Mr. Buxton, who will not even respond to Chance’s notes,” he hissed.

  They locked in a silent battle.

  As if he’d be envious of some highbrow lady. He’d been contented with his life in the Rookeries. Hadn’t he?

  Temperance was the first to look away.

  Restless, he wandered over to the kidney-curved ivory bench laden with garments. Absently, he piled the dresses on the arm atop the stack of gowns, and then stopped.

  They were gowns that had belonged to another. Nay, more . . . They were gowns that had been worn by . . . his mother. The woman who’d birthed him, and cared for him for an all-too-brief time. Until she hadn’t. Your mother would have you near . . . But it is better for all . . . especially her, if you make yourself . . . invisible. His throat worked. From that moment on, Dare had seen to his own care.

  “So what is the plan . . . to simply get rid of everything?”

  “Why should I care?” he cried, spinning around to face her. “Do you think I want anything belonging to a man who knew only shame for me? Who hated me.”

  Fisting a hand to her mouth, she shook her head.

  But he was unrelenting, taking a step closer. “A father who railed at the fact that I’d been born first and not my brother. A father who, when I did try to return, ordered me gone and reminded me that it was better for my mother and sibling if I left and let them be a family without all the problems I brought.” Anguish, both bitter and sharp, pulled the remainder of that admission from him. Words he’d never breathed before . . . to anyone. Ones he’d intended to keep only to himself.