Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,100

warmth of the sun’s rays. “Are you having second thoughts? There is no shame in—”

“No!” she exclaimed. “Why should I? And why should they go unpunished? Why should a duke and duchess and all those others skate free of their sins when any other person born outside the nobility would hang for such crimes?”

He shrugged. “That’s just the way of the world, Faye.”

“Well, it’s an unfair way,” she cried.

“That’s also the way of the world,” he said.

Her lower lip trembled, and she caught it between her teeth. “That doesn’t make it right, Tynan.”

“Oh, I know that, love. Those who have money and power are going to always be free to bury their secrets and hide their crimes.”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t much like this world, then, Tynan. It’s not one I want to be part of.”

An energy sizzled to life under her words. At some point, what they spoke of, what they debated, had taken on an additional meaning.

He stilled. “You don’t get to undo that, Faye,” he said quietly. “This is your world, and there’s no changing that.”

Her hauntingly large eyes met his. “But there can be…”

His mind balked at what she alluded to. For, there was no changing any of this. Not truly.

“You do know that doing this,” he said gently, shifting them back to safer topics, “will not undo what your family has done?”

Faye drew back. He might as well have struck her for all the palpable hurt in her expression. “I know that,” she said with such wounded affront. “You believe that is why I’m doing this?”

“No.” And he didn’t. Not anymore. “Not completely. I do believe, in some small part, yes.” She’d shared enough with him for Tynan to see the undeserved guilt she’d taken on.

“You know nothing about it,” she hissed and reached for the handle.

Tynan intercepted her efforts. “Faye, my entire career and life was built on dealing with people who are atoning for sins,” he murmured. “I know when guilt is in play.”

She looked stricken. “It isn’t just that.”

“I know, Faye,” he said quietly, and he believed that. It wasn’t simply an empty assurance.

Her jaw wobbled. “I will be damned if I do nothing with the information I possess just because it is going to make members of the ton uncomfortable. They should be uncomfortable. Do you know how many times I’ve attempted to arrange a meeting with the Duchess of Somerset so that I might get the information that would bring long overdue justice? Time and time again, she’s rebuffed me, Tynan.”

Ah, so he’d not been her first attempt. She’d gone to the notorious Duchess of Somerset, one of the well-known victims of Mac Diggory. It spoke to the determination that drove her.

“But maybe she doesn’t want to, Faye,” he said gently. “Mayhap she just wants to live in the now, because the past was just too hard. The darkest days a person lives aren’t the ones they want to relive.”

She paused, moving her gaze over his face. “You’re speaking of yourself.”

Rubbing his hands together to ward off the bite of the winter air that slashed through the carriage, Tynan stared past her shoulder, down a street he’d traveled so many times as a child. “Aye,” he acknowledged, sharing that part of himself, and yet, he didn’t feel exposed before her. He didn’t feel horror or disgust at having opened himself in that way. Something about this woman had changed him. “Go,” he said gruffly, urging her onward to what she was so committed to doing.

She hesitated, and then shedding the cloak she’d borrowed from him, she accepted Tynan’s help down from the carriage.

As she made her walk along the smooth pavement to the front of the duke and duchess’ residence, Tynan stared after her retreating frame.

Mayhap she hadn’t changed him. Perhaps it was just that he was capable of speaking freely with her. That realization, unlike the one before, filled him with a sickening sense of dread. Because, if it was only Faye whom he felt this bond with, what did that say about his feelings for her? And about how damned impossible it was going to be saying goodbye?

Chapter 24

As Faye approached the Duke and Duchess of Somerset’s palatial Mayfair townhouse, there was a seeming finality to her relationship with Tynan.

It was coming to an end.

And she had the urge to cry.

Tynan was lost to her.

“He never belonged to you in any way, you foolish twit,” she silently mouthed as she walked. What was more, he’d never wanted