Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Caldwell, Christi Page 0,19

It never was, and I’ve little interest in it ever being one.” She moved to step around him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

She’d not be swayed, then. God, she was still as put out by his silken tongue as she’d been then. The only thing she had appreciated, the only sentiment she had responded to, was blunt directness. He’d been a fool to attempt anything else where she was concerned.

Dare slid once more into her path, preventing her escape. “I don’t have a choice, Temperance,” he said flatly, getting to the real reason for his being here. He’d come to accept their at-best tense relationship would never be more. “I need a wife, and whether you wish it or not, that is the role you agreed to.”

If eyes could shoot flame, he’d have been a heap of ashes before her.

“Are you saying you’d force me to . . . what? Play at the role of your wife?”

“Yes!” That was a perfect way to describe the arrangement. Her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “No,” he amended.

“Get out,” she said once more. “You’re wasting both of our time.” With that, she hurried to retrieve the bolts of fabric that had toppled to the floor. As she gathered them up, Dare studied her. So focused on the reason for seeking her out and the need to convince her, he’d not, until this moment, thought about just where he’d found her.

All these years, this was where she’d been. He glanced about at the ribbons hanging from the ceiling, and the satin and silk fabrics neatly arranged upon the tables. “It makes so much sense,” he murmured to himself.

Arms laden with those long bolts, she set about returning them to their proper places.

“And what is that?” she asked crisply.

“You always sewed.”

“I darned socks.”

“You stitched my garments whenever I required.”

“Which wasn’t often,” she said, an almost wistful quality to her voice. “You always had funds enough.”

Stolen funds.

This, what his grandfather had presented him with, was an opportunity to secure money, free and clear, for him to use as he would . . . without risking his neck.

Dare passed his gaze over her as she flitted about the shop, seeing to her work.

“You were so very good at what you did, Temperance.” She gave no indication that she’d heard that praise. “This was the perfect place for you to go. To escape—”

She spun about. “Not another word.”

“I am sorry. I should not have mentioned . . .” Him. The one who’d hurt her. A monster of a father who’d made her do desperate things, such as marrying Dare. Steering his words and thoughts away from those demons, he tried a different tack. “I should not have mentioned anything about the past,” he settled for. “And yet there is no way around speaking of it.”

Her full lips formed a hard line.

She didn’t say anything, however, and he was encouraged.

Dare strolled slowly toward her. “Nor was it all bad, Temperance,” he said quietly. Of its own volition, his hand came up, and he brushed his knuckles lightly along a jawline that was slightly too firm and wide, but that had always managed to lend her a beauty that was unique and interesting for it.

Her skin was satiny soft and warm.

The faintest of trembles shook her slender frame, and there was, since he’d arrived, a moment of triumph. Furious as she was with him and at his arrival, she was affected by his touch, still.

Dare continued brushing his knuckles in a light up-and-down sweep. God, how he’d missed touching her. How he’d missed her. Even as there had always been tension and fire between them, there’d been something more, too . . . He lowered his head, bringing his lips close to hers, and their breaths mingled together, hers bearing the hint of honey she’d always dashed in her tea.

Temperance’s long, smoky lashes fluttered.

“There was so much that was good . . . so much that was right between us,” he whispered huskily. “A reunion between us wouldn’t be all bad. In fact”—he dusted his palm over her lower lip—“it can be good, Temperance. It can be so very good in some ways.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

He knew the moment her eyes flew open that he’d gone too far.

Oh, bloody hell.

She grabbed the scissors. “Are you trying to seduce me, Darius?” she hissed.

“Uh . . . sway you? Which is not altogether—”

She brought those gleaming blades up higher.

Rethinking his words, Dare took several hasty—and, by the fire in