Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Caldwell, Christi Page 0,22
moment she’d met him. He was the ghost that would always be there, and the only way to have the closure she required was to face him head-on.
Dare came loping over the slight rise, his palms aloft, a grin on his lips.
He always wore a grin.
Even now.
It was a fact she’d always marveled and puzzled over.
“Thank you for waiting,” he said when he reached her.
“Did I have a choice?” Temperance quirked an eyebrow. “I expected that you wouldn’t stop.” And as such, it made far more sense to just hear him out and, more importantly, make him hear her out. Hear that she’d no intention of resuming any manner of life with him.
“You’ve always been practical.” There was a wistful quality to his murmuring. He reached a palm up, and Temperance recoiled this time, wisely putting a safe step between them.
His touch had always been magic, but she knew all too well the peril in magic.
He let his arm fall to his side. “You have every reason to be upset with me,” he said in more somber tones than she recalled ever hearing from him.
“Which reason do you refer to? Your costing me my work?” Or your vowing to stay with me and then . . . not. It took a physical effort to call those words back. The pain of those darkest days, ones that had come when he’d gone gallivanting off to steal from some reprobate lord in the country, was still as fresh now as it’d been.
Dare touched a hand to his chest. “Hear me out . . . please.”
Please. He’d been the only man she’d ever known in the Rookeries who’d not been ashamed to say “please” and who thanked people. He’d not just taken everything as his due, as all the harshest, most ruthless men in East London had.
It was one of the reasons she’d first found herself so captivated by him.
He’d been an oddity in their world . . . the world that she’d managed to leave behind when she came here and started anew.
Or she’d thought she had. Her gaze slid beyond him to the establishment she’d built a safe, stable future within. And how quickly she’d lost it all. She forced her focus back to him. “I don’t see as I have much choice but to listen to you,” she said bitterly, resenting him once more for new reasons.
“If I was more a scoundrel than I already am, I’d let you to that opinion and secure your assistance.” Dare rested a palm against the gnarled bark of the oak, his arms straining the magnificent fabric of his finely tailored black tailcoat.
And she hated her eyes for being so very drawn to the bulge of his biceps. She worked her stare over his gloriously masculine fr—
He lifted a quizzical brow. Her cheeks heated several degrees as she whipped her gaze firmly, squarely back on his face. And only his face.
“You want to secure my assistance,” Temperance repeated. She had been so overwhelmed by his return that she’d not allowed herself to think what business he could possibly have with her.
He inclined his head. “Alas, I’d not see you sacked or force your hand.”
Surprise brought her eyebrows shooting up. Impossible. The seamstress had sacked girls for mixing up the laces. “Are you expecting me to believe Madame Amelie does not intend to release me for . . .”
“For pulling a pair of scissors on a marquess, refusing her orders, and storming out?” He flashed a wry grin. “No, we spoke, and upon hearing me out, she proved agreeable to the promise of not holding any of those offenses against you.”
She opened and closed her mouth several times, shock briefly taking her words. And that is nothing less than stunning . . .
He rocked on his heels. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” she said, unaware she’d spoken aloud. “It doesn’t matter.”
And yet . . . it did. He could have forced her hand and instead had gone to the efforts of securing her position and leaving her the choice. He’d always been unlike any other person in her life. Emotion stuck sharply in her throat.
Dare briefly palmed her cheek, that touch so fleeting and tender she might have conjured the caress of her own dreaming.
“What do you want, Dare?” she asked quietly.
He straightened from that favorite tree she so loved, which was now just one more place she would forever see him. “I’m a marquess, and I require a marchioness”—he pointed at her—“you, at my side.”