Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Caldwell, Christi Page 0,45
steered her away from the assembled servants. “You’ll be met with respect, or—”
“Or what?” she interrupted. “I told you how I would be received, and yet you think you’re going to force people to accept me.” She shook her head. “That isn’t how the world works. Not this world. Not any world. Those rules are the same whatever class a person belongs to, Dare.”
All his muscles tensed. “I’ll demand greater treatment of you, even if you’ll not accept it for yourself.”
A hiss burst from her teeth. “You believe that is what this is about? That I can somehow make people like me and accept—”
“Ahem.”
They jerked their gazes back to the forgotten servant. Spencer lifted a gloved palm and waved it slightly. “If I might . . . perhaps suggest postponing your meeting with the duke and duchess?” he asked hopefully. “I can inform them His Lordship is tired from his—”
“No.”
“Travels,” Spencer finished weakly over Dare.
“We’re having the damned meeting.” Grabbing Temperance’s hand, he propelled them both onward to the damned duke, who couldn’t simply give Dare the monies he sought and needed. No, he’d make Dare and Temperance play at domesticity as a proper lord and lady, a role neither of them wanted.
Not unlike their marriage itself.
I don’t want you in my life, Dare . . . not anymore . . . never again . . .
“She is going with you?” Spencer called loudly behind them, breaking through the long-ago memory burnt indelibly upon Dare’s mind.
“She is, in fact, ‘Her Ladyship,’ Spencer. Have a care, or you’re going to find yourself sacked, and quickly,” Dare warned, not so much as glancing back.
Temperance dug her fingers into his. “Stop.”
Dare ignored her.
“My a-apologies,” the servant panted, slightly out of breath as he struggled to keep up. The man’s buckled black shoes beat rhythmically upon the marble floor as he struggled to match the pace Dare had set.
“I said, stop,” Temperance repeated, digging her heels in and forcing Dare to either halt or drag her down.
Setting his jaw, he acquiesced. “What?”
“Is this really what you wish?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking, Temperance.”
“Don’t you?” Temperance made an up-and-down gesture, motioning to herself. “Is this truly the way you wish to introduce me to a duke and duchess? How you wish to present yourself?” She looked pointedly at his dusty garments . . . and lower to his mud-stained boots. “You should care more than you do, Dare.”
He grinned. “Ah, but I don’t.”
Her mouth remained set in a frown. “That is clear, and yet . . . why? You always took pride in your appearance in the Rookeries . . . Why should it somehow be different here?”
That gave him pause. “You’re making more of it than there is.”
“Am I?” she insisted. “As it is, being accepted by your grandparents and Polite Society will prove problematic enough, as I’m the daughter of a drunk.”
God, how he despised how closely she linked herself and her existence to the miserable bastard who’d sired her.
He lightly touched his forehead to hers. “Temperance, you are more than the circumstances you were born to.”
“I know that,” she said automatically.
Did she, though? She’d always tied herself and her worth to that vile bastard who’d given her life . . . and her downtrodden mother, who’d died shortly after Dare had first met Temperance. “That is not what I am speaking about, however, Dare. I’m talking about how you for some reason are so very determined to let your grandparents see you and me a certain way.” Her shoulders came back. “And you might not care about how you will appear to them”—she wrinkled her nose—“or smell when we’re presented, but we do.”
He faintly sniffed the air, and grimaced. Yes, there was a definite stench of horse and sweat to him.
She gave him another pointed look.
And when presented that way, he was humbled by the realization that he’d not fully considered just how difficult this upcoming exchange would be for Temperance. She, who’d been strong in facing the toughest drunks and street thugs, and as such he’d not let himself think of her as . . . unnerved by meeting with a pair of nobles. “You are not incorrect,” he said gruffly.
A relieved sigh came from behind them, which Spencer quickly masked as a cough.
“And you are as obstinate as you’ve ever been in your failure to concede when you’re wrong.”
Her lips tipped in the first hint of a real smile since they’d reunited, and his heart somersaulted. He’d missed that smile.