Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,102

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 stem 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