Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,103

me gone and reminded me that it was better for my mother and sibling if I left and let them be a family without all the problems I brought.” Anguish, both bitter and sharp, pulled the remainder of that admission from him. Words he’d never breathed before . . . to anyone. Ones he’d intended to keep only to himself.

The air didn’t move; it just hung motionless and suspended.

“I didn’t know those things,” she whispered.

Because he hadn’t shared them. But then mayhap that had always been the problem between them, the reason they’d never been able to make their relationship work: their inability to communicate about . . . everything.

The fight went out of him, and he sank onto the arm of the chair atop gowns that had once belonged to his mother. “When the adventure ended and I was given over to Diggory, I realized what I’d done. I tried to go back.” He made himself acknowledge that again—in a different way, the meaning still the same. “He wasn’t wrong,” he said tiredly, wiping a hand down his face. “When I went off, I chose the life I did. I was selfish and wicked, and I would have only hurt my mother and brother had I been allowed to stay.”

She moved in a whir of skirts, sitting beside him on the crowded arm of the chair. “Oh, Dare,” she whispered, her voice catching. “You didn’t choose this. You were a child . . . one who was deceived into believing the dream of the adventure, all the while being pulled deeper into a nightmare you could have never imagined.”

And it had been . . .

Because the food he’d had and the fun he’d had distributing baskets of baked goods to people his father had insisted nobles didn’t acknowledge . . . had ended. Instead, he’d been reduced to the same hungry, fearful state lived by every other impoverished child. “I went willingly,” he said, his voice empty to his own ears. “I have no one to blame but myself.”

Temperance made a sound of protest. She covered his hand with hers and drew it close to her chest.

“You’re wrong. This was chosen for you by the man who lured you away and tricked you. And your father . . . He was to blame for you not living in the world you were born to. A world where you could have done the good that your father was determined that you not do. He let you believe you didn’t belong here.” She lifted her arms, motioning to the room. “And you came to believe it. Because convincing yourself of that was easier than confronting that life went on without you.”

Unable to face her and all the truths she leveled, Dare resumed his inventorying of the contents that had been brought down earlier that afternoon. “It changes nothing. The items need to be sold. Gurney needs to be saved, as do so many others.”

Temperance spoke in hushed tones. “You don’t want to do this . . . collecting cherished possessions and just selling them off without a thought to how other people might feel about it. You’re choosing to let him back into your life, which will only end up hurting you.”

Him.

He should have known better than to believe she’d let the matter of Avery Bryant’s presence go without remark.

“I’m choosing to let him back into my life because of his connection with Wylie.” He stared down at the notepad containing the inventory Avery insisted would cover the fees to Wylie for the transfer of the prisoner. “There are people relying on me. Families I can feed.” He flipped to the next page in his book. “And his name is Avery. I still have dealings with Avery,” he said, not allowing her to erase his loyal partner’s name. “He’s helped me.”

“You always trusted him more than you should,” she fired back, not missing a beat. “He’s helped you nearly get yourself killed.” Temperance came over and plucked the notebook from his fingers, and this time when she spoke, she did so in gentler, almost pitying tones. “He was always about helping himself.”

Dare frowned. “That is unfair. I owe him my very existence.”

“Precisely, Dare.”

He winced.

Temperance wasn’t done. “He convinced you that a life of thieving is better than one of honor.”

His patience broke. “Honor?” he spat. “Was there honor in your darning damned socks until your fingers bled?” Her cheeks paled, but God help him, he couldn’t stop the flow of words.