Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,107
battling that crushing loss and recovering from the brutal assault her father had carried out. Tears stung his eyes, and he pressed the backs of his palms against them, trying to drive away a pain that could not be dulled.
“There was so much blood. I should have died.” Temperance drew in a shuddering breath. “The doctor Chance brought expected I would.”
And where was I while she was there, suffering, clinging to her life, having lost our babe?
“He explained I’d never be able to have more children.”
The earth ceased spinning on its axis.
And when it resumed rotating, the ground shifted under Dare’s feet, and he grappled for something to keep him upright.
My God.
Temperance cleared her throat. “After . . . it all, Chance, he put me in a mail carriage, with money to get to Cotswold. I was . . . sick the whole way.”
It was why she could no longer ride in carriages. Now, that aversion made sense.
Now, everything made sense. And what was worse . . . knowing . . . it changed nothing.
Chapter 20
Say something.
Say anything.
And yet he did not.
There was just a thick silence punctuated by the harsh rasp of his breath, that ragged intake and exhale of air the only indication that she’d thrown him into the same tumult that ravaged her now.
He took several steps toward her, and she in equal parts hungered for his nearness and yet could not bear for him to be close.
“Why . . . didn’t you tell me?” he whispered.
Temperance hugged her arms tight to her middle once more. “I should have.” She’d told herself it wouldn’t have brought their daughter back or eased the memories or erased her suffering. She’d wallowed in her resentment of his not having been there when she needed him. Now, Temperance could admit what had compelled her—fear. For the moment she revealed what she had, she would have to own all the ways in which her body was now a failure in a task expected of it. “It . . . was easier not telling you than thinking that you’d reject me.”
“You thought I would reject you?” he whispered. “I should have been there when you needed me most . . . and I was not.”
That was what Dare would focus on . . . his sense of guilt and obligation for not having taken care of her.
Moisture dampened her cheeks, and she touched the backs of her palms to them. Tears. At some point, she’d begun crying. When he’d come to her all those years ago, she’d turned him away. She’d told herself it had been because he’d lost the right to share in her grief. He’d not deserved to know. She blotted them several times. “Chance remained behind. He saw to the burial. He kept my father at bay, allowing me the time to make my escape.”
It had been the first time, and not the last, when the brother she’d looked after had shifted roles and come to care for her.
“Where?” he asked hoarsely.
“I don’t know what you are—”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Where is . . . she?”
“St. Abbey. I . . . I’ve never been. It is an unmarked grave. He could . . . We could not afford more.”
Dare caught the back of the chair as if to keep himself upright.
Their daughter rested in an unmarked grave in the Rookeries. His breath rasped noisily. “We were . . . very nearly a family.”
She caught the inside of her cheek, hard enough to draw blood, the metallic tinge of it filling her senses. “Yes,” she whispered. “Very nearly.”
And now, a fate that could never be.
He lifted his gaze to hers, those dark-brown eyes ravaged. “I am . . . so sorry,” he whispered.
Temperance, however, didn’t want his apologies. She wanted him to understand what his decisions had cost him . . . and what they would continue to cost him if he was unable to change.
“I didn’t tell you this to make you feel guilty.” It had never been about that. “You don’t let yourself form true connections to people. You make every effort to destroy everything that is good in your life. It’s why you insist on keeping Avery Bryant in your life.” She gave him a sad and, worse, pitying look. “It is why you left after marrying me.” Her heart bled from pain. “It is why you are selling items that mean so much to your sister.”