Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,110
markers had faded with time under the weathering.
And then, there were the others. The ones with no etching upon them, their existence marked only by a blank stone.
Dare stopped beside a random tomb overgrown with moss; the grass had grown, covering most of the stone so that only the smallest bit was visible underneath.
His breath formed a little cloud of white in the cool spring night air. He sank onto his haunches and proceeded to clean the unmarked grave. Tugging weeds and pushing back the earth with his fingers until the stone rose up above the dirt.
All these years, he had believed his life had been one of meaning. He’d seen what he’d done as a noble mission to be that which he’d most needed as a young boy in the Rookeries—salvation.
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 . . . It is why you left after marrying me . . . It is why you are selling items that mean so much to your sister.
Ya were the one who trusssted all the wrong people.
Those words Temperance had spoken blended with the drunken ones her father had uttered . . . moments ago? A lifetime ago?
Dare scraped a hand through his hair.
What had it all been for?
He’d merely . . . existed. It had been an unwitting decision he’d made to never truly experience life in the hopes that other people might. Because he’d known his worth. Ultimately, he’d known the world was all right without him in it. After all, his own parents had gotten on just fine in his absence. The gift of a family wasn’t for people like him.
And yet it was a gift that he’d unknowingly been granted . . . and squandered, as he did everything.
Restless, Dare pushed to his feet and walked a small little circle, staring, searching . . . for her—the child Temperance had been forced to deliver on her own before fleeing so that she might survive.
Tears welled, and this time, in the presence of East London’s ghosts, he let them fall.
He wanted a future . . . He wanted a life with her in it. Where the money dangled by his grandfather had represented what he’d craved, it wasn’t enough. Not anymore. Mayhap it had never really been. There was . . . her. And whether there was a child or not born of them . . . born to them . . . it didn’t matter more than she did.
His grandfather’s money would save countless lives, and yet he’d not have it at the expense of all else: his sister, Kinsley, whom he’d been pushing away since he’d discovered her existence. He’d never have let the duke turn Temperance into a broodmare . . . which ultimately was what the alternate route to those funds had been.
He was done stealing and selling himself.
He wanted to begin again.
Nay . . . he wanted a new beginning, with Temperance and his sister.
And yes, his marquessate was bankrupt, but there were connections afforded him now . . . and wealth he could squeeze out of his estates until he could turn it into something more. The help he would provide would be far more limited than that which he’d offered throughout the past twenty years. But there were also people who were reliant upon him who would benefit as well. As Spencer had pointed out, the servants were also men, women, and children whose livelihoods, security, and ability to coexist with their families all depended upon Dare’s commitment to this new life.
Feeling a lightness go through him unlike any he’d ever known, Dare wound his way through the dank streets he’d called home . . .
But they hadn’t been a home.
Not truly.
Home would only ever be where Temperance was.
Temperance, who’d helped him see the life he’d lived had been one filled with excuses. Who at every turn had urged him to be more . . . not because she’d reviled him as his father had . . . but because she’d truly believed there was good in him. She’d seen it in Dare, who’d been unable to see it in himself.
When he finally found his way back home, Dare bounded up the steps past a waiting servant and called out a greeting to the boy.