so.”
Her Grace, however, had no reason to lie to her. As such, that revelation proved the greatest of surprises.
“It is merely that Dare and Lady Madelyn? They are so well suited—in personality and companionship . . . and their shared history.”
Their birthright: one of privilege and prestige that Temperance would never, ever share a bond over. Her heart turned in her chest.
The duchess was not through twisting the knife, however. “You’re also aware that she would have greatly suited him. Her dowry would bring wealth that would further advance Dare’s hopes for the people in East London.” Sadness wreathed the duchess’s words, and that was somehow even worse than the bitterness or anger that had met Temperance at their previous encounters.
For the duchess was correct. The young lady would have greatly suited Dare in every way, and in every way that Temperance could not . . . and never would.
Had the duchess been hate-filled, it would have been easier to resent her, and yet . . . she wasn’t. She was simply a grandmother who yearned for what was best for her grandson. She was a woman who wanted Dare to have the life he should, and would, have lived had it not been for that one act of evil committed by Mac Diggory and his henchmen.
“I take it you knew Lady Kinsley would never marry.” All the while she kept her gaze on Dare and his former betrothed.
It was why the woman had resented Temperance at every turn. Because she’d seen her as the wife Dare would be stuck with in order to fulfill the terms they’d put to him.
“Yes, we suspected as much. However, it was less about seeing her wed as much as it was about ensuring that someone who was not her horrible cousin was there to ensure her well-being,” the duchess confessed. She dabbed her white napkin at the corners of her lips. “It was my husband’s hope that there would be more than that. My husband was . . . is of the hope that a child will keep Dare here.”
And the duchess, Dare’s grandmother, had begun to see a future in which Temperance both remained and provided Dare with the heir and babe to link him to Polite Society.
All the while, she didn’t know, could never guess, that was the one thing Temperance could no longer provide.
Pain slashed across her heart as understanding slid in . . . crawling forward with an infinite slowness and then rushing in, all at once: the funds can never be his.
Suddenly, the food she had managed to eat that night churned in her stomach, threatening to come up.
“I’m certain you are an absolutely . . . fine . . . young woman, Temperance,” the duchess said through that tumult. “My granddaughter, she likes you very much. You are one who showed, in coming to His Grace and me for assistance, that you genuinely care for, mayhap even love, him.” I love him. She always had. “But Darius? He is of a different world. Now, if there were grounds for annulment?” She pierced Temperance with a gaze, one that Temperance was certain could see inside to the places where secrets were kept. Her Grace sighed. “Think on it, dear . . .” She patted Temperance’s hand.
Think on it?
Just like that, as casually as if she’d remarked upon the weather and not a dissolution of Temperance’s marriage, the duchess turned and spoke to the guest at her other side—Lady Madelyn’s father. The man who should be Dare’s father-in-law, and not the likes of Abaddon, drunkard, wife beater.
Numb, Temperance reached for her glass of claret and took a sip. The slightly sickeningly sweet beverage slicked a path down her throat. The rub of it was . . . she couldn’t even be resentful, because the duchess was well within her rights to everything she was feeling. What would the noblewoman say if she learned Temperance and Dare had only even agreed to a temporary partnership? Nay, their marriage was one that even if they both wished it . . . couldn’t be. She couldn’t give him an heir . . . or any child. A wave of grief assailed her, and she wanted to slink under the table and lose herself in the weight of that misery.
Instead, she did the next worst thing.
She looked over at Dare and his flawless dining partner; possessed of gloriously golden curls, a gently rounded frame, and pale-white skin, she was . . . a