Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,24

the truth remained that his head could be sold, and sold for fine coin. Her gut clenched. Temperance stood. “Who?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “A young woman came to me with the information.”

A sad smile formed on her lips. He’d always been hopeless where helpless young women were concerned. Someone had used that against him. And yet . . . “What does any of this have to do with your making yourself a marquess?”

“I didn’t make myself a marquess.” As he spoke, he resumed pacing. “I am a marquess.”

“You’re a marquess. And I take it that is why you managed to get yourself spared from the gallows,” she said dryly.

He stopped and faced her. “I know it is far-fetched.” His eyes darkened, and she knew the very moment she was forgotten and he was lost in his memory. “I was kidnapped as a child. A tutor turned me over to Mac Diggory.”

Hatred burnt through her veins. Mac Diggory. That reviled, most feared, most ruthless of leaders. Dead for some years now, the memory of his evil lived on still. “What?” she whispered.

Dare’s gaze fixed on a point beyond her. “I was apparently kidnapped and sold for a sizable sum.”

“You’re . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought.

“A marquess’s son.”

It defied logic and sense. It was a fantastical story better suited for fiction . . . A small boy taken from his noble family and plunked into the streets, where he’d then risen up to become the Rookeries’ greatest and most noble thief. It was also why he had the finest, crispest tones of the King’s English. The life drained from her limbs as she sank back onto the edge of her perch.

All these years, he’d been stealing when he should have been shut away and protected in the finest West London townhouse.

“I . . . also, apparently, have a sister. She was born after I’d been taken, and is therefore not really family.”

Not really family?

As he spoke so very casually about it, her gut churned and twisted into a thousand knots. She tried to make something out of those words . . . or his face or anything, but he was an unreadable mask. God, how she’d hated that control he sometimes yielded, a power he’d had to keep even her out.

“The grandparents”—not “my,” but “the” grandparents—“are determined I help form a relationship with her. Help her navigate Polite Society. And, of course, see her settled. I don’t know anything about any of that,” he said with a frantic little wave of his hand. “Selecting suitors who would make an appropriate husband for her. Who to avoid. Gowns. Dresses.” He blanched. “All of it.”

What . . . exactly was he saying?

As her mind sought to make sense of all those words, she fixed on just one statement: help her navigate Polite Society.

And then it hit her with the same weight of one of her father’s unexpected fists to her belly.

“Surely you aren’t suggesting . . . ?” She tried and failed to get the remainder of that ridiculous supposition out.

“You are my wife,” he rightly pointed out. “Overseeing all this is part of their requirement for me—”

“Their requirement?” she interrupted. “Why would they require . . . ?”

“I inherited a bankrupt marquessate. There are properties, but even so, the earnings have been meager, and whatever there is must go to the villagers.” His lips twisted in a cynical half grin. “Even ascending to the rank of marquess, I find myself impoverished.”

And if she were capable of laughing, this moment certainly would have been one that merited it. Ever the Robin Hood, he’d not just take from the unknown villagers in need, but would simply add them to the long and ever-growing list of those reliant upon him.

Reliant upon him, just as she’d made herself—she, who’d sacrificed what she’d wanted in a marriage with Dare Grey, convincing herself he might change so that she could be safe from her father.

When she still didn’t speak, he cleared his throat. “As loath as I am to take them up on the terms, I’ve told myself . . . it is just any other job.” Only it wasn’t. It was one that didn’t require him to risk his neck and steal someone else’s belongings. He wouldn’t see that, however. “I simply have to get in. Squire her about. Get her married. My grandfather will turn over twenty thousand pounds if you and I succeed in seeing the young lady married. After that, you and