Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,26

the part her friend focused on.

“I told him I could not join him,” she said, plaiting her hair.

“You are the only woman, Temperance Swift, who’d dare turn out a marquess and reject the life of a noblewoman.”

“And what of you? Would any of that matter to you?” She already knew the answer. None would argue her friend had fallen in love with Chance for his funds or rank.

“Of course not.” The young woman’s gaze took on the far-off quality it always did at the mention of her love. “I don’t care if he’s a prince or a pauper—he’s always a king to me.”

Temperance gave her a pointed look.

Gwynn scrunched her nose up. “I see what you’re doing there,” she mumbled, and tossed a pillow at Temperance.

Managing her first laugh since Dare’s resurrection, Temperance caught the feathered article to her chest and hugged it close. Her laughter immediately died. “Either way, I’m not a noblewoman.” She was the daughter of a vicar’s daughter and the once charming man—turned drunk—with whom her mother had fallen in love.

And . . . there were too many reasons it was perilous to let Dare back into her life again.

“No. You aren’t a noblewoman.” Gwynn paused. “Though technically, you did marry a marquess, which by default makes you a marchioness by marriage.”

“But he wasn’t a marquess at the time.” He’d just been . . . Dare. And she’d loved him so desperately when he was just an honorable man in the Rookeries.

Gwynn’s eyes glimmered. “Ah, but he was always a marquess or destined to the title. You just didn’t know it.”

Grabbing the same pillow that had been hurled her way, Temperance tossed it playfully back at her friend.

With a laugh, Gwynn caught it to her chest and scrambled to the edge of the bed. “Here . . .” She jumped up and rushed to join Temperance. “Let me.” As Gwynn shoved Temperance’s fingers out of the way and saw to arranging her hair, Temperance stared in the beveled mirror at her friend.

“I . . . had my heart broken by him.” It was the closest she’d ever come to telling anyone about those days that only her brother knew of. And she tried to get those words out, for this woman who was her only friend in the world, and yet . . . could not. Because she was too cowardly to speak them and live those moments aloud.

Gwynn slowed her strokes and brought her hands to rest on Temperance’s shoulders. “Be it life or love, a woman’s fate is to have her heart broken,” her friend said sadly in the tones of one who knew all too well. “You can be with him but cannot because he broke your heart, and I . . .” Cannot be with Chance . . . Her friend forced a smile. “But this is not about me. This is about the new beginning the marquess presented you with.”

The new beginning. That gave Temperance pause. So shocked, so offended by his reappearance, she’d not considered Dare’s offer in the way her friend now presented it. And yet . . .

“I had a new beginning,” she said, taking the brush from Gwynn’s fingers. “This was it.”

“This? As in working at Vêtements Français?” Gwynn asked incredulously. “A place so trite it literally means ‘French Apparel’ when there is about as much French in Madame Amelie as in me?”

Temperance laughed again.

Her friend wasn’t done. “Or are you referring to working with the likes of Miserable Mrs. Marmlebury? Is that the ‘new beginning’ you always dreamed of?”

“It was the best that I could have hoped for,” she said defensively.

“Yes.” Gwynn held her gaze. “Before. But that isn’t the case any longer.”

Temperance groaned. “You will not let this go.” It was a statement.

“No,” her friend answered anyway. “Is it permanent?” Gwynn asked, pushing her hands out of the way.

“Marriage is.”

Her friend grunted. Her hands flew rapidly as she drew Temperance’s tresses into a long braid. “Is that what he wants, then? A real marriage?”

That brought her up short. “He . . . didn’t say.” For in the request Dare had put to her, there hadn’t been talk of a marriage in the traditional sense. Or really, in any sense. Furthermore, he’d not truly wanted to be married to her. They’d struck up a business arrangement, and as such he’d spoken of their rejoining as a partnership so that he could secure funds he required. Temperance grunted. “He didn’t say that was what he wanted.” There’d