Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,27

been no talk of a reunion or reestablishing the bond they’d once shared. Or . . . more. Oh, he’d been attempting to seduce her into working with him. But that . . . it was different.

Gwynn gave a triumphant little grunt. “I see.”

“I’m not going to London, Gwynn,” Temperance said flatly. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the other woman. “Never again.” She’d die before she’d risk coming face-to-face with the monsters of her past. Any of them.

At the long, protracted silence, she made herself glance up.

“I trust, where you lived, and the world you knew . . . it wasn’t this new world the marquess has opened for you.”

“No,” she murmured. “It was . . . the Rookeries.”

“This wouldn’t be the Rookeries,” her friend said gently.

No, it wouldn’t. But the location didn’t change the fact of who would be with her—Dare Grey.

“This is enough for me.”

A sad smile curved Gwynn’s wide lips. “You know enough not to believe that lie.”

She tensed. Yes, she did. But she’d not be called out on it by her friend. “It’s done, Gwynn,” she said emphatically in tones meant to end what had never begun as a debate.

Alas, Gwynn proved as tenacious now as she’d been at their first meeting, when they’d gone toe-to-toe over a bolt of ivory lace. “You can say this is enough and that you are content with your life as it is now, Temperance . . . but if that were the case, then I wouldn’t have to plead with you to remain silent on your opinion on shades of pink on Mrs. Marmlebury. You would stay silent, do your job, and go about your own business. But you don’t,” she said with a quiet insistence. “Ever.” With that, Gwynn turned the brush back over and exchanged it for the forgotten white dress she’d been working on.

Why must the other woman be so stubborn? Why couldn’t she just leave Temperance to . . .

Think about yourself . . .

Temperance paused.

And in that she’d proven selfish. Since Dare had put his request to her, she’d fixed on her own hurt; she’d not allowed herself to think about his offer and what it could do . . .

That which she herself couldn’t do . . .

She glanced over to where Gwynn was stitching away at a christening gown for one of their clients. Head bent, she attended that task . . . an agonizing, grueling one that, at the end of every day, would see the other woman—would see the both of them—with barely any pence to put in their apron pockets.

With the wages they earned, they’d never leave Madame Amelie’s. It was a simple fact. They’d continue on working, earning just enough coin to pay for the rent on this cottage. Rent that her brother helped them afford. The same brother whom Temperance had cared for when he was a small boy had suddenly become the one who helped her, even as he himself knew only financial hardship.

Still wholly focused on her sewing, Gwynn paused to rub at the back of her neck with one hand.

Temperance frowned.

No, they were not getting younger. Their hands would soon grow slower. Their fingers bent.

She spared a look for her palms. They’d always been coarse and rough. Certainly not a marchioness’s hands, and that’s what Dare would have them be . . . even if for a short while. She balled them to hide the harsh white padding upon parts of her palm.

Then they’d be replaced by younger seamstresses with nimbler fingers, and then where would they be?

Temperance let her hands fall.

She had long ago accepted that this was the best it would ever be. As such, there was a contentedness with her life, a willingness to accept that this was as good as she could expect . . . for her.

But there was Chance . . . and Gwynn. Her brother and her best friend, who’d fallen in love but been kept apart—not by poor decisions or endless divisions between them, but for no other reason than that they didn’t have the funds to have a life together. They deserved more.

And I can give that to them . . .

Selfishness had made her look only at how Dare’s presence complicated her life.

Her mind balked at the idea of it . . . and yet . . . She pressed her eyes shut.

When she opened them, she quit her spot near a hard-at-work Gwynn and headed for the window. And she, who’d