Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,49
dumbstruck. And all at once, the meaning and the implications of that family struck . . . particularly that gloriously elegant, flawless English beauty’s presence. She’d been . . . his betrothed. “She was . . .” And even knowing it as she did, Temperance needed to say it anyway. To give life to the truth. “She was your intended?”
Dare took another drink from his snifter, this time more measured. He nodded. “Apparently. It was a childhood betrothal.”
“I . . . see.” And knowing all these years there had been another woman meant for him, one who was his social equal, who fit with every expectation of beauty, and who was flawless . . . in every way that Temperance wasn’t—in ways that Temperance was broken—suddenly, she had the overwhelming urge to just cry. About everything.
“The duke, however, failed to mention anything about a betrothal. The only statement he made pertained to my being married.” He cleared his throat. “Which I am.” Dare held her gaze. “We are.”
As if she’d needed clarification about that great mistake. The thin thread of her patience and self-control frayed and broke. “And at no time did you think to mention anything about me?” she asked, her voice slightly pitched. “You didn’t find any moment in which to say, ‘I have a wife, oh, and she also happens to have been born in the Rookeries to a drunk and a washerwoman’?” As if a duke or duchess could ever be prepared to learn their beloved, long-lost grandson had gone and wed himself a street thug’s daughter? Another panicky giggle climbed up her throat.
“They didn’t need to know that,” he said tightly.
“Why?” she shot back, propping her hands on her hips. “Because you are ashamed of who I am?”
“Of course not.” Exasperation laced his denial. “I’ve never been ashamed of you, Temperance Swift.”
She angled her chin up. “Haven’t you? You, who always go out of your way to remind me what I’m not. At least I’ve accepted my origins for what they are.”
Closing the remaining distance, he strode over. “Have you? You’re the one who finds any occasion in which to mention Abaddon.”
She choked. “I do not.”
“Or is it simply that you wish to remind yourself of your past because you don’t want to let yourself imagine any different future for yourself?”
Outrage drew a gasp from her. “How dare—” The doors were drawn open, drowning out the remainder of that charge.
And the urge to flee filled her again as the duke and duchess swept inside. Not just any duke and duchess, either. Dare’s grandparents. The pair’s earlier display of emotion may as well have been imagined. For as they entered, linked arm in arm, they may as well have been a lord and lady out on a social call.
The like tension in their wrinkled features and pale complexions proved the only indication that they were not as in control as they portrayed.
A servant waiting in the hall closed the arched double panels so that Temperance was alone with the powerful pair. Although that wasn’t altogether true. There was Dare.
And yet where there’d always been comfort in his presence, for the first time in all the years she’d known him, that sense of security was no longer there.
Now there were lies and half-truths and questions.
So many questions.
“Darius.” The duchess was the first to speak, as a duchess would. Holding her spare arm aloft, she swept forward with her husband in tow. “I believe proper introductions are in order.”
“And explanations,” His Grace said brusquely, hammering the bottom of his cane upon the bloodred carpet, garish and wholly at odds in the otherwise ivory-and-pale-white-adorned parlor.
The duchess quelled him with a look. “That will come later.”
Temperance took control. “Your Grace,” she murmured, sinking into a curtsy the king would have no cause to fault. “My name is Temperance Swift.” The woman’s brows came together. “Grey,” Temperance corrected.
“Greyson,” Dare substituted.
Her gaze flew to his. What . . . ?
“Perhaps we might all sit,” the duchess recommended in a tone none would ever dare confuse with a suggestion.
All of Temperance’s muscles tensed as she took the indicated seat, the one last occupied by the guests who’d run off. Dare’s betrothed. Shoving back thoughts of the earlier, wholly composed beauty, Temperance focused on the austere couple settled across from her.
“Now,” the duchess began, “come the explanations.”
“I’d hardly call what came before proper introductions,” Dare drawled. “Only what would I know? A thief scheduled to hang in the Rookeries wouldn’t know about proper introductions.”