so very different.”
“You and I?” She laughed.
Wryness curved his lips up. “It is a certainty that there’s no compliment there.”
Temperance stopped beside a narrow white oak and faced him. “We have always been different. That was always the problem.”
Dare rested his palm along the trunk, just above her head. “Ah, but I’d argue that it was always that we are the same, and that was the source of the impasse we found ourselves at.”
She laughed again. “You are mad.” Temperance made to step around him, but he dropped his other palm, framing her and blocking her retreat.
“Am I? You were always responsible for Chance.”
“That is not the same,” she protested.
“Whose well-being and interests you always placed before your own. Did you not intervene on his behalf at every moment?” Her features tightened. Dare pressed his point. “All your rations went to him, all your funds went to seeing he had an apprenticeship.”
“He is my brother.”
“Very well.” Dare winged a brow up. “Then what of Miss Armitage?”
Those endearing little creases in the middle of her high brow grew as she looked over to where Gwynn stood at the shore, tossing rocks. “What of her?”
“Her hopes for marrying Chance?”
“I don’t know what you are saying,” she muttered.
“I know. That is my point.”
At his knowing stare, Temperance frowned and ducked under his arm. She hurried after Kinsley, Gwynn, and Rose.
“You’ve sacrificed for their dream.” He quickened his pace, falling into step beside her. “I’ve not heard you mention anything about what you want or need for yourself.”
“I’m sure I did.”
“Other than seeing your brother cared for.”
She wrinkled her nose, that hint from long ago of her annoyance. “What else is there to say?”
Dare slid into her path once more.
Temperance stopped on a huff. Planting her hands on her hips, she gave him an exasperated look. “What now?”
“What are your dreams?”
“To see my brother happy,” she said without missing a beat. As if the matter were at an end, she fished a cleverly cut piece of fabric from the little satchel swinging on her arm. She proceeded to drag the needles through the material, her skill so flawless she didn’t even need to look as she walked and sewed.
He suppressed a smile. “That hardly counts.”
“Of course it does,” Temperance insisted, another one of those enchanting blushes on her cheeks. Her fingers flew, drawing the thread back and forth through the very edge of the material.
Dare caught her lightly by the forearm, forcing her to stop.
She stared up at him.
“How was your coming to London to be with me, despite your vow not to, any different from my looking after people in society?”
“Because . . . because . . .” She continued to flounder.
“It isn’t my intention to question your sacrifice—”
“Good,” she said between clenched teeth. “Then do not.”
If she were another, he might be deterred. But this was Temperance, whose happiness had always meant more to him than even his own. As such, he went on. “However, I would have you realize that, even as you call me out for devoting my life to helping people in the Rookeries, you have done the same in your life, dedicating yourself to Chance and Gwynn.”
“It’s not at all the same, Dare.”
“Isn’t it, Temperance?” He leveled a stare on her. “Isn’t it?”
Her mouth moved several times.
“Temperance!” From the edge of the shore, Kinsley waved her over.
“You know I’m right, Temperance,” he called after her as she hurried off to join the trio on the blanket.
And as he made his way over to that gathering, he was forced to confront the possibility that she, too, had been right about him. What she raised . . . was entirely foreign. An idea he’d never allowed himself—the idea of having a family.
And watching as Temperance lowered herself onto the blanket and Rose pitched herself onto Temperance’s lap, for the first time he wondered what it would be to have a future . . . for himself.
Stretched out on the blanket with Kinsley reading several paces away, Temperance let her needle fly over the small child’s blanket she’d begun for Rose. All the while, she periodically stole furtive peeks over at Dare as he played with Rose. The little girl alternated between pitching pebbles at the water and tossing one at Dare.
The girl’s aim was terrible, her throw weak, but every time she hurled her tiny missile, Dare would falter and stagger about, as if she’d landed the mightiest blow.
He was, in short, everything she’d known he would be with a