Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,92
child.
And perhaps that is why you shut the door on him that day.
Because ultimately, she’d known she could never be a true wife to him. She’d reconciled not telling him by reminding herself that he’d not wanted a real marriage. Yes, he’d loved her, but he’d devoted himself fully to the Rookeries in every way he couldn’t to her.
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.
They weren’t the same. And yet those silent protestations felt weak, even to her own mind. For she had given entirely of herself to care for Chance. It was a sacrifice that she would make any and every day, again and again, if she had to.
Wasn’t it?
Why must he do that? Why must he take the one thing she’d thought had made sense and throw a thousand questions behind it about what she wanted? About what her dreams truly were. About what she truly yearned for in life.
“I’m worried about you.”
She froze in her efforts. It had been inevitable.
The talk with Gwynn was overdue. Temperance had managed to put off the discussion, but with Dare and Kinsley now occupied, there was no escaping.
“You needn’t worry,” she assured her, continuing to study her sewing. Liar. Returning to London and living with Dare had proven even harder than she’d ever anticipated. She’d simply deluded herself into thinking she might somehow be unaffected by him all these years later.
At the protracted silence, she made herself look up. Gwynn stared knowingly at her. “Don’t I? You kissed him the other night when I came upon you in the nursery.”
“I didn’t kiss him.” She nearly had . . . and had made love to him after. Heat flared in Temperance’s cheeks.
Gwynn stared at her with all the knowing in the world, one that called Temperance out as the liar she was.
Her patience snapped. “Need I remind you . . . You were the one who suggested I consider it,” she whispered furiously. “You were the one who encouraged me to consider it.”
“Consider offering him the help he needed. Not . . . spend the time that you do together.”
Temperance jabbed her needle through the fabric. “Did you really think that was how this was going to work? That I would be thrust into the role of companion to his sister, accompanying him to events . . . and that I wouldn’t be with him?”
It was her friend’s turn to color. “I didn’t expect—”
Temperance didn’t allow her that response. “What? That it would be hard for me? That I wouldn’t be able to fully separate the feelings I had for him?” The minute she said it, Temperance wanted to call the words back.
Her friend stared back with a heart-struck expression. “It is because of me.”
“Nothing is because of you,” Temperance said quickly.
Gwynn, however, wasn’t hearing it. “Oh, God.” The other woman touched a hand to her lips. “You did it so that Chance and I might have a way to be together.”
How was your coming to London to be with me, despite your vow not to, any different from my looking after people in society?
And mayhap in that, Dare had been so spot-on accurate. They . . . weren’t different. Oh, in how they went about looking after those individuals they cared about, they were . . . but not in that inherent need to support the ones who were reliant upon them.
Temperance weighed her response . . . and in the end opted to protect Gwynn still with only a partial truth. “I did it for all of us.”
“And for that gift, I’ll see you left with a broken heart,” Gwynn said with a bitter tinge to her voice.
Temperance shivered.
No. She wouldn’t have her heart broken again. She couldn’t . . . That organ had already been completely destroyed by him, long before this. It couldn’t hurt any more than what she’d lost . . .
Their babe.
Gwynn shoved a little elbow into her side, and as one they glanced over to where Kinsley openly watched them. The young lady sailed to her feet and then started for them.
Her friend stood. “I’ll leave you to her.” Gwynn walked off, but not before she shot Temperance a look that was both warning and knowing.
Abandoning her efforts on Rose’s blanket, Temperance rested her sewing on her lap and watched Dare and the babe at play.