Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,98

Hyde Park, they’d taken the curricle to Gunter’s for ices, and having since retired to the nursery to explore with the painting supplies, the little girl’s life had already proven so much fuller than all of Temperance’s childhood in the Rookeries. How she hated that the little girl would soon leave, and then what would the child’s life be? Drudgery. Hardship. That was all that awaited her and those like her.

“I never thought of him as a person. I didn’t think of him as someone on the streets who’d helped others. Or who might play with babes on a shore. Fathers don’t do that, you know,” Kinsley tacked on. Her eyes grew sad. “At least mine didn’t.”

“My father didn’t, either,” Temperance confided. Any day he’d not been beating her had been a gift. “My father struck me and . . . often.” She’d never spoken about the beatings she’d suffered at her father’s hand. Of course, nearly every person in the Rookeries had known about the abuse Abaddon Swift’s family had faced . . . but she’d not really spoken of it. Only with Dare. “He preferred an open hand. He liked the sound, he would say.”

Get ’ere, gel, and take your beating . . .

“I came to learn the sound of his footfalls so that I could avoid him when he was coming. I’d sneak away and hide, and when I did, I would dream of a different life. Yours, even,” she said quietly, absently stroking the top of Rose’s head. “I never imagined there could be small girls amongst the nobility also wishing for something different for themselves.” And yet even through the darkest, worst moments . . . other than escape, what had she ever really wished for? She’d not known . . . anything. The opportunities and dreams available to people of her lot were limited.

Kinsley’s eyes flew to hers. “Oh.” Her voice came weak. Dare’s sister fluttered a hand about her heart. “I’m sorry. I—”

“Please, don’t.” Temperance waved off that apology. “I only shared so that you might know you aren’t alone in your regret of wishing that you could have had a family different from the one you had.”

“My father, however, would never have struck me,” Kinsley whispered. “How small I must seem to you, complaining about my life.”

“Your pain is your pain,” she said. Rose brandished her brush. Taking it from the child, Temperance dipped it into a little jar of red paint and then tapped the excess onto the edge. She handed the brush over, guiding the girl’s fingers around the handle. “My experience and my pain don’t make yours any less significant. It is yours, and you should feel exactly how you feel.”

“I do see why my brother married you,” Kinsley murmured.

Temperance’s heart seized. The other girl couldn’t even begin to imagine the perfunctory, businesslike start to their union. Then . . . and now.

An arrangement that had been destined for failure.

Footfalls echoed outside the door, and they looked as one to the front of the room.

A servant drew the door open. “Her Grace, the Duchess of Pemberly.”

The old woman swept inside, her gaze taking in first her granddaughter, then Temperance . . . and then Rose. Reaching for one of the chains about her neck, she lifted the monocle to her right eye and peered intently at the little girl spattering paint upon the canvas. “Whatever is this?”

Kinsley hopped up. “She—”

The duchess thumped her cane, commanding her granddaughter to silence. “I’d read reports in the papers but brushed them off as mere gossip.” She handed her cane off to the maid waiting there. She passed her gloves on to the servant. Reclaiming her cane, she marched forward. “Is this your daughter?” the duchess demanded, the hard strike of her cane penetrating the thin carpet covering the floor.

“I don’t have a daughter, Grandmother,” Kinsley piped in.

The duchess, however, quelled the younger woman with a look.

Kinsley dropped her gaze to the floor.

Temperance appreciated her sister-in-law’s attempt at levity. How different she was from the young woman who’d stormed from her bedroom the night Lionel and Rose had been discovered. And how Temperance hoped that when she left, Kinsley would remain one who was able to see a child from the Rookeries as a child, her life meaningful and valuable despite what the ton would have the world believe.

“Well,” the duchess began again. “What is . . . this?” She motioned to Rose.

Fighting to rein in her temper, Temperance spoke in even tones.