“This is a child. Her name is Rose.”
Her Grace’s mouth moved several times before a word emerged. “Rose?”
Kinsley nodded. “Like the flower,” she volunteered helpfully.
The duchess’s eyes narrowed.
As if sensing she was the subject of discussion, Rose waved her brush wildly about, sending paint splashing. The duchess gasped as red paint hit her square in the chest, turning the sapphire satin a dark shade of purple.
Oh, hell.
Kinsley’s eyes widened.
“Forgive me, Your Grace. She is just a child,” Temperance gently reminded.
“You’ve already said as much,” the duchess snapped. “I do not need you to tell me she is a child. I can see that. I want to know who her parents are.” Fear and horror wreathed that demand.
And then it hit Temperance . . . The duchess believed that Temperance and Dare’s union had resulted in a child. And the irony, the painful, soul-destroying irony, was that it had. “She is not ours,” Temperance said, her voice threadbare.
The duchess’s eyes slid closed, and a breathy prayer spilled from her lips.
Dare’s grandparents had not accepted the union as a real one. They were right to their suspicions of her marriage to Dare, and yet that did little to ease the annoyance and outrage that brewed within. Those sentiments felt vastly safer than the agony of before.
From somewhere in the hall came a noisy rush of footsteps and the murmurings of servants.
The duchess frowned. “Whatever is going on?” she muttered, and stalking to the front of the room, she looked out. Perplexed, Temperance peered around the duchess’s shoulder. What . . . ?
Four servants balanced an armoire between them and ambled slowly toward the end of the hall.
“What are they . . . doing?” Kinsley asked, completing the very question in Temperance’s mind. Dare’s sister eyed the flurry of bustling servants. “Whyever would they be moving furniture?”
Temperance’s stomach sank. No. Oh, damn it. Please, please, do not have—
The duchess shook her head. “I-I . . . do not . . . know.”
And by the shock and horror in the duchess’s tone, being out of the know was not a state the older woman preferred to find herself in.
From belowstairs, Dare’s voice came, slightly distant but clear as he called out commands. “That one . . .”
She gritted her teeth, focusing on her fury and not the disappointment that Dare remained unchanged.
But she already knew. She knew before Kinsley had any inclination of what she’d find. “Lady Kinsley, if I might suggest—”
Ignoring Temperance, Lady Kinsley collected her skirts and bolted.
Gwynn appeared at the door. “What is it?”
“See to Rose,” Temperance ordered. She took off after her sister-in-law, ignoring the duchess’s commands that they stop.
At the top of the stairs, Kinsley tripped on her hem, but she caught herself against the railing. “Kinsley, please don’t,” Temperance implored. But the woman would not be stopped.
And mayhap she shouldn’t have tried to protect her . . . from the truth.
They reached the foyer and found him down the intersecting corridor. With his back to them, Dare stood in the middle of the hall, directing various servants between two opposite rooms. Engrossed as he was, he fired off orders to several young women. All servants who studiously avoided Kinsley’s gaze.
Lady Kinsley stopped so quickly beside one of the open doorways that Temperance ran into her. And the young lady stood, flummoxed, her mouth open and no words coming out.
Temperance caught sight of her brother first: sheepish. Cheeks red. “Temperance,” he greeted weakly.
Dare turned.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. Temperance caught his gaze and shook her head, equal parts angry and frustrated. Though she knew. He’d never kept anything. And he should sell it now, after the outing they’d had with Kinsley at Hyde Park? For what purpose? This was a new level of unforgivable.
Just then, another person stepped out of the Opal Parlor, where she’d had her first disastrous meeting with Dare’s family . . . and it all made sense.
“If I might suggest you retain this,” someone was saying.
Her gaze landed on the familiar man she’d not seen in years. One she’d been so very glad to have never seen again. Only to find her hate for him as strong and violent as it had ever been. “You,” she spat.
“At least until we find . . . Oh.” Avery Bryant took in the addition of Temperance and Lady Kinsley, and he stopped. “Temperance Grey,” he called over cheerfully. In his arms, he held an ivory marble bust. “Or, I’ve heard it is ‘my lady’ now?”
“It is nothing,”