No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (23 page)

“I did not.”

Temple searched his friend’s eyes for truth. Couldn’t find it. “You lie.”

Chase sighed and looked away. “Mrs. Margaret MacIntyre. Born and raised on the Bristol docks, married to a soldier who died tragically at Nsamankow.”

Anger turned to betrayal. “
You knew she was there and you didn’t tell me.
”

“What good was your finding her? She drugged and stabbed you.”

And then to hot, undeniable fury. “Get out.”

Chase sighed. “Temple—”

“Don’t you dare attempt to placate me.” Temple advanced, hand fisting, itching to wipe the smug expression from Chase’s face. “You have played your games with us for too long.”

Chase’s eyes flashed. “I saved your ass from a dozen men out for blood.”

Temple’s gaze narrowed. “And you’ve lorded it over me for
years
. Bourne and Cross as well. Playing guardian and confessor and fucking
mother
to every one of us. And now you think to own my vengeance? You knew her. You knew my name rested on her existence.”

A memory flashed. Chase in Temple’s rooms at the Angel all those nights ago.
There’s no proof you killed her.
Anger flared.

“You knew from the beginning. From the moment you picked me up on the street and brought me into the Angel.”

Chase did not move.

“Goddammit.
You knew.
And you never told me.
”

Chase raised both hands, attempting to calm. “Temple . . .”

But Temple did not want calm. He wanted a fight. Pain shot through his chest and sizzled down his arm as the muscles around the wound tensed. Sizzled into nothingness at the midpoint of his forearm.

The pain of the lack of feeling was not near as bad as his friend’s betrayal. “Get out,” he said, “before I do something you’ll regret.”

The words were so soft, so dangerous, that Chase knew better than to stay, turning back at the door. “What would you have done if you’d known?”

The question landed like a blow. “I would have ended it.”

Chase’s blond brow rose. “You still can.”

But Chase was wrong. There was no ending it. Not now. They were all too far down the road.

“Get out.”

Chapter 14

S
he’d prepared for battle that morning. She’d been ready to fight her imprisonment, ready to negotiate her release.

She’d spent three days locked in The Fallen Angel, given the freedom to move about the myriad of hallways and secret rooms, though always with a companion. Sometimes Asriel, the solemn, quiet guard, sometimes with the Countess of Harlow, when she arrived to check on Temple’s wound, and sometimes with beautiful Anna, who was at once filled with words and empty of them.

It was Anna who had been sent for her that afternoon, barely knocking before opening the door to Mara’s room and stepping inside, shaking out her skirts. “Temple has asked for you,” she said, simply.

Mara was shocked at the words. She hadn’t seen him since the morning he woke, sputtering tea and mistrust all over them both. She’d thought he had forgotten her.

She’d wished she could have forgotten him—the way he’d lain still and pale in the hours before that moment when he’d regained consciousness and temper. The way she’d feared for him. The way she’d willed him well.

The way she’d realized that this moment . . . this whole situation . . . had spiraled utterly out of her control.

The way she missed him.

She’d sent word to the other men—Bourne, Cross, and the mysterious Chase—that she wished to leave. That she had a position to return to at MacIntyre’s. That she had boys to care for.

A life to live.

No word had returned, until now. Until Anna arrived and stole her breath and set her heart racing with the simple words.
Temple has asked for you.

She would see him again.

She would see him now.

Excitement warred with trepidation, and she nodded, standing and smoothing her skirts. Nervous. She steeled her spine. “Like Boleyn to the chopping block.”

Anna smirked. “Queen of England, are we?”

Mara shrugged. “Something to aspire to.”

They started down the long, curved hallway, walking in silence for several long moments before Anna said, “You know, he’s not a bad man.”

Mara did not hesitate. “I have never thought he was.”

Truth.

“No one trusts him,” Anna said. “No one who isn’t very close to him. No one who doesn’t know him well enough to know that he could not have . . .”

She trailed off, but Mara finished the sentence for her. “Killed me.”

Anna cut her a look. “Just so.”

“But you knew him well enough?”

The beautiful blonde looked down at her hands. “I do.”

Mara heard the present tense. Hated it. This woman was Temple’s mistress, Mara had no doubt. And why not? She was his perfect match. Blond where he was dark, flawless where he was scarred, and so beautiful. They would make beautiful, unbearable children.

But Temple had bigger plans than to marry his mistress.

It ends with the life I was bred for.
He’d told her once.
With a wife.
A child. A legacy.

Proper ones. Perfect ones. The kind due a duke. No doubt a wife beautiful and young and able to make perfect children. Jealousy flared. She did not like the idea of such a woman bearing his children.

She did not like the idea of any woman bearing his children.

Except—

She ended the thought before it could finish. Kept the madness at bay. Protected herself.

“He is lucky to have such good friends,” she said.

Anna looked to her. “And you?”

“Me?”

“Who are your friends?”

Mara laughed, the sound lacking humor. “I have been in hiding for twelve years. Friends are a luxury I cannot afford.”

“What of your brother?”

Mara shook her head. Kit was family. Not friend. Now, he never would be. She released a long breath. “He nearly killed Temple. What kind of a friend is he?”

Anna turned away, setting her hand to a nearby door handle. Turning it. The door opened wide before she said, “You should make sure Temple understands.”

Mara did not have time to ask for clarification. Instead, she stepped into Temple’s rooms, the door closing on Anna’s cryptic statement, her gaze settling on the open door she now understood led to the ring.

She headed in that direction.

He stood at the center of the empty room, at the center of the ring itself. Strong and silent and ever so handsome, even in shirtsleeves and a white linen sling that held his arm firm against his chest. Perhaps
because
of those things. His black trousers were perfectly pressed, and Mara’s gaze followed their line to the sawdust-covered floor, where his bare feet peeped out from beneath the wool hem.

She was transfixed by those bare feet. By the strength of them. The curves and valleys of muscle and bone. The straight, perfect toes. The clean white nails.

The man even had handsome feet.

Her gaze snapped to his at the ridiculous thought, and she registered the curious smile there, wondering if he’d somehow read her mind.

She would not put it past him.

Empty of spectators, the room was cold, and Mara wrapped her arms about herself as she approached him, a foot above her and somehow so much farther. He watched her, making her keenly aware of each step, of the way she looked to him. She itched to smooth her hair. Her skirts. Resisted the temptation.

She reached the ring and faced him, looking down at her, expression guarded, as though he wasn’t sure what she would do. What came next.

She wasn’t sure, either.

But she knew he would wait an eternity for her to speak, so she spoke. “I am sorry.”

It was not the first time she had thought the words, but it was the first time she’d said them aloud. To him.

Dark brows lifted in surprise. “For?”

She reached out, taking one of the coarse ropes in her hand. “For all of it.” She looked up at him, his black eyes seeing everything but revealing nothing. “For my brother’s actions.” She paused. Took a breath. Confessed her sins. “For mine.”

He came to her then, reaching down and helping her through the ropes with one rough, callused hand, warm and strong against hers. Once she was inside the ring, he stepped back, and she mourned the loss of him.

“Do you regret it?” He’d asked her the same question a lifetime ago, on the night she’d approached him outside his town house.

“I regret that you were caught in the fray.” Her answer was the same, and somehow different. Somehow more true. She did not regret her escape. But she deeply regretted his part in her stupid, thoughtless play. “And I regret what my brother did more than you can ever know.” She paused. He waited. “Yes,” she told the truth. “I regret it. I regret your pain. I regret the way I took your life. Toyed with it. I would take it back if I could.”

He leaned back against the ropes on the far side of the ring. “Then you did not know his plan?”

Her eyes went wide with the shock of the question. “No!” How could he think she would—

How couldn’t he think it?

She shook her head. “I would not hurt you.”

His lips tilted in a half smile at that. “I called you a whore. You were quite angry.”

The words stung, even now. She did not look away. “I was, indeed. But I was handing the situation.”

He chuckled at that, the sound warm and welcoming. “So you were.”

He was quiet for a long moment, until she could not help but look at him again. He was watching her, those dark eyes somehow seeing everything. Perhaps it was because of those eyes that she said, “I am happy you are recovered, Your Grace.”

The truth.

Or perhaps a terrible lie. Because
happy
did not begin to describe the flood of emotions that coursed through her as she watched him, restored to his power and might. To his strength and health.

Relief. Gratitude.

Elation.

She released a long breath, and he came off the ropes, approaching her, sending a thrill of anticipation through her. He reached for her, and she did not hesitate, leaning into the touch, to the stroke of his thumb high on her cheek. She lifted her hand, holding him there, skin against skin against skin, and whispered, “You are alive.”

Something flashed in his gaze. “As are you.”

For the first time in a dozen years, she felt so. This man made her feel it, somehow. This man, who should have been her enemy. Who likely remained her enemy. Who no doubt wanted her destroyed for all the things she’d done. All the sins she’d committed.

And who, somehow, saw her for all she was.

“I thought you would die.”

He smiled. “You wouldn’t have it. I did not dare disappoint.”

She tried to match his smile. Failed. Instead, thinking of another patient. Another death.

He saw it on her face. Had to have. “Tell me.”

And suddenly, she wanted him to know.

“I couldn’t save her,” she whispered.

He didn’t move. “Who?”

“My mother.”

His brow furrowed. “Your mother died when you were a child.”

“I was twelve.”

“A child,” he repeated.

She looked down between him, at her silly silk slippers, peeping out from beneath her plain borrowed frock, toes nearly touching his bare ones.

So close.

“I was old enough to know that she was going to die.”

“She contracted a fever,” he said, and she heard the consolation in his words.
You couldn’t have known. There was nothing to be done.
A dozen people had said the words to her. A hundred.

They’d all believed the same story.

Except she hadn’t had a fever.

Or, rather, she had . . . but not the way her father told the story. It hadn’t come with sickness. It had come with infection. With a wound that would not heal.

And she had been in terrible pain.

Temple’s hand moved, lifting her chin, raising her gaze to his. All warmth and strength, huge and rough. And honest.

She looked up at him, into those eyes, dark as midnight and with its focus. “He killed her,” she whispered.

“Who killed her?”

“My father.” Even now, years later, it was hard to label him as such. Hard to think of him that way.

Temple shook his head, and she knew what he was thinking. It was impossible. A husband did not kill a wife.

“He did not like it when Kit and I went against his wishes, and she did all she could to protect us. That day . . .” she hesitated, not wanting to say more but unable to stop herself. Lost in the memory. “He’d purchased a new bust. From Greece or Rome or Persia—I cannot remember.

“Kit and I were running through the house, and I tripped on my skirts.” She laughed without humor, lost in the memory. “I had just been allowed to wear long skirts. I was so proud of myself. So grown up. I tumbled into the statue, which was perched atop a table on the upper landing of the house,” she said, and Temple inhaled sharply, as though he could see what was coming. What she had been unable to see as a child.

She shrugged. “It toppled over the banister. Fell two stories to the floor of the entryway.”

She could see it now, the way it lay broken and unrecognizable what seemed like a mile below. “He was furious. Came charging up the stairs, met me on the landing.”

“You didn’t run?”

The words surprised her from the memory. “Running would have made it worse.”

“The beating.”

“I could have taken it. It was not the first time he punished us. Nor would it be the last.” She hesitated. “But my mother decided she’d had enough.”

“What did she do?”

“She went at him. With a knife.”

He sucked in a long breath. “Christ.”

Mara had played the scene over again and again, nearly every day since it happened. Her beautiful mother, an avenging queen, placing herself between her children and their father.

Refusing to let him at them.

“He laughed at her,” Mara said, hating the softness in the words. Hating the way they made her sound like the child she had been. She swallowed. Met his gaze again. “He was too strong for her.”

“He turned the knife on her.”

Another wound, blossoming with blood. This time, unlucky. “The doctors came, but there was nothing to be done. She was dead the moment he struck the blow. It was only a matter of time.”

“Christ,” he said again, this time reaching for her, pulling her tight against his broad, strong chest. Speaking into her hair. “And you had to live with him.”

Until he offered me to another man, and I had no choice but to run.

She kept those words to herself, in part because she did not wish to remind him that he disliked her. That she was the reason his life had taken such a turn. She liked the comfort and strength of him too well.

A lie of omission.

She pressed her face into the warm smoothness of him, inhaling the scent of him, thyme and clove, letting herself have this moment, however fleeting, before she was faced once more with the world. And she said the words she’d never uttered. “If I hadn’t broken that statue . . .”

His hand came to her chin then, long blunt fingers lifting her face to the light. To his gaze. “Mara,” he said, the name still foreign to her ears after a decade without it. “It is not your sin.”

She knew it, even if she did not believe it. “I paid for it, nonetheless.” One corner of his mouth twitched in the threat of a smile, and she read the irony there. “Paying debts that do not belong to you. You would know a great deal about that.”

“Not as much as you would think,” he said, his thumb sliding like hot silk across her cheek, back and forth, the stroke at once calming and unsettling.

He watched the movement, and she took the opportunity to study him, his broken nose, the scar beneath one eye, the other that had split his lower lip. For a long moment, she forgot their conversation, her thoughts lost in that steady promise of his touch.

When he spoke, she saw the words curving on his lips. “I thought it was my debt.”

He did not meet her gaze, not even when she whispered his name—that name that he’d taken when he’d become a new man, forged from exile and doubt.

“I thought I killed you,” he said, simply. As though he were discussing something thoroughly inconsequential. The morning paper. The weather. He cleared his throat, and his hand fell away from her cheek. “I did not, however.”