Tell me the truth, he willed. Trust me.
Not that she should.
“Because I was afraid your father was like mine.”
The words came like a blow, quick and in his blind spot, the kind that made a man see wild stars. Bright and painful, like truth.
She’d been sixteen, and set to marry a man three times her age. A man whose last three wives had met unfortunate fates. A man who counted her bastard of a father among his closest friends.
A man whose son was an inveterate womanizer, even at eighteen.
“I would never have let him hurt you,” he said. She turned at that, her eyes liquid.
He would have protected her from the moment he met her. He would have hated his father for having her.
“I didn’t know that,” she said softly, the words filled with regret.
She’d been terrified. But more than that, she’d been strong.
She’d chosen a life in the unknown over a life with a man who might well have been her father’s second.
Temple had been collateral damage.
She was frozen, all long limbs and grace, poised at the edge of the ballroom, staring at the doors, leading into blackness, and the metaphor was not lost on him. It was another time. Another threat. Another moment that had revealed too much of Mara Lowe. And she was no longer afraid of the darkness beyond.
She had lived twelve years in the darkness.
Just as he had.
Christ. It did not matter how they had come to be here. How different their paths had been.
They were the same.
He reached for her, her name soft on his lips, not knowing what came next. Not knowing what he would say or do. Knowing only that he wanted to touch her. His fingers slid over her silk-clad wrist even as she pulled away from him, already in smooth, graceful motion.
Already heading to the doors.
He let her go.
I t was bitterly cold, and she wished she’d thought to fetch her cloak before escaping the stifling ballroom, but she couldn’t very well head back inside.
She wrapped her arms tight across her chest, telling herself she’d been colder and worse off. It was true. She was comfortable with cold. She understood it. Was able to combat it.
What she could not combat was his warmth.
I would never have let him hurt you .
She took a deep breath and hurried down the steps from the stone colonnade to the dark gardens of Leighton House, disappearing into the landscape, thanking Heaven for the shadows. Leaning back against a large oak, she stared up at the stars, wondering how she had come to be here, in this place, in this dress, with this man.
A man against whom fate had pitted her.
With whom she was intertwined.
Forever.
Tears threatened as she heaved great, cloudy breaths in the fading light from the ballroom, as she wondered what would come next. She wished he would go ahead and unmask her and be done with it, so she could hate him and blame him and get on with her life.
So she could get on without him.
How had he become so very vital to her in so short a time? How had he changed so much? How had he come to say such things to her, to be so kind and gentle when they’d started their recent acquaintance with his vowing to destroy her? How had she come to trust him?
How did he remain the only person she would betray?
As if summoned by the traitorous thought, her brother stepped from the blackness. “This is fortuitous.”
Mara took a step back, away from him. “How did you know I was here?”
“I followed you from the orphanage. I saw him fetch you,” Kit said, eyes wild, face unshaven. “You make a handsome couple.”
“We are no such thing.”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “What if you’d been betrothed to him instead? Then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
The question stung. What if.
If she had a shilling for every time the words had floated through her head, she’d be the richest woman in London.
The words didn’t help. All they did was fill one’s head with empty dreams.
But still, the words echoed. What if.
What if she’d married him, that handsome young marquess with the wicked smile, who kissed her as though she were the only woman in the world? What if they’d married, and built a life together, with children and pets and kisses trailed down her arm and silly private jests that proved they belonged to one another?
What if they’d loved?
Love.
She turned it around in her mind, considering its curves and angles.
Even now, she didn’t understand it as others did. As she had dreamed of it when she was a child. As she’d mourned it during that wicked month leading up to her wedding, when she’d cried into her pillow and bemoaned the lack of love between her and her ancient fiancé.
But now . . . now, she loved. And it was hard. And it was painful.
And she wished it would go away.
She wished it would stop tempting her with ideas of a different life. Imagining another life was all danger—the fastest way to pain and anguish and disappointment. She lived in reality. Never in dreams.
And still, the thought of that boy twelve years ago . . . of the man now . . .
Of the life they might have had . . . if everything had been different.
“Did you receive my letter?”
She nodded, hot guilt spreading through her. Kit was here. Temple, mere feet away. Even speaking to her brother felt like betrayal of the man who had come to mean so much.
“You understand why I need your help,” Kit said, coming closer, tone all kindness, devoid of the anger no doubt simmering. “I have to leave London. If those bastards find me . . .”
But they weren’t bastards. They were the most loyal men she’d ever met. And Temple—he had the right to be so angry. She’d stolen his life all those years ago, and Kit had nearly taken it from him again.
“Mara,” Kit said, an echo of her father. “I did it for you.”
She hated him then, the younger brother whom she had loved so much. Hated him for his impulsiveness and his recklessness and his stupidity. Hated him for his anger. His coldness. The choices he’d made that impacted them both. That had made her life this elaborate, unbearable mess.
“Don’t you see that he’s done this to you?” Kit said, the words smooth as silk. “The Killer Duke. He’s turned you into his whore, and he’s turned you against me.”
She might have accepted those words as fact at the beginning of all this, but now she knew better.
Somewhere, while he’d taught the boys of MacIntyre’s that vengeance was not always the answer, and protected Lavender from certain death, and saved Mara from attackers, he’d made her love him.
And in that, he’d set her free.
“You think I don’t see it? The way you think of him?” Kit came toward her, disgust in his words. “I see the way you look at him. The way he owns you, the way he manipulates you like a puppet on a string. You don’t care that he took everything from me.”
She didn’t. She cared only that Temple was avenged. That he finally, finally had the life for which he was destined—that perfect wife, those perfect children, the perfect world he’d deserved from birth, and that she’d stolen from him.
The only thing she had to give him.
Tears stung. “Go away, Christopher.” She chose the name purposefully, for he was no longer a child. And she would no longer be blamed by him. “If you are caught, they will punish you.”
“And you won’t stop them.”