He was too perfect. Too right. And she was all wrong.
She would only ruin him again. Only destroy everything he ever wanted. She had to leave him. She had to leave before she was too tempted to stay.
And so she told one final lie. The most important one she’d ever tell.
“I will.”
He slept then, and once his breathing was deep and even, she told the truth.
“I love you.”
Chapter 19
H e woke at peace, for the first time in twelve years, already reaching for Mara, eager to pull her into his arms and make love to her properly. Eager to show her all the ways it was right for them to marry. Eager to show her all the ways he would make her happy. All the ways he would love her.
And he would love her, as strange and ethereal as the word seemed, as much as he’d never thought it would have place in his life. He would love her.
He would start today.
Except she was not in the bed. He came up with a handful of empty sheets, too cool to have been left recently.
Dammit. She’d run.
He out of bed within seconds, already pulling on the trousers she’d stripped from him the night before, doing his best to block the memory from his mind. Not wanting his reason or judgment clouded by the things she made him feel. Passion. Pleasure. Sheer, unadulterated frustration.
He was dressed and down the stairs within seconds, out to the mews to saddle his horse and in front of No. 9 Cursitor Street within thirty minutes. He took the stairs to the orphanage three at a time and was inside before most people could knock. It was a good thing the door was unlocked, or he might have torn it down himself.
Lydia was crossing the foyer when he entered, stopping her mid-stride. He did not hesitate. There was no time for pleasantries. “Where is she?”
The woman had learned from a master. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace, where is who?”
He had gone more than thirty years without throttling a female, and he was not about to start now. But he was not above using his size to intimidate. “Miss Baker, I am in no mood for games.”
Lydia took a deep breath. “She is not here.”
At his core, he knew it was true, but he did not wish to believe it. So instead of continuing their useless conversation, he went to her office and opened the door, hoping to find her there, behind her desk, auburn hair pulled back in a tight knot.
But she was not.
The desk was pristine, as though it had been placed perfectly for the London stage, and not for any useful purpose.
He turned. Met Lydia’s eyes, sad and full of truth. “Her chamber. Take me to it.”
She considered refusing. He saw it in her. But something changed her mind, and instead, she turned to climb the stairs, up two flights and down a long hallway until she stopped in front of an oak door, firmly shut. He did not wait for her permission, opening it. Entering.
It smelled like lemons.
Lemons, and Mara.
The little room was neat and clean, just as he would have expected. There was a small wardrobe, too small to hold anything more than the bare necessities, and a little table on which sat a half-burned candle and a stack of books. He moved to look at them. Novels. Well-worn and well-loved.
And there was a tiny bed, one she no doubt hung off of when she slept, the only part of the room that was imperfect, because it was currently covered in emerald silk. The dress she’d worn the night before, when she’d revealed herself to the world, and next to it, the matching ermine cloak, and in a little, neat stack, the gloves he’d given her.
She was out in the world, and she did not have any gloves.
He lifted them from the bed, bringing them to his nose, hating the slide of silk, wishing it were her skin. Her heat.
He turned to face Lydia. “Where is she?”
There was sadness in her eyes. “Gone.”
No.
He was losing his patience. “Where?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. She did not say.”
“When will she be back?”
She looked to the floor and he heard the answer before she spoke it. “Never.”
He wanted to scream. He wanted to rail against idiot women and cruel fate. But instead he said, “Why?”
Lydia returned her gaze to him. “For us.”
What utter nonsense. The words were nearly spoken aloud when Lydia continued.
“Thinks we are all better off without her.”
“The boys need her. You need her. This place needs her.”
Lydia smiled, small and sad. “You misunderstand. She thinks you are better off without her as well.”
“She’s wrong.” He was better with her. Infinitely so.
“I agree. But she believes no aristocrat will leave his children with someone with a past as dark as Mara’s. No donors will give charitably to an orphanage run by a liar. And no duke will ever return to Society with a scandal like her hanging over him.”
“Fuck Society.”
The crass words should have shocked Lydia, but instead, she grinned. “Hear, hear.”
“How did you meet her?” Temple asked, not knowing where the question came from, but desperate to know more about this woman whom he loved so much.
Christ. He should have told her he loved her. Maybe then she would have stayed.
Lydia smiled. “That’s a bit of a story.”
“Tell me.”
“There is a house in the North Country. A place that is safe for women who are looking to change their fate. Daughters and sisters. Wives. Prostitutes. At this house, women get a second chance.”
Temple nodded. It was not unheard of for such a place to exist. Women were not always as valued as they should be. He thought of Mara’s mother, stabbed by her husband. Of her, beaten and forced into a marriage with a man three times her age.
He would have protected her.
Except, he wouldn’t have been able to. Not once she was married. Not once he was returned to school.
And he’d have always hated his father for marrying the woman of his dreams.
Lydia was still speaking. “Mara was there for several years before she was offered the chance to return to London to open MacIntyre’s. I had been there for a year. Maybe less. But she spoke of this place as something more than a simple home for boys. I think it meant more to her. I think it meant everything.” She met Temple’s gaze. “I think she was trying to make up for the punishment she’d given one aristocratic son by helping two dozen others.”
Of course she had. The truth of the words threatened to destroy him.
And those boys were the most important thing in her life.
When he retrieved her, he’d buy them an estate in the country, with horses and toys and enormous grounds on which to run and grow. He’d give every one of them the chance at life she dreamed.
But first, he would give that chance to her. “I asked her to marry me.”
Lydia’s eyes went wide. “Well.”
Indeed.
“I offered to make her my duchess, to give her everything she ever wanted. And she ran.” He ran his fingers over the gloves. “She didn’t even take the damn gloves.”
“She didn’t take anything.”
He turned to face her. “What do you mean?”
“She said she couldn’t take anything more from you. She left everything. She wouldn’t take the clothes, or the cloak.”
He stilled, remembering the way she tore up the note he’d offered her. The funds she’d earned during their idiot arrangement. “She has no money.”