No Good Duke Goes Unpunished

Chapter 17

“You appear to have lost your coat.”

Temple emptied his third glass of champagne, trading it for a full one from a passing footman’s tray, and ignored his unwelcome companion. Instead, he watched the throngs of revelers spinning and swirling across the ballroom floor, their excitement having risen to a fever pitch as wine flowed and time marched.

“You also seem to have lost your companion,” Chase added.

Temple drank again. “I know you are not here.”

“I’m afraid I am not a hallucination.”

“I told you to stay out of my affairs.”

Chase’s eyes went wide behind a black domino identical to Temple’s. “I was invited.”

“That’s never stopped you from avoiding events like this before. What the hell are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t very well miss your crowning moment.”

Temple turned away, returning his gaze to the room at large. “If you’re seen with me, people will ask questions.”

Chase shrugged one shoulder. “We are masked. And aside from that, in mere minutes, you shan’t be such a scandal. Tonight is the night, is it not? The return of the Duke of Lamont?”

It was supposed to have been. But somehow everything had gone sour, and he’d found himself in the gardens, staring down at the woman upon whom he’d placed twelve years of anger . . . no longer having the stomach for retribution.

If only that were all.

If only he hadn’t stared down at that woman and seen someone else entirely. Someone he cared for far too much. So much that he didn’t seem to mind that she’d sent her brother into the darkness, free.

All he minded was that she’d left as well.

Because he wanted her back.

He wanted her. Full stop.

Christ.

“I told you to leave me alone.”

“How very dramatic,” Chase said, the words dripping with sarcasm. “You cannot avoid me forever, you know.”

“I can try.”

“Would it help if I apologized?”

Surprise flared. Apologies from Chase were uncommon. “Do you plan to?”

“I’m not fond of the idea of it, I’ll tell you.”

“I don’t particularly care.”

Chase sighed. “All right. I apologize.”

“For what, precisely?”

Chase’s lips went flat. “Now you’re being an ass.”

“I find it is best to fight fire with fire.”

“I should have told you she was in London.”

“You’re damn right you should have. If I’d known—” He stopped. If he’d known, he would have fetched her.

He would have found her. Earlier.

It might have been different.

How?

“If I’d known, this mess might have been avoided.”

“If you’d known, this mess might have been worse.”

He cut Chase a look. “I thought you were apologizing.”

Chase grinned. “I am still learning the ins and outs of it.” The smile faded. “What of the girl?”

He imagined Mara was halfway returned to the orphanage, desperate to claim her freedom. Worse, he imagined he’d not have a reason to see her again. Which should not grate nearly as much as it did. “I let her go.”

There was no surprise in Chase’s gaze. “I see. West will be sorry, no doubt.”

Temple had forgotten the newspaperman. He’d forgotten everything once she’d looked up at him with her beautiful blue-green eyes and confessed the fear that had set this entire play in motion. “No one deserves the humiliation I had planned.”

Especially not Mara.

Not at his hands.

“So. The Killer Duke remains.”

He’d lived under the mantle of the name for twelve years. He’d proven himself stronger and more powerful than the rest of London. He’d built a fortune to rival that of the dukedom that he would not touch. And perhaps, now that he knew that she was alive, that he was not a killer, the name would sting less.

She was alive.

She should have come to him that night and told him the truth. He would have helped her. He would have kept her safe.

He would have taken her as his own.

The thought wracked him, along with the images that came with it. Mara in his arms, Mara in his bed, Mara at his table. A row of children with auburn hair and blue-green eyes. Hers.

Theirs.

Christ.

He thrust his good hand through his hair, trying to erase the wild thought. The impossible thought. He met Chase’s eyes. “The Killer Duke remains.”

With a barely-there nod, Chase’s gaze flickered over Temple’s shoulder, drawn by something across the ballroom. “Or does he?”

The words sent a thread of uncertainty through Temple, and he turned to follow his friend’s gaze.

She hadn’t left.

She stood at the far end of the ballroom, at the top of the stairs that led down into the revelers, his coat dangling from her fingers, tall and beautiful in that stunning concoction of a dress, several fat curls having escaped from her coif, now long and lovely against her pale skin. He wanted to lift those curls in his hand, run his lips across them.

But first—

He took a step toward her. “What in hell is she doing here?”

Chase stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Wait. She’s magnificent.”

She was that. She was more.

She was his.

Temple turned back. “What have you done?”

“I swear, this is not my doing. This is all the girl.” Chase’s attention returned to Mara, a surprised smile flashing. “I wish it were my doing, honestly. She’s going to change everything.”

“I don’t want her changing anything.”

“I don’t think you can stop her.”

The orchestra’s music came to a close, and Temple’s gaze flew to the enormous clock on one side of the ballroom. It was midnight. The Duchess of Leighton was making her way up the steps toward Mara, no doubt to lead the revelers in their raucous unmasking. Mara met her halfway, whispering in the duchess’s ear, giving her pause.

The Duchess of Leighton pulled back in surprise, and asked a question. Mara replied, and the duchess asked another, all seriousness and shock. And all of London watched the exchange. Finally, the hostess nodded, satisfied, and turned to face the crowd, a smile on her lips.

And Temple knew it was happening.

“She might just be the strongest woman I’ve ever known,” Chase said, all admiration.

“I told her I didn’t want her doing it. I told her I wasn’t going to do it,” Temple said, angry. Amazed.

“It seems that she does not listen well.”

Temple didn’t reply. He was too busy pulling off his own mask, already pushing through the crowd, knowing he was too far from her.

Knowing he couldn’t stop her.

“My lords and ladies!” The duchess was calling out to the world below as she took her husband’s hand, and began the proceedings. “As you know, I am a great fan of scandal!”

The room laughed, thrilled by the mysterious events, and Temple kept moving, desperate to get to Mara. To stop her from doing something reckless.

“To that end,” the duchess continued, “I’ve been assured there will be a truly scandalous announcement tonight! Before we unmask . . .” She paused, no doubt adoring the excitement, and waved a hand to Mara. “I present . . . a guest whose identity even I did not know!”

Temple attempted to increase his pace, but all of London seemed to be in the room with them, and no one wanted to give up a spot so close to promised scandal. He lifted a woman out of the way with his good arm, ignoring her squeak of surprise.

Her companion turned to him, all bluster, but Temple was already moving forward, whispers of The Killer Duke trailing behind him.

Good. Maybe people would get out of the goddamn way.

Mara came forward and spoke, her voice clear and strong. “For too long, I have hidden from you. For too long, I have allowed you to think that I was gone. For too long, I have allowed you to place blame on the innocent.”

The clock began to chime midnight, and Temple began moving faster.

Don’t do it, he willed her. Don’t do this to yourself.

“For too long, I have allowed you to believe that William Harrow, the Duke of Lamont, was a killer.”

He stopped at the words, at the sound of his name and title on her lips, at the gasps and shock rolling through the crowd as though they were thunder.

And still, the clock chimed.

She lifted her hands to the mask, untying the ribbons. Finishing her announcement. “But you see, he is no killer. For I am very much alive.”

He couldn’t reach her.

She removed the mask, and sank into a deep curtsy at the feet of the Duchess of Leighton. “My lady, forgive me for not introducing myself. I am Mara Lowe, daughter of Marcus Lowe. Sister to Christopher Lowe. Thought dead for twelve years.”

Why would she do it?

She met his gaze through the crowd. Saw him.

Did she not always see him?

“Not dead. Never dead,” she said, sadness in her gaze. “Indeed, the villain of the play.”

The last bell of midnight echoed in the silence that followed the announcement, and then, as though they’d been set free, the crowd moved, exploding into excitement and scandal and madness.

She turned and ran, and he couldn’t reach her.

Gossip and speculation exploded around him. He heard it in snippets and scraps.

“She ruined him—”

“—how dare she!”

“Using one of us!”

“Ruining one of us!”

This was it . . . what he’d thought he wanted for her. What he’d wished for in the dead of night on the street outside his home all those nights ago. Before he’d realized that her ruination was the last thing he wanted. Before he’d realized he wanted her. He loved her.

“That poor man—”

“I always said he was too aristocratic to have done any such thing—”

“Aye, and too handsome as well—”

“And the girl!”

“The devil herself.”

“She’ll never be able to show her face again.”

She’d ruined herself. For him.

Only now, once he had it, once he heard the loathing in their voices, he hated it. And he hated them. And he had half a mind to battle the entire room.

He’d battle all of Britain for her if he had to.

A hand came down on his shoulder. “Your Grace—” He turned to face a man he did not know, all good breeding and aristocratic bearing. Hating the title on his lips. “I’ve always said you didn’t do it. Join us for a game?” He indicated a group of men around him, and nodded toward the card rooms off the ballroom.

This was it . . . the goal for which he’d wished.

Acceptance.

Absolution.

As she’d promised.

As though none of it had ever happened.

Killer Duke no more.

But she wasn’t there. And it was all wrong.

He turned away from his title. From his past. From the only thing he’d ever wanted.

And he went after the only thing he’d ever needed.

She should have left immediately.

He was trapped in the ballroom with all of London hoping to reconcile, and she could have outrun him. She had meant to. But she couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again.

And so she stood in the shadows outside his town house in Temple Bar, blending into the darkness, promising herself that she would only look. That she wouldn’t approach him.

That she’d leave him. Redeemed.

She’d given him everything she could.

She’d loved him.

And that, plus one short glimpse of him in the night, on gleaming cobblestones, would be enough.

Except it wasn’t.

His carriage clattered down the street at breakneck speed, and he leapt from inside before it came to a stop, calling up instructions to the driver. “Get to the Angel. Tell them what’s happened. And find her.”

The carriage was off before he’d entered the house, and she held her breath in the darkness, promising herself that she wouldn’t speak. Drinking him in—the height and breadth of him. The way his hair fell in disheveled waves on his brow. The way his whole body hovered on the edge of movement as he extracted his key and opened the door.

But he did not enter; instead, he stilled.

And turned to face her, peering into the shadows.

He couldn’t see her. She knew it. And still, he seemed to know she was there. He stepped into the street. “Come out.”

She could not deny him. Refused to. She stepped into the light.

He exhaled, her name a white whisper in the cold. “Mara.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to come. I shouldn’t have.”

He came toward her again. “Why did you do it?”

To give you your life. Everything you wanted.

She hated the words even though they were the truth. She hated that they represented something she was not. Perfection.

So she settled on: “It was time.”

He was in front of her then, tall and broad and beautiful. And she closed her eyes as he raised his good hand to her face and stroked his fingers across her cheek.

“Come inside,” he whispered.

The invitation was too tempting to deny.

Once the door was closed behind them and she was at the foot of the staircase, he spoke again. “The last time you were here, you drugged me.”

A lifetime ago. When she thought she could make a stupid arrangement with no repercussions. When she thought she could spend weeks with him without coming to know him. To care for him. “The last time I was here, you scared me.”

He started up the stairs to the library where she’d left him unconscious. “Are you scared now?”

Yes.

“As I am without my laudanum, I don’t think it’s relevant.”

He stopped. Turned back to look down at her. “It’s relevant.”

“Do you wish for me to be scared?”

“No.”

The word was so firm, so honest, that she couldn’t help herself. She followed him up the stairs, as if on a string. He did not stop at the library, instead climbing the next set of stairs, up into the darkness. She hesitated at their foot, struck by the keen sense that if she followed him, anything could happen.

And then struck by the keen realization that she didn’t care.

Or, rather, that she might want it to happen.

How had this man consumed her so quickly? How had she gone from thinking of him as the enemy to thinking of him as something infinitely more terrifying in mere weeks?

How had she come to love him?

She could not stop herself. She followed him up to darkness. Up to the unknown. At the top of the stairs, he lit a candle and moved to a large mahogany door.

She really should speak.

“I think it best if I speak to your newspaperman,” she started up again. “Tell him the entire story—as was our agreement—and then leave you in peace, your perceived sins absolved. In fact,” she babbled, “I should really leave you now. I don’t belong here.”

He grasped the handle and turned to face her, the golden light of the candle flickering over his handsome face. “You’re not going anywhere until we speak.” He opened the door and let her enter before him.

She came up short just inside the room. “This is a bedchamber.”

He set the candle down. “Indeed it is.”

And what a chamber it was, utterly masculine with its heavy oak and its dark wall coverings and books everywhere—piled on tabletops and in one of the chairs by the fireplace, and stacks around the posters of the bed—

The massive bed.

“This is your bedchamber.” She stated the obvious.

“Yes.”

Of course he had a massive bed. He needed to fit in it. But this one rivaled the Bed of Ware.

She couldn’t take her eyes from it, from its great wooden posts and the web of slats that made up the utterly masculine headboard in beautifully wrought oak, and the lush coverlet that promised Heaven even as it was no doubt woven in Hell.

“We are to speak here?” The words came out on a squeak.

“We are.”

She could do this. She’d been on her own for twelve years. She’d faced far more terrifying moments than this one. But she wasn’t certain that she’d ever faced any moment more tempting.

She turned to him. “Why here?”

He was approaching, having left the candle on a nearby table, and his face was deep in shadow. Her heart began to race in her chest, and perhaps she should have been afraid. But she wasn’t. There was no threat in the movement. Only promise.

“Because once we have spoken, I’m going to make love to you.”

The frank, honest words tore the ground from beneath her, and her racing heart began to thunder, so loud in her ears that she was certain he could hear it. “You are?” she asked.

He nodded once. All seriousness. “I am.”

Good Lord. How was a woman to think, knowing that?

He continued. “And then I am going to marry you.”

Her hearing was failing her.

“You can’t.”

It wasn’t possible. She was ruined. And he was a duke.

Dukes did not marry ruined scandals.

“I can.”

She shook her head. “Why?”

“Because I wish to,” he said, simply, moving to light the fire. “And because I think you wish to as well.”

He was mad.

She watched him crouch low in the glow of the flames, silhouetted in orange light. Prometheus, stolen to Olympus to thieve fire from the gods. He was magnificent.

He stood and slipped his wounded arm from its sling before taking the large, empty chair by the fire, removing the black slash of fabric that kept his wounded arm in place before extending his good arm toward her. “Come here.” The words should have sounded like a command, but were a request.

She could have refused.

But she found she did not wish to.

She approached, heading for the chair piled high with books, prepared to move them and make space for herself, but he caught her hand in his. “Not there. Here.”

He meant for her to share his chair. To share his lap.

“I couldn’t—” she said.

White teeth flashing in the firelight. “I shan’t tell.”

She desperately wanted to join him, but she knew better. She knew that if she were in his lap, touching him, she’d never resist him. She hesitated, desperate for clear thought. “I thought you were angry with me.”

“I am. Quite. Very, even.”

“Why? I did as you wished. I returned your name.”

He watched her for a long moment, those black eyes seeing everything. “Mara,” he said softly, turning her palm to him, running his fingers over the silk there, sending heat shooting through her as though she were wearing nothing at all. As though they were skin to skin. “What if we did not wear the mantle of our past? What if we weren’t the Killer Duke and Mara Lowe?”

“Don’t call yourself that,” she snapped.

He tugged her closer. “I suppose I can’t anymore. You’ve ruined my reputation.”

She stilled. “I thought you wanted it ruined.”

He tugged again, spreading his thighs, pulling her between them. Staring up at her with that serious black gaze that seemed to promise everything she’d ever wanted if only she’d give in to him. “I thought I did, too.”

Confusion flared. “But you didn’t?”

He captured her in his good arm, pulling her close, pressing his face into her skirts, his hands stroking down her legs, leaving heat and confusion in their wake. She could not stop herself from threading her fingers through his hair, hating that the gloves kept her from feeling its softness. From touching him.

He rocked his face against the soft swell of her, and whispered, “You gave up too much.”

She shook her head. “I righted a wrong. You were innocent.”

He laughed into the silk of her dress, the sound coming on a warm breath that sent a shiver of pleasure through her. “I am not innocent. The things I’ve done . . .”

“The things you’ve done are because of what I did to you,” she said, loving the feel of his hands on her, of his face against her. Of him.

“No,” he said. “Enough of that lie. I’ve told it enough for both of us. The things I’ve done are mine to bear. They are who I am. Who I was.” He looked up at her. “I was no prize to begin with.”

It wasn’t true, of course. “Nonsense. You were—”

“I was an entitled, arrogant ass. That night we met. The first time?”

She thought of him then, fresh-faced, with a quick smile. “Yes?”

“I followed you to your bedchamber. I assure you, it didn’t occur to me that we might forge a love for the ages.”

She smiled. “I assure you, Your Grace, I was not thinking such things, either.”

“Was I rude to you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

He did not meet her gaze, instead asking her torso, “Would you tell me if I were?”

Her hands slid down his cheeks, tilting his face up to hers. “It occurs to me that few men would concern themselves with such things,” she said, unable to keep the surprise from her tone. “Few men would care, considering that the night in question left you unconscious and thought responsible for a murder you did not commit. A murder that did not occur.”

He was quiet for a moment, thinking on what she’d said, and she resisted the urge to prompt him into speech. Finally, he said, “I am very happy that it did not occur.”

He tugged her toward him again, and she toppled into his lap. Into his arms, and she should have protested, but they both seemed to have lost their minds, and she found she did not care.

His arms came around her, and she could not help but say, “I don’t understand why you tossed out revenge.”

One of his hands slid into her hair, working at the pins that held it together. She felt the wild mass protesting its moorings as he slowly removed them. “I don’t understand why you gave it to me anyway.”

The single hand worked gloriously through her hair, massaging her scalp, sending waves of pleasure through her as her hair came down around her shoulders.

Perhaps it was the luxurious caress that made her tell the truth. “You freed me, but it wasn’t freedom.”

His touch stilled as he considered the words, then began anew when he said, “What does that mean?”

She closed her eyes. Leaned into his caress. Told a half truth. “You left me bound by my actions. By the things I’ve done to you.” She stopped, but his touch continued, drawing more words forth. “Not just twelve years ago. The night Kit met you in the ring. Tonight.” She released a long breath, hating the guilt that consumed her over what she’d done that night. She captured the hand of his wounded arm, held it tight in hers. “Tonight, I betrayed you, and you freed me.”

And I love you.

And I could give you the one thing you wanted.

She didn’t say it. Couldn’t.

Was afraid of what would come if she did.

Afraid he might laugh.

Afraid he wouldn’t.

Her eyes opened, finding his, hot and focused on her. “You think too much of me.”

“When was the last time someone thought of you, Mara?” he asked, his fingers sliding free of her scalp, tracing the rise of her cheekbones, the column of her neck, the ridge of her shoulders. “When was the last time someone cared for you? When have you ever allowed it to happen?”

He was mesmerizing. The barely-there touch on her skin, the soft skim of his breath as he spoke. She shook her head.

“When have you ever trusted someone?”

I would never have let him hurt you.

The words that had nearly destroyed her in the ballroom that evening whispered through her. The promise that even then, twelve years earlier, without knowing a thing about her, he would have protected her.

The thought devastated her with its temptation.

She shook her head. “I can’t remember.”

He sighed, pulling her close, setting his lips to her forehead and cheek, to the curve of her jaw and the line of her neck and the corner of her mouth. She turned to him, wanting to kiss him in earnest. Wanting to hide from the overwhelming thoughts he planted in her mind. Wanting to hide from him.

In him.

But he wouldn’t allow it.

“You once asked me how I came by the name Temple.”

She stilled, not certain she wanted the truth now. Not certain she could face it. “Yes.”

“It’s where I slept the night I arrived in London. After my exile.”

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. You slept in a temple?”

He shook his head. “Under one. I slept under the Temple Bar.”

She knew the monument, mere blocks away on the eastern edge of the city, marking the place where the unfortunates of London toiled and lived, and she thought of that bright-faced young man—the one who’d shown her kindness and pleasure—there, alone. Miserable. Terrified.

“Were you—” She tried to find the words to finish the question without insulting him.

His lips twisted in a humorless smile. “Whatever you are thinking . . . the answer is likely yes.”

It was a miracle he could look at her.

It was a miracle he could be near her.

She did not deserve him.

“What happened after the first night?” She asked.

“There was a second, and a third,” he said, working at the buttons of her glove with one skilled hand, doffing the garment with the same efficiency with which he’d donned it. “And then I learned to make my way.”

He slid the silk from her fingers and she immediately placed the hand on his arm, feeling the muscles there bunch and ripple beneath the touch. “You learned to fight.”

He turned his attention to the other glove. “I was big. And strong. All I had to do was forget the rules of boxing that I’d learned at school.”

She nodded. She’d forgotten every rule she’d ever learned as a child in order to survive once she’d run. “They no longer applied.”

He met her gaze as the second glove slid off. “It worked well for me. I was angry, and gentlemen’s rules did little to assuage that. I fought on the streets for two years, taking any fight with money to pay.” He paused, then smiled. “And any number of fights without money to pay.”

“How did you come to the Angel?”

His brow furrowed. “Bourne and I had been friends at school. When he lost everything that was not entailed, he found himself down on his luck, and we decided to form an alliance. He ran dice games. I made sure the losers paid.” She was surprised by the turn of events, and he saw it. “You see? Not so honorable after all.”

“What then?” she prodded, desperate to know the story.

“One night, we went too far. Pushed too hard. And backed a group of men into an unpleasant corner.”

She could imagine. “How many of them?”

He shrugged his good shoulder, his hand sliding down the side of her thigh, distracting her. “A dozen. Maybe more.”

Her attention returned to him. “Against you?”

“And Bourne.”

“Impossible.”

He smiled. “So little faith in me.”

Her brows shot up. “Am I incorrect?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Then Chase.”

The mysterious Chase. “He was there?”

“In a sense. We’d been fighting for what seemed like an age, and they kept coming—I really did think we were done for.” He pointed to the scar at the corner of his eye. “I couldn’t see out of my eye for the blood.” She winced, and he instantly stopped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“No,” she said, lifting her hand to the thin white line, tracing it with her fingers, wondering what he would do if she kissed it. “I just don’t like the idea of you hurt.”

He smiled, capturing her hand and bringing it to his lips, placing a kiss on the tips of her fingers. “But drugged?”

She met his smile with her own. “At my hands, it’s a different matter.”

“I see,” he said, and she loved the laughter in his voice. “Well . . . suffice to say, I thought we were done for. And then a carriage pulled up and a group of men piled out—and then I thought we were definitely done for,” he added. “But they fought on our side. And I didn’t care who they worked for, as long as Bourne and I lived.”

“They worked for Chase.”

Temple inclined his head. “So they did.”

“And then you worked for him.”

He shook his head. “With. Never for. From the beginning, the offer was clear. Chase had an idea for a casino that would change the face of aristocratic gaming forever. But that idea required a fighter. And a gamer. And Bourne and I were precisely that combination.”

She let out a long breath. “He saved you.”

“Undoubtedly.” He paused, lost in thought. “And never once believed me a killer.”

“Because you weren’t,” she said, this time having no choice but to lean in and press a kiss to his temple. She lingered on the caress, and he caught her close. When she pulled away from him, he moved to capture her lips.

They lingered there, tangled together for a long moment, before Mara pulled away. “I want the rest of the story. You became unbeatable.”

His bad hand flexed against her hip. “I was always good at violence.”

Her hands moved of their own volition, sliding across his wide, warm chest. He was magnificently made, she knew, the product of years of fighting. Not simply for sport, but for safety.

“It was my purpose.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”

He’d been clever and funny and kind. And ever so handsome. But he hadn’t been violent.

He captured her chin in a firm grip. “Hear me, Mara. You didn’t make me into that man. If I hadn’t had the seed of violence in me—I never would have succeeded. The Angel never would have succeeded.”

She refused to believe it. “When one is forced into a role, one assumes it. You were forced. Circumstances forced you.” She paused. “I forced you.”

“And who forced you?” he asked, threading his fingers into hers, holding her hand against his chest, where she could feel the heavy beat of his heart. “Who stole you away from the world?”

Their entire conversation had come to this. He’d recounted his story with precision and purpose, bringing her slowly around to this moment, when it was her turn. When she could tell him the truth, or tell him nothing at all.

One way, she was safe.

The other way, she was in terrible danger.

In danger of becoming his.

Temptation was a wicked, wonderful thing.

She focused on the knot of his perfect cravat. “Do you have a valet?”

“No.”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought so.”

He reached up and unknotted the neck cloth, unwrapping it until he revealed a perfect triangle of warm, brown skin, dusted with curling black hair.

He was beautiful.

It was a strange word to describe a man like him—broad and strong and perfectly made. Most would choose handsome or striking, something with heft that oozed masculinity.

But he was beautiful. All scars and sinew and, beneath it all, a softness that she couldn’t help but be drawn to.

The words came easily. “I have always been afraid. Since I was a girl. Afraid of my father, then of yours. Then of being found. Then, once I heard of my mistake—of what I did to you when I left—of not being found.” She did look at him then, meeting his beautiful black gaze. “I should have returned the moment I discovered you’d been accused of my murder. But the dice had been thrown, and I did not know how to call them back.”

He shook his head. “I run a casino. I know better than anyone that the roll is final once the ivories leave one’s hand.”

“I didn’t know what happened to you for months. I went to Yorkshire, and the news there was spotty at best. I didn’t even know the Killer Duke was you until . . .”

He nodded. “It was too late.”

“Don’t you see? It wasn’t too late. It was never too late. But I was terrified that if I returned . . .” She paused. Collected herself. “My father would have been furious. And I was still betrothed to yours. And I was afraid.”

“You were young.”

She met his understanding gaze. “I did not come back when they died, either.” It had occurred to her. She’d wanted to. She’d known that it was the right thing to do. But. “I was afraid then, too.”

“You are the least fearful person I’ve ever known,” he said.

She resisted the label. “You’re wrong. My whole life, I’ve been terrified of being controlled. Of losing myself to another. My father. Yours. Kit. You.”

His gaze caught hers. “I don’t want to control you.”

“I don’t know why,” she said.

“Because I know what it is to be controlled. And I do not wish it on you.”

“Stop,” she said softly. “Stop being so kind.”

“You would prefer harshness? Haven’t I given you enough of that?” He shifted beneath her, clasping her face in one hand. “Why did you do it, Mara? Why tonight?”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. He was asking why she’d unmasked in front of all of London. Why she’d returned, when he’d made it clear that she needn’t.

“Because I was afraid of who I would become if I didn’t.”

He nodded. “Why else?”

“Because I was afraid that if I stayed hidden, it would only be a matter of time before someone found me.”

“Why else?” he asked again.

“Because I am tired of living in the shadows. Ruined or not, tonight, I live in the light.”

He kissed her then, taking her lips in a long, lingering caress, his hands sliding down her sides, pulling her closer, leaving a trail of heat in their wake.

When he stopped the kiss, he pressed his forehead to hers and said, almost too softly to hear, “Why else?”

She closed her eyes, loving the feel of him so close to her, wishing she could live there, in his arms, forever. “Because you didn’t deserve it.”

He shook his head. “But that’s not why.”

She took a deep breath. “Because I did not wish to lose you.”

He nodded. “And what else?”

He knew. He saw the truth, yawning beneath them, a great chasm. All he asked was for her to say it aloud. To leap.

And on this, their last night together—their only night together, she leapt, her gaze on his, her body entwined with his.

“Because, somehow, in all of this . . .”

She resisted the truth, barely, knowing that if they were said, they would change everything. Would make everything more difficult. “ . . . you—your happiness—your wishes—they mean everything.”

But what she said in her mind was: I love you. I love you. I love you.

And perhaps he heard it, for he stood, and in one fluid motion, lifted her in his arms and took her to his bed.