Sarah MacLean - No Good Duke Goes Unpunished

Mara waited, quite desperate for whatever words might come out of this woman’s mouth. She didn’t know what she was expecting, honestly, but she did know that she was not expecting her to say, “You didn’t ruin Temple’s life.”

She was growing tired of having a collection of strangers tell her that she was wrong. “I suppose you are an expert in the subject of ruin?”

Anna’s lips twitched. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

“You weren’t there.”

“I was not. Not when you blooded the bed and left him holding the responsibility for your death. Not when his father exiled him and the rest of the aristocracy shunned him.

“Nor was I there when he spent his first night under Temple Bar, or when he began leading with his fists or when he and Bourne concocted their idiot plan to run dice games among the worst of London.”

Mara went cold at the words, hating that this woman knew so much of Temple’s past. But Anna seemed not to mind, instead pushing forward. “But I was there when they started the Angel. When he started the life he has now, as the winningest fighter Britain has ever seen. I was there when he won his first bout in the ring at the Angel. And I was there as his coffers and his standing and his respect throughout London grew.”

“It isn’t respect,” Mara corrected, the words sharp on her tongue. “It’s fear. And undeserved fear. They think him the Killer Duke, because I made him so.”

Anna smiled. “I think it’s charming that you think he’s never done a damn thing in his life that earned that moniker.”

Mara’s brow furrowed. “Nothing like what he’s thought to have done.”

Ana lifted a shoulder in a little shrug. “Either way. It’s respect. And fear. And one without t’other isn’t worth the ink it takes to write either one alone.” She paused, the carriage rocking beneath them, the cold drizzle turned to sleet on the window outside. “And either way, Temple likes it.”

Perhaps it was true.

“He’s money and friends and a club that any man would kill for. And he’s got the half of London that matters—the one that judges a man on work and not blood—on his side. And he likes it all.”

Was she right, this strange, mysterious woman? Did he enjoy this life he led? Or did he regret every moment that he did not have the life she’d stolen from him?

“The only thing it’s missing is you.” She stilled at the words, and Anna saw it. Pressed on. “Come back to the Angel. Ask him yourself.” She leaned forward. “Come back, and let him show you how much he loves you.”

The words ached, the offer so very tempting. She did not wish to run. “I owe it to him to leave. I owe it to him to give him back everything I took. To wipe the slate clean.”

“Even if you are right, even if such a thing were possible,” the other woman said, “don’t you also owe him a chance at happiness?”

He’d called her the woman he loved.

And he was the man she loved.

Was that all that was required for happiness?

God in Heaven, if she thought she might be able to make him happy, she would race into his arms. She met Anna’s gaze in the dim light. “Sometimes love is not enough.”

Anna nodded. “God knows that is true. But in this case, you don’t only have love, do you?”

It was hard to imagine they had even that. After a decade of hatred and lies and scandal. Longer. But they shared strength. And a past bigger than themselves.

Anna placed a gloved hand over Mara’s, clasped together in her lap. “You once told me you did not have friends.”

Mara shook her head. “I don’t. Not really.”

“You have him.”

The words summoned tears once more. She knocked on the roof of the carriage as she had seen the woman do earlier. As if on strings, it slowed to a stop, and the footman came to open the door and lower the step. Mara stepped down, promising herself she would not turn back.

Even when Anna called out, “Do consider what I’ve said, Miss Lowe. You are welcome at the club any time.”

The floor of the Fallen Angel was packed with gamers. During Temple’s recovery, in the absence of a fight on which to bet, club members were perfectly content to throw their money away on dice and cards. When wagering was involved, The Angel was more than happy to accommodate desire, and all of the staff—from footmen and croupiers to companions and cooks—was on hand to help do so.

Temple made his way through the owners’ entrance of the club, Lavender at the crook of his arm, pushing his way onto the main floor of the hell, gaze sliding over the throngs of men clad in their perfectly tailored suits, all in danger of losing their fortunes to the casino, and all enjoying every second of it.

On any other night, he would have enjoyed the view. Would have found Cross and asked him about the evening’s take. Would have played a round or two of vingt-et-un himself.

But tonight, he prowled the edge of the room, silent, frustrated.

Furious that now the rest of the aristocracy seemed to accept him, tipping heads and patting his shoulder in acknowledgment.

He was one of them, again, as though the last twelve years had never happened.

But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered as long as he couldn’t find her .

He ached from a day on horseback in the rain, from his futile search for her, a beautiful needle in the filth-ridden haystack of London in December. He’d gone to the orphanage, and to West, and to the orphanage again. He’d checked the post, paid a fortune to the postmaster for information on his human cargo for the day, worried that she might have left the city already.

An eloping couple and two gentlemen had left on the North Road, headed for Scotland. But, even though apparently the female half of the elopers was quite attractive, the postmaster assured him that she was not auburn-haired, and her eyes were perfectly ordinary.

She was not Mara.

He should have been happy she was still here. But, instead, he was furious that she had so easily disappeared. There was no sign of her. It was as though she had vanished like smoke. If he didn’t know better, he might think she’d never been there in the first place.

Except she’d left her gloves. And her pig.

And a hole in his chest. His lips twisted wryly as his wound throbbed at the thought. Two holes, he supposed—one healing, and one life-threatening.

He rolled his bad shoulder under his coat, the pain from the wound radiating down his arm and stopping at the elbow. He worked his fingers in his sling. Nothing. Exhaustion did little to help the damage to the feeling there, he knew, but he could not rest. Not before he found her.

If he was crippled when it was over, so be it.

At least he’d have her.

Frustration flared at the thought. Where in the hell was she?

He looked up to the ceiling, his gaze falling on the great stained-glass window that marked the center of the main room of The Fallen Angel. Lucifer, falling from Heaven. In a stunning array of stained glass, the Prince of Darkness was depicted in free fall, halfway between paradise and inferno, a chain about his ankle, his scepter in one hand, and his wings wide and useless behind him as he tumbled into the pit of the casino.

Temple had never thought much about the window, except to appreciate its message to the members of the club—while the aristocracy might have banished him, Bourne, Cross, and Chase, the scoundrels who owned London’s most legendary gaming hell, would reign more fearful, more powerful, than ever before because of it.

Chase had a flare for the dramatic.

But now, as he considered the great stained glass, as he watched Lucifer fall, he realized how massive he was. How strong. Somehow, the window maker had captured the rise and fall of muscle and sinew in the mottled panes of glass. And Lucifer’s strength was useless in this moment. He could not catch himself. Could not stop himself from landing wherever it was that God had cast him.