No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (Page 54)

“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.”