Sarah MacLean - No Good Duke Goes Unpunished

Chase cut him a disbelieving look. “Asriel has never lost a thing in his life.” When Temple did not reply, the founder of The Fallen Angel leaned in. “Christ. Don’t tell me you’re after her.”

“I am not.” Temple stood, water sloshing over the edge of the bathtub to form great pools on the floor.

He wasn’t.

He couldn’t be.

Chase threw him a linen towel from nearby and tossed another into one of the puddles. “She robbed you of your life—metaphorically, then nearly literally. And now you’re intrigued by the chit.”

Temple dried haphazardly, unable to use his bad arm. “She remembers everything about that night. I remember nothing.”

“What’s to remember? She drugged you, fled, and left you holding the debt for a murder you did not commit.”

There was more. The whys. The hows.

The repercussions. The boy with his hair and her eyes.

He wrapped the towel around his hips, and pushed past Chase, returning to his chamber. “She will tell me everything about that night, and she will prove my innocence to the rest of the world. That’s why I’m—as you say—intrigued by her. That’s why I worry that Asriel will lose her.”

But that’s not all of it.

He ignored the thought that should have sounded like Chase but instead sounded like himself. He was not intrigued by her. Not by her strength and her will and her fearlessness. Not by her long neck or her full lips, either. There were thousands of women in London more beautiful and more biddable.

He was not intrigued by Miss Mara Lowe.

Intrigued seemed a tame description of how he felt about her. Drawn. Tempted.

He was consumed by her.

Chase was silent for a long moment, watching as Temple dressed, sliding into trousers, then a white lawn shirt, and the sling that had been designed for his injured arm.

He did it all with one arm. Perhaps Chase wouldn’t notice.

Chase noticed everything. “How does it feel?”

It doesn’t.

“I could still fell you.”

A golden brow rose. “Big words.” Chase headed for the door, one hand on the handle before a thought occurred. “I nearly forgot. We’ve been watching the orphanage since Lowe attacked you.”

Temple was not surprised—Lowe had no money and no allies now that he’d crossed the Angel. He could not show his face anywhere in London without threat. He only had his sister.

Anger threaded through Temple at the thought. “And?”

“He sent her a message. We intercepted it.”

Idiot boy. “What did it say?”

Chase smirked. “What do you think? He needs money.”

Memories flashed: Mara’s second-in-command hinting that the orphanage could use a charitable donation; the threadbare skirts she wore when she did not expect him; her bare hands, red with cold.

“She doesn’t have what he needs.”

“She doesn’t have anything at all.”

“Did we take the note?”

“No. We read it and let it pass.”

They had set her up to help her brother. To betray Temple.

Again.

“I want to speak with her.”

I want to see her.

I want her.

Chase was quiet for a long moment, then said, “Send her back to MacIntyre’s, Temple. Asriel will have a half-dozen men watching the place ’round the clock.”

Temple’s gaze shot to Chase. “MacIntyre’s.”

Chase hesitated. Chase never hesitated.

Temple pounced. “MacIntyre’s. You are not the type to care about the name of some half-house filled with aristocratic by-blows.”

“Not typically, no, but are you surprised I know of it? Of course I know where our members send their bastards.”

It was information Chase had to know. Information that kept the Angel in power. It was information Temple could not stop himself from wanting. Christ, did he want to shout the question from the rafters.

Is one of the boys mine?

Is one of them hers?

Ours?

He settled on: “Did you know she was there?”

“I did not.”

Temple searched his friend’s eyes for truth. Couldn’t find it. “You lie.”

Chase sighed and looked away. “Mrs. Margaret MacIntyre. Born and raised on the Bristol docks, married to a soldier who died tragically at Nsamankow.”

Anger turned to betrayal. “You knew she was there and you didn’t tell me.”

“What good was your finding her? She drugged and stabbed you.”

And then to hot, undeniable fury. “Get out.”

Chase sighed. “Temple—”

“Don’t you dare attempt to placate me.” Temple advanced, hand fisting, itching to wipe the smug expression from Chase’s face. “You have played your games with us for too long.”

Chase’s eyes flashed. “I saved your ass from a dozen men out for blood.”

Temple’s gaze narrowed. “And you’ve lorded it over me for years. Bourne and Cross as well. Playing guardian and confessor and fucking mother to every one of us. And now you think to own my vengeance? You knew her. You knew my name rested on her existence.”

A memory flashed. Chase in Temple’s rooms at the Angel all those nights ago. There’s no proof you killed her. Anger flared.

“You knew from the beginning. From the moment you picked me up on the street and brought me into the Angel.”

Chase did not move.

“Goddammit. You knew. And you never told me.”

Chase raised both hands, attempting to calm. “Temple . . .”

But Temple did not want calm. He wanted a fight. Pain shot through his chest and sizzled down his arm as the muscles around the wound tensed. Sizzled into nothingness at the midpoint of his forearm.

The pain of the lack of feeling was not near as bad as his friend’s betrayal. “Get out,” he said, “before I do something you’ll regret.”

The words were so soft, so dangerous, that Chase knew better than to stay, turning back at the door. “What would you have done if you’d known?”

The question landed like a blow. “I would have ended it.”

Chase’s blond brow rose. “You still can.”

But Chase was wrong. There was no ending it. Not now. They were all too far down the road.

“Get out.”

She’d prepared for battle that morning. She’d been ready to fight her imprisonment, ready to negotiate her release.

She’d spent three days locked in The Fallen Angel, given the freedom to move about the myriad of hallways and secret rooms, though always with a companion. Sometimes Asriel, the solemn, quiet guard, sometimes with the Countess of Harlow, when she arrived to check on Temple’s wound, and sometimes with beautiful Anna, who was at once filled with words and empty of them.

It was Anna who had been sent for her that afternoon, barely knocking before opening the door to Mara’s room and stepping inside, shaking out her skirts. “Temple has asked for you,” she said, simply.

Mara was shocked at the words. She hadn’t seen him since the morning he woke, sputtering tea and mistrust all over them both. She’d thought he had forgotten her.

She’d wished she could have forgotten him—the way he’d lain still and pale in the hours before that moment when he’d regained consciousness and temper. The way she’d feared for him. The way she’d willed him well.

The way she’d realized that this moment . . . this whole situation . . . had spiraled utterly out of her control.

The way she missed him.

She’d sent word to the other men—Bourne, Cross, and the mysterious Chase—that she wished to leave. That she had a position to return to at MacIntyre’s. That she had boys to care for.

A life to live.

No word had returned, until now. Until Anna arrived and stole her breath and set her heart racing with the simple words. Temple has asked for you.

She would see him again.

She would see him now.

Excitement warred with trepidation, and she nodded, standing and smoothing her skirts. Nervous. She steeled her spine. “Like Boleyn to the chopping block.”

Anna smirked. “Queen of England, are we?”

Mara shrugged. “Something to aspire to.”

They started down the long, curved hallway, walking in silence for several long moments before Anna said, “You know, he’s not a bad man.”

Mara did not hesitate. “I have never thought he was.”

Truth.

“No one trusts him,” Anna said. “No one who isn’t very close to him. No one who doesn’t know him well enough to know that he could not have . . .”

She trailed off, but Mara finished the sentence for her. “Killed me.”

Anna cut her a look. “Just so.”

“But you knew him well enough?”

The beautiful blonde looked down at her hands. “I do.”

Mara heard the present tense. Hated it. This woman was Temple’s mistress, Mara had no doubt. And why not? She was his perfect match. Blond where he was dark, flawless where he was scarred, and so beautiful. They would make beautiful, unbearable children.

But Temple had bigger plans than to marry his mistress.

It ends with the life I was bred for. He’d told her once. With a wife. A child. A legacy.

Proper ones. Perfect ones. The kind due a duke. No doubt a wife beautiful and young and able to make perfect children. Jealousy flared. She did not like the idea of such a woman bearing his children.

She did not like the idea of any woman bearing his children.

Except—

She ended the thought before it could finish. Kept the madness at bay. Protected herself.