Mara shook her head. “But I do! London does! He’ll never return to his rightful place as Duke of Lamont if he’s saddled with the woman who is responsible for all the black marks around the edges of his reputation.”

“Reputation,” West scoffed.

Her eyes went wide. “You make your living on it.”

He grinned. “All that means is that I understand precisely how arbitrary it all is.”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

“I think you have been away from Society for too long,” he said. “You forget that dukes—with or without scandalous wives—are forgiven everything as quickly as possible. They are, after all, the only people who can beget dukes. The aristocracy needs them, lest civilization crumble around us.”

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps Temple could weather the storm of scandal that would no doubt come with her reveal to all of London.

But would he ever be able to forget what it was she had done to him?

She shook her head. “Do you have everything you require from me, Mr. West?”

Duncan West knew the end of a conversation when he reached one. “I do.”

“And you shan’t tell him I was here?”

“Not until after the story runs.”

“Which will be?”

He consulted his calendar. “Three days.”

Her chest constricted at the words. Three days to leave London. To get as far and fast and secret as she could. Three days to give him his freedom. And then, she would have to start forgetting him.

For both their sakes.

She left West’s offices, careful to pull her cloak tightly around her and bring her hood low over her face before exiting to the street, where a cold, wet mist settled over London—the worst of English winter weather. She was instantly freezing, wishing for warmer boots. For a warmer cloak. For a warmer clime.

For Temple, who was always warm. Like a fireplace.

She longed for him. Ached for him.

She walked for a half mile, maybe more, before she realized that a carriage was following her, nearly at her shoulder, moving at her pace—fast when she sped up, slow when she slowed down. She stopped, turning to the great black conveyance, devoid of crests or any identifying marks.

It stopped, too.

The outrider leapt down from the back and opened the door, lowering the steps before he offered her a hand to help her inside. She shook her head. “I’m not going in there.”

The young man looked confused, until a fall of violet silk peeped out at the doorway. “Do hurry, Miss Lowe,” called a familiar female voice from inside, and Mara could not help but move closer. “The heat is all going out of the carriage.”

Mara poked her head into the doorway.

Anna—the woman she’d befriended at the Angel—was inside. Mara’s eyes went wide. “You!”

Anna smiled. “Me, indeed. I shan’t hurt you, but I would prefer a warm conversation over a cool one.”

Mara hesitated. “You are not here to return me to Temple.”

The other woman shook her head. “Not unless you decide you would like to be returned to him.”

“I shan’t decide that.”

“That’s that, then.” She wrapped her cloak about her and shivered, obviously. “Now please, come in and close the door.”

She did, the warming bricks on the floor of the coach too welcome to ignore. Anna tapped the roof of the carriage, and the great black conveyance began to trundle down the street.

“How did you know where to find me?” Mara started with the most obvious question first.

The other woman’s lips curved in a lovely smile. “I didn’t. But Temple did.”

“You followed him.”

“He may know you better, but I know women better.” She paused, “Also, I doubt any woman would pass up a chance to spend the morning with Duncan West.”

Mara shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Anna rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Any woman who is not madly in love with Temple.”

“I’m not—” she started, but stopped before the protest could fully form. She was, after all, madly in love with Temple.

“I know you are,” Anna said. “Which is why I am here.” Mara’s brow furrowed, and Anna waved a hand broadly. “Someone has got to set you straight. We thought Temple would do it himself, but he seems too all-consumed to think intelligently.”

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.”

Chapter 20

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.