If not for her, he would be far less angry.
And much less hurt.
This bed had been made years ago. Far be it from him to resist lying in it.
She had lied to him. Again and again.
And when she’d finally told him the truth, she’d stolen his last ounce of hope. The last promise of the life he’d desired in the darkest parts of his soul. The beautiful wife. The strong, happy child. The family. The name.
The legacy.
She’d stolen it, as though it had never been his to begin with.
Anger flared, hot and welcome, and Temple met Duncan West’s gaze. “She deserves it.”
West turned back to the table, and took his shot. Sank the ball. Straightened and lifted his glass, toasting Temple. “If that is true, I shall happily assist you,” he said. “I shall see you at Leighton’s ball.” He drank deep before he tossed Temple the cue and made his way to the door. Once there, he turned back. “What of Chase?”
Temple hadn’t spoken to his partner since their falling out several evenings earlier. “What of him?”
“Where is he tonight?”
“Busy,” Bourne said, the reply in no way welcoming further discussion.
West pretended not to notice the irritation in Bourne’s tone. “No doubt. But when is he going to realize that I’m friend enough to keep his secrets?”
Cross raised a brow. “When your livelihood isn’t dependent on the telling of them.”
West grinned and downed his scotch before making for the door. “Fair enough. I’m for vingt-et-un.” He nodded to Temple. “Tomorrow?”
Temple inclined his head in West’s direction. “Tomorrow.”
“And my questions will be answered?”
“That, and more,” Temple promised.
West nodded and was gone within seconds, the tables on the floor of the casino an irresistible pull. His agreement should have enhanced Temple’s excitement. Should have made him feel vindicated.
Instead, they left a knot of something not altogether pleasant in his gut. Something he was neither interested in nor capable of defining.
He turned back to his friends, each watching him carefully.
“Once he reveals her, her reputation is gone. And he puts the orphanage at risk,” Bourne pointed out.
“No one likes the idea of an orphanage run by a scandal,” Cross explained, as though Temple didn’t understand.
He understood. And he did not like the unpleasant sensation that coursed through him at the words. At the suggestion that his plan was a danger to a houseful of innocent children.
At the way Bourne so easily dismissed Mara as a scandal.
He didn’t like which of those things grated the most.
“If he has access to orphanage files, he’ll discover within minutes who the boys are,” Bourne said. “He’ll out the fathers.”
“The girl won’t be able to survive it. She’ll never be able to show her face in London again,” Cross added. “If she’s not run out by the men who’ve sent their boys there, she’ll be destroyed by the women of the ton. And she’ll blame you. Are you prepared for that? To lose her? Entirely?”
Temple narrowed his gaze on Bourne. “Why would I care about losing her? Good riddance.”
The lie grated, even as he refused to acknowledge it as such. His friends knew better than to press the issue.
“West is a friend,” Cross added. “But he is also a newspaperman. And a good one.”
“I realize that,” Temple said.
He wasn’t a monster. Once she was ruined, he would protect the boys. He would build them a palace outside the city. He’d fill the damn thing with sweets and hounds.
And pigs.
He imagined her, holding that damn piglet, a smile on her pretty lips, and felt a pang of something close to guilt.
Damn.
He flexed the hand of his wounded arm, hating its stiffness.
“I’ll keep West from the orphanage,” he vowed. “He’s a decent man. He won’t do anything to harm two dozen children.”
Cross’s gaze fell to his hand, still opening and closing in careful rhythm. “How does it feel?”
“Eager to get me back in the ring, are you?” Temple joked, not feeling entirely humorous.
Cross did not smile. “Eager to get you back. Full stop.”
Temple looked down at the forearm of his ruined side, turning it over, considering it. Wondering if he should tell them what he suspected in the dark hours of the night, when it twitched and tingled and burned.
What would they say if he told them that he could not feel part of his arm? What would he be to them if he was no longer the unbeatable Temple? What would he be to himself?
No longer the friend they’d made, the man with whom they’d gone into business. No longer Britain’s legendary bare-knuckle boxer. No longer the man who spent his days in Mayfair and his nights in Temple Bar. Instead, he was something else. Some perversion of identity, born aristocrat and raised on the streets. The Duke of Lamont, who had not seen his land or his family in twelve long years.
No longer the Killer Duke.
Of course, he never had been.
A vision flashed, Mara in the ring, standing proud and unmoving. Stronger than any of his prior foes. Fiercer. Far more compelling.
Who would he be to her?
He ran his good hand over his face.
What had she done to him? What had he done to himself?
“You don’t have to do it, you know,” Bourne said quietly.
He looked in his friend’s direction. “Now you defend her? Shall I get you a mirror to remind you of the purple ring about your eye?”
Bourne smirked. “She is not the first to deliver such a blow. And she will not be the last.” That much was true. “All I am saying is that you can stop this. You can change it.”
“What’s put you in such a forgiving frame of mind?”
The marquess shrugged. “You care for the girl, obviously, or you wouldn’t be so destroyed by her. I know what that is like. And I know what it is to give up revenge for it.”
For a moment, he entertained the idea. He imagined what it would be like if he could change it. Imagined what life he would craft if given the opportunity. Imagined a little row of dark sons and auburn-haired daughters, each with strange, beautiful eyes and spines of steel.
Imagined their mother, leading their charge.
But imagination was all it was.
Reality was a different thing entirely.
The Duke and Duchess of Leighton had hosted their annual Christmas masque every December since their first year as man and wife, and the party had become so legendary that most of London made a point to return to the city despite the cold, dreary December weather to attend.
According to Lydia (who was much more of a gossip than Mara had ever realized), the Duchess of Leighton prided herself on filling out the guest list with dozens of impressive, if not aristocratic, London dignitaries. Lydia had actually used the phrase, “everyone who is anyone,” in the excitement that followed Mara’s receipt of Temple’s invitation—if a single line of black scrawl stating a time and the dress he would prefer she wear could be called such a thing—which Mara assumed meant that it was not coincidence that this was the event at which she would be unmasked to London. Literally as well as figuratively.
Except yesterday, before everything had gone pear-shaped, it might have been different. Yesterday, before she’d reminded him of their past—of the dozen ways they were enemies—they might have been friends.
And he might have reconsidered this moment.