Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Caldwell, Christi Page 0,2
up in a bid to blunt the bright rays.
Perhaps he was dead, after all. And he was here to meet his maker and have his sins laid out before being cast into that fiery hell awaiting him.
“And his hands,” that same voice ordered.
Dare blinked; slowly his eyes adjusted to the light . . . and to the group of people assembled before him.
The gaoler, Wylie, stood at the center of a trio: an elderly pair who couldn’t be a day younger than their seventieth years, both with canes clutched in their opposite hands. And a finely dressed young woman, who just then wordlessly looked Dare up and down.
Dare rubbed at his wrists and assessed this audience of strangers. Searching his mind and memory for past lords and ladies he’d robbed. And yet . . . there was nothing familiar about them. Nay, that wasn’t altogether true.
His gaze settled on the youngest person there.
Dark-haired, tall, and sharp-featured . . . there was something familiar about the woman.
Dare searched his mind but came up empty.
Tiring of the silence, he put a question to the one person he was all too acquainted with—Wylie. “Throwing me a party before I meet my maker, are you? That’s not a courtesy I thought I’d see from the likes of you.”
A hard smile ghosted the gaoler’s mouth. “It seems you’ve more lives than a damned cat, Grey.” He waved away the still-hovering guards.
As they marched off, befuddled, Dare searched his still-slow-to-process mind for what the ruthless gaoler was saying.
The white-haired gentleman limped forward and, holding a quizzing glass up to his eye, studied Dare for a long while. “Hmph,” he grunted, and let the scrap fall. “It’s him.”
All the color spilled from the old woman’s cheeks. “My God, it can’t be!” Her mouth trembled. “There must be some mistake,” she cried, those words a plea.
“At least he can speak the King’s English,” the gentleman said, patting her hand.
Dare kept his focus on him. “Only when Oi’m really trying.”
The fancily clad lady wilted. Collapsing into a nearby chair, she grabbed for one of two gold chains about her neck. Uncorking the vial of smelling salts, she inhaled deeply.
“He’s making a jest, Beverly,” the pragmatic lord, clearly the woman’s husband, said. “You remember how he was.”
Everything about you is games and fun. You’ve no sense of responsibility . . . no sense of understanding of what you’ll one day inherit . . .
That voice came from a distance, an echo of long ago, words forgotten . . . buried away.
The old man motioned once more to Dare, pulling him back from the past. “He spoke perfectly just moments ago. He’s merely trying to get a rise out of us.”
Dare rubbed at his wrists to restore the flow of blood. All the while he eyed the gathering, this group of people who had knowledge of him. “Who the hell are you?” Dare put that to the leader of the little trio.
Wylie opened his mouth to speak, but the commanding lord silenced him with a single finger. “Leave us.”
“You don’t want to be alone with the likes of Grey.”
The gentleman thumped his cane. “I said, leave us.”
And it was a testament to the man’s rank, power, and influence that he managed not only to silence Wylie but also to have the ruthless warden quit the room.
Dare’s curiosity stirred all the more . . . as did his suspicion. He’d filched from enough powerful peers to know there was no friend for him amongst that class.
“You don’t know who we are?” The gentleman put that question to Dare the moment Wylie shut the door behind him.
Dare eyed the trio. He shook his head. “I don’t.”
“I am the Duke of Pemberly.”
He racked his brain, searching desperately for a reason that this man and his wife should be somehow . . . familiar. A sense of unease skittered along his spine, scraping it and icing it over. “And you think your title should mean something to me?” he asked impatiently, frustrated at being the only one in the dark. “I don’t give a damn about it.”
I don’t care about his title . . . He’s not so very scary . . . He’s more fun than Father . . .
An odd buzzing filled his ears. He jolted and looked unblinkingly at the duke.
“The names mean nothing to you,” the duke murmured, more to himself. He indicated the old lady. “This is my wife, the Duchess of Pemberly.”