Chapter 14
Rowan stood perfectly frozen, the air trapped in his lungs, and his entire body tense.
Focusing his glare on the single blond curl that had been lightly grazing her creamy shoulder since he entered the room, Rowan pleaded with his head to stop spinning.
He must remain in control. If he let his guard fall for even a moment, he’d never get the control back.
He’d accused her of bedding his best friend, all because Rowan selfishly longed for the connection the pair obviously had.
Yet, her words invaded every crevice of his mind, making Rowan question both his words and the feelings behind them. In his heart of hearts, he knew Marce and Tobias had not betrayed him.
“You do not have the right to end our arrangement.” Rowan knew that wasn’t accurate. If she were willing to give up Craven House, then there was nothing to hold her to their bargain. She was free to walk out of Hadlow and never look back. How had he not seen this coming?
“I haven’t had many rights for these last eight years, but I assure you, I do have the resourcefulness to call an end to our outlandish charade.” Her chin didn’t so much as tremble, and her eyes remained locked on his—the determination he saw there banishing his anger.
He shouldn’t be wounded by the friendship she’d found with Tobias.
If it did not affect his mother’s happiness, then Rowan should be content.
The duchess did not deserve such a betrayal, however.
No matter how feigned Rowan and Marce’s relationship was, it was real to her.
His mother cared deeply for Marce, and he’d misguidedly thought she felt the same about the duchess.
Rowan was a fool, likely far surpassing his father’s delusions.
How long had Tobias and Marce’s closeness diminished Rowan’s standing with his friend? He’d been content to keep Marce at arm’s length, but he’d never meant for Tobias to exclude him from such an important thing in his life, even if that thing was the woman who’d caused Rowan’s family to collapse.
And Marce stood before him without so much as a simple denial of his accusations.
How had he ever thought an arrangement with a woman who gained her living by bedding men would benefit him? There had never been any degree of trust in their cold, removed association.
She was the bloody proprietress of the famed Craven House, a gentlemen’s brothel. Everything about her spoke to refinement and poise, exactly what she’d want her clientele to pay handsomely for. And in a way, Rowan would be paying handsomely for many years when his mother learned of his lies.
No, Rowan could not dwell on the repercussions of his folly.
Marce had to remain at Hadlow, at least for a couple of days.
Then, they would depart, and she would return to Craven House and see her words for what they truly were…
impulsivity. There was no chance she’d thought through all the consequences of ending their association: losing her home, admitting to her siblings she’d failed them, and being cast to the street like a pauper.
She’d never been the least bit impulsive; however, Rowan took hold of that possibility with a vise-tight grip.
“You will be without a home.” Perhaps reminding her of that simple fact would spark some sense in her. “Where will you go?”
Would Tobias be hurt by her disappearance from Hadlow? What of his mother?
How would he survive losing her?
It was a most absurd thought, but the only question that clawed at his insides, the pain so great he feared it would soon be too much to take.
“I will find another home.”
“It is that simple?”
“Certainly,” she replied without a hint of the trepidation that coursed through him when his anger continued to recede. “You think me daft enough to believe Craven House would ever actually be mine once more?”
He wanted to shout that Craven House had never been hers. Not when her mother ran the brothel nor after her death.
A confident smirk settled on her perfect lips. “I have saved every spare shilling since the night you came into my family’s home and stole our independence.”
Rowan rarely considered finances in any of his life decisions; his coffers were overflowing from many generations of shrewd Harwich dukes.
Even in his daily business dealings, it wasn’t the cost of a project or the funds in surplus that mattered, but the integrity of the men he chose to embark on business ventures with that played into his decisions.
If anyone questioned Rowan’s integrity, he was unaware.
As everyone had trusted his father, they also trusted Rowan.
That Marce had been socking away money spoke volumes. She’d known from the beginning not to trust him—and the promises he’d made to secure her agreement. She’d questioned his honesty from the moment they met.
“You’ve planned all along to dupe me and cast a shadow of scandal over my family,” he accused, knowing full well he deserved every ounce of her duplicity.
He had been the one behind their arrangement, but now he turned to churlish behavior when it all came crashing down around him.
“My mother, every day more fragile, will not survive this treachery. And it is at your hand!”
Rowan’s anger flared, but it was aimed only at himself. Every accusation, every cruel word was better focused on his own transgressions.
Her cheeks finally reddened with the anger that Rowan was finding it increasingly difficult to suppress.
A measure of satisfaction filled him at the sight of her blue eyes sparking with fury.
Let her be angry. Let her rail at him. Let her scream, shout, and cause a fuss.
He deserved it all, especially after everything he’d accused her of.
“Your heart, Your Grace, is as black as your coal-hued hair,” she yelled, stomping her slippered foot. The rug muted the sound. “Dare I guess that your soul has been plagued by the same obsidian darkness?”
“If my heart is black, it is only because your family stole every ounce of color from it.”
Her chest heaved against her tightly tied bodice, the mounds of her breasts rising high above her neckline.
The pulse at her throat was visible to his eyes when her chin shot up a notch, and she looked down her nose at him—or, his chest, as she was quite petite, another thing he hadn’t taken much notice of before.
When had he stepped so close that their ragged breathing mingled and his boots nearly touched her delicate, white slippers? The familiar aroma of lavender—the soap procured in the local village for Hadlow—clung to her.
“You can go to the devil, Your Grace,” she whispered. “Take Craven House with you for all I care. Or, better yet, burn the house to the ground. I do not care a whit for it…or you.”
No one had ever dared speak to him in such a brazen manner.
Their association had always been one of a reserved nature; namely, he’d set forth the terms, and she’d accepted them to escape the consequences of denying him.
She’d never shown him even a hint of the fire she was presenting to him now.
Their agreement was not completely one-sided.
He’d gained the guise of marriage to assuage his mother’s worry.
And Marce remained in possession of the home his dukedom rightfully owned.
He was able to give his mother a measure of happiness and contentment in her final years, even though he hadn’t expected his mother’s illness to allow her to live for so long.
And in return, Marce continued to support her siblings in a well-appointed neighborhood.
Rowan had even heard that two of her four siblings had married—and married well, to an earl and a marquess as the gossip sheets reported.
She should be thanking him for the advantageous outcome.
Rowan did not suppose there was much clamoring to secure a match with women born out of wedlock, no matter who their father was.
They could be the offspring of a butcher in the East End, or a fishmonger at the docks for all Rowan knew.
Could it be that the woman before him did not see the benefits of their bargain?
Rowan hadn’t any notion what to say or how to gain her willingness to stay at Hadlow.
She had every right to call into question his standing as a gentleman and a lord most proper.
Since that fateful day he’d spied his father in the warm interior of Craven House, surrounded by Marce and her siblings, while his own mother lay fairly dying in childbirth, Rowan had been a rogue, a scoundrel, and a reprobate only concerned with exacting his own brand of vengeance on this woman and her family.
Would he have truly followed through on his threat and tossed Marce and her young siblings from their home?
Had it all been a bluff, an empty threat, and something he’d never be called upon to fulfill?
In his period of mourning, Rowan had been blind.
Blinded by so many things: his hatred for his father, his worry over his mother, and the all-consuming need to make certain that someone paid for it all.
The duchess had lost precious time with her husband because of the duke’s infidelity.
Many a time, Rowan wondered if Sasha were the only one who stole his father’s heart or if there had been women before or after her.
Losing Julian’s attention and affection had weighed on the duchess so much, Rowan feared that her ailments had progressed because of her feelings of abandonment. It had been Rowan’s cross to bear, especially after discovering where and with whom his father had found solace.