Chapter 17 #2
Pain radiated from her hip bone to her back, but not as hard as her pride.
Lady Rutherford came racing. “Your Grace—”
Daria’s face crumpled. “P-Please, do not call me th-that. My family and friends refer to me as Daria, and they are not here, and Gregory only calls me that when he is cross with me,” she said, stammering.
Lady Rutherford’s brows dipped. “The duke has been…cross with you?”
Unable to make out the meaning of the marchioness’s tone, Daria rushed to her husband’s defense. “He has not hurt me. I have already told you.”
All I’m doing is casting further aspersions upon Gregory’s name.
And then the waters broke.
Sobbing, wheezing with every jagged breath drawn, Daria curled into a ball on the blue Aubusson carpet—
Blue.
That shade her husband favored. Not because he’d told her, but because he didn’t share parts of himself with anyone.
And she’d affirmed him reason to not trust in people.
Daria wept harder.
She buried her palms against her face, but not before she’d caught the signal the marchioness gave to the footmen.
Rage dripped from the exquisite lines of Lady Rutherford’s heart-shaped face. “Tell me, Daria” she urged pleadingly, as the last of the army of breakfast room servants shut the door behind him. “He must have done something for you to be broken this way.”
That conclusion she’d reached, the same as Daria last eve, ripped a breaking sob from her throat. “No!” she rasped, gripping the other woman’s arm. “He hasn’t.”
“That I do not believe. I will kill him.” Lady Rutherford started to get to her feet, but Daria tightened her grip, keeping her fastened to the floor.
“Why will you not listen?” Daria cried. “I-I am the one who has behaved a-abominably.”
“You?”
The marchioness’s sheer incredulity broke through Daria’s guilt-filled sobs.
Furious on her husband’s behalf, she wrenched herself from the marchioness’s arms and got awkwardly to her feet. “It is true.”
“I am sure it is not, Daria.”
“Your husband is both best friends and a business partner with Lord Argyll and yet you think so poorly of him?” Daria didn’t let the marchioness a word in edgewise. “Do you have such a poor opinion of Lord Rutherford’s judgement?”
Lady Rutherford stared with stunned, wide eyes. “Uh…” She nodded slowly. “Forgive me, Daria. I am listening.”
She was terribly uncomfortable around people, but she was so painfully alone, and so very, very desperate, and she found herself sharing all her sins with this woman she’d admired from afar, and now shared a home with.
Daria shared all—from the Kearsley Curse to her culminating meeting and now marriage to the Duke of Argyll, and her misery over having hurt him. And the worst of all—caring for him. Nay, falling for him.
After she’d concluded, Lady Rutherford didn’t move a muscle, not even so much as a blink for a long while.
With a clearing shake of her head, the other woman grabbed Daria’s untouched linen napkin from the table and handed it over.
Thanking her newfound friend, Daria blew her nose noisily into the material.
When she lowered the soiled scrap, she found the marchioness studying her with a smile.
“Daria, I will confess, Lord Argyll has a very dark history. He has done…” she paused. Searched for words.
Daria cocked her head.
Lady Rutherford cleared her throat. “Wicked things. Unforgiveable ones, but…my husband has, too.” She held Daria’s eyes. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Daria automatically nodded.
She stopped and shook her head instead.
“I cannot say whether the duke is capable of truly changing—” Lady Rutherford hurried to speak as Daria rushed to defend her husband. “But the things you’ve shared, this lack of control—”
Daria frowned. “I did not say he lacks control.”
“No. No.” A gentle smile eased across the marchioness’s face. “How shall I say this?” She tapped her chin, then stopped. “Where women are concerned, Lord Argyll is a master of restraint. No one has ever roused him to…the emotion you’ve described.”
Something dangerous stirred beneath her breast.
Hope.
With her next words, Lady Rutherford shattered that fragile bubble. “Which certainly explains his request that you join him in the courtyard.”
“The courtyard,” she repeated vacantly. “Like a hanging?”
The marchioness burst out laughing, and before Daria knew what she intended, the generous-hearted woman swept Daria into her arms. “Without a doubt, he’d have seen it that way before. Married to you now, Daria, I believe Argyll is about to have an entire new outlook on life.”
“I don’t understand, Lady—?”
“You are to call me Faith, as we are now sister.” Lady Rutherford slipped her arm through Daria’s. “Now, come along.”
And so, Daria went along.
The carriage wheels rattling along the smoothest cobblestones of London marked the way to…
A place she did not know.
On account he’d blindfolded her.
Also, on account that he hadn’t spoken to her.
Strangely enough, the soft silken covering he’d tied about her head had a calming effect. In the hush of the carriage, the steady clump-clump-clop of the team’s hooves against the cobblestones and the sound of her own breathing created an odd sense of peace.
As she saw it, there was one of only two options—she was about to meet her end. Or he was having their marriage annulled and return her home.
Both seemed equally awful.
But why blindfold her?
Daria worried the edge of her nail between her teeth.
Perhaps it was his way of delivering what he thought would be a desired gift—bring her back to the Kearsleys.
“Are you at all curious, wife.”
Daria jumped.
That he could sound so genial about the end of their time together struck.
“I expect that is the point of blindfolds and secrecy,” she said, her voice somehow even.
“It will all be answered soon.”
The husked, ominous quality of his voice sent her heart into a quicker rhythm. Whatever calm she’d found evaporated. She bit harder at her finger.
There came the faintest whisper of air.
She gasped as strong, warm fingers closed around her wrist.
“Here, now,” Gregory murmured, the timbre of his baritone soft and soothing—like warm chocolate poured slowly over her nerves.
She felt a gentle tug at the back of her head. Then the blindfold was gone.
Daria blinked against the sudden rush of light, squeezing her eyes shut before opening them again, slowly. Gregory leaned forward on the deep blue velvet bench; her hand cradled between both of his larger ones.
She swallowed.
Warmth seeped through his touch. With the pad of his thumb, he stroked back and forth along the length of her index finger.
“What have you done here?” His voice had fallen into a hypnotic lull, edging her fear further and further away.
The cerulean blue of his eyes—framed by long lashes—held her fast.
Unable to look away, uncertain why she would want to, Daria watched as he brought her hands to his mouth.
“You’ve gone and marked yourself,” he murmured.
Without breaking eye contact, Gregory drew her finger into the hot, moist cavern his mouth made.
The warm, wet heat sent a lightning-sharp charge through her. Heat gathered low in her belly. His gaze lifted to hers as he sucked slowly—then deeper, harder.
That warmth spread lower still, to that forbidden place between her legs. A sharp ache bloomed there.
Biting her lower lip, Daria twisted on the bench in a futile attempt to ease the pull of it.
“You needn’t be afraid,” he whispered.
The worry of before—where he was taking her, what he might do—was buried beneath unfamiliar sensations. A tingling swept up and down her spine, a heated shiver that made her nerves dance.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she blurted out.
Gregory froze and then came off her finger with a little pop.
Amusement danced in his blue eyes. “Should I turn you over my knee?” His lashes slipped and his gaze darkened.
“Is that something you…want to do?” she ventured. “Because it sounds like you do, and I would deserve it.”
His strangled breathing filled the carriage.
“Gregory, are you all right?”
“Is this how I die?” he asked thickly.
She thought he might be teasing but answered him anyway. “No.”
“Yes, I want to spank you, little raven. But not in anger.” Holding her stare, he brought her still-damp finger to his mouth and drank it once more.
A fresh wave of warmth rushed between her legs. She knew the reason. She knew he was the only man who could make that terrible ache go away. He’d done so twice.
He stilled, his head bowed over her hand, and lifted only his eyes to her.
“I was terrible to you last night, Gregory. You were right to be upset with me, and you are welcome to be angry now.” She paused. “Though I’d rather you were not. Either way…I am sorry.”
Gregory slowly slipped her finger from his mouth a second time, but he retained his hold upon her hand. “Are you apologizing?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “That is what ‘I am sorry’ means.”
A smile she had seen unsettle rooms played at his mouth. “I am aware.”
Blushing, hating the skin he’d strangely insisted was beautiful, Daria pressed her fingers into fresh fists.
Gregory retrieved her hands, claiming them for his own. “What I am unfamiliar with, Daria, is a person tendering them so freely.”
“But I was wrong.”
His grin vanished. “Do you believe you alone carried responsibility for all the words spoken?”
She opened her mouth.
Gregory leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. “The answer is no, love.”
Love.
“You are not returning me?” she whispered.
His features stilled. “Returning you? Like an ill-fitting gown?”
“To my family.”
His features darkened.
“An annulment because you said we’d made a terrible mistake and—”
Gregory cut her off with another kiss. “Let us forget last night and start over.”
Daria’s heart raced. Emotion filled her throat. “I-I would like that very much, Gregory.”
“Me too, little raven.” He winked. “We’ve arrived.”
She was warmed with a flood of light and joy when there’d only been darkness since last night. “Arrived?”
Overwhelmed by the heat he’d stirred, Daria scrambled to the far corner of the carriage and pressed herself against the window.
This…this was where he’d brought her.
Her brow furrowed.
No. That didn’t make sense.
She cast him a quizzical look.
Gregory lounged on the opposite bench, broad shoulders slumped, finely corded arms draped along the back. His lips curved into a slow, satisfied smile—not practiced, but genuine. Satisfied with what, she could not say.
“Madam Roselle Amalie,” he said.
Her gaze flew to the white-stucco building outside, its wide shopfront windows overflowing with pink, red, and white roses.
“A modiste?” she asked faintly.
In the mirror, she caught Gregory’s pleased nod.
A dashing rogue knew precisely what women adored. Unfortunately, Daria was not like any of them.
Her stomach dropped.
Gregory wasn’t returning her or annulling their union. He was doing the third worst thing—taking her to be fitted for a wardrobe.