Page 49 of Duke of Eccess (Seven Dukes of Sin #4)

She’d lied to him.

Of course she’d lied. Used him for a place to hide, while also putting the children in danger. She’d always intended to run to her new life—she’d quit a few days into her position, and he’d begged her to stay.

Though she’d never said so, Octavius had imagined she felt something for him. He could swear he saw true care and…maybe even love…in her eyes. Had it all been a charade?

Why would someone like her ever feel anything for someone like you? Ever trust someone like you?

She must have seen who he really was on the inside, the glutton he’d always been who never thought of the consequences of his actions.

Octavius stared at the bottle of cognac. On the worst day of his life, Christmas Eve, he eyed his enemy and his best friend. There at the bottom of it lay his relief, his escape.

After a day of stunned contemplation, he didn’t really think she was mad. He had doubted her for a moment, the shock of learning the truth so publicly setting his mind spinning.

Miss Temperance Fields… No , Lady Agatha Hale hadn’t trusted him.

She, however, had trusted Enveigh. After he’d been filled in on the details of her situation, too late had he realized Archibald must have known her secret from the beginning: their whispered conversations, his sudden and abrupt marriage proposal made, no doubt, to protect her.

Octavius should have been the one to protect her from the asylum.

He would have had an army shielding her from Lady Auster if he’d known.

But she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him.

His dream of being the president of the Board of Trade was now in ruins.

The position had been given to Lord Sinclair and rightfully so, if Octavius couldn’t keep his house from scandal.

Instead of improving the situation for the children, he’d worsened it.

But since their parents’ deaths, he’d never seen them so happy and content as they had been with Temperance.

Octavius glared at the cognac. He should have seen right through her lies, through all those suspicious circumstances.

No references, no prior correspondence… He supposed he wasn’t interested in society gossip enough to know the details of her case.

Temperance’s acute interest in electricity should have been clue enough.

There weren’t many women with scientific interests in this world.

He had been blind, so completely obsessed with his indulgence in her that he missed the most important clues.

It was all his fault.

She was gone, just like his mother, his baby sister, and his father. All at damned Christmas. It was a curse, wasn’t it?

He had lost Temperance, he had lost his position, he hadn’t proven to his damned dead father he could be better than him.

And now, finally, he could indulge. He could dull his pain.

Octavius poured a large portion of cognac into a glass, inhaling the sharp scent slowly.

He looked at the golden amber liquid, marveling at the color and the way it played in the candlelight.

He brought it to his lips, saliva gathering in his mouth as he was about to taste it, to lose himself, to forget…

And he couldn’t.

He stopped. He didn’t actually want to dull the pain.

Octavius didn’t want to forget he loved Temperance. He didn’t want to forget the true happiness which had expanded in his chest like warm air. He didn’t want to give up feeling all aspects of love even if it meant experiencing pain.

What had he become?

A subtle knock on the door and the shuffling of feet behind it had him raising his head from his staring contest with the glass of cognac as the door opened.

“Your Grace,” said Jacobs. “You have visitors. His Lordship the Earl of Liverpool, the Countess of Auster, and Lord Bartholomew Langston.”

Fury rushed through Octavius in a fiery wave as his nostrils flared. The people who’d tormented the woman he loved. He stood. “Show them in.”

The three visitors entered: Lord Liverpool with a stern face, Lady Auster with her head held high, looking paler and with more shadows under her eyes than last night, and Langston, desperation making his juvenile features appear even more menacing.

“Your Grace,” said Lord Liverpool. “Thank you for seeing us.”

Octavius didn’t let a trace of warmth show on his face. “What can I do for you, my lords and lady?”

“Yesterday was the revelation of a great scandal,” said Lady Auster. “I’m sure you’re still in shock.”

Octavius said nothing and the silence stretched. He should have offered them seats, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

“We’ve been trying to locate Lady Agatha,” said Langston with a weak smile. “My men followed her last night?—”

Octavius’s jaw tightened. He had sent footmen as well but to protect her, never to deliver her to Lady Auster. There was also the question of this forced marriage Temperance had said she’d tried to escape from. To whom? A distant relative, she’d said.

“—but they were unsuccessful,” finished Langston.

“Hmmm?” acknowledged Octavius, hiding his satisfaction. He’d known how well she could run when she wanted to, and rejoiced she was still free.

“My lord?” said Lady Auster covertly to Lord Liverpool.

Lord Liverpool had the face of a man who didn’t want to be there.

He took a deep breath and said without much enthusiasm, “Your Grace, Lady Auster is requesting you tell her anything you can to help locate her wayward stepdaughter. Any ideas of where she could be hiding would be greatly appreciated. After all, is it not right that we help the less fortunate? And this young lady is clearly out of her wits—my wife certainly believes so, after hearing all that gossip.”

Oh, she did, did she? Steeling himself not to cast aspersions onto Lord Liverpool’s wife, Octavius grunted, “It is right indeed to shield the unfortunate.”

Lord Liverpool glared. “And to encourage your help, I am prepared to change my decision for the president of the Board of Trade in your favor, which would have been my initial preference anyway, before the…unfortunate incident. It will be taken away from Lord Sinclair and awarded to you. His Royal Highness has already approved. All you would need to do is to make your position public: distance yourself from Lady Agatha and confirm her poor health. She must have charmed the children and tricked you to shield her all this time.”

Octavius’s blood boiled. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had been a fool yesterday to doubt Temperance’s state of mind, even for a moment. He’d have been terrified in her place, as well, hunted by her own family so they could get their hands on her money.

He shouldn’t have shown a moment of hesitation at the ball.

Enveigh hadn’t. Octavius knew now how he should react.

“Get out of my house,” he said, marveling distantly at how cool and collected his voice sounded. “Liverpool, I have no quarrel with you, I know you’ve been forced to offer this to me. But you can take that damned presidency and shove it up your own arse.”

The crude words spoken by a duke to the prime minister had him paling. He was making himself a political enemy.

But Octavius didn’t care. He should have chosen Temperance yesterday, but he was making the right decision now.

Temperance . Lady Agatha. Whatever name she had, she was the woman he loved. Every single day, for the rest of his life.

His fists tingled, hot and needy for violence. The three of them should be grateful he wasn’t unleashing the fury he truly felt inside in the way he had really wanted.

“Thank you for making your position so clear, Your Grace,” said Lord Liverpool, his eyes cold. “I regret I’d given you any guidance as it has clearly led to no changes in your crude and ill-mannered behavior. Good day, Your Grace.”

The moment the three of them had left, Jacobs appeared in the doorway again. Octavius hadn’t managed to take a breath or understand what he’d just done.

But his butler was interrupted by the sound of six pairs of feet in the hall, and Enveigh and the other five dukes barged into the study.

“You!” Enveigh exclaimed. “You have taken her away from me!”

What on earth? Octavius frowned as he looked at the faces of his best friends.

Lucien was hurrying after Enveigh. “Archibald, you are drunk—you’re not thinking clearly?—”

“You forbade me to court her,” Enveigh said bitterly, glaring at Octavius. “And I was the only one who knew of her situation—you should have let me marry her.”

Octavius’s fists clenched as he stared into his friend’s face. “She declined you, Archibald. Despite my disapproval, you had your chance and she rejected your proposal.”

“And so you seduced her, didn’t you? What was that you said about ruining her yesterday?”

Octavius didn’t reply. He couldn’t betray such intimate knowledge of her to anyone.

“In any case,” Archibald continued, “your disapproval is irrelevant. I claimed her! A lady claimed by one of us is forbidden to the rest, remember? Had you stepped away like you should have done according to our credo, I could have kept her safe—but now no one knows where she is. I even went to Bedlam! They turned me away, said no one by that name had been admitted. But that doesn’t mean she’s not in some other asylum, or—or dead in an alley somewhere. ”

Dead in an alley… Good God. The image sliced his heart to ribbons, but Octavius couldn’t let them see it. He’d known Temperance wouldn’t be in an asylum, or Lady Auster wouldn’t have come asking for him to find her. But where was she?

“If anyone had claimed her, it should have been me,” Octavius growled. “I love her! I proposed to her yesterday.”

A twisted laugh came from Enveigh, sharp as shards of glass and as bitter as venom. “Let me guess—she refused you, didn’t she?”

“She didn’t have a chance to give me her reply. We were interrupted, as you witnessed.”