Page 42 of The Madame Catches Her Duke

“What have I done?” Rowan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Besides make an utter ass of yourself?”

“Tobias, you are not helping my predicament.”

“Oh, I was unaware you sought me out for assistance. I thought you merely came to accuse me of dallying with your wife.”

Rowan stomped across the study and sank back into his chair. “She’s not my wife.”

“For all intents and purposes, dictated by my code of honor as your friend, and as a gentleman, Lady Marce Davenport has been your wife for eight years. Therefore, off-limits to men such as myself. Never would I jeopardize our friendship and the perfect set of my nose by crossing that line. And it would be highly inappropriate to involve Marce in such a scandalous situation.”

“Who do you count as friend?”

“Can I not pledge my undying allegiance to you both?”

“I am not certain that will work in this situation.” Rowan swallowed, hoping to keep his baser motives from being verbalized. He needed a friend in this moment. No, not just a friend, he needed his closest confidante to be there for him—with him.

“Then I choose Lady Marce.” Tobias’s flippant reply bore deeply into Rowan’s already injured pride.

“What? Surely you jest.” Rowan glared at Tobias. They’d shared tutors in their youth and traveled all over England together for business. “Why is she more deserving of your loyalty than I?”

“Simple.” Tobias stared back at him, his eyes wide and his speech slow as if Rowan were a mere child and incapable of understanding. “She has never demanded I choose between the pair of you. And if I were doomed to spend the rest of my life with one of you, it is her I would pick.”

“Because of her beauty?”

“Heavens, yes,” Tobias gasped. “But also because she possesses a wit unparalleled and would make certain I am well cared for.”

Wit. Rowan hadn’t noticed if Marce was indeed in possession of wit—dry, sarcastic, or otherwise. For not the first time in the last several days, he was envious of Tobias. As far as Marce’s caring nature, that was evident in the sheer amount of time she spent with his mother. He’d never demanded that they grow close or that she correspond with the duchess when she was away from Hadlow.

“Do not appear so surprised, Ro,” Tobias continued. “There are facets to Lady Marce Davenport you have yet to see—and much you do not deserve to witness.”

The room fell silent as Rowan pondered everything he’d learned. Tobias relaxed into his chair, his eyes closing.

He took no offense to the man’s turn to slumber. It meant that he would have some peace from his friend’s accusatory tone and pitying glances.

How had he been so oblivious to Marce’s past—and even her present circumstances?

The daughter of a marquess…a proper lady, made to live like a pauper. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to the gossips, inquired after Marce’s past where it pertained to him, yet he’d been so focused on her present circumstances—her debt to the Harwich dukedom—he’d neglected to learn more about her. And in the years that’d passed since, his only need was to keep her at arm’s length. If she did not know about the pains of his past, then she could not use it against him.

Instead, he’d relegated her to a place she didn’t belong, much like that scoundrel Buckston.

He hadn’t been jesting when he stated his desire to punch Buckston in the nose for allowing his sister to live in such an unbefitting manner. She should have been raised a lady with proper tutelage and everything else the upper crust of London was afforded. The fact that she’d been raised above a London brothel infuriated him, yet he was responsible for perpetuating the abuse she’d experienced at her half-brother’s hands.

Rubbing at his eyes, Rowan bid his aching head to calm. “She said that we—she and I—were innocents hurt by my father’s and Madame Sasha’s infidelities. Even my mother was a casualty of my father’s betrayal.”

“There is much sense in that,” Tobias said, his eyes drifting open as he stared into the dying embers of the fire. “Beauty, wit, and smarts.”

“I was so angry with him.”

“Have you ever stopped to think that your father’s love could have extended to both Sasha and your family?”

“He abandoned Mother and me,” Rowan retorted. “He remained in London much of the time. He rarely journeyed home for holidays, and if I hadn’t gone to Hadlow each Season, Mother would have suffered alone.”

“Who says your mother suffered?” Tobias asked.

Rowan’s gut tightened. They’d never spoken of the duke’s absence. It had been Rowan’s own rage at his father that had kept him silent regarding his father’s activities. The hurt and heartbreak from yet another failed childbirth had been enough to convince Rowan that he should bury the secret, but it’d been impossible to forget…or forgive.

That rage had only burrowed deeper as the years passed and Rowan saw the way his father ignored his family. So much so that when Julian died before Rowan had the chance to confront him, Rowan had only thought of punishing someone. That person had been Marce, the only link remaining between Julian’s and Sasha’s families.