My Fair Marchioness (Scandalous Affairs Book 3) by Christi Caldwell (best short books to read txt) 📗

peril that had sent her fleeing. How desperate she must have been to come here and allow him and the duchess to believe she was someone else.

For there could be no doubting that the danger she’d faced had sent her here. She’d been fleeing whatever retribution those men had sought. And he’d been so self-absorbed that he’d not even recognized her as the woman whom he’d helped on the street.

I’m going to throw up.

How could he have not known? How could he have failed to recognize her? What kind of bastard was he that he couldn’t, at the very least, have heard her out? Nay, because he’d been blind, and worse, cynical. And that cynicism had clouded his judgment and made it so Julia felt she couldn’t trust him.

I don’t trust you. I don’t believe you. I think you are here to take advantage of a desperate woman’s hope.

His heart beat at a panicky rhythm. Nay, why would she have trusted him?

“Harris, what is it?” his godmother asked, worry underscoring her query and drawing him from his tortured thoughts.

Stalking over to Colins, he gripped the man by his jacket front and dragged him close. “Where is she?” he demanded, rage and fear warring for supremacy within him. “Where did she go?”

The other man remained silent, casting a glance over at his superior.

Harris gave Colins a slight shake. “Answer me, goddammit,” he said, his voice sharp.

“The lady summoned a hack. Ordered him to drive her to Brewery Street.”

Harris released him quickly. She was there because of him. He’d given her no reason to trust him, and she’d willingly raced into danger, putting her life at risk… because he’d failed her.

“Take me to her. Now.”

She was going to be all right. Because she was strong and spirited and capable and because he wanted to spend his life with her… if she would have him. He’d spend the rest of his life making her happy and atoning for the ugly way he’d treated her.

As he followed after Steele and Colins, he couldn’t let himself think about the possibility that they might not get to her in time.

Chapter 20

Julia had always despised the likes of Mac Diggory and now Rand Graham. Evil and violent and eminently unkind. She knew Satan reigned superior over the Lord, because there was no accounting for how such men should be the people in power on Earth.

For all her fear and disdain of Diggory and Graham, she’d also always been in awe of them. They were people so powerful as to not have to hide and shirk and sneak. Rather, they lived as bold as they pleased in a world that existed for the likes of they and Julia.

She’d also had sense enough to steer clear of those places they frequented and inhabited, because once one stepped into their sights, one was invariably trapped.

Now, she made her way through those same streets she’d gone out of her way to avoid, to meet with the very people she’d also sought to avoid.

Because of Adairia.

To save Adairia, she’d have stepped in front of a runaway carriage.

But you didn’t, a voice taunted.

You assumed her life and lived on comfortably, all the while she’d been struggling.

Julia tried the door of Rand Graham’s residence. All who dwelled in these parts knew where the king of them, dwelled. Unsurprisingly, the rusted panel did not budge. Rather, it jingled and served as a damning announcement of her presence.

Suddenly, the panel was jerked open, and for all her determination to come here and find Adairia, terror reared its head.

A tall, broad man, scarred across the face and as menacing as Satan himself, stared back.

Her feet twitched with the reflexive urge to turn and flee.

Graham’s man looked her up and down. His eyes were dead, which was oddly more terror-inducing than had they been filled with the gleeful threat of violence she’d met in the eyes of Graham’s other men.

“State your business,” he demanded in crisp, surprisingly high-quality English tones. Graveled and rough, though, they countered the lie of gentility within them.

She’d left Adairia once before this, and that was a weakness she never intended to let herself fall prey to again. “I’m here to speak with Mr. Graham,” she said, angling her chin up. “My name is Julia Smith, and I am a daughter of Mac Diggory.” Because, God help her, if that blood connection to the now-dead gang leader conferred protection, then at least something good had come of her association with him.

The guard displayed no outward response to her pronouncement. After a pregnant pause, he drew the panel open a fraction more, and Julia hurriedly stepped in.

Of all of the horrors she’d expected to face, this was decidedly not among them.

Seated at a smooth mahogany table, Rand Graham, with his dark devil’s curls, tossed a card down. The young woman across from him, wholly absorbed in whatever game of cards they played, fanned hers out in the center of the table.

Adairia?

For a moment, Julia did a quick glance about, thinking she’d stepped into another household and had come upon a different young woman with those unique whitish-blonde curls.

Over the top of Adairia’s head, Rand Graham shifted his eyes a fraction, that harsh stare landing square on Julia, and she came back to herself.

Julia rushed into the room. “Adairia!” she said sharply, and the young woman whipped around. Relief and joy all swelled in her breast. It was her.

“Julia!” Adairia cried as cheerfully as if they’d met across one of Her Grace’s crowded ballrooms. Her friend sprang to her feet.

For a moment, Julia lost her bearings and jerked to a stop. Perhaps they did meet across the duchess’ marble floor after all, because dressed in the yellow silk she was, with Adairia elegantly clad in