Page 146 of Pride: The Rogue
Billy didn’t say anything. Unlike the duchess, who’d been all too content to fill voids of silence, Billy, from a shared background, understood sometimes words were not needed. That usually they weren’t at all.
They remained that way until somehow, with Billy conferring comfort and Livian absorbing every bit of love her sister offered, Livian’s tears finally ceased.
In continued silence, together, she and Billy hurriedly packed their belongings, until the room bore no traces that either of them, two women born outside theton, had been there.
And then they left.
Chapter 23
As soon as Latimer stepped inside the breakfast room the following morning and took one glance around at the seven assembled guests and found the woman he sought missing, he turned around and walked out.
Flexing his jaw, Latimer took furious strides through the Duchess of Argyll’s home.
He was going to burn the fucking house down.
In fact, he already would have done so had the one person he had been waiting to see for some twelve hours now wasn’t inside the goddamned mausoleum.
He’d given Livian the space she asked. He’d followed the duchess’ guidance, that he allow Livian to have time to process what had happened to her, and not be pressed to discuss it.
And so, he’d stayed up the entire bloody night. He’d paced his room. He’d done push-ups. He had practiced his exercise regimen. All the while, each minute of the night crept by until the sun appeared on the horizon and began its ascent to usher in a new day.
Growling, Latimer increased the pace and length of his footfalls. The maid he happened by paled, widened her eyes, and took off running in the opposite direction.
Another time, he would have felt a modicum of guilt at scaring the young servant. Not at this moment. At this moment, as he took the stairs two and three at a time to reach the guest suites, he didn’t have the compunction to care.
Latimer headed quickly down the hall and made straight away for that ridiculous pink door.
As he stopped beside it, he pressed his ear against the panel. Just as last night, only silence greeted him. Not the endearing, rumbling snores, but rather an eerie quiet.
Propriety, allowing Livian her space, being witnessed by any potential passersby, all of it, be damned.
Latimer grabbed the door handle.
“Good morning, Mr. Latimer.”
That pleasant, sultry greeting interrupted him.
Silently cursing, Latimer turned to greet the duchess.
“Good morning, Duchess.”
The urgent need to see Livian and verify with his own eyes she was alright, demanded he ignore the powerful peeress. But there still remained the matter of his business and potential peril to his future endeavor were he not careful in how he proceeded.
The Duchess of Argyll wore a wide smile. “Most fiancées would take exception at finding her future bridegroom about to enter another woman’s bedroom.”
She wasn’t his fiancée. As of now, she was nothing to him.
And that is how I want it to be… I don’t even give a shite about the club.
Latimer froze, barely noticing as the elegant noblewoman approached.
I don’t care about the club. I don’t care about my business. Or defeating Argyll and DuMond. They didn’t matter. None of it did.
Shedid.
Livian.
That realization didn’t terrify. Instead, it brought with it a welcoming warmth that spiraled through his being and soul that had been cold, until her.
