You go back up to the nursery now, Daisy, and don’t bother to think you need must be here when I return.” She raised her voice slightly. “Davinia takes very good care of me—don’t you, Davinia?”
The older woman said nothing, but merely waved Daisy away and began twisting Caroline’s hair back into its original topknot, ready to be strung through with paste pearls.
Daisy curtsied, wished her mistress a good evening and gratefully escaped the dressing room, stepping into the hallway without first checking to see if it was empty, and rolled her shoulders a time or two to relax them as she straightened her posture. Not a mistake she would have made if her mind weren’t so otherwise occupied.
“Well, hello there, Daisy. And where would you be rushing off to?”
Redgrave.
She dropped into a quick, shoulders-front curtsy, keeping her eyes down. “I’m needed in the nursery, sir,” she mumbled quietly as she rose once more.
“To teach them sums while they sleep, I suppose. But only after leaving her ladyship. Got your fingers in more than one pie, do you? Clever.”
Daisy nearly raised her head, but managed to remain quite still in her subservient pose. “I’m confident you know what you mean, sir, but I do not. If you’ll excuse me...?”
He stepped in front of her. “Curiosity compels the question. So, what is it? Impecunious orphaned child of some village vicar? Well-schooled but penniless daughter of a teacher? Or perhaps neither of those, but something more? The possibilities are nearly endless. Your mother married beneath her, your father was disowned, you were disowned, naughty puss? Please, must I go on?”
He wasn’t the sort to give up easily. His smile told her that; he wasn’t going to let her pass until she answered his question. If she moved to her left, he would move to his right; if she moved to her right, he would step to his left. The last thing she wished was to be caught up in some awkward dance of moves and countermoves, one he seemed eager to engage in with her.
“Impoverished daughter of the late Reverend James Marchant, Hampshire,” she said, raising her chin. “He also taught Latin to the village boys, if that doesn’t confuse the issue. In any case, fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.”
“‘Men willingly believe what they wish.’ Julius Caesar. So you’re a bluestocking, as well. No wonder he steers clear. Very well, you may go.”
Mailer; he meant Lord Mailer. Daisy, not about to pretend she didn’t understand who he was, was instead about to point out that Mr. Redgrave did not have charge of either her comings or her goings. She quickly thought better of it. The man was already too interested by half, not that she could understand why. None of Mailer’s other guests these past months had ever paid her the least attention.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, curtsying yet again, hoping there was no sarcastic edge to her voice.
But as she moved to make good her exit he grabbed at her elbow, eased closer. She looked up into his odd amber eyes, and nearly flinched. She could see flecks of gold in them, and the intelligence, the humor. “You’re more than welcome, Daisy. It’s too late now, but in hindsight, considering the man doesn’t have a discerning hair on his solid-as-a-plank head, do you ever think those hideous spectacles may have taken the thing a step too far?”
Really? She’d been rather proud of the spectacles. Plain glass, but thick as windowpanes, so that anyone would think she was half-blind. She’d been wonderfully overlooked for three months, by everyone. But not, drat him, Mr. Valentine Redgrave. He couldn’t have shocked her more if he’d suddenly grown horns. Her stomach plummeted to her toes. Her blood ran cold, sending tiny pinpoint prickles to dancing on her skin. She wondered if she might faint.
“Forgive me, Mr. Redgrave. I have no idea what you mean by—”
He released her arm. “No, of course you don’t. I won’t even ask whom you work for, because I’d like to cherish the notion that even those hare-brained idiots in Downing Street wouldn’t insert anyone so obvious. Just remember this if you will, as I certainly make it a point to do so. Appearances are often deceiving.”
Whom did she work for? Goodness, whom did he work for? What on earth was he talking about?
Still, she took a chance. Perhaps it was the eyes...or that she was as foolish and gullible as her sister. Or that she so needed an ally that, like some drowning sailor, she would reach desperately for any floating straw. Because lately she’d been feeling as if she’d stumbled into something very much over her head, and if Redgrave had shown up here for some reason of his own, well, maybe he knew what was going on. “And behavior can be deceiving, as well, Mr. Redgrave?”
“Good girl. I loathe long explanations, but if my instincts are correct—and they very nearly always are—one may be needed here, from each of us. Where can we meet tomorrow?”
Meet? Daisy hadn’t expected that. Then again, she didn’t seem to expect anything that came out of the man’s mouth. “We...um. I insist Lydia and William be out-of-doors at least three hours a day, one directly after breaking their fast, and another two after luncheon. Dependent on the weather, naturally.”
“Naturally. Wouldn’t want the little dears to catch a chill. Then we’ll be well chaperoned, if that worries you,” Valentine said, nodding his approval. “Very well, I’ll be certain to be on my best behavior so as to not shock the kiddies. Until then, Daisy, I suggest you don’t attempt anything foolish, such as searching my rooms. You might startle Piffkin.”
She blinked. “You brought your dog here?”
When Valentine Redgrave smiled in real amusement, it was as if the sun had just come out, to burn away any remnants of a cloudy day. Daisy could fairly fancy she felt its warmth, and had to fight a ridiculous urge to bring herself closer to the intoxicating heat. She’d been forced to depend on her wits on her own for so long...had she actually come to hope for help in any port?
“My valet, Daisy, although I see your point. But, contrary to what his name might imply, unlike Mailer’s pitiful specimens, he doesn’t bark. He bites.” He glanced toward the door to Lady Caro’s dressing room, as if he’d heard something. “And now I must go, and so must you.”
“But we don’t even... That is, I don’t see why we should— Oh, hang it,” she ended to his departing back as he headed for the main staircase.
What had just happened?
But she knew what had just happened.
A pair of soft amber eyes had just happened. A warm smile. That thick mane of hair her fingers itched to touch.
Was Valentine Redgrave a badly needed ally, or an exceedingly clever foe?
Or was he simply the most beautiful man she’d ever seen up close? Perhaps she was just as gullible and needy and soon to be disillusioned as poor, doomed Rose.
CHAPTER THREE
“JUSTTHETWO of us for breakfast, Charles?” Valentine asked as he was ushered into the morning room by one of the footmen. “How cozy.”
His lordship looked up from his plate of coddled eggs, a bit of yolk clinging to his chin. “You were observed speaking with Miss Marchant yesterday evening,” he said without preamble. “Why? Making some late-night assignation after all you said to the contrary?”
So he’d been correct; that door had opened a crack.
Hmm. Take umbrage? Look puzzled? What to do, what to do? Valentine knew he needed a reaction, quickly.
He spoke while making his way along the sideboard, loading his plate with a steady hand, his back to Mailer.
“Daisy? Although she’d be more fittingly named after some noxious, prickly weed,” he said, having decided on a course of action. He would—for the moment—ignore the fact that Mailer’s servants reported to him, and concentrate on keeping Daisy’s