“You don’t know how good you are at anything unless you try it,” he said softly, smiling as though he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

But she’d been caught in his web before, and she learned fast. She would not amuse him at her own expense. She rose to her feet. “Then I’d better go watch her fingers for a start,” she said.

Then, as though she’d narrowly escaped something fearful and still worried about being caught in its clutches again, she made her way over to the piano to join Helena and the earl. She could swear she felt the viscount’s gaze, as if he’d placed a large, warm hand on her back, so she moved smartly while trying to look as though she were only strolling there.

“They make a nice couple,” Daffyd said as he settled down on the settee next to Leland, inclining his head to where the earl, Daisy, and her companion were gathered at the piano.

“The earl and your Daisy?” Leland asked wryly.

“Geoff and Helena Masters,” Daffyd said. “But he don’t see her at all. She might as well be the piano.”

“Charming woman, but she’s just a companion,” Leland said. “He’s a nobleman; he’s not supposed to see her.”

“Not Geoff. Class and rank don’t matter to him,” Daffyd said, slipping into slum argot as he sometimes did when he wanted to make a point about his origins. “Nothing like being locked up with the riff and raff as well as the toffs to learn that a man or a woman’s worth ain’t in their class or rank. No, he doesn’t see the companion only because he’s too busy seeing Daisy. She sees to that. You were right. She’s after him. I don’t know why, and it don’t make me happy. It wouldn’t exactly be a mismatch, but it wouldn’t be right, neither.

“She’s had a hard life, and Tanner was a right bastard,” Daffyd said. “But that’s no reason for her to try to snare Geoff now. He needs a mature woman. Whatever else she is, Daisy ain’t that. It isn’t that I’m afraid of being cut out of the will if he breeds a houseful of kids with her, because I won’t be. I’m not his son and heir in the first place, and anyway, I don’t need his money. I’ve done all right for myself, and I think and hope he’ll live forever. It’s because I’m not sure she’s right for him. You were right about that. It doesn’t fit, and I don’t like things that don’t fit. Means somehow something’s askew. So, what’s to do?”

“Talking to him won’t help,” Leland said, watching how Daisy hung on the earl’s sleeve, this time literally. “Warn a man about something and he has to look at it more closely. Once he concentrates on it, it may be he’ll decide he wants it even if he didn’t before. By the way, do you think he wants her?”

Daffyd shook his head. “Dunno. Hard to tell with him. But he’s available and male and he breathes, so he must. I’m as faithful to my Meg as the sea is to the shore, and glad of it, but even I can’t stop looking at Daisy. She’s an eyeful, ain’t she? And it won’t do any good to talk to her, neither. She’s learned to keep her thoughts to herself; we all did, but her, especially. If she’d ever told Tanner what she wanted, he’d use it against her, and she isn’t stupid.”

They stared at the trio at the piano.

“Have you investigated her finances?” Leland asked. “She says she’s rich, but she was only a prison guard’s wife, after all.”

“Aye. Still, Tanner was the cheapest man I ever met. He squirreled away every bit of bribe he ever got, and he took every one he could squeeze out of his job. But that wouldn’t make him rich. He did invest with Geoff, and that made rich men of many of us. I’ll look into it. Don’t think she’s lying, though. She knows it would be too easy to find out the truth. That’s the thing about dealing with a woman like her; she knows every angle. Doesn’t mean she’s up to no good, just means she has her wits about her, because she’s had to.” He looked at Daisy and sighed. “Won’t be the end of the world if he does marry her, I suppose. Just not the best thing for either of them, I think.”

“So do I. But it’s early days. Don’t go and buy a wedding gift yet,” Leland said, stretching his long body as he spoke. “There’s a long road to travel before we get to sit on either side of a flower-draped aisle. Geoff’s not a rash man or a fool. I don’t know what your Daisy is. But I mean to find out.”

“Well then, good. But Lee?”

Something in his half brother’s voice made Leland turn his head to look at him.

“Whatever you do, don’t hurt her. She’s a game ’un, and she’s been through hell. Maybe all she does want is a little peace.”

“Maybe,” Leland agreed. “Who doesn’t? I won’t hurt her. I hope to merely educate her.”

But Daffyd didn’t smile. “She’s a friend, Lee. I mean it.”

One thin brow went up. “Indeed? You’re very serious. Very well, so am I. I won’t hurt her, I’ll promise you that. I don’t think I’m capable of it anyway, in any sense. But you have my word on it. I just want to find out what’s happening.”

“And your vanity is wounded,” Daffyd said.

“Of course,” Leland agreed so pleasantly that Daffyd didn’t know if he meant it or not. But it didn’t matter to him. He was content. He had Leland’s word, and no bond was stronger.


“Well, that was an evening!” Daisy said as she shed her cloak when she got back to her hotel room that night. Her maid took it. “Thank you,” she told the girl. “Now go to bed, it’s late. Look at that,” Daisy told Helena with a crooked grin, as the maid scuttled off to do her bidding. “Me, ordering a maid around as though I’d done it all my life, when my father couldn’t afford help at home for years before we were arrested. I feel good and bad about being mistress to a servant, I can tell you.”

“If your father had been more cautious, that is to say, more temperate, you would have had scores of servants,” Helena murmured.

“Aye,” Daisy agreed, as she sank to a chair. “But ‘cautious’ isn’t the word. Nor is ‘temperate’; he didn’t know the meaning of either word. Thing is, he was a damned fool, poor fellow. He drank and gambled too much, had no regard for the future, and thought too much of his ability to slip out of trouble. I can’t even say he got that way because he missed my mother when she died, as I’d like to. Because as I heard it, his drinking and gambling was one of the things that sent her to an early grave.”

She looked at Helena and added, sadly, “I grieve for what he might have been, but not for him. No, I can’t. He sold me to Tanner to get himself better treatment on the ship, you see.”

“You said he wanted to protect you. You said he did it to save you from further indignity,” Helena reminded her gently.

“So he might have done, if he’d known he was dying,” Daisy said, pulling the ribbon from her curls, laying her head back, and staring at the ceiling. “I don’t think he did, and I’m not sure he would have even if he had known. I tell folks that so they won’t think worse of me, because people do judge you by your parents. If they think he was a rogue, what will they think of me? We both went to Botany Bay, and they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I didn’t fall-I was thrown,” she added. “But now that I know you better, I don’t think I have to lie anymore.”

“You don’t,” Helena said. “You aren’t responsible for his actions. But think about it; you may have been right all along, he might have given Mr. Tanner your hand for your own protection.”

Daisy turned her head. She was sleepy and mussed, but still looked charming. Helena thought her new employer could do nothing to change that. She was a remarkably radiant creature, inside and out.

“I don’t think so,” Daisy said. “He told me I had to marry Tanner right away or we’d really be dished. I didn’t want to, but I obeyed. Well, I was only sixteen and frightened to death of the life I saw in jail, and it was worse on the ship, if that’s possible. So I did what he said. My father never said it was just to protect me, and he would have if he’d thought he’d done something noble. He loved praise. No, he was just a man. You can’t count on any of them.”

Helena gasped.

Daisy looked up at her.

“What a thing to say! It’s not true,” Helena exclaimed. “My father, my dear Vincent… they were men, and they were wonderful people. They never tyrannized or drank or gambled; they put family before themselves, always. Poor Vincent even gave his life for his country and the men under his command. Sacrifice came naturally to him. I can only hope my son grows up to be such a man. The men I’ve known have mostly been valiant and brave.

“Sometimes men are vain creatures, that’s true,” she added wistfully. “Even Vincent preened when I told him how good he looked in his uniform. But so are women vain, some notoriously so. We’re encouraged to be. Men can be irresponsible, too,” Helena continued, as Daisy watched her with a darkening expression. “But so can women. It’s true men seem to love adventure more than we do, but that may be because we can’t have adventures the way they can. I believe many of us would, if we could. There’s not that much difference between the sexes except that men are trained to responsibility, and so we’re surprised when they’re not trustworthy.”

“We don’t force men to our pleasures,” Daisy said flatly.

Helena was silent a second. Then she shook her head. “But, Daisy, most men don’t, most don’t even want to. It isn’t right to taint a whole gender because of experience with one wicked representative of that sex.”

“That’s true,” Daisy said, the darkness leaving her eyes. “Look at Geoff, I mean, the earl. He’s noble and kind, and I never saw him do a cruel thing to a woman, or heard of him doing anything like, neither. I can’t imagine him doing that, and don’t believe he ever would.”

“Of course not,” Helena said.

“Yes,” Daisy said with a sigh of satisfaction. “That’s why he’d make a perfect husband: he’s a kind, noble, and considerate gentleman.”