“Possibly not,” Geoff said. “But they can pay someone to swear to it, and that’s what worries me. Well, you know the type of people we lived among in Port Jackson, Daisy.”

“I do,” she said. “And I know they weren’t all bad. No one wants to get the name of a rat, neither, Geoff. You know that!”

“Possibly,” he said. “But there’s more. Everyone knew you hated Tanner; you never made a secret of it. That gets them a foot in the door.”

“Possibly?” Daisy echoed, seizing on the first thing he’d said. “Oh, Geoff. I didn’t break Tanner’s neck for him, but you saying that? You fair break my heart, you do.”

He came to her and took her hand. “I don’t think you did anything, Daisy. I’m just saying the road ahead may be rocky.”

She slowly withdrew her hand and raised her head. She glanced over at Leland, and caught her breath on a stifled sob. “My life’s been rocky. I’m used to that. I didn’t do Tanner in, though I’ll never deny I wished I could. So does that mean they can put me in prison again? Or send me back to Botany Bay?”

She sat straight in her chair, clearly afraid, looking desperate but proud, like a queen on her way to the tumbrels. Or so Leland thought. Her flaming hair and outrageously red gown accentuated the fact that her complexion was too white, and her eyes too bright. She was crestfallen at the moment, but there was something unquenchable about her fire. She was all spirit and rage, and he thought, yes, she could kill a man if she had to, but not by such a craven scheme as putting a burr under his saddle. She would, he thought, warn the fellow first and then, if she had to, yes, she might well put a bullet through him or cut out his heart. But only if she or someone she loved was in danger, and she had no other way to stop it.

“So who is my accuser?” Daisy asked.

“Bow Street will not divulge the name,” Leland said. “Yes, I know, I asked, and so did the earl, but that they’re adamant about.”

“Because they’re afraid I’d kill the fellow!” Daisy said with a sniff. “Well, I wouldn’t, you know. Him, I’d try to maim.”

Leland laughed.

“I would,” she said, looking at him. “Of all the low tricks! No one, not anyone in all of Port Jackson, ever said a thing like that. And I had those who didn’t like me. Well, no one’s perfect, and I’m certainly not. I didn’t like Morrison, our butcher, for example. I hated him because he charged too much, and put his hands on rumps and breasts that were no part of his business or his merchandise, and so I told him, and everyone, you can be sure.

“And there was Mrs. Coleman,” she said. “Now, there was a criminal! She poisoned two husbands and never denied it. Not because they were cruel, though they might have been, but for their money. She only got free because she married a guard. I wouldn’t ever take tea with that one, and so I said.”

She stopped and looked down. “I said things too freely, I suppose. Not about those two, believe me! But about others, yes, I might have done. I was unhappy, and unhappy people try to make others feel the same way. I should have been more charitable. That doesn’t make me a murderess!” she said, looking up at their faces.

They looked at each other, and they didn’t smile.

She swallowed hard. “I know more about the law than most females, from being exposed to it so young and so often. But doesn’t my accuser have to face me in court?”

“So he would,” the earl said. “But we don’t believe it will ever come to that.”

“Why not?” Daisy asked. She frowned as the men exchanged looks again. Leland, looking more tense and sober than she’d ever seen him; Geoff, growing a little red around the ears.

“I’ll tell you later,” the earl said evasively. “If it even comes to that.”

“For now,” Leland said abruptly, “we need you to relax, settle down, and make a list of anyone you think might mean you harm. Anyone,” he said. “First, from the days before your father was arrested. Someone had to inform on him. We’ll search the old records, but we’d like to know who you think that might have been. Include anyone you may have met in Newgate prison who might bear a grudge, and anyone similarly bent that you can remember from the ship that brought you to Botany Bay. We’d also like a list of those you knew from then on, of course. That will give us something to work with.”

“We need to know who did this to you,” the earl said.

Daisy’s eyes widened. “Will they be able to put me in Newgate again?” she asked again. She frowned to hear her voice shake.

“No,” Leland said. “Not while I live.”

“Nor I,” the earl agreed.

She nodded, relieved. Then she raised her head. “You know, actually, I don’t think my accuser is anyone we know from those bad days, Geoff. Because, say I was put in jail: Even if I were transported again, who’d profit? What good would it do them? They couldn’t get my money. So why bother? Convicts don’t like courts, do they, Geoff?” she asked, like a child in the night wanting to be told there was nothing in her darkened wardrobe but imagination. “Don’t you remember?”

“Yes,” he said. “But they could easily pay someone else to broach the suit for them.”

“I see,” she said, thinking hard. “It could even be someone who never did anything bad, someone who just didn’t want me getting too close to you, Geoff. Or you, my lord,” she said, looking straight at Leland.

The earl stared at her. Leland put his head to side as he considered her.

“Well, you two foisted me off on Society,” she said. “There are high sticklers who could be mighty mad that you introduced a common convict to the cream of the ton. They mightn’t like having to rub elbows with such as me, whether I was guilty or not. Accusing me of a murder is just the kind of sneaking, rotten, rancid thing a person like that would do.”

“So it would be,” the earl said, exchanging a look with Leland.

“So it might be,” Leland said sharply. He seemed, for the first time since she’d known him, agitated, all his customary lazy good humor vanished. “It’s all conjecture. I must get some real investigation started. So I have to leave now. There are people to speak to, and more to be threatened. Mrs. Masters?” he said through tightened lips. “If I might see you outside for a moment?”

Helena looked surprised.

“Not to worry,” Leland assured her, more gently. “No one suspects you of anything. I just need to speak with you, alone.”

Helena’s expression cleared. “Of course, my lord,” she said quietly. “I’ll be just outside, Daisy,” she said, and went to the door.

Leland followed.

Daisy found herself alone, with Geoff. Then, and only then, did she suddenly understand the unspoken conversation he’d had with the viscount, as clearly as if she had heard it.

“Oh, by all that’s holy,” she muttered, putting her hand to her forehead. “Now I’ve done it. I’ve gone and forced your hand, haven’t I?”

“No, Daisy,” the earl said, as he came to stand before her. “You’ve gone and made me realize that I should ask for your hand, and not dillydally anymore.”

“That’s what I meant,” she said miserably.

Chapter Fifteen

“No one can touch you if you’re my wife,” the earl told Daisy. “There’d be no more talk of murders and such nonsense.”

He hesitated. “I promise you won’t be prosecuted for Tanner’s death, but… I’d like to know. Just between the two of us, and I’ll never speak it again. You had just cause, and I couldn’t blame you, and wouldn’t. But… you didn’t have a hand in it, did you?”

“Oh, Geoff,” she said sadly.

“I’m sorry I asked, but I had to,” he said, his face becoming ruddy. “But think on, if you’d been me, you would have done it, too.”

“Likely,” she said. She looked around the room and sighed. The bookcases were filled with heavy, beautifully covered tomes. She didn’t doubt he’d read them all. It was the room of a rich and educated man. Geoff was proposing marriage to her, but for the first time since she’d met him, that prospect had never seemed farther away.

“So,” he said, smiling again. “Give me your answer and I’ll arrange all the details. My dear Daisy, will you marry me? I confess that I mightn’t have had the audacity to ask a woman half my age for her hand, but it’s clear now that you need me. We’ll deal very well together, I think, and you’ll never have to worry again.”

He hit his forehead with his hand. “Ridiculous proposal! Where’s the romance. Where’s the drama? I ought to have brought flowers, or jewelry. But I never thought I’d actually ask. I’ve been thinking about this for some days now. Only a crisis like this could have forced me into it, though, and I admit, I’ve never been happier that it did. It seems the right thing to do for both of us. I may be too old, but not if you don’t think I am. We might even be able to start a new family. That will be odd-having a child my grandchildren’s age. But we won’t be the first or last to do something like that. I’m old”-he chuckled-“but not incapable. And never fear! You know my boys, Christian, Amyas, and Daffyd. And they know you. They won’t mind; in fact, they’ll be glad, I think.”

He put an arm around her waist, the other went to the back of her neck, and he started to draw near. He was tentative and gentle. He smelled of good shaving soap. But as he neared she could see how weathered his skin was, and that he had a few freckled blotches on his forehead. He had fine eyes, but there were lines around them, as well as those furrows that ran down from the sides of his nose to the sides of his mouth. She saw he was looking at her lips, and his own parted. She closed her eyes. He touched her mouth gently with his.

His mouth was warm and dry, and felt so terribly wrong, she wanted to weep. Her stomach seemed to do a little flip. She shuddered and pulled away.