What a Gentleman Desires (8 page)

So where in bloody hell was she? This was why nobody in clear possession of his wits ever involved a female in his plans. Women were an unknown quantity, prone to improvisation, and a man worrying about a woman could end up a dead man in more ways than one.

He heard the latch depress and quickly stepped back against the wall, so that the opening door would conceal him.

Which would have been a sterling plan, save for the fact the door opened inward, leaving him exposed, looking the complete fool as he stood pressed up against the stones. All he was missing were the pointed shoes and the bells. If the rest of his day went as it had gone thus far, he might have to consider himself being punished for some unknown sin.

Still, when Daisy stepped straight out onto the path, the move put her in front of him; she had yet to see him.

“Oh, God, no. He’s not here,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I thought God hasn’t been here all along,” he said, stepping forward.

And then he had the surprise of his life.

“Valentine!” She took his hands in hers, squeezed his knuckles together with more strength than he’d supposed she possessed. He could have taken this fervent greeting as a sign of some growing affection for him, save that her fair complexion was once again almost deathly white against her copper hair. “It’s gone. It’s missing. I looked everywhere.”

“The journal?”

She let go of his hands and glared at him. “Yes, the journal. What else could I be talking about, Mr. Redgrave. It’s gone.”

“Valentine. A moment ago, I was Valentine. I still am, Daisy.”

She sighed in exasperation. “All right, all right. Valentine. I had it out of its hiding place to look up the names for you. I was reading it when I...when I thought of something, and I believe I allowed it to fall to the floor unheeded as I left the room.”

“Wonderful,” Valentine commented, wincing.

“You don’t have to pull one of your disapproving faces to remind me how unfortunate this is. But nobody comes into my room, not even to clean it. I was allowed a key when I applied to Lady Caroline for one. I always demand a key. Husbands and sons, you understand.”

“Not really. I should think they’d be too terrified. Did you lock the door?”

“Please restrain yourself from questioning the obvious. Of course I neglected to lock the door. I was in a rush to follow you and— None of this is even vaguely amusing, Valentine. They’ll know why I’m here.”

“Then this
they
will know considerably more than I.” He grabbed her hand. “Come along now like a good little governess, Daisy. You’re leaving.”

She pulled herself free. “No. I can’t leave. Not without my diary. It has those names you need in it, remember? And...and memories. If—if I can’t locate it by tomorrow morning, yes, then I’ll agree to leave. I’ll have no choice.”

“And how do you suppose you’ll locate it?”

“I’ll simply have to ask people, that’s all. For some reason, people find it difficult to lie to me.”

“Imagine that,” Valentine said, knowing he was being facetious. But he said it to her back, because the door was already closing.

* * *

D
AISY
LEFT
THE
servant stairs on the third floor and headed straight for the nursery, mostly because she had no plans to interrogate Lady Caroline or Lord Mailer about the missing journal. That left the servants, and the children.

Hoping for a simple answer, she wouldn’t approach Lady Caroline’s keeper, Davinia, unless left with no other option. After that interview, she’d have no choice but to remove herself from the premises without delay. Not to be too dramatic about the thing—was that possible?—she would first tie up her possessions in a blanket and drop it out of her window before speaking with Davinia.

She wasn’t going to divulge her quickly devised plan to Valentine Redgrave, however, no matter how generous his offer to
protect
her. She didn’t know where Redgrave Manor was located, but certainly it was some distance from Fernwood. She would take herself no farther than a few miles away, so that she could return at night and watch the comings and goings of Lord Mailer and his guests. She’d find where he’d taken Rose, and then...and then...

“One step at a time, Daisy,” she whispered to herself as she hurried past the front stairs.

“You there, girl! Marchant!”

Her stomach sank to her toes, but she took a deep breath, turned about to look down at the landing, and dropped into a curtsy. “Lord Mailer, sir. I was just on my way to the nursery.”

“Did I ask? Come down here.”

He knows, he knows. I have to run. Now.

“Yes, sir.”

As she descended the stairs, her eyes downcast, she could feel his gaze on her, raking her head to toe.

Her hand on the newel post, to keep her from trembling, she hoped, she curtsied yet again, poised to race past him down the next flight of stairs, to bolt out through the front door before he could order anyone to stop her. “Sir?”

“No. Still don’t see it. He must have meant what he said, he felt some ridiculous need to apologize. Very well, that’s all. You may go now. And keep those brats indoors the next few days. I don’t want to have to see them, or my wife. They’re all sick. Indisposed. Earn your bloody keep, Marchant. Understood?”

“Sir.” Keeping her shoulders forward, her head down, she bobbed yet another curtsy and turned to return upstairs, careful to keep her hips steady as she climbed. When she reached the landing and turned around, Lord Mailer was gone.

She’d been so close to bolting, so close to giving herself away!

But what had he meant? He didn’t
see it?
Didn’t see what? But as she walked on, one possible answer came to her. She and Mr. Redgrave—Valentine—had been observed together, either last night or today, and he’d offered the excuse that he was apologizing for something he’d done? Ha! He had a lot to choose from, didn’t he? But why should Lord Mailer care? Was he no better than Mrs. Beckwith and her other employers, believing she was out to seduce anything in pants? And what did the horrible man expect to see? Not a resemblance between herself and Rose, surely. He couldn’t have stumbled on to that, could he?

Oh, where was the dratted diary? And where was Valentine, who would be able to tell her what Lord Mailer had meant? He only seemed to be underfoot when she
didn’t
want him.

Daisy turned down the hallway leading to the nursery, to be greeted by the sound of William’s howls. She stepped up her pace and entered the room in time to see Agnes, the nursery maid, apparently attempting to poke an apron-tipped finger into the boy’s ear.

“What on earth?”

“Gots mud in his ear, Miss Marchant, even after his bath, and won’t hold still to let me dig it out.”

“I doubt I’d sit there placidly while you
dug
into my ear, Agnes. Isn’t there another way?”

“Soakin’ him head and ears in a water bucket, I suppose.”

William’s howls climbed a few decibels.

“Well, what do you suppose we stop for now, and consider other options. Is that all right with you, Master William?”

Whether the child understood the full extent of her words or not she couldn’t know, but he certainly understood her tone. He grinned at her, slid off the nurse’s lap, landed a kick against her shin and took off for his bedchamber on the other side of the nursery. Daisy knew she should correct the boy, tell him to apologize, but she simply didn’t have the strength.

“I’ll be takin’ m’self downstairs for a cup o’ tea and some time with m’feet up, ma’am, iffen you don’t mind. Fairly wears me out, that boy does. How’s the headache?”

“Go along, Agnes, and thank you for allowing me time for a lie-down. It was just the thing.”

That left only Lydia, who was industriously drawing something as she sat at one of the low tables. Odd, she hadn’t been laughing at William. She hadn’t even been looking at him, or at Daisy, for that matter. She’d seemed genuinely concerned earlier, when told her governess had the headache, and all but ordered Daisy to her bed in an endearingly grown-up voice.

“Lydia? What are you drawing? May I see?”

The child didn’t answer, so Daisy repeated the question as she walked toward her.

“Go away,” Lydia said, curling her arm around the top of the paper and lowering her head over it, as if to hide the drawing.

Daisy smiled, believing she at last understood. “By any chance could you be drawing a picture of Mr. Redgrave? Is he wearing a crown, and perhaps bowing over the hand of a beautiful young princess? Oh, please let me see.”

Lydia lifted her head for a moment, her face running with tears, and Daisy, alarmed, quickly snatched up the drawing.

It was nothing like she’d imagined.

“Lydia? Who is this?”

“It’s
you!
You’re a horrid, horrid person, and horrid people are
ugly!
”

“And apparently tied to a stake to be consumed by a trio of fire-breathing dragons.” She laid the paper on the table once more, before squeezing herself onto one of the small, low chairs.

“It’s not funny! You’re a horrid, horrid person, and horrid people—”

“Yes, I think we’ve established what should happen to horrid people,” Daisy said, extracting a folded handkerchief from her sleeve. “Here, blow your nose. It’s dripping.”

The child did as she was told, which Daisy had learned most people did when confronted with calmness and reason. “It might be helpful if you told me what I’ve done to incur your anger, so that I can apologize appropriately. Will you tell me?”

“You...you know what you did,” the child said, then blew her noise noisily. “You lied. We’re not ever supposed to lie. You said so.”

Oh, dear.
“And how did I lie to you? Because I’m prodigiously sorry.”

Lydia blew her nose again, wiping at it rather ineffectively. Daisy rescued the handkerchief and dabbed at the child’s face.

“You said you had the headache, and that’s why we couldn’t go back to the greenhouse to get the mud pies. We couldn’t go outside
at all.
So I...so I took two of the prettiest roses from the bouquet and sneaked out of the room when Agnes was busy with Willie, and climbed up to the attic to give them to you so you’d feel better. And you know what, Daisy? You weren’t there.”

“Ah...”

“But I saw you. I climbed up on the window seat and looked out the window. I would be the princess in the tower. It’s so very high up, you can see lots of things. I saw you. I saw Mr. Redgrave, too.”

Daisy put her hands to her head and began rubbing at her temples with her fingertips. The standing stones weren’t visible from the house; Lydia must have seen Mr. Redgrave riding away, and then her governess heading for the path leading up through the trees. That was the only possible answer. “I didn’t see him. I...I went for a walk, Lydia, thinking some fresh air would aid my headache. Did you really think I was off to meet with your prince?”

“No-o-o-o... Yes... Didn’t you?”

This lie was too big to be excused by crossing her fingers behind her back. But it was for the best. “No, Lydia, I did not. I suppose I could have come back to the nursery, to tell you I was going to take a walk, but was that really necessary?”

“No-o-o-o...I suppose I was being a silly baby.”

Daisy reached over to squeeze Lydia’s small hand in hers. “No, sweetheart, you most certainly were not. What happened to the flowers?”

Lydia raised her head and grinned. “I ripped them into little pieces and dropped them in your chamber pot.”

Daisy laughed out loud. “One day you’ll read Will Shakespeare, Lydia, and his declaration that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I think you may have discovered the singular exception to that rule.”

“I don’t understand. But you sound nice when you laugh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ripped the flowers. I shouldn’t have taken this, either, I suppose.”

So saying, the child reached into a pocket of her painting smock and pulled out Daisy’s journal.

“Here, take it. I didn’t know what to do with it, anyway. It was too thick to rip up and put in the chamber pot.”

Daisy fought the urge to snatch her diary from Lydia’s hands. “You...you didn’t show it to anyone?”

“Only Willie.” Lydia picked up her drawing and began tearing it into small pieces. “Do you want to see my drawing of the royal prince? I think I may have given him too much hair. But it’s so pretty, isn’t it?
He’s
so pretty.”

Daisy had a sudden flash of Valentine as he’d stood in the center of the stones, his long, strong legs spread, his narrow waist and broad shoulders, that so youthful, almost-pretty face made tolerable by that interesting hawkish nose...the full waves of nearly black hair that blew gently in the breeze. His dark-lashed eyes, almost amber in the sun, and filled to the brim with compassion. Caring. Concern. And maybe, just for a moment, something else, something warmer...

“Yes, Lydia,” she said, slipping the diary into her pocket, “Mr. Redgrave is very pretty.”