His heart seized. Horrified, he reached for his daughter. “Sweetling...”
She recoiled, nearly upsetting her chair in her haste to avoid his touch. “No. I tried the locks. I heard the whispers. Then I saw the grave. And I knew I could never, ever trust a single word you said ever again.”
His fingers cold and his breathing shallow, Alistair could barely think over the rushing in his ears. For four years, he’d believed his daughter hated him because he hadn’t saved her in time from the sun. He’d accepted her outbursts, her long silences, her teeth upon his skin, because he believed he deserved it. That any man who allowed his child to be harmed was unquestionably a bad father.
But it was ever so much worse than that.
Her burns had never stood between them, after all. The wounds were not those he could see, but those Lillian carried in her heart. For four years, she believed her own father wished she were dead. Whether or not she was too young to understand that love, not hate, had brought about that gravestone, it was far too late to expect her to believe any part of the explanation. But he still had to try.
“Lillian,” he began softly, his throat clogging from the pain evident in his daughter’s eyes. “I have never once wished you away. There are bad people out there who would have tried to take you from me—or, worse, to harm you—if they knew you were alive. That is theonlyreason for that stone. It means nothing.”
“Bad people like you?” his daughter answered dully, a sheen of unshed tears glistening in her eyes.
“Sweetling, I—“
“No more make-believe.” She swallowed hard but did not lower her gaze. “You may be my papa, but I don’t love you, either.”
Chapter 10
Violet stood in the open doorway, half in the prayer room and half in a dark corridor, and trembled at the unrelenting shadows.
Perhaps Mr. Waldegrave could see in the dark, but she was not so gifted. She turned to grab a candle, only to realize they were over by the table and well out of reach. Nor were there any convenient heavy objects with which to prop open the door.
With a growl of frustration, she spun back toward the hollow tunnel and picked her way through as quickly as she could in complete blackness. Her throat tightened. She did her best to tamp down the familiar panic crawling up her skin. If she had to feel her way in the dark, at least she wasn’t in the catacomb with the dead monks.
She finally reached the intersection with Lillian’s bedchamber. When her knocks went unanswered, she realized she’d have to traverse the catacombs after all, if she didn’t want to linger alone in the darkness.
Desperately modulating each breath to keep panic at bay, she inched down the musty passageway, keeping her mind from the bodies in the walls by concentrating on the many things she’d like to beat into the thick heads of both Mr. and Miss Waldegrave.
The first fable she’d read Miss Lillian would have to beThe Boy Who Cried Wolf. Her charge had every reason to feel unfairly accused, but the first step to earning her father’s trust would be to stop attacking him at every turn.
The story she was saving for Mr. Waldegrave was being invented in Violet’s head with every hesitant step and gaining furor each time her ginger ankle unbalanced her into the moldering walls. She was titling this one,Don’t Assume You Know Everything, and it contained an extra chapter called,Where The Bloody Hell Is The Governess’s Key?
By the time she reached the primary structure, sweat dampened her hair and her heart was in danger of imploding. She refused to reenter the catacombs without a pocketful of candles and a heap of keys.
She banged on the locked door loud enough to deafen anyone in a ten-mile radius. It immediately swung open.
Mr. Waldegrave’s manservant—what was his name? Mr. Roper?—stood at the ready. His surprise at discovering her unaccompanied was as clear as his disdain for her state of disarray.
“Where is the master?” he demanded, without stepping aside to let her pass.
“With Miss Lillian,” Violet panted, desperate for clean air. She squeezed past him into the blessedly well-lit hall.
Mr. Roper stared down his nose at her, suspiciously. “Why are you alone?”
“Why am I—” She tamped down a bubble of hysterical laughter. “Do you think for a moment that Iwishedto be alone in the catacombs?”
His brows lifted. “There is no need to take a tone with me. I have nothing more to say until Master arrives.”
“A tone?A tone?I’m surprised I can speak at all. Your ‘master’ left me behind!”
He simply gazed down at her as if she’d deserved to be abandoned, and had half a mind to toss her back into the tunnels. Dismissively, he turned to close the door to the catacombs.
Recognizing that her panicked outbursts were not endearing her to her employer’s manservant, she closed her eyes and forced deep breaths until her heart rate returned to normal.
“Please,” she said quietly, as soon as she had somewhat calmed. “I would very much like to return to my bedchamber to tidy up. Would you be so kind as to accompany me?”
His gaze was impassive. “No.”
