Less now than she once had.
But seeing Verity, holding the little girl in her arms, had brought it all back.
“She smells of smoke and is covered in soot,” Felix observed, passing a loving hand over his daughter’s head. “I expect you are right. But without Simmonds, I fear I am lost.”
He was asking her, without forming the question, to bathe his daughter. After the upheaval of the night, she knew just how much of a concession this was for him. He was entrusting her with his beloved daughter, the one person he loved more than any other in the world.
“Not lost, surely,” she said. “You are a commendable father. But I can well understand there are certain matters to which a man will necessarily look to a female. I can assist her if you like.”
“I sacked Simmonds,” he said, shocking her with the admission. He passed a hand over his face. “She left Verity behind. Never bothered to look for her. I cannot keep a woman in my employ who only cares for herself and not for her charge.”
“I do not blame you,” she said softly. “I would have done the same, were I in your position.”
He took her hand in his suddenly, raising it to his lips for a kiss, his stare intense. “Thank you, Johanna.”
“For being truthful?” The smile she sent him was rueful, for she was thinking she had not been entirely honest with him from the start. Indeed, there remained facts she was still hiding. “You need not thank me for that.”
“No.” He shook his head slowly, his gaze never wavering, and she could not miss the sparkle of admiration there. “For being you. For staying by my side and snatching me from my demons when I needed it most. For following me into danger. For helping me to find her. For staying with her whilst I attempted to sort out this horrid mess. For everything. I know if Hattie were here now, she would be every bit as appreciative of you as I am.”
The mentioning of his dead wife—for surely that was whoHattiewas—caught her off guard. It seemed, at once, an insult and a compliment. A reminder of who she was in his life, a woman so insignificant he had not brought her to his true home until a fire had nearly burned it down. And yet also an encomium, coming from this man, who had clearly loved his wife so.
So she grasped his hand in return, and she said the only thing she could. “You do not need to thank me for any of that, either, Felix.”
Chapter Seven
Dynamite.
Fenians.
Bomb.
The words churned in his mind, a sea of unwanted knowledge he could not escape as Felix’s carriage carried him away from Scotland Yard. The fire at Halford House had been no accident. The explosion which had sparked the blaze in the entry hall and front salon had not, as he had hoped and assumed, been caused by a faulty gas line. But rather, lignin dynamite.
Colonel Olden, the Home Office Chief Inspector of Explosives, had broken the news to him first thing that morning when he had answered the summons taking him away from his home. The summons which had left Verity behind in Johanna Beaumont’s care.
“There was a box,” Olden had said. “Partially exploded, though not entirely. And along the perimeter of Halford House, another box was discovered. There is lignin dynamite within.”
Lignin dynamite was uniquely American.
A calling card, of sorts.
American, just like Johanna Beaumont, the mistress of Drummond McKenna. Felix’s hands closed into impotent fists as the carriage swayed through London. How had he allowed himself to believe her story of moving on to the Continent, of never returning to New York City? How had he let her cast her spell upon him, until he could think of nothing more than her talents as an actress, her gentle beauty, her sad past? How had he believed they had bonded?
Christ, how stupid was he? How naïve?
She was an actress, and a bloody talented one at that. Everything she had told him had probably been a lie, one cleverly planned to manipulate him. And oh, how she had succeeded. Even after he had witnessed her meeting with a man at the Royal Aquarium, he had somehow allowed his desire for her to convince him she was not as guilty as she seemed. That her refusal of his five thousand pounds in exchange for bedding her had meant she possessed a modicum of integrity and honor.
In truth, all it likely meant was that she was loyal to her protector. He could see it all so clearly now, and it left him sickened. The gratitude he had felt for Johanna’s steadfast presence at his side the night before had vanished, and in its place seethed a horrible fury.Good God, if she dared to harm Verity, he would murder her with his own bare hands.
Yes, it made horrible, disgusting sense, the more he thought upon it all. Johanna—if that was her true name—had known he would be away from his home. Perhaps the business with the strange man at the aquarium earlier had been a part of it. A means of arranging the entire affair.
Bombs had been laid at his home.
Where his innocent daughter lived, where she slept.
And now, he had left Verity withher. With the last woman he ought to have trusted, it would seem.
How had he been so blinded by desire? By his own sense of self-importance?By God, he had almost lost Verity. The only part of Hattie he had left. And Good Christ, had he actually been so blinded in his relief last night at finding his daughter safe that he had actually told Johanna Hattie would have been appreciative of her?
