He scrubbed a hand over his face, his self-hatred greater than it had ever been.
What would his wife say if she could see him now, chasing after a woman who was involved with one of the most dangerous criminals of the age? He had kissed her yesterday. He had almost made love to her on a piano bench.
What a stupid bastard he was.
The carriage came to a halt after what seemed like a century. He did not bother to wait for the door to open. He threw it open himself and leapt to the street. Anger and bile rising in his throat in equal measures, he stalked up the front walk and threw open the door.
His butler was there in a trice, looking alarmed.
“Where the devil is my daughter?” he demanded.
“Your Grace,” the butler said, “Mademoiselle Beaumont and Lady Verity are in the salon, I believe. Is something amiss?”
Everythingwas amiss. He was amiss. The terror and panic from last night were fresh once more, clamoring up his throat.
But he could not give voice to the roiling emotions warring within him.Christ, he was not certain he could speak past the relief washing over him. The servants knew where his daughter was. No further harm had come to her. He would whisk her away from Mademoiselle Beaumont forthwith.
“Thank you,” he told the domestic, already stalking toward the salon. “Nothing is amiss. That will be all.”
As he neared the door, which was partially ajar, the sound of music hit him. It was Johanna’s melodious voice, singing, the piano accompanying her. But the song was…
Quite unrecognizable.
He stopped.
“I once stepped in a puddle and found myself in a muddle,” Johanna sang.
“I went to see the fishes and made a lot of wishes,” came Verity’s voice next, singing as well.
“Excellent rhyme,” Johanna commended, the strains of a simple ditty still pounding out on the piano. “Oh, I have one! I stopped to read a book but scarcely gave it a look when in came a grumpy ogre who took it away.”
Verity giggled.
His chest tightened, his heart seizing.Dear God, when had he last heard his daughter laugh? Had he ever? He suddenly could not recall. But that sound, that sweet, haunting sound, was the most beautiful music he had ever heard.
He hesitated to interrupt, lingering there in the hall. Eavesdropping, as it were, upon his daughter and a woman he could not dare to trust. A woman who had him more confused than he had ever been. Because what manner of woman would arrange for bombs to be laid outside an innocent child’s home and then sing silly rhymes with her the very next morning?
Bloody hell.
“I walked beneath a ladder, and felt quite a splatter,” Verity sang, “from a finch flying overhead.”
Johanna laughed delightedly. “How grotesque, my lady. I do like the way you think. Now I shall have to match… I danced with a man from St. Eyre who passed an odorous cloud on the stair.”
At that, both Johanna and Verity collapsed into giggles.
“A cloud!” Verity said, giggling wildly. “A cloud of pure rot!”
He could not tarry another moment more in the hall, listening. He coerced his legs to move across the threshold, forced his arm to open the door. And there they sat, his daughter and Johanna, one golden head and one set of ebony curls, bent together, their faces wreathed in smiles.
The moment Verity spotted him, she sobered, rising from the piano bench. She dipped into a curtsy. “Papa.”
Johanna stood as well, a charming flush in her cheeks as she also dipped in deference. “Your Grace. Do forgive us our silliness. I hope you did not overhear. We were inventing some new songs.”
“Rhyming songs,” his daughter added, smiling once more. “Mademoiselle Beaumont is lovely, Papa! We have been having such fun all morning.”
“Fun,” he repeated grimly. He was reasonably certain the child before him had been consumed with levity over a ditty about a fart, of all things.
How was he to deal with such a conundrum? It seemed altogether impossible, the situation untenable.
