She did not dare suppose it had been her influence. That her silly song had shaken him enough to make him realize his daughter needed laughter the way plants needed sun.
“I am afraid I must go,” she told the girl.
“You must stay,” Felix insisted. “Theo already knows you will not be in attendance this evening and has made other provisions.”
How tempting the notion was. To remain here, with Felix and Verity, to bask in their presence while she could. But that was not just foolish, it was reckless. If she was to continue supporting herself abroad with her work as an actress, she could not simply fail to appear.
“I told you, Your Grace,” she said, “I do not miss my shows.”
“Please, Miss McKenna,” Verity chimed in. “Papa is excellent at playing dragon and princess, but I doubt he can sing the way you can.”
She felt her resistance sliding. Just this once. What would be the harm?
“You see?” Felix flashed her a quick, tender smile that did strange things to her heart. “We are, the both of us, depending upon you.”
The fight left her. What could she say to Felix and Verity, this father and daughter who had somehow fallen into her life and filled her with emotions she had no longer thought she possessed?
There was only one answer that felt right.
“Very well,” she allowed. “I will stay.”
Chapter Ten
Johanna McKenna hadworked some change over him, and Felix could not deny it any longer as he sat with her in the salon following dinner. Verity had been tucked into bed some time ago, yawning and smiling. When she had thrown her arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to his cheek, his heart had seemed to swell to thrice its original size.
And it was all the doing of the alluring woman seated alongside him.
He had not realized just how potent an elixir his daughter’s happiness could be until he had heard her laughing with Johanna McKenna. Nor had he realized how much Verity longed for his attention and affection.
When he had returned from his meeting with the Duke and Duchess of Arden, he had felt as if he carried the weight of a dozen worlds upon his shoulders. But then, he had seen Verity’s sweetly cherubic face, and he had known such a rush of gratitude for her. Thankfulness that she was alive, that she had not been injured or worse in the fire at Halford House. Humbled that she was his.
She had asked him, very seriously, if he wanted to play dragon and princess with her. And so he had. And he had chased her down the hall, laughing with her as if he were no more than a lad himself.
It had been nothing short of miraculous. Nothing short of wonderful.
“Thank you,” he told her.
She slanted a startled look in his direction. “What are you thanking me for, Your Grace?”
Now that they were alone, out of the listening ears of his daughter, he did not want the formality between them.
“When we are alone, I would prefer if you continue to call me Felix,” he said.
A charming tint of pink colored her cheeks. “As you wish, Felix, but you have nothing to thank me for. I have brought nothing but danger to your door, which is the last thing I would wish for you.”
The danger would have found him inevitably anyway. The Fenians were growing bolder in their plotting and their targets by the day. But she did not know the depths of his involvement with such matters. He had kept his work at the Home Office a secret from her out of necessity.
“I do not want to think about the danger now. We are safe here, and you have my word on that. As I see it, however, I have much to thank you for. You have brought happiness back into my daughter’s life.” He paused, struggling to find the proper words for what he wanted to convey. “I have not heard her laughter as many times in the last five years of her life as I have today.”
“Lady Verity is a lovely girl,” Johanna said softly, her wistful smile once more in place.
The one that told him she was thinking of her own daughter. She must have been an excellent mother. Watching her with Verity filled his chest with an odd tightness he could not explain. With a longing.
He supposed it made him wonder how Hattie would have been with his daughter, how their little family would have grown together, had they had the chance. Much as Johanna must look upon Verity and wonder how her life would have differed had her daughter lived.
“She is my saving grace,” he said honestly of Verity. “In the early days, after losing her mother, I do not think I could have survived without Verity.”
“You loved your wife very much,” Johanna observed.
