He saw through her act.
“Well, at least you made it out alive,” Thomas said, when it was all over.
The words tugged uncomfortably at Sam’s skin, but not nearly as much as the uncertainty in them.
“Why do you keep saying that? About making sure I’m still alive?”
“Just a joke.”
“But you’ve said it a lot.”
As Thomas debated whether to speak, Sam realized perhaps she didn’twantto know the answer. Maybe Thomas didn’t want her to know, either.
“This club kills people all the time.”
She scoffed. “You can’t scare me off.” The wordkillwas a rush of cold air. It threatened to blow over her carefully constructed house of indifference cards. “You really should stop trying.”
“It happens. The year before I became regent, they killed a girl. Died over the arm of a couch in the smoking room of some London night club with a mixture of cocaine and alcohol in her stomach.” Thomas grew from a concerned brother to an impassioned preacher, spitting a prepared sermon from behind his pulpit. “They are so careless with people. When you try to rip someone until you’re all cut from the same cloth…you’re going to eventually rip someone completely in half. I worry about you, and believe it or not, you already are a member of this family. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
The pull of her heart was tempting. He had secrets Animos had forced him to keep, secrets that had clearly been torturing him, but vulnerability wasn’t the Animos way. Worse still, it wasn’t the Dubarry way. Her father never showed vulnerability, nor did he encourage it.
“I’m not the one who doesn’t believe I’m a Dubarry, Thomas,” she retorted, still unmoving from her place against the staircase wall. “It’s Father.”
“And you really think—”
“I don’t think. I know,” she snapped. “I need you to trust me. Help me, if you can.”
Thomas couldn’t have looked less sure of anything. As far as Sam could tell, she’d shoved him into a corner. He could either help the sister he claimed to love, or he could deny her help and lose her forever. “Please.”
A tense pause ensued—her entire future hung on the edge of a cliff of silence.
He sighed. “What do you need?”
“I need the records of everyone who works in this house. And any of father’s other properties.” A plan began to spin itself out in her head. “Anyone who could possibly go as my date to the ball.”
“I think Daniel’s probably your only—”
“I don’t—” Holding onto the nearby railing for support, Sam heaved her body up until she was technically standing. Technically because while she was, indeed upright, all of her weight rested on the bannister. “I won’t let it be him.”
“Why not? He’s clearly into you. If you’re going to win, you’re going to need someone like him.”
Thomas’s thoughts were sensible, reasonable. If she was serious about winning—and she was serious about winning—Daniel was the most logical choice. She already knew him, he worked for the estate and clearly cared about her, at least enough to offer his coat and stand outside with her in the cold all night. Usually such calculation appealed to her. Reason above feeling. Still, every time Daniel’s songs floated through her head or the memory of his smile twisted the already tight knots in her guts, reason vanished.
She hadn’t consciously decided why she was so quick to dismiss him as a candidate, but the answer was obvious. It was written all over his dopey, smiling face. It was in the lines of his stupid love songs.He’s too good for Animos. Too sweet for all of this. Even at my worst, I can’t pick a guy like that.
“See if there’s anyone else.” Then, seeing as it worked so well the first time, she added it again here, “Please.”
With a quick nod of farewell, Thomas absconded to his room, leaving Sam alone on the staircase to think. The hangover clouded her mind with pain and dizzy spells, but her gut was as certain as it could be. She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t take Daniel Best to the Mud Duck Ball and rip the starlight glint from his eyes.
At least…not if she could possibly help it.
The next day, with her hangover dulled and a full day of lectures mercifully completed, Sam returned to Ashbrooke Manor with only one goal in mind: avoid Daniel Best at all costs. Until she had the Mud Duck situation firmly in hand, it wouldn’t do to go around flirting with the dangers he presented.
Ashbrooke was a massive estate, with hundreds of acres and scores of rooms in which to get lost. Losing him wouldn’t be a challenge. On the long car ride from the crooked streets of Oxford back to her home, she blared some BBC talk show and rolled the windows down, repeating it to herself over and over again:Avoid him, and everything will be fine.
The interior of her bedroom had been restored by the quick work of the Ashbrooke staff, but the night before, when she tried to sleep, it was a room of disruptions, of oddities. His note—phone number and all—was still crumpled on her bedside. Wind from her nearby window crinkled the paper, the sound tickling her ears with every gust. Then there was his coat. His damn coat he’d given over to keep her from freezing to death and covered her with once the sun came up and the regents shuffled her home for more drinking. It hung now, inoffensively enough, on her coatrack and smelled up the whole room of him. A mix of grass, old books, and soft whisky threw her careening back to their night with every breath. When she eventually managed to scrape a few hours’ sleep, soft guitar music and warm eyes always played a leading role in her dreams.
That’s why the distance was so important. Not only for his safety, but for hers. She needed to keep a watchful eye on her heart. It was restless. It wanted to claw out of the cage she’d put it in and run into the embrace of the first man who’d so much as smiled at her. Her head knew better. The heart, the head reasoned, would be even happier to have a father than a love affair, so locked up the heart would remain until the day Lord Dubarry opened his eyes and saw her as a daughter and not a stranger.
