Luke sucked in a breath to say something, but there were too many things. He had no idea where to begin.
“Oh dear,” Fernsby said.
Finally, Luke ventured, “And... Danielle Allard has not challenged this? She has not demanded to know more about her true family? Or why they’ve been concealed?”
“She was very happy here,” declared Miriam. “There was no need to explain, when she was so very happy. These people you call her ‘actual family’ have not come for her, have not written. Certainly they have not cared for her, not daily—not hourly—as we have done.”
Silas Dinwiddie looked over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. “It was indulgent—selfish, even—to remain silent on this topic, but it always seemed like something we might explain on another day. When she was older. But then she grew, and grew more, and we never managed to say the words. Now suddenly she’s twenty-two. We have loved her so very much. She seems like ours in every way. How could we explain to her that she... that she...”
He drifted off, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief.
Luke frowned at the couple, trying to imagine a childhood that included a gap in one’s own history. Luke’s heritage was more complicated than any he’d known, but he’d devotedyearsto questioning—nay, challenging—every rung of it. It had shaped him, and motivated him; his identity as a smuggler was hewn from his wretched history. How had this young woman simplygone alongwith the vagueness of her own past? It made no sense.
“But what has been your plan for this betrothal?” Luke asked Silas Dinwiddie. First things first. How to survive the next ten minutes.
Silas dabbed at his mouth with his kerchief, glancing at his wife.
Luke added, “You claim she knows who I am and why I’ve come. What reasons have you given her for our engagement if she does not know herself to be a princess? Can I assume she also doesn’t know that the Prince Regent himself arranged the betrothal? If so, why does she believe she’s being married to a stranger?”
“Well,” managed Silas Dinwiddie. “We’d... we’d not gotten so very far in explaining this; not the whys or the hows. And this is why I beseech you, sir—may we beg another night to explain it to her?”
“Meaning?” asked Luke, although he knew.
“I mean, it’s our hope that we could all agree... together, the lot of us... not to tell her about her royal blood for another day. And night. Until tomorrow, perhaps,” ventured Silas Dinwiddie, wiping his brow again.
“For God’s sake, why?” asked Luke. Almost too late, he remembered he’d just been described as “good” to these people, and he cleared his throat and scratched his head, trying to collect himself. He tried again. “How could this be prudent?”
The amount of work and effort now attached to Danielle Allard was multiplying, piling up like stones against the door of a cell. He could barely breathe under the weight of all the work she would require.
“She should hear the truth from us,” declared Miriam Dinwiddie on a sob. “We’ve tried to do it—for years we’ve tried it. The words cannot be found. She is our Dani, isn’t she?Ours.We always knew that eventually she would be taken from us but—”
They heard a clatter from the kitchen, a little laugh, footsteps. A cat hissed and skittered into the parlor.
Miriam clapped a hand over her mouth. Silas stood up, staring at the kitchen door. Luke closed his eyes and swore in his head.Now what?Danielle Allard had to be cajoled toservetea; how in the devil would she accept the truth of her family identity?
“She’s a biddable girl, really,” Silas was whispering. “A bit willful, if I’m honest, but to good ends. Hers is not a selfish will. She wants nothing more than to provide for her friends and neighbors. She’s loyal to a fault; helpful, like. This news will confuse her, no doubt, but she will forgive us. There’ll be hell to pay, but we deserve it, I suppose. We’ll manage her temper, come what may.”
“We deserve it,” repeated Miriam Dinwiddie with a sniffle.
Yes, thought Luke, eyeing them.You do deserve it.But where did that leave him?
“Can you wait to discuss the royalty bit, sir? Please? Just one more day?”
No, Luke thought. He had his own manipulations to massage into this woman’s future, he couldn’t sit on this, too. He said, “I will test the mood of the conversation if it happens to come up, how about that?”
Before Silas could consent or refuse, Danielle Allard and her friend entered the parlor bearing trays of tea and pastries. She began to lay the tea, and Luke watched her. In spite of himself, he was captivated by her smooth combination of efficiency and grace. As a rule, Luke resisted captivation. It felt wasteful and risky and it distracted him from learning other, more useful things. Even so, he followed the swift, careful movements of her small hands as she set simple cups on sturdy saucers; he watched a lone ebony curl fall loose and swing beside her cheek. Her neighbor hovered at her elbow with a plate of tarts. In low, gentle tones, Danielle Allard instructed the girl to make room on a side table and place one tart on each saucer. Her friend complied and seemed relieved for the guidance. When they’d laid the tea, Danielle stepped back and stared at her parents.Happy?her expression asked.
They were not, it was obvious, happy. They hadn’t liked his lack of complicity in their lies of omission, and Fernsby’s promise of Luke’s goodness was, no doubt, ringing very false indeed. Luke ignored them and looked again to Danielle Allard. Her face, he noticed, was less classically perfect in profile—but far more interesting. Her nose was decidedly French. If she’d tried to keep out of the sun, she’d failed. Her skin glowed olive with a dusting of freckles. While not white English cream, her complexion was clear and supple. One thing he’d managed to learn was how old she was—twenty-two years. Eleven years younger than his own thirty-three. He was hardly in the grave, but there was London twenty-two... or even a Cornish twenty-two... and then there was twenty-two raised in Kent by besotted old people who lied to their adopted daughter. It was the youngest of all the twenty-twos. He’d expected to negotiate the terms of this arranged marriage with a royal princess who understood her position as a pawn on the world stage. Instead, he was betrothed to an innocent, fetching village girl. He wanted her cooperation—nay, shemustcooperate with him—but he’d not planned to exploit her inexperience.
That wasn’t to say he couldn’t exploit her. If absolutely necessary. Probably.
Damn, Luke swore, studying her again. There was no denying her youth and innocence: hair longer than currently fashionable, only loosely bound; smallish figure, delicate wrists and slim waist. Simple wool dress in pale pink. She was like a rare and delicious indulgence that would give him a stomachache by morning. He must not imbibe. If, ultimately, he would take advantage of her naivete, she would be forbidden to him except as someone with whom to negotiate.
Idly, Luke touched his hand to the pocket of his waistcoat. It contained a small relic that he kept always—a reminder of Linus Welty. Now, a reminder of why he’d come. The relic was the fragment of an ancient jawbone with five blunt teeth. A million years ago, this piece of bone had belonged to a prehistoric fish. Luke had found it on the beach as a boy; one of the many bits of flotsam and jetsam that he collected. The Cornish coast was awash with marine treasures, but he’d picked up this one because it was more interesting than a shell or a shark’s tooth. In the end, he’d learned how much more interesting—in fact this relic represented the first time he’d looked something up in a book and learned every interesting thing about it. Linus had seen him examining it and had taken him to the village church to borrow a book about ancient sea creatures from the rector. Then he’d taught him the most miraculous thing: how to research. That simple awakening, from curious boy to expert, from ignorance to knowing, was the greatest gift Luke had ever received. The fossil was a talisman of that gift, and Luke carried it in honor of Linus.
And now he would marry Danielle Allard d’Orleans torecoverLinus.
And it did not matter that she was beautiful, or graceful, or young.
