He frowned, probably at my reaction, which I couldn’t hide. I needed to calm down. He couldn’t possibly know about my time-crossing.
“I asked Miss Barton if she knew you,” he explained. “She told me your name was Maggie Hollingsworth. Of course, it made me curious. Why would you give her an alias, unless you didn’t want your father to know?”
The adrenaline stopped pumping, and I was able to breathe again—until he mentioned Papa. I couldn’t help but glance in Papa’s direction, but too late I realized it made me look guilty.
“Your father doesn’t know, does he?”
I lifted my chin. “Will you try to blackmail me?”
He had grown very serious. “I would never stop you from helping, even if it means disobeying your father’s wishes.”
We stared at one another for several heartbeats, and I finally asked him the question that had been burning foremost in my mind. “How did you end up here, Mr. Cooper? In America, working in the White House?”
“There’s not much to tell, I’m afraid.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“Do you really want to know the boring story?”
“I really do.”
We continued to spin around the dance floor with the other couples, but it felt as if we were alone.
“The truth is that my father was the third-born son of a poor baron,” he finally said, “and my mother was the daughter of an earl. She married beneath herself, or so I was told constantly growing up, and I found that I had very few prospects in England.”
I could see by the vulnerability in his gaze that it was the truth, though it didn’t answer my question. “How did you end up at the White House?”
“My father died shortly after I was born,” he continued, “so my mother and I moved in with my uncle, the earl. I was raised at the ancestral home with his four daughters and was the next in line to inherit. When I was fifteen, my aunt produced a son, to my uncle’s great delight, and I was without a future.” He shrugged. “I’d been educated and prepared to be an earl, but my plans changed. When I turned sixteen, I left England and decided to pursue a future in America instead. I worked my way across the country and ended up in Illinois, where I met the president-elect at the time. He liked me and recommended me for the position. And that, Miss Wakefield, is why I am standing here today.”
He had given me an explanation, but there were pieces missing. If I was going to uncover his true allegiance, I would have to dig deeper.
“As you worked your way across the country, did you ever live in the South?” I asked, keeping my voice level.
He studied me, and I could tell he knew what I was suggesting. “For a time. What about you? Did you live in the South?”
“No.”
“But you lived in California?”
I frowned. Had Papa told him we lived there? “Yes. For almost a decade.”
“There are Southern sympathizers in California, are there not?”
“There are Southern sympathizers in this very city,” I shot back at him.
He nodded, conceding the point.
We were both silent for a moment as we danced. I enjoyed how effortlessly we moved together, even if I felt tense.
“Are we to be friends, Miss Wakefield?” he finally asked. “Or enemies?”
“Do you have a preference, Mr. Cooper?”
He studied me, his voice low. “Indeed, I do.”
A shiver of excitement ran up my spine. I could get lost in the depths of his brown eyes.
But could we be friends? If we were, then perhaps I could keep a better watch on his activities. “I suppose we will be friends.”
