“Before we go down to mingle with other guests as the rules require, perhaps we ought to decide how we mean to go on. I suspect the weather and the house rules will compel us to act like Mr. and Mrs. St. Leger for at least a few days.”
“Very well,” she said resignedly. She neatly folded her letter and set it aside, then looked up at him expectantly.
“I expect you will need to accustom yourself to calling me Lorcan. If you find such an intimacy excruciating, St. Leger will do, I suppose. I suppose you should endeavor not to flinch when I call you Daphne. Because I intend to, during the spirited discourse or what have you that goes on in the sitting room.”
She took this in. “I am not very good at lying.”
“And yet you managed it so well last night.”
“I lied bynotlying,” she pointed out. Somewhat weakly.
“True enough.” He was somewhat amused. “I’m genuinely curious. What do you think will happen to you if you outright lie? Will you go straight to hell? Or do you get a number of dismissals, a bit like cricket, before you’re done for?”
Faint distaste flickered over her features. “I imagine you do it whenever it suits you.”
“It all depends on what you fear more, the wrath of God or starvation, I suppose. And if a lie is what it takes to get food or shelter when one has no hope of getting it any other way, then a lie it is. Otherwise, I’m partial to the truth. But I deal honestly with people. It’s why I’ve so many friends. And more than a few enemies.”
It was an attempt to disconcert her and she knew it because she merely eyed him ironically.
“I feel as though one ought to live by a code,” she explained patiently. “Something that sort of defines your truest self. A moral true north toturn to when you’re at a loss for how to proceed. Or to let you know when... you might be about to take a wrong turn.”
“Mine is ‘take what you can get when you can get it.’”
“Charming.”
“But useful. I wonder if your code would hold up to a real test?”
She regarded him coldly for a long wordless moment. “You know nothing about me.”
“Fair point. Why don’t you start with not lying to me about why someone with a lofty title has taken a j-o-b.”
She appeared to silently dither. “I don’t see why that is necessary for you to know.”
“Consider it a gift to me in exchange for lying on your behalf to one of your old friends.”
It was a slightly bastardly thing to say.
And it caused her some clear discomfort. She cleared her throat. “Our family has a bit of a financial difficulty. I am doing my part to alleviate it. Surely that’s sufficient information.”
“Your family?”
“My father, the Earl of Worth. My brothers are Charles and Montague. And my mother was named Elizabeth, and as you know now, she died when I was eleven years old.”
“Does Charles feel jealous that his brother got the fancier name?”
This surprised a smile from her so brilliantly amused he went abruptly still with awe, as if he’d stumbled across a four-leaf clover.
He basked in it a moment.
“What are they like, your father and brothers?”
Her face went luminous. “Oh, my father is very clever and witty. I can hardly keep count of the number of languages he speaks anymore. A bit absentminded and sensitive you see, as most geniuses are. Our mother’s death quite crushed him. He has spent years studying and reading and writing important papers. I suppose Charles and Montague take after him, although Monty is a bit simpler and kinder and Charles is better at sport and he’s the heir and he fancies all the girls are in love with him.”
Imagine being the people who made Daphne’s face glow like the moon, is what Lorcan thought.
“Where are they all at this moment?”
“I don’t know. On the continent somewhere, gallivanting. Paris, I think. They’ve been there about half a year. My father is at home. What about your parents, Mr. St. Leger?”
