“Not my finest hour. Lady Shrewsbury and a dozen others had such a show, including the Lord Mayor. No one looked at you.”
“Did it for me.” He kissed her cheek. “You saved me.”
Putting his hands, all of them on her waist, he tickled her. “How about another go? I promise to remember this time.”
“I need you sober and in possession of your brilliant mind, Daniel. You’re a protector. Someone needs to protect you.”
“If mine, you’d be fine.” He yawned and blew into her hair.
It had fallen; wild ruby- and wheat-colored locks that tickled his nose.
“Mine.”
He liked that notion. He held on to her and waited for the world to stop moving.
CHAPTER 37
DANIEL—IN THEFAMILYWAY
Max whimpered a gut-curling howl every time Daniel put his face in the basin. In his bedchamber, he lay half stretched out on his mattress, half over the side.
He heaved again.
Lunch, dinner, for at least a week, a year flew out of him.
Lavinia was a wizard, an evil one. Nothing of mythical lore, but the type that needed to be burned at the stake. The wench made her trolls dump poison down his throat.
What if that taste was enough to control him?
The wizard tried to turn him into his father. What would Hope do if he couldn’t come home? What about Jemina?
“Jemina!”
Nothing, no one responded. Maybe she did leave after all.
Daniel wouldn’t blame her. With Lavinia’s nasty tricks, it seemed he couldn’t keep friends or nannies.
Slow and easy, he sat up and blinked his eyes. Yes, he truly was at Finchely, not in a ditch, not an alley. His hands were clean, not dirty.
Jemina brought him home like she said she would. He was fuzzy-headed over the details, but he was sure she’d thwarted a scandal or compromise or crime—perhaps all three.
He tore off his ruined cravat, and then slipped out of his jacket and waistcoat. His legs were already naked and dusty. “Those pantaloons were new. Wretched wizard.”
Everything was so dusty. His waistcoat held spots of his own blood. He hadn’t been in a fight that broke a sweat in years.
All his rigor or rituals to be proven a worthy father, all shattered. Did Lavinia want him as a husband that badly that she’d ruin him, his good name? Was Willingham that mad over Jemina that he’d commit a crime to eliminate competition? None of this made sense. None. It was crazed.
He pushed at his skull, then brushed lint from the lapels of his jacket. Jemina rode in on a literal white horse and rescued him. She risked everything.
Reckless, full of zeal, slightly erratic. Jemina.
Her reputation had to be embers, but it showed what he knew. She cared more about him than herself. No more questioning her methods or her heart. Any doubts of her or why he’d fallen for her evaporated.
“Oh, Hope.”
His little girl needed him. He didn’t tell her good night. That never happened.
Holding his breath, he stood and waited for Max and the world to stop moving. Then, he scrubbed his teeth and tongue and started to wash his face and hair of dust, but they were already clean.
