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Watching Belle smiling at someone else made her feel peculiar. She didn’t want Belle to grow up with another woman.

Belle was hers.

His eyes narrowed. “Do you even know what a rusk is?”

“Of course I do!” Regina had frequently suggested that Daisy eat nothing but rusks in order to whittle down her hips. “If you have some in the kitchens, I shall give her one and we can take our leave.”

“And go where?”

“To Frederick,” she snapped.

His face grew—if possible—even more rigid. “I should have known. Although I would have thought that Frederick’s penchant for whiskey might have affected his ability to father a child. And he is not married, by the way.”

Daisy wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about, but her friend obviously needed defending. “How dare you!” she cried. “Frederick can do … can do whatever he wishes!”

“Obviously.” Miles visibly struggled for control. “Let’s hope he is sober enough to manage a rapier.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He deserted this child. He deserted you. I had no idea that when you were working so cozily together on your uncle’s letters he was seducing you. I would have—”

“Done what?” Daisy asked wildly. “Frederick wasn’t seducing me!”

“So you seduced him?” A vein was pulsing in Miles’s forehead. “I would be grateful to be spared the distasteful series of events that resulted in this child.”

“Belle is not Frederick’s child!”

A prickly silence fell between them.

Miles’s brows drew together. “So are you planning to beg Frederick for help, just as you did me? If he is the man I take him for, he has no bastards, Daisy. And not because of whiskey. I lost my temper and shouldn’t have said that.”

“That is none of your business,” Daisy stated.

“You came to me. You made it my business.”

“That’s when I thought—” She broke off.

“When you thought that I had a schoolroom full of bastards?” He snorted. “I suppose your mother informed you that I was a rakehell. I assure you that my reputation has been blown out of proportion. Surely you didn’t think that you could simply drop this child on my doorstep and return to society as if nothing had occurred, as if Belle didn’t exist?” Miles’s eyes darkened with distaste, but his voice remained even.

Daisy swallowed hard, since that had been precisely what she’d envisioned.

“This child makes you ineligible for marriage in polite society,” Miles stated.

Daisy instantly knew that she was hearing the cool distance with which Miles addressed miscreants in the House of Lords. People like her uncle.

“Surely you understand,” he continued, “that you cannot simply return to the ballroom as if nothing happened, as if you had never given birth. Although I gather that’s precisely what you have been doing since the Season opened.”

Daisy felt a blinding wave of fury. “You need not be so condescending,” she retorted, her voice cracking. It would probably take practice to sound as calmly patronizing as he.

“I am being practical. I spend my days investigating sexual depravity amongst the nobility,” Miles said with scathing emphasis. “I am surprised that Lady Wharton had the gall to bring you to the marriage market this fall knowing that you birthed a child. I assure you that such dishonesty is no basis for marriage.”

“Marriage?” Daisy repeated. “Marriage to whom?”

“To a husband whom you entranced without telling the truth. What about your wedding night? Virginity is highly valued. I’ve always known you were impulsive, Daisy, but this sort of behavior is a new low.”

How could she ever have imagined they were friends?

“Unfortunately your free-spirited ideas are not shared by most gentlemen in polite society. I will say in your favor that you have never pretended to be sanctimonious.”