Page 50

Daisy was caught between embarrassment and desire. She had been certain that Miles would be happy to learn that she was chaste, but her mother’s prophecies were making her nervous.

She sat upright as his palms curled around her knees, nudging them gently apart.

“Yes?”

“I’m a virgin.”

Miles’s eyes had been fixed on her thighs—or perhaps between her thighs—but now he looked up, brows drawing together. “What did you say?”

“Belle isn’t mine. I’m a virgin,” she repeated.

His hands fell away, and he stepped back, his face snapping into rigidity. “Belle is not your child?”

Her breath caught as she nodded. “I hope you’re pleased.”

Silence. Then:

“You hope I’m pleased that I married my wife under false pretenses?” It wasn’t precisely a bellow, but close.

“That’s not exactly—”

“That is exactly how it is,” Miles said harshly. “Why in the hell did you bring the child to my house?” His eyes narrowed. “Your half-sister, presumably?”

“I didn’t think,” Daisy said, a familiar wash of embarrassment sending a red flush up her breasts. She glanced down and snatched the sides of the towel, covering up her body. “My mother planned to send Belle to an orphanage.”

His frown deepened. “You must be joking.”

“Belle was not the first child delivered to our doorstep,” Daisy said, humiliation making her bones feel heavy as stone. “My father has no interest in their care, so my mother dispatches his children to an orphanage.”

“Marvelous,” Miles said, clearly in a profound rage. “What an ethical, caring family I’ve married into.”

Daisy let that go. He had the right.

“I had no idea that my half-siblings existed until I discovered Belle on our doorstep. Our butler was coming to take her away, so I ran out of the house and brought her to you.”

After a grim silence, he said, “To call a stone a stone, since you had an infatuation with me, I was the lucky man graced with you and the baby, whom you then used to force me to marry you by pretending that you had been seduced.”

Daisy began trembling from another blast of shame. His eyes felt as if they seared through her, looking at her very soul and finding it wanting. “No!” she cried. “That wasn’t it at all! Our marriage only happened because Regina entered the room.”

But inside she quailed. Hadn’t she in fact chosen to go to Miles over Frederick precisely because she was in love with him?

Obviously he saw guilt in her face. His lip curled as he turned away.

“You are so good at solving problems,” Daisy whispered, looking down at her fingers twisting together. “I panicked.” Regret felt like a mantle of black soot closing around her.

“This reminds me of when you smuggled a file into the Tower of London. If you had given any thought to your actions, you would have guessed that your uncle would be severely punished if found in possession of such an implement. But no, you rashly went ahead because you had a stupid idea and didn’t think it through!”

Miles wasn’t wrong. She’d thought a file was a funny gift for a prisoner, never for a moment believing that her pompous uncle would wiggle through a narrow window—or that he might be punished for its possession. Luckily Miles confiscated it before it reached her uncle’s hands.

“I knew nothing of prisons. I just thought it might raise his spirits.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t think it’s fair to compare my uncle’s possible fate—had you not confiscated the file—to you marrying me.”

“A life sentence in both cases,” Miles said, with crushing effect. He spun about and bent to snatch up his breeches.

Daisy stared at his muscled arse. She was such a fool. Even now, when he was livid at her, desire sizzled in her core. “I didn’t mean to imprison you in a marital tower, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Really? There’s no escaping marriage,” Miles growled. “We have to live with the outcome of your impulsive decision, so do your motivations matter? You said, ‘The baby is mine!’ Why didn’t you simply tell the truth? It would have been easy enough to admit that Belle is your father’s bastard offspring. Frankly, it wouldn’t been shocked me, given his reputation. Lady Regina may have been stunned initially, but surprised? Unlikely.”

“I was trying to protect you by saying the baby was mine, since Regina was assuming that Belle was yours, and it all went wrong.” She let out a sobbing breath. “Please believe me, Miles.”