As for Daisy, she could not help her mind drifting to Lieutenant Farthmore and Lady Montague. She did not know what danger those two people were, but she feared they were dangerous indeed. Perhaps even more dangerous than her father had been. With him, she had at least known what she could expect.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Burke sat on the Minkerton’s wide veranda overlooking the sea and pretended to read a book, though he was far more engaged in watching Belle at her embroidery. He was certain nobody was so pert with a needle. Each stitch was an attack on the fabric, and then so often the stitch seemed to go wrong and she would adorably sigh, pull out the thread, and attack once more. It seemed everything she did was in some charming fashion.
It had been some days since the dinner at Miss Danworth’s house. He felt that night was the moment when he’d begun to dip his toe in the water. All along he’d convinced himself that Belle would never look upon him as a brother, but then they’d had so many walks round the garden where she seemed so interested in anything he said…well, he decided he must try. Subtly, of course. He would not wish to embarrass the lady with any feelings that were unwelcome.
He’d praised her painting as good enough to be confused for a Vernet. Certainly, it must be taken as a high compliment. Shewasskilled with a brush in a pleasant sort of way, but not exactly a master. It had been a flirtatious gambit, it really could not be seen otherwise.
It had seemed to go over well and that had given him some little bit of hope. It could be that Belle’s view of him was changing, that he was not so much a brother. Or it could be only his hopeful imagination.
The Minkertons’ butler, a thin and forlorn-looking fellow who always seemed as if he’d just heard bad news, came onto the veranda with a note on a silver tray and took it to Belle.
“Oh good, Branway,” she said, “you cannot know how grateful I am to have an interruption from this diabolical piece of needlework. It is torturing me, or I am torturing it, I hardly know which.”
Branway, seeming to be quite used to Miss Minkerton’s struggles in that department, only nodded sadly and held out the tray.
Belle opened the note and then laid it down on her lap. “We are invited to a card party at Miss Danworth’s house. It is to be a buffet. How lovely!”
Harry nodded, though he was not that enthusiastic over putting Belle and Dalton in the same room. He was not altogether clear whether Dalton had any designs on the lady. He’d once thought so, but he’d since seen no sign of it.
“Miss Danworth is very like a sister to you,” Belle said. “Is she not?”
“Oh, yes,” Harry said. After a long pause, he plowed on. “Though I would not like every lady I know to consider themselves my sister. Some may know me longer and still not be as a sister.”
“That is true,” Belle said. “Length of time cannot have anything to do with it.”
“No, it really cannot. And then, one may seem a sister at one early moment, and then not a sister at some later moment.”
“Yes, of course, things do change. I have often noted it.”
“Change, yes,” he said. “It is the nature of things.”
“Indeed,” Belle said, “things are always changing.”
“Often for the better.”
“Usually for the better, I think.”
“One must only recognize the change.”
“Yes, even when it is right in front of a person, they might not see it. At first.”
Belle had gone back to stabbing at her fabric. Harry could not tell if they were talking of the same idea or not. Was she saying she was not his sister? That their relationship was changing? Or was she only politely answering his roundabout conversation?
He suppressed a sigh and went back to the book he wasn’t reading. He hoped nobody would ever ask him about it, as he had been turning pages without reading for over a week.
Chapter Twelve
Betsy was brushing Daisy’s hair, or at least that was what she was supposed to be doing. Daisy watched her maid fiddle with the brush and finally said, “What is it, Betsy? You are completely distracted.”
Betsy laid down the brush and said, “Mightily distracted. You see, I cannot decide if I ought to tell you of what I heard in the servants’ quarters, or whether I ought to leave it alone.”
“Now that you have mentioned it, I think you must tell me,” Daisy said, preparing herself to hear of Bellamy’s latest complaints. “I cannot go forward, forever wondering what it was.”
Betsy nodded enthusiastically. “That is very true. Well, it is just this—Mrs. Broadbent was in town yesterday and she heard from the grocer that Lady Montague has been telling all and sundry that Miss Danworth isn’t mourning as a dutiful daughter should.”
Daisy only nodded, though she would have liked to have hit Lady Montague over the head with her hairbrush at that moment.
