Lord Dalton did not come in only his shirtsleeves rolled up anymore, but kept on his coat. It could not be comfortable sitting there of an evening, even when one had a glass of brandy at one’s side.
His bench had now come so close that she might have thrown something down to him. Where once he had been so distant across the garden that she could hardly make out his features, now she saw him more clearly by the light that shined from the kitchen windows.
“Getting the air again?” he said.
He’d startled her, and she pulled back and let the curtain fall to hide her.
“No need for excessive modesty,” he said.
Daisy did not know if she were being excessively modest or not, but shedidknow the idea of her taking in the night air in such weather was ridiculous.
“I do not suppose,” he went on, “that there is anything disreputable about a window open or talking across a distance.”
Daisy slowly pulled the curtain aside once more. “No,” she said. “The night air is…bracing. Certainly, nobody could claim I am compromised by any conversation that accompanied it.”
“Conversation does pass the time, after all.”
“Indeed,” Daisy said. “I suppose we might talk of anything, within bounds.”
“Whatever I am, I am hardly known for goingoutof bounds,” Lord Dalton said.
“No, of course not,” Daisy said. She knew that was perfectly true. Lord Dalton was not a breezy, carefree individual, but he was a gentleman through and through. There had been some talk of the bizarre steps he’d taken to stop his friends from getting married, but never a whisper of anything over-forward to do with a lady. Though he did not say so, she thought he had spent far too much time dodging them to have caused any of those sorts of offenses.
She gripped the curtains a little less tightly at the idea.
“I was wondering,” Lord Dalton said.
He’d trailed off and the only sounds were the quiet waves washing up on the rocks. What was he wondering? Why did he not speak?
“Though,” he said, “perhaps that subject would be out of bounds after all.”
“What would be out of bounds?” Daisy asked.
“Do not answer if you do not wish to. The night we discovered the nature of the Dagobert, and I told everyone of the agreement between your father and Farthmore, the agreement that something was to happen when you reached your majority…you seemed as if you understood it, though I still cannot work it out. Why would your father wish to wait until the very moment when he would have lost all power over you?”
Daisy had not had the first idea of what he’d been wondering, but it certainly had not been that. Of all people, though, she thought Lord Dalton might understand what her father really had been.
“I questioned myself, not certain if it would be obvious to others,” she said, “then I concluded it would not be, unless a person understood my father’s particular type of depravity.”
Though Daisy had not ever said half of it aloud, she told Lord Dalton of what had really happened to her mother. The slow death by insult and neglect and occasional fist. Then how he had turned on Daisy, how he’d schemed to get hold of her inheritance and been furious when he could not.
“So you see,” Daisy said, “he could only have had one plan in mind. When I reached my majority, if I were to die intestate, he would inherit my money as the closest living relative. My father planned to murder me for his convenience. Should you wish to confirm the truth of it, you must only know that while I was horrified at understanding the scheme, I was not exactly surprised.”
“My God,” Lord Dalton said quietly.
“I will retire now,” Daisy said hurriedly. She shut the window and closed the curtain and threw herself on the bed.
Why had she told him all of that? Now he knew her. Really knew her. He knew those things about her that she’d kept so well hidden. He knew the important things. The things only Betsy and Mrs. Jellops knew.
She sighed. It was both disturbing and freeing. Perhaps she need not prevaricate anymore. Or hide anymore. She had been built by adversity. Her coolness, as people called it, had been instilled by fear. She was as she was, and perhaps she need not pretend otherwise.
Daisy did not know what she and Lord Dalton would talk about on the morrow, but she would be at the window to find out.
And so began the nightly conversations that would go on for some weeks.
Chapter Sixteen
Though Daisy had retired, which had prompted Lord Dalton to go back to his ramshackle cottage, the lights still burned in the kitchens.
