Page 35 of Love and the Shameless Lady

“How about this? I’ll behave like a tyrannical brute and people will think you’re well rid of me.”

She gave an unhappy little laugh. “That’s ridiculous.” She straightened, taking visible hold of herself, and wiped a tear from her other cheek. “Well, perhaps not. You have been odious at times.”

“That’s my Daisy.” He turned the book in his hands. It was, unexpectedly, an entertaining story. “Do you mind if I read while we travel? The sooner, the better.”

“Not at all.” She returned her gaze to the passing countryside.

“My only fear is that I’ll get absorbed in the story and forget to search for clues.”

“Then you’ll just have to read it again,” she said with a wisp of a smile.

At last. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was a start.

For a long while they were silent. He had no idea why she cared what he thought of her novel. He wasn’t her usual sort of reader, and she’d seen other fellows read it . . . but their motives may not have been enjoyment . . .

No, that didn’t make sense, because someone had read The Lady’s Ruin for pleasure before realizing it endangered him or her somehow. Antoine, perhaps . . . if, that is, the Frenchmen were to blame for the threat. So far, Julian had seen nothing alarming in the novel. There were French smugglers, true, but also English, Irish, and Dutch, even a stray Italian.

“Do any of the local smugglers read your books?”

“Most of them are illiterate,” she said. “But no, not that I’m aware amongst those who can read. I haven’t revealed any of their tricks and secrets, if that’s what you’re insinuating. There’s nothing in my stories with which the revenuers aren’t already familiar. If the smugglers I write about were real, they would all have been caught by now.” She paused. “And besides that, the locals don’t know it was I who wrote those books.”

“Perhaps someone learned by happenstance,” he said. “Perhaps someone thought to steal something from your room and found your work in progress.”

“No.” She crossed her arms firmly against this notion. “Anyone who would steal from me at the inn, not that I can think of anyone, would most likely be an illiterate.”

“Do any of the smugglers in the novels resemble men you know personally?”

“Only superficially, except for Reggie, and his ghost isn’t coming back to kill me. There must be hundreds of dark-haired smugglers.”

“True, but not many of them are educated.”

“The leaders often are. Mr. Bennett used to run a whole gang of them. One of my brother’s boyhood friends is a smuggler, too, but neither he nor Mr. Bennett would harm me. Not only that, most of the smugglers I write about are portrayed as decent people, scrabbling to make a living however they can, and the hero is more of a privateer, an entirely legal profession.”

Julian turned the first volume of The Lady’s Ruin over and over in his hand, wondering how much to tell Lord Garrison. He had no qualms about his lordship’s loyalty to England, but Julian’s work for the Home Office must remain a secret. Not only that, if his lordship and the marquis were friends, he didn’t wish to destroy that rapport if the Frenchman proved to be innocent.

“You know Lord Garrison better than I do,” he said. “We shall have to tell him about your novels and the death threat, so he can have his people watch for strangers. Should we tell him the truth about our engagement, too?”

“Definitely not,” Daisy said without hesitation. “He won’t approve. He has a particular dislike of deception.”

“Even if he is privy to it?”

She shook her head. “He may even refuse to go along with it. I think the news that I write novels will be difficult enough for him to swallow.”

“I shall tell him that I heartily approve.”

She gave him a withering look. “You needn’t take pretense quite that far.”

“It’s not pretense. You have great storytelling talent. What a shame if you were to waste it.”

Her expression lightened to mere suspicion. “I’m not sure I believe you, but you are correct. I feel obliged to write. I cannot bear not to.”

“Then you must continue to do so. Are you working on a new novel now?”

“Of course,” she said with a scornful hint of a smile.

He is a kindhearted man, Daisy thought. He’d given her compliments that, even if not meant wholeheartedly, definitely made her feel better.

He might not be so kind if he learned he was the model for the hero of the new book. Well, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t recognize himself. There were plenty of tall, good-looking, fair-haired men in England, and Sir Julian had entirely the wrong sort of personality for a spy.