Page 95 of Love and the Shameless Lady

Chapter 15

When Daisy woke, Julian was gone. Preserving the proprieties, she assumed, violently disliking all the pretense. Pretending they were engaged. Pretending they were married. Pretending they hadn’t spent the night together. Pretending the marquis hadn’t murdered his servant. Pretending he wasn’t a thief . . . It went on and on, until one scarcely knew what was real and what wasn’t.

How could Julian take it all in stride? Was he accustomed to such pretense?

A chill stole over her as she recalled once again what the marquis had said. Sir Julian is not what he seems.

She got up and pulled the bell to summon a maid, who brought a cup of chocolate and helped her to dress.

Daisy trusted Sir Julian—she had trusted him with everything last night—and she still did. Nevertheless, she knew very little about him. If he were hiding something, she had to find out what.

Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone is hiding something, if only one’s secret thoughts and wishes.

Nevertheless . . .

She had to find a time to speak with him privately. This was impossible at breakfast, but afterward she bore Julian away to the billiard room, which was empty at this time of day. “We need to talk.”

“You’re going to seduce and abandon me, brokenhearted and bereft?” His mouth twisted. “All right, no jesting. What’s amiss?”

“I’m very sorry, but it seems I don’t trust you one hundred percent.”

“Why should you? You hardly know me, and frankly, I don’t believe that anyone is completely to be trusted.”

“How . . . unpleasant. Are you warning me that you are untrustworthy?” She tried to infuse a lighthearted note into her voice. “A bit late for that, isn’t it?”

“No, I’m only saying that even the most highly principled individual occasionally slips and does something he or she later regrets.”

How very logical, but it didn’t help.

“Real people aren’t like the characters in your books, and real problems aren’t simple issues of good versus evil.” He sounded tired, and her instant sympathy blew away the mistrust, at least for the moment.

“You’re thinking of the marquis.”

“I intend to speak to him as soon as he returns from making arrangements with the vicar for Antoine’s funeral.”

“But surely he’s a Catholic, both Antoine and Philippe himself! He believed the bone in the stolen reliquary was sacred, remember?”

“Antoine can’t speak for himself anymore, and I imagine Philippe just wants it to be over with. Does it matter?”

“It may have mattered to Antoine,” she said.

He shook his head in obvious disbelief. “You’re tender-hearted even about your would-be murderer.”

“I’m not feeling tender-hearted about the marquis.”

“Understandable.” He paused. “A month ago, I would have said I trusted him with my life.”

“And now you don’t?”

Julian shrugged. “We’ve been friends for a long time, ever since he came to England. I would much rather continue to trust him, but I don’t know whether I can. It seems I don’t know him as well I thought.”

Daisy nodded glumly.

“So, what don’t you trust about me, love?” Julian asked. “Out with it, please.”

“It’s just that . . . I want to be supremely confident, like a heroine should be. I want to have complete and perfect faith in my hero. I don’t want to be swayed by the opinions of others . . . Oh, I feel like such a fool.”

“By whose opinion are you swayed?”