Page 96 of Love and the Shameless Lady

“The marquis! Who probably cannot be trusted, and yet . . .”

“He said something about me?”

“Yes,” she confessed. “When he locked me up under the summerhouse, he said you play the part of a quiet, scholarly gentleman, but you are not what you seem.”

Julian hesitated, and Daisy’s heart sank.

Damn. Julian felt his stomach knot. He’d hoped to avoid telling her. Hoped she need never know. Maybe she needn’t, for he wasn’t sure what Philippe had meant by that remark. But if he evaded the question until he had a chance to speak to Philippe, she would mistrust him even more.

He took her hand. “Let’s go walk in the rose garden, where there is no chance of eavesdroppers.”

She nodded. “Very well.”

They went out the French doors, just as Philippe de Bellechasse rounded the corner of the house. Damn.

Philippe’s bow was brief, his expression ironic. He accompanied them into the rose garden. “Miss Daisy, I fear I owe you an explanation. Pray accept my apologies for my man’s behavior.”

Daisy huffed. “An apology for attempted murder? As for an explanation, after all those lies you told last night, I shan’t know whether to believe a word you say!”

“Understandable, but Sir Julian is an excellent judge of character. Perhaps he will lend me credibility.”

“He has already tried,” she retorted, “and I still don’t know whether I concur in his judgment.” She put up a hand. “However, I do know what inspired me to write about a bracelet with charms that were lost and then retrieved.”

“You do?” Julian asked. “Since when? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Since last night. I was preoccupied, as I’m sure you recall.” She blushed, then scowled fiercely, and a wave of love and longing washed over Julian. What if he lost her because of his ignoble profession?

“I remembered while I was stuck in the mosaic room,” she said. “There’s something about being imprisoned in a hole in the ground that makes one think.”

“Again, my apologies,” Philippe said.

She flapped a hand and turned to Julian. “One night at the inn, well over a year ago, I saw a sketch Mr. Bonaventure had made. It looked like a bracelet with words written at intervals along it. A rose, a goddess, and so on. Perhaps I didn’t remember because the words were French.”

“Which, at the time, I did not know you could both speak and read,” Philippe said. “I saw no cause for concern.”

“On the sketch, the name of a town was associated with each word. Since Mr. Bonaventure’s interests were political, I assumed this had something to do with history, the white rose of York, for example. But I soon forgot that, setting the idea of a charm bracelet in the back of my mind while I finished the story I was writing at the time. By the time I began The Lady’s Ruin, I’d forgotten the source of the idea. I didn’t memorize the combinations of charms and towns on purpose. I didn’t know they were already linked in my mind.”

“Nor that they were also linked to a scheme to steal treasures from honest men,” Julian said.

“What about the honest Frenchmen from whom they were stolen?” Philippe said. “Surely one takes a risk when buying stolen goods.”

“I thought you would say something of the sort,” Julian said. “Always so very reasonable, my friend Philippe. Pray don’t try to convince me that you stole them to return them gratis to their previous owners.”

Philippe’s laugh was mirthless. “I believe I convinced that fool Hythwick of my purity of heart. No doubt he ranted at breakfast this morning about the lunacy affecting all Frenchmen.”

“Something of the sort,” Julian said. The scene at breakfast had been quite amusing. Hythwick had lamented the inconvenience, not to mention scandal, of a violent death on the premises. Upon hearing of Antoine’s unfortunate tendre, he’d stared at Daisy in affront, rather as if she was the whore of Babylon, and admonished Julian to keep a better guard over his wife. If not for Gloriana’s rapid intercession and Daisy’s giggles, Julian would have floored him then and there. “Well?”

“Oh, I am no Robin Hood,” Philippe said. “I needed more money, Antoine wished to make his fortune, and this was one way to accomplish both our aims. But Antoine had another motive. The items we sought were all goods stolen from honest merchants and other wealthy bourgeois, not aristocrats.”

“Ah. So Antoine Breton and the Breton who auctioned them off were related.”

“How did you learn his surname? I advised him not to use it.” Philippe narrowed his eyes. “You snooped in my belongings? You left no sign.”

Julian shrugged.

“I suppose I should not be surprised,” Philippe said.

“Perhaps not.” Julian wondered in what way he had slipped up.