Page 91 of The Boxing Baroness

“He says he is. So is his, er, housekeeper.”

“Sonia is not coming, either—in fact, I’m thrilled to say I’ll never have to speak to her again.”

“Does this have something to do with whatever you two talked about this morning?”

“Neither of them are coming,” she insisted, ignoring his question.

“Marianne, we can hardly stop them—it’s a public road. We might as well let them come along—at least that way we can keep an eye on them.”

“No.” She crossed her arms.

“Think on it a moment,” he urged. “If Barnabas is trailing along behind us, it will look . . . strange.”

“I don’t care.”

He recognized the signs of what he thought of as her badger persona. He would deal with it later.

“Elliot found a scenery painter who works at the theater here to change the names on the caravans from English to French, so that will hopefully attract less attention on the road.”

“What are we called now?”

“Foire aux Femmes Fantastiques de Fuchs.”

“Fuchs?”

“It was a name your uncle came up with.”

“He’s not my uncle. He’s just some stranger my real mother paid five hundred pounds to take care of me.” An expression of gut-wrenching desolation twisted her features. “He’s been lying to me—about almost everything. He’s not even related to the woman who claimed to be my mother. For all I know, she was paid to take care of me, too.”

Sin carefully considered what he should say. Clearly she knew about some of the money Barnabas had taken—but did she know the full extent of his thievery? Probably not.

Looking at her miserable expression, he decided now wasn’t the time to tell her that she had never needed to turn to fighting to make a living. That she could have lived like a gentlewoman. That it was Barnabas’s fault she’d fallen prey to Dominic.

Instead he asked, “Who is your real mother?”

“He doesn’t know.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Not that I can believe a word he says. Oh, by the way, there is a locket from my real mother.”

“A locket?”

“Yes, Barnabas confirmed that it is the one Dominic wants—yet another lie he told me.”

“And the letter?”

“He still insists there is no letter, but he lies so much I wouldn’t be surprised if it magically appears at some point. He thinks Dominic hopes to find my real mother and blackmail her. I think that is a fair assessment.”

Sin was, yet again, appalled and stunned by Dominic’s depravity, even though he knew he shouldn’t be.

“If Barnabas doesn’t know who she is, how does Strickland hope to blackmail her?” he asked.

“I doubt Barnabas has opened his budget fully with me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew exactly who she was—and probably my father, too.”

Sin suspected she was right. He watched her chew her full lower lip, a strange ache in his chest as he looked at her forlorn expression. He wanted to help her, but there was nothing he could do—at least nothing that wouldn’t make her life—or reputation—worse.

Finally, she shrugged and met his gaze. “All I can think is that Dominic recognized the portrait when he saw it.”

“Portrait?”

“Oh. Didn’t I tell you there was a miniature in the locket?”