Page 77

“Who?” Lord Devin inquired.

Livie gasped. “Lady Regina! Lady Regina, the sister of the Duke of Lennox.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

REJECTED

At breakfast the next day, Daisy was full of plans to capture Bernadette and force her to confess her traitorous actions. “Nay, her treacherous nature!” she cried, waving a piece of toast in the air.

“After Lord Devin schedules a Special Commission meeting,” Livie said, not for the first time, “he will arrest both Cassio and Bernadette.”

“Setting up a meeting may take days,” Daisy said. “She’ll discover we’re on her trail, and slip away to the port and be gone.” A blob of blackberry jelly fell to the tablecloth. “Don’t you see how crucial it is to accost Bernadette immediately, Livie?”

Livie had been up all night thinking about the fact that her not-father may be executed in lieu of his not-son, her never-husband. She had recognized the stubborn look on Captain Sir Tyron’s face when he insisted that he had written every sentence of his letters.

He knew Cassio wrote the crucial sentence. He had to know. He was infuriating, judgmental, and moralistic. Sacrificial as well, it seemed.

Still, she loved him.

It wasn’t easy to dismiss all those years when she wrote him near daily, yearned for his attention, looked forward to his letters no matter how critical …

He wasn’t the only man she loved, either. “I’m going to ask Joshua for help,” she announced.

Daisy’s mouth fell open. “What?”

“Not for help convincing his father. I’m going to ask him to pay a call on Lady Regina and use a pretext to talk to her maid.”

“What good will that do?” Daisy asked, frowning over her toast.

“Joshua will be able to ascertain whether Bernadette is a traitor,” Livie said with conviction. “He is a major in the army, after all.”

“There’s no evidence that rank brings insight,” Daisy retorted. “I’d offer Captain Sir Tyron as evidence.”

“Actually, in my opinion, the captain realizes Cassio is guilty.”

Daisy’s toast fell face down on the tablecloth in a splatter of jelly, but before she could speak, their butler entered the breakfast room and said, “Lady Wharton sent a groom ahead of her carriage. She should arrive home tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thank you,” Daisy said. She waited until the butler left the room before she asked, “The captain knows that Cassio is guilty? How is that possible—unless he too is a traitor?”

“The captain is not a traitor. I thought about it all night, and I believe he knew nothing of the plot. Still, he intends to stand behind Cassio.” Livie refilled her teacup herself, since Daisy had banished the footman who usually waited on the table.

“That’s madness,” Daisy breathed. “He plans to sacrifice himself?”

“You read those letters,” Livie said. “You know how much he loves Cassio. He talked of him in every letter for the last year. The captain values loyalty and, equally important, he seems to have no real sense of how much danger he’s in.”

“Loyalty—to someone who planned to kill the king? That’s aiding and abetting the enemy, Livie!”

“The captain won’t see it that way.”

“The Lord High Steward will see it that way,” Daisy stated. “We must pay a call on Lady Regina immediately and force Bernadette to disclose the plot. If the woman escapes to France before the Commission can meet, no evidence will confirm the captain’s ignorance of the plan.”

“Unless Cassio confesses. Unless he cares for my father as much as my father cares for him.”

Daisy scoffed, and Livie had to agree.

“Lady Regina would refuse to see you and me,” Livie predicted. “I shall write to Joshua.”

As it turned out, Livie didn’t need to request Major FitzRoy’s assistance: as she and Daisy left the breakfast room, they learned that the major had paid them a morning call. “I’ve asked him to wait in the drawing room,” the butler reported. “Shall I ring for your maid, Miss Tyron?”