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“Daisy!”

“So it’s absolutely fine with you if the major marries Regina, as long as his career and title are preserved?”

“Joshua wouldn’t be engaged to her unless he wanted to,” Live said, her voice rough with tears.

“You know better than that,” Daisy retorted. “My mother said that they were caught kissing, so as a gentleman, he has to marry her. Unless you save him, because you are not a lady, Livie, no matter how hard you’ve tried to be one. And no matter how desperately your father has tried to force you into the mold!”

“I am a lady!” Livie retorted, but her voice was hollow. No lady lay back in a cupboard and allowed a man to pleasure her.

“You are a woman,” Daisy said, her voice gentling. “Don’t you see how much better that is, Livie? Whatever anyone says about Regina, she is decisive. She wanted Joshua, so she took him, wielding the same rules of propriety to take him that you used to reject him.”

That hadn’t escaped Livie’s notice. She put a hand on her chest, wondering if the searing pain she felt was permanent.

“Why should Regina get what she wants, and you shouldn’t?” Daisy demanded. “That’s not even taking into account what Joshua wants.” She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “I want a man to look at me the way he looks at you.”

“He didn’t even glance at me during the meeting.”

“He’s in Regina’s grasp now, caught in the … in the toils of his honor,” Daisy said, waving one hand in the air. “He saved your father by nabbing Bernadette. I’ll say it again—it’s your turn to save him.”

“I’m not actually certain that my father is ‘saved,’ ” Livie said, taking a shuddering breath. “They didn’t release him from the Tower.”

“Because of that business about dropping a sailor overboard? I’m sure it’s untrue, made up by the horrid Cassio, who would do and say anything, obviously. Pirates throw men overboard—never Englishmen!”

“He threatened to throw me overboard once,” Livie whispered, her voice rasping.

After a moment of leaden silence, Daisy sat up. “Do you know what I think of your father, Livie? Do you?”

Livie shook her head.

Her cousin reached out, caught up the water glass on her bedside table, and threw it into the fireplace, where it shattered.

“Oh,” Livie whispered.

“He is not your father,” Daisy stated. “He’s nothing to you. He’s as broken as that glass, every bit as nasty and as sharp—and a murderer, to boot! What is the obvious solution, Livie?” Her voice sounded exactly like her mother’s: as imperious and fierce as a queen’s.

“Marry Joshua?”

“Precisely. Put the captain’s fate out of your mind. My mother will ensure that her brother isn’t tried for murder.”

“Is that fair?” Livie asked.

“Fair? When is the world fair? If he truly ordered a man overboard, my mother will force the captain to give the family of the dead sailor a large sum of money. It won’t bring the man back, but neither will a murder trial, especially in front of the House of Lords. The captain will be acquitted, Livie, because the world isn’t fair.” With that, Daisy swung her legs off the bed and got up. “We’d best summon your maid.”

“Why?” Livie made her way off the bed slowly, feeling old and tired.

“Because I wrote to Joshua and requested that he pay us a call—signing your name, naturally. I sent a separate letter to Frederick, who will throw Joshua into a carriage and deliver him to you.”

Livie frowned. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I love you,” Daisy said, kissing her cheek, “and Frederick loves Joshua. We both know that the best way to keep Joshua alive on a battlefield is if he has you to come home to, Livie.”

It was a simple fact.

Livie felt the truth of it in the deepest part of her bones. Still … “To marry me, he’d have to jilt Lady Regina, the daughter of a duke.”

Daisy nodded. “Do you need me to shatter another glass to illustrate what I think of Regina?”

Forty minutes later, Livie was bathed, her hair had been brushed into silky ringlets, and she was dressed in her favorite yellow gown.