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How could she have fallen in love with a man who could look at her so coldly that it made her stomach clench? Her mind spun between a shameful conviction that she deserved his condemnation to a rebellious feeling that events beyond their control had swept both of them off their feet.

“I did not arrive at your house with a Machiavellian plan spurred by my … my short-lived infatuation,” she added, registering that her skin had gone from heated to clammy and cold.

He yanked his shirt over his head. “Short-lived, eh? Another impulsive decision that you’ve rethought, Daisy?”

“You said this morning that you didn’t despise me.” She forced the words from her throat.

Miles didn’t even look at her. “To clarify: I despise your behavior.”

Perhaps she should slide off the bed and face him, as if they were gladiators in a Roman amphitheater. But she was so much shorter than he was.

“You could—you might think of my visit as a compliment,’” she said, summoning up a defense. “I turned to you when I faced a crisis. Your parents left care of your sisters to you, though you were still a boy, knowing that you would be an excellent brother and stand-in parent.”

“Why didn’t you turn to the obvious person, your father?” Miles demanded. “If you were afraid to do so, you could have relegated that unpleasant duty to me. If you’d told me the truth, I would have found the worthless philistine and made him take charge of his responsibilities for once in his life—just as I’m about to do.”

Daisy opened her mouth, and he snapped, “Be quiet. Don’t make things worse. Think before you say anything!”

“Belle would have been taken away from me,” she whispered.

A groundswell of anger began to bubble inside her. She watched silently as he wrenched on the rest of his clothing, stamping into his boots. He was an ass. She had claimed Belle was hers partly in an effort to protect him, which backfired. Did that make her stupid?

“Are you truly going to see my father?”

“Yes,” he snarled. “Wharton is going to stand up and be counted. I inherited my little sisters when I was fourteen, and I managed. So can he.”

“You’re … you’re giving Belle to him?”

“Hell, yes. That wretched blackguard is going to care for his latest bastard. What’s more, he can support every child of his dropped at an orphanage. I am revolted by his monstrous, lackadaisical attitude toward his responsibilities.”

“I understand your point of view,” Daisy said, looking at Miles through new eyes. How could he be quick to ship Belle off to her indolent father after soothing her all night long? Was he really so bloodless and uncaring? “But she is my child,” she said doggedly, holding onto that thought.

“The hell she is! She isn’t a child of your body. She’s a prostitute’s get, and your father’s, if she’s anyone’s. She is not yours.” Miles tied his cravat with abrupt, furious turns, not even looking in a glass.

“I didn’t think you had such brutality in you,” she said. “I thought you had come to care for Belle.”

The words fell into the space between them and stayed there, hanging in the air.

“I live up to my obligations,” Miles said with chilling emphasis. “I spend my days investigating men—gentlemen—who use their birth and their position to avoid adhering to the most basic rules of civilization, one of which is that a man must care for his children.”

His voice echoed in Daisy’s head like cannon fire in a ravine. He wasn’t wrong. Her father should retrieve and support the children relegated to orphanages.

But Lord Wharton couldn’t have Belle.

Miles turned to the mirror above the fireplace, his elegant coat belling out behind him as he pulled down his cuffs.

Daisy watched mutely. She had said what needed to be said. He could storm off and deal with her father—while she and Belle would leave.

She needed rusks, nappies, and money—a great deal of money. Luckily, over the years she rarely used her allowance, instead tucking hundreds of pounds in the bottom of her jewelry box. It should be enough to take her to Brussels, where Livie and her husband were living.

“You are dangerously silent,” Miles commented, a sardonic edge to his voice. “No further justification?”

He was an arse. The worst man of her acquaintance.

“You’re the only man I’ve heard of who would be unhappy to discover that his bride is an innocent.” Not that she intended to be his wife for long.

“You don’t understand. You’re a liar, Daisy. You lie easily to get your way. You lie about the most important things—about Belle’s parentage. Who wants that in a wife?”

Daisy flinched. “I couldn’t tell you who her father was because you threatened to kill the man. He’s my father as well.”