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“You may as well know everything,” she interrupted. “I can have no more secrets. Philip was posthumously convicted of treason and stripped of his title and estates. Our home went to the government. I expect they’ve sold it by now.” She gazed at the desktop. “Philip’s home, really,” she murmured. “I knew that. But I’d lived nowhere else.” She raised her chin again. “So you asked about my family. That was it. I have none now.”
They had this in common.
“It’s a relief to have said it out loud,” she went on, sounding surprised. “Rather than dodging people’s questions, waiting for the story to come out.” She sat straighter.
How could he ever have thought her a waif, Daniel wondered. She was as fiercely alert as the falcon he’d pictured earlier, unhooded now and poised to hunt. Her unveiled presence, her confidences, felt like a priceless gift.
“So does that give you your hoped-for connection between our families?” Her tone had gone satirical.
“I don’t see how, no.”
“Your father was not a Luddite?” She smiled.
Daniel was bowled over, rendered breathless by the first real smile she’d ever shown him. Previous stretches of her winsome lips had been polite fictions, he realized. Social masks to deflect questions. There was nothing insipid or vague in her pretty face now. It was a moment before he could say, “Papa was mostly out of the country. I don’t think he was aware of developments in England.” Daniel glanced at the masses of papers. “Even on his own estates. He certainly never spoke of politics. Neither did my mother.”
Miss Pendleton gave him a look that said she appreciated this addition.
“I can ask Macklin. He might know more about my father’s political views.”
Some of her brightness dimmed. “I suppose you must tell other people what happened to me.”
The fatalism in her voice bothered him.
“Of course you will do as you like,” she added. “I’m in no position to impose conditions.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t, but you will find that hardly matters. Once one is tainted with suspicion, even by association, people edge away. They assure each other that there’s no smoke without fire, and other such idiotic analogies.”
“Your friends didn’t stand by you?” He felt a protective contempt.
She made a throwaway gesture. “Some were sympathetic, up to a point. But what was there to stand by? They were in Lancashire, and I…wasn’t.”
He saw her surrounded by suspicious officials, having lost the only home she’d ever known. Was she penniless? “They might have offered material help.”
“I have ample funds.” She snapped out the words.
Daniel had no doubt thatamplewas an exaggeration. But her face had closed. She wasn’t going to discuss this topic. He left it, for now. “I won’t tell anyone but Macklin,” he said. “He’ll need to withdraw his inquiries. But he won’t spread the story.”
She didn’t look as if she believed him. The shields that had made him think her bland were snapping back into place. Daniel was surprised at how intensely he wanted the stooping falcon back. “So will you help me with this mare’s nest of documents?”
He got his wish. Emotion flamed in her face. “You’d let me?” Her fingers moved as if to grasp the pages, then pulled back. “Even after what I’ve told you?”
“Of course. That makes no difference.” The look of naked gratitude he received in return for these words rendered him mute.
“I helped my father manage his estate,” Miss Pendleton said. “He trained me, and I loved it. Philip was away at school and university and then off…wherever he went. Papa and I—” She closed her lips and blinked back tears. “You’d really trust me?”
The raw emotion in her face was too much all at once. Daniel waved at the various caches of papers. “I’m in dire need of aid.” He went over to open a groaning wardrobe against the far wall. It released a cascade of pages that nearly knocked him down, and it wouldn’t be closed again.
“Great heavens, this is years of stuff,” said Miss Pendleton.
“You have no idea. More than twenty.” Or fifty? Had his grandfather done better? Did he come from a long line of failed hoarders?
“But why didn’t you… That is—”
She’d confided in him. She deserved some return for her openness. “My parents and I were…somewhat estranged.”
“Oh.”
