Chapter 3 #3
“It was impossible to safely bring up a daughter among such a threat—that is what we’ve told her. We told her she was given
to us for safekeeping.”
Luke blinked. “And this is the only version of events she’s been told? For her entire life?”
Miriam Dinwiddie shook her head back and forth. Silas looked at the floor. “I’m afraid so.”
Luke sucked in a breath to say something, but there were too many things. He had no idea where to begin.
“Oh dear,” Fernsby said.
Finally, Luke ventured, “And . . . Danielle Allard has not challenged this? She has not demanded to know more about her true
family? Or why they’ve been concealed?”
“She was very happy here,” declared Miriam. “There was no need to explain, when she was so very happy. These people you call
her ‘actual family’ have not come for her, have not written. Certainly they have not cared for her, not daily—not hourly—as
we have done.”
Silas Dinwiddie looked over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen.
“It was indulgent—selfish, even—to remain silent on this topic, but it always seemed like something we might explain on another day. When she was older. But then she grew, and grew more, and we never managed to say the words. Now suddenly she’s twenty-two.
We have loved her so very much. She seems like ours in every way.
How could we explain to her that she . . . that she . . .”
He drifted off, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief.
Luke frowned at the couple, trying to imagine a childhood that included a gap in one’s own history. Luke’s heritage was more
complicated than any he’d known, but he’d devoted years to questioning—nay, challenging—every rung of it. It had shaped him, and motivated him; his identity as a smuggler was hewn
from his wretched history. How had this young woman simply gone along with the vagueness of her own past? It made no sense.
“But what has been your plan for this betrothal?” Luke asked Silas Dinwiddie. First things first. How to survive the next
ten minutes.
Silas dabbed at his mouth with his kerchief, glancing at his wife.
Luke added, “You claim she knows who I am and why I’ve come. What reasons have you given her for our engagement if she does
not know herself to be a princess? Can I assume she also doesn’t know that the Prince Regent himself arranged the betrothal?
If so, why does she believe she’s being married to a stranger?”
“Well,” managed Silas Dinwiddie. “We’d . . . we’d not gotten so very far in explaining this; not the whys or the hows. And
this is why I beseech you, sir—may we beg another night to explain it to her?”
“Meaning?” asked Luke, although he knew.
“I mean, it’s our hope that we could all agree . . . together, the lot of us . . . not to tell her about her royal blood for
another day. And night. Until tomorrow, perhaps,” ventured Silas Dinwiddie, wiping his brow again.
“For God’s sake, why?” asked Luke. Almost too late, he remembered he’d just been described as “good” to these people, and he cleared his throat and scratched his head, trying to collect himself. He tried again. “How could this be prudent?”
The amount of work and effort now attached to Danielle Allard was multiplying, piling up like stones against the door of a
cell. He could barely breathe under the weight of all the work she would require.
“She should hear the truth from us,” declared Miriam Dinwiddie on a sob. “We’ve tried to do it—for years we’ve tried it. The
words cannot be found. She is our Dani, isn’t she? Ours. We always knew that eventually she would be taken from us but—”
They heard a clatter from the kitchen, a little laugh, footsteps. A cat hissed and skittered into the parlor.
Miriam clapped a hand over her mouth. Silas stood up, staring at the kitchen door. Luke closed his eyes and swore in his head.
Now what? Danielle Allard had to be cajoled to serve tea; how in the devil would she accept the truth of her family identity?
“She’s a biddable girl, really,” Silas was whispering. “A bit willful, if I’m honest, but to good ends. Hers is not a selfish
will. She wants nothing more than to provide for her friends and neighbors. She’s loyal to a fault; helpful, like. This news
will confuse her, no doubt, but she will forgive us. There’ll be hell to pay, but we deserve it, I suppose. We’ll manage her
temper, come what may.”
“We deserve it,” repeated Miriam Dinwiddie with a sniffle.
Yes, thought Luke, eyeing them. You do deserve it. But where did that leave him?
“Can you wait to discuss the royalty bit, sir? Please? Just one more day?”
No, Luke thought. He had his own manipulations to massage into this woman’s future, he couldn’t sit on this, too. He said, “I
will test the mood of the conversation if it happens to come up, how about that?”
Before Silas could consent or refuse, Danielle Allard and her friend entered the parlor bearing trays of tea and pastries.
She began to lay the tea, and Luke watched her. In spite of himself, he was captivated by her smooth combination of efficiency
and grace. As a rule, Luke resisted captivation. It felt wasteful and risky and it distracted him from learning other, more
useful things. Even so, he followed the swift, careful movements of her small hands as she set simple cups on sturdy saucers;
he watched a lone ebony curl fall loose and swing beside her cheek. Her neighbor hovered at her elbow with a plate of tarts.
In low, gentle tones, Danielle Allard instructed the girl to make room on a side table and place one tart on each saucer.
Her friend complied and seemed relieved for the guidance. When they’d laid the tea, Danielle stepped back and stared at her
parents. Happy? her expression asked.
They were not, it was obvious, happy. They hadn’t liked his lack of complicity in their lies of omission, and Fernsby’s promise of Luke’s goodness was, no doubt, ringing very false indeed.
Luke ignored them and looked again to Danielle Allard.
Her face, he noticed, was less classically perfect in profile—but far more interesting.
Her nose was decidedly French. If she’d tried to keep out of the sun, she’d failed.
Her skin glowed olive with a dusting of freckles.
While not white English cream, her complexion was clear and supple.
One thing he’d managed to learn was how old she was—twenty-two years.
Eleven years younger than his own thirty-three.
He was hardly in the grave, but there was London twenty-two .
. . or even a Cornish twenty-two . . . and then there was twenty-two raised in Kent by besotted old people who lied to their adopted daughter.
It was the youngest of all the twenty-twos.
He’d expected to negotiate the terms of this arranged marriage with a royal princess who understood her position as a pawn on the world stage.
Instead, he was betrothed to an innocent, fetching village girl.
He wanted her cooperation—nay, she must cooperate with him—but he’d not planned to exploit her inexperience.
That wasn’t to say he couldn’t exploit her. If absolutely necessary. Probably.
Damn, Luke swore, studying her again. There was no denying her youth and innocence: hair longer than currently fashionable, only
loosely bound; smallish figure, delicate wrists and slim waist. Simple wool dress in pale pink. She was like a rare and delicious
indulgence that would give him a stomachache by morning. He must not imbibe. If, ultimately, he would take advantage of her
naivete, she would be forbidden to him except as someone with whom to negotiate.
Idly, Luke touched his hand to the pocket of his waistcoat.
It contained a small relic that he kept always—a reminder of Linus Welty.
Now, a reminder of why he’d come. The relic was the fragment of an ancient jawbone with five blunt teeth.
A million years ago, this piece of bone had belonged to a prehistoric fish.
Luke had found it on the beach as a boy; one of the many bits of flotsam and jetsam that he collected.
The Cornish coast was awash with marine treasures, but he’d picked up this one because it was more interesting than a shell or a shark’s tooth.
In the end, he’d learned how much more interesting—in fact this relic represented the first time he’d looked something up in a book and learned every interesting thing about it.
Linus had seen him examining it and had taken him to the village church to borrow a book about ancient sea creatures from the rector.
Then he’d taught him the most miraculous thing: how to research.
That simple awakening, from curious boy to expert, from ignorance to knowing, was the greatest gift Luke had ever received.
The fossil was a talisman of that gift, and Luke carried it in honor of Linus.
And now he would marry Danielle Allard d’Orleans to recover Linus.
And it did not matter that she was beautiful, or graceful, or young.
And it didn’t matter that she didn’t yet know she was a princess; or that he’d likely be the one (for his own selfish reasons)
to tell her.
The only thing that mattered was recovering his old friend.
Now sipping tea had commenced, nibbling; Fernsby took the lead on chatter. Luke’s mind was an unhelpful blur of observations
and appreciations and tiny, popping flares of caution. His most pervasive thought was: This woman has no desire to return to France because she doesn’t know she’s French. And even if she did, likely, she would not want to go. She has no desire for a castle, or royal court, or any opulent thing
meant to entice royalty. She is a pretty girl, English in every way, and she has choices—a myriad of choices. She could marry
a local boy, she could enjoy a belated Season in London and marry an aristocrat. She could marry no one at all.
Danielle Allard d’Orleans might be young, but she was also the very picture of poise and confidence. And what good was a woman
with confidence and choices in a revenge plot? Answer: No good at all.
What Luke required (or rather, one of the many things Luke required) was time to think.
He needed to investigate what motivated her and what she desired.
He needed to anticipate the ripple effect of learning her identity as a princess.
Everything about his revenge and recovery mission must be reframed with this singular woman in mind.
“I wonder if I might have a moment alone with Miss Allard?” Luke asked suddenly.
“Oh dear, I cannot say,” began Miriam Dinwiddie, rising quickly from her chair, sloshing tea, “if this is the best course,
considering the two of you have only just met.”
“Might we become better acquainted,” ventured Silas, struggling to stand, “as a family?”
“No, we cannot,” said Danielle Allard. Her voice was not rude, but it also broached no argument. “If I am adult enough to
be married”—she eyed her parents—“then surely I can be permitted ten minutes alone with my betrothed. Like an adult.”
“I, for one, endorse this idea,” said Fernsby. “If you can spare me. I might step outside to give my nose some distance from
the—” He sneezed.
“You should do,” Luke said. “Perhaps Miss Broom will join you.”
“I would be honored,” said Fernsby, smiling at the astonished girl.
Miss Broom paused in the process of bringing a tart to her mouth.
“Shall we, Miss Broom?” asked Fernsby.
The neighbor girl lowered the pastry. She looked, wide-eyed, at her friend. Danielle Allard nodded gently and said, “Go on,
then.”
“Well, if we all insist,” said Silas Dinwiddie, seeing he had no choice.
“We all insist,” said Danielle Allard quietly. “Please. I am perfectly safe. Aren’t I, Captain Bannock?”
“Quite,” agreed Luke, joining in the spirit of half-truths.
And just like that, all of the people and most of the cats drained from the room. Luke was alone with his wife-to-be.