“Lorcan, my father might be healthier than you or I. He walks several miles every day. He used to ride but...”
“Then he must be getting senile.”
She recoiled. “My father is agenius,” she said with the conviction of someone who had been told this her entire life. “His mind is sharp and nimble. He reads more and faster than anyone I know. He can do calculations in his mind in an eyeblink.”
“Ah! So he’smutethen.”
She paused to stare at him, her straight dark brows nearly meeting in a V. “What on earth are you running on about?” she said evenly. And with great, great patience.
“I’m just sorting through all the reasons a titled gentleman would allow his daughter to not only go out to work, but to do the sort of work that exposes her to danger and ruin and leads to her living in near sin with a fake husband. Have I missed one?”
She froze as if he was holding her at knifepoint.
Her mouth dropped in shock.
He saw her realize that she was rather cornered.
Lorcan wasn’t new to getting information he wanted. And strategy was his gift.
Her eyes were enormous.
“An... earl can hardly take ajob,” she said faintly. She tried to give the words a frisson of disdain. Perhaps to imply that someone like him surely couldn’t possibly know.
“Heaven forfend. People would talk. How embarrassing that would be. What sort of man would lose face in order to support his family?”
Her face went closed and she spun around and showed her back to him again. “You don’t understand.”
“That’s likely true. I’m too thick to understand the curious customs of the aristocracy. It wasn’t embarrassing at all for you to be chased about the place by the old dear’s husband. Or frightening.”
“It wasmyidea to take the job. I’ve never done such a thing before.”
“It seems as though you’ve been takingjobsfor your family since you were eleven years old. Your family was a job.”
She slowed and then stopped. “That was different.”
“And you helped to run your household from that point on.”
“You don’t understand... our house... all the things my mother used to do... organizing the servants... it was coming quite apart. I did the budget and managed the servants and arranged the shopping and cooking and entertaining for my father. I was the one who was best at it,” she said, a little proudly.
“What about your brothers? Couldn’t they have helped?”
She hesitated. “They were accustomed to a woman managing the house. It wasn’t the sort of work for a man. They had no acumen for it.”
Lorcan snorted. “You weren’t a woman at all, then. You were a girl.”
She turned slowly around. “My father grieved terribly. My brothers, too.”
“What a fortunate thing it was, then, that you had no feelings about your mother’s death at all.”
She froze. And the blood drained from her face.
Something flickered in her eyes.
Perhaps a comprehension she fought against.
“It made me feel better about things, you see,” she said slowly. “They were so grateful and so lost. And... it made me feel less lost, too, to have something to do. My father was... well, you know how geniuses can be.”
He gave a short laugh. “Surely you’re not suggesting I consort with them.”