The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie

Violet flinched at his words, but Daniel didn’t feel like being kind. She’d played him, the same way she’d played Mortimer and all the other young men around the table that night. And Daniel, dazed by her beauty, had tumbled right on his ass.

Violet’s lips were bloodless. “You mean the moment I met you, was I supposed to hold out my hand and tell you my life story? How could I know my life story would even matter to you?”

“Would matter to me? Everything about you matters to me, Vi. What if I were fool enough to get on my knees and propose to you? Would you have mentioned the marriage then?”

“I told you—I planned to tell you tonight at the inn.” Violet’s eyes were filled with fury, but also tears. “I am telling you tonight. It took me a long time to gather the courage to say the words—I know you’ll probably toss me to the wind once you know everything, but I want to tell you. I’m trying to.”

“Don’t throw this back at me, love. I’ve been square with you from the moment I met you. And you’ve returned half-truths, lies, and evasion. Hell, you even dumped me in a cart when you couldn’t wake me up.”

Violet jumped to her feet, the cups clattering again as she jarred the table. “And I didn’t ask you to follow me across Europe, or to spring upon me in the theatre in the middle of my performance. I thought you’d want to stay far, far away from me.”

“A simple You know, Daniel, I’m married might have convinced me to.”

“I doubt it.” Violet’s eyes sparkled blue. “You take whatever you want, damn all who get in your way. You want to test your theory about flying, so you take my wind machine, you take your friend’s balloon, you fly it into a tree—but it’s all right, you’ll buy him a new one. We’re stuck in a storm, but it’s all right, you’ll charm the innkeepers into giving us the best room in their house. And a woman you want to bed is caught by the police, but no matter—you’ll get your father to call in favors and take her out. Why?” Violet balled her fists. “Why not leave me alone? If I’ve lied to you and evaded you, why the devil don’t you just leave me alone?”

Her words rang against the clackity-clack of the train as they sped into the heart of France. Violet looked so empty, so starved, that Daniel almost relented. But his temper wouldn’t let him.

“Why the devil should I leave you alone?” he shouted back. “You seem to like my company. You’ve had the power to send me away anytime—why didn’t you use it?”

“Power? I don’t have any power over you at all! You do as you bloody well please, no matter who doesn’t like it. Me, your friends, country innkeepers, your glittering courtesans . . .”

Violet broke off, snapping her mouth shut, as though she hadn’t meant to say the last.

“What glittering courtesans?” Daniel made a show of looking around the empty room. “I don’t see any glittering courtesans. Maybe they’re hiding under one of the sofas?”

“I saw you,” Violet said, her voice hard. “The night we got back from the country. You were with gentlemen friends outside a restaurant, and lady friends too. They were quite beautiful. They were covered with diamonds, which is why I call them glittering. Please, do not pretend you are anything but a wealthy aristo who has any sort of woman he wants—respectable and not-so-respectable—happily going from one to the other.”

Daniel’s confusion cleared. “Do you mean you saw me outside the bistro? My obnoxious friend Richard provided the female company that night. The glittering ladies went home with Richard and his cronies, and I went to my hotel to be interrogated by my precious little sister. I’d just been with you, Vi. I wasn’t interested in them.”

Violet stared at him as though he’d lost his mind. Daniel supposed the fashionable world would think it odd that, plied with the most expensive and willing ladies in Marseille, Daniel would ignore them for a struggling confidence trickster with beautiful blue eyes. But that was because they hadn’t met Violet.

“We’ll be discussing this lack of trust in me,” Daniel said. “Thoroughly. But I noticed ye’ve neatly turned the tables back to me being a complete bastard instead of talking about what we started out to. Tell me about this marriage. Every detail. Who is he?”

Violet’s bosom rose in the beaded gown, the costume she’d not yet had a chance to remove. “I married Jacobi. To save my reputation, he said.”

“Jacobi.” Daniel’s hatred for the man spun higher.

Violet wet her lips. “It is one reason I forgave him. I thought, at the time, he’d been as much of a victim as me. He made me a married woman, in name only, to protect me.” She stopped, and fresh pain filled her eyes. “And because I was pregnant.”

Dear God. Daniel’s rage drained swiftly away. Violet watched him with trepidation, waiting for him to turn her away as she feared. Daniel knew, realistically, that with any other man her fears might not be unfounded. He’d just have to convince her he wasn’t any other man.

“Was the father the man who took you as . . . payment?” The word tasted sour in Daniel’s mouth.

“Yes.”

She said it so calmly, but Violet wasn’t calm. Her hands trembled, and she couldn’t look directly at Daniel.

“Where is the child?” Daniel asked in a quiet voice.

Violet was silent for a long time, and when she raised her head, Daniel knew. Pain bored into his heart as though someone had stabbed him. “I never had the child. I miscarried.”