Up in the balloon, Violet had been no one but herself, someone she hadn’t been in a long, long time. Whatever else he’d done, Daniel had given that to her.
“When we’re finished with the contract, we can go,” Mary was saying. She patted Violet’s knee through the blanket. “Someplace nice. Maybe a spa town in Germany. Those are always pretty.”
Violet opened her eyes, the sanctuary of her vision fleeing. “Thank you for trying to comfort me, Mary. Tell Mama I’ll do the job.”
No other man in her life had made Violet feel completely valued for herself alone. She’d sworn that Daniel had seen through her, all the way to the shivering pieces of her soul. And he hadn’t turned away in disgust, hadn’t treated her like the whore Monsieur Lanier assumed her to be.
Daniel had treated her like a friend.
“Miss?” Mary asked, worry in her voice.
Violet opened her eyes again and sighed. “I’ll do it,” she said in a dull voice. “Fetch my costume and help me dress.”
Daniel spent his day with Richard Mason. While Daniel breakfasted with his family in their suite, Simon had brought a message from Richard, who’d pitifully begged Daniel to come see him.
Daniel found Richard in elegant rooms at another hotel, in bed, feverish, hungover, and despondent. Richard expected Daniel to settle in for the day, reading newspapers and lamenting on the state of the world, sharing whiskey until Richard felt better.
Daniel was impatient with tending him today, wanting a chance to return to Violet. His time with her hadn’t been nearly long enough yet. He needed more of her.
But Richard was in a bad way, and so unhappy that Daniel stayed. Daniel suspected something else was wrong with the man besides a hangover and too much debauchery. Richard didn’t say, but he was tired and moody, and the edge had gone from his razor-keen mind. Daniel realized what was the matter before he departed later in the afternoon—Richard was syphilitic.
“You need to tell the woman you were with last night,” Daniel said, stubbing out his last cigar and rising to leave.
Richard looked at him in surprise. “Tell her what?”
“About your affliction. Only fair she knows.”
“What?” Richard stared, flushing.
“And get treatment. Doctors are brilliant nowadays. There’s a man in Munich, Doktor Schauman. He’s intelligent and will actually heal you, not give you a quack cure. Tell him I sent you.”
Richard remained openmouthed, color deepening through his skin. “He treated you?”
“No.” Daniel had been wise enough to avoid the affliction. “He’s a friend. He’s working on cures for many dreadful diseases, including this one. Just trust me, lad. Go. And when ye’ve done and can speak like the reasonable human being ye once were, look me up.”
“Right.” Richard sank back into his chair, his eyes too bright. Sad waste of a man. “Thank you, Danny. You’re a friend. Not a word of this to anyone?”
“Of course not.” Daniel took his hat and coat from a servant who looked relieved Daniel had talked some sense into his master, and departed.
He walked back to his hotel deep in thought. Cameron, he realized, had worried that Daniel would turn out like Richard. Dissipated, ill, broken at a young age. Daniel had given his father plenty of reason to worry—he’d been more interested in cards, ladies, and drink than studies, and had more than once run away from school to pursue decadent pleasures.
But Daniel had been reacting to Cameron’s habit of sending him off to his uncles or tutors while Cameron disappeared with his women. Daniel had always supposed his father was pushing him away, not wanting the bother of his son.
Daniel understood more charitably now that Cameron had feared himself to be a bad father, that Daniel might turn out just like him if they spent too much time together. Cameron had been a womanizer and a drinker, devoted to nothing but his own pleasure. The only things that had saved Cam from being completely dissipated were his love for his horses, which he cared for meticulously, and his son, whom he loved but didn’t know how to.
When Daniel reached the hotel, he stopped at his father’s suite. A servant let him in, and Cameron turned from the fireplace, where he’d been enjoying a cigar.
“Good, Daniel, I’ve been meaning to ask you—”
Cameron broke off in surprise when Daniel put his arms around his father and pulled the larger man into a hard embrace.
“You did your best, Dad,” Daniel said. “Even if I was an ungrateful little monster.”
Cameron returned the embrace somewhat bemusedly, then drew back. His Mackenzie-golden eyes fixed on his son, smoke from his cigar curling around them both. “Daniel, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Gratitude from an ungrateful child. Take it. You did well.”
“You must be drunk.”
“Maybe a little. Sat with a sick friend nursing a whiskey decanter. Too much time on my hands makes me think.”
“I see that.”
The edge Richard had lost was still honed on Cameron. Cameron had married in scandal, lost his first wife in a tragedy that only increased the scandal, then muddled along trying to raise a son on his own. Finding Ainsley had given him a chance to try again.
“What were you meaning to ask me?” Daniel asked.
“About a horse. It doesn’t matter now. Ye’ve broken my train of thought.”
“Sorry. Ran into it with one of mine.”
“Ainsley told me she talked you into going to this do of the comtesse’s,” Cameron said. “Some advice—keep your wits about you around the debs. One remark on the weather and they’ll run back to their fathers and say you proposed. Some of them are desperate for husbands.”
“Poor things if that’s true. I like the way Ian’s Belle thinks—that a woman can be something on her own without marriage.”
Cameron made a noise of disparagement. “When she’s out of the schoolroom and a handsome young man winks at her, she might change her mind.”
Daniel grinned. “That will be Gavina soon enough.”
Cameron gave him a dark look. “Don’t remind me.” His expression softened. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it, that I was so hard on you, but I spoil her and Stu rotten?”
They’d almost lost Gavina once. Daniel recalled the cold winter night when hope had been dust in his mouth, when he’d thought he’d have to watch his parents be broken by the loss of their beloved baby daughter. Tragedy had been averted, but the fear had left its mark.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Daniel said, patting his father’s shoulder. “You’re only human. And don’t worry, I won’t let Gavina become too much of a brat.” He drew a breath and let Cameron go. “Now, I’d better get a move on and dress for this ball, or Ainsley will never let us hear the last of it.”
The rambling manor house of Comtesse de Chenault, which reposed on a hill overlooking the lights of Marseille, was overheated and overfull. Violet had been sitting at her table in a corner of the drawing room for an hour now, telling fortunes to the comtesse’s eager guests.
She’d dressed in a voluminous skirt, loose blouse, and tightly laced black bodice, with a scarf over her head and a long necklace of coins clinking on her bosom. A worn pack of cards lay next to her on the scarf-draped table, and a crystal sphere she’d found in a junk shop in Liverpool sat upright on a stand. She was the very picture of a
