“Be good, Danny.”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Maggie, I won’t be going away for at least a month.”
Daniel remembered how sad she had looked, as she had for years. It was as if her sorrow had permeated her until there was nothing left. But she returned his smile. “Aye, but you’ll be busy getting ready for Boston, and I might not see that much of ya. I love you, Danny.”
Daniel told his last remaining sister he loved her too. They went to their respective rooms, and Daniel fell into a deep sleep, only to be woken some hours later by a housemaid’s screams.
CHAPTER 18
Genevieve was silent, still taking in the story. How on earth had no one ever uncovered the connection between Daniel and one of Jacob’s housemaids? She guessed his money must have bought considerable silence on the part of the remaining servants.
Remarkable, what money could buy.
“How did she do it?” she finally asked, her voice soft.
“She hung herself,” he replied.
Her heart contracted. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“It was a long time ago.”
“How did that make you Jacob’s heir?” she asked, trying to piece the puzzle together. “With Maggie … gone, he didn’t have to hold up his end of the bargain anymore, did he? How did you pay for Harvard?”
Daniel quirked a bitter half smile at her. “Would you believe, the old man actually seemed to love her? After her death, Jacob apparently changed his will, making me the sole heir to the entire fortune.” He shook his head slowly. “He felt so guilt-ridden at her unhappiness, he completed in death the one thing she had asked for in life: to take care of me.” He tossed the remaining whiskey back in one hard swallow.
“Despite what Maggie may have thought, I’m not ashamed,” Daniel continued, his eyes suddenly fierce. “Not by my past, my family, or even what my sister did to survive. But I can’t have her memory tarnished.”
Surprised at his ferocity, she stammered, “Of course.”
“This is not fodder for your career.”
Genevieve leaned back, affronted. “Daniel. Have I written one word about anything you’ve ever told me? I wouldn’t do that to you; we’re partners.”
His look softened. “I am trusting you with this information, as I am asking you to trust me about Robin Hood.”
Genevieve huffed a small sigh. It was true: what Daniel had just divulged had been an extraordinary act of trust. She hadn’t asked for it, but for now she felt she had no choice.
“Fine,” she said, trying not to sound begrudging. “I’ll trust you.”
A look of relief washed over his face. “Thank you,” he said, sounding exhausted. “Thank you. Give me a few days, and I ought to be able to tell you everything I know.”
She nodded slowly. “How do I know more people won’t get hurt in the meantime?”
“That I can’t promise. I can only promise to work as fast as I can.”
Pulling herself from the comfortable love seat, Genevieve crossed to the window and pulled open the heavy silk drapes covering the east-facing window. The sky was still dark, but a faint glow was just beginning to emanate from behind the buildings across the street. She turned back to Daniel and regarded him.
He looked a mess, his eyes half lidded and red from whiskey and staying up all night, with several days’ growth of beard covering his cheeks and chin. At some point he had unfastened the top several buttons of his shirt, which billowed out from his tight breeches, almost completely untucked.
She knew she didn’t look any better, with her rumpled costume and wild hair sticking out every which way. She had a brief memory of their meeting in the alley, of how she’d thought he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. Even though he exuded exhaustion, it held true.
It was time to go. If anyone saw either of them together, they would come to only one conclusion.
“That will have to be good enough, I suppose,” she said, as she fastened her cloak around her shoulders and prepared to slip back into the hall. “I’ll head to the archives first thing Monday and let you know what I find.”
Daniel stood and moved toward the door. He stuck his head into the hallway. “All clear. Go quickly. And Genevieve—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “I’ll be careful.”
Dawn was just starting to break as the cab pulled up in front of her house. Genevieve heaved a sigh of relief. The hallway outside Daniel’s hotel room had been empty, and while a few party guests had still been stumbling around the lobby as the doorman hailed her a cab, she didn’t think she’d seen anyone she knew. Also, the remaining attendees had been so inebriated that even if she had been seen, she doubted she would be remembered.
As she walked through her front door, extreme tiredness began to overtake her. It was hard to stay upright, and she had no thought other than tumbling into her soft, warm bed when a voice startled her back into wakefulness.
“Genevieve? Is that you?” Her mother, wrapped neck to toe in a violet dressing gown, came bustling out of the front drawing room. Genevieve winced; she had been hoping to sneak in while her parents were still abed. But the sight behind Anna’s shoulder caused a gasp to escape her mouth.
“What’s happened?” she asked wildly, all tiredness forgotten.
A police officer had trailed her mother into the hallway. And not any police officer, she realized with a start, but the same Officer Jackson who had stared at her so lewdly on the steps of Reginald Cotswold’s house the day she went to speak to Mrs. Dolan. Genevieve wrapped her cloak tighter around her body, aware of her wrinkled gown, her disheveled hair.
“Come into the drawing room, dear.” Her normally unflappable mother seemed shaken, and dread filled her.
“Please, tell me what it is,” she implored, following her mother
