Daniel Bannister straightened from his lean upon the heavy pine worktable. His grey eyes glittered in the dim light. He had poured himself a stiff drink. The decanter sat unstoppered before him.
“Oh…I’m disturbing you,” Adele said, her heart sinking.
“What on earth are you doing here?” His voice was as low as hers.
“I wanted some ice.” She used a tone that implied it was perfectly natural to seek out ice in the middle of the night while wearing a peignoir and bare feet.
He considered her for a moment, then stepped over to the counter and lifted one of the champagne ice buckets which had adorned their dinner table. It sloshed and tinkled as he put it on the worktable. “Have at it.” He went back to his whiskey, which was most likely a very good Scotch.
Only a little vexed, Adele moved over to the bucket and fished out a few lumps of ice and applied them to her knuckles. She hissed at the touch.
“Wait…you’re icing your knuckles?” He put down the glass and came around the worktable. “Let me see.” He took her hand and turned it so the light from the windows fell on it, examining it. “What on earth did you hit?”
“A large nose,” she said flatly.
He smiled knowingly. “Boyd’s?” Then; “Never mind. I retract the question. Here, there’s a way to do it so you don’t drip water everywhere.” He leaned back and whipped a napkin off the counter, opened it and scooped up a good handful of ice from the bucket and dropped it into the centre. He folded the napkin into a long case holding the ice and wrapped it around her hand.
“Thank you,” Adele said gratefully, as the chill of the ice settled against her knuckles.
Daniel didn’t move back to his scotch. “I only found out about your husband and your son after dessert, tonight. I’m so sorry, Adele. It must have been hell for you.”
“It was utterly dreadful,” she admitted. “For quite a while I wasn’t myself.”
“But you seem to be holding your own, now.” He lifted his hand, gesturing toward her wounded one.
She smiled grimly. “I’ve just discovered how. I really didn’t think I could do anything like this, but apparently…” She gave a small shrug.
“Only just now?” His smile was small.
Adele fussed with the napkin around her hand, adjusting it minutely. “My father had four girls and no sons. He was bitterly disappointed by that. My little sister, Phillipa, died of an infection from a cut when she was seventeen. When they told my father she was dead, he said, ‘Well, that’s one down.’” She studied the folds of the napkin closely. “An education was out of the question when our only use was to be married off to the highest bidder. Father even refused to provide a dowry to sweeten the pot.”
Daniel made a soft sound.
Adele didn’t look up. “I’ve grown up with the notion that I’m fit for very little in life. So yes, it is only now I’ve begun to question that. It was deeply ingrained, you see.”
“Aristotle said that knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
Adele made herself look at him. There was no pity in his expression that she could see. “I will have to take your word on that.” She shifted, her awkwardness building. “What are you doing, skulking about the kitchen, anyway?”
Daniel straightened and went back to the decanter. “I suppose one might call it sulking, rather than skulking. I was stood up.” He tossed back the contents of the glass with a jerk of his wrist.
“So you came here to drown your sorrows?” Adele said lightly. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I came here to figure out why. My pride is not that delicate.” He picked up the decanter and poured.
Adele let her gaze slide from the top of his thick dark blond hair to the tips of his perfectly polished shoes. “Forgive the indelicate question, Daniel, but I had assumed that very few women would ever tell you ‘no’, no matter what the question.”
He lifted the glass. “You were the first,” he assured her and drank.
“No, really. Does it happen very often?”
He lowered the glass. “I can count the occasions on one hand, and you were two of them. Ginny, tonight, is the fourth. Why do you ask? Feeling prurient, Adele?”
“Ginny? I don’t remember meeting a Ginny tonight.”
“You weren’t introduced, but you saw her,” Daniel assured her. “Red hair. Pert nose, and a lovely smile.”
Adele smiled. “The maid with the big brown eyes? Yes, she is rather pretty.”
Daniel tilted his head. “You did notice her. Well, well.”
“And she really stood you up?”
Daniel’s gaze shifted to the crystal glass. “Refused to even speak to me when I tapped on her door, as we had arranged.”
“Her door? You were cutting to the chase, weren’t you?”
“We were going to go for a walk.” He added gently, “Not that it is any business of yours.”
Adele drummed her fingers. “It might be.”
Daniel shook his head.
Adele made up her mind. “Daniel, may I ask a highly personal question?”
“You mean the previous questions were not impertinent?”
“Not in the way this one is.”
“Now I have to say yes just to hear how bad it can get,” he said grimly.
“Does that mean yes?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated. “Are you, or have you ever been an agent working for the Germans?”
Daniel laughed.
