“The point is,” he continued, “well-connected people tend to know other well-connected people. Dukes and marquesses may not seek a trade themselves, but they do invest their money in projects they deem lucrative. One of those is liable to have an opening of some sort. An apprenticeship, a secretary. I would earn more in a day than I could here all year. Apart from the gaming tables, it’s our best chance at real money. We should leave at first light.”

Panic gripped her. No. Not London. Anywhere but London! She had no wish to return to the snubs and degradation. She could not bear to have Anthony look at her with the same disgust. There had to be another way.

“My father is here,” she said, her heart beating frantically. This trip was not only her one chance of finding respectability—her father should be wealthy enough to save them both. “I came this far. I don’t want to leave before finding him.”

He frowned in visible irritation. “You do not approve of going to London, yet you will not let me assist you. What am I supposed to do, Charlotte?”

“You go to London,” she blurted. “I’ll find him on my own, and then find you.”

“I’m not abandoning my wife alone in a foreign country.”

“It’s…Scotland,” she reminded him. And the only place she felt safe. Or anonymous.

“Scotland is no safer than England. You’d still be a woman alone, and I’d still be responsible for your safety.” He leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Why won’t you let me help you find your father?”

She gazed back at him for a long moment. At his kindness, his eagerness to help, the much deserved pride he took in surviving another long day of menial labor. Perhaps he was right. She could use some assistance. After all, the longer they stayed in Scotland, the less she had to worry about going back to London. Anthony might be a huge help. He knew so many people.

At first, she hadn’t wanted her father to meet him, for fear her new husband wouldn’t live up to her father’s standards. But whose standards truly mattered? If she could tell a governess to never mind her sister’s life and concern herself with living her own, then surely Charlotte could take a spoonful of her own medicine.

Perhaps this was the way out. Her father was wealthy enough to give expensive jewels to a prostitute without a second thought. What might he do for his own flesh and blood? Hope blossomed within her. She reached for her husband’s hand. An inheritance could save Anthony’s life—and their marriage.

They might not have chosen each other, but as each hour in his company passed, she dreaded the moment ever more when his creditors might take him from her.

Besides, if she were honest, her true concern wasn’t about her father rejecting Anthony. It was whether her father would accept her.

She’d spent her entire life fantasizing about his eventual return. She’d followed the Society girls about to see how they walked, how they talked. She’d studied fashion plates until her eyes ached from squinting in dim candlelight. She’d practiced curtseys, memorized a melody on the pianoforte, learned a bit of French from a modiste. All in the hopes her father wouldn’t reject her.

However, by avoiding confrontation, she realized with a frown, she wasn’t protecting herself or Anthony. She was procrastinating because, somewhere inside, she was still the same scared little girl she’d always been. Afraid of being laughed at. Of being turned away. Afraid of never being good enough to overcome her past. Afraid her father wouldn’t love her either.

But the laird was just as responsible for her regrettable status as her mother, was he not? He could scarcely blame a child for an act he chose to perform two-and-twenty years ago. She was a woman now. An adult. And she hadn’t come this far just to cower in the corner. Too much depended on her courage.

“All right.” She gave him a shaky smile. “You can help me. I would appreciate your assistance. Thank you for asking.”

He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “What are indulgent husbands for?”

“Herding sheep?” she guessed.

“Only in the mornings.” He squeezed her hand. “Please. I want to help you find your father. At least tell me his name.”

Her pulse steadied. Yes. This was good news. If anyone could help her, it was Anthony.

She took a deep breath, then nodded sharply. “Dìonadair.”

Anthony blinked in confusion. “He’s a protector?”

She sighed in exasperation. “No, he’s a laird. My father has noble blood. He…”

He’s a protector? Her explanation vanished as a deep sense of foreboding sank into her stomach. Her husband was not the first to use a word generally reserved for men who paid courtesans for sensual favors. Yet she had never once mentioned her past to Anthony. How could he know about her mother’s history? How long had he known who she really was?

“Why?” she demanded. “Why would you say that?”

“I…” He blinked at her. “Well, you said dìonadair. I don’t claim to be an expert in Gaelic, but I always thought that word meant ‘protector.’ Or perhaps ‘defender.’ Why, is it relevant? Is dìonadair a clue?”

Her blood ran cold. Dìonadair meant protector?

It wasn’t a clue, Charlotte realized with sinking dread. It was a lie. A bald, calculated lie told to a frightened little girl who wanted desperately not to believe she was worthless. A lie to hide her father’s identity. The man was no more than one of her mother’s many paying clients.

She had no one. She was nothing.

“Dìonadair was supposed to be his name,” she said brokenly, as she realized her dreams were as unsubstantial as smoke…dissipating quickly, leaving only a stench behind. “My noble father, the laird. But my hero never existed.”

“I could be wrong,” Anthony said hastily. “Perhaps—perhaps Dìonadair is the second most common surname in Scotland. I wouldn’t know. I’m not a Scot. We could ask—”

She shook her head. It was so painfully obvious, now that she viewed the facts with the eyes of an adult rather than the eyes of a child. There were no facts. She was exactly what people had been telling her all along: nothing.

I see you found your dìonadair, lassie.

That’s what the drunkard had said when he’d caught them in the corridor. The drunkard who had undoubtedly overheard her in the common area earlier, saying she was looking for an older gentleman, a dìonadair.

Laird, preferably.

She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a horrified, choking laugh. In her quest to save her reputation, she’d only managed to make it even worse. And for what? Approbation she should have known she could never have?

Anthony reached for her shoulder. “Charlotte…”

She jerked away. She couldn’t stand his touch right now. Couldn’t stand her own skin. Her willful naivety. Her determination to believe in a fantasy. What did she know about her alleged father other than he was supposed to be a laird called Dìonadair, and from Scotland? Wouldn’t there have been more information other than his legendary angelic goodness, if any of it had been real?

The rubies. God only knew where the rubies had come from. Undoubtedly one of her mother’s admirers. But obviously not from a Scottish laird named Dìonadair. There was no such man. She had no father.

“You can have the jewels,” she said dully. She yanked the bobs from her ears and flung them from her sight. “They’re meaningless. It all is.”

Her lungs heaved as she fought against the stinging in her eyes. In her dreams, Scotland was meant to be paradise. Her father’s homeland. Perhaps her future home, too.

She had come all this way for love, for acceptance. Her father was to be the one person capable of sweeping her past under the rug. Of giving her a fresh start. A respectable name. A home.

Charlotte Dìonadair she’d called herself, all those long, lonely nights, trying to pretend she couldn’t hear the noises coming from her mother’s chamber.

Charlotte Dìonadair was the daughter of a laird. Beautiful. Practically a princess. Charlotte Dìonadair was allowed into all the shops. Charlotte Dìonadair could play with all the other children. Charlotte Dìonadair was proud to speak her name.

Charlotte Dìonadair was more than respectable… Charlotte Dìonadair was beloved.

Dreams. Useless, foolish dreams. When they vanished, her heart shattered with them. There would be no happy ever after for her.

Welcome back to reality. She wasn’t the daughter of a laird, or a beautiful princess. She wasn’t allowed into all the pretty places. She couldn’t rub shoulders with those above her station. She wasn’t proud to speak her name. She didn’t even have one.

No, she would never find her father. Her mother was a whore and a liar. Which meant she hadn’t the least idea who Charlotte’s father was.

And now Charlotte never would either.

Chapter 9

Charlotte pushed away from the dining table. Once again, she was a spectacle. Unable to bear the other guests staring at her, she stumbled through the corridors and into their small chamber.

Anthony joined her in silence, her discarded ear bobs in his palm.

She couldn’t bear to look at him, either. What a fool he must think her, to follow a dream only a child’s blind faith could believe in. A fiction her mother had sold her.

The necklace she’d been so proud of for years now bit into her skin like a swarm of ants. She had to get it off. Never wanted it to touch her again.

She pulled up her skirt in order to reach the binding round her ribs.

Anthony turned away to grant her privacy.

It didn’t matter. Her desperation wasn’t about him. It was about getting rid of the poisonous lie she’d been carrying next to her heart.

She yanked the necklace out from under the binding and hurled it onto the vanity. She pulled the money pouches free as well and threw them next to the necklace. Their winnings couldn’t help her. She was just what she’d always been—the daughter of a whore. With no father and nowhere to go.

Shivering, she unwrapped the linen binding her breasts and tossed it aside. She was who she was. There was no sense trying to playact any longer.

She let her skirt fall to the floor, then turned toward the looking-glass. The masking powder she had always added to her hair to make it dull and lifeless, the subtle face paint she had used every morning to make her complexion tired and gray. What did any of it matter?

It took very little of the icy water in the basin to wash away what she’d spent a lifetime trying to hide.

She was not her father’s daughter. She was her mother’s. They were two sides of the same coin. The same rosy cheeks and golden ringlets that had made her wide-eyed mother so irresistible to men hungry for flesh stared right back at Charlotte in the mirror.

Her shoulders crumpled. She could run away from home, flee those who spat at her in the street—if they acknowledged her at all, but she could never escape her own reflection.

She jerked away from the looking-glass and directed her wooden legs toward the wingback chair. Its cushions no longer comforted her. She was no longer on a path to adventure and approval. She was adrift at sea.

Anthony knelt by the fireplace to coax steady flames from the embers. He needn’t bother. The warmth no longer reached her.

She stared listlessly at the grate. What would become of her now? The sole hope on her horizon had been stripped away.

Her gaze inexorably traveled toward Anthony. Her heart sank. It would be foolish to develop an attachment to him. He, too, would be taken from her before long.

Then she would have no one. Just like before.

He pulled the chaise longue next to her chair and settled beside her.

She said nothing. She couldn’t trust herself to. If she spoke, she might shatter.

“I’m sorry we can’t find your father,” he said quietly.

She closed her eyes. “I don’t have one.”

“You did,” he said. “Once. Everyone did. If he chose not to stay, I’d say you were better off without someone like that in your life.”

“Of course you would say that,” she said through clenched teeth. He had undoubtedly been loved and flattered all his life. “You have your parents. Both of them. You can’t possibly know what it was like for me as a girl. No one does.”

“Then tell me,” he said simply.

Ah. If only it were that simple.

Charlotte stared at the dancing flames until her vision blurred orange. How was she supposed to tell him? She’d never told anyone. She’d hidden beneath makeup and layers of cloth. Lied about her name, her heritage, anytime she was somewhere she might not be recognized. Cleaved to the idea of a man who had never existed.