She nodded. They were in his town house. She sat in his study and felt as though she were already in a witness chair. Her hands were clenched to fists in her lap. Geoff was pacing; Leland stood by a window and watched her, unblinking. Helena sat nearby, looking as though she might break into tears at any moment.
“I won’t run,” Daisy said. “Because I didn’t do anything.”
“Oh well, that,” the earl said. “Of course.”
“I know everyone says that they’re not guilty,” Daisy said angrily. “But I mean it. Tanner went riding, well, racing is what he was doing, to win a wager with a mate of his. He came back dead as the door they carried him in on. His horse shied and bucked. Everyone said so. I was home, making dinner for him, where he expected me to be every day. So who says I did it? Or anything?”
“A complaint has been laid against you,” the earl said. “An accusation. They say it was an accident, but claim that you were complicit in it.”
“What?” Daisy exclaimed. “They think I ran to where he was, stood by the side of the road, and waved my hands at his horse?”
“No,” Leland finally said. “They claim you put a burr under the saddle.”
“Well, it took them long enough to say it!” Daisy said. “Now, when there’s no way anyone can look to see. Why would I do that? A burr under the saddle? That’s rich, that is. If I wanted to be rid of Tanner-and I did-I’d have done it where I could watch to make sure it was done right. I thought about it, many times. Lord! Setting a burr under his saddle? What good would it do if he fell off his horse and only broke something? He’d give me the devil of a time when he so much as got a bellyache; if he had a broken leg, it would pain me more than him. He’d break my head if he even thought I’d done such a thing. It’s a lie. And they can’t prove it.”
“Possibly not,” Geoff said. “But they can pay someone to swear to it, and that’s what worries me. Well, you know the type of people we lived among in Port Jackson, Daisy.”
“I do,” she said. “And I know they weren’t all bad. No one wants to get the name of a rat, neither, Geoff. You know that!”
“Possibly,” he said. “But there’s more. Everyone knew you hated Tanner; you never made a secret of it. That gets them a foot in the door.”
“Possibly?” Daisy echoed, seizing on the first thing he’d said. “Oh, Geoff. I didn’t break Tanner’s neck for him, but you saying that? You fair break my heart, you do.”
He came to her and took her hand. “I don’t think you did anything, Daisy. I’m just saying the road ahead may be rocky.”
She slowly withdrew her hand and raised her head. She glanced over at Leland, and caught her breath on a stifled sob. “My life’s been rocky. I’m used to that. I didn’t do Tanner in, though I’ll never deny I wished I could. So does that mean they can put me in prison again? Or send me back to Botany Bay?”
She sat straight in her chair, clearly afraid, looking desperate but proud, like a queen on her way to the tumbrels. Or so Leland thought. Her flaming hair and outrageously red gown accentuated the fact that her complexion was too white, and her eyes too bright. She was crestfallen at the moment, but there was something unquenchable about her fire. She was all spirit and rage, and he thought, yes, she could kill a man if she had to, but not by such a craven scheme as putting a burr under his saddle. She would, he thought, warn the fellow first and then, if she had to, yes, she might well put a bullet through him or cut out his heart. But only if she or someone she loved was in danger, and she had no other way to stop it.
“So who is my accuser?” Daisy asked.
“Bow Street will not divulge the name,” Leland said. “Yes, I know, I asked, and so did the earl, but that they’re adamant about.”
“Because they’re afraid I’d kill the fellow!” Daisy said with a sniff. “Well, I wouldn’t, you know. Him, I’d try to maim.”
Leland laughed.
“I would,” she said, looking at him. “Of all the low tricks! No one, not anyone in all of Port Jackson, ever said a thing like that. And I had those who didn’t like me. Well, no one’s perfect, and I’m certainly not. I didn’t like Morrison, our butcher, for example. I hated him because he charged too much, and put his hands on rumps and breasts that were no part of his business or his merchandise, and so I told him, and everyone, you can be sure.
“And there was Mrs. Coleman,” she said. “Now, there was a criminal! She poisoned two husbands and never denied it. Not because they were cruel, though they might have been, but for their money. She only got free because she married a guard. I wouldn’t ever take tea with that one, and so I said.”
She stopped and looked down. “I said things too freely, I suppose. Not about those two, believe me! But about others, yes, I might have done. I was unhappy, and unhappy people try to make others feel the same way. I should have been more charitable. That doesn’t make me a murderess!” she said, looking up at their faces.
They looked at each other, and they didn’t smile.
She swallowed hard. “I know more about the law than most females, from being exposed to it so young and so often. But doesn’t my accuser have to face me in court?”
“So he would,” the earl said. “But we don’t believe it will ever come to that.”
“Why not?” Daisy asked. She frowned as the men exchanged looks again. Leland, looking more tense and sober than she’d ever seen him; Geoff, growing a little red around the ears.
“I’ll tell you later,” the earl said evasively. “If it even comes to that.”
“For now,” Leland said abruptly, “we need you to relax, settle down, and make a list of anyone you think might mean you harm. Anyone,” he said. “First, from the days before your father was arrested. Someone had to inform on him. We’ll search the old records, but we’d like to know who you think that might have been. Include anyone you may have met in Newgate prison who might bear a grudge, and anyone similarly bent that you can remember from the ship that brought you to Botany Bay. We’d also like a list of those you knew from then on, of course. That will give us something to work with.”
“We need to know who did this to you,” the earl said.
Daisy’s eyes widened. “Will they be able to put me in Newgate again?” she asked again. She frowned to hear her voice shake.
“No,” Leland said. “Not while I live.”
“Nor I,” the earl agreed.
She nodded, relieved. Then she raised her head. “You know, actually, I don’t think my accuser is anyone we know from those bad days, Geoff. Because, say I was put in jaiclass="underline" Even if I were transported again, who’d profit? What good would it do them? They couldn’t get my money. So why bother? Convicts don’t like courts, do they, Geoff?” she asked, like a child in the night wanting to be told there was nothing in her darkened wardrobe but imagination. “Don’t you remember?”
“Yes,” he said. “But they could easily pay someone else to broach the suit for them.”
“I see,” she said, thinking hard. “It could even be someone who never did anything bad, someone who just didn’t want me getting too close to you, Geoff. Or you, my lord,” she said, looking straight at Leland.
The earl stared at her. Leland put his head to side as he considered her.
“Well, you two foisted me off on Society,” she said. “There are high sticklers who could be mighty mad that you introduced a common convict to the cream of the ton. They mightn’t like having to rub elbows with such as me, whether I was guilty or not. Accusing me of a murder is just the kind of sneaking, rotten, rancid thing a person like that would do.”
“So it would be,” the earl said, exchanging a look with Leland.
“So it might be,” Leland said sharply. He seemed, for the first time since she’d known him, agitated, all his customary lazy good humor vanished. “It’s all conjecture. I must get some real investigation started. So I have to leave now. There are people to speak to, and more to be threatened. Mrs. Masters?” he said through tightened lips. “If I might see you outside for a moment?”