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But as the duke’s words--I picked the girl out for you, didn’t I?--ca about Jae in ht of it in precisely that way--"

"While you were e her inheritance!" Jas simultaneously: the first was that James’s self-control had finally snappedand the second was the significance of what he had just said About embezzlement It couldn’t be true Could it be true?

"I only borrowed fro pained "You needn’t cast such an ugly light on it After all, look what I’ve done for you Got you a wife so grateful that she’ll do you in the broad daylight, when Craized for her looks when I forced you to propose, but I take all that back now I never heard of a lady doing such a thing Never You’ll save a fortune on mistresses Just blow out the candles first"

Theo’s breath was co about her ears The duke had forced Jaly she was She had done soh she hadn’t known it Still, she did know that inti only in the bedchamber Even the servants knew that

"Do not say a word about e boiled in his voice now, but Theo didn’t care He wasn’t denying it

He wasn’t denying any of it

The duke--her late father’s closest friend--had eer, had to have known that when they were talking the day before James knew James knew the entire time He had sat there and talked about how they could pay the duke’s debts from her inheritance, and the entire time he knew that his father had already stolen whatever ether She had never seen James drunk But when he was foxed at the Prince of Wales’s musicalehe e to propose to someone like her

In the weeks and years to come, when she looked back she identified that as the precise moment when her heart broke in two The moment that separated Daisy from Theo, the time Before, from the time After

In the time Before, she had faith She had love

In the time Aftershe had the truth

Thirteen

In the library, Ja room ajar He flinched, looked closer, saw a flash of yellow near the floor Daisy had heard She’d heard everything

James jerked his eyes away from the door and turned back to his father

His stupid, conteain" He felt his throat closing "She heard you She heard you You ass"

"Well, I said nothing that isn’t true," the duke said, instantly defensive, swiveling to look at the door

"She will never forgiveit in his bones

"Given what I saw--"

James bared his teeth, and his father shut his mouth "We had a chance, you know Even after the way it happened"