“No.” The word came hard out of Ian’s mouth, causing Sinclair and the other two to jerk their gazes to him. “There is always hurt.” Ian’s fists had balled as though he remembered all the hurt in his life before he’d met Beth.

Bertie put her hand on Ian’s arm. Sinclair tensed, wondering what he’d do, but Ian only looked at her, his expression calming. “But there are good people too,” Bertie said to him. “I didn’t know that until recently. Like your Beth, and Sinclair—Mr. McBride, I mean—and your brothers and nephew. And your wee ones.”

Ian smiled at her, his face blossoming into happiness. “My Jamie is a handful.” He said it proudly. “My girls too.”

“And they’re beautiful.” Bertie rubbed his arm. “You did good there, Lord Ian.”

Ian continued to smile at her, the letters forgotten. He and Bertie shared a long look of understanding, Ian lost in the happiness of the world he’d found as a husband and father.

When the discussion with Fellows ended, Bertie tried to slip away alone, but before she could reach the main part of the house and its long gallery, Sinclair caught up to her. He closed his hand around her arm and pulled her up the stairs to another floor, marched her along a hall and into an empty room. This one was a bedroom, but dust sheets covered the furniture.

Bertie pulled away as Sinclair closed the door, and turned to face him. “Before you start shouting at me, I read those letters about your wife because I wanted to help you. And I was curious.” Her face burned. “I’m sorry. They must have upset you.”

Sinclair’s gray eyes sparkled with anger. “I remember locking them in a box in a bottom drawer of my desk, also locked,” he said in a hard voice. “How did you ‘accidentally’ come to read them? They leapt out of the drawer and floated up to the nursery?”

“No.” Bertie clenched her hands. “I searched your desk. I admit that. You said there’d been other letters, and I wanted to see if they matched the one about me.”

“Why?”

Bertie blinked. “Because I want to help, what’cha think? You looked so bleak. Like that.” She pointed at his face. “And I wanted to help you.”

Sinclair stared at her as though torn between shouting or walking out to storm around someplace else. Bertie had noticed that he could be very eloquent when speaking on behalf of other people, but he was bad at talking about himself.

She gentled her voice. “I know why you didn’t want to show the letters to Inspector Fellows. They were full of lies about your wife, and you loved her very much. I know you did. But don’t let this person, whoever he is, take her away from you. That’s what bullies do—they poison everything in your life before they even take the first swing at you. That way you’re already too beaten down to fight back.”

Sinclair’s gaze sharpened. “You speak from experience, do you?”

She shrugged. “Where I grew up, you were either a bully or you knuckled under. Or you got out. Getting out’s the hardest, but the best.”

Sinclair looked grim. “Well, you got out. You are out, and I’m not letting you go back.”

Bertie smiled. “Aw, you’re a sweetheart, you are. They call you Basher, but you’re brimming with compassion. Don’t let this man take that away from you, right? You remember your wife as she was, not these lies.”

Sinclair stared at her a moment longer, then every bit of anguish she’d ever seen in him flooded into his eyes. After another few heartbeats, he started to laugh. The laughter was strange, and held no mirth.

“The thing is, Bertie, it isn’t lies,” Sinclair said. “Miss Margaret Davies—also known as Daisy, my wife—was a thorough scoundrel and a liar. And it’s very frightening to me that this man somehow knows all about her.”

Chapter 23

Bertie stared at Sinclair in surprise. She thought about the photographs of Daisy McBride, the quiet beauty of her, but with a twinkle in her eyes that said she hadn’t been meek and mild. But it was a long way from not being meek to being a scoundrel and a liar.

“What the devil are you talking about?” Bertie asked him.

Sinclair walked away across the room then swung back, the light from the windows silhouetting his tall body and kilt. “When I met Daisy, she was trying to fleece me out of a good deal of cash. She thought me a reckless, stupid soldier on leave with too much money.” He let out another harsh laugh. “She was right.”

Bertie plopped down on the nearest chair, sheet and all, and a puff of dust burst from it. “Well knock me down with a feather. And here I was thinking she was the model of propriety.” Her eyes narrowed. “But wait a minute. She was the model of propriety. Macaulay and Mrs. Hill can’t say enough good things about her, and the children think she was an angel. Macaulay said she saved you. So which was it?”

“Both. What Daisy was and what she became were two different things.”

“I see. No, I don’t.” She frowned. “You’d better tell me about it, hadn’t you?”

Bertie wasn’t certain Sinclair would say anything at all. He was a private man, and not happy that Bertie knew as much as she already did. In spite of their fiery nights of passion, Sinclair had the upper hand in her life at present, and she knew it.

Sinclair heaved another long sigh. He came to her, standing over her like a stern bailiff about to take her in chains to jail. Then he leaned to her, lifted her in his arms, turned, and sat down on the chair, settling Bertie on his lap.