“I commend you and your mother on your performance,” he said. “Well done. The phosphor-luminescent balls were a nice touch.”
Violet shrugged. “People expect to see tangible evidence of the ether.”
“No machines tonight?”
“My mother doesn’t need them as much as I do. I don’t have her gift.”
“Gift,” Daniel repeated, remembering the performance. “Aye, she has quite a good one. She’s masterful at telling people what they wish to hear.”
“Do not be so quick to dismiss her, please. She is always spot-on, and not only using what I tell her. What about what your own mother said to you through her? My mother was right, wasn’t she? And I told her nothing. I didn’t know you would be here—I thought you were . . .” Violet faltered, her fingers tightening on his arm.
“Deceased?” Daniel supplied. “Departed? Shuffled off this mortal coil?”
“Yes.”
Daniel heard the catch in her voice, and he took heart. “Poor lass. No wonder you ran from England.”
Violet loosened her grip again. “But my mother was right, wasn’t she? About your mother?”
Daniel shrugged. “Near enough.”
“Well, there you are, then.”
Daniel couldn’t stop his laughter. “Violet, sweet love, the gossip about my family and my crazy mum is common knowledge. Everyone who hears my name knows my mother tried to off me with a knife when I was a tiny babe, before my dad threw me out of the way and stopped her. Then Lady Elizabeth Mackenzie was dead. Did she kill herself, or did her husband, Lord Cameron, do it? People have speculated for years. Now, if your mum had given the correct answer to that riddle, then I would have been impressed. Only my dad knows the truth.”
“You’re saying my mother’s a fraud,” Violet said stiffly.
“A very good one. So are you, love. The best ones always get away with it.”
Violet gave him a haughty look. “We have been questioned before. Put through rigorous tests by other mediums, not to mention scientists and priests. We’ve passed every time.”
“As I said, the best ones always get away with it.” Daniel put his warm hand over hers. “Now, did you bring your machinery with you? And would you let me have a look at it? I was interrupted before I could examine it to my heart’s content last time, by being nearly done in.”
“That’s why you’ve come to Marseille, is it? For my machines?”
He enjoyed the dry skepticism in her voice. “Certainly. That, and I like Marseille. So much history—you know it was once a Greek colony? Then the Romans obligingly left us plenty of ruins to wander through, and there’s the Château d’If, where Dumas imprisoned poor Monte Cristo. One of my favorite novels as a boy was the Count. Have you been out to see the prison close to? It’s chilling.”
Violet stopped, skirts swinging. A man in a bowler hat pushed past them, growling a little. “Stop playing with me, Mr. Mackenzie. You came here to find me so you could drag me to the magistrates.”
Daniel made a show of looking around them. “Do you see me dragging you anywhere? We’re walking calmly through a reasonably thin crowd, and I’m escorting you home.”
“And once you get me there, and your hands on my machines—then you will send for the magistrates. You think me a fraud, an imposter. And I assaulted you . . .”
“Your crimes, they keep increasing, don’t they? If I’d wanted the magistrates on you, lass, I’d have contacted my uncle the police inspector, who would have contacted his colleagues in the French police, who would have had you and your mum arrested and locked away long before I arrived. Then I would have strolled in, rifled through your gadgets, and taken what I wanted.”
Violet’s widening eyes started to fill with fear again. “Then I don’t understand. If you didn’t find me to arrest me, why did you come?”
“To see you again.” To feast my eyes on you. Daniel tucked the lock of hair on her cheek behind her ear. His gloved hands didn’t let him contact her skin directly, but the heat of her came through the thin leather. “To look at you.” To dream about having you. “And to ask you why the devil you hit me over the head.”
“I told you. You frightened me.”
“There’s much more to it than that, I wager. You’re not a lass who frightens easily. You stood up to Mortimer and his mates and were disgusted by the lot of them. Me, the one gent that night who would never have harmed you, you looked at in terror before you reached out for the nearest weapon. I’m going to find out why.” Daniel traced her cheek one more time then pulled her back into walking. “You might as well trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“That’s obvious. But you’re going to learn to trust me.”
Daniel felt Violet’s trembling, and he also felt her draw herself up, trying to master herself. “You are arrogant,” she said.
“That’s true, but is that the best you can do? I’ve been called far worse than that.”
“All right, then you are an insufferable, full-of-yourself, aristocratic prig.”
She kept her eyes straight ahead, a flush on her cheek making him want to kiss it. He settled for laughing again. “Not bad. But still not the best you can do. You, Mademoiselle, are a deceitful, cunning minx and a very talented liar. I heard you pinpoint every person’s greatest desires in that concert hall. You made them tell you everything you needed to know.”
Her flush deepened. “It’s part of the show.”
“It’s a rare skill, and one you exploit to amazing lengths. I’d love to know how you do it.”
Violet glanced up at him, the wariness back in her eyes. She might be deceitful, but she wasn’t sly. She was deceitful out of necessity, not enjoyment.
Daniel wanted to find out all about her, and not only because he was curious. Since the age of fifteen and his first tumble with a lass, Daniel hadn’t been short of female company. Women were his for the taking, whenever he reached out his hand. His uncle Mac laughed that Daniel was carrying on the Mackenzie family tradition. Women wanted the Mackenzie men—that was easy. In matters of the heart, however, the Mackenzies fought long and hard battles.
So Daniel was beginning to understand. Violet was different from his previous lovers, and not only because she was a few years older than Daniel or any more or less respectable than his usual sort of woman. Violet Bastien—or whatever her name was—was different because she was Violet.