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“And I am not telling you how to,” she continued simply. “The reason for your … tantrum.” A slight sneer on her lips, quickly masked as she went back to acting neutral. “It was unfounded.”

He scoffed. “And again, I will remind you that how I speak with my daughter is none of your concern. You were hired to teach her, and that is all that is expected of you. Leave the parenting to me.”

He was trying to goad her. He knew that he shouldn’t be. He knew that it was foolish to do—dangerous. But he could not help it. In his study, all she had to do was close that door, and they would be alone once more. They could restart the argument, he could threaten more punishment, he could drag her to this table and?—

“What I mean is, the blood that was on your daughter’s sheets,” she cut through his imaginings once more. “The reason for it…” Hesitation as she bit into her lip, deciding something. “It had nothing to do with her playing.”

“It … it didn’t?”

She glanced nervously behind herself and then back on him. “Your daughter is becoming a woman.”

“A woman?” He frowned, not sure what she meant.

“Yes.” A raised eyebrow. “A woman.”

“What are you…” It took him longer than it should have, but the look on Miss Dowding’s face, the situation, and how subtle she was trying to be eventually hit him like a slap in the face. “You are joking.”

“I most certainly am not.”

“So, the blood?”

“That was the cause,” she said.

He groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “Then why did you not just say that?”

“Because Isabella asked me not to. She made me promise.”

“And why would she do such a thing?”

She scoffed and folded her arms. “After the way you behaved today, is it any wonder she does not trust you to have a reasonable reaction. She is scared of you is why.”

Frederick flinched. “She is not scared of me.”

“Is that what you think?” she snorted.

The truth was painful to hear, so Frederick decided to look past it. “And you? Why did you not tell me? Why did you… why did you lie?”

“Your daughter asked me to is why.”

“That is hardly a reason.”

She shrugged. “Unlike you, I do not wish to betray your daughter’s trust. She asked me for a favor, and I was willing to give it. Even if it meant being spoken to you like…” Her lip curled. “… likethat.”

Again, he flinched as memories of what he had said and how he had said it came roaring back. He had shouted at his daughter and Miss Dowding. He had belittled them. He had acted like an enraged bully for reasons that at the time seemed right, but he now knew to be far from that. Even worse, he had upset his daughter.

But still, that did not mean Frederick was going to apologize. That simply wasn’t who he was.

“You should have told me,” he said. “Regardless of what my daughter might have asked, I have a right to know.”

“And she had a right to tell you in her own time.”

“You are not her mother.”

“And you are hardly behaving like her father.”

His hands clenched, and his body stiffened. A pulse ran through him, and he could feel that familiar sensation rising. “I would watch the way you?—”

“I did not come here to argue with you,” she said quickly, making sure as she did that she was still out of the room. “I do not want that. I simply wished for you to know the true reason behind what happened and ask that even now you respect her wishes and allow her to tell you in her own time.”