Page 64 of When the Rogue Returns

“You have a daughter.” She drew a ragged breath. “She’s nine years old, and her name is Amalie.”

His gut twisted into a knot. “Your dainty-footed ‘servant’ Amalie?”

Eyes darkening, she nodded.

Fury roiled up in him like smoke billowing out of an inferno. “When the hell did you intend to tell me?”

She flinched. “I was about to when Jacoba showed up. You may recall that I said I had something important to relate, before we could go any further in our plans.”

“That’s the understatement of the decade,” he snapped.

He raked his fingers through his hair. He had a child. Adaughter,for God’s sake. And Isa had kept it secret from him all these years.

Something suddenly occurred to him. “That’s why you wouldn’t let me know where you live. Because you were afraid I would find out about her.”

“Yes,” she said stiffly. “You had already questioned my fellow shopkeepers about me. Fortunately, I always kept my daughter’s existence fairly private, so they didn’t know about her. But I knew if you questioned my neighbors here, you would learn the truth.”

Fighting for calm, he scanned the hall and glanced up the stairs. “So where is she?”

“She’s away at school right now. There’s no school for girls in Edinburgh, so I had to enroll her in one just across the border in England. That’s where I was for the past two days—taking her to school. The term began yesterday.”

So his daughter had actually been in town the day he’d arrived. And Isa had hidden her from him!

“I want to see her,” he bit out.

“You can’t,” Isa said.

That sent him over the edge. “The hell I can’t! She’s my daughter!”

“Do you want to keep her safe?” she cried. “Because if you do, you have to leave her alone as long as Jacoba and Gerhart are loose in Edinburgh.”

That gave him pause. “Damn it, Isa—”

“I know. It’s not what you want. It’s not what I want, either.” She took several steadying breaths. “But until we can deal with them, it’s safer for her if they don’t know where she is.”

A sudden terror for the girl he’d never even met engulfed him. “How can you be sure they don’t already know?”

“Jacoba called her ‘your child.’ Wouldn’t she have said ‘your daughter’ if she’d known?”

He gritted his teeth even as he acknowledged her logic. “I suppose.”

“Besides, she said she followed me out here last night. That was after Amalie had gone off to school, so she wouldn’t have seen her. No one in town knew about Amalie. And Mr. Gordon certainly wouldn’t have mentioned her to a stranger—not without tellingme.”

Mr. Gordonwasquite a determined advocate for Isa and obviously more than capable of protecting her privacy.

Isa softened her tone. “You know that if we go running to England just so you can see her, they’ll follow us. And I don’t trust them within a mile of her. I don’t think they’d hurt her, but... but I don’t want her to know them. Do you?”

“Not if I can help it,” he growled. “But I can keep them off our trail.”

“As you did in coming to Edinburgh?”

He muttered a curse. Shewouldbring that up.

“It’s safer this way,” she said. “You know it is. Besides, it’s better for her to stay where she is until we decide what to do about our marriage, and how to handle Gerhart and Jacoba. After everything is settled, we can tell her our plans.”

He considered that a moment. “So whereisthis school of hers?”

“I’m not telling you,” she said softly. “Not until I’m sure you won’t go running off there and lead them toher.”