Give a customer a little time to start imagining a flower in her life, though, and she’d take it.
The woman stopped at the violets in a little metal tray filled with water, brushing the velvety green leaves with a single finger, before biting her lip and moving on.
It was November; the wares were much denuded. But then again, it was November, and so was the world. A single forced tulip could bring color to any room these days.
Daisy concentrated on tying ribbons and watched her customer beneath her lashes. The woman removed knit gloves carefully. She glanced at the hothouse rosebuds, looked at the golden lilies with wonder in her eyes, and then gave her head a little shake.
Time now for Daisy to intervene.
“Are you looking for a buttonhole or a bouquet?” she asked cheerily.
The woman jumped. “Oh. I hadn’t thought.”
Daisy pointed to her own buttonhole—a bright pink dahlia, smaller than usual, just over her right breast.
“Me personally, I prefer a buttonhole. They’re not so expensive as a bouquet, but I can carry one around with me all day. That way I always have a little beauty close by.”
The woman looked away. “Pardon me for saying so, but it seems extravagant. Flowers are for…” She gestured outside, at the rest of London. “Not really for someone like me.”
Someone like her.
Maybe it was her conversation with her mother, but Daisy felt a kinship with the woman. This was who she would be in ten years if she didn’t marry. Alone. Cloistered in a backroom, thinking that a halfpenny expenditure was too extravagant.
“Nonsense,” Daisy said a little too sharply. “Whoever said that flowers aren’t for you?”
The woman blinked.
Daisy knew the answer to that question. Everyone said that flowers weren’t for her. The woman wasn’t married and likely wasn’t going to be. She worked for a living. She didn’t have servants. She was supposed to be satisfied living a drab little life, just because everyone thought she was a drab little woman.
Drab women didn’t get flowers. They didn’t deserve beauty.
The woman glanced down. “It’s such a luxury. I don’t see…”
She had stopped in front of the yellow flowers. Daisy reached out and picked out a creation she’d made of a forced tulip that had snapped off its stem—nothing more than the brilliant yellow bud and a spray of green leaves.
“Here,” Daisy said, holding it out. “It’s a halfpenny. Tell me, Miss…” She trailed off.
The woman inhaled. “It’s missus, actually.” Her eyes shut. “Mrs. Wilde. My Jonas passed away five years ago, and…”
“Mrs. Wilde,” Daisy said softly, “is there anyone who believes you’re worth a halfpenny of beauty any longer?”
The woman shook her head.
“Well, then.” Daisy gave her a nod. “Maybe the person who needs to believe it is you.”
Daisy had done this before, convincing a reluctant woman to bring a little beauty into her life. She’d never felt guilty about it—but now she did. She could almost imagine Crash standing behind her, whispering in her ear.
My, you are good at lying to yourself. Listen to you.
She wasn’t lying to herself. She wasn’t. She did bring a little beauty into these women’s lives; if she didn’t, why did they all come back? Why would they bring their friends?
“I shouldn’t.” But Mrs. Wilde hadn’t relinquished the tulip.
“Where do you work?”
Mrs. Wilde sighed. “The apothecary down the way. I weigh and measure for him and track his receipts.” Her mouth pinched. “I keep track of whatever fine remedy is in vogue, make sure it’s ordered and on the shelves. This month, it’s the carbolic smoke ball.”
Those damned carbolic smoke balls again.
“So you help hundreds of people take their medicine and get well,” Daisy said.
“That’s…one way of looking at it.”
“I’d never tell you to spend money you don’t have,” Daisy said sympathetically. “But if you’re saying you don’t deserve this, with all that you do…?”
She let her words hang.
Mrs. Wilde looked at the tulip. She glanced down at her hands, out the door, and then back to the tulip. Then she gave a fierce little nod.
“Here.” She opened her purse and removed a coin. “Take it before I change my mind.”
It was worth it for the smile she saw on Mrs. Wilde’s face as she left the shop. Daisy was selling happiness. Temporary happiness, very likely, but was there any other kind? Poor women deserved flowers as much as rich ones—more so, in fact. They had that much less beauty in their lives.
Daisy went back to making bouquets, but bouquet-tying was delicate work, and her fingers jerked the twine a bit too hard. She wasn’t lying to herself, and she hadn’t lied to Mrs. Wilde. She hadn’t. Rich women were taught that their every wish would be granted. Women like Daisy? Like Mrs. Wilde? They were allowed nothing. They weren’t even supposed to properly wish, not for anything worth having. They were allowed to subsist, and then only if they were lucky and useful.
Daisy wasn’t lying to herself. She was just making it possible to get through one day and then the next, to find the little moments that made it possible to not dread her future.
That future loomed closer than ever.
Sunday. She’d promised her mother to start encouraging gentleman on Sunday. The very idea left her cold. No wonder she was wasting time submitting applications for a charity bequest. She wanted to believe she had a chance to get away.
She wasn’t that naïve.
Daisy stared at her violets. They were just as pretty and just as purple as they’d been a few moments before.
“I don’t lie to myself,” she told them. “I know the truth all too well.”
They looked up at her. Purple petals faded to white in the center, with a dot of yellow. Flowers couldn’t really look. They didn’t have eyes. So why did this batch seem to glower at her in disapproval?
She switched from making bouquets of violets to working with tulips. Putting a good face on things wasn’t lying. She told herself the truth with scrupulous regularity. She was running out of time.
Running out of time to establish herself, running out of time to save her mother, running out of time to be anything except another drab woman in a drab occupation telling herself she didn’t deserve so much as a halfpenny flower.
So she took a moment to make sure her dreams were well and thoroughly crushed before accepting the inevitable. What of it? Crash was wrong. She didn’t lie to herself.
But then Crash had said that she’d lied about him. That was what rankled. She’d thought of that moment when everything had gone wrong between them over and over.
It had been after…after…
No, if she wasn’t lying to herself, she could use the proper words.
It was after they had sex.
Speaking of stupidity. What sort of idiot was Daisy? He’d told her he needed to leave town. He’d said he would be gone to the continent for months. She’d thrown herself at him.
She was a first-class fool, and her face burned in memory.
But he’d been sweet, and it had been lovely, and… And then it had been over. They’d been in bed together, holding each other. She’d been naked and vulnerable and too much in love to realize she ought to have been scared.
“You know, Daisy,” he had said. “I told you, you shouldn’t have a thing to do with me. Look here. I’ve corrupted you.” He’d kissed her.
“You never told me any such thing. Not seriously.”
“True.”
She’d kissed him back. “I don’t mind being corrupted, if it’s by you.”
Now, she could flinch at her gullibility. Then, she’d leaned into him with complete trust.
He had sat up in bed. “I haven’t explained to you why I’ll be gone yet. I’ve a plan to turn…well, not respectable. But.” He had shrugged. “Something like. I’ve take
n risks, but I can’t keep doing that, not with a wife and a family.”
Her heart had thumped wildly at those words. Wife. Family.
“I need to go to France,” he told her. “There’s a craze building there for velocipedes.”
“What are those?”
“They’re metal vehicles. With foot-pedals.”
“With what?”
“One pushes the pedal with one’s foot, and it turns a wheel…” He’d gone on.
It turned out there was no way to describe a velocipede, not with any number of words. She’d stared in confusion.
“It will all make sense when you see one.” He’d given her a cocky grin. “They’re on the verge of becoming a phenomenon in France. Give it five years, and they’ll be the rage here, too. I’m going to have the premiere velocipede shop in all of London. But I’ll need to visit factories, learn how to repair them… I’ll be gone a while. Months, at least.”
Her hands entwined with his.
“The way I see it,” he said, “you could marry me and come with me.”
She had inhaled.
“Or we could wait two months for me to go in order to be certain that nothing comes of what we just did. I would return to you as soon as I could.”
That dose of reality had made Daisy stop and think.
“Crash.” Daisy had leaned her head against his shoulder. “I can’t leave my mother for months on end, and I can’t see her traveling to France.”
He’d kissed her. “Wait two months it is, then. That is, assuming you’ll marry me despite my terribly checkered past. Will you?”
In the time since that night, Daisy had examined her response over and over.
“That depends,” she had said teasingly. “Precisely how many checks does your past have?”
“Maybe one or two.” His eyes had glinted wickedly.
“You can’t fool me.” She’d leaned in and kissed him. “There must be dozens. I know about the gambling.”
“That? That’s not really a check at all—just illegal.” He had given her a cocky smile.
Daisy had heard this from him a great deal in the last months. In some ways, it had felt like Crash had suspended her good sense.
She’d started arguing his side to herself.
Who do I hurt if I kiss him? If I let him put his hand there? It can’t really be wrong, not if it feels so right.
She’d told herself that so often that she’d almost completely believed it. Almost. She was already making excuses for him.
That had brought her to this moment, naked in bed with him.
“Really,” he mused, “the only true check in my past was the time Jeremy and I robbed Mr. Wintour. But he deserved it, and everyone does stupid things when they’re young…”
All Daisy’s explanations had failed her at that moment. Her stomach had roiled uneasily, and the almost she could not quite dispel returned with a vengeance.
“You did what?”
“Oh, did I not tell you about that?” He’d given her a brilliant, unashamed smile. “Actually, it’s an amusing story. Mr. Wintour, see, was Jeremy’s employer at the time—you recall Jeremy, yes? In any event, he accused Jeremy of thievery. Which was…” Crash had shaken his head. “Stupid and wrong, and in any event, Jeremy was sacked without his wages. Taking matters into our own hands was a matter of justice…”
Daisy had scarcely heard the account that followed.
Who does it hurt? He had always asked her that question. He’d given her his magical smile, and she’d gone along. His magic had finally failed.
Who does it hurt?
Here, there was an answer. Never mind his earnest confession. Never mind that it wasn’t that much or that Mr. Wintour had deserved it. Crash could only alter Daisy’s sense of right and wrong so far, and stealing was wrong. Under all circumstances. It was wrong, demonstrably wrong.
Maybe he’d been wrong about everything else.
“It was nine years ago,” he finished. “I was seventeen and stupid, and, well…”
And he was sorry now. She clutched at that. It had just been the once. Boys did stupid things.
Her thoughts might have been rationalizations, but she held tight to them. She had reached out and taken his hand impulsively.
“It doesn’t matter,” she had said. “I love you. I forgive you.”
He’d frowned down at her fingers twining with his.
“You forgive me,” he had finally said in a low tone. “Why do you forgive me? I didn’t steal from you. What are you forgiving me for?”
“For everything,” she had said earnestly. “I forgive you for everything you’ve done.”
“Everything.” The pleased animation had slipped from his face. The next words came slowly. “You forgive me for everything. Not just the one-time theft. Pardon me; I should like to have your everything spelled out.”
She’d felt confused.
He pulled his arm from her. “Do you forgive me for taking wagers?”
“Of course.”
“You forgive me my former lovers, I assume.”
“Naturally.”
Instead of appeasing him, each answer of hers made his face even more dangerous. “You forgive me for being a bastard, I suppose.”
“You know I do.”
His voice was low and cutting. “Next, you’ll forgive me my aunt and my mother. You’ll forgive me for not having English features, for the color of my skin, for—”
In the months since, she’d come to understand that she’d misstepped. She had said the wrong thing, precisely the wrong thing.
At the time, she’d thought she was reassuring him.
“Yes,” she had said desperately. “I do. All of it.”
“Then you surely forgive me for having the stones to believe I’m worth something.”
She’d stared at him in confusion. “How can you doubt it?
He had pulled away from her, standing up, hunting in their clothing piled together for his trousers. “Very well. Do you want me to forgive you for your mother? She’ll be a burden, that’s for sure. Shall I forgive you for working in a shop? I know you flirt with the men who come by.”
“Only a little—it doesn’t mean anything, just enough to puff up their esteem—”
“Don’t worry.” He made the next words sound ugly. “I forgive you.” His voice dropped. “I forgive you the fact that you were raised to think yourself better than you are.”
She had gasped.
“I forgive you your impertinent and unwomanly desire to be more.”
She had been beyond gasping.
“I forgive you your utter ignorance in bed,” he had continued, “and your maidenly qualms. Hell, I’ll forgive you your very existence in return. Even though, as these things are reckoned, you are a complete waste of a woman.”
She felt as if she’d been flayed alive. As if she were as sore in her spirit as she’d been between her legs. She’d pulled the sheets about her.
“What are you saying?”
“What does it sound like I’m saying? I forgive you, Daisy. I forgive every miserable thing about you.”
She had choked back tears, but his words hurt. Not because they were lies; they were all the truth. The truth she’d hoped he didn’t see. The simple facts of her, laid bare.
She was ignorant about lovemaking. She was impertinent. Her mother was a burden.
“I’m only saying what you said,” he told her. “I forgive you.”
“Maybe I didn’t say the right thing the right way.” She’d struggled to understand. “But there’s no call to hurt me like that. Good heavens, Crash, it’s not like I wounded you.”
Even now, even months later, it still hurt to remember his words. So she had said the wrong thing. What should it have mattered to him? She’d seen him shrug off worse insults, and her remarks had at least been kindly meant. His response… Now that had been truly unkind.
“Of course you didn’t wound me,” he had said. “I never feel pain. Wh
y should I care if you do?”
She had been too devastated to think. “Get out.” She’d scarcely managed those words.
“These are my rooms.”
“I don’t care.” She turned away from him. “I can’t look at you. I can’t talk to you. Get out.”
He’d hesitated. Perhaps at that moment, he realized that he’d said too much. “Daisy.”
“Don’t.” If he talked to her, she would remember all the lies she told herself. She’d remember thirty minutes ago, when he had said he loved her, when he’d kissed her and entered her and talked to her and made her laugh. She’d remember that, instead of what he had just said.
“Daisy. Wait.”
She had looked over at him. “For what?” she had said viciously. “For me to forgive you?”
He sat beside her. “I lost my temper. I have a— Oh, God, I have more than a little chip on my shoulder about some of this. And, well…” He had looked over at her. “I know everyone thinks I don’t care. I can’t let them know when I do. But I thought you understood me.”
She had thought she had, too. “Did you mean it? Any of it, somewhere—did you mean it?”
He had inhaled. He’d looked away. There had been a long moment where she’d scarcely been able to breathe. His knuckles had turned almost pale, clenching so hard. Very quietly, he’d spoken. “Yes.”
One word, and it had ended everything. All her lies. All her wishes. All her dreams.
Crash had been the lie she told herself.
Who does it hurt?
Her. It hurt her. It had stabbed her so deeply she thought she might weep blood.
“Don’t wait two months.” She had shut her eyes. “Go to France.”
“But—”
“There are telegrams,” she had told him. “If I have need of you, I will let you know. Go to France. We shouldn’t see each other any longer. Now get out.”
He had left the room. She’d dressed, her hands shaking, and let herself out.
Part of her had hoped that something would come of that single time together. She’d woken at night, her fingers probing her stomach, not sure if she feared a pregnancy or wanted one. If she’d been with child, she would have been forced to speak with him again, forced to lie herself back into love. But that wish, too, hadn’t come true.
Her Every Wish Page 6