A Duke for Daisy: The Blooming Brides Book 1

by St. Clair, Ellie

  “He’s just so… so…”

  Marigold laid a hand on Daisy’s arm, drawing them to a halt as she peered into her sister’s eyes.

  “Are you attracted to him?”

  “No!” Daisy exclaimed. “Absolutely not.”

  “It would be understandable if you were,” Marigold continued, as though she hadn’t heard Daisy, but by then they were back downstairs, and Daisy had opened the cupboard, finding two towels. She didn’t purposefully find the oldest, most torn near-rags — they just happened to be those on top.

  “Do you want me to come back upstairs with you?” Marigold asked, but Daisy shook her head. The faster she could return to Mr. Hawke’s chamber and give him his blasted towels, the sooner he could get in the bathtub, making him less likely to complain about cold water and, hopefully, he would go to bed for the night and they wouldn’t have to hear from him until morning.

  She climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. She heard his voice from within but wasn’t entirely sure what he had said through the thick wood of the door. He knew she was returning — likely he was just summoning her to come in. Heaven forbid he would come and open the door himself.

  Daisy was rolling her eyes as she pushed open the door.

  “Here you are, your towels—”

  She forgot what she was saying, what she was doing. For there in the middle of the room, Mr. Hawke reclined in the bathtub, steam seeping out of it around his head and shoulders. He was so large he hardly fit in the small tub. His arms and legs were draped over the edges, and Daisy had full view of the top of a very broad, strong, bronze chest, which was lightly dusted with a smattering of hair that gleamed golden in the light of the candles.

  Daisy knew she should drop the towels on the floor, turn around, shut the door, and leave the room immediately. But she was rooted to the spot, unable to move. She was loathe to admit it, but his body was… magnificent. He reminded her of the sculptures she had seen in one of Violet’s books, but with a few cuts and bruises, which only made him seem more human.

  Finally, her eyes reached the man’s face, and her cheeks began to burn when she saw he was staring right back at her with a raised eyebrow.

  “See something you like?” he asked drolly, and Daisy narrowed her eyes at him.

  “What do you think you are doing?” she demanded, anger taking over the admiration that had momentarily beholden her.

  “I am taking a bath,” he said, sweeping an arm out, speaking to her as though she were an idiot.

  “Why would you enter into the bath when you knew we were coming back with towels?”

  “I assumed you would send a man,” he responded with a shrug, his shoulder muscles bulging as he did so.

  “As you know,” she said through gritted teeth, “this inn is lacking men.”

  “Your father is a man,” he returned. “At any rate, it doesn’t bother me to have a woman within. You can set the towels on the chair over there.”

  Daisy could feel her jaw set at his superior tone. She could set them there, could she? She purposefully averted her eyes and walked by him, placing them on the bed, just out of his reach. He could stand chilled in the air for a moment — it wouldn’t do him any harm and would actually probably be a good thing, to teach him some humility if nothing else. Daisy smiled to herself as she turned to go, but when she did, she could see his leg, hanging over the edge of the tub, from the other side.

  There was a deep, ugly red scar running along the back of his calf. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though it had been infected at some point. How in the world did he manage to walk on it? Daisy swallowed hard, sympathy for him seeping in through her annoyance, but she shook her head. He had been injured, yes, and she took no pleasure in that — but it didn’t give him any right to act the way he did with such an attitude.

  “I really would appreciate them on the chair,” he said, his voice slightly softer, as though he realized it might help his case. “I’d prefer not to slip on the floor with this bad leg — the one you have been staring at for so long.”

  “I’m not—” Daisy began to retort, but then took a deep breath. He was clearly attempting to rile her. She refused to give him the satisfaction.

  “Unless, of course, you’d like to stay and help me out of the tub. You could then pass me the towel — or not.”

  Daisy gasped at his words.

  “Excuse me?” she burst out. “I am sorry, sir, but I surely hope you did not say such a thing to me. You may be a paying guest, but that gives you no right to insult me so.”

  Her words didn’t move him one bit.

  “Are you, or are you not the one remaining in the bedchamber of a man lying naked in a bathtub?”

  “I’m only here because you asked me to be here!”

  “So all I need to do is ask?”

  “Agh!” Daisy burst out, knowing she sounded like an idiot but unable to think of anything else to say, so angry she was. Her body was heated now, with ire, embarrassment, and something else that she couldn’t quite describe.

  She stalked to the door, placing her hand upon the knob. She was about to leave, but she needed to make one thing clear before she did. She turned around to look at his smug face.

  “I may be the daughter of an innkeeper, but that doesn’t mean that I do not possess morals of any sort. I am an intelligent woman, Mr. Hawke, and I will not be taken for a fool.”

  And with that she opened the door, slamming it behind her as she strode down the corridor, the sound of his chuckle remaining in her ears every step of the way.

  5

  Daisy yawned as she and her sisters set the table for the guests’ dinner that night. Typically, they served the boarders first, and then they would head in for their own supper. If it had been a busy day — as they usually were — Daisy’s head was often near to her plate as she ate, so tired she was.

  Tonight was worse than most days, for she had hardly slept at all the night before.

  And there was only one man to blame.

  “What’s wrong with you today, Daisy?” Iris asked. “You’ve been acting like Violet, with your head anywhere but the present, which is not at all like you.”

  Violet looked up at that, glaring at her sister for a moment before returning to placing the cutlery around the table.

  “It’s not an insult, Violet,” Iris said with a wave of her hand. “You have imagination. When your head isn’t between the pages of a book, that is.”

  Violet ignored her as Iris’ attention returned to Daisy. “So what is the matter?”

  “Nothing at all,” Daisy said with a shrug. “I just didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “You always sleep well,” Marigold said, her brow furrowing. She would know, as the two of them shared a bedroom. “I didn’t notice you awake last night.”

  “Because you were sound asleep, snoring away merrily, I might add,” Daisy returned with a raised eyebrow, attempting to lighten the situation.

  They laughed at one another but were interrupted by the door opening and their mother poking her head into the dining room.

  “Girls!” she exclaimed. “Hurry now, the food has been waiting far too long, and we best serve it while it’s hot.”

  “Or else someone will be particularly upset,” Daisy muttered and Marigold, the only one within earshot, turned to look at her.

  “Is that what kept you up last night?” Marigold asked, her gaze perceptive. “The new boarder?”

  “Of course not,” Daisy responded indignantly. “Why would he?”

  Marigold shrugged. “I’m not sure, but your response to him when we set up his bath last night was most unusual. Did something happen when you returned with the towels?”

  Daisy paused mid-step as she followed her sisters through the door. She hadn’t told Marigold that she had walked in to find Mr. Hawke in the midst of his bath. Somehow, the thought of sharing such a story embarrassed her — maybe because Daisy knew, looking back on it, that she should have turned arou
nd and left the moment she opened the door.

  But instead, all she could do was picture him as he lay in the bathtub. She had never seen muscles such as his before. Not that she had seen many — or any — men naked before, especially with drops of water glistening on their bare bodies. When she thought of his golden skin, she couldn’t help but compare it to her own paleness, and somehow that led to the thought of them next to one another. It was a thought which should have repulsed her, and yet actually made her tremble with an entirely different emotion, the one that had begun when she saw him lying there, the one she desperately wanted to ignore.

  What was wrong with her? A man had never made her feel such a way before — not even Stephen Carter, who she had thought she would one day marry.

  Why, out of all the men in England, should this arrogant, hostile one make her feel such a way? The only way he could be any worse was if he were another baron or entitled gentleman. Clearly he had wealth if he was used to servants waiting upon him to perform every small task. She could hardly imagine how he would act if he had a title as well.

  She noticed Marigold was still waiting for a response, and Daisy forced a smile on her face and shook her head.

  “No, nothing happened,” she said, allowing the door to swing closed behind her as she took a deep breath, knowing that when she returned to the room, it would be to serve the Johnsons as well the very gentleman she couldn’t remove from her mind any more than she could from this inn. “Nothing at all.”

  * * *

  Nathaniel began the slow processes of walking down the stairs to the dining room. The first night he had dressed for supper as he had at home before realizing that here, at the Wild Rose Inn in Southwold, dressing for dinner meant something else entirely. So today, he kept on his casual trousers and linen shirt, wearing only a waistcoat over top. He gripped the railing tightly once more as he started down the stairs. He kept his weight on his right leg, for the most part, half hopping and suspending the left in midair as he started down. Thankfully, no one had yet witnessed the atrocity of his descent. It certainly wasn’t regal — not for Mr. Hawke, and most especially not for the Duke of Greenwich.

  He managed a tight smile for the Johnson family as the six of them stared at him with very similar gazes, all red hair and green eyes, from Mr. and Mrs. Johnson down to the four children. He determined the eldest girl to be around fifteen, the youngest a boy of about five — Davy, he remembered, the boy who was just as bored as Nathaniel himself and therefore was always pleased to be as helpful as possible.

  And bloody hell, was Nathaniel bored. He had only been here three days and already he could hardly stand it. Tomorrow, he resolved, he would leave this inn and make his way around the town to see what else it had to offer, though he didn’t suppose it was much at all.

  Today he had already perused all that the bookshelf in the corner of the sitting room had to offer, but he was left disappointed. The books were mostly gothic novels and poetry, though he wasn’t sure what else he should expect. One of the women obviously liked to read.

  He wondered if it was Daisy. He had asked a few questions to each of the sisters, to Tavners himself, and to the Johnsons, which helped him begin to better understand this family. Tavners had inherited the inn shortly after he had returned from his own stint against the French. He and his wife quickly bore children, but try as they might, a son never came. At one point in time, from the sounds of it, there had been additional staff, but they had sold the stables to another townsperson, and now they relied on their daughters to look after the inn.

  Was that fair? Nathaniel wondered. Perhaps it was part of the explanation for why Daisy was so dour all of the time — she worked far too hard.

  Just then, the woman who was beginning to occupy far too many of his thoughts walked into the room, delicately balancing seven bowls of soup on a tray upon her arms. She must be strong, he thought with some admiration as one of her sisters began to take the bowls from the tray and, one at a time, place them before the guests. He was the last to be served, and as the bowl was set in front of him, he looked up, accidentally catching Daisy’s eyes.

  He wished he hadn’t. In fact, as fun as it had been to tease her with the bath, he now knew he should never have done so. Nathaniel hadn’t been sure it would be she who would return with the towels, but he had an inkling it would be, as she seemed to do everything else. He had thought to fluster her, though why, he had no idea. But instead, when he had caught her staring at him, all of his nerves, the signals that he had thought were lost along with the proper use of his leg, began to tingle once more, and he felt more than saw her glance over what was exposed of his naked body.

  He wished she would have turned around and fled, to allow her embarrassment to be made apparent to him at another day, another time. But no, she had stood there and continued to look at him, and he had wanted nothing more than to jump out of the tub and crush that tall, strong body against his, taking from her the strength that he now lacked.

  For that was the very worst of it. Despite the fact that he would never actually do such a thing with a woman who, though attractive, would test him at every turn, he physically could not lift himself from the bathtub without a great deal of grunting and finagling to have his limbs in just the proper position so that he could rely on his arms and his good leg to allow himself to balance properly. It was quite the ordeal and not one that he would have anyone — least of all Daisy Tavners — witness.

  So he had chosen to lie back and grin lazily at her, enjoying the fact that she seemed to be entranced by him. When he had heard her place the towels on the bed and turn around to go, by the halting of her footsteps he had known that she had stopped and was likely staring at his leg. He was well aware of just how ugly it was, though that didn’t much bother him. No, it was his own limitations that really tore at him, made him wish it could be otherwise.

  Coming back to the present, he winked at her to further disconcert her, and she broke his stare, the blue-green ocean of her eyes darting around the room to look anywhere but at him. So, she was still embarrassed by yesterday’s encounter, was she?

  Unfortunately, the thought only made him even more aware of her presence, which annoyed him. Why should he care what the loud, opinionated woman thought? He was a guest of her inn, and she should treat him as such — whether he was naked in the bath or in his dinner attire here at the table.

  “Good evening to all of the lovely Tavners women,” he said instead to the whole of them. While her sisters smiled at him, Daisy continued to ignore him, so he continued. “Thank you for your fine hospitality.”

  One of the other girls — Marigold, he thought her name was — began to thank him in a soft tone, though her voice was still loud enough to drown out whatever it was that Daisy was muttering.

  “My apologies, Miss Daisy,” he said, unsure of how else to differentiate between the sisters, “But did you say something?”

  “I did not,” came her terse reply, despite the fact he knew better.

  “I could have sworn I saw your lips moving.”

  “Just singing to myself,” she said with a bright and clearly forced smile. “I do love to sing.”

  “You do not!” exclaimed one of the other sisters, who began to provide soup spoons, apparently previously forgotten, to the lot of them.

  “I do,” Daisy said, fixing a cool expression on her face as she looked pointedly at her sister, who shrugged her shoulders and then followed Daisy out of the room, leaving it silent for a moment, until the Johnson children began to chatter once more.

  Nathaniel wished he hadn’t watched her backside swing from side to side as she walked out the door. He wished he could push the image of her gaze upon him out of his mind. But damn it, something about the woman had a hold on him.

  Since he had joined the war effort, Nathaniel had one focus, and one focus only — to battle Napoleon and his forces. He had known that he would marry eventually, though at the time he hadn’t known that his fu
ture wife would also become a duchess, making the requirement to wed even greater.

  But now he was suspended in between responsibilities. The war effort was behind him, apparently no longer needing him. The home effort, which he was sure would prove to be considerable, was just out of reach, held in trust for him for a time while he was considered “missing” by most of his country, with only a select few knowing the truth.

  It was that gap, he was sure, that had allowed thoughts of this woman to enter. Nathaniel finally picked up his soup spoon as he vowed that he must be rid of those thoughts — and fast — before he did something he would regret.

  6

  Nathaniel closed his eyes, reveling in the sound of the ocean swells around him as he sat on the beach the next morning. He had finally taken his own advice and left the confines of the inn, despite his fear that he would become stranded somewhere in the town without any method to make his way back.

  But so be it. Far better to spend an entire day elsewhere within Southwold than trapped inside the inn once more.

  The youngest girl, Violet her name was, had suggested he take a walk near the sea. At first, Nathaniel had dismissed her idea, as he felt he had seen more than enough shores in his lifetime; what was one more?

  He was glad, however, that his feet had decided for him. The road next to the inn naturally led down to the water at a slight descent, and he easily followed the gentle slope down. The scent of saltwater drew him, while the breeze off the ocean and the sounds of its waves kept him there. He might have seen many oceans, but no beach had ever looked quite like this. It was the peacefulness of it that set it apart, he realized as he sat in the sand, removing his boots and stockings so he could feel the warm stones between his toes. He thought of the last time he had felt the earth upon his feet, and his memory flashed back to soldiers shouting, battles waging, the sound of guns firing and swords clashing around him — memories he wanted to remove rather than allow back into his consciousness.