by Maya Rodale
“Thank you for your apology over a decade after the fact, when irreparable damage has been done,” Daisy said dryly. “Now if only we could get everyone else to stop saying it.”
“No one still calls you that,” Theo scoffed, defensive. “It was years ago.”
“It was in the newspaper this morning. Ugly Duck Snares Millionaire Rogue. Your friends quacked at me in the ballroom just last night.”
Theo winced. Again.
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
“It is catchy. I would almost say that you have a knack for names and such.”
Her compliment caught him off guard. No quick, sharp reply came to mind other than a simple “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
They fell into silence, and not an unpleasant one, either. It was almost a companionable quiet, where one felt at ease to notice their surroundings: the fresh green shoots of grass on the fields, the trees about to flower, the city folk all enjoying the greenery of the park.
For a brief, shining moment, it felt like they weren’t mortal enemies.
That was when Daisy gasped.
“My goodness, we have done it! We have actually done it!”
“It being . . . ?”
“We have engaged in a civil, nearly polite, exchange. We have had a genuine conversation that wasn’t a verbal death match. Pity no one was around to notice it.”
“One hopes enough people have taken note of us together behaving somewhat pleasantly toward each other.”
She sighed. “Otherwise, we shall have to do this again.”
“Horrors,” he deadpanned.
But Theo almost didn’t even mean it. He was glad for the company, even if it was hers. He was at odds as to how to spend his afternoons without going to his club; his pride would not permit him to attend as a friend’s guest. Which was beside the point; he’d learned everyone had gone up to sail at Belmont’s place in Newport. One of those spur-of-the-moment, whirlwind plans hatched over drinks late at night and employed before anyone thought to send word to Theo in exile. He’d called on Miss Pennypacker, but she only wanted to ask questions about him and Daisy that he’d rather not answer.
Plenty of others remained in the city. Theo and Daisy both looked around. The park was full of people living their best lives, and that did not include observing a couple passing by in a carriage. Even if that couple was heavily featured in the morning newspaper. It was her hat—her big, atrocious hat—that kept her identity hidden and any interest at bay.
“We probably don’t need to spend that much time together,” she mused. “In fact, there’s really no need to convince anyone that we’re in love or even in like. Which is a good thing. I doubt either of us has the acting skills to convince anyone of that, especially after last night.”
“About that . . .” Theo began. Already, there was no going back to the way things were before. Theo had been cut off from his funds and left behind by his friends. All he had left was his reputation as a charming, sought-after, desirable man about town. He couldn’t lose that, too; at least, not before he figured out something else to do with his life. A purpose.
“There’s just the matter of my reputation to consider,” he said.
“Do go on,” she drawled, and he knew better than to think she actually cared but he continued anyway.
“It’s bad enough that people think I have been rejected from the club, cut off from my funds, and forced into an engagement. But I can’t have people thinking that I lack the good looks and charm to seduce you.”
“Because I am not pretty or popular I should be grateful for your attentions, is that it?”
“That sounds worse than it did in my head.”
“And what if you lack the charm to seduce me? What if I don’t care about your good looks?”
She spoke in such a way to make it clear that he did indeed lack the charm, and his good looks did nothing for her. A pretty—or handsome—face was not enough. Neither were his fine suits or the way he filled them out with lean muscles honed from tennis. That was all he had to offer and she didn’t want it. And there it was again: that burning drive to have something else, all his own, that no one could take away. But first . . .
“For the sake of my reputation, I think you should act like you’re in love with me. A little bit. For appearances. It will help things when we eventually end our engagement, I think.”
“Oh, shall I?” And her voice dripped with sarcasm. It oozed so much sarcasm, one could practically drown in it. It smothered a man to the point of suffocation.
Theo discovered that she was only just getting started.
“Perhaps, pretty boy, I’ll start by resting my hand on your arm affectionately. I’ll lean in close. I’ll let my breasts accidentally on purpose brush against your arm. Maybe I’ll murmur something wicked to you. Maybe I’ll whisper something infuriating that will make you flush with rage, but everyone will think I said something wicked to cause you, a seasoned, scandalous rogue, to blush.”
Worse yet, Daisy actually did these things to him. Her hands. Her breasts. Murmuring this wickedness. She was indecently close and he caught a faint but heady scent of something floral.
To his shock and horror, he was affected by these things.
Theo hardly liked her and had never considered her attractive. He hardly considered her at all, in fact.
But lo and behold, all she had to do was be her—a teasing, tormenting, confounding woman—and he was affected. In ways. Ways that were not merely physical.
“Or I could just gaze at you like some adoring sheep.” She batted her lashes at him. It was more comical than alluring.
“If you aren’t going to take it seriously—then never mind.”
“My apologies. No issue deserves more care and consideration than a man’s pride and reputation. I should not have made light of it.”
Point taken.
“What is an adoring sheep anyway?”
“A poor choice of words, but I assume you get my point, Harvard. I could gaze at you like one of those young, innocent society girls or a young, innocent shopgirl or actress who firmly believes that fairy tales are real and a handsome prince will sweep them off their feet.”
“I don’t think you could gaze at someone like that even if you tried. Not even me.”
“Is that a dare?”
“Only if people are watching. I should hate for such a performance to be wasted.”
“You don’t want a private performance, Theo?”
The words private performance made him think of . . . things. That one usually did not think of in the middle of the park, in the middle of the day, with a high-society woman like Daisy beside him.
But she had to tease him in a husky bedroom voice. It was anger that flared; or was that rush of heat and feeling indicative of something else? He didn’t know; he didn’t want to know. He wanted to continue his placid existence, unruffled by strange feelings for a woman he didn’t even like.
“This really isn’t necessary, Daisy.”
“But I can’t stop myself. You’re just so pretty.”
Lord save him.
Seriously. Please.
She was smiling at him now. Batting her eyelashes. Dear God.
“Is anyone watching?” she asked, not taking her eyes off his face. “Is it working? Because I just can’t take my eyes off you.”
“Stop. This is ridiculous. You are ridiculous.”
“I’m just teasing you, Theo. When we are in public, I shall consider trying to pretend to be enamored of you for the sake of your precious reputation. Never let it be said that there was a living, breathing woman in Manhattan who didn’t want you.”
“Thank you.” It was a hollow victory. He felt like an ass. She might flirt with him for appearances and it would mean nothing. Nothing, because she was a nobody and it meant nothing. What was wrong with him that he had even asked? Why did he care so much what other people thought?
“Besides, it will sui
t my purposes to have you acting somewhat enamored of me, as well.”
“And what purposes are those?”
“Never you mind. But you definitely must try harder to act like you’re seducing me,” she said. “I’m not feeling the slightest bit breathless or weak in the knees or whatever it is girls feel when they’re being swept off their feet.”
“My apologies,” he murmured. Then he dropped the reins and turned to her, intent on giving her a taste of her own medicine. “Let’s fix that immediately.”
“You don’t have to do it right now—”
He gave her his wolfish smile. Then he leaned in close to whisper in her ear, but words failed him for a second. She smelled good. It was that heady fragrance. And her skin was smooth and dewy and just lovely. Hers was a complexion that begged to be caressed. That was just the skin politely exposed; he idly wondered about the rest of her . . .
Finally, he remembered what he meant to say. Something romantic and seductive. Two could play at this game of irritating each other profoundly. “What do you say we return to that gazebo and see if it’s empty so we can be alone?”
“To do what, exactly?”
The lady was unmoved.
“Get to know each other better. Intimately.”
Had they been alone he might have kissed her earlobe. Desire flared when the thought occurred to him.
Thank God they were not alone.
She turned away, nearly smacking him in the face with her hat and feathers.
“Those are some very seductive moves you have there, Theo. Very practiced. I don’t think we need to act like we’re in love—no one will believe that. We just need to strive for distantly polite or not outwardly hostile.”
“Be still my beating heart.”
“We needn’t spend every waking moment together. Or any time at all, really.”
“It’s fine, I have the time,” he said. One could only spend so many hours at the tailor. Especially when one’s father was no longer paying the bills. He didn’t know what else to do with himself, with his friends out of town.
“The thing is, I don’t.”
“What are you so busy with?” Theo asked hotly.
She smiled like a sphinx and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Chapter Six
Rumor has it that Mrs. Evelina Swan has reserved Grace Church for the wedding of her daughter, Miss Daisy Swan, to Theodore Prescott the Third.
—The New York Post
Later that afternoon
25 West Tenth Street
This situation with Theo had already taken too much of Daisy’s time when she had other, more engaging, business to attend to. The business of getting out of her engagement, for one thing.
Daisy knew she could not actually marry him, but if the mood around the Swan household was any indication, Daisy knew she had to make other arrangements to support herself—fast. Her plans to develop and launch her cosmetics business would have to happen sooner, rather than later. She could not wait until after graduation. Her mother was rushing ahead with wedding plans at a furious, terrifying pace. She was eager to have Daisy settled before “the looming scandal” broke.
This just meant that Daisy had to move faster with her own plans. Which she did, over tea at a top-secret, ladies-only club meeting. They met downtown, at the elegant town house of their founder and fearless leader, Miss Harriet Burnett.
They being the Ladies of Liberty Club.
The membership was comprised of society women, school friends, and other women Harriet picked up along the way. Once upon a time Miss Burnett had been a debutante—just a year ahead of Daisy—but she had refused the match her parents had planned for her. When they cut her off, she sought employment by her pen and made a new set of friends. When her parents died, leaving her their fortunes, Harriet used her newfound wealth and position to create opportunities for women to achieve independence. No one, she thought, should have to choose between love and money.
She formed the Ladies of Liberty Club, involving her friends from society and her friends from the press, for the purposes of encouraging professional advancement for women. They helped women find good, honest positions that paid a decent wage. Or they pooled their funds and resources to help other women launch their own businesses. Most of all, they provided a community of like-minded ladies to support and encourage each other.
Daisy had been in the club for ages—she knew Harriet from her society days—and not once had she been nervous to speak with her fellow club members. But today was different. After watching one woman after another strive to launch her own business or embark on a career, it was now her turn to take the risk.
Today her hands shook just a little as she removed the various jars from her satchel and set them on the low table usually reserved for tea. The women gathered in close, intrigued.
“Well, there have been some delays, but I have finally achieved perfection.”
“I’ll be honest,” a woman named Miss Parks began. “I cannot decide which intrigues me more—this eagerly awaited batch or the reason for your delays.”
Daisy groaned. “You know the reason. You all must know. We don’t need to discuss it.”
Daisy had hoped that she wouldn’t have to talk about him here, of all the places in New York. The Ladies of Liberty Club was where women met to discuss the business of women taking over the world, one woman at a time, not the business of matrimony. Lord knew Daisy got enough of that at home. While she was here, she didn’t want to talk about boys.
Or boy, in particular.
Man, really. She had spent all afternoon next to him in the carriage and felt nothing but strong muscles filling out his impeccably tailored suit, which suggested that he didn’t lead a life of entirely idle dissipation.
“Theodore Prescott the Third! Your future husband!” Miss Parks exclaimed. “What a catch.”
“More like my past, present, and future nightmare from which I cannot wake,” Daisy replied. “Between us ladies, we are only pretending to be engaged so our parents cease with their matchmaking. It’s all a charade to allow me to focus on this,” Daisy said, in an effort to bring the attention back to the reason she was here.
It was the reason she lived and breathed.
The reason she put up with Theodore Prescott the Worst.
The reason was presented in an assortment of mismatched, unmarked jars that Daisy had pilfered from around the house. She’d washed them and scrubbed the old labels off and lovingly filled them with a magical, miraculous concoction of her (mostly) own invention.
Complexion balm.
Yes. Complexion balm.
Most women relied on lotions based on an old family recipe whipped up by a servant, or something around the house (lard worked in a pinch) or simply endured dry skin and lackluster complexions. One didn’t dare purchase a cosmetic without great risk to one’s reputation so one could not buy it. Only the foolish made products that no one would risk buying.
And Daisy.
Because she thought that womankind deserved better. They deserved care and tenderness, even if only from her proprietary mixture of moisturizing ingredients. Daisy had taken her grandmother’s old family recipe, passed down through generations, and improved upon it with what she had learned in her chemistry studies. She improved the texture, added fragrance, and tested the recipe until it really worked to make a woman’s complexion seem like that of a goddess.
It wasn’t just face cream. It wasn’t just a moisturizing lotion. It was better than magic; it was science. It didn’t just get the job done; it performed. It was her secret weapon. People could call her Ugly Duck Daisy until the rapture, but no one could honestly say that her skin wasn’t flawless. This was the reason.
This was also the reason that all the name-calling in town hadn’t bothered her too much. She had her one, undeniable beauty—her complexion—and she had a project that engaged her head, heart, and talents. She had things she loved about herself and something she loved to d
o. She had a wonderful circle of friends. That made all the rest matter a little less.
Miss Lumley glanced at Daisy, the balm, and back to Daisy. “This is the secret to your complexion?”
“Yes. My grandmother’s recipe, which I have improved in the lab. It is tried and true and scientifically improved.”
Daisy unscrewed a lid and passed it around. She took a dab from another opened jar and showed how to massage it into the skin.
“Just apply each night before bed for a fortnight and I promise you will see results. Smoother texture. Fewer lines. A brighter complexion. I have been using it diligently.”
She was the only one.
She needed more.
She needed many, many women to buy it.
This little jar of ingredients was Daisy’s way out—out of whatever looming catastrophe awaited her family, out of her fake engagement with a man she couldn’t stand, and out of whatever middling and probably impoverished circumstances awaited a plain-faced and sharp-tongued spinster.
But even this group of ambitious, audacious women were hesitant to try it. One could practically see their internal battles between novelty and propriety.
“Well, given your complexion, Daisy, I shall try it,” Harriet said, gamely reaching for the nearest jar. Daisy breathed a sigh of relief. Harriet was their ringleader and if she gave it her approval, then the other ladies would surely go ahead, as well. If they would only just try it, night after night, Daisy knew they would fall in love with it.
“But only on the condition that you tell us what the devil happened that you and Theodore Prescott the Third are engaged,” Harriet added.
“We were shocked when we heard the news,” Miss Parks said.
“We thought you could do better,” Miss Archer added.
Daisy’s heart swelled. This was why she loved her fellow club women. While her mother thought he was the best option, these women knew her better to know that she deserved better.
“He is very handsome—”
“One might even say pretty—”
“But we thought you might go for someone more . . .”