And for the first time since Daniel’s empty offer of marriage, a real smile turned her lips.
“Dreadful affair, isn’t it?” the woman repeated.
“Yes,” Daphne answered instantly, earning another grin from the marchioness. “Though, twirling around a dance floor is a good deal less tiresome than sitting on the edge of a ballroom watching.” After all, as one on the sidelines, she well-knew.
“I’m here because of my sister-in-law.” The delicate lady angled her head toward a couple going through the steps of the set. Daphne widened her eyes and swung her gaze over to the host and hostess.
Oh, blast. “I—”
“My sister-in-law being the hostess doesn’t make the event any less tedious.” They stared out at the twirling dancers. “I do not recall seeing you.”
“I have not been to London in eleven years,” Daphne explained. “And then, I was here for but three months.”
“Fortunate,” the marchioness muttered and a bark of laughter escaped Daphne.
They shared a smile. Yet, the lady spent her time in London. Was it her husband who insisted on attending ton functions? Her curiosity stirred.
“You are in the Earl of Montfort’s employ,” the young marchioness said quietly, unexpectedly. “What is a kind young lady such as you doing with a rake like him?” She searched her gaze over Daphne’s face.
Disappointment warred with annoyance. The woman knew nothing of Daphne and only what the gossips said about Daniel. She’d had greater expectations for a woman who’d opened an institution for disabled ladies, that she’d not pass judgment on others. Of course, he’d earned that reputation, deserved it. But he’d also seen more in her than her disfigurement and, as such, he would never be, could never be the shallow bastard Society took him for. “Even rakes require help, my lady,” Daphne said crisply. “I believe we all do.” Including myself.
“Some more than others,” the other woman murmured. “Especially Lord Montfort, I gather.”
Most women would be properly deferential and say nothing in the presence of a marchioness’ criticism; particularly a woman who she one day sought employment from. Daphne, however, would not stay silent because of a person’s rank alone. “He may be a rake, my lady, but he hired me,” she said quietly. To suit his own purposes, but nonetheless he had offered her work without even a mention of her disfigurement. “And in a world where people can’t see past a disability, he saw me as capable of something more. I believe that says more about his character than all the rakish deeds reported in those gossip pages.”
The lady gave her head a slow, approving nod, as though Daphne had passed some unspoken test. “Brava, Miss Smith. You don’t fear anyone, do you?”
“What good would fear do me?” she returned. With first her injury and then the death of her mother and eventually her father, the challenges had become greater and greater. “If I’d spent my life fixed on my troubles, I’d be at the mercy of a relative who’d inherited my father’s properties, instead of this ballroom.”
The marchioness fiddled with a heart pendant at her neck, bringing Daphne’s attention to that gold filigree piece. “Ahh, so that is how you came to be with the earl. Desperation.”
Yes, one could certainly have said she had been driven into the role of companion because she’d been literally and figuratively without options. But how much had come of it. She’d found peace in who she was and an acceptance, at last, that her disfigurement only defined her as she allowed it to. And Daniel. She’d found him, once more. Pain squeezed at her heart. For unless he found himself, her love was destined to die.
“Where will you go when Lord Montfort’s sister weds?”
That unwitting reminder that Daphne’s time with Daniel would soon end, squeezed at her lungs like a vise. She’d spent the past eleven years silent and somber, and he’d teased her and drew her back to the living in ways that she’d not known she’d been deadened. “I’ll seek employment at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School,” she said at last. She’d carry her letters of reference to Mrs. Belden’s on the hopes that those letters from Daniel were enough to secure her a post, but even that was not a certainty.
The other lady blanched. “Egads, whyever would you do that?”
Folding her hands on her lap, Daphne drew a breath. “May I speak frankly, my lady?”
The other woman lifted her head. “Please.”
“Ultimately, I wish to seek employment at your institution.” Surprise flared in the other woman’s eyes. “I have great respect and admiration for a place that would welcome girls deemed unfit by Society, but I also have an equal respect that you’d hire only the most distinguished, worthy instructors for them.”
“You are seeking employment at Mrs. Belden’s in order to attain references,” she spoke those words as a statement she’d already determined the answer to.
Daphne nodded anyway.
“I see,” the marchioness said, when she remained silent. “Why don’t you come accept employment with me?”
She blinked slowly. Had the woman said—?
“I will find a place for you at Ladies of Hope.”
Daphne’s mind raced. The marchioness offered her the very thing she craved—security. She’d have employment and control of her own fate. It was a gift held forth by a stranger, when the world had proven itself remarkably cold, thus far. She should be grateful and, yet, it felt hollow. Handed her as a token gesture, more than anything. “You do not even know me,” she said flatly.
The marchioness leaned back in her chair. “You believe I’ve offered you a place at my institution because of your leg,” she said with a bluntness Daphne appreciated.
She managed a slight nod and Lady Guilford leaned forward. “I’ve offered you a post because you’re unafraid of standing up to ladies who’d wrongfully pity you. Because you rightfully challenged me when I spoke disparagingly of Lord Montfort.” The marchioness proceeded to tick off on her fingers. “You’re honest. You speak freely to me, when most others pick their way around words the way one might move a piece around the chessboard.” Daphne smiled. “And because of my daughter.”
Daphne furrowed her brow.
“Many know about Ladies of Hope and call me the odd bluestocking marchioness, but they do not know why I established the institution.” The marchioness touched the right side of her face. “My daughter is without hearing in one ear.”
That is why the lady knew. Her daughter, too, by Society’s standards was one of those imperfect sorts, like Daphne.
The marchioness spoke in impassioned tones. “I want a world of people who see her and not her differences. I want her to move through life with dignity and strength.” She held Daphne’s gaze. “But sometimes, by your own admission, we all need help. And if it is offered to my daughter when she needs it, I hope she has the humility to take it.”
Daphne’s throat worked. She’d spent the whole of her life wanting to be seen as more than her injured leg. Daniel had proven that she was so much more than that largely useless limb and now this woman, too.
“I’ve need of an instructor now to work with the young ladies who’ve limited use of their legs, Miss Smith. At present, I have a doctor advising them. I would rather they receive guidance from one who knows more than information listed in a medical journal.”
The other woman dangled forth everything she had dreamed of. I will have to leave Daniel… “I…” She fought for the words that would make that coveted post her own.
The marchioness patted her hand. “You do not need to answer now. Think on it.” She looked across the ballroom. “People are eyeing me.” She sighed and levered herself upright. “Now, let me go and assure them that I’m having a perfectly wonderful time.” She rolled her eyes skyward.
Daphne climbed to her feet with some effort. Shifting her cane, she made to curtsy, but the marchioness wagged a finger.
“Curtsies are for emphasizing a divide and I vowed to never be one of those ladies respected for her title alone.
”
Daphne again smiled. “I assure you, my lady, no one would dare respect you for anything less than your strength and character.”
She captured Daphne’s spare hand and squeezed. “And remember, whenever you have need for employment, you may come to me.” Waving off her rushed word of thanks, the marchioness swept off with the sure footsteps of a boldly confident woman.
As the marchioness strode through the ballroom, Daphne stared after her. With one chance meeting, a future had been dangled before her. One that included the very thing she’d dreamed of—security in a world that was uncertain for all women. It represented a practical future.
Sitting there, on the side of the ballroom, staring absently at the dancers assembling for the next set, she discovered she craved something more, something she’d abandoned hope for long ago—love.
Nay, Daniel’s love.
Daphne drew in a shuddery breath. She’d but a Season left with him. It would be enough. It had to be.
Or else she was making yet another mistake in London.
One that was far more dangerous than that decision eleven years earlier.
Chapter 19
“Where in bloody hell is my nephew.”
Seated in his office poring over the paperwork his man-of-affairs had brought ’round earlier that morning, Daniel sighed and closed the books. He’d learned long ago the nature of that tone. And also the reason for unexpected visits. He picked his head up just as Tanner opened the door, revealing his uncle. “His Lord—”
“No need for introductions,” Lord Claremont commanded, brandishing a newspaper. “The boy knows who I am,” he said, stalking forward. “Get out,” he ordered, not looking back.
Tanner quickly pulled the door shut, leaving them alone.
“Uncle,” Daniel drawled. “To what do I owe the—?”
“Stuff it, boy,” he bellowed, jabbing the gossip columns in his hand. “This isn’t a social visit,” he thundered, as he settled his large frame into the chair opposite Daniel’s desk. The viscount hurled the paper across the desk and it whacked Daniel in the chest, falling with a noisy thump atop his ledgers.
Daniel shoved them from his work. He didn’t need to look at those pages to know the words stamped in ink there. Just as words of his actions at White’s had been whispered about in his ballroom last evening and printed on every paper to land on lords and ladies’ breakfast tables that morning. His uncle stared furiously back and Daniel winged a single eyebrow up, tauntingly.
The viscount leaned forward and thumped the desk hard with the flat of his hand. “I told you no scandals.” His uncle pursed his mouth. “And you burn down White’s?” An act that had seen Daniel’s membership forever revoked to that great, estimable club.
Reclining in his seat, he kicked his heels up on the edge of his desk. “Bah. By the papers reporting, it was just a table and some carpeting,” he said in mocking tones that sent his uncle’s brow lowering. But he would have unrepentantly set the entire club ablaze for the ugly wagers placed on Daphne. Fury thrummed inside him all over again.
His uncle lingered his gaze on the soles of Daniel’s boots. “Everything has always been a game with you.”
“Yes,” he conceded, his agreement only a half-truth. Since the passing of his mother and brother that had been the state Daniel had allowed himself to live in. Until now. Nay, until Daphne. She’d challenged that rakish existence and forced him to truly look at the life he lived…and reminded him of how it once had been.
Lord Claremont peered at him. “You do not care what this means for your eight thousand pounds?”
The muscles of his belly clenched. Yes, he had. Seeing the stories printed in the papers, Daniel had well known what it portended.
“You’ll have to marry an heiress or sell the remaining unentailed properties you have,” his uncle said, plucking the very thoughts from Daniel’s head.
And where saddling himself with an equally cold and ruthless heiress would have been the only path he wished to travel, now it left him feeling sick inside. “I’ve options,” he said, forcing a bored yawn. Options, which included stretching his finances and dipping his toes in trade, which he should have and could have done years earlier. All that had once failed to matter, now did.
“I might have forgiven the scandal at White’s,” his uncle said, with a grunt. “But I cannot forgive you two.”
Daniel looked back perplexedly.
Reaching inside his jacket, Lord Claremont withdrew a thick folded note and tossed it down on Daniel’s desk. “Here.”
Picking it up, he unfolded the page and his stomach sank. The words blurred together and he forced them into focus, reading the damning note signed by Tennyson.
“You need to pick better friends,” his uncle mocked.
Bile climbed in his throat and stung like acid. He’d told Tennyson everything about his uncle’s requirements and, as such, he’d neatly, if inadvertently, handed over the perfect revenge. Tennyson’s reputation in deflowering an innocent all those years ago would never be revealed and ruin his prospects with an heiress. But Daniel’s uncle would know and the funds promised would go up in flame more easily than that page at White’s. Daniel briefly closed his eyes.
“He’s not a friend,” he said tightly, carefully refolding the sheet. He tossed it back to his uncle who caught it with two hands. There had only ever been one true friend, who’d known everything about who he was, and who he’d wished to be in life, and ultimately who he’d become.
Lord Claremont snorted as he tucked the page back inside his jacket. “Then you should use greater discretion in what you bandy about to enemies.”
“Tennyson deserved a beating.” The lady had been deceived by a scoundrel and for that act that had shattered her heart and innocence, his uncle and Polite Society would hang her upon a cross and turn the proverbial cheek on the man responsible for those crimes.
“I do not disagree with you there. Never liked his father, either. Pompous bastard.” His uncle lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Nonetheless, the lady was ruined by him.”
The lady was ruined by him…
The lady was also the same girl who’d skipped stones beside him in a lake. Who, despite the struggle presented by her leg, walked to Mrs. Belden’s for a post and then marched all the way to his estate to spare his sister hurt. At every score, she’d boldly challenged the existence he’d lived. And with her worth, she was far better than the whole of the peerage rolled into one.
His uncle spoke, slashing into his thoughts. “I’ll allow you one more opportunity to earn the eight thousand pounds.” He folded his hands and dropped the interlocked digits on his belly.
“You wish us to wed?” He started, his own surprise reflected in the viscount’s eyes. Where had that question come from? And why, with each passing moment, did the possibility of being joined to Daphne fill him with this lightness.
“See you wed?” His uncle gave his head a bemused shake. “Quite the opposite.”
Daniel eyed his uncle with a wariness that came from too many lectures and games from this man over the years.
“I want her out,” his uncle said quietly. His usual rancor was gone, the solemnity in its place far more threatening.
Daniel’s body turned to stone. “What?”
“Your Miss Smith,” his uncle clarified. “If Tennyson breathes a hint of a word about her scandal, your sister’s virtue will be called into question. I’ll not have Alice’s reputation compromised.”
Turn Daphne out. Send her on her way with the references, as she’d asked for not even a day ago. Where she’d return to the country and that would be the last he saw of Daphne Smith. He curled his hands. “I cannot,” he said quietly, firming his mouth.
His uncle drummed his pinky fingers together. “For eight thousand pounds, a man can do anything,” He looked at him meaningfully. “Particularly a bounder like you.”
Almost three weeks ago, Daniel would have sold his soul to the Devil for even
a chance at the monies promised him by his uncle. Funds that would see his debts paid and able to resume his wicked pursuits.
“Well, what is it going to be, boy?”
Seated in the parlor with Colebrooke’s work on her lap, Daphne attended that German translation because it was a good deal easier than noting the stack of gossip columns littering the rose-inlaid table.
“Oh, dear.” Alas, her charge made the task impossible. “Have you read this, Miss Smith?” Alice called, forcing her attention to the girl. A copy of The Times in her hand, Alice stared questioningly back.
“I…” Had read them when they’d arrived and had been battling a constant state of nausea since.
“This cannot be good for Daniel,” Alice muttered, no answer clearly required from her. She tossed down the reputable paper and picked up one of the more scandalous sheets. The girl’s eyes formed moons and she gasped. “They say he burned down White’s.”
“I’m certain he did not burn down the whole of White’s,” she said, with a conviction she did not feel. But still, surely the reporting from The Times about the fate of that distinguished club would not prove erroneous.
“And he beat Lord Tennyson.” Alice made a tsking sound with her tongue.
Oh, God. Her stomach muscles knotted. Forcing her intent gaze away from her book, Daphne stole a peek at Alice. Did the girl suspect…? Finding her attention solely diverted on those gossip sheets, Daphne struggled for calm.
Alice hurled down the paper and reached for another. “I venture I know the reason for the dispute.” By the accounting in the papers, it had been a violent beating that had seen the man escorted home by several other gentlemen. Daphne, however, wouldn’t contradict the girl her word choice. Alice nibbled at her nail. “Do you suppose it was over a wager?”
Of course, Alice could never begin to suspect the truth. Daphne forced her tone into a semblance of calm. “I couldn’t begin to suspect the merits of their argument,” she lied and guilt assailed her. For she well-knew the reason for that beating doled out and the burning of that page in the White’s betting book, and now…the inevitable forfeiture of the funds promised him by his uncle.
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 98