Eventually figuring if she wasn’t going to be liked for herself anyway, she might as well do something to make herself unlovable in their eyes, she had begun acting out. That way, she had reasoned subconsciously as a very young child and a teenager, at least her world sort of made sense. Then she had known precisely why they were unhappy with her—she hadn’t used proper table manners, she had sworn in front of the ladies at tea, she had tracked mud on the one-hundred-year-old Aubusson rug in the grand foyer. It had been, while she was growing up, a lot easier to simply misbehave and take her punishment than go on wondering if they were looking at her funny or distastefully because they just didn’t like her nose. Or more likely still, knew something shameful or awful about her mysterious beginnings they just didn’t want her to ever know.
“That’s not gonna happen,” Daisy said. As much as she might want it to… Daisy sighed, shook her head. “I gave up wishing for the impossible years ago. But as for the party tonight—that might not be so bad.” And, in fact, Daisy thought with her customary perverseness kicking in, it might be fun to watch them squirm.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THAT EVENING, Daisy insisted Jack dress and shower first, then shooed him out of the master bedroom and bath. An hour later, he decided it had been worth the wait. Daisy was absolutely gorgeous, and she smelled every bit as glamorous and sexy as she looked as she swirled around, giving him the full view of her evening attire.
As Daisy ended her pirouette, she paused. Some of the pleasure left her eyes. “You don’t like it. Do you?”
On the contrary, he thought, sorry he had inadvertently hurt her feelings. He liked the way she looked, maybe too much. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, studying the silky white stretch tank top that cupped her small high breasts like a lover’s hands, and ankle-length pale blue chiffon skirt with the uneven ruffle at the hem. “You look absolutely stunning.” And more like the incredibly wealthy heiress she had grown up to be. The one that was way, way out of his league.
“Thank you.” Daisy beamed, pleased. “It’s something I’ve had for a while and it’s Armani.”
“But—”
Daisy grinned mischievously, knowing full well what he was about to say as she went up on tiptoe to lightly, teasingly brush his lips with hers. “My navel is showing?”
Fighting the urge to say the hell with the damn party and appeasing the Templetons, and take her right back to bed, where the two of them communicated best anyway, Jack caught her against him, so the softness of her breasts were pressed against his chest. He wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t so much as catch her breath, but he couldn’t do that when they would be attending a very proper party announcing their marriage. So Jack told himself reluctantly, the lovemaking would have to wait for a more appropriate time, while the two of them dealt with the dilemma at hand.
He looked down at her sternly. “Somehow, I doubt this—” enjoying the silky feel of her fair freckled flesh, Jack dragged his palm lightly across the exposed skin of her still-flat abdomen and felt her quiver in response “—is what your mother had in mind, Daisy.” In fact, Jack was certain that Charlotte and Richard both would expect Daisy to show up tonight in something a lot more conservative than what she had on now. But that was apparently tough, as far as his new wife was concerned. If Daisy was going to do this, she was apparently going to do it the way she did everything else—on her terms.
Jack tried not to think how this latest rebellion of Daisy’s might complicate things as Daisy shrugged. “I’ve got to be me,” she announced as if that were that. “You look nice.” She turned her attention to straightening his bow tie.
Her expression admiring, Daisy ran her hands over the expensive black fabric, caressing his shoulders and chest. “It looks new.”
It was his turn to shrug as he said gruffly, “I didn’t want to embarrass you—or your folks. And I figured, given the way we got married…” He left the thought hanging.
Daisy’s eyes sparkled as she fervently leaped to his defense. “You wouldn’t embarrass me if you went to the party in beach shorts.”
Jack grinned at the hilarious image that conjured up. He had a feeling that was about what the Templetons expected, given the fact he had more or less grown up on the docks. And if not for Tom Deveraux’s mentorship and steady belief in him, might still be there, too. But that was neither here nor there. Knowing they were already late, and this would probably be frowned on, too, Jack offered Daisy his arm. “I can see where you’d get a charge out of that,” he commented dryly. Jack had been trailing Daisy long enough to know there was nothing she’d liked better than to create a stir when things got too oppressive. One thing was certain, Jack thought. Life would never be dull as her husband.
Jack could tell by the way Daisy babbled nonstop during the drive to the Templetons’ residence that she was nervous. As he listened to her cheerful monologue, he laughed occasionally, smiled often and silently promised to make the evening as easy as he could on her. Lord knew, her adoptive parents wouldn’t. And that was a feeling confirmed the moment Jack was taken through the crowd of guests into an alcove beneath the stairs and introduced to Richard Templeton. “So, you’re the upstart who eloped with my Daisy,” Richard said. His tone and cordial smile said he was teasing, his eyes did not. They were cold, assessing and hard as flint.
Daisy looked uneasy. She might not care so much about herself, but it was clear she didn’t want Jack taking any slings and arrows from Richard. Tensing visibly, she asked Richard with remarkable poise under the circumstances, “Have you made an announcement?”
“I’m about to.” Ignoring the hurt radiating from Daisy’s eyes, Richard stepped up onto the grand staircase that divided the formal rooms at the front of the mansion where a hundred or so guests were all circulating, champagne glasses in hand. With a nod, he indicated Daisy and Jack should both join him then gestured broadly and waited until he had everyone’s attention.
“You all know our beloved Daisy,” Richard said as a white-coated waiter handed Daisy and Jack each a crystal flute of champagne. “What you may not know is that her last name is no longer Templeton. It’s now Templeton-Granger.” Richard smiled as if genuinely happy as a murmur of surprise swept through the formally dressed crowd. “Daisy and Jack eloped in Tahoe a few days ago. She didn’t give us a chance to give her a proper wedding, but Charlotte and I are determined to make up for that, and plan to give Daisy and her new husband something very special from our private stock of antiques at Rosewood—”
An envious murmur swept through the crowd.
Doing an excellent job of feigning both warmth and delight, Richard turned to Jack and Daisy. “So let’s lift our glasses to them in toast. Daisy, Jack…we all wish you the very best.”
Richard’s words were seconded by the crowd as glasses clinked all around and everyone smiled and sipped champagne. Richard Templeton put a proprietary arm around Daisy’s shoulders, and, leaving Jack to follow in their wake, proceeded to take Daisy through the crowd so their guests could congratulate them one by one. On the surface, Jack noted, Daisy appeared to handle it well. But he could tell by the tense set of her shoulders and the slight brittleness of her smile that she was just going through the motions for her family’s sake. And that she resented the absence of her older sister Iris.
After about fifteen minutes of playing the doting father, Richard left Jack and Daisy to circulate on their own. They had just made their way back to the front hall, when the fifty-something Winnifred Deveraux-Smith, the social doyenne of Charleston, and her long-lost great-aunt Eleanor Deveraux, about whom all of Charleston was still buzzing, entered.
Jack wasn’t surprised to see both women there. A party wasn’t truly considered on the A-list unless Winnifred showed up. And since Winnifred and Charlotte Templeton both chaired steering committees on all the most important charitable organizations in the city, it made sense Tom’s sister had been invited. Winnifred and the eighty-year-old Eleanor made a beeline for Daisy. Looking
as stunning as usual in a shimmering red evening gown, the dark-haired Winnifred made introductions briefly then said cheerfully, “What have we missed? Anything?”
Daisy looked at one of the true beauties of that generation and said quickly, as if wanting to get it over with, “Jack and I got married.”
Given the compassionate understanding way Winnifred was looking at them, Jack guessed Tom had finally confided the situation with him and Daisy and Iris and Grace to his only sister, something he had apparently been reluctant to do until now. However, the rest of the Deveraux family seemed suspiciously absent from the gala.
But Tom hadn’t yet told Winnifred about the marriage. And about that Winnifred Deveraux was very surprised.
“When?” Winnifred gasped, still looking a little stunned. Beside her, the frail but energetic-looking Eleanor simply looked pleased.
Daisy’s cheeks flushed slightly at the romantic expression on Winnifred’s face. Jack knew how Daisy felt. He kept wanting to correct people, too, so it wouldn’t feel so much like they were simply lovers, living a lie. “A few days ago in Tahoe,” she said.
Winnifred turned back to Jack, politely doing her best to hide her concern. “How does my brother feel about the nuptials?” she asked.
Good question. The cynical part of Jack was still waiting for another punch to the jaw, while the naive kid in him—the kid who had looked up to Tom for what seemed like forever—kept hoping it would all work out for the best in the end. And that he and his boss could put all the disillusionment and disappointment behind them. Not quite sure how to answer the woman, Jack said finally, “I think he’s still getting used to the idea.”
Ever the romantic at heart, Winnifred smiled. “Well, you two will simply have to come by for dinner some evening and tell Eleanor and me all about it.”
Jack smiled back, knowing the invitation was a genuine one. “What have you two grand ladies been up to?”
“Well, this afternoon, Eleanor and I were over at 10 Gathering Street. Lauren and Mitch were showing us their plans for the secret room.”
Jack knew, as did Daisy, they were referring to Tom and Grace’s son Mitch and his wife, Lauren. Lauren had received the historic twenty-four-room mansion as a gift from her father, Peyton Heyward, in exchange for dating Mitch for one week. Lauren and Mitch had initially resisted the plan—which had smacked of an arranged marriage from days of old—but eventually they agreed to Peyton Heyward’s terms when Peyton also promised a business merger of the Heyward and Deveraux shipping firms, which Mitch had wanted for some time. Neither Mitch nor Lauren had expected to fall in love with each other during their week of prearranged marathon dating, but they had, and now were married and living happily ever after in the gifted mansion.
“What secret room?” Daisy interrupted curiously.
“The one behind the library, where I used to tryst with Captain Douglas Nyquist,” Eleanor said, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes that oddly enough reminded Jack very much of Daisy. Yet another indication, he supposed, of the Deveraux blood coursing through her veins.
“I visited there undetected for years,” Eleanor said as she used her silver-handled walking cane to ease into a chair, “because no one knew about the room or the secret passageway leading to it from the garden. But when Lauren received the house from her father last spring, she found both. As well as all the mementos of my love affair that I had hidden there. Of course, it caused quite a stir in the family, because at that time they didn’t know I was still around.” Eleanor smiled, reminding Jack and Daisy how she had faked her own death years before to escape the terrible scandal and resulting curse surrounding her ill-fated love affair. “But now they do, and they’ve welcomed me with open arms.”
Jack knew that to be true. The delightful Eleanor had quickly become a treasured member of the Deveraux clan once again. And the legacy of failed love that had followed the Deveraux for years had also been broken, as all four of Tom and Grace’s legitimate offspring were now very much in love and happily married.
“How wonderful that you’ve become a part of the family again,” Daisy said sincerely as she pulled up a chair to sit beside Eleanor. “And how romantic to actually have rendezvoused in a secret room!”
Jack could see where the clandestine nature of such an affair would appeal to his adventure-loving wife. Happy to talk about something other than her elopement for a change, Daisy continued chatting with Eleanor. “I used to look for secret passageways in this house when I was a kid,” Daisy said, “but I could never find any.”
“Neither could I,” Connor said, coming up to join them. He gave Daisy a hug. “Hey, sis.”
“Hey yourself, Connor.”
“Jack.” Connor shook Jack’s hand.
“Do you have any secret places in your house?” Daisy asked Winnifred.
“No secret rooms, but we do have a passageway from the attic that leads to the outside.” Winnifred smiled. “When you and Jack drop by, I’ll show it to you.”
“If memory serves, there was one at Rosewood, too,” Eleanor said.
“You’re kidding!” Daisy turned to Richard, who had noticed Winnifred and Eleanor’s arrival and come over to welcome them. Daisy looked at Richard, her eyes shining with excitement. “Eleanor says that there’s a secret room at Rosewood.”
Richard cut off Daisy’s enthusiasm with a genial shake of his head and discounting smile. “That rumor has been around for years, but there is absolutely no truth to it. I know that mansion inside out. There are no secret rooms or passageways, or if there were, they were uncovered and opened up years ago. I’ve had it checked out by an architect and a structural engineer.”
Before he could go on, a guy with a camera slung around his neck and a notepad in his hand, pushed his way forward. Daisy turned to get a look at the tuxedo-clad interloper. And all the color drained from her face.
FOR A LOT OF REASONS, Bucky Jerome was the last person Daisy wanted to see tonight.
“And here I thought tonight was going to be just another party,” Bucky remarked with a cheerful smile that didn’t fool Daisy in the least. He lifted his camera and snapped what had to be a particularly unflattering picture of her and Jack standing side by side. “Just so you’ll all know to look for it—” Bucky let the camera fall back against his chest “—that will be in tomorrow’s newspaper.”
“Great,” Daisy said. That was just what she needed. Another item about herself on the society page.
Bucky picked up his pad and pen. He looked Daisy over from head to toe in a way that was not only bound to irk Jack but reminded her of things she would much rather forget. “So how long have the two of you been seeing each other?” he asked in a bored, disrespectful tone.
“Long enough,” Daisy said tensely, wishing Bucky Jerome would just go away. And stay away. Before the conversation turned any more personal.
Bucky turned to Jack. Waited for what seemed an interminable length of time before Jack deigned to answer.
“Daisy and I like our private life to stay private,” Jack replied politely. “So just report the facts—that we eloped in Tahoe—and leave it at that.”
“Hmm.” Bucky knew Daisy well enough not to believe a word of that.
And of course, Daisy thought uncomfortably, Bucky was right. Her relationship with Jack wasn’t anywhere near that routine. Her relationship with Jack was as unexpected and complicated as it was possible to be.
“If that’s the way you want it,” Bucky said with an offhand shrug, turning his full attention to whatever it was he was writing.
“It is,” Jack said firmly.
Not bothering to look up again, Bucky scribbled something else on his pad and moved off.
“Thanks for helping me with that.” Daisy breathed a sigh of relief the moment she and Jack were alone.
Jack gave Bucky—who was already busy taking photos of Eleanor Deveraux and Winnifred Deveraux-Smith, with Charlotte and Richard Templeton—another long thoughtful glance, then turned back t
o Daisy. “There’s some sort of angst between the two of you, isn’t there?”
Daisy really did not want to get into this—particularly with Jack. “We went to school together, from kindergarten on up.” She’d prefer to just leave it at that.
“And?”
Daisy pretended to study the array of appetizers laid out on the buffet. “I dated him a long time ago, okay?”
To Daisy’s dismay, Jack wasn’t buying her he’s-just-an-old-boyfriend-and-now-it’s-awkward-between-us excuse. He watched her pick up a plate and load it down with hot crab dip and crackers. “Why did it end?”
Leave it to Jack to cut straight to the chase, Daisy thought. Knowing the lawyerly inquisition wasn’t going to stop until Jack found out the reason for the peculiar vibes between her and Bucky and that it was probably best if he heard it from her—and not Bucky—Daisy scooped some dip onto the end of a cracker and said, “Because we did not have a good time together at our senior prom.”
His expression more gallantly protective than ever, Jack helped himself to a plate of stuffed mushrooms and appetizer meatballs. Grabbing a fork and napkins for them both, he steered her out onto the portico and quietly shut the door behind them. He looked around to make certain they were alone on the shadowy veranda, then sat down on the low wrought-iron bench next to the side of the house and continued prodding. “Why do I think there’s more to this story?”
Because there is. Figuring he might as well hear the basics from her instead of someone else, Daisy finished chewing her cracker. “I was pretty wild back then.”
Jack shrugged and looked at her expectantly. “An understatement, if there ever was one, and not completely untrue today, either.”
Daisy grinned at the gentle hint of teasing in his voice. She’d finally found a man who could appreciate her love of excitement. Although now that she was pregnant and married, to boot, she found her outlook on life—and perhaps her actions, too—becoming a lot more serious. Because it wasn’t just herself she had to think about now. She had the baby. And Jack, too.
The Heiress Page 14