Lady with a Black Umbrella

by Mary Balogh

  Lord Kincade took a firm hold of Daisy’s arm and sincerely hoped he would leave bruises for a fortnight. “Set the dog down now, Miss Morrison,” he said quietly but in the firm tones that he always expected—-justifiably—to bring instant obedience, “and come back to the carriage.”

  “And know that the same thing will probably happen as soon as my back is turned?” she said, directing wide, surprised eyes and glowing cheeks at him. “No, indeed, my lord, I could not be guilty of such negligence and live with my conscience afterward. I will take the dog with me. Your coachman will tend to it while we are visiting your cousin, I am sure.”

  She turned toward the barouche, and the viscount relaxed his grasp of her arm and smiled rather foolishly at the few people who were still looking curiously their way. Miss Rose Morrison, he noted in one swift glance, was sitting quietly in the barouche, clearly trying to pretend that she was not there.

  “Daisy!” she said reproachfully as her sister came up to her, the dog still clasped in her arms. But it was a token protest, Lord Kincade could see, almost a reflex action. Miss Rose Morrison, he saw in an unwelcome flash of insight, was perfectly well-accustomed to such scenes.

  “Poor little dog,” Daisy said, looking down at the animal for the first time. “You are sadly in need of a haircut, I can see. It is difficult to know which end is which.” She looked up at Lord Kincade and smiled warmly. “Thank you so much for stopping, my lord. Can you believe that the world holds such brutes?”

  Lord Kincade, in the process of handing her back into his carriage and drawing breath in order to make a final protest against the added presence of the dog, froze suddenly to a heartrending shriek from behind.

  “Thief!” the voice screeched, “Stop, thief! They have my Marmaduke. Stop them, someone! Help!”

  Lord Kincade closed his eyes briefly and waited now—surely now—for his dream to end.

  During the ensuing fracas, which drew a far larger audience than the first, Lady Jemima Hawken and Miss Daisy Morrison went at each other’s throats with a series of accusations, threats, and counterthreats. Daisy was a thief and a butcher and a brazen hussy, among numerous other things. Lady Jemima, to summarize, was not worthy of the sacred trust of having an animal to care for if she could be so intent on buying baubles for herself that she would let the poor creature wander out onto the street to be struck at and killed.

  Lord Kincade took the animal firmly from Daisy’s arms and placed it in the other lady’s with a bow and a winning smile and an abject apology for the fright they had caused her.

  “Oh, it is you, Kincade,” she said, looking with suspicious hostility back to Daisy. “Well, I suppose it has all been a misunderstanding, then. And Marmie seems to be unharmed. But you must understand how I felt when I saw him about to disappear into a carriage with an unknown lady.”

  Lord Kincade made soothing noises until the dowager turned back to the pavement and her maid, and a disappointed crowd had begun to disperse.

  He sat in stony silence when his barouche finally started on its way again, picturing to himself in graphic detail what he might expect when word of this afternoon’s circus and the identity of his female passenger became public. Perhaps he should emigrate to Brazil while he still retained some vestiges of his sanity.

  He stared at Daisy as she sat very upright, her bosom still heaving, her cheeks still flushed, her eyes still bright, and thought it decidedly unfair that the prize exhibition she had just put on for the destruction of his good name had only made her a great deal prettier than she had been before. The little fiend! His stare became a glare.

  She smiled at him after noting the direction of his gaze. “I do not wonder that you are out of temper, my lord,” she said. “Can you quite believe that anyone could be that careless? Even to take a poor dog to such a crowded place as Bond Street seems a type of cruelty, but to allow it to run loose is beyond belief. And that man in the curricle! In one way I am glad he did not stop, for surely you would have got into fisticuffs with him, and we would all have made spectacles of ourselves. Though I do, of course, applaud your intent.”

  “Yes,” Lord Kincade said after a moment’s incredulous silence. “I think it as well under the present rather public circumstances to curb the violent urge that is almost beyond my control.” He stared very directly and very coldly into her eyes.

  She smiled fondly at him. “What sort of a person would name a poor little dog Marmaduke?” she said.

  ***

  The visit to Lady Hetty Parkinson was even more of a success than Lord Kincade had expected. More of a success for the ladies, that was. For himself, he could have wished that Hetty and Miss Morrison would have taken each other in such instant dislike that the visit would be concluded almost before it had begun and Daisy Morrison forced to retreat to the country, where she belonged. Though there were probably hundreds of poor souls there, he thought with some sympathy, who would be willing to put up a stiff argument to prove that she belonged in town.

  Lady Hetty clapped her hands as soon as she set eyes on the two young ladies, even while Lord Kincade was trying to present them formally.

  “Oh,” she said, “you are the Misses Morrison. And pretty beyond my fondest hope. Giles, dear, neither you nor Arthur thought to mention that they are pretty. And I see that I am to have double delight. I thought it was to be only one young lady and her chaperon. But I see it is to be two.”

  “I am the chaperon,” Daisy said, walking forward, hand extended to shake Lady Hetty’s, instead of curtsying prettily as she was supposed to do. “People are forever mistaking me for a green girl. It is because I am so small, I suppose—a minor irritation passed on to me through my mother’s line, I am afraid. But I am five-and-twenty, you know. No girl, at all, but merely an older relative to accompany Rose.”

  Lady Hetty shook Daisy’s hand, acknowledged Rose’s curtsy with a nod, and motioned them to sit down. “You must tell me all about yourselves,” she said. “Everything, right from the beginning. If I am to take you under my wing, which I am already strongly inclined to do, then I must feel that I know you almost as if you were my daughters.”

  “I will certainly tell you what you wish to know, ma’am,” Daisy said, “but you must not think that we are here to impose upon you to any great extent. All we need is an introduction to society. Our father was a baron, you know—Lord Brigham—and Sir Charles Pickering is our uncle. And Rose is excessively lovely and sweet-natured. I am sure that once she has been seen a few times, we will have plenty of invitations, and then we will not have to inconvenience you any longer.”

  “Gracious, child,” Lady Hetty said, “you will not be an inconvenience. This is the chance of a lifetime. I could produce nothing but sons, you know, during my breeding years—three of them. But though at the time of the births everyone was loud with congratulations at my good fortune in producing three possible heirs for their father, I have discovered that sons are no use at all once they grow up. They want to be off on their own all the time and have no interest at all in attending assemblies and balls—especially with their mother. Is that not right, Giles? And I can see that the next hour is not going to be a thrilling one for you. Why do you not go into the billiard room and find Albert? He was complaining less than an hour ago that, despite the existence of three men in the household, not one other was willing to play a game with him.”

  Lord Kincade got thankfully to his feet. “Perhaps that is because it is almost impossible to beat him, Hetty,” he said. “The novelty of being thoroughly outclassed soon palls, I would imagine.”

  He bowed to all three ladies and made his escape. And being soundly thrashed in a game of billiards, he reflected philosophically somewhat later, was infinitely preferable to sitting and waiting for the next embarrassing faux pas of Daisy Morrison.

  He hoped that Hetty would talk to her and her sister for long enough. The trouble with Miss Morrison was that she looked like a perfectly normal and harmless female much of the time. If Hetty
talked to her for only half an hour or so, she might make the dreadful mistake of thinking that the woman really was normal. Poor Hetty! He should never have agreed to allow Arthur to do the talking the afternoon before. He should have explained the whole dreadful truth himself.

  He shuddered, drawing a grin from young Albert, who thought his reaction due to the thorough trouncing he was receiving at the table. He might have known that driving along Bond Street on their way from the Pulteney to Hetty’s house on Hanover Square would be disastrous. Had he had any sense at all, he would have taken the quietest street he could find even if he had had to add five miles to his journey. And he should certainly have brought the closed carriage—with all the curtains drawn across the windows and both doors locked.

  And now all the gossip and laughter, which had surely almost run their course, would be revived and redoubled in strength. There had been several people on Bond Street whom he knew, and the others would not take long to discover his identity, especially when he wore the distinctive badge of a mottled violet eye. And he would not even allow himself to hope that Daisy Morrison’s identity would long remain a secret, or the interesting fact that she was the identical lady who had saved his hide with an umbrella and paid his whore for a night’s service.

  Lord Kincade shuddered again. How could such a very small package be capable of inflicting such harm? Rather like a cannonball or a bullet, he supposed. He remembered the feel of her as he had grasped her waist in the barouche. His hands really had almost met around her. She was soft and feminine and quite damnably pretty. And he was not using the word “damnably” in any profane sense, he thought wryly. If only the devil were feminine—perhaps he (she) was; no one had ever seemed to think of that—he would readily believe that her pseudonym was Daisy Morrison.

  “Ach,” he said in disgust. “You are just too good for me, Albert. Tell me, do you do anything else all day but practice in here to humiliate poor innocents?”

  When Lord Kincade returned to the drawing room, he could see at a glance that any faint hope he might have had that the ladies had had a falling-out could safely die a natural death. All three were sipping tea and looking thoroughly pleased with themselves. He did not allow even a glimmer of optimism to deceive his mind at his cousin’s opening words to him.

  “Ah, Giles,” she said. “Well-timed, my dear. I need your assistance. We have had a serious falling-out here.”

  Lord Kincade strolled across to the fireplace and leaned one elbow on the mantelpiece. He looked his inquiry.

  “First of all, you must add your voice to mine, Giles, and assure Daisy that it is quite imperative that she and Rose move here from the Pulteney.”

  Must they? Lord Kincade wondered.

  “It is quite improper for two young ladies making their come-out to be staying in a public hotel without the presence of their mother,” Hetty said.

  “But it is only one young lady, staying in the presence of her older sister,” Daisy said patiently. It sounded as if she had made the same argument several times before.

  “And that is the other point,” the older lady said, looking at her younger cousin. “I wonder you have not explained yourself, Giles, how absurd it is for Daisy to see herself as a spinster past the age of marriage and social involvement. Of course she must make her come-out too. I can think of a dozen gentlemen who would be only too pleased at an introduction to her. I have no doubt at all that I can find husbands for both young ladies before the Season is out.”

  Heaven help the unsuspecting dozen, Lord Kincade thought fervently. He drew breath to speak.

  “I have no intention whatsoever of marrying,” Daisy said spiritedly, “even if I were young enough to be thinking of such a thing. I gave up the notion years ago. I am afraid I am rather a managing person, you see. At least I have always managed our household for as far back as I remember, even when Papa was still alive. Papa was so busy amassing his fortune that he had no conception at all of what was going on around him. So I took charge.”

  “Quite admirable,” Lady Hetty said. “You will be all the better prepared to run a gentleman’s household, my dear.”

  “The trouble is, though,” Daisy said, frowning, “that I would also run him. And I do not think I would be able to bear being married to a man who would allow himself to be dominated by me. So I decided long ago that marriage is not for me.”

  <“But Daisy has had many offers,” Rose said.

  She rarely spoke, Lord Kincade thought, looking at her in some surprise. Yet when she did, there seemed to be some suggestion of sense in her words and manner.

  “But she has always been far more concerned about the well-being of others—even that of strangers—than about her own,” Rose went on. “I do think it would be a splendid idea for you to enjoy yourself too, Daisy, if we really must be a part of this Season. And it seems we must. I do thank you most sincerely, ma’am, for being willing to take in two complete strangers. I still cannot help feeling that we are imposing dreadfully, but I can also see that you are really pleased by the idea.”

  “Ah, bravo!” Lady Hetty said, clapping her hands and looking back to Daisy.

  “Well,” that young lady said, “it seems we will accept your hospitality, then, ma’am. And it seems that I will have to step out into society too, though I shall be very nervous about doing so. Sometimes, you see, I forget myself and speak out when I should not, or do something that I should not. And it would be embarrassing for both myself and my companions, would it not, if I should make myself conspicuous?”

  Lord Kincade stared at her, fascinated.

  “I am sure you exaggerate,” Lady Hetty said. “So, Giles, it is all arranged. I do thank you, my dear, for helping me persuade Daisy. I was having little success before you came back in and added your persuasions to mine.”

  Lord Kincade bowed. “Always pleased to be of assistance to you, Hetty,” he said, ignoring the growingly familiar urge to break down into hysterical laughter.

  She smiled at him. “I will have the young ladies and their belongings moved here tomorrow morning,” she said. “And there is no point in delaying, as the Season is already well under way. There is the Riplinger ball tomorrow evening, Giles. I had accepted my invitation, though without a great deal of enthusiasm, for what is there to do at such entertainments for a woman with three grown sons except to sit with the chaperons and gossip or play cards in the card room and lose money? But I know Gussie Riplinger well. I shall pay her a late call this afternoon and see to it that Daisy and Rose have invitations too.”

  Lord Kincade bowed, noting out of the corner of his eye the bright smile that lit up the face of his little fiend.

  “Julia has told me that you have an invitation too, Giles,” Lady Hetty said, “and that she is hoping to persuade you to honor it so that you can accompany Judith there. Arthur is going, apparently, but everyone knows that Arthur has two left feet when he dances, for all that he is popular with the ladies because of his sweet smile. You will go, will you not, and dance with Daisy and Rose? There will be nothing like your attention to them to bring them into fashion, though I am sure that their own beauty and the news of their late papa’s fortune will do that regardless.”

  Lord Kincade was furiously searching around in his mind for excuses—any excuse!

  “Daisy for the leading set, I think,” Hetty said, frowning in concentration. “She is the older, after all, and it would be appropriate for you to dance with her first. You can have the second dance with Rose, provided it is not a waltz. The third, if it is,”

  “It would be my pleasure,” Lord Kincade said, inclining his head first to Miss Morrison, who was still smiling, and then to her sister, who at least had the decency to look somewhat embarrassed.

  “How happy I am,” Daisy said. “Your first ball tomorrow, Rose, and you have one set reserved already. Oh, everyone there will admire you, I know they will. Just you wait and see. Thank you, ma’am. Oh, thank you.” She rose to her feet and extended her hand to Lad
y Hetty. Then she turned glowing eyes on Lord Kincade. “And thank you, my lord. The very best thing I ever did, I think, was to rise early at the inn that morning—the bed was so lumpy—and happen to look out into the stableyard to see that you needed my assistance. I am positively glad that the innkeeper put us back there because we did not have any servant but Gerry with us and he held us in contempt as a result.”

  For one dreadful moment, as she made a little rush at him, Lord Kincade was afraid that she was going to cast herself into his arms. But it was only her slim little hand that she extended. She stopped her forward motion a full foot away from him and beamed up at him.

  And the most mortifying thing that had happened in the whole dreadful afternoon happened then. He smiled back at her—a strange reflex that he recalled afterward with utter incredibility—and he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it!

  Chapter 6

  Daisy was almost beside herself with excitement as she stopped before the pier glass in the dressing room that was attached to her room at Lady Hetty’s. She twirled around twice and smiled at herself in thorough satisfaction. She was wearing one of her new ball gowns, a pale-green silk with netted tunic, new slippers to match, and the pearls that Papa had surprised her with on her twenty-first birthday. Her hair was dressed in its high braids, though Penny, the maid who had been assigned to the sisters, had done fascinating things with curled tendrils at her neck and temples.

  She picked up the ivory fan that she had run back for, having realized at the last possible moment that she had forgotten it and having declined Lady Hetty’s suggestion that a footman be sent to fetch it. She unfurled it before her nose and batted her eyelids over the top of it at her reflection. Then she laughed gaily, turned, and ran from the room again.

  Daisy had not been admiring her own appearance. Indeed, it was probable that she had scarce seen her reflection. And she was not excited at the knowledge that she was on her way to her first ball and that she would probably attract at least a few dancing partners. She was not exuberant over the fortunate realization of all her hopes when it had seemed on their arrival in town that they would have to leave it again for home.