Footsteps sounded in the hall and, in unison, they swung their gazes to the entrance of Lord Harrison’s conservatory. A tall, golden-haired gentleman stepped inside.
“Hullo, lo—” The Earl of Stanhope’s words trailed off as he moved his stare between his wife and Daisy.
It was the Earl of Stanhope! A giddy breathlessness filled Daisy’s chest, threatening to lift her up and carry her from the room on the brusque breeze battering the glass panes of the conservatory. Why, it was the lady’s husband. The countess had stolen away from the ballroom to meet her husband. Not Auric. But rather, her own husband.
Suddenly feeling like the veriest worst sort of interloper, Daisy dipped a curtsy. “Forgive me,” she murmured. She should be properly scandalized at having interrupted the stolen interlude between two lovers. Except, relief dulled any other sentiment.
Anne shot a hand out. Daisy started as the countess captured her fingers. “The woman we returned it to is an old gypsy by the name of Bunică. I cannot tell you where she will be.” The countess squeezed Daisy’s hands. “But if it is meant to be, you will find her.”
Frustration warred with hope. The gypsy, Bunică, had been found at the heart of the frozen Thames, along the streets of Gipsy Hill, the English countryside. Why, the woman might as well be anywhere. Daisy squared her shoulders. And yet, the heart was out there. It had been handed off to the woman, Bunică, after seeing more than three ladies wedded and, more importantly, in love. A slow smile turned Daisy’s lips. Lady Stanhope was indeed, correct. Some young ladies, well, the fortunate ones, they found love without the benefit of baubles and talismans. The others, the Daisy Meadows of the world, with their ridiculous names and freckled cheeks, they had to look more and work harder for happiness, for the gentleman who’d love them. Some men were worth looking for—and Auric was indeed one of them.
Even if he’d been an absolute lout through the years. Not all the years. Just seven of them. The most important seven of them. “Thank you so much, my lady,” Daisy said softly. She dropped another curtsy, hurried to the door, and then paused a moment beside the handsome earl.
He sketched a bow and stepped aside, but Daisy paused in the doorway and spun back around. “My lady?”
“Yes?”
“You are so very fortunate.”
The sparkle of happiness in the woman’s eyes indicated she knew as much. “And you will be, too.”
Having already stolen enough of the couple’s time, Daisy slipped from the conservatory and closed the door behind her. She started down the long corridor, retracing her steps to the noisy din of the crowded, overheated ballroom. As each step brought her closer, the strands of the orchestra’s waltz and trill of laughter from Lady Harrison’s guests grew increasingly in volume.
Daisy paused at the fringe of the ballroom entrance and scanned the twirling couples, bathed in the soft glow from the chandelier ablaze with candles. She leaned against the column and took in the unadulterated smiles, the exultant laughs. Had she ever been that happy? Shoving aside the familiar melancholy, she scanned the hall. Daisy searched for and then found her mother staring sadly out at the dancers.
Just then a buzz filled the ballroom like a million swarming bees. Daisy followed the rabid stares and whispers and she stilled.
Auric stood at the entrance of the ballroom. Her heart quickened at his broad, powerful figure towering above the crowded room; a king amongst mere mortals. And she wished she could look away, wished she could be different than every other hopeful and equally hopeless young lady present. Alas, she’d lost her heart to him early on. The whispers became murmurs from eager mamas desperate to make a match between their daughters and the mighty duke, who’d proven with his courtship of Lady Stanhope he was, in fact, in the market for a wife.
“He is here. Pretty face, dear,” one eager mama whispered to her golden haired, just out that Season, daughter.
The young lady puffed her chest out and tipped her chin up in an attempt to capture Auric’s notice.
Daisy resisted the urge to point her gaze to the ceiling. Not that anyone would have noticed if she were, in fact, pointing her gaze anywhere, or hopping on one foot, or spinning in a circle. Least of all, Auric. Only she seemed to suspect the truth. The Duke of Crawford wasn’t just in the market for a wife. He’d been in the market for a particular wife. Two vastly different things. He’d selected Lady Stanhope and, following Daisy’s meeting with the woman in the conservatory, she could hardly blame him for the wise decision.
She claimed a spot beside the white, Scamozzi column and used the moment to study him. How effortlessly he moved through the throng of guests, with a casual grace most men could strive to emulate and never hope to master. Gentlemen dropped deep, deferential bows. Ladies dipped their eyes and touched a hand to their surely fluttering hearts.
While other ladies wanted Auric for his title, Daisy didn’t give a fig about the title of duchess. She wanted him to be the man she’d once known him to be. She wanted that man, who’d rescued a girl in need of frequent rescuing. After Lionel’s death, however, Auric had become a stiff, somber figure. The ton, who didn’t truly know him, attributed his austereness to that title of duke. She knew the truth. He’d been forever changed by the loss they’d both suffered. Now, Auric was the one desperately requiring saving and foolish Daisy had, of course, set her sights upon being that person. Whether he wanted it or not.
Auric paused beside the host and hostess. His hard lips moved, the words lost to the distance between them. She searched for a hint of the grinning young man he’d once been. Years had added depth and strength to his features and form. The harsh, angular planes of his face, the aquiline nose may as well have been chiseled in stone. His fashionably cropped chestnut hair with the slightest tendency to curl, the same rich, brown hue she’d once envied him for. Gone was the lean, narrow frame, instead replaced with whip-chord muscles. He shifted and the black fabric of his evening coat pulled over the taut muscle of his triceps. Her heart kicked up a beat.
Why couldn’t he be one of those doddering, old, monocle-wearing dukes? It would be vastly easier to hate him—the polite, remote man she barely recognized.
As though he felt her stare upon him, he stiffened. With his cold, aloof gaze, he skimmed the ballroom. The distant glint in his eyes hinted at his boredom over the inane amusements. Then his stare collided with Daisy’s. The ghost of a smile played on Auric’s lips and her heart sped up. She returned his grin. Just then, their host and hostess said something to their revered guest which called his attention away from Daisy. The hard mask was firmly back in place. Had she merely imagined the slight softening when he’d found her in the crowd?
Perhaps those years of laughter and teasing she remembered spent with him and Lionel had been merely conjurings of a lonely, sad, little girl. Except, there had been a smile. Though faint and quick, it had been, at least, real. Though logic and propriety told her to look away and allow him to carry on as he did at these stiff, stodgy soirees, she caught his eye across the heads of the twirling dancers and winked twice, in rapid succession—their silent, unspoken secret shared between them.
He hesitated a moment. His gaze lingered on the top of her head and then he looked away.
Embarrassment slapped her cheeks. Of course, one would have to notice Daisy Meadows to have recognized the lady had been given the cut directly. By Auric. And Society paid little notice of the shelf wallflower. She folded her arms across her chest and tightened her mouth into a mutinous line. He thought to ignore her. Avoid her as though he’d not tugged at her curls when she’d been but a child and promised to make her his duchess. Granted she’d been but eleven years old. Still, a promise was a promise.
With determination in her step, she started across the ballroom.
Auric might see her as nothing more than Lionel’s younger sister, but he should have a care. For she intended to hunt down that blasted pendant, and by God, when she did, she was going to have his damned heart.
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nbsp; Chapter 3
Christ. She’d winked twice.
It had been…Auric’s mind raced…some seven years or so since either of them had winked at each other. So long, in fact, that he’d nearly forgotten that secret code only they two had known.
“You are to wink once if you’re having a splendid time.”
Twelve-year-old Daisy had snorted. “And what if I’m having a deuced, awful time?”
He tweaked her nose. “Two winks.”
He’d not remembered, until this very moment.
Auric retrieved a glass of champagne from a liveried servant and carried it to the far corner of the ballroom. Or, to be more precise, the farthest corner away from the freckled, plump, young woman still staring openly at him. He glowered into the contents of his glass. Do not look. Do not look. Do not look.
He’d taken good care to relegate Lady Daisy Meadows and her floral name to the role of unaging child and yet at each ball, dinner, or soiree attended where she was present, he was jeered with the truth that she was no longer a child. All the innocence they’d once known, the ease in one another’s company had been shattered. No. To see her merely reminded him of his greatest failings toward a friend he’d loved like a brother.
The sight of her never ceased to riddle him with guilt and regret for all his sins, for all he’d not done. Too often she stood forgotten on the sidelines of the hall and he’d have to make his way through the crowd and offer her his arm, in an attempt to erase the frequent sadness that lined her face.
Auric growled and took a long swallow of his champagne, and shoved aside thoughts of Daisy. Instead, he focused on the purpose of his attendance this evening. Practical and long driven by logic, it was time to do his requisite duty by the title. He required a wife, an heir, and a spare. That lesson had been impressed upon him early on by his parents, tutors, and Society. With that purpose in mind, he surveyed the crowd, deliberately avoiding sight of a certain mischievous miss with her bow-shaped lips. The only lady in the whole of the crowded hall who dared frown at him. The rest of the marriage-minded misses wore practiced smiles and fluttered their lashes when he caught their eyes. All of them with one, single aspiration—to become his duchess. For all his practicality these many years later, he aspired to be seen as more than a duke. He took another sip of his champagne and frowned over the rim of his glass. And he’d set his sights upon his perfect duchess, the lady, Lady Anne Adamson, now the Countess of Stanhope. Blonde, trim, with ample hips and a lovely singing voice, and wholly unimpressed by his title, she would have made him a fine wife. She, however, had gone and foolishly accepted the Earl of Stanhope’s suit over his clearly superior, more advantageous offer. Which had thrust him back into the marriage mart, in search of an alternate duchess.
And there wasn’t a single lady who’d attracted his notice since. As a result, he’d resumed his search for a wife with a renewed vigor and very specific expectations. She would need to be at least passably pretty, refined, a proper, English miss. What he did not need was a troublesome vixen, in frequent need of rescuing with too many freckles and a constant frown for him. He’d long ago sworn off troublesome vixens with freckles. Though, she’d not always been frowning. Once upon a lifetime ago she’d always had a smile for Auric.
He knew what had killed the girlish innocence. Through his negligence and influence, he was to blame. The sight of her was always like a lash of guilt being applied to his skin. Auric downed the contents of his glass and cradled the empty glass. A servant rushed forward to relieve him of the crystal flute.
Unwittingly, Auric’s gaze wandered back over to the tall column Daisy hovered beside. He jerked his stare away. A frown formed on his lips. Furthermore, what was a young, unwed lady doing—alone, sans chaperone? Where was the lady’s notoriously proper mother? Then his intent stare landed upon the somber Marchioness of Roxbury. A close friend of his late parents, the once vivacious woman was now a mere shell of the person she’d been before the death of her son, the late marquess’ heir.
A loud humming filled his ears as Lionel’s grinning visage flitted to his mind. Auric grabbed another champagne flute and took a long swallow, trying to drive back the memory of his friend. He directed his attention to where it should reside—on finding his duchess because the thought of that didn’t suck the breath from his lungs and hammer his mind with guilt— “Your Grace.”
“Bloody hell.” The startled curse escaped him at the stealthy Daisy’s unexpected appearance.
She widened her eyes. “Did you just curse?”
“Did I curse?” he repeated blankly. He was nothing if not in control. In fact, he’d prided himself on his ability to not be roused to emotion since that night seven years ago. “I don’t know what you’re—” The twinkle in her brown eyes called him a liar when her words did not. A grin pulled his lips at the corners. “Lady Daisy Meadows.” The lady who refused to stay buried in the proper chambers of his mind. “I imagined you’d know it is improper to speak without introduction.”
She snorted. “I daresay cursing in Lady Harrison’s ball is a good deal more inappropriate.” Daisy waggled her eyebrows. “Even for a duke, I suspect.” Her smile widened. “And considering our families’ long connection, I’m permitted a mere hello.”
He really needn’t bait her. It merely encouraged her insolence. “There wasn’t one.” Alas, he’d always been hopeless where Daisy was concerned.
She tipped her head.
“A mere hello,” he pointed out. “You issued a simple ‘Your Grace’, devoid of a curtsy.” She’d been the only woman in the course of his life who’d been more put out with his title than impressed. His baiting words had the desired effect.
She stitched her eyebrows together into a single line “I beg your pardon?”
“A curtsy, my lady.” He motioned to her legs. That impolite gesture one more freedom permitted him as duke. “A general expression practiced upon a polite greeting.” He paused, drawing out the moment. “And you’re forgiven.”
Daisy opened her mouth to likely deliver a stinging rebuke to singe his ears and he blinked once, confounding her into silence. She scratched at her furrowed brow. Had she truly believed he’d forgotten the secret, unspoken language only they had shared? His was an unwillingness to use it, but he remembered everything and anything where Daisy was concerned. She’d been the sister he’d never had.
Then she gave a flounce of her brown curls, that familiar twinkle lighting her eyes. “Ah, yes, the curtsy.” She tapped her fingers against the front of her forehead. “How could I ever forget, the ever important curtsy usually preceded by a polite bow.” He’d have to be without hearing to fail to note the heavy sarcasm underscoring her subtle admonishment. She’d always possessed an indomitable spirit, his Daisy. He remembered her earlier claim to being a wallflower. How odd that not a single English gentleman had the good sense to appreciate the lady. Fools, all of them.
Which reminded him of his own purpose in being here this evening. With no little reluctance, he set aside the easy exchange with her and redirected his attention back to the ballroom floor, renewing his quest for a duchess.
Daisy cleared her throat.
Surely it was not such a difficult task to find an adequate duchess.
She coughed.
There certainly was no shortage of woman clamoring for the revered role.
Daisy coughed again.
With the exception of Lady Stanhope, who’d thrown him over for the Earl of—
“I said, ‘ahem’.”
For the love of all that was holy. “Is there something in your throat, madam?” From the corner of his eye he detected the slight tilt of her head. “Perhaps you should have punch, or champagne, or a bit of wine to clear whatever affliction bothers you.”
“I was not apologizing.”
He stared unblinking at her.
“Earlier,” she went on to explain. “For the lack of curtsy. That wasn’t an apology. I just thought you should know that, Your Grace.�
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Ah, she was “Your Gracing” him. She always did that when she was displeased with him. Even when he’d been a mere marquess. Had she always been this vexing? The chords of the waltz drew to a close and the collection of dancers upon the floor politely clapped. Then, arm in arm, the couples filed off the dance floor. Yes, yes he remembered now that she had been. And mischievous. And prone to prattling on which she’d since managed to cease. Auric took a sip of champagne.
“I gather you’re looking for your duchess.”
He choked.
The gold flecks in Daisy’s eyes danced with amusement and she made to pat him on the back.
“Do not,” he squeezed out.
She sighed. “Oh, you used to be so much more fun than this cold, curt, and crusty duke.” Daisy waggled her eyebrows. “Well, then?”
Do not indulge her. “Well, what?” he gritted out, because he’d never been able to not indulge her. Not since she’d been a small girl with too many freckles and not since she’d grown into this woman with…well, still too many freckles.
“Who is she?”
Auric stole a glance about to gather whether or not some hopeful miss had heard those dangerous words uttered by the hoyden at his side. “Remember yourself, Daisy.” He gave her a quelling look. This was a dangerous game that really was no game at all, she played in public. His interest in the now wedded Lady Stanhope had only encouraged the matchmaking mamas and scheming title-hunters.
Daisy pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “Bah, you sound like my mother.”
And because he’d known the marchioness since he’d been a squalling babe in the nursery, he knew precisely what she meant by that, and it was in no way a compliment.
Only the lady forgot he knew her as well as she knew him. “And I gather you’re in the market for a husband.” Her cheeks pinkened and she immediately clamped her full lips closed. Hmm. So this is all it would have taken to silence her. Except now, he eyed her with a renewed interest. This was interesting. The Daisy he did know, however, never did something as telling as blush. “Ah, come now, Daisy, are you shy all of a sudden? I would wager there is a certain gentleman who has captured your notice.” Her color deepened a ripe red, swallowing up her freckles.
Heart of a Duke 04 - Loved By a Duke Page 4