by Aileen Fish
Oh, they were going to hell!
She couldn’t wait to get there.
Chapter 7
Never kiss a rake!
Daisy slowly made her way down the stairs of the Farthingale townhouse at noon the following day, still nursing a throbbing headache. Moments earlier, Lily had diagnosed her condition as imbibing too much at Lord Hornby’s ball. Nonsense! She’d sipped only two glasses of champagne the entire evening, or was it three?
And what did her younger sister know? She was a little bluestocking who always walked around with a book in her hand, but she knew nothing about real life. Dillie was the twin who understood people and their unpredictable feelings.
Ugh! I feel wretched. Perhaps she had imbibed four glasses of champagne, she decided as her throbbing eyeballs began to pound in rhythm to her head.
Or five. Couldn’t have been more than six.
She sighed.
Perhaps seven, for she must have been more than a little drunk last night to allow Gabriel to kiss her. If one could call the locked-lips, sucking, and plundering dance that went on with their mouths and tongues something as tame as a kiss. It wasn’t.
Not that she blamed him for that all-devouring, shockingly delightful occurrence. Indeed, no. Not this time. This kiss—her first and only kiss, to be precise—was all her fault. Her first kiss ever, and she’d practically thrown herself atop him, jumping onto his lap... or had he drawn her onto it? She couldn’t recall.
A little of both, she finally decided with dismay. They’d each been clutching and groping and breathlessly needing to draw one another closer. Oh, good grief! Had she really been that wanton?
Making her way into the dining room, Daisy smiled at her mother, who was busily chatting with Aunt Julia by the tulipwood buffet. Neither her mother nor her aunt appeared to notice her entrance, for they failed to return the greeting.
Since the pair were obviously lost in the midst of an important conversation, Daisy decided not to interrupt them. In any event, she was still quite muzzy headed and could offer nothing of significance to the discussion.
She settled into a chair at the dining table and motioned for one of the serving maids to bring her a cup of tea. As she sat quietly, Julia’s chiding words reached her ears. “You’re right, Sophie. Her performance last night was disgraceful. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“Quite the scandalbroth,” her mother agreed.
“Who was disgraceful?” Daisy asked.
“Goodness!” Julia dropped the silver lid to a tray of eggs and sausages.
Daisy winced as the lid made a resounding clang.
“When did you come in? I didn’t hear you,” Julia accused, turning to face her. As always, Julia was immaculately groomed, her hair styled in the latest fashion and not a golden curl out of place.
Daisy’s mother frowned. “If you must know, we were speaking of you.”
“Me?” Daisy gripped the edge of the dining table.
Had they seen her kissing Gabriel last night? No, they couldn’t possibly have been watching Eloise’s carriage or seen what was going on inside. That kiss—or rather that long string of kisses that blended into one because neither she nor Gabriel had bothered to come up for air—would have given her mother quite something to rage about.
Even now, the thought of the glorious encounter brought a heated blush to her cheeks. Her entire body warmed to the memory. She would endure whatever punishment her family had in store. Gabriel’s kiss was worth it. His touch, the taste of his lips, the magical union of their hearts was a dream come true for her.
Oh, goodness! I must still be drunk!
Her mother pinned her with a stern glance. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
That she’d confused Gabriel for his brother.
That it should have been Alexander’s kiss last night, and would have been had the clunch bothered to come down to London. But he was still at Trent Hall, so she’d wound up in Gabriel’s muscled arms, pressed against his manly body, and breathing in his divinely subtle, musk scent.
That had she been sober—alas, she wasn’t—and not giddy from too much champagne... no, that wouldn’t work.
That it had been a harmless kiss.
That Gabriel would never kiss and tell.
Crumpets! What if he were the sort to kiss and tell? He was a rakehell, after all. She’d be ruined. Disgraced. She’d have to run away and live out the rest of her life under an assumed identity. Perhaps disguise herself as a boy and sign on to a pirate ship.
Her mother gently rapped on the table to regain her attention. “Daisy! Are you listening to me?”
And last night she’d kissed him back with undeniable ardor, pouring her heart and soul into that kiss. She hadn’t meant to, but he’d told her to close her eyes and simply feel. She had. Hot, buttered crumpets! She’d felt every muscle and sinew of his big, powerful body.
“Daisy!” Her mother was still rapping her knuckles on the breakfast table. “Honestly, child!”
Daisy grabbed the cup of tea just set in front of her and took a gulp. Too hot! She gagged and dribbled most of it onto her napkin.
Julia groaned.
Her mother sighed. “Oh, for pity’s sake. What am I to do with you?”
Daisy muttered a lame apology. “I’m a little off my stride this morning. I’m so sorry, Mother. I’m trying very hard to be on my best behavior.”
“You didn’t try hard enough last night,” Julia declared, mimicking her mother’s frown. “You punched Lord Hornby’s son in the nose.”
Daisy set down her napkin and smothered a sigh of relief. They were angry because she’d walloped Lumley? “Oh, that. He tried to kiss me and I didn’t want him to. I set him in his place with a very gentle slap.”
Her mother pursed her lips. “You should not have been alone with him in the conservatory. Do you see that you are to blame for provoking the situation?”
“Me?” She shot out of her seat. “Perhaps, had I gone in there alone with him, but Julia was with us at the time.”
Julia gasped. “Are you blaming me?”
“Well, you did traipse off with friends and leave me trapped with that muggins—”
“Because I don’t recall being appointed your chaperone.”
“Indeed, you were not,” her mother agreed, patting Julia’s hand in sympathy.
Daisy wondered who, if anyone, had been charged with her care? A little detail neither her aunt nor her mother deemed significant.
“Because I have myself and young Harry to think about, so how can I think of you as well?” Julia withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve and waved it about dramatically. “Life is not easy when one is a widow with a small child.”
“I’m glad you mentioned Harry,” Daisy said, ashamed that she’d provoked the confrontation with her aunt. Even though Harrison Farthingale had been dead for over a year, poor Julia was still mourning him. But she was still Harry’s mother and he desperately needed her attention. “I’m terribly concerned about him.”
“Don’t bring up that nonsense about the boy missing his father,” Julia said with a flash of pain in her eyes that cut straight to Daisy’s heart. “He’s a baby. He hardly knew Harrison and can’t possibly understand that his father is gone.”
“But he does,” Daisy said, trying to remain calm despite her mounting frustration. Why wouldn’t her family listen to her?
“He’s my son and I say he’s fine! However, I am not. I’ve suffered a terrible loss and have you ever shown concern for me? Have you ever wondered who will take care of me now that my husband is dead?”
Daisy once more gripped the table’s edge, finding it safer than wrapping her hands around Julia’s throat. No, that was cruel. All the elders were still reeling over the loss of Harrison Farthingale, most of all Julia. However, Julia also had her faults. She was a beautiful woman who thought of herself first, last, and always. Unfortunately, her little boy suffered for it. “You know that you have a home here fo
r as long as you wish. Papa has told you so, many times.”
“Be that as it may, I’m a grown woman and not a charity case. I need to be in my own home, taking care of my own husband. Giving him children.”
Daisy struggled to remain calm. “You already have a child.”
Julia frowned. “And I’m young, healthy, and able to have more.”
In truth, she had been a good wife to Harrison Farthingale, he being the sort of person suited to her temperament. Daisy’s uncle had enjoyed doting on his wife as much as Julia enjoyed being doted upon. Now, she had no man to pamper her. To Julia, that was a serious problem requiring immediate remedy. Having mourned husband number one for the requisite respectable length of time—and she truly had mourned him, Daisy had to admit—she was ready to move on to securing husband number two. “I wasn’t about to waste my time with you and Lumley Hornby when Lord Malinor was so... so eager to gain my attention.”
“Lord Malinor?” And thank you so much for thinking me a waste of time.
“He’s quite important in the Ministry of Finance.”
Lots of shillings jingling in his pockets, Daisy imagined. “You might have warned me. I wouldn’t have followed that muggins out of the ballroom.”
“Stop calling poor Lumley that,” her mother chided. “He’s a very accomplished young man. And stop blaming Julia for your mistakes. I suppose you’ll also blame her for your jaunt with Lord Gabriel Dayne.”
Daisy pursed her lips.
“Oh, yes. I know you spent a shocking amount of time in his company. Don’t try to deny it.”
“I wouldn’t call our time together shocking,” Daisy said with an exasperated shake of her head. Except, of course, during the carriage ride.
Oh, worth a lifetime of punishment for that ride!
And that kiss.
Was it possible for a man to kiss a woman like that and not be in love with her? Or did Gabriel kiss all his women, outside of his family, of course, that way? Had she misinterpreted the significance of the moment? Had there even been “a moment” between them? All questions to jot down and ask her older sisters as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
She studied her mother’s expression, then Julia’s. No, she couldn’t ask them. She’d sooner read Lady Forsythia’s ridiculous book. Reforming a rakehell, indeed!
“I expected better of you, Daisy. I worked so hard to mold you into a proper young lady. Is this how you repay me? By traipsing about with that inconsiderate dissolute?”
She wasn’t sorry. No, not one bit.
“Don’t give me that impertinent look. You and Lord Dayne were seen dancing together! Your very first dance at a ball! Oh, why did it have to be with him?”
“Because he was the first man to ask me? What is so shocking about that?”
Her mother sank back in her chair. “Julia, please tell me where I went wrong with this child. What did I do to turn her out so badly?”
“I’m not the village idiot, Mother. Nor am I some wanton female... er...” Well, she had been a tad out of control when responding to Gabriel’s kiss, but that didn’t count. Did it? “I won’t deny that I made some mistakes last night. Minor errors, and no irreparable harm was done. As for Lord Dayne, he graciously helped me with a problem.”
“You should have come to me with your problems.”
“Yes, of course, and I will in future. However, since I couldn’t find either you or Father in the crush at Lord Hornby’s, I had no choice but to rely on a friend.”
Her mother clasped a hand to her heart in a gesture Daisy considered both cheap and theatrical. She and Julia must have practiced their histrionics together. “You are never to consider that man a friend! He is never to be trusted!”
“Very well, I’ll be politely cool to him from now on. However, I would like it noted that he was a gentleman at the ball.”
“Don’t make light of his behavior,” her mother warned, shaking her head so sternly that her fashionable chignon threatened to come undone. “He is no gentleman. Never has been and never will be. His poor parents. They must be suffering greatly.”
Daisy frowned. She’d heard the gossip about Gabriel many times before, but meeting him in person... well, he just didn’t seem to be the coward, the dissolute everyone said he was.
“Now he’s taken up with that lightskirt. That... that Cyprian!”
“What are you talking about?” Daisy asked with a shake of her head.
“His new mistress,” Julia intoned, her green eyes aglow as she related the gossip. “It was quite the on dit, all anyone spoke of last night. Weren’t you paying any attention to the whispers?”
No, she’d been too busy searching for her necklace.
“Daisy, dear,” her mother said more gently. “There’s something I must tell you about Lord Dayne. He’s a scoundrel of the lowest order. Julia, didn’t I tell you that a man with scars as prominent as his just had to be depraved?”
Julia’s golden curls bobbed prettily as she nodded. “Indeed, you did.”
“He wasted no time in resuming his life of debauchery, setting up that woman on... well, it’s time you learned that such places exist... Curzon Street.”
Daisy’s heart sank into her stomach, though she couldn’t imagine why she should care. “His mistress?”
“I hear she’s beautiful in an indecent way,” her mother continued with a blush. “Why else would he set her up so finely?”
“Are you certain?” She’d actually believed Gabriel had enjoyed their kiss. Well, she was a foolish, naive girl.
Her mother shook her head impatiently. “Many men keep mistresses, even happily married men indulge. I’m not surprised that Lord Dayne did so, but he showed a shocking lack of respect by taking up with her so openly, and a foreign girl at that, when perfectly suitable English girls are available.”
Daisy choked back a mirthless laugh. “I see.”
“I doubt you do, Daisy. You’re too young to understand the sordid depths to which some men descend.”
Oh, but she did understand. She’d kissed Gabriel with utter abandon, with womanly passion and longing, and may have allowed more had the journey lasted longer. Gabriel didn’t love her—she knew that—nor did she love him. But he had wanted to make love to her in a very real sense that extended beyond the proper bounds of courtship. An important distinction. Love led to marriage. Making love led to scandal and ruination.
“Tell her all of it,” Julia urged. “She’s better off knowing the worst.”
“There’s more?”
“Lord Dayne has informed his parents that he will never marry. Having made his fortune in who knows what sordid ventures, he is determined to enjoy life to the fullest, sans wife. Such behavior cannot be tolerated in any man of noble bloodlines. But what is his family to do? He’s independently wealthy and doesn’t care if his father cuts him off without a shilling.”
“Surely, he’ll change his mind in time.” Daisy wasn’t certain why she should rise to his defense, but this gossip about Gabriel felt wrong. “Marriage is not a prison to all men. Indeed, his own cousin is very happily married to Laurel.”
Odd, he and Graelem seemed very close. She wasn’t imagining it. Graelem did like and admire Gabriel despite his horrid reputation. Why?
“Lord Dayne has renewed his friendship with that reprobate Ian Markham, Duke of Edgeware, and everyone knows his views on marriage.”
Julia shook her head and tsked. “A shocking waste of wealth, respectability, and good title, if you ask me.”
What had happened to Gabriel? What had led him to shed his boyhood dreams and pursue a life of depravity?
“Ask Eloise, if you don’t believe me,” Julia insisted. “She’s distraught over the whole affair.”
Daisy managed a nod, though her entire body felt numb. “Poor Eloise. She never mentioned a word about his mistress. Of course, she must be deeply ashamed of his behavior.”
“I suppose she wouldn’t have mentioned it to you, dear,” her mother
said, her manner once more gentle and her gaze pitying. “You’re an innocent. And it’s not as if you needed the warning. He isn’t likely to take serious notice of you.”
“I suppose not.” Although Eloise had other plans, but that had been earlier in the evening, before the gossip about him and his new mistress had spread throughout the ballroom. Surely Eloise had thrown up her hands in disgust and given up on making a match between her and Gabriel by now.
“You’re lovely, darling,” her mother continued, her pity intensifying. “But you’re not the worldly sort. No, not his sort at all. Though I do wonder why he asked you to dance.”
“Eloise must have begged him for the favor,” she responded, the numbness now firmly lodged in her heart.
“I suspected as much. He danced two waltzes with Lady Olivia Westhaven. Now, she’s more his type. A merry widow, that one. Just twenty-two and already outlived two husbands.”
“They did make a striking couple,” Julia mused. “And if he were ever to change his mind about marriage, she’s just the sort he’d want as his wife. She wouldn’t care if he carried on with every woman in London. That would leave her free to take on her own lovers.”
“Excuse me, Mother. Julia. I think I’m going to be ill.”
***
Daisy spent the next hour alone in her bedroom, pretending her pillow was Gabriel Dayne’s head and ripping it apart. She resolved to write herself little notes that read “Warning—do not ever use the word ‘yes’ when in the presence of Lord Gabriel Dayne.”
“Oh, this can’t be good,” Dillie remarked, stepping in and quickly closing the door behind her. “Mother will have a fit when she sees what you’ve done to this room.”
Daisy followed her sister’s gaze to the little white feathers littering the floor and her peach satin bedcovers. Several more feathers had floated onto the fruitwood bureau and a few were caught in the lace curtains. She glanced into the mirror and brushed off the ones trapped in her hair. “Why is life so complicated?” she cried, collapsing onto her bed.
“Ugh! You’re becoming as theatrical as Julia.”