by Aileen Fish
“He wrote to you? When did he have the chance? We left the Baldridge home less than an hour ago.”
Uncle Rupert regarded her in confusion, his bushy eyebrows raised. “He must have written the letter earlier, preparing to send it after the musicale. Why are you so surprised? We all noticed that he didn’t leave your side all evening.”
She tried to deny it, for he’d been busily arranging his trysts whenever not with her. “He’d hardly spent any time with me until today. We hadn’t spoken more than two words to each other before then.”
Uncle George stepped forward, his manner calm amidst the increasingly angry mumbles of the other elders. “He claims to love you, Daisy,” he said kindly, for he had always had a soft spot in his heart for his nieces. “The important question is, do you love him?”
“No! And I never will! No! No! Never!”
“You’ve made your point,” George muttered, casting her an indulgent grin to convey that she had been sufficiently emphatic in her response. Nodding, he folded his arms across his chest and turned to face her father. “That settles it, John. You’ll have to refuse young Malinor. It’s obvious that your daughter doesn’t love him.”
Daisy’s mother frowned at her and then at her uncle. “George, you know I’ve always respected your opinion, but in this I must ask you not to meddle. She’s our child and we know what’s best for her. Ever since last year’s unfortunate incident with Lord Kirwood’s son, we’ve all been worried about her lack of judgment. I had hoped the Kirwood matter would teach her to be more prudent, but it hasn’t. She has since gotten herself entangled with Lord Gabriel Dayne and we all know he’s a wastrel.” Her frown deepened as she turned to Daisy. “He’s a bad influence on you and the sooner you’re properly settled, the better. Your father will accept Lord Malinor’s offer.”
Daisy’s heart sank into her stomach. “No!”
“Yes,” was the general consensus among the family members, everyone nodding save Uncle George, whose opinion no longer seemed to matter. His objections were drowned out along with Daisy’s pleas. “It isn’t fair!” she insisted. “You can’t make me marry someone I don’t love!” Since her mother would not listen, she turned to her father. “Please, I beg you. Don’t force me into this.”
“The matter has been decided,” her father said, looking unusually stern. “Get a good night’s rest, child. You’re confused and don’t know your own thoughts. I’ll respond to Lord Malinor’s offer in the morning. Sleep on it and you’ll come to know that your mother and I are right.”
Tears welled in Daisy’s eyes. “Father, please! Don’t accept him. I’d rather remain a spinster for the rest of my days.”
“My sweet child.” In two strides, he was at her side, taking her into his arms and hugging her tightly. “I can’t bear to see you cry. We only have your best interests at heart. Sleep on it, Daisy. Please. Come morning you’ll see that you and young Malinor will make a brilliant match.”
Her throat went dry and her heart felt as though it was about to rip from her chest. “We won’t,” she insisted, her voice strangled and raspy. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you? Why would he ask me now? Something doesn’t feel right.”
Her mother stepped forward, hoping to ease her concerns. “You make a lovely couple. Everyone remarked on it at Lady Baldridge’s this evening.”
“We were polite to each other, that’s all. We aren’t suited. We’ll make each other miserable.” She shot another desperate pleading glance at her parents. “Am I to be the only Farthingale forbidden to marry for love?”
“What do you know of love?” her mother said gently, but with an undercurrent of steel in her voice that Daisy knew could not bode well. “Child, you’re good-hearted and charming, but you’ve shown a complete lack of sense when it comes to men. We have no choice but to protect you from your own misguided choices. The matter is settled. I won’t hear another word about it. Either you willingly accept Lord Malinor, or you shall be banished forever from this house. From this family!”
“Sophie!” Her father stared at his wife, obviously aghast.
“Don’t soften, John. She’s our daughter and I won’t have her throw away her chance at happiness when Auguste is so obviously suitable.”
“Suitable!” Daisy’s eyes widened in anger. “Is that what I’m to be saddled with for the rest of my life? A husband who’s merely adequate?” She curled her hands into fists to control her frustration. “Is that all you feel for Father? Because I’m sure that I see your eyes brighten and a smile cross your lips every time he walks through the door. And Father responds exactly the same way whenever he sets his eyes on you. Why can’t I have that for myself? It’s all I ask.”
She closed her eyes and held her breath.
“Daisy...” Her mother cleared her throat, her voice sounding a little ragged as though she were trying to stop her own tears. “I will not bend on this. Either you accept Auguste Malinor or you shall leave this house right now.”
***
“Daisy? Goodness, what are you doing here? Has something happened to little Harry?” Laurel yawned as she hurriedly waddled into her parlor, having been awakened by her maid and told her sister was downstairs urgently needing to speak to her. Laurel’s enormous belly peeked out from her robe, for she had casually tossed it on and not bothered to properly fasten the ties.
Daisy gave her sister a fervent hug. “No, Harry’s fine. Everyone’s fine.”
“Except you,” Laurel remarked, hugging her back. When Daisy continued to hold on to her, she gently pried herself away and sank onto one of the fat-cushioned chairs beside the unlit hearth. “What’s wrong? What has happened?”
Even when swollen and uncomfortable, Laurel looked beautiful. Daisy marveled at her sister’s radiance. Her cheeks were as pink as rose petals and her dark gold curls tumbled over her shoulders in reckless abandon. That was Laurel’s nature, to be wild and reckless, and outspoken, yet the family had allowed her to marry for love.
For this reason, Laurel was the best person to speak to her parents on her behalf. She’d convince them to arrive at the same decision for her.
“I’m so sorry,” Daisy winced at the tremor in her voice, for she was about to cry again. “I shouldn’t have disturbed you so early in the morning. It isn’t yet dawn.”
“Not yet dawn?” Laurel rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “I wasn’t sure. My schedule’s been off quite badly lately, so I thought I had simply overslept. All the more reason to tell me everything. What’s going on?”
Daisy began to wring the gloves she held in a death grip. “Something awful. I’m frightened and don’t know where else to turn.”
Laurel struggled to her feet and came to Daisy’s side. “Who frightened you? Graelem will load his pistols and shoot the bounder.”
“No, it isn’t quite that. He needn’t shoot anyone for me.” She took a deep breath and began to explain. “You see, the family—”
“Them? What have the Farthingales done now?”
Daisy tipped her chin into the air. “They’ve banished me.”
Laurel shook her head and laughed, but her laughter quickly faded at the sight of Amos carrying Daisy’s trunk into the house. “Goodness! You’re serious. You know you’re always welcome here, even in the dead of night. I love your visits. Ah, I see it’s to be a rather long visit.” She turned to Amos and greeted him. “We seem to be keeping you rather busy lately. I’m sorry, Amos.”
He responded with a grin. “I’m not complaining, Lady Laurel.”
“You never do,” Daisy chimed in. “I thank you for that.”
“Amos, take my sister’s things upstairs and put them in the guest bedchamber. Second door on the left. My maid will show you the way.”
Amos nodded. “Oh, my mum sends her regards.”
“Send her my best wishes, as well.” Laurel waited until his lumbering footsteps grew faint on the stairs before returning her attention to Daisy. “Take a deep breath and tell me why the family has banished
you.”
Daisy glanced down at the gloves still clenched in her hands and now twisted into Gordian knots. “The most unbelievable reason you can imagine.” She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. “First Gabriel and now this. Oh, Laurel! I simply can’t bear it!” She tried to continue, but the words caught in her throat.
Laurel sighed. “I see this is going to take a while. Come along. We’ll talk while we eat.” She led Daisy into the breakfast room. “Are you hungry?”
“No.” She felt ill and couldn’t manage a bite.
“Well, I’m famished. Oh, I must warn you that Graelem has a visitor.”
Daisy glanced at her in surprise. “At this hour? It isn’t Lord Malinor, is it?”
“The finance minister? Heavens, no. Whatever made you think of him? What’s going on? You have me worried now.”
“How long will Graelem be occupied?”
Laurel nudged her forward. “Not long.”
Daisy realized that the only visitor who would be here at this hour was Gabriel, for hadn’t that been the point of his spectacular departure from the Baldridge party? She had no desire to see him. Not now, certainly not in her present state.
She couldn’t tell him what had just happened.
“What a divine aroma,” Laurel said, inhaling deeply as they entered the breakfast room. “I love sausages and biscuits in the morning... and afternoon... and evening... and midnight.”
Daisy stared at the dining table. “Do you mean to say Graelem has hired a cook to attend to you throughout the night?”
Laurel grinned. “Graelem indulges my every whim. Oh, Daisy, I love him so much. I can’t imagine ever loving anyone else. I hope you marry as well as I have.”
“Yes, well. I don’t think so.” She followed the scent of biscuits and saw Graelem with his back to her, serving himself from the buffet, even though it wasn’t yet dawn and everyone ought to have been asleep.
Since Gabriel was nowhere in sight, Daisy hoped he’d finished his business and gone. All the better, for seeing him would only make matters worse. In any event, she wanted a private moment to spill her heart to the two people she trusted most in this world. “The family wants me to—”
Then she saw they were not alone.
Gabriel stood half in shadow by the servant’s entrance, his shoulder propped against the door, seeming even larger than his already imposing height. “Daisy, what are you doing here?”
She stiffened. He was going away. He had a mission. She couldn’t interfere with it, not that he’d necessarily care about her receiving a marriage proposal from Auguste Malinor... Well, perhaps he would care, but only because the two despised each other. They’d made no effort to mask their disdain for each other at Lady Baldridge’s musicale.
“She’s run away from home,” Laurel answered for her.
Oh, crumpets. “Laurel!”
“Well, you have. Haven’t you?”
Daisy turned from her sister to gaze at Gabriel. He looked handsome as ever and not at all drunk. He had on the formal clothes he’d worn earlier this evening, but his sleeves were rolled up as though he’d been working through the night. He hadn’t gone to Curzon Street to visit his mistress—thank goodness, thank goodness, she’d burst into tears if he had—nor had he stopped at his home.
An alarming thought came into her mind. Was he preparing to leave for France today?
Gabriel pushed away from the door, a frown marring his brow. “Why have you run away from home?”
“I can’t tell you.” She’d sworn to wait for Gabriel forever, even though he’d ordered her not to. Indeed, he’d insisted she move on with her life and think no more of him. He couldn’t have meant for her to accept Auguste within hours of vowing to remain true to him. That would make her appear quite scatterbrained and deceitful. “Please, Gabriel. Go away. This is a family matter of an extremely personal nature.”
“Gabriel is family,” Laurel insisted. “You can tell him anything you tell us.”
True, he and Graelem were cousins, obviously very dear to each other. But that didn’t make him a relation of hers. Daisy drew aside a chair from the table and sank onto it. “No, not this.”
“I think it has to do with Lord Malinor,” her sister said.
Daisy glanced up in alarm. “Laurel! You’re not helping.”
Gabriel crossed the room and knelt beside her. “What has Lord Malinor to do with your running away from home?”
“Nothing. Laurel’s mistaken.”
“Ah, Daisy, you’re a terrible liar.” He tucked a finger under her chin and forced her tearful gaze to meet his determined stare. “Tell me what’s happened or I’ll go straight to Malinor and beat it out of him.”
Goodness, he was a bear in the wee hours of the morning. Well, so was she. Particularly this disastrous morning. “I will not. It isn’t any of your business.”
He retrieved the knife he kept hidden in his boot and checked to see that it was sharply honed.
“What are you doing? You won’t use that thing on Lord Malinor, will you?”
He arched his eyebrow, which made him look quite menacing. “Give me a reason not to.”
“I’ll give you several. First, the matter is trivial,” she lied. “Second, it’s obvious you’re about to leave on your hunt, so go. Taking the time to carve England’s finance minister into little pieces will only land you in prison, and that will throw your important plans into disarray. Third, with you in prison, Graelem will be forced to take your place on this so-called hunt. I don’t think it’s a good idea just now.”
Gabriel followed her gaze to Laurel’s rounded belly and uttered a soft curse before returning the knife to its sheath in his boot. “I still want to know why you’re in such a state.”
“I’ll tell you, but only if you promise to do nothing about it.”
His jaw twitched.
“Gabriel, I need your promise.”
He refused to give it.
Daisy frowned at him. “Why are you being so difficult?”
“I don’t make promises I know I can’t keep.”
Because he was an honorable man. He’d insisted on acting honorably with her, even last night with the kisses they’d shared in Lady Baldridge’s garden... She’d always treasure those kisses stolen in the moonlight... though she’d offered him far more. To be precise she’d offered her heart and her body, and she might have blurted something about binding her soul to his forever. A little excessive, she supposed. Not that it mattered. He’d touched her and aroused her, but he’d refused to take her innocence, claiming it was for her own good, though he’d been hot and hard and wanting.
She was inexperienced in matters of the heart, but she wasn’t an utter ninny. She knew a noble sacrifice when she saw it, and Gabriel had nobly sacrificed to keep her chaste. Perhaps it did not amount to a declaration of love, but that look of agony on his face as he’d pulled back and eased her out of his arms had to mean something, even though he’d told her repeatedly and adamantly that it hadn’t.
“Very well. I promise not to hurt him,” he said, as though understanding the direction of the thoughts whirling madly in her head, and perhaps feeling some responsibility for her distress. “What has he done?”
She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “More precisely, it’s what his son has done under the father’s urging, I suspect. Auguste Malinor has asked for my hand in marriage.”
Laurel inhaled sharply. “No!”
“Bastard,” Graelem muttered. “I knew he was up to no good.”
He and Gabriel exchanged glances.
Daisy shifted her gaze between them. “Did you know about his plans?”
The men traded looks again.
“Gabriel, please say something.”
His cousin was the one who finally spoke. “Daisy, did you accept him?”
She didn’t immediately answer, too intent on staring at Gabriel and wishing he would curse or threaten or fly into a jealous rage, but he just stood there
as silent as a tomb. Did he not care? Had she misunderstood his motives in Lady Baldridge’s garden last night?
I must have.
A man in love would fly into a jealous rage.
Daisy found his silence shattering.
Finally, he spoke. “Did you, Daisy?”
She shot to her feet, her fists clenched at her sides. “Of course not! I love you, not him. How could you think I’d ever consider him as a prospect?”
“I didn’t.” He rubbed his hand roughly across the nape of his neck and cast her a grim smile that made her want to reach out and kiss him passionately even though she was not kindly disposed toward him at the moment.
“The problem is, my father is determined to accept on my behalf. He claims it is for my own good.”
Laurel gasped. “How is it possible? We Farthingales always marry for love.”
“Well, that rule isn’t written in stone, is it? Even if it were, the family refuses to believe I know my own mind. They consider me a fool. And since I’m considered a fool, they’re going to make this decision for me.”
“Because of The Incident?” Laurel imitated her stance, clenching her own hands into fists. “This is all my fault. You poor thing. How awful for you... and how brave of you to hold your ground against the entire family. I’ll tell them the truth about Devlin Kirwood, that it was me, not you, who almost made the worst mistake of her life. It’s time they were told what really happened.”
Daisy’s eyes rounded in alarm. “Don’t!”
“You can’t protect me any longer, sweetie. I was wrong to let you shoulder the blame for this long.”
“But Graelem—”
“Has known I was the one meant to elope with Devlin. I told him all about it before we married.” She cast her husband the softest smile. “I couldn’t take sacred vows with that lie standing between us. I ought to have told the family elders as well, but I thought the matter was quickly forgotten. I’ll fix my mistake right now.”
She marched to the bell pull to summon a servant, but Gabriel stopped her. “It’s no use. They’ll never believe you.” He turned to glance at Daisy. “They’ll think Laurel is lying to save your hide. Don’t you see? The timing is suspect.”