A startled shriek escaped Daisy as she spun around. She shot a fist out, connecting with a solid punch to his nose.
He blinked as blood trailed a path down his lips. By God, she’d punched him. His stomach pitched while the thick, sticky blood seeped from his nose.
“Auric!” The horrified shock stamped on Daisy’s face drove back all remembrances of that gruesome night. “My goodness, you startled me.”
And he knew he must look like the very biggest lackwit, but standing there, blood pouring from his nose, Auric grinned.
Oh, blast!
Daisy slapped a hand over her mouth. Her heart still hammered from the shock of Auric’s sudden, unexpected appearance. “I punched you,” she blurted. And then registered the crimson drops staining his fingers.
Auric fumbled around the inside of his cloak and withdrew a kerchief. He pressed it to his nose and flinched. “Indeed,” he drawled, sounding far more humorous than the situation warranted.
The old vendor held out a small scrap of fabric. Daisy collected the cloth from the old woman. She caught her lower lip between her teeth as a wave of guilt flooded her. “I’m so sorry,” she said on a rush. And she was. But still… “You startled me.” A man hadn’t any business going about sneaking up on a lady, either.
He continued to hold his embroidered kerchief to his injury. “You deliver quite the punch, my lady. Gentleman Jackson himself would be impressed by your efforts.”
Daisy plucked the bloodstained kerchief from his fingers and stuffed it into her reticule. She handed him the one given her by the gypsy. “Lionel,” Daisy supplied. She fished around her reticule and handed several coins over to the old woman who took the small fortune with wide-eyes. When Auric’s eyebrows dipped, she clarified, “Lionel taught me. He said all ladies should know how to properly defend themselves.” As though he’d somehow known he’d not be there to see to that role himself.
“I do not believe Lionel imagined you requiring such skills while shopping.” He dipped his head close to hers. “Without a chaperone. Again.” His breath fanned her lips with a delicious scent of brandy and mint. The sensual masculinity of him washed over her and warmed her through.
Her lids fluttered as, for one span of a heartbeat, she imagined he intended to kiss her, here, in the muddied streets of London for all to see. Which was really rather foolish because the proper, powerful Duke of Crawford would never do something as scandalously wonderful as kissing her, Daisy Meadows, in the streets of London, for all to—
“Daisy?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you have something in your eye?”
Her eyes flew open and her skin burned at the odd tilt to Auric’s head as he studied her. The vendor held over another cloth. “Er…” She waved off the gesture. “No.”
His chestnut eyebrows dipped further.
“Er…that is…I do not have anything in my eye.” Only, how else to explain the silly fluttering of her lashes. “Or I may have,” she said on a rush, her mouth moving faster than her mind. “But no longer. I think I quite managed to…” Stop talking, Daisy Meadows. Stop talking. Her words trailed off as he continued to study her around the stained fabric of his cloth. “I’m all right,” she said on a sigh. The wind tugged at her cloak and she pulled it close.
“What are you doing?” he asked somberly.
She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “I’m shopping.” It was true. Granted, it was no mere frippery she sought.
“The Daisy I remember loved riding astride and spitting and cursing. She detested shopping.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. Is that how he still saw her? As the small, bothersome child who’d dogged his and Lionel’s every step. And yet, he was right. A woman grown now, she still detested going shopping. With her plump frame, she’d tired of the modiste’s tsking about her generous proportions.
“What is so important that you’d come out without an escort, Daisy?” His low baritone rumbled from his chest.
Had his tone been disapproving and condescending, she’d have turned on her heel and ignored his question. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was gentle and insistent all at the same time. “I’m looking for a necklace.” After years of being relegated to the role of the forgotten, surviving child, there was something warm in knowing someone cared and was concerned.
He stuffed the bloodstained yellow fabric inside his cloak. “A particular style of necklace?”
She’d learned long ago to be suspicious of too many questions from Auric. Daisy eyed him cautiously. “Perhaps,” she said noncommittally. She braced for his stern ducal displeasure.
His lips twitched in a manner reminiscent of the teasing young man she remembered. “That is vague.” He folded his arms at his chest. And waited. And because she’d witnessed firsthand the strength of his obstinacy over the years perhaps better than anyone else, she also knew he’d stand there until the night sky slipped across the horizon many hours from now.
“Very well.” Daisy rocked back on her heels. “It is a heart pendant.” She put her fingers together. “About this big, and gold with slight etchings upon it.”
Auric glanced up and down the street at the endless rows of wagons and carts littered with peddlers’ wares. “And you expect to find this heart?”
“I do,” she said softly. She had to find this heart. For, according to Lady Anne and the lady’s sisters, to find it would mean Auric’s heart. The foolishness of such thoughts did not escape her, and yet…she still needed to believe, in something: a pendant, Auric, the dream of them. To not have this small hope she would find herself empty, with nothing. She braced for his cool grin and mocking words. He said nothing for a long while and she shuffled back and forth on her feet. She really wished he’d say something—even if it was a coolly mocking response about the futility of her search. Anything to this silence. She cast a glance about and located her maid. Agnes moved quickly among a row of carts, dutiful in her search. Daisy looked once more to Auric.
He held out his elbow.
Daisy tightened her jaw. She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not leaving, Auric. I’ll not allow you to hand me into the carriage like I’m a recalcitrant child. I’m a grown woman and—”
“Daisy?”
“Yes?”
“Take my arm.” His smooth, refined tones gave no indication as to his thoughts.
She eyed him warily. For surely he was as perturbed with her this day as he so often was. “Why?” She’d not be tossed unceremoniously into her carriage as he’d done yesterday.
The ghost of a smile played on his lips. “You’ll need help looking for this necklace.”
Her heart paused. “What?” She hated the breathless quality to her voice.
Auric motioned to the wagons along the edge of the cobbled road. “I’d not forgive myself if I left you to your own devices hunting for a floral pendant amongst the endless number of carts.”
He wanted to join her. “It’s a heart,” she whispered. Surely it was an obligatory protectiveness on his part toward her and yet, he did not rush her back to her carriage as he’d done at their previous meeting. Instead, he remained.
He waved his elbow.
With a smile, Daisy placed her fingertips upon his coat sleeve. They continued down the street.
“A heart, you say?”
She nodded.
“What is so special about this particular necklace?”
Everything was special about the Heart of a Duke pendant. Her fingers tightened reflexively about his sleeve. She kept her gaze trained forward, lifting her hem as they stepped around a particularly deep puddle. “Well, it is…” She searched for words. “Beautiful.” As she’d never before seen the necklace she couldn’t say that with any real certainty. However, she knew what it foretold and for the fable surrounding the famed necklace, that in itself made it beautiful.
He stopped beside a cart. Daisy disentangled her arm from his and walked the perimeter of the wagon scanning the assortment of
items. “Alas, I don’t see your heart pendant.”
She picked up a small quizzing glass and peered into the delicate lens. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten your quizzing glass, Your Grace?” Auric’s visage blurred before her single eye, his crooked grin moving in and out of focus.
“Can oi ’elp ye foind anythin’ fer yer lady, yer lordship?”
The quizzing glass slipped from her fingers with a soft thunk. “Oh, no. I…”
Auric sifted through the man’s goods. He held up a pair of hair combs, with a red, filigree heart etched at their center. “We shall take these.” He retrieved a sovereign and tossed it to the wide-eyed vendor. He grinned, which displayed an uneven row of stained and cracked teeth. The duke handed over the combs. She eyed them studiously, wetting her lips. The impropriety of even being discovered here with him, alone, would be ruinous, to be seen accepting a gift would be disastrous. “Take them, Daisy,” he urged.
She took them, trailing her finger over the heart ornamentation at the center of each intricate piece. A heart. Not the fabled piece whispered about by ladies eager for the title of duchess. This great symbol that revealed itself time and time and time again, a necklace, her horrendous embroidery frames, and now…Auric’s gift.
He stuck his elbow out once more. “Now, on to find the necklace to match your hair combs.”
Daisy fiddled with her reticule and dropped them inside. As she took his arm once more, the skies opened up, pouring rain down. Blast, damn, and double damn. She stole a glance up at the bilious clouds overhead.
Auric leaned down. Her heart started as he pulled the hood of her cloak back into place. “I’m afraid the weather does not intend to cooperate with your efforts to find this particular necklace.”
She glanced across the street toward where her maid hurried toward them. With a sigh, she allowed Auric to guide her back to her carriage. They moved quickly through the street.
Her coachman waited with the door opened. Agnes scrambled inside the carriage.
Daisy lingered, loathe for the moment to end. “Thank you, Auric,” she purred.
He inclined his head. The steady rain soaked his chestnut hair and proceeded to run in rivulets down his eyes, his aquiline cheeks, and hard mouth. And yet, despite that, he remained wholly elegant, coolly beautiful. This is what Poseidon, that great and powerful Greek God of the sea, would look like when he emerged from the underwater depths. She sighed.
“Daisy?”
He really was quite magnificent. “Yes, Auric?” More than any man had a right to be.
“Unless you care to die of chill, I suggest you get inside the carriage, my lady.” With that, he all but tossed her inside.
As the driver closed the door behind her, she peered out at his retreating frame as he made his way across the street to his own waiting horse. Daisy rested her chin in her hand and smiled.
Chapter 7
Daisy ran her fingers along the edge of the wrinkled, crimson stained handkerchief she’d stuffed into her reticule earlier that day. She studied the initials stitched in gold upon the fabric. In her first quest to locate the Heart of a Duke pendant, she’d instead found herself with injured palms, a red nose, and a handkerchief belonging to Auric, but no necklace. Seated at the edge of the bed, she stared wistfully down at the slip of cloth in her hands. Though not the fabled bauble, the embroidered cloth belonged to Auric and for that, it mattered. Daisy raised his kerchief to her nose and froze mid-motion. She groaned and dropped her head back. “I am a pathetic miss.” She’d gone and become one of those mooning sorts.
A knock sounded at the door. She yanked her head up swiftly. “Yes?”
Her maid poked her head inside the room. “The marchioness is awaiting you in the foyer, my lady.”
With a sigh, she stuffed the cloth under her pillow. “Thank you, Agnes.”
The maid nodded and ducked back out of the room.
Daisy rose from the edge of her bed in a flutter of green satin skirts. She’d been dreading Lord and Lady Windermere’s casual dinner party since last year’s dinner party and the year before it. Come to think of it, she’d always hated those intimate gatherings with her parents’ stiffly proper friends.
Yet, for the manner in which the marchioness had retreated from the living, she somehow roused herself for her small, intimate circle of distinguished friends. Perhaps she felt closer to her past that way? Those friends, however, either failed to see or care that the smile worn by the marchioness was, in fact, false.
Daisy moved quietly down the hall, her footsteps muffled by the thin, mauve carpet. Shortly after Lionel’s death, when she couldn’t manage another teardrop, she’d wondered how many days would need to pass before she felt like she could breathe again. Wondering if she’d ever be able to laugh or smile, or move again without feeling like she would splinter into a thousand million shards of broken pain.
Daisy paused beside an always-closed door. She touched her hand to the wood panel.
“Rap three times when you need me…”
She flung her arms about her brother’s waist. “But what if you’re not here?”
“I’ll always be here, Daisy girl…”
The hall still echoed with the laughter following those boastful words of a young gentleman and older brother who’d believed himself invincible.
She tapped the door three times. No matter how hard she knocked or how many times, he was never coming back. When her brother had died, she’d thought herself incapable of ever smiling again. Yet, despite the grief that still had the power to suck the air from her lungs, in time, she did again smile.
Daisy let her hand fall back to her side and continued the long, slow walk down the corridor. In the blackest moments, when the nightmares came, she ached for Auric’s reassuring presence. For he was the only one who shared this ugly, unbreakable bond. When her world had collapsed about her, she’d known if anyone could teach her to laugh and smile again, it would be Auric; who as a young man had welcomed an awkward, friendless girl into his fold, who’d teased her as though she’d belonged to a special club of which only he, Lionel, and Marcus were members. Except after Lionel’s services, Auric, too, had been forever changed. That grinning, affable boy was replaced by the somber, oft-scowling duke.
Then how could he not be? As a lady, she’d been carefully sheltered from the truths of that night and, as a result, she’d been able to resume some sense of normalcy. Auric, however, as the last person to have ever seen, spoken to, or laughed with Lionel would not be so fortunate. Until this very moment she’d not considered how greatly that had affected him and how that had surely changed him.
She continued down the corridor, toward the sweeping staircase that spilled out into the foyer. Her mother stood silently at the base of the stairs, her blank gaze trained on the wall. Daisy had learned to smile. Her mother, however, had not. She took the steps quickly. “Hullo, Mother.”
Her mother started. “Daisy,” she murmured.
Odd, Daisy had spent the first thirteen years of her life wishing her mother could have been someone other than the consummate hostess who relished any and every ton function. Now, she’d trade her right hand to have that familiar, now missed, woman back.
The butler gave Daisy a quick, supportive smile and then pulled the door open. Her mother stepped outside. Daisy trailed behind to the carriage. She accepted the footman’s assistance with a murmur of thanks. He closed the door behind her and then the spacious conveyance rattled onward toward Lord and Lady Windermere’s townhouse.
“I expect Auric will be there.”
Long accustomed to only her own thoughts and words for company, Daisy’s body went taut. She glanced around a moment.
Then, her mother spoke once more. “It was so wonderful seeing him again. He is always such a dear boy,” Mother continued in a wistful, faraway tone.
Yes. Yes, that was her mother talking. Emotion clogged Daisy’s throat and just then she dared believe that maybe her mother could live again, finding som
e reason to once again smile. Even if it was for the memory of Lionel’s friendship with the duke. That could be enough, would be enough. For this whispering soft woman was vastly preferable to a silent ghost. “Yes, he is.”
Then her mother shook her head and the blankness fell across her expression, erasing the hint of life.
Daisy shifted her attention out the window at the passing streets. Yes, her life had resumed spinning on its slow, predictable axis but still, for that, she wanted more. She wanted to reclaim Auric, the memory of him anyway. The dream he represented.
Lord and Lady Windermere’s townhouse pulled into focus. Candlelight set the impressive, white stucco structure awash in a soft orange glow. She dropped the curtain back into place when the driver pulled the door open. Her mother made her way out and to the townhouse, with Daisy trailing along behind her.
Daisy picked over the puddles and climbed the handful of steps to the townhouse. A butler pulled the door open and accepted their cloaks. He proceeded to lead them up to the first floor sitting room.
Ten or so of Lady Windermere’s guests had arrived. The woman rushed over to greet the marchioness. While the two exchanged pleasantries, Daisy scanned the opulent space. Her gaze landed on Lady Leticia seated in a neat, little row alongside Daisy’s childhood nemesis, the sisters, Ladies Caroline and Amelia Davidson. Leticia said something that set the other girls giggling.
She sighed. For all the great many aspects of life that changed, the mundane matters continued to march on with a tedious predictableness.
At that moment, Viscount Wessex appeared at Daisy’s side. “Lady Daisy Meadows. It is a pleasure seeing you once again,” he said, ever the charmer.
Daisy smiled. “If your younger self could hear you this moment, he’d be calling you the worst sort of liar.”
His lips tugged at the corners. “But then, we all grow up, don’t we? Life shows us the errors we’ve made and the mistakes.”
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 92