Wessex was determined to make a bother of himself. “Ahh, I expected you’d say as much.” He inclined his head. “I’ve composed another list.”
How many men did the lackwit truly believe he could drum up that might make Daisy an appropriate match?
“A mere three names this time.”
“That is all?” he said, forcing a droll tone when he’d really stake the blasted list and stuff it down his friend’s throat.
Wessex continued as though he’d not spoken. “The Earl of Warwick.”
“Too fond of the faro tables.”
“Baron Wright,” he returned.
“A mother’s boy.” Daisy deserved far more than a gentleman who was devoted, caring, and resolute to his mother and not one person more.
“The Viscount Reddingbrooke.”
Auric frowned. Reddingbrooke was…And then there was…His frown deepened. “He’s too old,” he said at last. Why, the man must be…?
Wessex laughed, attracting unwanted notice. “He’s a year younger than your miserable self, Crawford, which I suppose explains your need for the quizzing glass.” His laughter redoubled.
The delicate piece he carried at the front of his jacket pocket, a gift given him by Daisy, lent a silent mockery to Wessex’s words. “Shove off,” he bit out. “I…”
Wessex’s merriment faded, and he looked to the doorway, unblinking. “Here.” He thrust his crystal flute in Auric’s hands.
“What?” Perplexed, Auric glanced between the glass and his friend.
“Take a drink,” Marcus advised.
A flurry of activity at the entrance of the ballroom captured Auric’s notice. The hum of noisy whispers flooded the room, as ladies and gentlemen strained their attention to the front of the hall.
Auric didn’t give a jot about Society gossips and their latest on-dit. There was the matter of Daisy to attend. When she set aside her not at all Daisy-like temper and admitted him once more.
Wessex made a strangled sound in his throat.
Auric eyed him, concerned, and made to slap him on the back. “What—?” Then, he followed the other man’s shocked stare to the front of the receiving line. The air left Auric on a swift exhale. There was something familiar in the heart-shaped planes of her face, and yet somehow altogether different. By the splash of color on her freckled cheeks and tightly coiled, dark brown curls, he recognized Daisy’s visage with the same certainty of recognizing his own. And yet the voluptuous woman in ice blue satin, with the fabric clinging to generous hips and bountiful breasts, was a siren.
Wessex let out a soft whistle. “By God, the duck becomes a swan.”
No, the lady was no swan. His mouth went dry as a wave of longing so deep and powerful threatened to consume him there before all of Society. She carried herself with the same comfort and ease, a smile on her plump lips, a sparkle of excitement in her eyes. His Daisy. His girl of the flowers. Their host and hostess, Lord and Lady Ellis, said something to her. She nodded and then, with her mother at her side, moved to take their spot at the side of the ballroom.
Then, her fool mother stepped away to converse with Lord and Lady Ingold. What manner of parent would leave her unattended so any worthless, shiftless bounder could—?
A rush of gentlemen converged upon her. “Bloody hell,” he bit out. Something primal stirred to life inside him. A seething fury that boiled hot and threatened to burn him with his own rage at the sight of the unworthy bastards scribbling their names onto that delicate card upon her wrist.
“Indeed,” Wessex muttered.
“Bloody hell,” he cursed once more, ignoring Wessex’s startled look.
The viscount jerked his chin in her direction. “This will pose a problem in singling out the best match for the lady.” Despite the flippant deliverance of those words, the hard set to his mouth indicated Wessex’s concern with the transformation of Lady Daisy Meadows.
Auric downed the viscount’s champagne. Indeed it did. He took in this new figure being ogled by any manner of lascivious, undeserving rogues. With another curse, he set the glass down hard on a nearby tray then started after Daisy. He’d be damned if he would sit by while those gentlemen removed her silken gown with their rakish eyes.
“Where are you off to, man?” Wessex called behind him.
Auric ignored him, moving with a single-minded intent, narrowing his gaze as the Marquess of Rutland, a notorious reprobate and black-hearted scoundrel, whispered something close to the lady’s ear that raised a blush on her cheeks. He quickened his step and cut a path through the collection of dandies and fops fawning over Daisy. With a black, long-ago practiced, ducal stare, he sent a number of the men scurrying off in fear of earning his ducal disapproval. “Rutland,” he bit out.
Daisy started, the color rising in her cheeks. Annoyance stirred. Surely, the lady was wise enough to not fall prey for a predator such as Rutland.
The marquess stiffened and, straightening his shoulders, partially turned. “Crawford,” he said on an almost lethal whisper.
Auric’s desire to have Rutland away from Daisy had nothing to do with the title of marquess that would forever remind him of Lionel and everything to do with the lascivious leer in the man’s eyes as he ogled her breasts.
Daisy frowned and looked between them, a question in a gaze too innocent for the likes of Rutland.
“Lady Daisy,” Auric sketched a quick bow and then reached for her dance card and froze. He took in the filled program and then his head shot up. By God, how quickly had the vultures swooped in and claimed all but…he looked down at the card once more. A quadrille.
“A bit late,” Rutland said mockingly. The orchestra thrummed the beginning strands of a waltz. He held a hand out to Daisy.
Fury tightened Auric’s belly. By God, he’d sooner deliver Rutland to the devil than allow him to put his filthy hands upon her person. With fury coursing through his being, Auric stepped between them. “I am claiming this set.”
“Are you?” Rutland drew those two syllables out in a mocking fashion. He held a hand out to Daisy once more. “I believe you aren’t, Crawford.”
Daisy stared bewildered between the gentlemen. The mottled flush on Auric’s cheeks, the muscle ticking at the corner of his right eye, uncharacteristic for one so composed, so austere, and so perfectly ducal. And yet, the icy fury emanating from his frame hinted at a man about to come to blows with the marquess. She cleared her throat. “My lord,” she said, calling the marquess’ attention. “I had forgotten my promise to reserve this set for the duke,” she lied. A chill raced along her spine, at the dark glint in the man’s eyes.
Auric took a step closer and extended his elbow. She placed her fingertips upon his coat sleeve and allowed him to guide her onto the dance floor where the dancers were assembling for the next set. Daisy raised her hand to his shoulder and a thrill shot through her as he settled his large, warm palm at her waist.
The haunting, slightly discordant hum of a waltz filled the ballroom Auric and Daisy moved in a strained, tense silence. They, who through the years had never been without words or jests or even insults, now had no words. When her mother had proposed assembling a new wardrobe, Daisy had recognized the futility of the woman’s goals. Even as the ice blue satin creation was by far the grandest, most luxuriant, if daring, piece she’d ever donned. Yet, she’d not roused anything more than a dark glower from Auric.
He’d say nothing to her?
“I don’t want you near Rutland.”
She looked at him through the thin slits of her eyes. That is what he’d say? “I beg your pardon?” He’d order her about as though he were nothing more than a protective brother. Jagged pain ripped through her at the remembrance of Lionel.
Auric angled her closer, dipping his head lower. “This is not a game, Daisy.” Her breath caught at the nearness of his lips, remembering his mouth upon hers and shamefully longing for the heady passion she’d known in that all too brief embrace. “Rutland is a dark, vile reprobate.” His
mouth hardened. “And he is assuredly not the devoted, caring, and resolute gentleman you spoke of.”
She jerked. Did he dare throw her longings back in her face? Daisy spoke in hushed tones. “You’ve spent so many years being the Duke of Crawford, ordering others about and coming to expect blind subservience, that you’ve forgotten how to speak to a friend,” she chided. His frown deepened. “You took it upon yourself, Your Grace, to decide I required a husband and even were so bold as to drum up a suitor.” With each word, the implications of his actions these past days filled her with a hot rage. She continued, speaking through gritted teeth. “You would find me a husband. For what end, Auric?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she spoke over him. “To absolve yourself of a guilt for Lionel’s death.”
He went white and a momentary wave of remorse slapped her for throwing that charge at him in this public manner. If only, perhaps, had he truly seen her and heard her through the years, he’d have heard her need for more from him. “I would see you happy, Daisy.”
“Why?” she demanded.
Auric hesitated. Tell me it is because you care for me in the way a man cares for a woman. Tell me because you’ve at last looked within your heart and realized it’s complete because of me. “You are my friend,” he spoke in flat, empty tones somehow more painful than any of that icy ducal annoyance she’d come to expect of him.
I don’t want to be your friend. That was no longer enough. “You always saw me as a sister, didn’t you?” she whispered the question more to herself.
An almost wistful smile hovered on his lips. “You always dogged our footsteps, didn’t you?” he said in a reflective manner of the past, not hearing the pained words truly spoken to him. “At one point I found you underfoot, and that changed. Do you know when that was?”
A bond of their past tugged at her, where even in this moment, that was enough. The link to the times they’d once shared. “When I put ink in your tea?”
His grin widened. It was the real, uncomplicated smile of a man who did, in fact, remember that simple expression of mirth. “Ink intended for Lionel.”
She giggled at the remembrance of the young marquess and his ink-stained teeth. “Yes, yes it was. I was quite put out from being excluded from your fishing excursion.” And with this memory there was no agony at the loss of her brother, but rather the joy to be found in those too short memories of him.
“It was not the tea incident.”
Daisy winked up at him. “There really are surely too many incidents to recall, aren’t there? Was it when I snipped up the fabric of your and Lionel’s jackets to be turned into garments for my doll?”
“She did look rather splendid in her midnight black gown, but no, that was not it.”
She discreetly pinched his arm. “Do stop being deliberately va—?”
“Your parents’ annual summer picnic. You stared down your bullies and set the table ablaze with great strength.”
Her heart started funnily in her breast. Then she drew in a breath in an attempt to calm the fluttering in her belly. “Of course you recall that day,” she muttered. “Who wouldn’t remember a table fire?” And yet, this was now the second time he’d recalled the memory. So perhaps it meant more to him, as well?
His lopsided grin fit with the gentleman who’d glowered at the Lady Leticia bullies of the world. “Yes, it is rather hard to forget the shouts and screams of some of Society’s leading peers as the fire licked at the tablecloth. Except that isn’t what I remember of that day, Daisy.” He stared at a point over her head. “You were the only one not shouting,” he said softly to himself. “You had this faraway expression.”
Because, it was the moment she’d fallen in love with him, and even though it should surely bring her some hurt that all the years she’d joined him and Lionel, Auric had, in fact, found her a bothersome bit of baggage…until that much later day when she’d hovered on the cusp of girlhood and womanhood.
The set drew to a close. They glided to a gentle stop. As the couples about them politely clapped and then shuffled from the dance floor, they stood locked in a silent, intense scrutiny of one another. Daisy dropped a curtsy and allowed him to lead her back to the edge of the ballroom. It did not escape her notice that instead of returning her to the earlier spot she’d occupied, he sought out her mother.
“Where is your mother?” he searched the crowd. It was no secret to anyone, with the exception of Auric it seemed, that her mother hovered on the fringe of activity, wan and hopelessly withdrawn. Daisy gave a little shrug. “Ah, I see her,” he noted.
She pursed her lips. He was likely eager to be free of her. Daisy said nothing, instead allowed him to escort her to the white, Doric column where her mother stood.
The marchioness’ usually lifeless eyes lit. “My dear boy, how lovely it is to see you.” She gave them such a pointedly knowing look that Daisy shifted on her feet praying that subtle movement would somehow cause a shift in the floor and in turn swallow her whole.
“The pleasure is mine, Lady Roxbury,” he responded, flawless, proper, and always respectful.
“I gather you’ve quite enjoyed your visits with Daisy?”
She swallowed a groan, her skin prickling with the ghost of a smile on Auric’s lips. The great lout was having a good deal of fun at her expense. “Undoubtedly,” Daisy muttered. “Or, you can surely say, indeed,” she supplied for him. His smile widened and her heart raced all the faster.
Lord Astor chose that precise moment to stride over, coming to a stop before them. The easy camaraderie between her and Auric was gone as he turned once more into the remote, polished duke. The two men eyed each other a long moment, their gazes doing a form of inventory of the other. “Crawford,” the earl said hastily, breaking the silence. They exchanged stiff, polite pleasantries and then Astor turned his attention to Daisy’s mother. “Good evening, my lady.”
A small moue of displeasure formed on the older woman’s lips. “Lord Astor, a pleasure.” Though by the obvious disappointment underscoring her tone, those words sounded anything but. “I trust your mother is well?”
“Indeed well,” he said quickly. He held out his elbow for Daisy.
She stared at his arm for a long moment. The strains of the quadrille filled her mind as she tried to sort out why he had his arm extended. “Our dance,” she blurted. Her skin warmed. “Er, uh, yes, very well,” she said, hastily placing her fingers upon his sleeve.
As the earl guided her onto the dance floor, her neck prickled with the heated intensity of Auric’s stare. Odd, until this moment she’d not given much thought to needing that heart pendant worn by the Lady Stanhope.
Another visit to Gipsy Hill would be in order, and most especially after Auric’s admissions this night.
Chapter 11
The tick tock of the long-case clock filled the quiet, punctuated by the rapidity of Auric’s hand as he frantically wrote on the empty page of his journal.
Dear Lionel,
I have seen your sister as an obligation and nothing more than a sister for the whole of my life. My debt to you is great and for having been the reason you lost your life. I promise to see her wedded.
Those cathartic words continued to fill the pages and he found a sense of freedom in giving this, his apology for having long neglected Daisy, and more, for having desired her as he did.
Auric finished his entry and then set down his pen. He blew upon the page, drying the ink, and then a moment later, closed the book with a firm thud. With a sigh, he sat back in his seat. Since he’d taken his leave of Daisy, he’d been unable to rid himself of thoughts of her, as she’d been, and all those bastards who’d eyed her, seeing the woman transformed. He should feel an overwhelming sense of relief in knowing it wouldn’t be long for some gentleman to be brought up to scratch. He scrubbed his hand over his face.
They had not, however, appreciated her as she’d always been. They’d not seen her smile and bold spirit or infuriating cheekiness—not in the
way he had. Except, have you truly seen her? Or had he relegated her to Lady Daisy Laurel Meadows, his unaging girl of the flowers? In that, he was really no different than all those other foolish fops who’d failed to see the complexly unique soul that made up Daisy. With a growl, he shoved back such nonsensical musings not liking that he’d fallen into a category with every last lord. “Do not be ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath. Furthermore, he wasn’t altogether certain why it should matter that the lords in the market for a wife had finally taken note, only that they had.
Auric drummed his fingertips along his journal. It would be more important than ever to pay careful attention to those men courting her and, most importantly, the men she considered as prospective bridegrooms. This responsibility to see Daisy happy and cared for was a debt owed to Lionel. It had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Daisy Meadows, herself.
Surely it didn’t.
He glanced across the room, his gaze alighting on the case clock. He’d not paid the Marchioness of Roxbury a visit in several days now. How could he have been so remiss? Auric tucked his journal into his top drawer and shoved it closed. Yes, a visit to the lady, and her daughter, just by nature of her position in the household, was certainty in order. Coming to his feet, he started for the door and made his way out of his office.
Why did it feel as though he lied to himself?
A short while later, Auric stood at the front of the Marchioness of Roxbury’s townhouse. He rapped once and waited. And continued to wait. With a frown, he peered out at the busy street. His presence had ceased to attract notice some years ago. Society had long known the close familial connection between his late parents and the Marchioness of Roxbury and her now departed husband. He impatiently beat his hand against his thigh. Yet in all his years knowing the butler, he’d never known him to keep a visitor waiting.
Auric raised his hand to knock, just as a slightly winded Frederick pulled the door open. “Frederick, how—?” The congenial greeting died on his lips at the beleaguered white-haired servant and Baron Winterhaven, in all his cool arrogance. The other man started.
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