“You’d make the world to which you don’t belong something it’s not,” he snapped. The gypsy glanced up from the items she sifted through, curiosity teeming from her eyes. Auric lowered his voice. “You believe it is romantic and—” A coarse-looking man with pockmarked skin, in homespun garments knocked into Daisy. Auric cursed and caught her to him, righting her. He fixed his black glower upon the man. The stranger gulped and then spun around and headed in the opposite direction.
When had he become this stiffly disapproving gentleman? She planted her arms akimbo. “You needn’t be so rude and condescending, Auric.”
“Would you have had me invite him for tea?”
“Well, not tea,” she said, wrinkling her nose, and then registered his faintly mocking tone.
Auric closed his eyes and his lips moved as if in a silent prayer. When he opened them, they were the hard, commanding eyes of a man accustomed to having his every wish obeyed. “This is not a game, Daisy.”
“I never said it was,” she snapped.
“Ah, here it is,” the old gypsy said with a pleased nod.
Auric glanced at the woman as though she were a Bedlamite who’d wrestled her way free of the hospital and set up her cart here on Gipsy Hill. With another curse, he took Daisy by the wrist.
As Auric dragged her off, Daisy cast an apologetic glance back at the old gypsy. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving. We’re leaving,” he amended. “I do not want you here.” His words were a bold command that stirred annoyance in her belly. “I do not want you near anyone in this part of London.”
A gasp escaped her and she wrenched her hand free, forcing him to stop. “Whatever has happened to you? You’d be unpleasant to men and women merely for the station of their birth?” She gave her head a sad, little shake. “The Auric I knew would never be so coolly arrogant.” Nor did she like the glimpses of this dark, unfamiliar side of him.
“And you know me so well?” he taunted.
Perhaps not, because neither had she ever known this condescending man. “I do,” she angled her head back, holding his gaze square on.
He passed a hard, furious stare over her face and then in an un-Auric-like manner, cursed.
She widened her eyes. What else did she not know of him?
Auric jammed his hat on his head. “It is not safe for you, Daisy,” he hissed. “Surely Li—?” She sucked in a breath, clasping and unclasping her hands against her chest. A mottled flush stained his cheeks. “Surely life has taught you to be wary of venturing out into places no polite lady should be?”
His chest moved forcefully with the harsh, angry breaths he drew. Daisy widened her eyes. At last his almost panicked urgency to remove her from Gipsy Hill made sense. “Oh, Auric,” she whispered. How could she have failed to realize? What an utter fool she’d been. Many of the details surrounding her brother’s murder had been carefully kept from her. Even the most shocking aspects of his death, by the very gruesome nature of them had not been bandied about the ton, as was the case with nearly all gossip. But Auric knew all the details. Knew, because he’d been there. The air around them filled with Auric’s angry, rasping breaths.
“I’ll not come to harm,” she said gently.
A bitter laugh, devoid of all humor escaped his lips. “How naïve you are to believe that you could prevent such a thing.” There was no heated charge in those words. He clenched and unclenched his hands at his side, hinting at the thin level of control he had over his emotions.
“Auric,” she spoke in hushed tones, wanting to take him in her arms and erase the horror of the past from the both of their memories. “I—”
“Marry me.”
She blinked. Surely, in her own desperate yearnings she’d drummed up the request she’d carried in her heart.
He took a step closer and claimed her hands, raising her knuckles to his mouth. “I said, marry me.”
What in hell had he done?
Daisy undoubtedly required a husband. She did not, however, deserve a husband who’d consigned her brother to the grave. Wouldn’t Lionel want you to care for her…? Auric gave his head a shake. He’d proven himself incapable the night he’d found his pleasure in some whore’s arms, putting his own baser needs before the lives of his friends.
The tremble on her tempting lips and the wistful glimmer in her piercing eyes indicated what a bloody, dangerous folly he’d committed. For Daisy dreamed of romance and fairytales and longed for love—and he could never be more removed from those whimsical sentiments.
Auric released her hands quickly and doffed his hat once more, beating it against his leg. He cleared his throat as the silence stretched on. Perhaps she’d failed to hear his offer…but no, there was the tremble on her lips, lips he longed to capture under his, and the hope in her eyes that spoke to all number of damning truths and troubles.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Yes. “Yes,” he said dumbly. His heart shifted oddly in his chest.
A smile played about her lips.
He jammed his hat atop his head and gave a tug at his lapels and with no ready words on his lips, said, “Er, yes, well then.”
Some of the light in her eyes dimmed and for the length of a heartbeat, one infernally long moment he thought she intended to change her mind. And for an equally long moment, anxiety turned inside him. Then her smile was firmly in place.
Unable to meet her gaze and all the pressure that went with the expectations he saw there, he perused the streets. “You were here searching for something again,” he murmured. Anything but speaking on the offer he’d put to her that would make her forever his. “A necklace, wasn’t it?” She’d spoken of a heart pendant.
Daisy gave her head a slight shake. “It turns out I require that pendant a good deal less than I’d imagined.”
Eager to put this end of London behind them and remove Daisy to the safer, more well-traveled parts of North Bond Street or Mayfair, he held out his elbow. “Then, allow me to see you to your carriage.”
She placed her fingertips along his sleeve and then wordlessly he guided her to the waiting carriage at the opposite end of the street, a ways ahead. Her maid hurried along behind.
And as Auric handed her up into her conveyance, he thought for all that had initially appeared correct with Wessex’s argument, now seemed the very worst mistake. He could not be for Daisy the man she deserved.
God help him, he wanted her anyway.
Chapter 14
The first meeting had been the easiest.
Auric had paid the requisite visit to Daisy’s first guardian, the Marchioness of Roxbury’s brother. The older, kind-eyed gentleman had asked all the appropriate questions and displayed a genuine concern for his niece’s happiness.
The second meeting was the one he had been dreading since he’d asked Daisy to marry him. A now imminent meeting.
Auric found himself following the current Marquess of Roxbury’s butler down familiar corridors in a familiar home. Their steps fell in a matched rhythm. The bewigged man of indeterminate years kept his gaze trained forward, his face set in a proper mask.
They moved past portrait after portrait of former marquesses lining the plaster walls, the men who’d come before this current interloper. The stares of those long gone forever memorialized Roxbury ancestry, faintly accusatory in nature. The inanimate figures even recognized the one responsible for the loss of the rightful Roxbury heir being here this day. Guilt pricked his skin as he passed Lionel and Daisy’s father, and he gave silent thanks as they reached the end of the blasted hall lined with the portraits. The tread of his bootsteps were quiet in the foreign corridors as he moved past additional family portraits of other wigged and powdered ancestors.
One particular painting halted his forward movement. The lone figure of a man committed to the canvas forever smiling, forever young, but never a marquess. The butler looked questioningly back at him and Auric lifted his hand in a staying movement. He wandered closer and then stopped beside t
he painting wedged unceremoniously between a lady in a wimple and a mother with two children at her feet. His chest tightened as he looked on the last painting done of Lionel. This should not have been his last. His likeness belonged in the previous hall, beside the other rightful heirs and marquesses.
Emotion threatened to choke him and he momentarily pressed his eyes closed. Egads, man. My parents will have me sit for another blasted painting. I intend to smile my way through the whole sitting. That should please my dear mama… The walls even now echoed with Lionel’s bellowing laugh.
The butler coughed discreetly into his hand and Auric shook his head once and resumed walking. With each step, the weight of guilt became all the heavier. How could he in good conscience wed Daisy? A woman of her keen wit and spirit deserved far more in the man she’d call husband. Certainly more than mere protection and the security of a title. She should have love and happiness, and a gentleman who smiled. And Auric, well he no longer remembered what it was to freely grin. Not in the way that he once had and not in the way she deserved.
They stopped before the current marquess’ office and a chill stole through him. The butler rapped once and then threw the door open. “His Grace, the Duke of Crawford.”
The slender gentleman seated behind his desk glanced up from the open ledgers upon his desk and then stood. After Lionel’s father had died two years ago, Auric had studiously avoided the distant cousin who’d stepped into the role of marquess. He took this stranger in. With clever eyes and sharp features, the marquess was likely no more than a year younger or older than Auric himself.
Auric broke the silence “Roxbury,” he murmured as he entered the doorway. The butler closed the door behind him.
“Your Grace,” the man said, his tone modulated and kind. He spread his arms wide, motioning him forward. “I gather by the contents of your missive, you’ve come to speak on the matter of my ward.”
Odd to think of the lush, clever Daisy, a woman of one and twenty years referred to as a ward. Wards were young children with parents gone too soon and young ladies about to make their debut. “Yes,” he replied, moving deeper into the room. Alas, that is what she was. With his selfishness seven years ago, he’d turned her into that ward.
With an assessing eye, the marquess evaluated him. Then in one effortless move, strode out from behind his desk and crossed to the sideboard. He held a crystal decanter aloft. “A drink, Your Grace?”
Auric waved off the offer as Roxbury filled his own glass. He carried it back over to his desk. “Sit, sit, please,” he encouraged, as he slid into the folds of his seat.
Tension thrumming through his frame, Auric claimed the seat opposite him, still taking stock of the man. Roxbury swirled the contents of his glass in a slow circle and then took a small sip. Then, glass cradled in his fingers, he eyed Auric over the rim of his snifter. An irrational resentment for this young gentleman filled him, even as he recognized the wrongness of those sentiments. Roxbury shifted back into the folds of his leather, winged back chair. And waited.
Eager to be free of this man and this place, he said in cool, clipped tones, “I would like to wed Lady Daisy Meadows.” He didn’t know what he expected the other man to say.
Roxbury smiled over the top of his brandy. “Of course.”
That however was not it. He frowned. “Of course?” he repeated. Fury rolled off his person in waves. Odd, he’d never known one could taste, see, and breathe rage. It was volatile and potent, and threatened to consume him. He took several slow, calming breaths. They had little effect to stem his anger.
“Yes.” A wry grin turned the other man’s lips and he likely had no idea how close to a vicious thrashing he was. “Of course.”
He gritted his teeth, glad at last to have more solid grounds with which to hate the marquess on. “You do not even know me.” Daisy’s smiling visage flitted through his mind.
“You’re a duke, Crawford.” Roxbury motioned to him, waving his drink in his direction. “You’re obscenely wealthy and you have a familial connection to the lady’s family. I think your suitability has been aptly gauged.”
Auric tightened his hands upon the arms of his seat as he considered the handful of dukes of his acquaintance. A combination of aged, lecherous, and widowered, not a single one of them would have been fit to scrape the hem of Daisy’s skirt with their gloved fingertips, let alone wed her and bed her. By Roxbury’s standards, then, any one of those dukes with their fat purses would have been hastily accepted whether the lady willed it or not.
Roxbury cleared his throat. “Would you have me tell you no?” he asked, consternation underlining that question.
Yes, yes if Auric was undeserving of her, then that is precisely what he’d have the man do. “No.” Yes. How could an answer be both? And yet, it was. He’d have the man at least allow him to present his offer and determine his worth as a man. Swallowing a curse, he slid his gaze away. An uncomfortable pall of silence descended upon the room, punctuated by the ticking clock at the back corner of the room.
This untenable existence Daisy had known through the years, with a stranger responsible for her care, shook him. How wrong he and Wessex had been. The lady’s need for protection defied a mere marital connection. She’d needed saving from her lonely world where the man charged with her care was nothing more than a stranger, the late Roxbury’s only male cousin, who’d slipped into the role of marquess following the older man’s passing. Guilt balled in his throat, nearly choking him. He loathed the idea of her dependent on one such as this for her care. He shifted his attention back to Roxbury, holding his stare. “No, I would not have you reject my suit.” He proceeded to lay out the generous terms of the contract that raised the other man’s eyebrows nearly to his hairline.
The absolute rightness of being here filled Auric. He had little right to her, yet he would care for her and see she didn’t dwell in this uncertain, dark existence she now did. He shoved himself to his feet. “I’ll procure a special license. We’ll be wed within the week.”
That, in itself, should have roused the gentleman’s concern as a guardian. Instead, Roxbury continued to sip away at that damned brandy, as casual as he’d been the whole damned exchange. “Of course,” he said, uttering another one of those damned “of courses”. No concern for Daisy forthcoming. Roxbury set down his glass and stood. “Is there anything else you require?”
Just Daisy. “No. That will be all.” With stiff movements, he started for the door and then stopped at the entrance, as a thought came to him. “Actually, I do require something, Roxbury.” The man listened while Auric spoke, nodding at all the appropriate places. With that, he took his leave of Roxbury. Auric needed to see Daisy.
Daisy sat at the window seat and through the slight gap in the ivory satin curtains, stared down into the London streets. She pulled her knees close to her chest and a little sigh escaped her. He’d asked to wed her. An almost giddy excitement bubbled up in her chest and spilled past her lips. She buried her head into her skirts and laughed. The sound was unrestrained and free and real.
She’d spent the better part of the last few years believing he didn’t see her—not in the way she longed for him to notice her. Yet, his presence at Gipsy Hill not once, not twice, but a third time were not the actions of an uninterested gentleman who failed to register her existence. Nor were they merely the actions of a man with an obligation to her brother, as was evidenced in his proposal. And his kiss. And the heated manner in which he’d studied her through thick-hooded lids. Suddenly, the gypsy’s bauble worn by Lady Stanhope and her sisters no longer mattered. The talisman Daisy had hung her hopes upon, was now unnecessary and unneeded as something proved far greater than magic—the love she carried for Auric.
Daisy furrowed her brow. And whatever it was Auric felt for her. Did he love her? Her mind danced around the truth of that question. Of course he loved her. He’d not have asked to marry her if he did not. Why, Daisy? Aren’t most marriages based on powerful connections and a ge
neral fondness between two people and not much more? She thrust aside the niggling of doubt peppering her mind.
She raised her head and inched the curtain back, expanding her view of the activity below. After Auric had handed her into her carriage yesterday morn, he’d not said another word about his offer. He’d not indicated when he would call upon her guardian, father’s second cousin, who’d been charged with her care. She contemplatively chewed her lower lip. Part of her had believed he would arrive first thing that morning to speak with the new marquess and then come immediately after their meeting. She stole a glance across the room at the ormolu clock.
Once again, her own misgivings swirled in her belly. In all the dreams she’d carried of the moment Auric at last realized his love for her, that offer would have looked so very different than that almost hastily spoken question that hadn’t really been a question in the middle of Gipsy Lane. She’d not ever needed anything of the material such as flowers or sonnets from him. There would, however, have been his grand declaration of unwavering love.
In the crystal windowpane, her frowning visage reflected back. “Don’t be silly,” she muttered. In the same way in which life had changed her, Auric too had been changed from smiling, garrulous boy to this oft somber, laconic fellow revered by all, feared by most. He would never be one of those gentlemen to wax poetic, nor did she crave those empty words. Rather, she’d have his heart and the man he’d become with time’s passage.
A black carriage with the familiar crest of a roaring lion interrupted her musings. She swung her legs over the side of the bench. Her skirts settled around her ankles with a soft rustle. A servant pulled the door open and Auric stepped down. The wind whipped his cloak and it swirled about his thick, well-muscled legs clad in immaculate, black breeches.
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 100