If a Lady Lingers

by Anna Harrington

  “So I paid it.”

  The pencil fell from her hand and clattered onto the wood floor. “You did what?”

  “I paid up their tuition for the term.” With a shrug, he turned away from her and began looking through the plans and sketches on the desk of all the projects she’d been working on recently. Unfortunately, none of them were for paying clients. “Well, for the rest of the academic year, actually.”

  She knew now—she was definitely angry at him. “Why did you do that?”

  He shrugged. “There was surely some kind of accounting error on Harrow’s part that needs to be resolved, but I didn’t want to embarrass the headmaster by pointing that out.”

  No. He’d decided to embarrass her. There was no accounting mistake, and this frustrating man knew it, too. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I don’t mind at all, especially since your father won’t be paid for the house until it’s finished, which will be at least four months from now and well into the spring term.” He shook his head with a smile, as if what he’d done was nothing more than fetching the morning post. “Besides, what difference does it make? I pay you, you pay Harrow…so I just paid them directly and saved you the trouble.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Seemed to work just fine when I— Look at this!” He picked up a set of plans. “What are these for?”

  Her stomach plunged. He’d found the plans for her dream house. “Nothing important. Please give them back.”

  But he turned away, ostensibly to hold them up to the window to see better by the afternoon sunshine but also so she couldn’t take them out of his hands. Drat him! He was making her more furious by the moment.

  He whistled in appreciation. “These are wonderfully grand designs.”

  “I told you. They’re not important.” She made an unladylike grab across his front and successfully snatched them away.

  “But they’re marvelous,” he protested, gesturing at the plans. “I’ve never seen a dining room like—” He stopped. And blinked. Then she saw the realization seep over his face. “You created these, didn’t you?”

  She stashed them beneath the other designs on her desk. “They’re just something I’ve been playing with.”

  “You’ve got wonderful talent, Daisy. Those are as good as any house plans I’ve ever seen.”

  She grimaced and muttered, “You’ve seen a lot of house plans, have you?”

  “Dozens and dozens.” But his eyes gleamed at that obvious lie. “That’s how I knew to come to your father. Because he’s one of the best architects in England.” He sent her a crooked grin. “Apparently, the apple fell directly under the tree.”

  “Please.” Embarrassment heated her cheeks. Why wouldn’t he just mind his own business? “It’s only my imagination running wild, that’s all. You can’t give them credence.”

  He studied her closely. “Why are you so shy about your talents? I think your plans and designs are wonderful. In fact, I think you should—”

  Enough! She wheeled on him, her hands clenched into fists at her sides as her patience snapped, and she turned the conversation onto him. “Why do you always dress so outlandishly?”

  With a gasp, she clasped her hands over her mouth after the thoughtless words had tumbled out. Oh no! Oh, she’d gone and ruined everything!

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled through her fingers as the light dulled in his eyes. “I’m so, so sorry…I didn’t mean…”

  He dropped his gaze to the floor and turned around once more to lean back against the table and fold his arms over his chest. He gave a faint smile, this one sad.

  “No, you’re right,” he said quietly. “I do dress outlandishly, I suppose, compared to most other men. But dressing the other way is just so…”

  Another roll of his shoulders, another refusal to lift his gaze and look at her. And another wave of guilt pierced her.

  “Boring?” she whispered and dropped her hands to her sides.

  “Funeral,” he corrected quietly. “You see, my mother died when I was nine. She was beautiful and lively and bright. I was the youngest and her favorite. Oh, she never would have admitted that, but it was true. My brothers all take after my father, with his looks and personality. I was more like her. The unexpected child, in every way.” Lines creased the corner of his mouth as his smile tightened, then faded. His eyes stayed focused on the floor. “The day she died all the color went out of my world.”

  Her heart cried for him. She knew that same pain.

  “Everything lost its shine,” he admitted. “That’s why I like bright colors so much. They remind me of her.” He turned toward the table and her sketches and absently thumbed through them, but she knew he wasn’t seeing them. “Besides, the world already has enough blacks and browns and grays in it. It doesn’t need any more from me.”

  Wanting to comfort him, she placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a small, reassuring touch. “Hugh, I’m so sorry…for everything.”

  He gave a silent, short nod. Then his head snapped up. He swung his gaze to her, and faint hope sparkled through his grief. “Say that again.”

  She rubbed another consoling caress across his shoulder, the forest green velvet of his jacket soft beneath her fingertips. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I mean my name.” He turned to face her and gently clasped her arms. “That’s the first time you’ve used my given name. Say it again.” He gently squeezed her arms with a low urgency she felt bubbling up inside him. “Please.”

  Apologetically—and warmed by something else she couldn’t name—she whispered, “Hugh.”

  A wide grin spread across his face, and his blue eyes lit with affection and understanding. So much so that she couldn’t help but smile back.

  He reached up to rub a stray tendril of her hair between his fingers. “May I…may I call you Daisy, too?”

  She should have been unsettled by his behavior, but she wasn’t. She’d come to learn over the past few weeks that Hugh Whitby was one of the most gentle, kind-hearted men she’d ever met. “Of course.”

  Her permission impossibly widened his smile. “Daisy,” he mused, repeating her name. “Bright and pretty, just like the flower.”

  “Hugh Whitby.” She arched a brow. “Bright and flirtatious, just like a dandy.”

  He laughed as she hoped he would. But then he surprised her by saying, “And you’re the exact opposite.”

  “Exact opposite of a dandy? Heavens, I’d hope so!”

  She pushed him away from the drafting table with a large swing of her hips. But he simply circled the table until he stood across from her and leaned down on his forearms. His tall and gangly body folded over its surface and blocked her attempt to straighten the drawings pinned beneath his elbows.

  “No, silly.” He refused to move when she swatted at his shoulder. “The exact opposite of me.”

  “Heavens, I’d hope so,” she repeated and tugged the drawings out from under him. “I am a woman, after all.”

  She didn’t mean that as an invitation for him to ponder her femininity, but he did just that by raking a slow look over her. “Oh,” he acknowledged in a drawling murmur, “I’ve noticed.”

  Her cheeks flushed. In her embarrassment, she wanted to crawl under the table and vanish from sight.

  “But I’ve also noticed that you never do anything to draw attention to yourself, which isn’t at all like other women I know.” He cocked his head to the side as he studied her. “No bright colors, no jewelry, no fancy ribbons or lace… You wear plain clothes and simple knots in your hair.” He frowned. “You do everything you can to blend in and never stand out despite how beautiful you are. Why is that?”

  Her lips twisted. Well, that was a backhanded compliment if ever she’d heard one.

  Yet she knew that he’d meant nothing judgmental or insulting; he was simply making an observation. Which made it all the worse because it was true. Since her father’s illness, she�
��d had to fade into the background. She couldn’t risk that she’d be noticed, because if she were noticed for how she looked, then perhaps people would notice what else she was doing. She simply could never be as conspicuous as Whitby and do the work necessary to support her family.

  Still, though, she felt a pang of guilt as she lied, “I don’t do that.”

  “Oh, you do!”

  She began to give him the put-down that deserved, but he cut her off.

  “But why?” He rapped his knuckles on the desk. “Daisy is a posy, all right, but not of the wattle and daub variety.”

  What on earth… “Pardon?”

  “Wallflower,” he explained succinctly.

  She slapped her hands onto her hips and glared at him. “Now that’s just—”

  “You haven’t let yourself have any fun lately, either.”

  That simply flabbergasted her, and she dropped her hands to her sides. “What do you mean? I have fun.”

  “Not according to Elias.”

  So, he was on a first-name basis with her father. And the two had been talking about her. Wonderful. “Oh?”

  “He says that you’ve barely gone to any soirees or events in the past few years, that you’re all work and no play.”

  “That is not—”

  “One.”

  She stopped in mid sentence and blinked. “One what?”

  “Tell me about one event in the past month that you’ve gone to that’s been purely for fun and not related to your father’s architecture. Just one, and then I’ll let the subject drop.”

  Oh, she sincerely doubted that! The man was like a dog with a bone once he’d latched onto an idea. “I’ve attended several, actually.”

  “Should be easy then. Pick one.”

  “All right.” She obstinately lifted her chin. “Well, there was the…” Her mind blanked, and she covered it with a wave of her hand in the general direction of Mayfair. “And just a few weeks ago I went to…” No, no luck there either. Drat him! Then inspiration struck—“I had tea in Lady Hansen’s garden.”

  “Because Elias had been hired to renovate their piano nobile.”

  Her shoulders sank. Double drat him! He was right. Every event that came to mind was connected to her father’s work—to her work. Had she truly let the business and her father’s illness take over her life?

  “See? Point proven. You’ve not let yourself have any fun lately,” he insisted, circling around the table to her. “I believe it, too, given all the hours you’ve put into my house. A person might think that you were the architect and not your father.”

  An electric jolt jarred through her. “That’s…that’s…” She forced a laugh and turned away before he could read the truth on her face, that she longed for exactly that more than anything else in the world. “Me—an architect! What a silly thought.”

  “You need to let yourself have fun and enjoy the world, Daisy. You’ll lose your creative spark otherwise.” He puffed out his chest. “Trust me, I know.”

  Letting that pass without comment upon his complete lack of artistic abilities, she gestured at the drafting table. While there were no plans for other houses or commissioned renovations, she’d taken it upon herself to create a series of interior designs that she planned on putting into a catalogue and distributing among the ton. The collection would serve as bait to lure in wives who’d grown bored with their current houses and wanted to freshen the rooms without embarking on full-scale renovations. Just as Chippendale had done for his furniture, she’d have them printed up and sent out, with personal notes expressing how excited she’d be to bring unique new flare and style to their homes. She couldn’t do that until Whitby’s project was finished and she had the money for the printing, of course, but she wanted to have a full set of designs ready to go. And she couldn’t do that by attending soirees.

  “So you want me to simply put all my work aside and just go out and play?” she asked, unable to keep the frustration from her voice.

  “Yes.” He stepped in front of her and grinned. “Starting right now.”

  Before she could stop him, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her toward the stairway landing, slowing only to snatch her bonnet off its hook beside the door. Then he’d whisked her down through the house and outside, to run with her toward the park and laugh with her at their silliness the entire way.

  Whitby held up what little was left of his lemon ice and watched the sunlight reflect off the tiny slithers of snow left in the little bowl. “Isn’t this marvelous?”

  From the other side of the picnic blanket, Daisy stirred the little spoon through her lemony slush and agreed, “It’s delicious.”

  “Not the taste, although that’s grand.” He sat up from where he’d been lying after devouring most of their impromptu picnic that they’d cobbled together from the row of market stalls along the edge of the park. “I mean the ice itself. It’s marvelous.” He tapped his spoon against the side of her bowl. “Just think about it—ice! We’re sitting here, eating ice that’s been harvested from the far north last winter—or even as far away as America—and brought all the way here across vast oceans and expanses of land without melting. Then it’s stored for months in simple sawdust and finally served now, during the hottest month of the year on one of the warmest days of the summer.”

  “Well, when you put it that way…” Daisy smiled at him from behind the wide brim of her bonnet. “It’s very delicious.”

  He shot her a sideways grin but kept the conversation focused on the ice. “But that’s only half of it. Then, this miraculous substance is flavored with lemons and oranges. Tropical fruits grown in orangeries in England! This concoction shouldn’t exist at all. Don’t you see? Its very existence is— Why, it’s simply miraculous!”

  A smile tugged at her lips. She hid it by taking a quick bite of ice, but he’d seen it. He loved that he’d made her smile.

  He could barely fathom how perfectly lovely she was, sitting there on the blanket with the sun shining on her slender shoulders. Her straw hat with its wide, blue ribbons that dangled loosely across her bodice couldn’t completely hide her golden hair. The cold of the ice had turned her lips invitingly pink and wet, and he wanted nothing more at that moment than to kiss her. Would her lips taste lemony-orangey like the sweet ice? Would they be cold, or would the coolness be like her—only on the surface while pulsing warm beneath?

  Quashing the urge to kiss her, he scooped up the last of his ice and shoveled it into his mouth.

  Around them, the afternoon was bright, and the park was flooded both with people out enjoying the fine weather and with golden sunshine. A warm breeze stirred across the grass and over them at the edge of the water where they’d staked out their picnic after exploring the wilds.

  Explored it? La! They’d conquered it.

  He’d made certain of that, wanting to impress Daisy by giving her a grand time with him. They’d first explored the park on foot, past the ponds and down paths that meandered through the trees. Then he’d rented horses for them at a nearby mews so they could trot along Rotten Row. That hadn’t gone so well. Who knew Daisy was afraid of horses even as small as Shetland ponies? But then they’d played with a group of children who were racing sailboats across one of the ponds, and the terror of the ponies was forgotten. He’d even regaled her with stories about how grandly the park had been decorated for the reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo and then the king’s coronation a few years later, when there had been fireworks, symphonies, and a hot air balloon.

  Their adventure in the park this afternoon had been exactly what both of them needed. Daisy had needed to step away from her work for a few hours and have fun, and he’d needed to be closer to Daisy. Today had given them a wonderful opportunity to have just that.

  “Do you always do that?” she asked, pointing her spoon at his empty bowl of ice. “Find amusement in such little, everyday things?”

  “Always. That’s what life should be about—finding delight in the ordinar
y bits that everybody else takes for granted.” He shook his head. “Not in big fancy parties or galas. Not in all those things most men waste their time on like expensive horses, drink, gambling, beautiful women—” On a second thought… He cut himself off and couldn’t stop from winking at her. “Well, perhaps beautiful women.”

  Her eyes flared, and Whitby feared he’d gone too far with that compliment…until a delicate blush pinked her cheeks, and she shyly dropped her gaze to her ice.

  Good Lord, she was simply lovely. His heart somersaulted for her.

  “I don’t think I could be like that,” she confided to her ice.

  “Sure you could. Anybody can.” He folded his long legs beneath him as he turned toward her on the blanket. “It’s just a matter of how a person chooses to look at the world, you see. I choose to see it as a grand adventure, every part of it just waiting to be explored and every new experience just waiting to be tried at least once.” He grinned. “Well—maybe twice.”

  She laughed. The soft sound drifted to him on the breeze and warmed him as much as the sunshine.

  “See? Look at this.” He plucked a little wildflower from the grass beside the blanket and held it up. It was a small, inconspicuous bloom not even half an inch wide and in the most common shade of yellow. “Most people wouldn’t even notice a little bitty flower like this. They’re too busy looking for large peonies, fragrant honeysuckle, thorny red roses—”

  “I don’t think anyone looks for thorns,” she interrupted.

  “Lots of people, actually.” He let solemnity capture him for a moment. “Seems that some people love nothing better in life than to encounter thorns.” Then he flashed her a grin. “I am not one of them.”

  She gave him a private smile that melted his insides. “Not at all.”

  “The point is that no one notices a little flower like this, when it’s perfectly beautiful in its own understated and simple way.” He turned the flower in his hand as he studied it. “How amazing this little bitty is...how wonderful to find such unexpected prettiness and take delight in it.” Unable to stop himself, he reached across the blanket to present it to her. “A posy for a Daisy.” His voice dropped, and he stole a caress of her arm as he lowered his hand away. “A rare beauty for a rare beauty.”