by Maya Rodale
“Now, wait—”
“This is my last chance to mold you into a man we can both be proud of. A man of purpose. A man of accomplishment. You know that I do not fail, Theodore.”
Theo was not opposed to becoming a man of purpose or accomplishment. But he was very opposed to what his father said next.
Meanwhile, at 854 Fifth Avenue . . .
“Marriage!” Daisy spit out the word. Her mother had just included the words you and Theo Prescott the Third and marriage in the same sentence. And she was serious. “I am shocked. Horrified. Nauseated.”
“Enough with all the vocabulary words, darling. You know men don’t like women smarter than them.”
“Which is why men are idiots, starting with Theodore Prescott the Third. I swear that man has tissue paper for brains.”
“He’s very charming and very handsome. Those blue eyes. That golden-blond hair. Very well dressed, too. That boy has an eye for a good suit and wears it well.”
Daisy rolled her eyes.
“But he’s also an utter wastrel, mother. He and his pack of friends are a bunch of spoiled, mean-spirited blights upon the city.”
“You aren’t still upset about that afternoon in the park all those years ago?” Just the mention of it made Daisy’s anger flare. “That was years ago. A lifetime ago, practically.”
It may have been a lifetime ago, but it felt like just yesterday. Laughter like that wasn’t something a girl ever forgot. It was burned in her memory and inscribed in her soul.
“Indeed, it was years ago, Mother. More than a decade, in fact. And yet people still call me Ugly Duck Daisy. Just last week someone quacked when I went into supper.”
Her mother mumbled something about boys being boys and getting over youthful indiscretions. Daisy was not inclined to agree. Mean boys grew up to be mean men and youthful indiscretions had a long half-life.
“I’m not still upset about it, if that’s what you think, Mother. But when a man shows you who he is, believe him. Theodore Prescott the Third has shown that he cares only about appearances and impressing his idiot friends. The most recent example of which is the Saratoga Scandal. But there is no point in discussing this. I have no intention of marrying anyone, least of all Theodore Prescott the Third. I will eat my hat, feathers and hat pins and all, before I walk down the aisle to him.”
“Daisy, I really must urge you to reconsider.”
Her mother sipped her tea nervously. She refused to meet her daughter’s eyes, piquing Daisy’s curiosity.
“Why, Mother? Why must I consider an arranged marriage of mutual loathing?”
“I think you two might have some chemistry together . . .”
“That is patently false and absurd. You’re the one who consoled me every time he, or his friends, or all the popular people teased me or excluded me. What is the real reason?”
And now Mrs. Evelina Swan was adding a heaping spoonful of sugar to her tea and taking a second bite of a sandwich. These were things she never, ever did—she was forever on a restricting regime—unless she was very upset indeed.
“What have you done, dearest mother?”
“Well. Theodore Prescott the Second and I were seated together at Mrs. Astor’s dinner last week. Of course we talked about our children, given that you and Theo are the same age and did grow up together, in a way. After young Theo’s trouble in Saratoga . . .”
No.
Daisy closed her eyes.
No. No. No.
Theo was in trouble and she was to be his penance.
“He thought marriage to the right woman would be just the thing for his son. Someone sensible. Disciplined. Unswayed by frivolity. I thought he might marry you.”
Meanwhile, at the Prescott residence . . .
“I’ve decided what you need is a wife,” Theodore Prescott the Second said to his son, who startled at the suggestion. Theo adored women, but so far none of the beautiful debutantes whose company he enjoyed could hold his attentions and affections for more than a fortnight, let alone the rest of their lives.
“I don’t think marriage is the answer—”
“The right wife will force you to settle down and become serious about something. The right wife will keep you in line. You need someone sensible. A no-nonsense type of woman. Someone who will manage things for you.”
“Are you advertising for a wife or a governess?”
His father fixed him with The Stare. “A wife.”
“Clearly the stuff of romance and fantasies.”
“I have just the woman in mind.”
“I’m breathless with anticipation.”
His father gave him a strong look of disapproval. Which cut all the more because all Theo ever wanted was his father’s approval.
“You might as well tell me the name of this paragon of management whom I am to make my bride,” Theo said, forcing himself to sound bored, when in fact his heart was thundering with rage and disappointment. He was being fobbed off, like last season’s suit. Because his father was too busy with other more important things than his son—like making even more money. They did not need more money.
“Miss Daisy Swan.”
Daisy Swan?
Theo’s jaw dropped. Was his father out of his mind?
Theo took one look and saw that, no, his father was not insane or joking.
No one had ever uttered a more swift and immediate “no” than Theo in that moment.
“And why not?”
Theo didn’t know how to say it. He wanted his father’s attention—and maybe even his approval—for who he was, not who he married. He wanted to be wanted for who he was, flaws and all. He didn’t want to be delegated to someone else, especially a bride he didn’t choose.
Especially Daisy Quacking Swan.
But Theo did not know how to say these things. He could scarcely make sense of the feelings inside and articulate them in his mind, let alone put them into words that he would say aloud. To his father. Who was famous for intimidating people with just a stare. Theo had a first-rate education—he went to Harvard, even—but it had not included talking about his innermost feelings to the man whose approval he sought the most.
But his father was staring at him—that stare!—and he had to say something.
“She’s not quite my type.”
“On this we can agree. Your type tends to be breasty and breathy, with champagne for brains. Your type tends to inspire you to commit acts of grand larceny and disturbing the peace.”
He was referring to Annabelle Jones, his costar in the Saratoga Scandal. She was a celebrated stage actress with whom he had absconded on a stolen horse and carriage owned by one of Saratoga’s wealthiest men. For reasons he dared not breathe a word of.
His father leaned against the desk, leaned toward his son. “I think, speaking father to son, that you should try a new type.”
Maybe. But Daisy Swan was not the solution.
He loved the social whirl while she preferred to stick her nose in a book. She was smart and she made sure everyone knew it. When she did attend parties, she stuck to her group of friends in the corner reserved for spinsters, suffragists, crones, and eccentrics. She even occasionally cast disapproving glances toward him and his fellow Rogues and the beautiful, stylish women who surrounded them.
Daisy wasn’t exactly beautiful. He didn’t consider her desirable. He hadn’t considered her in that way at all, really. Theo did have some notion of actually wanting to be with his future wife.
But the thing he really disliked about Daisy Swan was her way of making him feel frivolous and vaguely silly. Ornamental, even. Not unlike how his father made him feel, come to think of it.
Theo did not want to spend the rest of his life shackled to a woman who thought him frivolous and vaguely silly.
“You cannot simply spend your days and nights living a life of idle amusements at your club with your questionable friends. I suppose it is my fault for allowing you to persist in the belief that you could. I though
t you needed more time to develop a head and appetite for business but to my great regret, I fear you never will.”
In other words, Theo was a hopeless case.
“This is my last chance to be a good father to you.”
His father punctuated this with The Stare.
“This is my chance to make you into a man we can both be proud of.”
“How about sending me to the army instead? Or downtown for a stint in the Tombs?”
He was only half joking.
“You will marry Daisy Swan. Or you will be cut off.”
The twist of the knife was that all Theo ever wanted was his father’s approval, though he so often settled for his attention. Getting his antics in the gossip columns was one of the few ways to get Theo the elder to lift his head from his desk and to step away from his business and give his son his undivided attention.
Was marrying Daisy Swan what Theo had to do to finally secure his father’s good opinion? Or was marrying him off to a responsible, managing woman his father’s way of washing his hands of Theo forever?
“I think I might have a purpose after all,” Theo remarked as he stood and made his way to the door. “Not marrying Daisy Swan.”
Meanwhile, at the Swan residence . . .
“I won’t do it,” Daisy said flatly. “Nothing in the world could compel me to even consider shackling myself to anyone I didn’t love, let alone someone I loathe.”
She had seen and heard enough to know that marriage, if not undertaken in precisely the right circumstances and with exactly the right person, would be a prison sentence. So many society women had married to advance their status and it made them miserable. There were not enough diamond brooches and ropes of pearls in the world to compensate for despising one’s spouse.
Besides, Daisy had things she wished to do in life and nowhere on her list was marriage to a man like Theo, who would ignore her and embarrass her and invite his awful friends over to their home to tease and embarrass her there. She would have no respite.
Call her crazy, but Daisy thought she deserved better.
She thought she deserved love.
And if not that, then at least her independence. And she was so close to being an undeniable spinster, with all the freedom it promised.
Daisy looked out the windows and saw storm clouds gathering, heavy and dark in the sky, and it fit her mood perfectly.
“Now, darling, he’s so handsome. His father is rich. Society adores them both.”
“Not after what happened in Saratoga.”
The newspapers spilled gallons and gallons of ink on his latest exploit. She’d heard that it involved a midnight dash on a stolen thoroughbred. With an infamous actress of some renown and a bedsheet wrapped around them both.
Very little was left to wonder.
Yet society managed to discuss it endlessly.
Marriage to her must be his penance and punishment. They probably wanted her to reform him. As if she didn’t have better things to do with her time! As if she didn’t have plans and ambitions of her own that did not involve the reformation of wayward rogues.
“Daisy—I beg of you to consider it.”
Something in her mother’s voice made Daisy turn away from the window, away from the storm clouds, away from her thoughts. “Why? What is the real reason, Mother?”
Her mother crossed the plush carpet to shut the engraved oak door to the parlor in their Fifth Avenue mansion.
“We need the money,” her mother said in a low voice.
“Father is wealthy. His brokerage firm manages the fortunes of the wealthiest families in Manhattan. My sisters have all married well. We live in one of the finest residences in the city and count ourselves among Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred.”
“We will need the money.”
“You better explain everything.”
“I cannot say,” her mother exclaimed, while anxiously gripping the folds of her antique rose silk dress. It was a Worth gown, from Paris, to be treated with the utmost care. “Your father is involved in something . . . oh, nefarious is probably too strong a word but . . . I don’t fully understand it. I’ve only overheard things. I know it’s bad, Daisy, and so I need to see all my girls wed before the scandal breaks. Otherwise, what will become of us?”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine. We have friends. We could go live with one of my sisters. I’m sure Rose, Camilla, or Lily would love your company.”
“If you don’t marry soon, you might not have a prayer of a decent marriage at all. Ever.”
Excellent. “What if I don’t wish to marry?”
“You must. There’s no ladylike way to support yourself otherwise.”
This was not quite true and Daisy knew it. Women all over the city worked in factories and as seamstresses, writers, servants, or other lowly positions that, admittedly, were not done by a woman of Daisy’s station if they could help it. She wasn’t above doing such honest work, but she knew there were other women who supported themselves by their wits and talents. Madam C. J. Walker owned her own business selling hair care products for women. Just last month she had seen the estimable Elizabeth Perkins Gilman speak on women’s suffrage—she’d supported her family for decades by giving speeches and publishing a newspaper. Why, last year her mother redecorated their town house with furnishings purchased from Mrs. Ayer of Sypher’s Antiques. And those were just the ones she knew of, off the top of her head.
Her mother may not wish to acknowledge such women, but Daisy looked to them like a beacon. They gave her hope of making her own dreams come true.
But this was not a conversation to have while her mother was in such an agitated state.
“What has Father done that would bankrupt us so completely?” Daisy asked. He was the president of a brokerage firm and incredibly sought after for his wisdom and investment advice and consistently generous returns. He spent most days at his office and evenings at his club. When she was younger, her father had often discussed business in her presence but since she made her debut, she’d been left to her mother’s care.
“I cannot say,” her mother said.
“You owe me an explanation, Mother. You can’t ask me to do something like this without a full explanation.”
“When I say I cannot, I mean that I can’t explain—I don’t quite understand it. It’s all very complicated and quite possibly not even legal. I overheard some things, you see, and when I mentioned it to your father, he said our situation was dire and that I should make sure our girls are taken care of sooner rather than later.”
“What did you hear? What did he say?”
Her mother repeated some choice words, like fraudulent and investment and did her best to explain what seemed to be a dire situation.
“Oh, damn,” Daisy whispered.
Jack Swan was not exactly a family man. He was forever busy with his work, his schemes, his whatever he did that kept the family in luxury. No one ever asked questions—as long as her mother had the latest fashions and Daisy’s tuition was paid, they had no reason to question the source of the family’s wealth.
But maybe they should have.
They definitely should have.
If her mother had the right of it. Daisy had learned at a young age that her mother wasn’t as flighty as people often assumed her to be.
“Until then we need to keep up appearances. You must marry, and soon, and it must be someone like Theodore Prescott the Third. Or else—”
Marriage to a powerful man—submerging herself in his name and social standing—was the obvious thing to do, the easy way out of any scheme or scandal. She would be somewhat protected from the worst of a scandal, and her mother would be at liberty to take an extended tour of the continent until the worst of it blew over. But Daisy would have to live with him—Theo—as his wife. Forever. Marriage was a shortsighted solution.
And Daisy had other ideas.
She, too, harbored ambitions.
She saw, perhaps, another way.
“
I won’t be used as a pawn,” she said. “I will not sacrifice the rest of my life because of one potential scandal. If the situation is really dire,” Daisy continued, “I shall find another way. I could earn the money.”
“This isn’t your scheme to make and sell complexion balm, is it? I have told you, Daisy. No respectable woman would be seen buying it, let alone wearing it.” Her mother closed her eyes and groaned. She had resumed lying on the fainting couch. “And how will it look for one of Manhattan’s finest families to have a daughter engage in trade?”
“I thought we were facing catastrophic scandal. Who will care at that point?”
“It will only make things worse. Besides, you’ll never make enough to keep yourself in the style in which you were raised.”
Yes, the standards were high—they lived in one of the premier residences in Manhattan and moved in the best circles. But Daisy could point to other women who had earned such fortunes—Madam C. J. Walker. Or her dressmaking friend, Adeline Black, who was well on her way to doing so. Or—and this was a scandalous thought in the present age—Daisy could be happy with enough. Society bored her. One only needed so many dresses.
“Maybe I don’t need to live in the style in which I was raised.”
“Even if you embarked on your mad scheme, Daisy, you’ll need your good reputation and social standing to convince the women of society to try your silly product. You must marry him! It’s the best way, the only way, to ensure your future.”
One look in her mother’s eyes revealed that Mrs. Evelina Swan was committed. She truly feared for the looming scandal and would do anything to avoid it or protect her daughter from it.
But Daisy had gotten one thing from her mother, if not her looks: the same stubborn streak and iron will. “I refuse. I simply won’t do it.”
And with that, she stormed out.
Unfortunately, she did so without her coat. Or hat. Or umbrella.
The sky was a putrid, purple gray, thick with menacing clouds, and promised an unholy deluge of rain. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon but the world was shrouded in the darkness of a later hour. It was a dreadful time for storming out of the house in a self-righteous fury and forgetting one’s things. But one could not sheepishly return for them and attempt to slink out of the house again.
