by Anne Gracie
He shook his head. “I helped arrange it.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re asking someone like me. There are plenty of fine unmarried highborn girls out there.”
“I know. But I’ve changed me mind. I don’t want to marry a toff’s daughter—I want you. And before you say anything, I’m not askin’ ‘someone like you’—I’m asking you. And there’s no one like you. You’re one of a kind, Daisy Chance.”
Which was the message he’d been trying to send her with those flowers. But it seemed his girl didn’t understand the language of flowers. Or maybe she did and just didn’t like it. She still had that troubled, mulish look on her face.
“So I’m asking you to marry me. What do you say?”
He could see before she even opened her mouth that he wasn’t going to like her answer.
She twisted a bit of material between nervous fingers. “Well, those were real nice words, Flynn, and I’m truly flattered. And I’m sorry, but it still ain’t going to happen. I’m the last girl you should marry.”
“Why would you say such a thing? Explain it to me, Daisy, so I can understand.”
For a long moment he thought she wasn’t going to respond. But she gave a sigh and said, “All right, but you’re not going to like it.”
He shrugged. “I haven’t liked anything you’ve said so far, so what have I got to lose?”
Daisy seated herself in her window seat, tucking her feet under her, and gestured him to a chair halfway across the room. He took the chair and moved it closer, close enough for him to reach out and touch her. Typical Flynn—never did what she asked.
Why couldn’t he simply accept her no and leave her alone? It was hard enough for her to push him away without him fighting it.
She took a deep breath—she wasn’t looking forward to this. “A few moments ago you called me an innocent girl. I’m not. I’m a bastard, a—”
“I know. You told me the first day we met you were born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“Let me finish, Flynn,” she said quietly. He waited. “I’m a bastard, a foundling—even my own mum didn’t want me. And before I come to live with Lady Bea and the girls, I didn’t live a respectable life.”
“Me neither. Some of the things I did when I was a lad tryin’ to survive on me own.” He shrugged. “You do what you can to stay alive. I won’t judge you, Daisy.”
All right, so she was going to have to lay it on the line here. “I haven’t finished yet. I’m not a virgin.”
There was a short silence, then he shrugged. “Neither am I.”
She gritted her teeth. He wasn’t taking her seriously. “Yeah, well, I doubt you lived in a brothel most of your life.”
That rocked him. “A brothel?”
She nodded. She was tempted to leave it there, let him draw his own conclusions, but pride, and something in the way he was looking at her—with compassion rather than judgement or disgust—made her continue. “It’s not what you think—I never did sell me body. I was a maidservant, scrubbin’ and cleanin’ and doin’ whatever needed doin’. At the beck and call of the girls and their customers.” She let that sink in and added, “But I ain’t no innocent. And I ain’t no virgin.”
“But—” He frowned, trying to piece it all together.
“Abby and Damaris and Jane ain’t really me sisters. I met Abby in the street.” She was quite prepared to tell Flynn the worst about her own life, but the other girls’ stories were theirs to tell, and private from everybody except their husbands and Lady Bea.
“And through Abby you met Jane and Damaris, I see. What an incredible coincidence, running into your half sister like that. How did you know? You don’t look alike.”
She looked up and gave him a piercing look. “You’ll keep this private, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“We’re not half sisters at all. I am a bastard—at least I assume my mum and dad never married, whoever they were—but I’m a foundling. The girls are no relation to me at all.”
“No relation at all?”
“Nope.”
“Then how did a chance meeting in the street turn into . . . all this.” He spread his hands, indicating the grand house she was now living in.
“I was homeless. I’d just run away from the brothel. Mrs. B., the owner, had decided to retire and she gave it over to her son Mort. He was a nasty piece of work, Mort, and the place . . . changed. It weren’t safe for me no more.” She shivered recalling how she’d been told by one of the girls that Mort had promised Daisy to a man who liked beating up girls, and who fancied himself a crippled little maidy.
“And Abby?”
“Abby took me in.”
“Took you in? A stranger she’d just met on the street? Didn’t she know about the brothel?”
“She knew. She’s got a heart as big as Hyde Park, has Abby.” She swallowed. There was more to the story, but she wasn’t going to tell him about Jane and Damaris being kidnapped and sold to Mort. She’d helped them escape and because of that Abby had taken her in.
And called her sister, through thick and thin.
“And then when we came here to live with Lady Bea, Abby brought me with her.”
“And Lady Beatrice?”
“Knows all about me. I told you, I don’t tell lies, and I wasn’t goin’ to lie to a helpless old lady.”
Flynn snorted. “Nothing helpless about her that I can see.”
“She was helpless then, believe me,” Daisy said softly, remembering the state they’d found the old lady in. “She’d been sick.” And neglected and abused by her pigs of servants, but she wasn’t going to talk about that either—the old lady had her pride and those dark and desperate days were long past.
“So that’s it, me scandalous past. I’ve had two lovers before y—” She broke off. Calling Flynn her lover wouldn’t be smart.
He swooped in on it. “Before me, which makes it third time lucky.”
“You ain’t my lover, Flynn,” she said quietly.
He gave a slow, sleepy-eyed smile. “I beg to differ.” His gaze dropped to her chest where her blasted nipples were probably sitting up beggin’ him to take notice.
She folded her arms. “Look, apart from all that, I can’t be your wife. I’m not any kind of lady, I don’t know how to run a house or be a hostess to grand people—”
“I’ve seen you—”
“You’ve seen me pour ’em cups of tea and talk to them—yeah. Not hold a ball or plan a dinner party or organize a soirée or a Venetian breakfast—whatever that is. I don’t know the first thing about how to run a household. And I could never bring meself to play Lady Bountiful to your poor folk.”
He frowned. “What poor folk?”
“The ones on your estate.”
“Oh, those ones.” He nodded.
“See, Abby and Jane and Damaris could. They’ve never been one of the poor.”
“But—”
“Oh I know they had nothin’ and no one and were in danger of starvation—we all were.” His brows shot up in surprise, and she realized she hadn’t told him that bit.
“And that’s for your ears only, so don’t blab about it. Their poverty was just accidental, anyway. They fell into it. It’s not the same as being born poor, like me—the real proper poor, I mean.”
“Why? Poverty is poverty no matter who you are.”
“No, it’s not.” She thought about how to explain. “For some folks, poverty is a . . . is an attitude. If you think you’re poor, you’ll always be poor, and even if you get rich, some little part of you always remembers bein’ poor, and still feels poor inside. Abby and Damaris and Jane—they had posh parents and fell into poverty by accident—so they’d be good at playin’ Lady Bountiful. Though Jane, I reckon, still feels poor inside at times . . .�
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She shook her head. She’d gotten off the track. “But I could never play Lady Bountiful, taking baskets of food and clothes . . . and stuff like that to the poor—the real poor—people like me, I mean. It’d feel all wrong. As if I was lording it over them or summat. You got to be born to do that kind of thing, I reckon.”
There was a long silence. “I see,” he said at last.
“So you understand me point of view?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“So you see now why I’m the wrong sort of girl for you?”
“No.”
“What? But I just explained—”
“You’ve explained why you don’t want to play Lady Bountiful. And that you were born into poverty. In that, I reckon we’re well matched. I was poor—real proper poor—too, and I have that little corner in me. It’s a kind of hunger, that’s always there, reminding you. Haunting you.”
She nodded. That was it, all right.
“But as for Lady Bountiful, I don’t have any poor who need visiting or baskets of food. I don’t have any poor at all. At the moment my ‘estate’ is a set of rented rooms in St James that was once occupied by Freddy Hyphen-Hyphen, and the only other inhabitant is my valet, Tibbins.”
“But—”
“It’s true I want a big house—you must have heard me talk about it a dozen times—but I have no plans for a large country estate with tenants—poor or otherwise. I might buy a house in the country—maybe somewhere near Max’s place, looking out over the sea—but my main home will be in London.”
He added, “Of course, you could always take baskets of food to Tibbins, though I don’t know how he’d—”
“You’re laughing at me!”
He smiled. “Just a little. You’re inventing reasons, sweetheart. Nothing you’ve told me has changed my mind in the least. All of those things you’ve mentioned you could learn if you put half a mind to it. Running a household must be a damn sight easier than running a business, but the prospect of that doesn’t bother you at all.”
And that was the nub of it.
“Yeah, I probably could—if I wanted to.” She took a deep breath. “But the thing is, Flynn, I don’t want to. I don’t want to be anyone’s wife. It’s not you. I like you, Flynn, like you a lot, in fact—”
“In fact?” he prompted.
She shook her head. “The point is, if I was goin’ to marry anyone, it’d probably be you.”
“Only probably?” He leaned forward but she held up her hands to ward him off. His eyes were so very blue, it took every bit of strength she had to say what she knew she had to say.
“I told you before, I don’t want a husband. I don’t want to have kids. I got plans for me life—plans that don’t include marriage. So . . .”—she swallowed and forced the rest out. “I thank you for the offer. I’m very honored you asked me, but I’m sorry, the answer’s no.”
There was a long silence. Then he took a deep breath and stood up. “I suppose I’d better take myself off, then.”
“Sorry, Flynn,” she said again. She felt terrible. It was the worst thing in the world, being told someone didn’t want you. Especially since she did.
She wanted Flynn something fierce.
She just didn’t want to be a wife.
He turned. “I might have lost the first round, but I’m not yet ready to throw in the towel.” He gave her a swift smile. “I’ll be back. I don’t give up that easy, Daisy-girl.”
He let himself quietly out of her room, closing the door after him with a soft click.
Flynn walked slowly downstairs. He didn’t understand.
He was a good catch, if he said so himself. Hell, he was a great catch: fit, strong, rich, lusty, with all his own teeth and hair.
Women liked him—ladies of Langwhatsit aside—and he’d had plenty of invitations to prove it. But he didn’t go messing around in anyone’s marriage bed—he didn’t hold with infidelity. He’d be a good and faithful husband, he knew.
He knew in his bones, in his blood that Daisy fancied him as much as he fancied her.
So why was it so apparently unthinkable? So bloody daft?
She’d given him a string of reasons, none of which prevented them from marrying, as far as he was concerned. He didn’t care about her past, it was her future he cared about—her future with him.
So what was wrong with the girl?
Featherby stood waiting in the hall. He’d known Flynn’s intention—it was why he’d let him see Daisy alone. He didn’t say anything—it was not a butler’s place to ask—but a faint lifting of his brow was enough.
“She turned me down,” Flynn told him.
Featherby’s brows shot up. “You did ask her to marry you, didn’t you, sir? I mean, she knew what you were offering?”
Flynn nodded. “She knew. I was more than clear. She called it a ‘daft notion.’”
Featherby stared at him. “What maggot’s got into her head now?” he murmured half to himself.
“I don’t know,” Flynn said. “But I aim to find out.”
* * *
Daisy waited until she was sure Flynn was gone.
Then she burst into tears.
He hadn’t been bothered by her lack of virginity, her job in the brothel—anything.
But he needed a different sort of woman to run his home and have his kids. He might think he wanted Daisy now, while he was hot for her body—and who was the fool who’d kissed him and started that? Who’d led him on? Who’d wrapped her legs shamelessly around his waist and let him do whatever he wanted? She’d wanted it too.
But once the heat wore off he’d be wondering why he’d married her, and comparing her to the kind of proper lady he could have had.
She knew she’d be found wanting.
She wasn’t the marrying kind. She wanted to be a famous dressmaker patronized by rich folks, not a wife and a mother—that was for other women, not her. She’d never wanted kids, never dreamed of having them, the way Abby and the other two did.
Even Lady Bea felt her life had been blighted by not being able to have a child of her own. Not Daisy.
Flynn wanted a quiverful of kids.
Refusing him was the right thing for both of them, she knew.
But oh, how it hurt to have to tell him no.
There was a sweetness in the man that she’d never encountered in any man before, especially not a man who was also tough and strong and masculine. And gorgeous.
And rich.
And gorgeous.
If she’d been born different . . . No there was no use going down that pathway. Some things in life you could have and others it was best not to even think about.
* * *
A short time later Featherby brought up a tea tray. Daisy, who at his knock had snatched up some sewing to give the impression she was working, set it aside, hoping he wouldn’t notice her red-rimmed eyes. Or if he did, that he wouldn’t ask about them.
He glanced at her once, then fussed about quietly, setting out little cakes and a pot and teacup. Strong India tea, just the way she liked it. Her favorite cakes. Not saying a thing.
He knew. Featherby always knew.
He bowed himself out and closed the door carefully behind him. The same way Flynn had.
I’ll be back. I don’t give up that easy, Daisy-girl.
More tears came then. She blinked them away. She poured her tea and as she stirred in the sugar she found herself staring at the sugar lumps piled up in their little silver dish.
She was like one of these lumps of sugar—all hard and like a rock . . . until you dropped it in a cup of hot tea. Then watch it soften and melt and fall apart.
But sometimes, there was a little core of hardness that refused to dissolve, no matter how hard you stirred it.
She had to be that hard little lump from
now on.
Else she’d lose herself.
Chapter Fourteen
It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides.
—JANE AUSTEN, PERSUASION
Lady Beatrice had summoned them all to dine that evening—just a family dinner before they went off to attend their various engagements: Max and Abby and Freddy and Damaris were going to the theater, and Lady Bea was taking Jane to a soirée musicale—which was like a concert, only in somebody’s home.
Daisy had been to a few soirées in the early days of living with Lady Bea. They were all right if the people playing or singing were talented, but sometimes they weren’t.
Lady Bea, who was utterly thrilled by what she called Abby’s delicate situation and sometimes her interesting condition and occasionally the impending happy event—apparently proper ladies didn’t say pregnant, or up the duff or having a bun in the oven—was using it as an excuse to gather her gels around her more frequently than ever.
Tonight it particularly suited Daisy; she’d thought long and hard about Mrs. Foster’s offer, and now she was ready to talk to Max and Freddy about silent partners and what they did or didn’t do.
Luckily, Flynn hadn’t been included in the dinner invitation. She wasn’t sure why, but she suspected Featherby had said something to Lady Bea.
It would have been impossible trying to talk to him with the whole family looking on. And she didn’t want him to know about any silent partner possibility, yet. He’d be hurt that she’d rather accept help from a stranger than from a friend.
He didn’t understand: She was trying to protect him, trying to protect their friendship. If they even had a friendship now.
She pushed it out of her mind and tried to concentrate on the matter at hand: the silent partnership.
She liked both her brothers-in-law. Freddy was fun and easy to talk to, but she was a little in awe of Max; he was graver and more thoughtful. Very much head-of-the-family. Tonight Freddy was seated beside her, which made things easier.
“Freddy,” she said after the first course had been removed and while the dishes for the second were being brought out. “Can you tell me a bit about what happened when you became a silent partner in Flynn and Co.?”
