At her silence, Daniel picked his head up from those sheets and glanced at her.
“Uh, it is a start,” she managed.
He cracked his knuckles. “It is, the only way to see that we both accomplish our like goal. She will be wed, and then I can resume my carousing, and you can…do whatever it is you care to do at Mrs. Belden’s.”
Whatever it is she cared to do. He’d so little interest in the woman she’d become to know her goals beyond this post or even his own sister. Her fledgling respect flickered out like a snuffed candle. “How very touching,” she said with an acerbic edge.
For the first time in the whole of his life, Daniel was filled with—uncertainty. Yes, in matters of—he shuddered—planning a young lady’s London Season, he was remarkably out of his element. Particularly a Season for his sister where his entire happiness, and hers, now rested.
Interestingly, the only woman he’d turn this concern over to was the woman before him. Odd, he’d not seen her in greater than thirteen years, but how easily they’d moved into their respective roles of friends. In some ways. His gaze went to her slender hips and small breasts that would fit quite comfortably into his palms. He grinned wickedly. And not so much, in other ways.
She disapproved of his titled list.
Such an understanding didn’t only come from his ability to read the subtle nuances of a woman’s body but rather because this was Daphne. He knew her in ways that moved beyond the sexual. As a child, he’d long been fascinated by the pronounced vein at her temple that ticked whenever she was displeased or frustrated.
It mattered not. The lady was entitled to her disapproval or disappointment or any of those other fault-finding responses to the person he was. He’d never presented himself falsely before her as someone he was not. He hadn’t done so as a boy and he’d not do it now, as a man. “Well?” he demanded impatiently, comfortably steering himself back into the role of unaffected employer who didn’t give jot.
What he did require was help.
Daphne sighed. “I am thinking, Daniel.”
With her attention trained downward, he used her distraction as an opportunity to study her. Drab, ill-fitting brown dress that clashed abominably with her crimson tresses aside, the lady had an incredibly long, graceful neck. An odd feature to admire in a lady. He’d always preferred a woman’s hands or lips, of which hers were certainly in the kiss-worthy category. The neck, however, had held little appeal. Until now. He took in the details he’d previously not considered. The pulse that throbbed there, a marker of a lady’s heightening desire. And he ached to place his lips to that cream white flesh and mark it with a faint love bite—
She glanced up. “Are you all right?”
“Quite.” The lie emerged garbled to his ears.
“You groaned.”
“I am sore from a day traveling.” That second prevarication came out as easily as every other one he’d ever offered a woman. Or man. Or friend. Anyone really. Lying was fair game for all and ultimately necessary.
The suspicion faded from her eyes. “Yes, I understand that.”
He frowned as her words only made him feel like the worst sort of rotter. Which he generally was. He was not, however, the manner of gentleman who didn’t take into consideration the comforts of a lady. “Would you care to sit?”
She looked up with a healthy dose of surprise. It spoke volumes to the level of her regard—or in this case, ill-regard. Then, with the assistance of her cane, she lowered herself into his torn leather winged chair.
“Where is there to begin?” he demanded as soon as she’d settled into the seat.
“I do not know,” she said, her tone heavy with impatience.
He dragged over a chair, positioning it close to hers. “What do you mean, ‘you do not know’. You are a woman and you had a Season.”
She pursed her lips, only drawing his lustful thoughts back to that plump flesh. “I mean I do not know,” she said with a cantankerous edge that effectively killed all his improper musings. “I had one Season.” The slight, drawn-out emphasis of that particular number was better reserved for an instructor trying to reason with a lackwit. “You had thirteen.”
“It is entirely different for a gentleman.”
“Even more so for a rake,” she added.
“Yes, entirely,” he concurred, earning a wild eye roll from the lady.
“I was being facetious,” she said with a sigh.
“You were also invariably correct.” The events he attended and oftentimes hosted—the orgies, the scandalous masquerades—were no proper affairs a debutante and her companion would dare attend. Unless they were bent on ruin. In which case, they most certainly would attend. “In your one Season, you’ve acquired far more an idea of what…” he slashed his hand at the page gripped in her fingers, “is expected in the launching of Alice.”
Daphne set the page on the desk. “We are speaking of your sister. Not a ship.” His neck heated and by God, he, for the first time in too many years, was blushing. “Her happiness should be your utmost priority, not the speed with which you’re able to resume your rapid decline into self-destruction.” Who’d have believed it possible that he, the Earl of Montfort, felt this niggling of shame turn in his belly? “Second,” Daphne thankfully returned her notice to that largely empty sheet. “I didn’t have a true Season, Daniel. I came in the middle of the Season and didn’t have…” She brought her lips closed into a tight line.
He studied her closely, waiting for her to complete that thought. When it became apparent with her silence she’d no intention of clarifying, questions trickled into his mind. What hadn’t she had? Suitors? A happy time? Something in that possibility, for the girl she’d been and the friendship they’d once shared, raised a frown. How very different they’d taken to this place. She, born for the country, he, perfectly suited for Town.
Daphne sighed. “There are certain gowns she’ll require,” she eventually said.
A surge of relief went through him. Of course she would know. She’d always known all. Even as he would have sooner severed off his left hand than admit as much when they’d been children. “You will see to it.”
She looked at him sadly. “I spent the whole of three weeks, a fortnight and three days, in this place.” Well, that was a peculiarly specific number for a girl who’d long despised math. His curiosity piqued. “I am sure you know the most fashionable modiste.” He did. He’d paid many visits to Madame Thoureaux’s, with inventive mistresses and their expensive tastes. “We must begin there.”
“On the morrow.” Daniel flicked an assessing look over her drab dress, drawing forth an image of Daphne draped in a daring ice blue silk gown that clung to her lithe figure. That dress would draw out the rich hues of her hair and the green of her eyes. A wave of desire went through him. For Daphne, the former friend of his past? A woman narrow and remarkably uncurved like the usual ladies he took to his bed. He shoved aside that shock. After all, he was a rake. “You’ll require gowns, as well,” he added.
Daphne dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing, that shook her frame and turned her cheeks the same red as her hair. He leaned over and thumped her hard between the shoulder blades. “You are mad. I do not require gowns.”
He studied her curiously. Any and every female he’d known before her craved baubles and fripperies, trading favors to coax more from him. And she rebuffed that offering? “You very much require them,” he said with wry humor that raised a frown.
“I don’t,” she protested.
His intrigue redoubled at her declination and he peered at her. How singularly different she was than the ladies of the peerage he’d dallied with. “Would you have the ton question the status and suitability of Alice’s companion?” The color drained from her cheeks. Damned if he didn’t feel like the naughty boy who’d kicked a pup.
“One dress,” she conceded.
“Five.”
She remained unyielding. “One.”
By God, if this wasn�
�t the same discussion he’d had with spoiled mistresses, only with their negotiating roles entirely reversed. He dragged a languid look over her slender frame. “Four and a peignoir.”
If the lady shot her eyebrows any higher, they’d disappear into her hairline. When had she become this serious, easily shocked creature?
“I was jesting, Daphne,” he drawled. “Unless you wish to have a peignoir.” In which case, he’d have Madame Thoureaux drape her in various satin and silk beaded creations and insist on watching.
She searched his face with sadness in her far too expressive eyes. “Is everything a joke with you, Daniel?”
Actually, since his brother’s drowning, everything had become a game. It had begun as a means of ratcheting up attention from his heartbroken mother and his catatonic father. Somewhere along the way, the boy he’d been had merged with another, capable of only caring for and about himself.
…It should have been you, Daniel… He forcibly thrust back that steely whisper hurled at him by his father.
At his silence, she sighed. That faint exhalation bespoke her condemnation more than any damning charges. He gripped the arms of the chair, despising himself for noticing that slight whispery sound and giving so much as a damn. “It is a grand production,” she said quietly. “A lady must wear a gown of white, adorned with a train, and a certain number of feathers in her hair.”
Daphne would have been lost in white. It would have turned her cream white, freckled skin a sallow shade that did nothing to enhance her earthy, natural beauty.
“She’ll need to be presented at Almack’s,” she continued. The lady would certainly not be so methodical if she knew the improper path his thoughts had wandered. “The patronesses will decide upon her acceptability.” Her lip peeled back in the faintest sneer.
Daniel didn’t give a jot about what people were thinking or feeling, or anything truly that involved a single emotion. Mayhap it was fatigue from the days of travel. Or mayhap it was nostalgia wrought by her presence. “And what did they decide about your acceptability?” He should have been there. At that point in his life, he’d been a rotted bastard, but she’d have been a friend he’d not seen in just two or three years.
“They didn’t much care either way.” Daphne fiddled with the fabric of her skirts and smiled faintly. “I was merely permitted entry because your father arranged for it.” He started. My father. The cold, unfeeling bastard who’d sent the family spiraling into dun territory had vouched for the lady.
“My father made an appeal,” she murmured.
An uncomfortable silence descended. Daniel cleared his throat and picked up the nearest sheet. “Very well, then. A visit to the modiste tomorrow for a proper wardrobe. The following evening—”
“I expect it will take at the very least a week for gowns to be created.”
He chuckled. “I assure you, you and Alice will have no fewer than two gowns each by the following day’s end.” Such assurance came not from arrogance but in very specific dealings with the modiste.
She shook her head bemusedly. “How very foreign it is to me, this world you live in. Where you desire something and…” She snapped her fingers once. “It is vastly different for the rest of us.” She lumped herself in with an entirely different lot than the ton. And yet…that is what she was. She’d been a childhood friend and a neighbor of his late father’s properties, but they may as well have rotated in entirely different solar spheres. “You’ll need to host a ball for her debut,” Daphne said, shoving herself slowly up.
Daniel hopped to his feet and made to assist her, but she pointedly ignored his arm and, instead, reached for her cane. “Balls are costly.” His mind tabulated all the funds that would go into such an event.
Daphne limped around her seat, coming so close, her arm brushed his. “If you can afford to host those wicked summer parties every July you can afford to throw your sister a proper ball.”
Fair point. He followed her slow, painful march across his room. “Daphne,” he called out when she reached for the handle. She looked back. “If you wish to attend one of those wicked parties, there is always an invitation for you.”
Her lips tugged and she caught the plump flesh of the lower lip between her teeth. Her shoulders shook with her amusement and even with the length of the room between them, the light cast by the roaring fire in the hearth set her eyes aglow. “Goodnight, Daniel,” she said with a wry amusement.
“Daph,” he managed and, oddly, when he gave her a half-grin, it felt vastly different than the false one she’d taken umbrage to in the carriage ride.
Chapter 7
Thirty-three. Following her discussion with Daniel, Daphne had mastered those thirty-three miserable stairs once more.
She winced as she lurched forward down the hall. But for her brief foray into London all those years ago, she’d rarely ventured out of her family’s modest cottage. There had been jaunts to the village and Sunday services, but there had not been long carriage rides or opulent estates or townhouses with more stairs than there really should be inside a home. Yet, in being here and navigating freely, if slowly, a sense of pride buoyed her. It proved her right and Mrs. Belden wrong. Proved that she could, even with her limited movement, work on her own imperfect legs.
Daphne reached her temporary chambers and shifted her cane to her opposite hand. She shoved the door open.
“Miss Smith,” Alice said, hopping to her feet with such rapidity that a wave of envy assailed her. How very strange to remember moving with such speed and grace, that she could, in a moment, forget the very true state of her now mangled limb. “I hope you do not mind I came to wait. There was, is something I wished to speak with you on.”
“Think nothing of it,” she said gently. This room, after all, was far more Alice’s and she nothing more than an interloper here. An interloper with a wicked past; a past that would certainly preclude her from securing employment at both Mrs. Belden’s and Ladies of Hope. Shoving aside that kernel of unease, she limped forward. “And please, Daphne will suffice.” A spasm wracked her leg and she briefly pressed her eyes closed. “I expect whatever has brought you here is of some import.” She motioned to the bed, as more a desperate need for a seat.
Alice immediately settled into a graceful array at the edge. Daphne claimed the spot beside her. “May I be frank with you, Daphne?”
“I would be insulted if you are not.” She admired the young woman’s honesty. The ladies she’d had the misfortune of meeting during her Come Out had all been nasty, gossipy, and hurtful beings.
Her charge drew in a slow breath and then spoke on a rush. “I’m concerned about the whole matchmaking business.”
She assessed Daniel’s sister; different in coloring but so very alike in the spirit of her rakish brother. With Alice’s flaxen hair, the color of spun-gold, and gently curved figure, she fit with all Society’s standards of flawless English beauty. “I do not believe you have—”
“I am not like the other ladies,” she cut in. “Or I wasn’t like the ladies at Mrs. Belden’s. I laugh loudly.”
“As you should freely laugh.” Even if Society disagreed.
“I speak my own mind.” Alice stared on, a challenge in her eyes. Did she believe Daphne would condemn her for that important trait?
“Which is good and commendable,” Daphne put in, tamping down a grin. In that fearlessness, Lady Alice was very much like her unrepentant brother.
Alice continued over that praise. “I have a brother who is a notorious rake.” Yes, there was that. A dangerously seductive gentleman, far more perfect in looks than a man ought to be.
“I never had a mother with whom to discuss the ideal candidate for a husband,” the girl said, hopping once more to her feet. “Or how to find the gentleman. Do they find you?” She cast a look at Daphne. If Daniel’s sister hoped that Daphne had guidance or advice to give on finding the gentleman, then she was better off hoping for that fairy godmother, she’d read of in The Girl With the Glass Slipper. �
��I’m warned away from rakes.” With good reason. “But some rogues make good husbands.”
Yes, that was the twaddle they fed young ladies, to give them hope about those wicked lords. Dangerous, dangerous stuff, indeed. Lord Leopold traipsed through her mind, grinning and seductive. She balled her hands hard and thrust his vile visage back.
“Do you know who will make you the ideal match, Alice?” she asked softly. Daniel’s sister whipped about to face her. “The gentleman who sees you for you. Who appreciates your spirit and doesn’t wish to stifle it. The gentleman who will respect your name, but also defend your honor, if need be. The gentleman who doesn’t wish to change you, but who helps you to see the greatness you are capable of. Trust your heart, listen to your mind, and you will find him.” Those were the hopes she herself had once carried, that had also been buried in that trunk and tucked away where all dreams went to die.
Alice looked at Daphne with dewy eyes. Alice sank to a knee beside her. “That is beautiful,” she breathed. “Have you ever known a gentleman such as that?”
I thought I did. Ultimately men of all stations, be they merchants or members of the peerage, with an appreciation for perfection would never look upon a woman so disfigured and see in her a match. Nor did they truly see anything in another like her; nothing beyond a charity case. “I haven’t,” she said quietly. “But that does not mean he does not exist,” she added for the girl’s benefit. In truth, she lied. At nearly thirty years of age, she’d long ago given up on the dream of the gentleman she’d described for Alice. Such dashing heroes existed in nothing more than the pages of books.
“I overheard what you said to my brother.”
Daphne’s mind raced. There had been the discussions in his carriage and back at Winterbourne Manor prior to their departure, and peppered within all those exchanges had been roguish innuendos and seductive comments from him that his sister had no place hearing. That no lady had any place hearing. “Uh…” She wet her lips.
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 82
