by Mary Balogh
Arthur looked down at her with gentle reproach. “Jude!” he said.
She had the grace to blush and hang her head. “Well, you are with me, Arthur,” she said, “so there will be nothing improper.”
“And conveniently we will be two couples,” Arthur said quietly. “That is a little like using people, dear.”
“Oh, ” she said, looking up at him, tears forming in her eyes. “That is not fair, Arthur. You know that I love you dearly and like to be seen with you because everyone else loves you too. And you know that I like Rose and want to be friends with her.”
She curtsied to Lord Powers, who was upon them by that time and expressing his pleased surprise at meeting them in the park at such an unfashionable hour.
“But may I join you?” he asked pleasantly. “I was just strolling along here, wondering what I would do to fill in an afternoon for which I have no plans.”
Judith slipped an arm through his without looking at her brother again, and the two of them strolled on ahead of Arthur and Rose.
Arthur looked down and smiled at his companion. “This is very naughty of her,” he said. “This meeting was clearly planned.”
Rose smiled back. “But as long as you are here, sir,” she said, “nothing dreadful can happen.”
“And are you as cunning when you have a tendre for a certain gentleman?” he asked.
“I have never had a tendre for anyone,” Rose said, “and don't expect to. But if I had, I do not know how I would act. I am not willing to judge someone whose shoes I am unable to put my feet into.”
“You are a wise young lady,” Arthur said.
“You are to take up a post as a curate in the autumn?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I find that time is moving with irksome slowness.”
“It is a job that you wish to do, then?” she asked. “It is not that you have been forced into the Church because you are a younger son?”
“Goodness, no,” he said. “Indeed, my father did his best to dissuade me, saying that everyone would consider him a pauper who could not support more than one son. But I cannot imagine any other life for myself. I am happy only when I can be serving others, I am entirely selfish, you see.”
“You must find life in London very tedious,” Rose said.
“Oh, not exactly,” he said. “I am very attached to my family and am particularly glad to be here at the moment when Julia is going through such an uncomfortable time. I also like to visit all sorts of charities. Giving money to various institutions is quite unsatisfactory and not at all what our Lord means us to do in support of one another, I believe. I like to meet the people themselves and help when I can. It is better to help one person directly than to give money to twenty whom one never meets, I think. But I am delivering a sermon. You must stop me when I do that, Miss Morrison.”
“Oh, no,” she said, looking up at him with glowing eyes. “I think that is similar to what I feel when I tell Daisy that I like living in the country and have no craving for life in town. It has nothing to do with charity, of course, but in the country one can know everyone individually and communicate closely with them. Here there are such crowds. So many people last night, and almost none that I can now name, and none at all that I feel I know.”
Arthur patted her hand. “If you ever tire of the artificiality of society,” he said, “you must let me know, and I will take you to see one of the schools for poor boys, or one of the orphanages or homes for the elderly. But of course you must enjoy the Season! You are young and you are pretty, and there is a time for enjoyment and a time for more serious activity. This is the season of enjoyment.”
But she was wrong, Rose thought. There was one person in London whom she felt she was getting to know. And the Reverend Arthur Fairhaven was such a very likable gentleman that she was glad indeed that she knew him.
“You will be wanting to get home,” he said, “if you are to come back here later for a drive. And Judith has been given long enough. The minx,” he added tenderly.
“You have come to ask me to marry you,” Daisy said blankly. “Why?”
Lord Kincade frowned down at her. “You can ask me that after last night?” he said. “After the way you were treated? It must have been an agony to you to be so snubbed.”
“I did not notice,” she said, “or even know of it until Lady Hetty and Rose told me in the carriage on the way home. It was all nonsense, in my opinion.”
“Perhaps the idea of people behaving so is nonsense, ma’am,” he said, finding it difficult to believe that anyone could be so appallingly innocent or so impervious to feeling. “But the effects are not so. You will suffer as a consequence of last evening. There will be certain members of society—ladies mainly, and unfortunately those with most influence—who will be unwilling to acknowledge you in public or to allow you to mingle freely with them in various ton events. You will suffer, ma’am, and that will not be nonsense.”
“It is all foolishness,” Daisy insisted. “People may say what they will about me. I do not care. And if they say anything to me, then I shall tell them what nonsense they speak.”
“Miss Morrison,” he said, “will you consider what was observed last night? You and I were alone together, and in very close embrace.”
Daisy flushed and prevented her eyes from slipping away from his only just in time, he saw. “That is nonsense too,” she said. “You were not really kissing me.”
“I was holding your body to mine and had your mouth covered with my own,” he said bluntly. “In the vocabulary of most people, that constitutes a kiss, even something more than a kiss. And those ladies exaggerated what they saw.”
“They saw nothing,” she said. “I was hidden by you.”
“There was a mirror,” he said, “behind you. Unfortunately I saw it only afterward. Otherwise, most of this awkward situation might have been avoided. We would have been guilty only of being in a room alone together.”
“How did they exaggerate?” Daisy asked suspiciously.
“You would not wish to know,” Lord Kincade said.
“Oh, yes, I would,” she said. “Tell me.”
Lord Kincade looked at her with exasperation. “I would ask if you have smelling salts at the ready,” he said dryly. “But somehow I imagine you have the fortitude to withstand the shock. It seems that I had my hands on your naked breasts, not to mention lower parts of your anatomy. Miss Morrison. Now do you see? You will have to marry me.”
“No one will ever believe such a thing,” Daisy said scornfully. “Why, I am five-and-twenty years old. Who would possibly believe that you would feel such desire for an aging spinster?”
“In short, almost everyone,” Lord Kincade said. “Strangely enough, five-and-twenty years are not seen by everyone as qualifying one to enter one’s dotage. And you do not look your age, Daisy Morrison. And what is more, you are remarkably pretty.”
“Oh,” she said, and laughed after a moment. “How silly.”
“This conversation gets to be tedious,” he said, realizing in some surprise that she entirely believed what she said. She was not merely indulging in false modesty. “Come, give me my answer. Will you marry me?”
“I certainly will not,” Daisy said.
Lord Kincade leaned over her chair and regarded her neck with some longing as his hands twitched behind his back. “I shall borrow a leaf from your own book,” he said, “and ask you why not? And please do not mention your age and confirmed spinsterhood again.”
“I am not in search of a husband,” she said. “I do not want a husband. I would rule him in a moment and then I would despise him for the rest of my life. Besides, I have Mama and Rose to look after and all the servants at home. Nobody knows how to go on when I am not there.”
“You are the most conceited person I have ever known,” Lord Kincade said, straightening up again, annoyance growing in him.
“Conceited? I?” she said. “When I do my best to look after other people’s needs?”
Daisy stared at him.
“Are your mother and her servants in a state of utter collapse now that you have taken yourself to London?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she said. “I gave careful instructions before I left.”
“All of which they are probably ignoring with great glee,” he said. “You are not indispensable, Daisy. No one is. It is a blow to one’s conceit when one realizes that, is it not? And I will tell you another thing: if you marry me, you will not rule me in a moment, you will not rule me in a hundred years—or a thousand. That is one thing I can safely promise you. And you may suffer more than once from a sore posterior if you learn that fact slowly. Now what do you have to say?”
Daisy closed her mouth, which had strayed open during the previous rather irate speech.
“Now,” Lord Kincade said, realizing that he had rather enjoyed the exchange and careful not to lose the advantage by also losing his temper completely, “you had better say yes, and we can have this betrothal properly announced by tomorrow.”
“If you ever tried to beat me,” Daisy said, “I would beat you right back, you know. I am fully aware that I would not win because you are much larger than I and I know you are very strong. But I would inflict enough damage that you would know that this lady would not give in meekly to such a cowardly, dastardly creature as a wife-beater.”
Lord Kincade did not stop to analyze why he felt like laughing. “I shall have the black umbrella destroyed on our wedding day,” he said. “Your answer, Daisy.”
“No,” she said. “I do not want a husband, and you do not want a wife. At least, you do not want me. And the only factor that would even make me consider marrying would be an attachment, a mutual attachment. But it will never happen. I am not made for love. Not for romantic love, that is.”
All that was reasonable in Lord Kincade's mind was shouting at him to leave well enough alone. He had made his offer and been rejected. He should make his escape without delay and stop running when he had reached the opposite side of the globe. All that was stubborn in his mind was determined that this time the little fiend would not get the best of him. “What about your sister?” he asked. “Would you not consider marriage for her sake?”
Daisy frowned.
“If you are to be ostracized,” he said, “your sister's Season will come to an abrupt end. You may find, for all your indifference to your own feelings, that you will be forced to retreat to the country to save your sister’s.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “That must not happen. I have my heart set on Rose’s making the right connections here.”
“Yes, I know,” he said, fixing her with a severe eye. “Will you marry me, Daisy?”
“Is there no other way?” she asked. She shifted impatiently on her chair. “Drat this leg. I want to be on my feet pacing. I can think better so.”
“And you would probably tread on my toes every time you passed me,” Lord Kincade said.
“Come,” Daisy said briskly, “admit that you do not wish to marry me any more than I wish to marry you.”
He looked down at her with raised eyebrows. “Frankly," he said, “I had not thought of marriage at all, Miss Morrison. I have been quite content as I am. But that is beside the point, is it not?”
Daisy was tapping one finger against her lips. “What if we were to pretend to be betrothed?” she said. “That would serve, would it not? Rose would have her Season and meet her eligible gentleman. And at the end of it you could go back to the way of life you enjoy, and I could go back home to look after my people again. Everyone would be happy.”
“And you would be seen as a jilt at the end of it all,” he said.
Daisy made a dismissive gesture. “What foolishness,” she said. “Do you think I would care for that?”
“No,” he said. “Not for a moment.”
“Very well, then,” she said. “Will you agree to my suggestion?”
Lord Kincade regarded her with a frown and rocked back on his heels. He did not have to marry her? Only endure her for another six weeks or so? For another eternity or so? “It would seem a satisfactory arrangement,” he said, “though with you in the thick of it, Daisy Morrison, doubtless I will come to regret it.”
She smiled and held out her right hand. “We must shake hands on the agreement,” she said.
Lord Kincade took her small hand in his and looked down at it as if he expected it to explode. “I will expect you to behave as my betrothed,” he said. “I will not expect you to defend my honor with black umbrellas, parasols, or any other weapons, including your fingernails. And I will not expect you to shoulder the burdens of the family of which I am the head in my father’s absence. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Daisy?”
“You are afraid for my safety,” she said with a warm smile. “You have no need to be, but it is kind of you to feel concern.”
“No,” he said, raising her hand to his lips and kissing it, and looking at her over it rather vengefully, “1 did not think you would understand.”
“May I ask you one thing?” she asked hurriedly. “Will being betrothed to me prevent you from showing an interest in Rose? You said last night that she was looking very lovely, and it seems possible that she is just the sort of young lady who might attract your interest.”
“Good Lord!” Lord Kincade dropped her hand as if it were a hot potato. “I am suddenly very glad indeed that I am safely involved in this mock betrothal. I see I have had a narrow escape from a matchmaker. Did you really have me picked out for your sister?”
Daisy blushed a full crimson this time. “I did think it might be a splendid match,” she admitted.
He leaned over her chair again. “You may set your mind at ease,” he said. “I am not nursing a hopeless and undying love for your sister, or for any other young lady. My tastes do not run to young girls no more than a few years beyond the schoolroom.”
‘‘To more experienced women?” she asked.
“Daisy,” he said, leaning a little closer to her, “ladies do not refer to such matters in polite conversation. But if it interests you, in private here and for this one time only I will tell you that Bessie was the exception rather than the rule in my life. And she is much regretted, by the way. And during the duration of our betrothal, mock or real, I will pay you the courtesy of staying away from other, experienced women. I would not dare do otherwise, I might beggar you with paying their bills.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “I am very rich.”
Lord Kincade straightened up and smiled fleetingly. “A tour of Bedlam could not be more interesting than a conversation with you, Daisy,” he said. “Stay there. I am going in search of Hetty and your sister. It is time to bring a little sanity as well as propriety back into the room.”
Lady Hetty was delighted by the news. Although she had not for a moment considered turning off her charges as a consequence of the events of the evening before, she was quite familiar enough with London society to realize just how difficult her task would be for the next days and even weeks. Miss Daisy Morrison, behaving so scandalously on her very first public appearance among the beau monde, would not easily be forgiven.
But of course a betrothal and an impending marriage wiped out all sins. And Lady Hetty had quickly developed a fondness for both her protégées even in the little more than one day she had had them with her. Both were without affectation and not in any way missish. She was happy to know that Daisy was to marry her second favorite cousin. Arthur, of course, was everyone’s favorite.
Lady Hetty’s exclamations of rapture were scarcely at an end, and Daisy’s smile was already feeling stretched and forced, when Rose returned home in company with Arthur and Judith. Lord Kincade repeated their announcement, and Daisy smiled harder.
She really felt the most dreadful impostor. The temptation to blurt out the truth was almost over
whelming. Daisy had never been comfortable with lies and deceit and secrets, even in a good cause. And really there could be no harm in their own families knowing the truth, could there? But she had not thought to discuss the matter with the viscount, and since the two of them were involved equally in the mock betrothal, she must not act without consulting him.
The restraint would kill her! For six weeks or so she was going to have to think of herself as half of a couple instead of a whole, independent person. She would never be able to do it. Despite Lord Kincade’s brave words, she would be ruling him before the week was out. She would not be able to help herself. It was just her nature.
But on this occasion, Daisy clamped her teeth together and smiled. And felt thoroughly oppressed by the presence of her “betrothed” seated on the arm of her chair, his hand on her shoulder. He had the advantage of sitting on a level above hers as well as his superior height. He towered over her, and there was nothing she could do to equalize matters. She was trapped on her chair by the misfortune of a sprained ankle.
Daisy smiled on.
Rose bent over her and kissed her and shook Lord Kincade’s hand, and looked altogether so happy and so glowingly lovely that Daisy lamented again the fact that her sister could no longer hope to be courted by the most handsome man in London. But there was no point in crying over spilt milk, she thought with practical good sense. They would just have to seek out the second most handsome. Sir Phillip Corbett was a distinct possibility, and Rose was to drive with him later in the afternoon.
The Reverend Fairhaven took one of her hands in both of his and smiled kindly down at her. “I am so very fond of my sisters, Miss Morrison,” he said, “that I can conceive of no greater delight than to add to their number. And I am pleased more than I can say that Giles has chosen you, I am an admirer of your courage and spirit.” He raised her hand to his lips.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, feeling the color rise in her cheeks at her own deception. “I have always wished I had a brother, you know, and I can think of none I would rather have than you.”
Arthur turned his attention to his brother, and was soon pumping his hand in front of Daisy’s face.
