A Duke She Can't Refuse

by Gemma Blackwood

  “It was not a long fall, but it broke his neck. And broke Selina with it.”

  Daisy’s fingers had tightened on Alexander’s shoulder, rumpling his jacket beneath them. She could hardly see through the tears blurring her eyes.

  “Alexander…”

  He shifted his shoulder, moving it out from under her hand. “You must see now why I can never hope to atone for my mistake that night.”

  “No, I don’t see.” Daisy placed her hand on his cheek and turned his face back to hers. “It was an awful accident, but it was not your fault. You were trying to protect your sister. That is admirable.”

  At last, the mask of restraint was beginning to crack. Alexander’s eyes were haunted. “They loved each other truly. And my interference stole that from them. You know Selina well enough to see that she was born to be a mother, a wife. To be loved. How can I allow myself to be happy when I ruined all hope for her?”

  “Do you believe I could make you happy?”

  He did not have to answer. The hitch in his breath, the softening of his lips, the clutch of his hand, sudden and fervent, in the fabric of the dress at her waist, all answered for him.

  Daisy let her eyes fall closed.

  They had never kissed like this before. There was no exploration, no loss of self-control, neither hot desire nor bashful hesitation.

  It was the clicking together of two puzzle pieces. The chiming of a clock at midnight as all its gears rotated in peaceful unison. The final stitch repairing a torn shirt, the biting-off of the thread, the tying of the last knot.

  They completed each other. They both knew it. They could taste it, feel it in the pressure of each other’s arms, hear it in the soft sounds of homecoming bliss that sounded low in each of their throats.

  Alexander broke away first, clutching Daisy’s face in his hands as though it were the most precious thing on earth. “I want this,” he confessed, as serious as he had ever been. “Never imagine that I don’t want this, want you, want everything. But I must do what is right.”

  “This is right.” True, but hopeless to state. It was not in Daisy’s nature to beg, and she knew it would do no good.

  She had come into that room with the intention of healing Alexander’s pain. Where logic and reason could not sway him, love surely would.

  But for all that she believed love could do, she saw now that it would not be enough. He could not be cajoled into forgiving himself. He could not be tempted by the prospect of happiness in her arms.

  He was wrong, and he did not see it, and he had spent his life striving to do only what was right. She might show him a hundred ways that she was his perfect match, and it would only make him more resolute to push her away. The change could only come from within.

  Reluctantly, she pulled his hands from her face and extracted herself from the embrace that had overwhelmed her.

  “I love you for so many reasons,” she said softly. “Your decency is one of them. I cannot pretend that I have ever abided by as strict a moral code as yours, but I respect it. And I cannot ask you to change it.” She bit her lip. “But you are wrong. In this instance, you are wrong. I hope that, whatever we are to each other, I will always be able to tell you when you have made a mistake.”

  “Daisy,” he said. It was neither the beginning of a sentence, nor the end. She suspected that he simply wanted to say her name, one last time.

  “If our engagement is at an end, I am Miss Morton to you now, Your Grace,” she said. “You do understand that is what this means, Alexander? We are to part completely. No more dancing, no more trips to the theatre, no more…” She swallowed. The words were so hard to say. “I must return your mother’s necklace.”

  “On no account. It was a gift. Given in the full knowledge that I could not ask for your heart in return.”

  “But you have it.” Daisy paused to steady her voice. “You have it now, and you always will.”

  As they stared at each other, the clocks in the house all began to chime midday.

  Daisy waited until the tremors of the last bell had faded away.

  “I should go home before my brother starts to worry.”

  The unspoken tension between them snapped and fell away. Alexander broke their gaze, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “Yes, of course. I will call for a carriage.”

  “No need. I rode here. I may as well ride home. I see no need to trouble Ralph with the story of the morning’s misadventures.” She considered sticking out her hand, sealing their broken engagement with a handshake of friendship, but she could not bring herself to do it. “Goodbye, Your Grace.”

  “Goodbye, Miss Morton.”

  Perhaps his voice was hoarsened by grief. Perhaps his hand trembled as he rang for the butler. Perhaps he was so filled with grief and regret that he drove a fist through the lovely wood-panelled wall the moment she left the room.

  But Daisy was done with dreaming, and if any of those romantic fantasies occurred, she did not notice them. She put on her coat, picked up her riding crop, bid the butler farewell, and rode home without a backward glance.

  17

  “‘The Duke of Loxwell caused quite a stir when he arrived at the ball with all four of his lovely sisters in tow. How long will the duke remain a bachelor now that Miss M has relinquished her claim? Judging by the behaviour of the young ladies at tonight’s soiree, he will not be left to mourn her for long.’” Jemima made a sound of disgust and dropped the newspaper back onto the silver platter the butler was holding out for her. “I have never read a more disgraceful piece of gossip in my life!”

  Daisy sighed and toyed with the kippers the cook had fried for breakfast as her special treat. She was glad that her sister-in-law had at last returned from the country, but she wished Jemima would not insist on defending her wounded heart quite so vigorously.

  “I am sure it is not true,” she said. “I never pay any attention to the gossip pages.”

  “Of course it is not true.” Jemima turned to the butler, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “See that those pages are removed before the paper is taken up to Miss Morton’s mother.”

  Lady Peyton had taken to her bed in the aftermath of Daisy’s broken engagement and had not been seen since without a vial of smelling salts in her hand and a damp towel adorning her forehead. All the preparations for her upcoming pleasure trip to Europe with Lord Peyton had been left to Daisy and Jemima – with the result that they had been managed with unexpected efficiency.

  “Even if it were true,” said Daisy, cutting a piece of kipper and carefully rearranging it so that it looked as though she had eaten something, “I would be pleased to hear it. I do not want Alexander to be miserable without me.”

  “My dear late guardian would have something to say about his heir’s behaviour,” Jemima attacked her boiled eggs as viciously as though Alexander’s face were stamped on the shell.

  “I should hope not. He has done nothing wrong.” Daisy managed a smile. “I appreciate your anger on my behalf, but it is not necessary. It does not cause me pain to hear that he is well. Besides, you cannot expect a man with four unmarried sisters to keep himself cloistered away. He has a duty to see that they get out in society.”

  Jemima’s face softened. “Forgive me. I have such a tendency to stir up tempests where calm waters are needed. I simply cannot understand why a man of such apparent good sense would let you slip through his fingers.”

  Ralph strode in briskly, clad in a plum-coloured morning coat and a pair of buckskins. He took a piece of toast from the toast rack without stopping to sit down and bit off a chunk as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Can’t stop to chat,” he said. “Peyton and I are riding up to look over the townhouse with your friend Mr Turner. He wants the repair work well underway before he and Mother leave for Lisbon. Speaking of her ladyship, is she still abed?”

  “I looked in this morning and threatened her with a visit from the doctor if she did not get dressed,” said Jemima. “She can har
dly expect us to let her board a ship tomorrow if she is too unwell to get up today.”

  Ralph grinned, took a gulp of coffee that must have been scalding, and bent down to give his wife a smacking kiss on the cheek. “How did we ever manage her without you?”

  “You didn’t,” Jemima answered primly. She shot a surreptitious look up at her husband, caught the mischief in his eyes, and returned her attention to her breakfast with a new glow on her face. Ralph lingered for a moment, his hand caressing Jemima’s shoulder, and studied her profile with an expression of pure admiration. If his constant mentions of Jemima in her absence had not been enough evidence that he had missed her, there was certainly no mistaking it now.

  Daisy felt a pang deep inside her that she did not care to examine. Jealousy did not become her. Jemima was the centre of Ralph’s world, just as she ought to be, and there was no need to start resenting it now that Daisy had suffered her own disappointment.

  “How’s my sweet sister this morning?” asked Ralph, giving Daisy one of his encouraging smiles across the table. Daisy stopped herself rolling her eyes.

  “You only call me sweet when you think I need cheering up.”

  Ralph tucked his thumbs into his coat pockets. “Cheer you up? Ha! Catch me trying to bring a smile to that sour face.”

  Daisy responded by scrunching up her face into a goblin’s grimace. Ralph choked on his second bite of toast.

  “May I ride across town with you and Lord Peyton?” she asked, while he tried to splutter without spoiling his clothes.

  “Not this morning. Peyton’s already outside and waiting for me. We must get business sorted before Mr Turner opens his shop. I’ll take you out to Rotten Row at the fashionable hour if you like?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t much enjoy being pitied by every lady who stops to chat.” Daisy set her fork down and raised her chin as though she did not care a bit. “I am the girl who lost a duke, you know.”

  “You are the girl the duke lost,” said Ralph firmly. “That is quite different.”

  Daisy wished she could see it the way Ralph and Jemima did. But how could she possibly explain to them all that was missing from her life now that she did not have Alexander? It was not simply a question of jewels and status, or even of public flirtation and private kisses. She missed his companionship, of course. There was something irreplaceable about the way he had implicitly understood so much about her. His calming presence. His painful insistence on honesty.

  But what she had really lost was her fundamental understanding of how the world operated. Daisy had always believed in love. Not the silly, fairy-tale love of errant knights and princesses trapped in castles. Not the convenient love her mother had developed for Lord Peyton.

  Simply that she would someday find a person who was hers, and hers alone, and that when she found him, they would face the rest of their lives at each other’s side.

  It was bitter indeed to realise how powerfully she had been deluded, and worse still to see how happy Ralph was – Ralph, who had never once dreamed of love, and had found everything he was not looking for in a marriage of convenience.

  She knew that Ralph could not contemplate finding happiness without Jemima. So why should Daisy be expected to do the same without Alexander?

  But these thoughts were unfair and unhelpful besides, so she kissed Ralph goodbye with a smile.

  Jemima had noticed Daisy’s state of mind. There was no more mention of dukes or engagements or brighter futures for the rest of the morning. Instead, Daisy’s spirits were buoyed by a succession of activities that she suspected had been chosen solely to please her, from a lively duet on the piano to the vigorous discussion of a recent novel that they were deeply engaged in when Edith Balfour made an appearance in the drawing room.

  “Daisy!” she cried, running to her friend and embracing her so violently that Daisy had to clutch Jemima’s arm for balance. “Daisy, I have made the most wonderful discovery!”

  “Goodness,” said Daisy faintly, extricating herself from Edith’s arms with some difficulty. “I hope it is nothing dangerous. You seem quite distressed.”

  “Distressed?” Edith touched a finger to her eyes, which were rimmed with red as though she had been weeping copiously. “The opposite! I am so, so delighted. You see, this morning, I happened to be looking for something in Alex’s study –”

  “Please don’t.” The fervour in Daisy’s voice startled Edith into silence. Daisy held up a hand, trying to quell the hollow, sick feeling in her stomach. “I don’t want to hear anything about your brother, Edith. It’s not that I’m in agony – believe me, I am perfectly well – but it simply does not feel right to intrude upon his privacy any longer.” She looked from Jemima to Edith, wished they both did not look quite so sympathetic, and forced a smile. “Alexander did me a wonderful favour by proposing, and an even better one by setting me free.”

  Edith clutched her hands to her chest. “Say you don’t mean that! Only – only it would be too, too terrible now that I’ve found this!”

  She produced a piece of paper that looked as though it had once been carefully folded, but had recently suffered some indignity in its journey across town inside Edith’s cluttered reticule.

  Daisy did not take the paper. “What is it?”

  “A letter,” said Edith, with great satisfaction. “A letter to you from Alex, written some weeks ago, proving beyond all doubt that he loves you!”

  Now the sick feeling in Daisy’s stomach was threatening to overwhelm her. She felt Jemima’s strong hand close around her arm and pull her firmly down into a chair.

  “Edith,” said Jemima, not without sympathy, “I’m sure you meant well by bringing this here. But reading someone else’s private correspondence rarely leads to any good. If the duke wanted Daisy to read this letter, he would have given it to her.”

  Daisy’s head was spinning. “You stole a letter from his desk?”

  “It wasn’t sealed,” said Edith stoutly. “And when I saw your name written on it, I thought… I just thought…” Her lip trembled. “Daisy, I was so excited when I thought we would be sisters!”

  “I am sorry we lied to you.” Daisy put her head in her hands and sighed. “You must have felt so betrayed when you realised it was all for show.”

  “But it wasn’t!” Edith insisted. “I still remember the way you spoke of Alex when you told me you were in love. Nobody could have made up such wonderful things if they did not mean them, just a little!”

  Daisy lifted her head and eyed the paper in Edith’s hand as though it were a keg of gunpowder. “Regardless of whether I meant them, the engagement is at an end. Alexander did not give me that letter. And you should never have read it.”

  Edith looked stricken. “I only wanted to help.”

  “I know. I am grateful for that.” Just lately, Daisy was having to force herself to be grateful for so many things she had never wanted. “But I will not read it. Please take it home and put it back where you found it. I’m sure your brother will be mortified if he discovers it has gone astray.”

  Edith hesitated, the letter in her hand still proffered towards Daisy. “I’m not sure I can put it back,” she confessed. “The study is usually locked.”

  “You certainly have some unusual hobbies,” said Jemima, torn between acerbity and laughter. “Trespassing. Theft. Meddling in other people’s engagements.”

  Edith blushed pink. “I believe that sometimes one must do the wrong thing in order to do what is right.”

  Seeing that she was not about to back down, Daisy took the letter. She set it down in her lap and folded her hands on top of it so that she could not even see it.

  It would all be so much simpler if she could tell Edith that the problem between herself and Alexander was not that he did not love her. She was so certain of his feelings that she could imagine every sweet word that was written on that vital slip of paper.

  But it changed nothing. Alexander’s heart might want her, but his head – his dis
torted notion of morality – would overrule that heart every time.

  “I will have this returned to him myself,” she said. “And I shall come up with some way to keep him from discovering how I got hold of it.”

  “But will you read it?” Edith pressed.

  “Edith…” Daisy sighed. “Even if I read it, it would not change anything. Alexander and I hold each other in the highest regard. That was never in question.”

  “I know.” Edith’s shoulders slumped forwards. “And I know I mustn’t pry into what went wrong between you. All I know is that I so rarely see my brother happy. But when he was with you, he was… different. Softer. Happy.”

  “Then I can only pray that he finds that happiness again.” Daisy passed the letter to Jemima and rose to her feet. “Thank you, Edith. I know you were only trying to help.” She held open her arms, and Edith hugged her warmly.

  “We are still friends, aren’t we?” she whispered.

  “Always.”

  When Edith had gone, Jemima locked the letter inside the corner cabinet.

  “Ralph will see the duke in Parliament tomorrow. We’ll have him deliver it in person. I’m not sure something so delicate should be trusted to a servant.” She hesitated, regarding Daisy with an expression that was curious and knowing at once. “I have not asked you what really went wrong between the two of you. If you wish to keep it private, it is not for me to pry. But I am surprised that it does not change things now that you know his feelings for you were genuine.”

  Daisy crossed her arms across her chest, trying not to sound too bitter as she answered. “Whatever that letter says, it will not be news to me. He loves me.” Her voice broke on the last words, and Jemima started towards her with a face full of sympathy, but Daisy shook her head briskly and held herself distant. “He loves me, but what is love compared to duty? I did think, for a moment, that I had him, but I was fooling myself. It was all fantasy from start to finish.”