Chapter Eighteen

Her mind was all disorder. The past, present, future, every thing was terrible.

—JANE AUSTEN, MANSFIELD PARK

Up the duff.

Supper was over, Abby and Damaris had gone home to their loving husbands and Jane had gone to bed to try to sleep—there was no way she would, she was too keyed up—and dream or daydream of her husband-to-be.

Daisy, too, was keyed up, but for a very different reason. She’d made an excuse and gone to her workroom, leaving Jane in bed. She needed to be alone, to think.

Up the bloody duff.

She couldn’t be. She counted back the months. When had she had her last rags?

She was weeks overdue. She counted twice to be sure, but dammit, she’d missed two months. And her breasts had been so tender lately. She’d thought it was because of Flynn’s attentions to them.

How the hell had it happened? She’d been so careful, using the methods the girls used at the brothel to keep from falling pregnant. She’d used them every single time . . . Except for . . .

Damn! The table. That first time with Flynn, on the table. She hadn’t expected that, hadn’t prepared for it, had taken care of things afterward, but it must have been too late. Like closing the stable door after the bloody horse had escaped.

She swore a blue streak.

She hadn’t even noticed missing her rags, what with the shop and all—people did miss sometimes, when life was busy and worrisome. But it wasn’t excitement or worry—it was carelessness, stupid bloody carelessness on her part.

What the hell was she going to do now?

One thing was clear. She wasn’t going to tell Flynn. He’d whip her off to a church before you could blink and she’d be married.

Married, up the duff, and Flynn would own her shop, her lovely shop. And she’d have to become a lady, a proper lady, with all the trimmings, because that’s what he wanted in a wife. A gracious, elegant, dignified ladylike wife.

Which was as far from Daisy as you could get.

She’d be hopeless at it, but she’d have to smile and act the lady and pretend to herself and everyone that she hadn’t ruined his life.

No, she wasn’t going to tell Flynn.

There were lots of things to do with unwanted babies. There were the old women down the back alleys with their knitting needles. Daisy shivered. She wasn’t going there.

She could have the baby and give it away, like her mother did. She didn’t have to wrap it in rags and leave it beside the gutter, as Daisy was—or at least that’s what she’d been told. There were other choices.

The Foundling Hospital—Captain Coram’s—they’d take a baby if the mother was respectable—“of good character.” Nobody Daisy knew had managed to get a babe accepted.

Even if they did get in, a babe wasn’t necessarily safe. Coram’s took newborns—nothing over twelve months, and farmed the babes out to wet nurses in the country. Some of the blokes that hung around the brothel made a bit on the side, taking the babies from Coram’s—supposedly to deliver them to the wet nurse—but some of them had been “lost” on the way. Babies died easy—everyone knew that.

And even if they survived that, she’d seen some Coram’s foundlings once, had never forgotten their well-scrubbed faces, their drab, neat, ugly clothing, as they walked in tidy lines to church, two by two. Not a smile to be seen among them, poor little things. A grim, dutiful, well-disciplined life, all planned out for them. No joy in it at all.

She put her hand over her still-flat stomach. “Don’t worry, baby,” she whispered, “I won’t send you there.”

And oh, gawd, what was she doing, talking to the baby already as if it was a person? That was the worst thing to do. Girls who did that never were the same after giving the baby away. Turned to blue ruin. Or opium.

She wasn’t like those girls—she wasn’t. She had a family now, and a shop. She wasn’t poor and desperate and friendless. Her baby would be all right.

She could have the babe in secret and farm it out, somewhere nice and safe. With people who would take good care of it. Make it feel wanted. As if it belonged.

A baby needed to know it was wanted. And loved.

Was there such a place? How would she find it?

Lady Beatrice would help her. “She’s lovely, Lady Bea,” she told her stomach. “She’ll make sure you go to a nice home somewhere.” She broke off. She was doing it again. It had to stop.

She would go to bed now, try to sleep, talk to Lady Bea in the morn—no, it was Jane’s wedding day. She’d have to wait until after. There was plenty of time. She was only a month or two along. She patted her stomach. “Not like you’re goin’ anywhere, are you?”

*   *   *

Jane’s wedding went off a treat. Jane of course looked stunningly beautiful and glowed with happiness. She, her four attendants and Lady Beatrice all wore Daisy-made—excuse me, House of Chance—clothes and looked gorgeous, if Daisy did say so herself. Some of the guests also wore Daisy’s dresses.

She couldn’t have been prouder if she was the mother of the bride.

She placed her hand on her stomach. Unfortunate thought.

“Got a bellyache?” Flynn murmured in her ear. He was a groomsman, looking dashing and handsome—and for once, not colorful—all in black and white and silver gray. Freddy must have prevailed.

“No, I’m all right.” She avoided his gaze.

“Just that it’s the third or fourth time today I’ve seen you do that.”

“No, it’s just that woman’s perfume, it’s making me feel a bit sick.” It was true too. “Excuse me, Flynn. Gotta go, need the . . . um.” She hurried away. It wasn’t ladylike to mention the privy.

She’d been trying to avoid Flynn all day. It was hard with both of them being in the wedding party, but she’d managed. He’d asked her earlier if something was the matter and she’d hissed, “Gotta be discreet, remember?” and moved away, leaving him frowning after her.

It was as if he knew something was up. But he couldn’t. He was just being Flynn, taking care of her, acting as if she was some fragile . . . lady.

What the hell was she going to do when they all went down the country to Jane’s new home? There was some kind of celebration there for May Day. They were all going—the whole family. Even Lady Beatrice had consented to visit the countryside, which she loathed. Flynn was going too, apparently. It would be even harder to avoid him at a house party.

But somehow she had to manage it because she was a rotten liar and if he kept asking her if something was wrong, she’d end up blabbing.

And that would ruin his life. And hers.

*   *   *

The wedding was over, Jane had left on her honeymoon and the house on Berkeley Square was very quiet. Lady Beatrice, declaring herself utterly exhausted, went early to bed. Daisy brooded about her problem. Maybe she wouldn’t go to the country. Maybe she’d tell everyone she had to stay for the shop.

Jane would be so hurt if Daisy didn’t come to Jane’s first party as a new bride in her new home.

But if Daisy did go, there would be the problem of Flynn. She walked slowly up to bed, tossing the same fruitless thoughts around in her head. And stopped. Was that a light under Lady Beatrice’s door?

She knocked softly in case the old lady had fallen asleep with the light on.

“Come,” a stately voice answered.

Daisy poked her head around the door. “Are you awake?”

“What is it, child?’ Lady Beatrice was sitting up in bed against a mound of pillows and wearing one of Daisy’s bed jackets, the first one she’d ever made her, pink and ruffled and feminine. She patted the bed in invitation.

Daisy entered the room and climbed onto the bed. “Can’t sleep?”

“Too much excitement,” the old lady agreed. “Wasn’t Jane a picture? And that husband of hers, so hands—” She broke off, frowning. “What is it, child?” she said in quite a different voice.

Daisy knotted her fingers together. They were shaking. Girls got chucked out in the streets for falling pregnant. Chucked out of their own families. Lady Bea, for all she claimed her as a niece, was no relation at all.

“Spit it out, gel.”

Daisy took a deep breath. “I’m increasing.”

Lady Beatrice peered at her and shook her head. “Nonsense. You’re not fat in the least.”

“No, I’m increasing. You know, in a delicate condition.” She couldn’t bring herself to say expecting a happy event because it was a bloody disaster. Nor could she bear to say in the family way. She gestured with her hands, making a mound over her stomach.

Lady Beatrice frowned. “Good Gad, you mean you’re pregnant? No need to beat around the bush.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. She was never going to get the hang of being a lady. “Yeah, all right then, I’m up the bloody duff!”

“Don’t be vulgar. And what does Mr. Flynn have to say about your condition?”

Daisy gasped. “How did you know it was him?”

Lady Beatrice snorted, as if it was too obvious for words. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

The old lady frowned. “You mean he won’t marry you?”

“Oh yeah, he would—if he knew about it. But I ain’t telling him.”

“Why ever not? Put him to the test, gel, tell him about the baby and give him the opportunity to do the decent thing.”

Daisy glowered at her. “He’s been askin’ me to marry him every bloomin’ day for weeks.”

“Without even knowing about the child? Good for him. There’s your answer then. There can be no recriminations that you’ve trapped the dear man. Tell him the good news, and we’ll start the wedding preparations at once. Good heavens—four weddings in one year! I shall be thoroughly exhausted!” she said in utter delight.

Daisy didn’t move. She sat silently on the bed tracing the design on the satin coverlet with her forefinger.

Lady Beatrice raised her lorgnette. “Out with it, gel, what’s the problem?”

“I ain’t goin’ to marry him,” she muttered. “I can’t.”

The old lady gave her a sharp look. “You’re not already married are you? Because if you are—”

“I ain’t married. I just . . . can’t.”

“Why not? What’s the sticking point? “

Daisy shrugged.

“A shrug won’t do this time, my dear,” the old lady said. “Come on, explain to an old woman so that I can understand—why can’t you marry a man who is handsome, rich, madly in love with you—oh, and whose baby you happen to be carrying?”

“Because I can’t, that’s why.”

“Oh, well, that clears it up wonderfully.” The handle of her lorgnette tapped impatiently.

“It’s me shop,” Daisy said at last. “It’s been me dream for so long—all me life since I first picked up a needle and thread and sewed me first dress.”

The old lady’s stare bored into her. “That’s it? A shop is preventing you from marrying the finest man I’ve met in a long time?”

Daisy hunched a shoulder. “It’s been all I ever worked for, all I ever dreamed of. And if I marry him, I lose it. That’s the law.”

“Pfft!”

‘It’s true—”

“Pffffft! And piffle! A shop is a thing. It can be bought or sold—or even burned down!” Daisy crossed her fingers to avert bad luck. The old lady continued, “A shop can’t talk to you, or argue, or offer comfort or encouragement. A shop can’t love you.”

Daisy bit her lip. She didn’t need love. She’d done just fine in her life without it.

“You can’t choose between a shop and a person.”

“Yes I can.” Trouble was, there were two persons, not one. Flynn and the baby.

The old lady pursed her lips and eyed her thoughtfully. “And what of Mr. Flynn? Will you deny him even the knowledge of the child?”

“What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” Daisy muttered, but that wasn’t true. How many hours had she spent in her life wondering about her mother, her father, what had happened? And why? Dreaming up all sorts of stories to account for why they had to abandon her.

Sometimes what you didn’t know was an unhealed wound that quietly festered.

There was a long silence. Outside the wind whistled around the eaves. Lady Beatrice shifted, pulling her bedclothes around her. “And the babe?”

Daisy’s mouth trembled. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I thought I could give her away, but . . .”

“Oh, it’s a her now, is it?”

Daisy nodded. She didn’t know how it had happened, but somehow the baby had become a person to her, a little girl with dark curly hair and big blue eyes like her daddy, and she couldn’t, she just couldn’t give her away to be raised by strangers who might not care for her properly, might not love her.

“I thought there might be some . . . some way we could keep her with us. Here.”

“Did you just? Raise your little bastard in my house? Society would love that, I’m sure. They’d flock to your shop then, wouldn’t they?”

Daisy flinched at the hard truths flung at her in a hard voice. She looked up, wounded. She’d hoped the old lady would help her, somehow make it all right.

Lady Beatrice gave an unrepentant shrug. “Nasty word isn’t it? But that’s what you’ll make of her if you don’t marry Mr. Flynn—a little bastard. You know what that’s like, don’t you, Daisy—to be a bastard. I don’t imagine it’s very nice.”

Daisy had no answer to that. Even in the lowest gutters of London, a bastard was the lowest of the low.

“I know, but what else can I do?” Her face crumpled.

“Oh, come here, dearest gel.” Lady Beatrice held out her arms and Daisy fell into them, sobbing.

“I hate this—I never cry,” Daisy said on a hiccup some time later.

“I know. Abby’s the same. I am told women in your condition are more subject to tears. I wouldn’t know.” The old lady stroked a straggle of damp hair back from Daisy’s temple and handed her a wisp of lace. Daisy blotted her eyes with it.

“Feeling better? A good cry can do you the world of good, they say. As good as a—well, what I hope you experienced with Mr. Flynn—though that’s nonsense of course. Those who say it have obviously never had a good man in their bed, I say. It simply doesn’t compare. And it does make a mess of your face—crying I mean, not the other.”

Daisy gave a shaky laugh. The old girl did love to shock.

She smiled and patted Daisy’s hand. “Now go and wash your face and take yourself off to bed, young lady and think about what you’re going to do.”

Daisy blinked at her. “But I thought . . . I mean, you love telling people what to do.”

“I do. But in this case you don’t need my advice.”

“Yes, I do.”

The old lady shook her head. “Only you can decide this—you will be the one who will have to live with whatever decision you make. You and the babe and Mr. Flynn. But first you have to work out what it is you’re so afraid of.”

“Afraid?”

She nodded. “Yes, afraid. Daisy Chance, my brave little gel who confronts the world head-on, who kicked a large and appallingly nasty cook on the first day we met, is afraid.”

Daisy bit her lip. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. She was afraid of the future, afraid for the baby. But a girl had her pride, so she managed to retort in something of her usual manner, “What am I afraid of, then?”

“I don’t know, dearest gel,” the old lady said softly. “Whatever the source of your fear, it is buried deep inside you. Look inside your heart, child, for what you truly want. And then ask yourself what you’re so afraid of. Because until you know what it is—and confront it—you’ll be forever running, and never knowing why.”

*   *   *

She couldn’t decide, she couldn’t decide, she couldn’t decide. It was bloody impossible.

Daisy turned over in bed for the hundredth time and thumped her pillow also for the hundredth time. She could blame the bed—they were in the country, at Jane’s new home, and sleeping in a strange bed was always tricky the first few nights. But it wasn’t the bed.

Nor was her sleeplessness the fault of the strange, unnerving sounds that came out of the night. Those screams, like a person being tortured, were foxes, apparently. Mating. So foxes screamed too. And then there were owls . . .

She hated the country. Full of creepy-crawlies. Good thing they’d be going back to London in a couple of days. She couldn’t wait.

But the country and the foxes weren’t keeping her awake. Her thoughts went round and round.

Lady Bea was wrong about her being afraid. She’d thought about it and the only thing that frightened Daisy was the future of her baby. And that was frightened for, not frightened of.

It was just deciding what to do that was keeping her up.

It was obvious what she should do. She would keep the baby, raise her herself, and if Lady Bea didn’t want her in the house, Daisy would move out. She’d find a small house, maybe even just a set of rooms at first, and pay someone to look after the baby during the day while she was at the shop.

She could do the whole thing discreetly. If she did it properly, her customers would never even know.

Hiding away her baby like she was ashamed of her.

She turned over and thumbed the pillow again.

Bastard. It was an ugly term. It’d hang over her daughter the whole of her life.

Daisy had embraced her own bastardy—told everyone from the start that she was born on the “wrong side of the blanket.” But that was because she had no choice—she was a bastard, and as different from her “sisters” as chalk from cheese. “Wrong side of the blanket” explained everything.

Most families, most high-society families had a bastard or two tucked away. A few of the higher-ups, who didn’t care what others thought, acknowledged their bastards; most hid them away like a dirty little secret.

Like Harriet in that book Emma—she never knew who she was really. Just that “somebody” had paid for her upkeep and education. She was a posh version of Daisy. Unwanted. Dumped, only in a nice genteel school instead of the gutter.

Daisy pressed her palms over her stomach. It was a simple choice: marry Flynn, lose her shop, make her child legitimate—and secure for life, because Flynn was rich. And because he’d love this little girl to bits.

Or give birth to a bastard and raise her as a dirty little secret.

No choice at all, really.

Why then was it so bloody hard to make up her mind?

She’d have to have a talk—no, something more serious—a discussion with Flynn, but that shouldn’t be too hard, surely? He’d be pleased, she knew—he’d made no secret of wanting kids. And she liked Flynn, she really did. And he liked her. Even if she wasn’t the kind of girl he’d always dreamed of marrying. The complete opposite, in fact.

He’d already asked her to marry him a dozen times or more, though she was sure that was just him being noble. He still thought her a decent girl, even after she’d told him everything about the brothel and all. So he’d be noble now and marry her and the baby. And pretend it was exactly what he’d wanted all along. Because that was Flynn.

It should be simple. But it bloody well wasn’t.

Was it the shop? She didn’t know. She loved her shop, but Lady Bea was right—when it came down to a choice between being her own boss and having her lovely shop and becoming a famous fashionable dressmaker—or giving this little one the kind of life she deserved, it was no choice.

She could lose the shop. It would be hard, after all she’d done to make it happen, but she’d proved to herself she could do it—be a success. Once they were married, Flynn would own it. But he’d be fair about it. He might let her continue dropping in there—she could probably design the clothes, if not run the shop. He might even give the shop back to her. He did say she should trust him.

But married men expected their wives to stay home, to run the household, and raise the children. Be a wife. Be a lady. Be a hostess.

She wouldn’t much like it, she wouldn’t be much good at it, not at first, but she supposed she could learn.

She shivered. She had to bite the bullet. She had to tell Flynn.

Tomorrow.

*   *   *

All day she’d put off talking to him. Avoiding being alone with him. Dreading the talk she knew she had to have. The conversation.

He knew something was up too. He was watching her like a hawk. Like an owl. Like one of those blooming foxes. She was ready to scream herself—only not for the same reason.

And now, to make things worse, all the others—all the young people—had gone outside—in couples. Because it was a lovely warm night for a change, and a full moon. Romantic.

The only ones left in the sitting room were old people—and Flynn and Daisy.

He looked at her with the sort of brooding dark look that made her shiver. If there weren’t no baby, no discussion to be had, she’d be out there with him like a shot, enjoying the moonlight. Acting like foxes.

Instead she avoided his gaze.

“Well,” Lady Beatrice said, “are you two going or staying?”

“Stayin’.” Daisy picked up a pack of cards and started to shuffle them—badly. Her hands were shaking. “The country gives me the creeps at night. Anyone for cards?”

Flynn gave her a long, dry look and rose to his feet. “I might as well walk the dog, then. Come on Caesar or Rose Petal or whatever your name is, we can bay at the moon together.” He stepped through the French windows, with Jane’s ugly dog snuffling happily beside him.

Lady Beatrice watched him leave. “Waste of a fine man like that, leaving him to bay at a full moon—alone—with a dog!” she informed the room in general. She turned to Daisy, lorgnette raised and said in a low voice, “Haven’t you talked to that boy yet?”

Daisy shrugged.

The old lady snorted. “So you’re still afraid, still running.”

Daisy looked at her. “No. I ain’t afraid. But since you mention it, I might as well get it over with.” She stomped outside. “Oy, Flynn, wait for me.”