Chapter Twenty-Three
Dinner that night was short and ill attended. A few of the oldest guests had elected to take a tray in their rooms instead of endure the formality of the dining room. A mere four courses were served, and plain fare it was: watery soup, overcooked turbot, bland beef with mushy vegetables, and a custard that had separated before it was served.
Ashton wasn’t present, nor was Reynard Boulton or Arthur’s aunt, Lady Sylvia Graham Upshaw. Uncle Bertram sat rigidly at the head of the table and didn’t bother to try to foster good conversation or good appetite. Wine was poured short, and when Daisy asked for additional, the footman looked at her as if she’d asked for the head of John the Baptist. He only complied after he looked to Uncle Bertram, who was busy whispering to Seward, then realized the duke himself was tapping his goblet, demanding more.
Through it all, Arthur toyed with his food and turned his cutlery over and over, studying the tarnish that lay on the silver. But when he looked Daisy’s way, his face brightened and he managed a bit of conversation with the guests seated nearest him.
The highlight of dinner came when a punctilious guest called into question Red’s tales of cowboys’ skills. Old Baron Kettering declared that cattle roping from horseback was impossible and Red’s claims about cowboy acumen had to be pure braggadocio.
Ever one for a challenge, Red declared he would demonstrate the truth of his claims after dinner. Daisy groaned softly as Red hauled out his flask and generously dosed his empty wineglass with whiskey. Arthur, seeming truly interested, sent for old Edgar and ordered torches be set around the perimeter of the main paddock to light the area for the demonstration.
“Uncle Red!” Daisy grabbed his sleeve as he headed outside ahead of the migration of guests buzzing about the challenge. “You haven’t roped cattle in years.”
“Like ridin’ a horse, Daize.” He grinned wickedly. “Once ye learn, ye never forget.”
“But you need a real rope,” she said, keeping up with him.
“I got rope.” He leaned close. “I never go anywhere without a good cattle rope, girl. Thought you knew that.”
He laughed roundly as he headed for the stable, peeling off his fancy tailcoat and tossing it to a stable hand. Sure enough, he exited the stable moments later with a suitable lariat that he had apparently brought across a continent and an ocean with Renegade’s tack and western saddle.
“Can he really rope a running calf?” Arthur asked quietly as he settled by the paddock fence beside Daisy.
“I hope so,” she said, shamed by her doubts about Red’s skill. “He used to be a wonder at rope tricks, but it’s been a while. . . .”
She watched with mounting tension as he produced his flask and took a couple of belts of whiskey before handing it off to another stable hand. He cut quite a figure in the torchlight, with his black trousers and tailored vest, and white shirt open at the collar. Every eye was on him as he unwound his rope, inspected its honda knot, and then addressed the odd mixture of blue bloods, stable hands, and house servants who ringed the paddock fence.
“A cowboy’s workin’ rope has to be stiff—made special for lassoin’ cattle.” Red played to his audience. “I never go anywhere without one!”
Daisy groaned. “He’s three sheets to the wind.”
“He does his best work when snozzeled,” the countess responded.
Daisy gave her a surprised look and found her staring intently at Red, who was rolling his shoulders and limbering up.
“Might be a bit rusty.” He made a puzzled face as if trying to remember. “Oh, yeah. This here’s how it goes.”
The rope whooshed up into the air and a second later it was spreading into a broad, swirling circle above him, sending a rustle of interest through the onlookers. There were some, however, who were less than impressed.
“Is that all you’ve got?” old Kettering called. “You said you could rope a calf.”
“Get me a calf and I’ll rope it!” Red called back, looking pleased. A second later he moved the spinning loop up and down like a piston, down around his shoulders, then his knees, then back up over his head again. There were oooh’s from the crowd. He spun the rope over his head for a moment, then dropped the loop in front of him and let it enlarge as he chuckled. “Gotta make this one big enough to dance in.”
A second later he was jumping in and out of the loop while still spinning it, and applause broke out all around. Daisy applauded the loudest, though not by much; the countess was vehement in her appreciation. When Daisy looked up, the duke was grinning like a schoolboy.
“Oh, then there’s this little bit.” Red started vertical circles and bounced them back and forth to oooh’s and ah’s. He walked around the fence, giving the onlookers a close view of the process and teasing them with his western drawl and swagger.
When he came within a few yards of Daisy, he paused and issued a “Yip-yip-yippieo-kyaaa!” and snapped the rope forward, sent it sailing past his niece to drop neatly around the countess. Lady Evelyn gasped as the lasso tightened around her and looked around as people laughed. She sputtered and blinked, uncertain what she should do as Red approached.
“That’s no calf!” came a hostile male voice from across the paddock. “Ignorant American—can’t tell a calf from a countess!”
A second later Red pulled the captive countess against the paddock fence and rushed over to give her a smooch on the cheek. Daisy was dumbstruck, but once the lasso was removed and Red moved on, the countess recovered with a flurry of “Oh, my’s” and “Goodness sake’s.”
There was laughter at her reaction and she lifted her skirts and fled back to the house. Daisy would have gone with her, but the duke seized her hand and pulled her to his side, pointing to the paddock gate. Someone was pushing a calf into the arena, and as soon as it was released, it began to run.
Onlookers pointed and shouted at Red to lasso it. Daisy held her breath and watched while Red circled the rope over his head and took aim. He stalked the frantic calf for a few yards, then let the loop fly. Time seemed to slow as the lasso opened, sank through the air, and landed around the calf’s neck. A second later the poor animal was yanked to a stop, struggling against the restraint. Red nodded to recognize the burst of applause. “Th’ tricky part’s gettin’ the loop off,” Red called as the noise subsided. A moment later he halted, let the rope slack, and as the stiff loop loosened, the calf slipped out of it and ran off.
It was a moment of triumph, well earned, but not without its detractors. The old baron still insisted he rope a calf from a running horse.
“Nobody ropes from a horse in th’ dark,” Red declared, “unless they’re lookin’ to break a horse’s legs. You need daylight an’ a heck of a larger spread to work in.”
“Thank you, Mr. Strait, for this marvelous demonstration.” Arthur stepped in to declare amazement at Red’s skill. “Your roping is unparalleled, exceeded only by your generosity in displaying it for us. I say—everyone back to the house for a bit of champagne to celebrate!”
They were halfway back to Betancourt before Uncle Bertram caught up with Arthur and pulled him aside to snarl into his ear, “What are you thinking—opening up the cellars after such an appalling display?”
Daisy heard enough to guess Arthur was being chastised, and stepped into Arthur’s line of sight. Her smile was more defiance than pleasure.
Arthur straightened at the sight of her.
“Would you have me take back the invitation? Surely we can part with a few bottles of wine and some liquor, Uncle. We’re not destitute.” He paused and looked quizzically at Bertram. “Are we?”
* * *
Daisy walked the gravel path back to the main house with Arthur, missing the anger in Bertram’s face as he stalked toward the servants’ entrance to order the cellar opened. But Ashton saw it as he rode toward the stable, towing Reynard’s horse—with Reynard sagging precariously in the saddle—behind him. He wasn’t certain what had gone on in the paddock by the stable, but he suspected it had to do with her.
Despite his worst hell-raising intentions, he hadn’t drunk nearly enough to purge the scene in the morning room from his thoughts and hadn’t found a single opponent worth bloodying his knuckles.
He dismounted, helped Reynard sluice from the saddle, and handed off their mounts to an aged stable man. He called for a younger groom to help him get Reynard inside and to his room. They used the front hall and main stairs to avoid the people and noise from the grand parlor. In Reynard’s room on the second floor, they let him fall with an “uff ” on the bed and then loosened his tie and removed his shoes. Ashton looked around the mahogany and brocade-upholstered guest room and thought of his spartan lodgings near the nursery. He should have expected as much. He hadn’t been welcome here in years, and after today, might never be again. His thoughts were confirmed when he found Uncle Bertram waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“How dare you show your face in these walls?” his former guardian snapped. “You’re banished from this house, this family. Set foot inside our doors again and I’ll set the law on you, do you hear?”
“I have no doubt you would do just that. But I think Arthur may have something to say about it.”
“Arthur is irrelevant.”
“Are you sure about that?” Ashton shoved his face near Bertram’s and let the words claw their way up out of the bottom of his soul. “You’d better pray he lives a long and fruitful life. Because if he should die without issue and I become duke, I’ll see you begging in the streets before I’m done.”
He strode to the tall front doors, threw them open with a bang, and exited, leaving them standing wide open.
Bertram narrowed his eyes as he watched Ashton stalk into the night and was soon dragging Seward out of the merriment in the parlor for an urgent conference. After a few words, they hurried upstairs to Lady Sylvia’s chambers, knocked, and demanded the old girl’s maid wake her up. It took a while for Sylvia’s maid to make her presentable. When they were admitted to her elegant chambers—once the domain of the Duchess of Meridian—she was garbed in a nightgown dressing robe, a chin sling, and more than one nightcap. She waved them to the tea table by the window and demanded to know why they had disturbed her. Seward’s explanation told her that serious discussion was required and she sent for her teeth.
“Mark my words, he’ll cause trouble.” Bertram mopped his forehead, then fanned himself with his handkerchief in Sylvia’s overheated chambers. “He could go to Arthur, tell him what we paid him to do.”
Seward shook his head. “Then he would betray his own selfish motives—agreeing to ruin the dollar princess for a few pieces of silver.”
“How did this happen?” Sylvia swatted away her maid’s attempt to wrap her in a shawl.
“We should have paid him more,” Seward said resentfully to Sylvia. “I said we should pay him more.”
“That’s not it.” Bertram’s face twisted. “She got to him somehow—that Bamgarter chit. She got under his skin. He always was weak that way.”
“Subject to the cravings of the flesh, that boy,” Sylvia snapped. “Always has been ruled by his disgusting carnal . . .” Her glower took on a canny edge. “She got under his skin, did she?”
They looked at one another, each doing a variation of the same devious calculation.
“He’s bedded her,” Bertram said, smacking the table. “It can’t be anything else, not with that brazen trollop.” He smirked, impressed with his deduction. “She seduced him into abandoning the family’s welfare.”
“Dazzled him with her wicked charms,” Seward declared, catching on.
“Diddled him to a stupor, you mean,” Sylvia spat, quivering with fury. “Then cozened him into helping her.”
“That’s why he’s suddenly developed a conscience—he’s passing his leavings off to his brother.” Bertram oozed indignation. “He’s mad if he thinks we’d allow—”
He stopped dead and stared into the distance for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth over a scene developing in his mind. Vicious delight spread over his face.
“That’s it. That’s what will end it forever.”
“What?” Sylvia snapped. “What will end it?”
“Arthur could never think of marrying her if he were to find her in Ashton’s bed—see it with his own two eyes. Sister, you were right about finding a use for Reynard Boulton this week. We can arrange for him to be in on the ‘discovery’ and in two days it will be all over London.” His words came fast and hard. “That insolent chit will be finished in society. By the time we’re done with her, she won’t be able to get an invitation from a pox-riddled sailor!”
* * *
Red was in his element, telling stories and making terrible jokes while his audience drank liberally and collected around the piano to sing parlor songs that had traveled the Atlantic to become popular in England, too: “Beautiful Dreamer” and “Oh Promise Me.” The duke had a rather nice baritone voice and blushed when complimented.
After a while, he sighed and turned to Daisy with a melancholy smile.
“I wish Ash were here. He has a brilliant voice. Used to sing me to sleep at school when I was—” He halted and forced a smile that ended the revelation. “A pity he had to return to London on urgent business.”
Daisy’s heart sank at the mention of Ashton. She wished he were here, too. She had no idea he sang, though now that she knew, she could almost hear it in the deep musical quality of his voice that made her want to listen endlessly.
At that moment she knew with heartbreaking certainty: she was impossibly and irrevocably in love with Ashton Graham.
When the merriment ended and the guests drifted off to their rooms, Daisy walked through the darkening house with Arthur. In the entry hall, servants had doused lamps and trimmed wicks. Shadows settled in every corner and cast their faces in soft relief.
They walked side by side, the tension developing between them uncomfortable for Daisy. This was what it would be like, she thought, still reeling from her earlier discovery. For the rest of her life she would climb the darkened stairs at night with Arthur, dreading what would follow, thinking of Ashton and how different it would be with him.
She halted by the stairs and Arthur paused to see what had stopped her.
“I believe I’ll go choose a book from the library,” she said, spotting the candlesticks left on a side table for guests to use in making their way to their rooms. “After such excitement, I’m not certain I’ll be able to sleep.”
Arthur smiled his sweetest, most genuine smile and took her hands in his. “Shall I come and help you find one?”
“No, really.” She squared her shoulders. “I’ll only be a short time.”
“Well, you might try The Butterflies of Southern England, by Stanford Jepson, PhD. It’s put me to sleep a number of times.”
She laughed softly, wondering if he’d meant it as a joke, and braced as he bent to kiss her. He managed to land one on her cheek, near her mouth, and seemed a bit flustered by his poor aim.
“Sweet dreams, Arthur,” she said, retrieving her hands and taking up a candle to light.
He continued on up the stairs while she borrowed a flame from the candle burning on the sideboard and headed down the transverse hall, her mind and heart in turmoil. She entered the darkened library and stopped dead, staring at the shelves, stuffed chairs, and at the table where she and Arthur had gone over maps together. A presence loomed behind her, and she jumped, almost dropping her candlestick.
“Daisy.” It was Ashton’s deep, musical voice. He stepped into the light and steadied her hold on the candle by putting his hand around hers. His tie was missing, his hair looked windblown, and his eyes glowed like molten copper pools. She had never seen him looking more handsome. Or more serious. Her mouth went dry.
“I thought you were called to London,” she said over the hammering of her heart.
“Is that what they’ve put about?” He seemed a bit strained. “In truth, I’ve been banished from the house and from the family.”
“Banished? But why would you be—” She suddenly knew, and the guilt that knowledge brought weakened her knees. “Because of me. They’re punishing you for helping me.”
“Not such a huge loss.” He affected a casualness that wasn’t entirely convincing. “I’ve always felt more at home anywhere but here. I will miss Artie, however.” He paused to gaze into her eyes. “And you.”
She felt the weight of that settle like a boulder on her heart.
“If you’re banished, what are you . . . ?”
“I came to collect my things. And to see you. I couldn’t leave without letting you know. . .” He pulled her to a seat on the leather sofa near the windows and placed her candle on a nearby table. He settled beside her, took her hands in his, and took a deep breath.
“I want you to know that I want what is best for you . . . and for Arthur. He needs someone with courage and independence. Someone who can help him stand up to the family and become his own man. He has a good heart and a sound intellect. I’m sure he’ll come to adore you, if he hasn’t already.”
“So, you’re giving me your blessing?” she said, her throat tightening.
He rubbed her hands gently, tenderly.
“I am a second son.” His voice was thick with unexpressed emotion. “That’s all I have to give you.”
“You cannot truly believe that,” she said, searching the angles of his face and finding despair hiding in the shadows of each feature. “You believe your ‘prospects’ are all that matters to a woman? Has it never occurred to you that some women don’t seek a title or fortune through marriage?”
“The only woman who matters to me . . . does.”
She felt as if she’d been thrown from horseback—every part of her was jarred and shaken by those words. She had trouble getting her breath for a moment. He was right to think that about her; she had sworn it often enough in front of him. And she did care about it. She had to. Outside the soft candlelight and away from his resolve-melting presence, she had a goal to accomplish, a future to make for herself and her sisters. She had worked so hard and come so far, only to find that the price she would pay for success was higher than she could ever have imagined.
She looked into his eyes and reached up to cradle his cheek and then run her fingers over his lips. Her very skin ached for his touch.
He cared about her. He wanted her. And he refused to say so.
But if he said what she so desperately wanted to hear, what then? Would it change her determination? Even while making amends for her previous deeds, she remained stubborn and self-centered at heart. How selfish of her to want him to give his love, the best of his heart to her, when she was unwilling to do the same. Did she think she could wear it about her wrist like a bauble or set it on a shelf like a loving cup trophy? Would knowing he loved her satisfy some selfish, hedonistic urge within her?
Never in her life—not even on that awful day of the Bellington Hunt—had she been forced to face the flaws of her nature as she was forced to face them now. She was stripped bare under her own scrutiny and placed on the balance, weighed against the sacrifices of another’s heart.
“You matter to me, too, Ashton.” She picked her way through a storm of words so potent they had the power to change the course of her life. Forging on, she prayed that what she said would be the right thing. “I owe you a debt I will spend the rest of my life trying to repay. You are generous and kind and more gentlemanly than I deserved.”
“I am no saint, Daisy.” He glanced down at their joined hands. “I helped you only because . . . I couldn’t seem not to. I couldn’t betray the things I truly value, the foundations of my soul. At first all I could see was how different you and Arthur are, and I wanted to protect him.” His tone changed, seeming richer, more nuanced. “Then after a while, after getting to know you, I found myself wanting to protect you, too.”
She looked down, unable to bear the tenderness in his expression.
“You weren’t wrong to try to protect him.” She swallowed hard. “I’m not a simple little virgin. I’m stubborn and determined and independent as a hog on ice. I say what I want, I get what I need, and I ride astride . . . both horses and . . .”
She gathered courage for a moment and made herself say it.
“You see, I’m not exactly pure.”
His hands on hers went perfectly still.
“Ah.” His voice betrayed no judgment, no outrage, no emotion at all.