Chapter Thirty-One
Over dinner, which Daisy reluctantly had served despite Arthur’s absence, she announced that they would all be traveling to London to shop and make preparations for the wedding. Lady Evelyn and Elizabeth both glanced at the empty chair at the head of the table, but her sisters were thrilled by the prospect. To them London was a trove of mysterious allure, riches, and adventure. Red, however, looked pained.
“Mind if I stay here with Arthur?” he asked. “A man can only take so much fittin’ and sittin’. I’ve had enough to last three lifetimes.”
Daisy smiled in spite of the twinge of panic his plea caused her. What if Arthur never came back? What if he came back with a constable to bounce them all out on their ears?
“We’ll need you in London, Uncle Red. Besides”—she gave the countess a teasing grin—“who would keep Lady Evelyn in check. You know how carried away she gets in a haberdashery.”
The countess seemed a bit miffed, but the girls’ giggles undermined her indignation. She sighed and nodded, and it was settled. Coffee and evening music were cut short so they could retire early and begin to pack.
Dread settled over Daisy at the glint in her mother’s eye as they mounted the stairs. When she gave Daisy’s back a nudge and deftly stepped into her room behind her, Daisy knew she was in for it. Her mother had a nose for trouble unequaled in England’s former colonies.
As soon as the door closed, Elizabeth turned on her.
“What’s happened with Arthur?” she demanded.
“He had business in the—”
“I’m no fool, Daisy Bumgarten.” Her voice was softer than Daisy expected. “Dukes do not conduct business in one-horse villages in the dead of night.”
“First off, it’s not the dead of night, and second, I don’t oversee his whereabouts. He didn’t say more than he was going out.”
“On business,” her mother prompted.
“So I assumed.” She crossed her arms, feeling an anxiety that was familiar from her younger days creeping up her spine.
Her mother read her tension. “Did you quarrel?”
“What makes you think that?”
“What else could it be? Earlier today he was practically your shadow and now he is absent and doesn’t bother to send word for dinner. That doesn’t seem like him. Something’s happened.” Her mother pressed a handkerchief to her moist temples and lips and Daisy wondered fleetingly if it had smelling salts in it. “You may as well tell me. Sooner or later it will come out.”
She felt herself shrinking inside, becoming sixteen again, disappointing her mother again. The same pursed mouth and “martyred” stance she saw before her had haunted her conscience for years.
“What happens between me and the duke is none of your—”
“You’re my daughter, Daisy, and I’ve trekked halfway around the world to be with you when you marry. I have a right to know if something”—she halted, eyes widening—“or someone has caused . . .” She stumbled to a nearby chair and dropped into it like a wet hide. “That’s it, isn’t it? It’s him.”
Daisy took a step back, knowing too well what her mother meant; if she had trouble, her mother believed, there had to be a man involved. For a moment, she almost buckled, almost allowed that sixteen-year-old girl inside her to collapse under the combined weight of resurrected guilt and her mother’s disapproval. But only for a moment, because in the next, her twenty-two-year-old self recalled how far she had traveled and how much she had overcome, including her own reckless and headstrong behavior.
More still, she recalled Ashton’s reaction to her remorse over having given in to temptation and enjoyed it. Ashton had opened her thinking with his rational acceptance and caring response to the pain she’d carried for too long in her heart. He made her feel whole and worthwhile, and he refused to take advantage of her even when he knew her weakness for him.
Yes, someone had come between her and Arthur.
The man she loved.
“Yes, it’s him,” Daisy said, surprising herself, buoyed by a fresh conviction that being confused and trying to do the right thing in difficult situations shouldn’t be grounds for eternal damnation. She had a problem, and she was going to handle it. Somehow.
“I care for Arthur very much. He’s dear and good-hearted and upstanding. But I love Ashton. He’s clever and mischievous and funny and gentlemanly. He stirs me—body, mind, and soul—and there isn’t a single part of him I would change.” Emotion welled up in her, filling her eyes.
“Oh, Daisy, don’t you see—”
“I see a great deal. I’m a woman, not a child. And before you lay into me about how wicked and venal men are . . . about how they all want just one thing from a woman”—she stalked closer, eyes taut with challenge—“let me tell you: he could have had me six ways from Sunday if he’d only asked. But he didn’t ask. And that, Mama dear, is all you need to know about him.”
* * *
It was a hard, hard night.
Arthur, a pure novice at the sport of drinking, was mother-henned by an anxious Bascom at the Iron Penny, until he gave up the effort entirely and climbed back on his mount to mosey home. He didn’t want to think anymore about her or his brother or the damned title that he wore around his neck like a noose. He hated being a duke. Despised it. He’d like nothing better than to sell up and take off and never come back to this miserable . . . Just let Ashton have the girl—the only girl he’d ever kissed, he groaned—just leave and let them forget he was ever born.
Halfway to Betancourt, he got a fierce urge and dismounted to pee in the brush at the side of the road. His horse took exception to the delay and took off—“Hey!”—leaving Arthur to walk the rest of the way home.
“Damned animal. Who needs you?” He shook a fist at his disappearing mount. “Horses only make me think of her. I learned to ride for her. I’m gettin’ damned good at it.” He straightened. “I was her hero. Stood up to Bertram and his cronies, I did. I’m stronger than they think I am.”
He staggered on, not half as drunk as he wished.
“I was gonna marry her. But she’s in loooove.” He halted in the middle of the road and felt his chest and belly, wondering if he was in love. He had no idea what looove felt like, so how would he know if he was in it or not? He decided somewhere in his ramblings that he must not love her, that he would probably feel something in his chest if he did. Something like . . . dyspepsia . . . only nicer. The lack of such a guidepost meant it was probably wounded pride making him feel this banging in his head and lead in his feet.
“She loooves him. I never stood a chance. Well, he can have ’er. Serves him right—a vixen for a wife. They deserve each other.”
He shambled on down the road repeating that last phrase until it began to truly mean something to him. They deserved each other. By the time he reached Betancourt’s kitchen and threw open the door, he was ready for some coffee and something to douse the fire that good Irish whiskey had started in his stomach.
He had some thinking to do.