“Her Ladyship requests your presence in her office.”
Seated in her small office at Ladies of Hope, Daphne glanced up at the servant, Melanie, a young girl with limited vision who used a stick to guide her way through the institution. Daphne furrowed her brow. She wasn’t set to meet with the marchioness and review her responsibilities until Friday.
Melanie cleared her throat and that sprung Daphne into movement. She exited the room behind the servant. The click of their canes echoed along the marble corridors, while Daphne made her way slowly to the Marchioness of Guilford’s offices.
As she walked, she looked around at her new home. For all the grandeur and opulence of Daniel’s residence and country estate, Ladies of Hope may as well have been a study in the Palace of Versailles Daphne had seen depicted on the pages of a book long ago.
The vibrancy of the pale pink satin wallpaper spoke to its newness. The elaborate carving in the mahogany Chippendale furniture bore the markings of wealth. In short, it was a veritable palace, far more fitting a queen, than an institution for young women with few options in life. And yet, Daphne had never aspired to such grandeur. Certainly not as a girl and not as a woman fresh to London.
When she had been a girl, she’d had dreams of how her life would be. Those dreams had been unrestrained as the movements of her legs had once been. Even after her injury, she’d not truly recognized the extent to which her future had been altered. She had allowed herself the dream of a husband, children—love. Love, with only one man—Daniel.
With the passage of time, those dreams had slowly died, leaving in their place, alternate hopes: Security. A roof over her head. Food in her belly.
The charges he’d hurled at her just prior to her leaving echoed around her mind. He’d accused her of running and hiding and those words had stung. How dare he question her aspirations?
Working inside Ladies of Hope and in possession of those three gifts to which all unwed women sought, she acknowledged the truth—he had been correct. Daphne had never felt emptier. She wanted a life of purpose and work…but she also wanted love. His love.
She’d lived thirteen years without Daniel Winterbourne in her life and, yet, she’d been away from him a week now and the hollowness in not seeing him, being with him, baiting him, was greater than all those years combined.
Drawing in a shuddery breath, she stopped outside the marchioness’ office.
The young woman immediately looked up from the journal on her neat desktop; an ever-present smile on her pretty face. “Miss Smith,” she greeted happily, jumping to her feet. With both palms, she motioned Daphne forward. “Come, come,” she urged. “How are you getting on, Miss Smith?” the marchioness asked as they claimed seats across from one another.
“Well,” she answered, the lie springing easily to her lips.
“You are adjusting to being away from…the Earl of Montfort?” The question emerged hesitantly.
Daphne choked on her swallow. Surely the other woman did not suspect? “I don’t—”
“It was nigh impossible to miss the manner in which you studied one another,” the marchioness said with a gentle smile. “The pages linked you two together. Wagers were taken about whether he’d ruin you,” she continued. “It is one of the reasons I hoped you’d accept my offer of employment. I’d not see any lady ruined.”
He hadn’t ruined her. He’d helped her redefine her worth beyond her bent leg. “The gossips know nothing,” Daphne said resolutely and the other woman nodded her agreement. “Dan…” The marchioness narrowed her eyes. “His Lordship and I were childhood friends.” And for a fleeting time, lovers. “His offer of employment stemmed from that connection.” And somewhere along the way, he’d upended her world and opened her heart in ways it had never been.
“That is all there is between you, then?” The marchioness dropped her chin into her hands. “For, in seeing you here, I’ve come to suspect that, mayhap, his intentions were not the dishonorable sort and that, mayhap, your feelings were mutually engaged.”
That aching organ inside her chest, clenched. “There were…feelings,” Daphne murmured, admitting those words for the first time aloud to another soul. “But it requires two hearts to realize and form a complete one together.” By his admission, Daniel was incapable of reform, wanting a future, capable of a future without her in it.
A commotion sounded in the hall with heavy footsteps and loud cries going up.
Daphne jumped and swung her gaze to the closed door. “What…?”
The loud bang of doors being slammed echoed from the hall. “Her Ladyship does not receive visitors, without an appointment,” a servant shouted.
The marchioness rounded her eyes. “What in blazes?” She peered at the front of the room just as the door burst open. Daniel’s tall, commanding figure stood on the other side of that panel. He shot his hand out to keep the door from hitting him in the face. He swept his piercing gaze over the parlor, instantly finding Daphne with his eyes and the burning intensity there robbed her breath.
Daphne cocked her head. “Daniel,” she whispered. Oh, God, he is here. Her heart skipped several beats. What is he doing here?
He moved his gaze over her person, the way a person might when trying to memorize another. “Daphne,” he said, his deep voice gruff with some unnamed emotion. She’d never heard that from him and his mellifluous baritone washed over her, leaving her warm in ways she’d been cold since their parting.
Gasping for breath, the butler skidded into the room. “I-I said H-Her Ladyship is not receiving visitors,” he cried, clutching at his side. “Your Ladyship,” the servant entreated. “I have summoned the footmen. I informed the gentleman you were not receiving visitors—”
“It is all right,” the marchioness said in soothing tones as she sat back in her chair. “It is not every day a rake storms my offices.” A smile plucked at the corners of the other woman’s lips.
Daniel blinked slowly and moved his gaze from Daphne over to the woman, sprawled in her chair. “I am not here for you.” He turned to Daphne. “I am here for you.”
At the husky quality to that statement, butterflies danced in her belly. Daphne wetted her lips. “Are you unable to find a companion for Lady Alice?” she asked, hesitantly.
With long, languid steps he advanced. “I am not here because of my sister,” he said to her, his low tone revealing nothing. He continued coming, until the rose-inlaid table halted his forward movement. That mahogany piece stood a small barrier between them.
Two footmen came rushing into the room, but the marchioness held a staying hand up.
Daniel moved around the table, so only a handbreadth separated them. He palmed her cheek and she leaned into his touch. “I am here for you.”
“I don’t under—”
“I love you,” he interrupted hoarsely.
The cane slipped from Daphne’s fingers, bounced off the table, and clattered to the floor. The marchioness promptly stood and quickly exited the room, closing the door behind her. His words sang through Daphne, filling her. She touched her fingertips to her lips. He loves me?
He spared a glance at the closed door and shook his head. “It took me time to realize it,” he said, gathering her hands. He raised them to his mouth, one at a time. The delicate brush of his lips on her skin brought her eyes briefly closed. “It took me thirteen years.” The column of his throat moved. “Mayhap my whole life, to see that which was always in front of me.” He released her hands and she mourned the loss of his touch. “I love you. I’ve loved you since you were a freckle-faced girl searching for treasures at the lake.” Pain glazed his eyes. “I spent my life running from that love…from any sort of feelings because I was so convinced I did not deserve it. I believed everything good that came to me was destroyed. I became what my father told me I was.” A broken laugh burst from his lips. “And because of that, I certainly didn’t deserve you.”
That self-doubt had kept them apart. She never wanted to be without him, again. “You do,” she whispered, taking his hands once more. Tears clogged her throat and she swallowed hard. “You always did. You just never believed it.”
“I don’t want to run from you anymore, Daphne,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. All beautiful unrestrained devotion, adoration…and love. “I want you to be my wife and I want to have fiery-haired girls with your spirit and strength. I want you to continue working here, if that is what you so desire.”
Tears flooded her eyes, blurring his visage. How many gentlemen would support their wives in that endeavor? A single drop streaked down her cheek, followed by another. And another. Daniel caught one tear with the pad of his thumb and brushed it away.
“I am in dun territory. I don’t have a fortune to offer you,” he said, stepping away. He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a coin. “I only have a treasure and if you marry me, it is yours.” Daniel held up a rusted coin with a lightning crack down the center of the King George III’s face.
“Daniel?” she swung her gaze between him and that cherished coin. All sound melted away so that a humming filled her ears. Impossible. He pressed the rusted metal, warm from being inside his jacket into her palm. Automatically, Daphne closed her fingers around it and then she forced them open, staring down at the coin found all those years ago. He’d kept it. That small treasure unearthed in the mud beside their lake and he’d held onto it. She shook her head and lifted stunned eyes to his, once more. “But you said…you said you did not keep it,” her words emerged softly.
Daniel shook his head. “You assumed I’d wagered it away. I merely said that was a likely assumption.” He flashed her a half-grin. “It also proved to be the incorrect one. I always kept it here,” he said quietly, touching his chest. “You were always here.”
Her hand fell quavering to her side. “Oh, Daniel.”
His smile died. “As I said, I don’t have a fortune to offer. My uncle has cut me off, but you and I can carve out a life together.” He sank to a knee, wringing a gasp from her. “Daphne Smith, will you marry m—oomph?”
She hurled herself into his arms, knocking him back. Daniel came down hard with her atop him. “Yes,” Daphne breathed. Capturing his face between her hands, she touched her mouth to his in a gentle meeting. “But I was wrong,” she said when they broke the kiss. His eyebrows dipped, in question. “I didn’t find a treasure all those years ago.” A small, quivering smile turned her lips. “I found love, with you.”
Daniel guided them back to their feet and flashed another grin. “And you do know what they say about reformed rakes?”
She shook her head slowly, unable to sort through the joy, love, and giddy lightness dancing inside. “What is that?”
He flashed her a crooked grin. “We make the best husbands.”
“You are wrong, Daniel.” Daphne smiled. “They make the best heroes.”