When Daphne Smith had left Polite Society ten years ago, she’d vowed the only way she’d ever reenter their midst was if her life depended on it. Even then, if she could strike a deal with the Devil to retain her hold on living, then that was a deal she’d happily take.
In the end, she’d made a deal with an altogether different devil and ironically one that would thrust her back amongst the ton. A devil who’d also politely refused the use of his mount to claim the seat opposite her.
“You’re not riding Satan?” Lady Alice puzzled aloud, echoing Daphne’s very wondering.
Satan?
Daniel rolled his shoulders. “How could I be so rude as to forego the delightful company here?”
His sister rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
“You named your horse Satan?” Daphne snorted. “I would suggest striving for being less obvious in conveying the depth of your wickedness.”
Alice widened her eyes and burst into laughter.
Through the mirth echoing off the walls, Daniel winged an arrogant eyebrow up. “It occurs to me you have been attending stories of my wickedness, Miss Smith.”
Daphne promptly closed her mouth and redirected her attention out the window, staring out at the passing countryside, deliberately ignoring him and the intense gaze he trained on her. How empty were the lives of noblemen that they would find enjoyment in needling and baiting a lady. And in this case, a lady who’d once been a friend.
Daniel shifted his weight on the bench and that subtle movement brought their knees into contact. An unwanted heat burned through her fabric. She gritted her teeth and inched closer to the side of the carriage.
Seven hours. That was how long she’d be forced to endure the jolting, miserable carriage ride with Daniel across from her. And she only knew the precise amount because she’d counted the minutes with excitement as a girl of eighteen when she’d first gone to London. Then she had lamented the infernally slow passage of time on the return from that miserable hell.
Alice broke the tense impasse. “Have you been to London, Miss Smith?”
“Once,” she murmured. “Ten years ago.” Unease formed a pit in her belly. It was not that she’d despised London. She had enjoyed the thrill of the city. But rather, it was a certain gentleman that she despised. Lord Leopold Dunlop’s face flashed behind her mind’s eye. She’d never meant anything to that rogue. As such, he’d hardly remember the cripple he bedded against a wall, like a cheap dockside doxy.
Alice surged forward in her seat, her brown eyes radiating an excitement Daphne herself had been filled with years earlier. “Is it as wicked as all the gossip columns claim?”
Worse.
“I would have to defer to your brother,” she murmured and then mentally cursed herself for inviting Daniel into any discourse of which she must be part.
Alice turned an expectant stare on her brother.
“Worse,” he supplied, stretching his legs out once more, sending another round of that unwanted awareness. She didn’t want to notice that he’d grown into this towering, well-muscled model of male perfection.
He gave her a slow, languid look. A knowing one.
Daphne gritted her teeth and attended Alice. “I expect your brother would rather you not know of the wicked end of London,” she supplied for him.
“All of London is depraved,” he countered, unhelpfully.
Daphne shot him a reproachful look. “That is untrue,” she countered. Ladies of Hope was proof of the good in the world, still. “Some parts are not,” she said lamely when brother and sister continued to stare at her.
“But most are,” Daniel persisted.
Alice brightened. “That will do. I was hoping for wicked.”
She swallowed a groan. Her charge would, of course, possess a bit of her brother’s wild spirit. “There is something to be said for dull.” Of course, an earl’s sister didn’t know the same uncertainty that came for lower-born women like Daphne.
“Yes, there is,” Daniel concurred, unexpectedly helpful. “It is tedious.” He followed that outlandish charge with a wink, eliciting a bark of laughter from his sister.
Daphne swiped a hand over her eyes. Could he not be a proper brother? The protective older brother who scared off suitors and showed the correct level of worry for his sister’s reputation. “No, there is something safe in it. Reassuring. Comforting. Wicked is uncertain.” Lord Leopold Dunlop’s smug, smirking face flashed behind her eyes again. “And often dangerous,” she added and thought better of it. “Always dangerous. Always,” she whispered to herself, an unnecessary reminder she no longer needed. Not when her lack of virtue stood as a testament to that very fact.
She registered the absolute silence in the carriage and looked up to find the Winterbourne siblings studying her with varying degrees of interest. Cheeks heating, she shifted her attention to the window. She’d said too much. Mayhap, they’d let the matter rest and go on with their discussion on the wicked wonders of London.
Of course, that was all too much to hope for. “Do you know, Miss Smith,” Daniel began. “You speak as though a woman who doth protest too much.”
Her skin pricked with the curious attention Alice trained on her. “I speak as a woman who was properly warned away from scandal and not one who’d romanticize it. And given,” she held his gaze, “Lady Alice’s entry into Polite Society, I should think you wish her to embrace respectability and honor.”
“Yes, well, I do not care if the gentleman to court me is a rake or honorable gentleman, as long as he is hopelessly in love with me,” Alice piped in.
“Rakes don’t love,” Daniel interrupted with a jaded edge as he reached inside his jacket and withdrew a silver flask. He removed the stopper and took a swig.
“The reformed ones do,” his sister protested with a frown of one who believed she knew more than she, in fact, did.
He took another sip. “Rogues may be reformed. A rake never. Find the suitable lords. A proper, wealthy duke. In fact, any wealthy gent will do. Don’t go wasting your attention on anything less.”
The muscles of Daphne’s stomach knotted. How many believed those powerful peers made the ideal match? Most ladies dreamed of lofty, fat in the purse, lords. She had been a lady, dreaming only of love. “Think equally with your heart and with your mind when deciding on a suitor,” she said quietly.
“Your mind?” Daniel chuckled, the sound empty and devoid of mirth. Oh, how changed he was from the freckle-faced boy who’d snorted and shook with laughter. “Hardly the romantic words to pass on to your charge.”
“I would pass her words of wisdom,” she challenged. He narrowed his eyes on her face and the dark, piercing intensity hinted at a man who could see inside a woman’s head and extract her every secret. If he did, he’d have seen her unsuitability, tossed the carriage door open, and kicked her back into the countryside where she belonged.
Daniel said nothing more. Instead, he returned his attention to that silver flask.
Another thankful silence descended on the carriage. The quiet was only shattered by the rumble of the carriage wheels and the soft, evenly drawn breaths of Alice slumbering and the faint snoring of Daniel as he slept.
Daphne released the tension she held in her shoulders and rolled the muscles aching from her stiff carriage. For so long, it had been easy to put her experience in London into a trunk, close the lid, lock it up, and bury it away under her bed, to never be brought out again. That place where horrible memories and foolish mistakes were dusted aside, but never truly forgotten. For they could not be forgotten.
Now, Daniel, with his offer of employment, had forced that trunk out into the open. All her sins and follies mocked her once more for the hopefulness of her youth.
She’d been tricked by a smiling, dashing gentleman, far too handsome than a man had a right to be, with the right words on his lips. She would forever live with the reminder of trusting a rogue. Or rake, or scoundrel. Because even with Daniel’s semantic dance, they were all invariably the same.
Just as he was the same.
She shifted her gaze over to his sleeping form. In repose, the cynical lines melted from the harsh, angular planes leaving in their place a beautifully sculpted gentleman. The square jaw, the high cheeks, all embodied the perfect material for those great artists to memorialize in their precious stone. It was no wonder he’d become one of those lords whose favors were coveted and craved by unhappy women and debutantes eager to dance with excitement and danger.
For he represented that. Daphne captured her chin in her hand. He’d not always been that way. He’d been outrageously fun to bait and tease and chase. A boy with clever jests, who’d seen stags in the stars and wolves in the clouds. Then, a boy and girl invariably grew up and became the jaded figures that she and Daniel now were.
He…was awake.
Her stomach lurched as his chestnut brown lashes twitched. Impossibly long lashes that no gentleman had a right to possess. She bit the inside of her cheek. The bounder. A slow, decidedly wicked grin curved his lips up. “How long have you been awake?” she demanded on a charged whisper.
“Long enough.” He waggled his chestnut eyebrows and then spoke in hushed tones. “Did you enjoy what you saw, Miss Smith?”
Daphne rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Hardly.” She was going to hell for lying.
“And yet, you stared.” God, he was more tenacious than he’d been as a boy, rooted at the shore at dusk, refusing to leave until he’d caught a fish.
“I was thinking of how you have changed,” she said, off-setting him with her honesty.
He opened and closed his mouth several times, like that very fish he’d inevitably prevailed to catch. The company he now kept, he’d not know what to do with honesty. His momentary lack of control receded, replaced by the smooth, cocksure arrogance that could only belong to a sought-after rogue. “So tell me how have I changed?” he urged.
Of course, he’d noted her earlier appreciation. She was wise and wary, but she was not dead. That was where she’d fail and she’d see the glorious specimen he’d become. “You used to smile.” A glorious sunny grin that had twinkled in his eyes and matched his dimple. “I preferred when you were smiling,” she added, unable to keep the regret from seeping into her musings.
He turned his lips up again, in a smooth, wolfish grin. “I still smile.”
Sadness tugged at her heart. “That is not a smile, Daniel. That is an empty, dark expression that could never be disguised as anything good.”
“And what of you, Daphne?” he challenged in hushed tones, while his sister slept on. “Have you not changed?”
“I never said I did not,” she rebutted.
He placed his hands on his knees and leaned across the bench. Her heart quickened as all the much needed space between them faded and his nose nearly brushed hers. “At least, I can still move the muscles, Miss Smith, which is a good deal more than I can say for your angry lips and your warning to my sister to stay away from wicked and wonderful pursuits.”
“They are dangerous,” she said on a furious whisper.
“Do you know what is dangerous?” he rebutted, his breath stirring her lips. God help her, she was a wanton still, for she wanted to close the distance between them and know their contour and feel in ways she never had. In ways she’d never truly known a man’s kiss.
Oh, God. This is dangerous. She closed her eyes and gave her head a slight shake. He interpreted that desperate, silent appeal for sanity as an answer to his question.
“Dangerous is never knowing pleasure. Dangerous is living with the worry of what other people think and, worse, caring about what they think, so that you lose every piece of you that is worth living. That is dangerous.” He opened his mouth but his words faded and his gaze fell to her mouth.
Her too-full mouth.
No doubt the ladies who’d known this man’s kiss had all been blessed with the bow-shaped ones captured in portraits and written of on the pages of sonnets. Not that she gave a jot what Daniel, or any man, thought of her mouth. Or her flawed, awkward body. He hooded his lashes and a smoky darkness filled his brown eyes.
Oh, my God in heaven, he is going to kiss me.
The carriage hit a jarring bump and tossed him against her. His chin knocked the top of her forehead and she winced as pain radiated from the point of contact. Her accelerated heart rate resumed its normal pacing.
Daniel silently cursed. “Let me see,” he commanded, reaching a hand out to explore the sensitive skin of her brow.
Daphne held up frantic, staying hands. “I am fine,” she assured, hastily backing away. Other than my momentary descent into madness where I craved your kiss.
He probed along her right eyebrow. Her useless pulse pounded all the harder. How strong and sure his touch was. And how pathetic her reaction to him.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, swatting at him. Needing him to stop.
“Don’t be a twaddle,” he muttered, continuing his search.
…that isn’t the proper use of the word twaddle, Daniel…
Her lips twitched. “That is not the proper use of twaddle.”
…it should be…
Daniel briefly shifted his attention from the slight knot forming at her brow to meet her gaze. “I know,” he reminded her and her heart started.
Did he recall that long ago debate between two often competing children?
He froze and then quickly yanked his hands back. “I trust you’ll survive your slight lump, Miss Smith,” he said, in his smooth, deep voice. One that resurrected the proper barriers where he was the rake and she the woman who knew far better than to trust the touch, words, kiss, or anything else of those gentlemen.
Yet, as he sat back in his seat and closed his eyes once more, she could not account for the regret at the brief, happy recollection that had been so quickly shattered.
By Lucifer and all his armies, he’d almost kissed her.
Which really should not set off this rapid round of panic in his chest and certainly not shock. He’d stolen countless kisses from countless ladies. And yet, this was not just any woman.
This was Daphne Smith. A lady in the truest sense. The manner of one who’d attended Sunday sermons and who, no doubt, still suffered through those infernal masses. The girl he’d swum naked with in a lake on his father’s property. Who’d hurled mud at his face and from whom he’d taken a fist to the nose countless times so she could properly learn to beat a boy…all to protect herself, of course.
Except, with those long-forgotten remembrances, new ones whispered forward. Of this new, stern-faced Daphne with her crimson hair in that God-awful chignon. He tormented himself with the forbidden image of yanking the combs from those fiery locks and letting her hair cascade about them as she dove under the surface of that same lake, like a siren, luring him out to sea.
He groaned and quickly converted it into a practiced snore. The spirited woman now dancing wickedly through his thoughts looked quickly in his direction. Suspicion clouded her eyes. The proper suspicion befitting any suitable companion.
In selecting her as Alice’s companion, she’d proved the ideal choice to silence even his stodgy, always disapproving uncle. Proper. Respectable. Without scandal. She fit with everything his bastard of an uncle expected of someone serving in that role. She was also forbidden, given their history as childhood friends. And with her transformation into pinch-mouthed, disapproving miss, well, there were no worries of any lusting after a servant in his employ.
Or there hadn’t been. Until he’d first noted those damned silver flecks in her eyes and her lush, full mouth which only conjured even more delectable, wicked, and the word she so feared, dangerous, images of all the pleasures he could know from that luscious mouth.
He peered through his lashes once more and found the lady directing all her tense energy to the window. The stiff set to her lean, lithe frame was a contradiction of the full-figured beauties he’d long favored. The sight of her stern face reflected back in that crystal windowpane effectively doused all lust and restored his logic.
He’d no interest in bedding an angry miss. And certainly not one who’d long ago punched him so hard in the nose, she’d driven him to cry. Humbling stuff, having been brought to tears… by a girl, no less. Yes, he quite preferred his women laughing, tempting, teasing, and well, in short, all things this harpy before him was not.
She’d not always been like this. Then, they’d all been different in many ways, before life ultimately shaped them into the people they’d become. When had her happiness died, leaving in its place the cautious creature whose breath quickened at his glance alone? Had it been long ago, after that fall that shattered her leg and the physical perfection expected of their world? Or had it come later? With the death of a parent? Or a failed Season where no match had been made?
Had those self-important lords in the market for a bride, been too consumed by the model of beauty that they’d failed to notice the lady?
Eventually, with the passing moments, her shoulders sagged and she leaned against the side of the carriage. The soft rasp of her gentle, even breathing blended with the rumble of the wheels. She slept.
His pretend bid at sleep over, Daniel opened his eyes and frowned. She’d had her Come Out and he’d been there, and not once had he seen her, or danced with her, or visited. It spoke to the emptiness of his soul that he’d been so enrapt in his own pleasures that he’d failed to visit a former friend come to London. Which would have been better for the lady, anyway. By that point, he was riddled with scandals, feared by protective mamas, and, as such, hardly the gentleman a gentile lady would either want or need about.
He told himself that. And yet, studying her in her sleep, a sentiment he’d believed long dead stirred within him. Guilt was a sentiment he thought he was incapable of feeling or even recognizing. But he’d not always been a ruthless, self-serving bastard. He’d once been very much human and capable of hurting and loving and crying. He shuddered. All mulling, pathetic emotions. Daphne might resent his absence all those years ago and judge him for the empty smile he wore, but he was far safer now than he’d ever been before.
He studied her as her head lolled back against the squabs, her face relaxed in her slumber. She’d spoken to his sister of the perils of wickedness. Her unspoken words and disapproving eyes condemning the life he lived. When in truth, he’d achieved something that she still, by her warnings for Alice, strove toward—absolute unfeelingness. He knew carnal pleasures and lived for his own material comforts.
He’d have it no other way. For the path she’d trod was a weary one and in the end, Daniel’s was the safer one. The one that would see him guarded from pain and loneliness. And Daphne Smith was free to the miserable course she’d set.