2nd June, 1881
Darling Daisy,
I hope that this note finds you well. Please convey my thanks to the Duchess of Leeds for granting you the hospitality you requested. Your doctor promises me you will mend and that our babe was unharmed, and I am heartily glad, as I cannot fathom a life without the both of you in it.
Bravo, buttercup. The newspapers are ablaze with talk of The Daring Duchess. The Home Office assures me that your name is cleared and there remains no shadow of doubt concerning your integrity, bravery, and courage. You were—and are—magnificent.
I am unutterably sorry for everything—deceiving you, doubting you, hurting you. I hope you will find it within you to forgive me some day, though I know I’m not deserving of your clemency. Regardless, I’m inordinately proud of my fierce, beautiful, Daring Duchess.
Though I must say a hundred pounds on ice sculptures was rather extortionate.
Yours,
Sebastian
P.S. I’ve begun inquiries into your sister’s whereabouts. I won’t stop looking until she is found.
Daisy finished reading the note and allowed it to flutter to her lap. It would seem that her letters had at last found their way into Sebastian’s hands. And he had read them. Not only that, but he was searching for Bridget on her behalf. Her foolish heart quickened in her chest.
“Well?” Georgiana demanded, holding a white cat to her bosom as she seated herself at Daisy’s bedside. “What has he to say for himself?”
She swallowed, tamping down the unsettled emotions Sebastian’s words had brought back to teeming life within her. A week had passed since her world had been torn asunder. Abigail and her father had been arrested, along with a string of other plotters in London and a host of other cities. Still, both Padraig McGuire and Bridget remained unaccounted for, and Daisy could only hope that wherever she was and whatever she had done, her sister hadn’t mired herself too deep within the dangerous Fenian organization.
Daisy herself was healing fine. Thankfully, the bullet had only passed cleanly through her shoulder. Daisy had lost a fair amount of blood, but the doctor had been able to stitch her up, and thus far, she remained free of infection. The babe continued to grow, blissfully unaware throughout it all. She’d chosen to recover at Georgiana’s home rather than staying with Sebastian, and he had honored her request by keeping his distance. She hadn’t seen him since the awful day Abigail had attempted to take her hostage.
She’d spent the last week lolling about in a spare guest chamber, eating pastries and feeling sorry for herself. In the furor of the moment, she had left Hugo behind with Sebastian, which meant she’d been settling for the company of Georgiana’s menagerie—which had grown to include a family of mice, a parrot, and a frightfully inquisitive lizard—whilst she recovered.
“Daisy?” Her friend’s gentle voice reminded her that she’d asked her a question.
Ah, yes. Sebastian’s bittersweet note. “He says that the newspapers are calling me The Daring Duchess.”
Georgiana laughed. “He is correct on that score, anyway. You’re being hailed as a veritable goddess. Your bravery will be the stuff of legends.”
“There was no bravery, only necessity.” She paused, frowning. “Do you mean to say the people who once flayed me alive are now touting my praises?”
“You helped to catch some of the Fenian menace.” Georgiana winked, giving the cat a thorough scratch behind her ears. “Lady Philomena Whiskers likes that, doesn’t she?”
Daisy chuckled in spite of her unsettled emotions, and then she grimaced when her body’s movement pulled at the stitches in her shoulder. “What a ridiculous name for a cat.”
“For some cats, perhaps, but not for this one,” Georgiana said with a grin and raised brows. “She’s descended from feline royalty. Just look at her delicate paws and her sweet, heart-shaped nose. She’s destined to marry a marquis, at the least. No second sons for her.”
The woman was as ridiculous as the names she gave her animal friends. “But inquiring minds do long to know—how does she get along with the mouse family?”
“The Lilliputians, you mean?” Georgiana winked. “Ludlow has been seeing to their care. Lady Philomena Whiskers doesn’t prefer their company. Rather, she would prefer their company, but only if they were obliging enough to be her dinner, and we cannot have that.”
The mere notion of Georgiana’s odd, mountain of a butler caring for a family of mice was just too much. Daisy collapsed into a fit of giggles. “No. You jest.”
The Duchess of Leeds raised an imperious brow. “I assure you, I would never joke about such a thing. You’d have to see it to believe it. But Ludlow does have a heart beating beneath that rigid, scarred hide of his. I swear.”
How refreshing to indulge in laughter. For a brief moment, it distracted her from thoughts of Sebastian. But in the next breath, the pain was there, beating in her heart, for Lilliputians reminded her of the gift he’d once given her.
A favorite for a favorite.
She would never stop loving him. But she needed time, time to find herself. Everything she’d known had been torn asunder, and so many of the people closest to her—Sebastian included—had deceived her. This time of healing was for her body, her mind, and her heart.
Or at least, that was her most fervent hope.
5th June, 1881
Dearest Daisy,
I have resigned my position, effective immediately. The only position I wish to occupy is that of your husband. When and if you are ready, I await you here. Also, if it is friendship you require, may I offer my services? Given that I’m no longer a covert operative, I fear that gutting the Earl of Bolton may land me in Newgate.
Yours,
Sebastian
She hadn’t answered the first two letters he’d sent her.
Sebastian sat at the desk in his study, and it was still intricately carved and polished smooth. It surface remained organized with the meticulous precision he preferred. Everything was the same. For the familiarity of it, nothing might have changed. His secretary had stacked his most recent correspondence in three neat piles in the upper right quadrant. The lower held his pen. The left held the letters Daisy had sent him, all opened, all read at least half a dozen times.
Her words were windows to her.
He could read them and so easily know what she’d experienced as she’d written them. And so, while all the small pieces of his life ostensibly remained the same, everything had changed.
He had changed.
Griffin had railed against him, begged him not to retire from the League. And he had anyway. His years of service were done. The life he wanted was a life with Daisy. He wanted her back. He wanted their babe. He wanted love and laughter and happiness well into the next bloody century. He wanted to fill Thornsby Hall with children and love and contentment. He would even bring the mongrel.
Hugo, as he was called, wandered about the study, offering a judicious sniff here and there. He’d been sitting by the door for the last half hour, staring Sebastian down, until he’d given up on that game and begun to wander.
He watched the dog sniff, prance to the center of the carpet. “Oh, bloody hell, Hugo. No!”
And raise his leg.
“Damn it.”
Some time and some cleanup efforts later, Sebastian set pen to paper to write Daisy another letter. She had asked for time and space, and he had honored her wishes. But damn it, he was still going to fight for her. And if he had anything to say about it, he was going to win her.
7th June, 1881
Buttercup,
The Axminster is quite lovely, but I’m afraid your beast has besmirched it on no less than three occasions. All aforementioned outrages occurred in my study. I do think he loathes me. Furthermore, eight shillings a yard seems a trifle profligate as I’m reasonably certain the going rate is six.
Your beast and I both miss you profoundly.
Yours,
Sebastian
Daisy pressed a hand to her mouth as she read Sebastian’s latest letter, suppressing her unexpected mirth.
“What’s so humorous? Do tell.” Today, Georgiana held a midnight-black kitten in her arms. He was purring loudly, snoozing so soundly that his tiny mouth had fallen open.
“Hugo is marking his territory on the new Axminster.” She grinned.
“Serves him right, doesn’t it, Kitty Quixote?” Georgiana gave him a chin scratch, but he kept purring and snoozing just the same.
It was Daisy’s turn to raise a brow. “I’m not sure which is more egregious, Lady Philomena Whiskers or Kitty Quixote.”
“I can’t be sure.” Her friend’s tone was musing, thoughtful. “One could say we’re all tilting at windmills at one point or another, no? Perhaps the only thing that’s egregious is the crime of taking ourselves too seriously. What do you think, Daisy dear?”
A smile equal parts sad and reserved curved Georgiana’s lips. The scandal she’d wrought with Daisy hadn’t roused her husband. He hadn’t charged back to England from New York, determined to fight for her heart. He had continued to ignore her. Georgiana was a strong woman, but even Daisy could see that the duke’s indifference hurt her.
“I think I’m growing more confused by the day,” she admitted.
11th June, 1881
Dearest Buttercup,
You were right about my scars. They aren’t from a fire when I was a lad. An anarchist set fire to a merchant’s building in Cheapside during one of my missions, and I was fortunate to escape with only burns on my arms and hands. The anarchist didn’t prove nearly as lucky.
Additionally, I applaud your replacement of the portrait of the Third Duke of Trent, Lord Privy Seal. His wig alone was enough to make a man bilious.
Ever yours,
Sebastian
He paced the confines of the library, Hugo trotting at his heels. The room smelled of leather and paper and oiled wood. Familiar, comforting. Books were organized by subject now. He’d discovered that in his peripatetic journey. Down one row of books, up another. Daisy had made sense of each title, organizing every bound volume to her liking. Not a spine was out of place.
He stalked the library again and again, taking in all the books waiting for her. Hundreds. Millions of words. So many stories, worlds, characters. All hers for the taking. Those books taunted him, because they waited for her return the same way that he did.
Each day, he wrote her, hoping it would be the day she could forgive him and return home. Each day, he was met with her silence. Not even a one-word response. Keeping his distance from her as she recovered had almost been his undoing, but he had wanted to observe her wishes above all else, even above his concern for her. Her father had robbed her of the power of choice for her entire life. She’d been through so much upheaval—learning that her father and her lady’s maid had been engaged in an affair, and that they’d been plotting together against her, that they’d framed her—he couldn’t begin to imagine.
He didn’t wish to add more stress and worry to her life. But she couldn’t remain encamped with the odd Duchess of Leeds forever. He wanted his wife back. He wanted a life with her.
He stilled, his eyes settling on one spine above all.
Gulliver’s Travels.
He wondered if she’d read it.
Hugo nudged his leg, making a needy canine sound and drawing his attention away. He lowered to his haunches, scratching the dog’s soft head. Warm, brown eyes stared into his.
“We need her back, don’t we, boy?”
Hugo licked his face, and that was the only answer he required.
15th June, 1881
My love,
Your doctor tells me you are fully healed and the babe continues to flourish. I am, and will ever be, awed by your strength.
I intend to leave for my estate, Thornsby Hall, in the morning. I’m overseeing improvements upon the library and several other rooms. Your beast will accompany me, though he would be wise to cease his alarming proclivity for carpet annihilation. I trust you are in good hands with Her Grace. Should you need to reach me, send word there.
After much pondering, I’ve postulated a theory that a one thirty-second Your Grace would consist of the opening of one’s mouth as if to form the sound of a “y” and nothing more. I’ve attempted it in a glass on several occasions, and I’m reasonably certain I am correct. You are welcome to debate the matter.
Yours as ever,
Sebastian
P.S. I love you.
P.S. I love you as I love the sun on my face, the breath in my lungs, the green grass of spring, a faultless summer sky. I love you so much that I ache with it.
Daisy finished reading Sebastian’s latest note.
Her heart was so full that it hurt.
“Daisy,” Georgiana said.
She looked up, eyes blurred by tears. Her friend held a small spaniel in her arms, just a wee pup. “What is his name?” she asked, because it was the only thing she could say without turning into a waterfall.
Her delicate condition was making her maudlin. But then, so was Sebastian.
“Puppenstein,” her friend answered, her tone serious.
“I love him,” Daisy blurted. “I cannot stop loving him, no matter how hard I try. He makes me laugh and he makes me cry, and he makes me want to wake up every morning with him and go to bed each night at his side.”
Georgiana blinked in exaggerated fashion. “Puppenstein? I had no idea you cared for him so much. He’s yours if you’d like.”
“No.” She shook her head, smiling like a fool. “Sebastian Fairmont, Eighth Duke of Trent.”
Georgiana patted her hand. “Then go to him.”