Weakness.
Fear.
Those were the reasons why Daisy stood alone in a private chamber with the Duke of Trent in the midst of the crush of the Beresford Ball, daring him to kiss her. Also, perhaps just a touch of madness.
But it was a madness and a desperation both borne of necessity. A fear fashioned by violence. The weakness was a sin purely her own, and she loathed herself for it. Oh, how she wished she could be strong and defiant. That she could be brave, unafraid, the author of her own rescue.
But she couldn’t.
Why not, then, the handsome duke who’d been discreetly following her for the last month? His reputation preceded him. He was a rake, a rogue who belonged to the fastest circle in London society. Whispers and rumors about him abounded, but she didn’t care. He was a dangerous sort of man, though not in the way that made her mouth go dry and her body brace for an incoming blow.
So why not indeed? Ordinarily, she suffered a man’s touch as a means to an end. Lord knew she’d been engaged in the pretense of flirtation with as many suitable gentlemen as she could find in the hopes of routing her father’s plans for her. In the glow of London society, she had become a bon vivant, adept at hiding the flinch that had once marked her for a woman with an expectation of violence.
The man before her, the altogether beautiful Duke of Trent, had somehow swept past all the barriers she kept carefully girding her true self from everyone else. She hadn’t needed to feign her attraction for him. Hadn’t even fought the urge to wince, for no wince had been forthcoming.
Something about him spoke to her on a primitive level, in a way she’d never known existed. Yes, the Duke of Trent possessed an altogether different aura of danger. She hadn’t been prepared for the contact of his large, warm hand on her bare skin, for the way it had seemed to send sparks of electricity charging through the air between them. No fear. No almost insuppressible anticipation of pain. Nothing buthim, consuming her world.
At such proximity, he was even more handsome than she’d supposed. His eyes were the most unusual shade of blue she’d ever seen, bright and lighter than the sky on a faultless summer day. They studied her now, dipping to her mouth.
Had she just offered him aturn? She didn’t recognize herself. Indeed, everything about this enchanted, worry-free moment, suggested she was dreaming. Soon, she would wake. Surely.
“I cannot decide,” he drawled, his patrician manner effortless, “if you are reckless with yourself because you’re a schemer or because you’re foolish enough to think you won’t get caught.” At last he moved his hand, his touch gliding upward, back over her collarbone to curve as if at home around her shoulder. “But as tempting as your offer may be, Miss Vanreid, I’m afraid I must decline.”
With that, he released her and took a step away. She felt the loss of his touch like an ache somewhere low in her belly. Of course she should have known he wouldn’t be so easy a conquest. Why then, had he been dogging her these last few weeks if it wasn’t her touted American fortune he was after?
Unless he hadn’t been following her or watching her? Perhaps it had been her overzealous imagination, fueled by one too many gothic novels she secreted from her father’s censorious eye. After all, she had run across any number of the same lords and ladies at the endless parade of society functions to which she’d dutifully marched at Aunt Caroline’s side.
She had to admit it was possible he had merely been a guest at the same events, and that he had accidentally stumbled upon her embrace with Lord Wilford. The thought of Wilford was enough to sour her mood. He’d been inebriated, and he kissed as she imagined a fish would. Even his mouth had tasted of an unlikely combination of champagne and algae.
Still, Daisy would have chosen him as a husband over the Viscount Breckly, which was why it had been so disappointing when Wilford had mumbled an apology and disappeared after she’d stiffened upon catching sight of an interloper.
That interloper stood before her now, handsome as sin. Rangy and broad and far too tan of skin and muscled of form to blend in with his fellow aristocrats. She had seen a flash of him in the partially ajar door of the music room where she’d slipped away with Wilford. And she’d been watching for him ever since.
But it would seem that the enigmatic duke didn’t want to play a game that wasn’t of his own making, and time was running out for her. In just a week, her father would arrive from New York, and he’d made his intentions clear. He expected an engagement to be finalized between herself and the officious Lord Breckly, a man who was thirty years her senior and smelled of sweat and unlaundered linens. A man who had attempted to lift her skirts and force himself upon her in the drawing room not two days past. Who would have, had not Aunt Caroline returned from the library bearing the book she’d been seeking in her flimsy ploy to force Daisy into spending time alone with the villain.
Daisy knew a stab of disappointment at the realization that the duke would not be the answer to her problems any more than Wilford had. However, she kept her expression neutral, as if she couldn’t be bothered to care if he remained or left. “If you must decline, then I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t linger. Lord Bolton should arrive at any minute and it would be dreadfully awkward if he found you here.”
The duke flicked a grimly assessing glance over her person that left her with the impression he saw far more of her than she would have preferred. In truth, she hadn’t said a word to Lord Bolton. She’d flirted with him, but he’d had eyes only for her bosom, and she’d delivered a sound tap of her fan to his arm for his insouciance.
“Lord Bolton has a reputation of which you are undoubtedly unaware,” he said then. “Run along back to your chaperone and forget you ever knew his name.”
Aunt Caroline was long in her cups by now, and at parties such as these, she made a mockery of the term “chaperone,” much to Daisy’s relief. It rendered her attempts to thwart her father’s plans a bit more sustainable. But she only had a week of such freedom remaining, and the Duke of Trent was encroaching on the days she had left.
She raised a brow. “Thank you for the advice, Your Grace.”
She needed to find someone to marry her in haste, and this man was not he. Gainsaying her father would only earn her the most vicious bruises imaginable, all strategically placed where no one’s eye would ever chance to fall. He liked to hit her in the stomach. He knew how to pull hair without ripping it from the root while causing the maximum amount of pain. His booted foot could do the most damage, she’d discovered the last time she’d gone against his wishes.
That grim knowledge was the ultimate source of the desperation propelling her—the frantic need to escape both her father and the life he’d predestined for her. If she had a choice between marrying Lord Breckly and anyone else, she’d decided anyone would do. Anyone at all who could help her to avoid a detestable marriage to a brute or another raised fist.
“Perhaps your American customs are not the same, Miss Vanreid,” the Duke of Trent said then, his tone patronizing. “Only one thing will come of you awaiting Lord Bolton in this chamber for an assignation, and it most assuredly will not benefit you. You’ll be ruined.”
Truly. For a man who wanted nothing to do with her, he was an odd sort. Unless…her mind grappled with their brief exchange, with the handful of times she’d caught him watching her.
Her pride had made her second-guess herself, but her common sense now reminded her that he had come to this chamber. He had intentionally sought her out. Their gazes had briefly clashed earlier, and she’d hoped he would follow in her wake after she exited the ballroom. And he had. Something about him was decidedly not as it seemed.
Either way, her patience was at an end. If he didn’t wish to kiss her, she didn’t have any further need of him. For she required to be ruined. Compromised. The sooner the better to avoid becoming Viscountess Breckly and escape her father’s wrath.
She stalked forward, intending to quit the chamber. “Good evening, Your Grace. If you won’t leave, then I shall. And if you don’t mind, seek someone else to harass in the future. Ducal condescension isn’t to my liking.”
