Page 22

If Miles had wanted her, he’d obviously changed his mind. Perhaps he found her too annoying. A feeling of dread sank in as she remembered babbling about that possibility.

He hadn’t denied it.

“I hoped to see your younger sisters,” Daisy’s mother said to Clementine. “While they are not formally out, I thought they might attend a family gathering of this nature.”

“It’s the most unfortunate thing! Augusta came down with an influenza. She’s been frightfully ill for weeks. My brother sent them to live in Bath with an elderly aunt for a few months, until Augusta regains her health.”

“Will Catrina and Augusta debut together next year?” Lady Wharton asked.

“I expect so.” Clementine brightened. “If you’ll excuse me, I would like to introduce Daisy to my fiancé’s cousin.” She waved toward a lean, bespectacled fellow. “He’s a professor at Oxford and very intelligent!”

“Excellent,” Lady Wharton said. “Fancy that. A professor, at such a young age!”

EPISODE NINETY EIGHT

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

A month later, Daisy found herself gripped by two equally embarrassing emotions.

The first was a wild curiosity about the metamorphosis of gentlemen’s private parts. She almost wrote her cousin a letter about it but concluded that Livie would probably not care to comment on her husband’s “tool,” as City of Eros called it.

Thanks to the current fashion’s requirement for skintight silk pantaloons, Daisy had confirmed that gentlemen found her curves enticing. When allowed to stand close to her, the younger ones in particular seemed to respond. For the sake of experimentation, she allowed one of her more assiduous suitors several kisses and a passionate embrace; a glance from behind her fan afterward had revealed no change in his silhouette, suggesting that Lord Cropley desired her dowry, not her person.

With her wretched luck, Miles had walked by just as she’d emerged from an alcove with Cropley in tow. His eyes went from her reddened lips to her hair, which was falling from her topknot. His demeanor was so chilly that humiliation zinged to Daisy’s toes.

Perhaps he couldn’t imagine marrying someone as disorderly as she. Or maybe he thought she was dissolute? The self-hating possibilities were dizzying, even though she fiercely reminded herself that Miles had sauntered into Rothingale’s masquerade looking for a woman. By rights, she should shudder and turn away every time he entered her view.

That fact together with his disdain made her second obsession even more embarrassing.

She couldn’t stop looking for Miles, no matter how much she scolded herself in private. Thrilled by society’s open-hearted embrace, Lady Wharton insisted on going out every single night of the week. Sometimes her zeal led to a full day’s socializing: a morning champagne breakfast, followed by a matinee at the theater, followed by an evening ball.

Wherever they went, Daisy looked for a tall man with indifferent eyes. They often encountered each other since he was thecrème de la crème of bachelors and she was one of the most courted women of the Season.

No sooner did he stroll into a ballroom than her heart would thump and her cheeks turn pink, whether or not they exchanged a word. If they happened to be in proximity, he would greet her, but with patent disinterest.

She invariably tried to force him to laugh, and every time she achieved so much as a quirk of his lips, she felt a bolt of pure happiness.

Yet she couldn’t fool herself into thinking that he showed any interest. He would dance with her once or twice, but he never leaned against the wall and stared at her broodingly. In fact, he didn’t look at her at all unless they were face to face.

The opposite was more true: she had to stop herself from staring across the ballroom at him. It was mortifying to be in the throes of such a ferocious infatuation.

Her obsession made her indifferent to her suitors—which had the effect of making her all the more attractive to them. She quickly gathered a large circle of admirers, and to her mother’s delight, it became clear that Daisy would have her pick of London’s bachelors alongside the yet-unattached Lady Regina.

“Rather odd,” Regina confided, her eyes wide and innocent, “given that we have such different figures.”

“We both have sizable dowries,” Daisy pointed out.

Because Regina had all the sensitivity of a cow, she made a jest about the daughter of the Mayor of London, whose dowry was twice the size of theirs. And yet Daisy found herself pitying Regina: her biting comments frightened off as many men as her wealth and status as a duke’s daughter attracted.

Why couldn’t Daisy have fallen in love with one of the extremely nice gentlemen who genuinely liked her? But her heart was stubbornly stuck on a man who showed no sign of courtship.

One morning as Daisy was making her way to the breakfast room, determined that today she would ignore Miles altogether, the knocker thumped. Since their butler, Mr. Tangle, was nowhere to be seen, she opened the front door expecting to see a liveried groom holding a posy or an invitation—but no one was to be seen. She gazed out at the street for a moment before she glanced down and let out an audible yelp.

A baby.

Right there, on the top step, was a baby girl in a basket, perhaps a few months old. The child was fast asleep, nestled in a satin-trimmed blanket. Her head was ringed in white-blonde curls, and she had a snub nose.

Daisy looked around again before she bent down. “What on earth are you doing here?”