“Aye,” Daffyd said. “But it fades like a bad dream after a while.”
“In time, you forget,” the earl agreed in soft and thoughtful tones. “But never altogether, and that’s not altogether bad, you know. It’s good to recall bad times when you feel sorry for yourself for whatever reason. I promise it makes anything look better.”
The three smiled at one another.
The viscount watched them, and then looked at Helena Masters. They exchanged a knowing glance.
The earl saw it. “This will never do,” he said. “We’re excluding Leland, and… ah”-he searched for Daisy’s companion’s name-“Mrs. Masters. Come, dinner’s waiting. We can talk then, and share reminiscences, except, Daffyd, please remember that I also have guests with tender sensibilities.”
“I live with a lady, remember? My wife’s got sensibilities, too. I won’t horrify Mrs. Masters,” Daffyd promised.
“Oh, but I’m not easily horrified, sir,” Helena protested.
“I meant the viscount Haye,” the earl said.
He won the others’ laughter, and a mocking bow from Leland.
Daisy sighed. Geoff’s surprise had been a good one. Still, she fervently hoped there’d be no others. Her course was set, and she wanted only smooth sailing from now on, all the way from here on up the aisle, where she’d join her new husband, Geoff, at last.
Chapter Six
Damn the wench for being so pretty, Leland thought sourly, and double damn her for being saucy, because pretty alone was never enough to snare a man like the earl. Leland picked up his wineglass again, all the while never losing sight of his host and his lovely guest.
Bright, vivacious, with a charming smile and an equally pretty wit, the woman was a dazzler. That red-gold hair was spectacular, and unlike many with similar hair, her face didn’t disappoint. She had a sprinkling of light freckles on her little nose; they might not be fashionable but they were certainly kissable. And her figure was fetching, to say the least. At least, it fetched his attention. She was not his sort of course… Leland paused. He was always honest with himself. Of course she was his sort. She was any live male’s sort.
His eyes narrowed as she laughed at a joke the earl made. Hers was rich, full-throated laughter that made a man want to join in. That wasn’t the only thing he wanted to join in, he noted, watching how her laughter made the tops of her high, firm breasts jiggle. No sense saying she was wearing an indecent frock, either, he thought moodily. All women’s clothing was indecent these days: made of thin fabric, low at the neck, and styled with a high waist that accentuated the bosom. Hers didn’t need accentuating.
But in spite of the womanliness of her figure, she was slim and graceful; even her hands were slender. So was her neck. He noticed things like that. He noticed everything, looking for something to find fault with. The only fault he could find was her unseemly fascination with a man twice her age. As for her looks, her skin was clear, her eyelashes long, even her earlobes were shapely. Her hair wasn’t the fashionable brunette that was all the rage this Season. She wasn’t a classic beauty, even though she reminded him of a Venus on a seashell on a cresting wave in a painting he’d once seen. She was too small and piquant for that. But she was perfectly adorable.
So what was she doing hanging on the earl’s sleeve, watching his lips for the birth of his every new word, laughing at his slightest jest, looking sad if he said a somber thing, and expectant when he so much as cleared his throat? There was a limit to being a good audience. Sarah Siddons herself never held an audience as enraptured as Daisy Tanner seemed when the earl so much as spoke to a footman to ask for a new fork, Leland thought moodily.
Now, the Earl of Egremont was a good man and a kindly one, not unhandsome, and in fine condition for a man his age. But even so, he wasn’t the type to set any female’s heart beating faster. Leland knew to an inch what sent a woman into raptures, if only because he himself didn’t-until he got to talk with her awhile and made her forget what she had wanted in a man.
The earl, for all his virtues, wasn’t an irresistible male, either, or even a seductive one. His fortune definitely was both, though. Was that why the Tanner woman acted as though the earl was the only male at the table, in the room, and in the whole of England? She’d
Leland glanced at Daffyd, to see if he noticed any of this.
But Daffyd was laughing at something Daisy had just said. Leland sighed. She had a bubbling personality and enough charm to fill three young ladies’ finishing academies. She was, in fact, too good to be true. Especially since she’d been a convict. Of course, the earl and Daffyd had been convicts, too. But they’d been innocent men.
Leland had doubts about Daisy’s infatuation with the earl. It seemed too complete. He himself wasn’t considered a dullard, yet his own most clever comments weren’t met with half the appreciation that the earl’s dullest ones were.
“And so, what are your plans now that you’re back in England, Mrs. Tanner?” Leland asked into a brief conversational silence.
They all stared; his voice had been unintentionally sharp. Daisy’s smile slipped as she looked across the table at him.
“That is to say,” he added in a fashionable drawl, so it would seem he wasn’t that interested in her reply, “one can understand the joy of coming home again. As for myself, when I’ve traveled abroad for any length of time, I’m so
The earl answered for her. “We didn’t worry about ‘ennui’ back in Botany Bay, Lee. Or ‘the old familiar tedium.’ We worried about the next day. Being there to see it, that is.”
Daisy laughed. “There’s truth. Only after I married, I knew I’d be there, all right. But that wasn’t much better.” She saw Leland’s expression grow chillier, and added, “I know it sounds bad to say anything rude about my deceased husband, my lord, but everyone at this table knows it was no love match. It wasn’t a match at all, actually, just an unhappy circumstance, at least for me. So I didn’t worry about ennui, either, just escape. And now I’ve done that…” She paused, thought a moment, and then said, “I suppose what I want is something I’m not used to thinking about. Peace, I guess, and happiness, however I find it.”
Which was, Leland thought, a very good thing to say, except that she said it to the earl, and her sad smile was for him alone.
“You must make a list of things that will make you happy and bring you peace,” Helena Masters said unexpectedly.
“Why, so I will,” Daisy said with one of her sudden grins. “And the first thing on my list, I think, would be more of that lovely soup I just had.”
“You’re too easy to please,” the earl said, as he signaled to a footman. “Although my chef isn’t, and he’ll be in ecstasies to hear that his art made the top of your list.”
They all laughed, but there was no laughter in Leland’s eyes as he watched Daisy, only calculation and rising interest. Her answer had been a masterful parry to an excellent thrust, and he loved a good duel.
“No sense in the three of us gents having our port while you two ladies sit by yourselves,” the earl said when they’d finished dinner. “Let’s all remove to the salon together. Do you play, Daisy?”
“Cards?” she asked. “Yes, very well. My father taught me.”
“Then not very well,” Daffyd said dryly.
She grinned. “There’s that. But I learned things from him he didn’t teach me. I know how much it hurts to lose, so I don’t lose my head when I play.”
“I meant the piano, or the harp,” the earl said. “But we could play cards if you like.”
“Oh,” Daisy said sheepishly. “I used to play the pianoforte, and I did enjoy it, but it’s been years. That will be next on my list: learning to play music again.”
“I’d be happy to play for you now,” Helena said softly. “And teach you later, Mrs. Tanner, if you’d like.”
